HTC perking policy may seem strange at times................
It would seem right that rare late war birds such as 262's, 234's, Tempest's should be perked. Indeed it would seem right that the Ta152 should be perked along with the 3 cannon La7 and the very late Spits that entered service in 45.
Some of the above were perked at their time of introduction to the MA game play.
It would also seem right that aircraft that cause arena game play to become heavily miss balanced should be made "rare" or at least carry some cost if flown totally without regard to game play. In fact game play balance seems to be the overriding reason for perking and or perk value modification.
When the chog was introduced I do not believe that HTC had any intention to perk it. The maps frequently in use at the time were such that there were many CV groups in play and these suddenly became irresistible platforms of dominance being home to the indomitable Chog its ability to carry 2000lbs of ordinance and 4 x hispano 20mm. Hordes latched onto them as did many dominant squads and CV launched virtually nothing else whilst fields local to any coast were (it seemed) defenceless to the massed chog onslaught.
Why was it so dominant?
Typhoons carried the (nearly) the same ordinance and whilst (then) often used as field killers they did not unbalance to the degree of the chog. My belief was that it was only in combination with its ability to launch from a CV that it became such an unbalancing factor and indeed maps with less CV dependency were less effected by its presence.
Perking it solved the problem of the time. It was the first time I saw the retrospective addition of perks to directly address a game play/balance issue. (since then we have had ENY Perk biasing added.) Whether unperking it now would reproduce the problem I do not know.
Since then we have seen the unperking of the Ta152 and the perking of the Spit XIV. Both these actions were apparently with respect to game play balance as would be the initial perking of the Tiger and the latter (retrospective) perking of the Firefly.
The La7 was slow to be recognised within game as an aircraft of some merit. It suffered from being "little known" and "Soviet" in origin. It had no glamour of history about it as may be said for a P51, Spitfire or Bf109.
Its performance curves are ideally suited to MA game play and if it had longer legs, the ability to carry significant ordinance and 3 Hispanos then I doubt we would see any other type of aircraft and game play would be on the floor in terms of entertainment value.
It does not however have these other attributes and neither does it cause game play in balance. It is not the most used aircraft. Its use does not cause a disruption of game play.
It is unpopular amongst "experten" and those who would aspire to be seen as "experten". Putting aside the aside the inane rhetoric of our "aspiree experten" lets look at what our "experten" suffer at the hands of the La7......because this is IMO pretty key to calls for its perkage................
"The Spoiler" If your SA is good it counts for nothing if a high La7 chooses you as its victim. It may or may not be the one to get the kill but it will have caused you to lose advantage such that others finish you. You are left in the certain knowledge that you have been beaten (or made vulnerable)by the lesser skilled opponent or at least by one employing far less skill than should have been required to "earn" your "pelt".
"The Chaser" If you have extracted your self from a hard fought furball only to find an La7 chasing you, you know you will have to fight again, of course this time you have little fuel and no ammo. Of course the spits behind him will probably be the ones to finish you off. You are left in the certain knowledge that you have been beaten (or made vulnerable)by the lesser skilled opponent or at least by one employing far less skill than should have been required to "earn" your "pelt".
"The Safe Option". It engages your Spit/109/P51/N1K2 Co-E, Co-alt carries out 2 -3 poorly executed air combat manoeuvres which put you in the advantage and then it simply disengages, flies away and then returns when the balance (or its advantage) is re gained. Rinse, Repeat, Rinse, Repeat etc etc. You are left in the certain knowledge that you have not been able to finish off the lesser skilled opponent or at least one employing far less skill than should have been required to escape with his "pelt" intact.
"The Noob Machine". You only have to read the above to see that any player wanting some modicum of success will be drawn to the La7. He will of course display all the characteristics of a new player. Shall we say the characteristics of a less mature player. Head ons, horde play, cherry picking, kill stealing, daisy chaining, vulching, etc etc. Its interesting to note that the consensus of some is that it is the aircraft that does this and not the player. I wonder what the outcome would be if such logic were applied to e.g. Gun law in the US. The truth is of course is that we see such individual game play characteristics from all aircraft flown by such pilots.
I have never seen an "experten" complain about an La7 that was flown well.
I have one other perverse theory regarding HTC's view of the La7. It is the ideal "badboy". To put it another way supposing we were talking about the P51? Supposing all the above attributes were to be combined with the very icon of US (HTC's core geographical market) WWII air supremacy? would then this aircraft only represent 7.5 to 10% of arena game play? In fact the P51 now has a greater slice of the arena game play than the La7 but supposing that it took 20 or even 30% of game play? It would have to be perked...and would a game where free access was denied to such an icon be as popular with new players as AH is now? Who knows....... but indeed it does suit to have this Soviet short legged low alt uber plane as the focus of disdain...............it very much fits in with a "view of the world".
I would lay bets that when ordinance perking is introduced the 3 x b20 La7 will receive its perk. As a late war variant of comparatively few in number this would seem appropriate. However if this were to cause mass migration to such aircraft as the N1K2 the resultant backlash here may be interesting.
