The devs don’t look at it, that’s why we have things like the a-10/su-25/f-104/AV-8/Kfir canard/A-6/yak-38/so many others that break the game for so many jets without flares.
I sincerely doubt that moving the Su-17 down will be an issue in the F-5C meta that is 10.7 and below. It can’t break anything more then the current mess we have, and if so, then move it up.
Adding more wrongs doesn’t make things right. Go play some 9.0 and lemme know if we should drag more shit that shouldn’t be there into their respective BR range, especially something like the Su-17 that they can’t touch in the slightest.
And you can argue that they already have plenty of stuff to deal with, and that true, so how about try to push those up and away. The whole BR range is compressed enough as it is. Moving stuff lower isn’t the solution – things need to move UP.
In for a penny in for a pound.
You either fix all the vehicles in the range or say screw it and stop letting some get stomped.
I play plenty of 9.0-10.7 vehicles and a lot of them without flares and it’s already terrible, not sure why adding one more is gonna do anything.
We have far worst offenders all over the place.
I started the Su-17M2 today. It’s pretty enjoyable at 10.3 and feels competitive enough. It will suffer against some opponents and absolutely bone others. It feels right, like a slightly less capable Su-22M3.