AC3 Revisited - Like a Decade Later...

[Shirtless Crackhead]

3-SL meta ain't nothing to fuck with homie.

 

I will say that Oliver's skills+bot in 3 were pretty tier thou.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

hzl50 stomped out the game hahahaha, not just slow stuff

 

In watcher's case, the ecm pods were there to slow the bulldogging down long enough for the GNL15 to get used, before he took off and set up another attack. That's tricky to do. There's a lot to think about in those situations. That's why I think he was the only guy who could have gotten those kinds of results there.

 

Nah I don't agree that Oliver's bot was top tier. He ran a single ksaw, no l arm, no back mounts, and didn't even gouge defense as much as possible. Shit man, he didn't even run fleet for top speed. Unless i'm understanding you wrong on that, I can't agree. Dood was just too fucking good.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

I mean ya, but HZL50 was particularly good against things that could otherwise tank damage.

 

And I'm saying Oliver could prolly win w/ default bot if he wanted.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

unrelated, but remember how crazy defense could get in AC3 and SL? hahaha man that was crazy

 

GNL15 shots doing 150 man, fuck

 

oh and sorry for the idiotically long posts, LS

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Meat shield was one of my SL bots mang, gouge shell def all day cuz midwestern baddies didn't in2 energy weapons.

[Desert Fox]

The Japanese players understood that better than us. They were big on playing for chip damage and winning with the clock years before we were hahaha. The closest we got to that in AC's hayday (so AC2 thru SL) was using the clock to apply pressure, not using the clock to actually win (shout out to roach and Lord Myrthael tho they actually did do this from the jump).

 

AC3 coulda turned into a nightmare imo but didn't because people either weren't willing to exploit or didn't realize how to, yet. Prolly both, tbh. There were several very exploitative builds at MOC3 but MOC4 was way more cutthroat.

 

The nightmare comes from this: what happens if those bots that did so well become the norm? If everyone played like EJ and LM, you'd have a wild boring game. Few people would want to continue playing, and even fewer would want to watch. If nobody wants to play or even watch, then the scene dies.

I remember back in the day we were aware of that and for the most part everyone just refused to do it as virtually everyone considered it lame. It's the whole win-no-matter-how mentality that pervades too much of everything these days, most noticeable in sports. We didn't want to play chip damage and run clock for a lame timeout, we wanted to blow up the other guy.

 

Like you say if you can win the lamest way possible, who gives a shit? That's no fun to play, no fun to play against and no fun to watch. Only people with fragile egos will get so hung up on winning they will go with maximum lame all the time - can't win by skill so they'll try to take skill out of the equation. Like sports where they'll injure an opposing player who's better than them.

 

Frankly I didn't mind when people picked any particular style, as long as there was a reasonable chance of winning by adapting playstyle to it. It was the ones where you couldn't adapt to it where we got into bans. (CROW) And sometimes there was no easy fix so we put it up to people not to be lame.

 

Bans discussions essentially boiled down to how much advantage did it give and could it be reasonably countered without fighting fire with fire or being specifically hard-countered. Also had to give significant advantage over all or almost all designs.

 

That's why we were so hung up on balancing parts, with proper balance it wouldn't be possible to go super lame and boost your win count significantly despite lack of skill. You'd be able to try but you wouldn't get enough advantage to matter. This was typically true anyway for the most part, with the bans we made in place. With the more refined skillsets nowadays there might be holes, but I think they were still pretty decent given what From gave use to work with.

 

Part of designing was taking the archetypes into consideration, it was often up to the designer if they felt they needed to maximize equal footing (MOC3 Watcher) or stay true to their style and accept likely more disadvantage. (MOC2 Sandman - not sure best example, but you get idea)

 

I still feel PS2 era AC missed its potential by not being online. (plus all the part balance fixes they should've had) The old crews of the day, many who were in geographically separate areas being able to play each other regularly with some kind of spectator mode would've been sweet. Could've had fairly regular tourneys among the forum regulars and lots of entertaining vids for vets to watch other vets in action, and for newbies looking to enhance their skills. Ah well.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

pretty much

 

I think we all did the best we could with what he had, back then. We tried to make rules that maximized fun for all.

 

it's true tho, ppl generally don't care about anything other than winning cuz 'a win is a win' but realistically there is more at stake than that in the grander scheme of things...especially in niche shit like AC

 

Part of designing was taking the archetypes into consideration, it was often up to the designer if they felt they needed to maximize equal footing (MOC3 Watcher) or stay true to their style and accept likely more disadvantage. (MOC2 Sandman - not sure best example, but you get idea)

 

MOC2 sandman is not a good example, his bot was strong as shit (quad w/ night, grenade launcher, chain gun)

 

but yeah the idea is clear I think

 

it's funny cuz i think his MOC3 bot is actually a better example (light quad w/ gnl15, srf60, and starter blade)

[Desert Fox]

Franko's XCG20 use would've been interesting to see, it tracked for shit in SL, (like often a 50-75% odds will it track or not track) my impression is it would've tracked better in AC3, tracking all around seems better in AC3, although I'm not sure of that vs humans. Harder to support XCG20 without proper options too.

 

I figured GNL in AC3's open stages would be pretty dominating, whereas in AA GN210>GNL (though NIGHT mitigates this...) Quads were pretty slow on the ground in AA and Sandman's AC was essentially paper-mache for armor. He was pro with it and had top tier weapons, but I think the AC itself is at a disadvantage vis-a-vis OB GN210 jousters and Oliver style light Sawa AC for example, just because of the grounding of quads sans boosting to use the cannons.

 

Someone dedicated to hovers in AA-SL would probably be a better example.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Man hovers were so legit in NB, I'm kinda sad that changed.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

Franko's XCG20 use would've been interesting to see, it tracked for shit in SL, (like often a 50-75% odds will it track or not track) my impression is it would've tracked better in AC3, tracking all around seems better in AC3, although I'm not sure of that vs humans. Harder to support XCG20 without proper options too.

 

man our copies of AC3 (and SL) must have been broken cuz xcg20 was consistently higher end accuracy for us. Angelo, Franko, and I were fucking with that gun heavy. The gun is fucking awful NX and on tho; wild inaccurate.

 

Both franko and I both feel that xcg20 is lowkey the best gun in AC3

 

but you basically nailed the point I was making despite us diagreeing on that: Franko's bot was higher risk than standard Hunks, but in exchange he got a machine capable of doing things Hunk never could

 

I believe there's lots of footage of that bot on youtube. I'll try to find some for u. I know one of the single best Sandman performances was against Franko. Just a great fight, especially by Sandman

 

that fight was the fight that basically earned Karl the honorary SoCal player status. It was also the reason that after MOC4 we were so willing to drive down to San Diego and chill with him for a day, basically giving dude the single best show anyone will ever get AC-wise: watching me, franko, angelo, oliver, and watcher fight for 10 hours straight ahahahahaha

 

 

there's a fight, leperman has a ton of MOC3 stuff. Check out the Franko ones. Great stuff.

 

After that match with Karl (he won it 2-0 iirc) Franko went and introduced himself to him, asked for his name, and told him "yo we gotta stay in touch ur the only fucker here worth a damn that I don't play with already". That's Franko for you hahahahaha

[Pendragon]

I feel like FROM was too hasty in removing the CROW. It was a unique and cool weapon. But I guess there wasn't really a way to balance it, since it did guarantee a win whenever you used it right.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

XCG20 in 3 was pretty baller, but I liked the version added in SL, in SL, better.

 

Either way, it's largely dependent on the pilot to make hits with such weapons. GNL gets ez mode cuz of the large projectile/hitbox, but a lot of people just got locks and hit fired, pro's made sure they were moving in relation to their opponent to optimize accuracy, or drive them into a position they could land some shots.

 

A lot of people thought I me and Lukav had some sort of exploit with chain guns in the OP-I event, because we knew how to make it hit reliably and chew folks up.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

I feel like FROM was too hasty in removing the CROW. It was a unique and cool weapon. But I guess there wasn't really a way to balance it, since it did guarantee a win whenever you used it right.

 

No, they were too hasty in removing the AA version of crow. That one was far more interesting. They didn't remove the CROW fast enough.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

CROW was broken as fuck, but damned if it wasn't the coolest looking extension ever.

[Desert Fox]

Thanks for the links, the MOC3 fights are interesting to look back on, if not as interesting to watch due to the flat open spaces. Sandman/Karl is pretty fun to watch. Franko didn't use the super shell def arms I see, so he could be hurt more easily by shell weapons, I think his heavy was totally legit.

 

GNL gets ez mode cuz of the large projectile/hitbox, but a lot of people just got locks and hit fired, pro's made sure they were moving in relation to their opponent to optimize accuracy, or drive them into a position they could land some shots.

 

Noticed for the GNL you actually have 3 levels of use, 1st shooting no double lock or too far, 2nd level hold double locks, 3rd position or time it (like when opponent changes directions strafing there's sometimes a brief window) so the shooting no double lock still hits. In SL when you hit client lag it becomes a dice roll with cannons so you have to use that more and take your chances on a lot more iffy shots.

 

XCG20 was unreliable when I played LCC in SL. Maybe it was the same for most guns and I noticed it more due to limited ammo, but I remember it being wonky - sometimes it would lead the target, and sometimes it wouldn't. Didn't seem to matter, it did it even when double locked. You'd shoot and sometimes it would lead the target and sometimes it would shoot where they had been. I remember one match we played LCC redzoned and was in my sights at short (nearly CQ) range and 3 shots in a row missed because it didn't track, even though he was double locked. To me, that kind of lack of reliability is messed up. Other times but inconsistently it would lead him and nail him with surprising accuracy. (last shot in one of the following videos)

 

I used it anyway, and wanted to like that gun - I used it to make mid and lite-heavy SL jousters, but it was too inconsistent to hold up with the top tier guns, it's hard to deal with pressure situations or comeback if suddenly your big gun misses several shots due to not tracking at critical moments.

 

Here's a couple vids to illustrate:

 

 

[Mom]

I just watched :25 - :28 of the first video. XCG20 works as intended.

 

You probably think it isn't as reliable as you would like for the same reason you think a lot of weapons in LR aren't as reliable as you'd like. In other words your expectations are more along the line of Nexus RS: If I press L1/Square with this weapon it'll hit regardless type of deal.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Yeah man, Nexus accuracy was something batty, that's one of the main reasons I really gave 0 fucks about it.

[Desert Fox]

Just tried it in AC3 and it seems to track a lot better than SL, maybe I was dealing with client lag, who knows. Probably also the SL increased speeds from MOB.

 

NX accuracy was crazy especially with severe heat. NB was my preference overall in terms of accuracy. Close to NX but better able to dodge and heat a bit less severe. More onus on the dodger to dodge, rather than the attacker to make it hit. Sort of like AA in a way. I hated NX/NB RS with boosted lockbox size from WS L guns though, that was lame and like you say point, click, hit. No boosting of lockbox sizes with L guns would've suited me better. (even then RS should've had a bit longer reload)

 

I enjoyed the speed and movement in AC3/SL, I just would've liked more gun accuracy, particularly in SL - AC3 being slower helps and I feel the gun tracking is a bit tighter and more accurate.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

NB accuracy/dodge mechanics are best mechanics.

[Mom]

LR's better. The only disappointing thing to me going from nb to lr is that shotguns really aren't good anymore. At least Pixie3 still remains good, and handguns are powerful.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

LR is better, yeah. You should have to demonstrate you know how to use a weapon for it to work.

 

I'm okay with never seeing a game like NX again. It killed the scene.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

I honestly like NB better, but that's me.

 

LR isn't bad, but I think NB had the most fun PvP mechanics, balance not so much, but bans can level that off, and the OP shit in NB was pretty fun to abuse.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

That's one thing we'll never agree on bro

[Shirtless Crackhead]

S'ok, I mean I fully admit LR is way better balanced, I just don't like the shuck-n-jive backpedaling based meta of LR.

[Desert Fox]

S'ok, I mean I fully admit LR is way better balanced, I just don't like the shuck-n-jive backpedaling based meta of LR.

I agree completely. I had much more fun designing and playing NB than LR, (than NX too) although I still didn't like the heat mechanics, and there was a lot of stuff to better balance.