Black Knight hitboxes are being looked at!

The poor Black Knight had a very tough start to its career for the reasons I talked about in the previous post. The only unknown by then was the hitboxes and how they behaved under fire.

Unfortunately, they didn't turn out to be as expected. As an opponent I immediately noticed that the Black Knight was extremely easy to core. It didn't make much sense to me as this 'Mech had everything going on for it to be the tankiest IS heavy in this game, bar none. At first I thought perhaps people just didn't torso twist well with them. Then, I found this hitbox image floating around in the forums:

NO GOD, NO PLEASE NO!

Even though I don't own the 'Mech, this stroke a bad chord with me. For some reason, despite constantly upping their game in models, textures and animations; PGI somehow continues to release 'Mechs with borderline unusable hitboxes. Yes, these hitboxes make the Black Knight extremely XL friendly, but it also makes it very easy to take down as an experienced opponent. What it needed was hitboxes that distributed damage naturally (like the TDR) and let it tank ridiculous amounts of damage. The Grasshopper does a great job at being an XL friendly IS laser boat heavy already. I made some noise on Twitter and Reddit about this.

Looks like PGI somehow noticed the negative feedback and our favorite developer Alexander Garten announced that the BK hitboxes are being looked at. Looks like they want to reduce the visibility of the CT hitboxes from the sides, which should increase its responsiveness to torso twisting immensely. It also means the CT hitbox is getting a reduction.

So I'm happy that PGI is at least working on making the Black Knight a bit more attractive rather than simply moving on. I also hope that they keep the role and limitation of the 'Mech in mind and do the hitboxes accordingly before their release.

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About Rak

I'm an engineer who likes to write extremely long articles about games that border simulation and mainstream.