The title says it all: the PL-12 is supposed to be the Chinese equivalent to the AIM-120B. Correction, the PL-12 SURPASSES the AIM-120B. You can search it up on AOL, Yahoo, Bing, and even Google, all of the sources you can find confirms that the PL-12 is far better than the AIM 120A and B variants. Couple that with a R-77 seeker, you would expect this missile to be the best in the game. I mean, you got the meta missile with the seeker of another amazing missile. Yet somehow it underperforms… Massively.
I can already hear the “skill issue” comments, but be honest: have you ever been slaughtered by PL-12s? I’m not talking one game every once in a while where you get hit by a PL-12 while you are already flat spinning. I’m talking every single game, one after another, slammed by SD-10s and PL-12s. No, of course not. In game, these things are not comparable at all to the AIM 120s (A or B), and especially not comparable at all to the R-77s. It would be an insult to compare them to R-Darters or even Derby, because I actually like those missiles. No, instead the PL-12 is the equivalent to a Matra R530 in a full uptier. It can lock, but will go after everything but what is locked in the green square of doom.
Of course, maybe they chaffed! Maybe they did a notch! Sure, I’d believe it if I didn’t see the missile go around a guy that was flat spinning 3km in the sky.
Now, I am well aware of why the PL-12s are bad. It is the exact same reason why everything else is artificially nerfed in game: because the American mains cry and whine. And please, spare me the whole Russian bias, because everyone and their mothers can see that this game favours America in the sky. AIM 120s are the best all-round missile in game, that’s a fact. Spare me the MICAs, this isn’t about an obscure missile from a country that only masochists play. What I am talking about is how every other missile had to be artificially nerfed BECAUSE it made the AIM 120s look bad. You can even find posts about it, how the PL-12s were supposed to be better than the AIM 120s when they came to the game, but we were all disappointed when the Americans got the best missile, and those that got the SD-10s and PL-12s got the raw end of the deal.
It is a simple fact that the American mains once again ruined another minor nation simply because they cannot handle not being the best. There is a reason the F-15E is at 12.7 when it should be at 13.0, and that’s because the players are so bad that even the developers couldn’t justify the stats to move them to 13.0, AND we have people in the community demanding the F-15E be LOWERED. Like somehow the supposed 104-0 jet, the dominator of the Middle East is so bad that it needs to fight MiG 21s in GRB, instead of sitting at 13.0 like other jets.
I got ahead of myself. TLDR: PL-12s needs a massive buff and be on par with the AIM-120B. If you are not going to be accurate, don’t put it in the game. Simple as.