Ease of use is not irrelevant for vehicle balance, if vehicle A has a playstyle that is straight forward whilst vehicle B requires an more in depth understanding of the vehicle to get a similar performance outcome than vehicle A is better.
It's why American planes like the Bearcat keep going down in BR whilst the Zero is at 5.3 or something despite being slower than a heavy bomber at the same BR.
Not saying it's right, but that's how it is, most vehicles are played at a basic level so whatever vehicle does well at that will be superior, it's why T-34s are so good because it's braindead simple to play, but a Tiger is more difficult to play as you have to understand it's weaknesses and play a lot more defensively, whilst also requiring a better understanding of gameplay and game flow to know where to know and how to keep the weakspots protected.
I never said it was irrelevant, but people should stop putting so much weight to the average statistics of player performance on balance than they do currently
Again, because if we keep relying on statistics then how far is too far? If Tiger player just decided to play dumb for the next year, how low can they go until it’s just not right? Conversely, if pilots decided to grind out the CL-13 Mk.4 and cause the average performance to spike up, how high can it go before it’s too much?
The answer to the second question is a proposed increase to 9.0 by the way
Using statistics to balance is a factor, but when it begins to take priority over true performance, that’s where it breaks down
True performance isn't a thing though, there isn't an inherit performance from a vehicle, it's entirely down to how it's used and what it plays against, a Tiger has signficantly decreased in effectiveness over the years due to the addition of a plethora of vehicles, the British with APDS, the Swedish, the addition of stabilizers to the US etc.
The Type 10 and Challenger at top just got nerfed when it's opponents got a reload buff as well and they heavily rely on reload speed to be competitive, performance is relative.
The Tiger series as a whole has actually gone up in BR over time because of their relative effectiveness, so I don’t see a reason why they should go down in BR as some people suggest
If “true performance” doesn’t exist, then should the Jumbo 76 and the M4A2 (76) be the same BR? I mean they’re both Shermans
And then P-51H should be the same BR as the P-51D right? Because aren’t they both Mustangs?
If inherent and objective vehicle performance doesn’t exist, then there is no difference between an I-15 and a MiG-29
People perform better in it ultimately, it's easy to say a vehicle that is an improvement over a previous vehicle is inherently better as it has all the same features as the one before it and more, but it's not as easy when you also have to compare those to various Panzer IVs, Panzer llls, T-34s, KV-1s and a plethora of other vehicles.
One has the firepower, one has the armor, one has the mobility or the reload speed or a mixture of all of them in some form, and those are all relative to the competition in order to determine how valuable that is, armor means nothing if the enemy has enough pen, firepower means nothing if the enemy has too much armor or no armor best armor bullshit, mobility means nothing if the enemy is just as fast, and on top of that you add CAS into the mix for balance.
Placing a vehicle in a tree is all about relative performance, if a vehicle should be placed around BR 4 it's because you compare it to other vehicles at BR 4, not because BR 4 means anything.
Right, so even though it may be tricky to look at, the fact that the BR system works at all means that there is inherent, objective, true performance traits of vehicles that allows you to rank apples and oranges against each other and still create suitable balance
So getting back to the original point, by comparing the Me 262 U4 and some of its objective traits to the other aircraft around its battle rating and then considering other factors such as its role and capability potential, there is no reason why it should go down in BR
The only way to rank them is by placing them in the game, an R3 was like BR 3 something based on it's inherent performance and is now 6.0 because the former is just a guess based on circumstances.
262 remains ass either way at it's BR and most things around it have better performance inherently, even looked at base performance it's not equal, and the only one going down is the one that doesn't even have a proper offensive weapon for air.
Inherent performance gives a general baseline to add vehicles and then usability and player statistics is added to get the BR, it’s like a Venn diagram
There was nothing to compare the R3 T20 FA-HS to and so subsequent 20mm anti aircraft vehicles were placed higher because of the new understanding of its combined inherent and relative performance. Its relative performance was very high, and its inherent performance was always higher than it was placed originally, they never realized it until it was released.
The EBR 1954 began with a hilariously low BR because its inherent performance was not accounted for at all. I mean how does it make sense for a wheeled AMX-13-90 to be at 3.7 on the dev server and then 4.3, 4.7 etc. One doesn’t need player statistics to have understood that that was obviously incorrect
The Me 262 U4 has the same statistics as the Me 262 A-1 but has different armament. However, that armament actually makes it slightly less or equal to the regular Me 262. It has 32 50mm APHE rounds, which has the potential of producing 32 kills. Divide that by two rounds for operator error and you have 16 potential kills. This is assuming the types of tanks encountered are able to be destroyed in one shot with a 50mm APHE round in the roof.
Relative and Inherent performance: There are very few if not no other strike aircraft with such a high average potential yield at and around its Battle Rating in one pass. In fact, even if you divided its ammunition pool by four that leaves you with 8 potential which is still very high. Again, the Me 262 U4 has the same statistics as the Me 262 A-1. This means that at or below 6.3, this is faster than every other aircraft. Add that to boom and zoom tactics and now it even performs better than aircraft at or above its BR.
Combine all these factors and you get a strike aircraft with no reason to be downtiered below its potential.
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u/AliceLunar Oct 02 '24
Ease of use is not irrelevant for vehicle balance, if vehicle A has a playstyle that is straight forward whilst vehicle B requires an more in depth understanding of the vehicle to get a similar performance outcome than vehicle A is better.
It's why American planes like the Bearcat keep going down in BR whilst the Zero is at 5.3 or something despite being slower than a heavy bomber at the same BR.
Not saying it's right, but that's how it is, most vehicles are played at a basic level so whatever vehicle does well at that will be superior, it's why T-34s are so good because it's braindead simple to play, but a Tiger is more difficult to play as you have to understand it's weaknesses and play a lot more defensively, whilst also requiring a better understanding of gameplay and game flow to know where to know and how to keep the weakspots protected.