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Armored Core V: UNDERGROUND


Griffon

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Not quite sure why, but I felt this was the best section to post this in.

 

~it just boils down to having a thriving community that talks to each other and pays attention to the scene at large. FROM SOFTWARE already has a proven winner in that regard: Dark Souls and Demon's Souls. Both games have far bigger communities than AC' date=' and both have etiquette and gentleman's bans that are universally abided by.

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I get where Griffon is coming from, because we (Cali players like he and I) had one of the biggest scenes in the country before online was available, especially during the hay day of AC games. Tons and tons of people to play all the time, and all of them were like-minded in the sense that they saw what AC could be and tried to play it with that idea in mind. To go from where it was, to what it is now, is pretty depressing.


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Before, with AC, the only way to prevent/stop that was either by convincing people they needed to play a certain way to get the most out of the game (i.e. tourney rules and the like) or show them there was another way to play that was nearly as effective. Both are much easier said than done, especially when you consider how personal communicating used to be within the scene. I mean you could talk to the best players in the state on a message board at length during the week, and then that same weekend head out to their place and put everything you guys talked about on full display. You just don't get that anymore. Not in the same way.[/quote']

The mindset of a veteran AC player was that of old school honourable battle. We would be the guys who wore bright red and stood and line and fire our muskets' date=' or the samurai who when one on one.
The mindset of the newer player, however, is that of modern day warfare. Anything is permitted, and do everything that is necessary to win, no matter the costs.

 



Its a disturbing trend I tend to see. Newer players show a disregard to the spirit of Armored Core and even basic sportsmanship. They will use the most CC, the most OP designs because it lets them win, and think they are skilled when they hard counter everyone else. I've fought many matches where after the first one, they brought a second design that almost completely hard countered mine, and if they didn't succeed that time, they would try again with another design.



 

They will steal territory, boost, and use less than fair methods (DDosing, lag switching, patch glitch abusing) in order to get their name on the map, and claim they are better than everyone else. You know its bad when your game resembes nothing but a game of politics. And worst of all, they refuse to listen to reason or even different opinion on the matter, claiming that because they spent 60$ they should be able to play the game any way they please everyone else be damned, and that their is no such rule telling them they should play a specific way. I kid you not, some of the people scoff whenever they hear of a "ban list" as if it were some kind of blasphemy in gaming.



 

I've talked to Cleric and a few other people and ban lists are nothing new in AC, and last time I checked, nothing new in other games as well. When you have that mindset flooding a game, the sense of community ceases to exist. It merely becomes a giant sea of players playing ACV with nothing else in common. No sport or spirit, only the desire to win. No urge to forge friendships or camaraderie, no desire to be original, no desire to actually work hard and attempt to train and increase skill, no desire to actually improve, only the desire to victory.[/quote']

 

 

Ok, so my other topic and many of its replies have given me a lot more to think about. Armored Core has been my favorite game series for over a decade, and I'm not quite ready to let it go just yet. I've got one last idea to try and salvage what we can from AC. In the past, we took what FROM gave us and molded it into something great. We need to do it again.

 

My idea is an alternative tournament-based scene, ACV: Underground. Or if one is feeling a bit ostentatious perhaps Raven Underground, due to it being based on tournament rules from the old "Raven" AC games. The basic idea is to create our own forum-based scene away from the boosters and tryhards. Pretty much everything except the fights themselves will take place on the forums, hopefully various forums everywhere. Yes, this includes you guys and rival site Mechaverse/ACO. Now I know you guys aren't on friendly terms (And honestly I don't blame you guys. While I don't have any real personal beef with EJ, I've seen how he acts on this forum and I completely understand your disdain), but if we get the ball rolling on this you guys can handle this however you like. You can go about business as normal, you can use your hostility to fuel a civil rivalry, or you can just steer completely clear of each other.

The idea I have is that various teams will formally challenge other teams from other forums or from the same forum. Set up a specific time to meet up, so that would hopefully eliminate ACVs whole "wait 20 minutes for no opponents" problem. We can set up some sort of leaderboard on the forums, I don't know if you'd want to have it descending with the top team(s) on top, or maybe simply in alphabetical order or something like that. We can even have the leaderboard record only wins, so nobody has to worry about a low win/loss record.

 

See this?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/GriffonsScythe/33bb8e956cbb26381520b51130f92d3108008dcbpng__620x346_q85_crop_upscale.jpg

 

FUCK THIS.

 

See this?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/GriffonsScythe/ScreenShot2012-07-29at110354AM.png

 

FUCK THIS.

 

These no longer matter. Let the "Core of Duty" players have their online leaderboards where they can pretend everyone marvels at their skill. What really matters now will be kept track of on the forums.

 

 

I've got a few ideas.

 

ENFORCED BAN LIST/RATIO SYSTEM:

This is first and foremost needed to balance the game, as it has always been in the PS1-2 days. We've got a couple options. We can go for a simple ban list like old tournaments called for, or we can try out some kind of ratio system. The idea behind that being that each part is given a numerical value based on its performance, and the sum of a whole AC cannot go above a certain number, meaning the more powerful game breaking parts aren't off-limits, but one would have to equip some other low-tier parts to balance it all out. This could result in some more diversity and be more interesting, but admittedly it would be much harder to plan all that out.

 

HALF-HOUR CHALLENGE WINDOW:

When a team challenges another and sets up a meeting time, the teams should both arrive within half an hour of that time. If one team does not show, the match is forfeit and point to the other team, unless neither show of course.

 

BATTLES WOULD BE 2/3:

As with older tournaments the team battles would be decided by best two out of three. This would keep the action going on at least a bit longer than one quickly decided victory. The teams would be able to react and adjust to each others strategies.

 

BASES?

I'm not sure of this one, but maybe each main team could have one area that is "theirs". Whichever team is challenged, the match takes place in their area, like sports teams playing "home" and "away" games. I'm not sure if this could give certain teams too much of an advantage though, as I hear some maps, such as Mining Sector, are notoriously difficult to invade.

 

 

If this works out, we could have a new sub-section of the forum for it, with threads for challenges & results, leaderboard, a list of participating teams, general discussion, etc.

I'd love to see this happen, but it's going to require the help and participation of several members from several forums, assuming they haven't already sold their copy. This may be Armored Cores last chance. So, who's in?

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It seems like a good idea and also I have been in Europe for two months. That's why there's been little of me around to help promote the game and events around it, haha. I probably should have told people before I left, but I didn't cuz I'm a douche. Europe was a pretty nice break though, tbh. The idea is all around pretty good. It resembles my arena tournament setup somewhat, but with teams instead of 1v1. I'm sure with a bit of work the thing could be organized and presented rather well, but those organizing it need to take it seriously and they need to take a practical view to how turnout and participation will actually occur. Incentives need to be in the right places as well, otherwise you're doomed.

 

I'm not even sure what's been updated or not been updated about ACV in the past few months since I've been gone, this is literally my first day back on the forum and reading posts that weren't reported using the report tool, haha. Have they enabled the super MTs yet or is Namco still way behind on that? They were supposed to be available on Day 1 of release like JP version.

 

Also I don't know about your sig being geniunely true, haha. I think that more comes out of a naivete of the old fanbase since no one ever really met the casual AC players. The AC players who went to tourneys and competed and mingled were a minority group of the overall people who bought and played older AC games, and from personal experience of the casuals I knew back then they were always ultra copycats and very lazy. Most of them loved to copy designs they found on the internet via GameFAQs (etc) or their friends designs that won. I think it's more about finally welcoming the hidden part of the AC community that just wasn't obviously there before the online era because meeting up and playing with other people was just a bit too hard for them to bother. If you check the past tournament era of gaming before PS3/360 made online easy for everyone, almost every single game out there had a magic golden era of relatively fun, competitive, memorable, and respectful gaming. Relatively. Hahaha.

 

Back then people like David Sirlin were the jackasses everyone thought were crazy assholes, nowadays his type of mentality is the extreme norm. It's not because of a social shift either, it's just because most of the people who shared that mentality simply weren't playing games with other people too much back then. It wasn't easy to play together like now, you had to go to their house back then. Who would seriously go to Sirlin's house to play something like Mario Kart with him anyway? It would be a headache experience.

 

 

 

PS: I probably can't help you much right now with organization. I'm still willing to give whatever help I can, though. I've got to catch up on quite a few months work on the forums I've missed, which will probably take some time and a lot of mental stress on my part since I know people can't go too long without doing something to work me up. I can only imagine that the total forum post count will go down by something between 2000-5000 posts after I get done cleaning stuff. Haha.

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all I want about AC is 1-on-1 battle like before.

 

@Griffon : those 2 pics is from Z2 EU right? (I had Z1 and Z2EU, now I'd played around Z1 and didn't see any team that I know in Z1 on that pic)

@Niji : welcome back Niji.

Edited by Taurus
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I was wondering why I hadn't seen you around, Niji. :lol:

 

all I want about AC is 1-on-1 battle like before.

From what I understand is that ACV simply isn't balanced well for that. Not saying you can't do it, just that I wanted Underground's focus to be on teams. Just, teams following rules.

 

@Griffon : those 2 pics is from Z2 EU right? (I had Z1 and Z2EU, now I'd played around Z1 and didn't see any team that I know in Z1 on that pic)

I dunno, I found those pictures, I didn't take them. Hell, the second pic is a Merc leaderboard, I couldn't find any pics of the Free leaderboard. I was just hoping people wouldn't be that observant.

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The mindset of a veteran AC player was that of old school honourable battle. We would be the guys who wore bright red and stood and line and fire our muskets, or the samurai who when one on one.
The mindset of the newer player, however, is that of modern day warfare. Anything is permitted, and do everything that is necessary to win, no matter the costs.

 



Its a disturbing trend I tend to see. Newer players show a disregard to the spirit of Armored Core and even basic sportsmanship. They will use the most CC, the most OP designs because it lets them win, and think they are skilled when they hard counter everyone else. I've fought many matches where after the first one, they brought a second design that almost completely hard countered mine, and if they didn't succeed that time, they would try again with another design.



 

They will steal territory, boost, and use less than fair methods (DDosing, lag switching, patch glitch abusing) in order to get their name on the map, and claim they are better than everyone else. You know its bad when your game resembes nothing but a game of politics. And worst of all, they refuse to listen to reason or even different opinion on the matter, claiming that because they spent 60$ they should be able to play the game any way they please everyone else be damned, and that their is no such rule telling them they should play a specific way. I kid you not, some of the people scoff whenever they hear of a "ban list" as if it were some kind of blasphemy in gaming.



 

I've talked to Cleric and a few other people and ban lists are nothing new in AC, and last time I checked, nothing new in other games as well. When you have that mindset flooding a game, the sense of community ceases to exist. It merely becomes a giant sea of players playing ACV with nothing else in common. No sport or spirit, only the desire to win. No urge to forge friendships or camaraderie, no desire to be original, no desire to actually work hard and attempt to train and increase skill, no desire to actually improve, only the desire to victory.

in ACFA, when I duel with someone, I'll changed my designs after a match a lot but sometimes I send same bot for tried again because I think I could win with the same bot but I didn't play it right.

one time, I'd dueling with someone (ACFA) and while on match, he's not any moving so I'd wait until he back to play again, after that he sent PM to my PSN, that moment is the moment that I felt proud about what I did, much than any proud that I get by won someone. so I think "sportsmanship" is the most important thing that we shouldn't lose it.

 

actually I didn't played 1 on 1 on ACV that much (just 1 or 2 matches I think) but I can say I'm totally agree with this quote. (do ASAP to win, if that match is team-vs-team is ok)

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I don't know if anyone mentioned this but some of the guys I free battled with mentioned that they were forming teams for exclusive free battle play. I don't know if the guy is affiliated with MV, ACO or is lurking here but I have met some players who may be interested in joining in on this.
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Also I don't know about your sig being geniunely true, haha. I think that more comes out of a naivete of the old fanbase since no one ever really met the casual AC players.

 

I don't really agree with what's in Griffon's sig either, but this is definitely not true. I met tons of casual AC players. Most of us did, which was how we got people into the game and wanting to play it around here. Way back when, the Cali scene was notoriously quiet online outside of the RNNC (a NorCal group). The ratio of people who played down here that posted on boards was paltry. That improved with Nexus and on...or rather the only people who still played the game also happened to be posting online as well. Whatever.

 

from personal experience of the casuals I knew back then they were always ultra copycats and very lazy.

 

This is why I don't agree with his sig. This was true back then as well. Almost none of us played the game, only the vs mode. Also almost everyone copied other people, or at least took inspiration from them. If you were to take big tournies (like MOC ones, for example) you'd see the same few parts being used over and over. That's the nature of the game.

 

Get it Griffon! Doing stuff to try and make it fun for you and yours is respectable.

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  • 1 month later...

I'd like to see this come off the ground. Personally, while I am a COD player, I've never cared for the metagame that everyone else screams about (I bought it to play with my friends.) I've never seen the corruption first hand, but I've never had a big role anywhere in the first place. Right now I'm in what looks like a defunct team, because no one's on despite being based in my state.

 

Furthermore I've been noticing a LOT of defunct teams. I'd like to join an active one, and get to know people here and have matches with them. Honestly, I think if we run the numerical value list, we need to start with a "empty banlist" and start adding from there. Stuff we know is OP starts high, stuff we know is crap starts low, then we tweak it.

 

My LIVE name is Tsuchigumo550, hit me up for a match whenever, but it'll have to be 1v1. I don't exactly have teammates.

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  • 1 month later...

Hey everyone. I wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to the AC community for disappearing and leaving this hanging. Unfortunately my job has gone into overtime, and while the extra pay is certainly nice, it doesn't really give me the free time needed to get something like this off the ground right now. I'm very sorry to everyone who was looking forward to it. Perhaps I could try again whenever my hours return to normal, but that's only if there's anyone even playing then. If not, maybe we could try again whenever ACV: Master Of Another Silent Answer comes out.

 

Also I wanted to clear up a common misconception that Underground was to be a big tournament or series of tournaments. That's due to my own poor wording. When I said I wanted ACV:U to be "tournament based", I simply meant an ongoing thing based on old tournament rules, even playing field, part bans, etc.

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