Armored Core: Verdict Day Discussion

[exogen]

Ok will do.

 

I have come to believe that FROM just gets the mehcanics right or wrong by happenstance. Their interest isn't with making a solid mechanic, but in designing the mechanics around the concept of whatever game concept they are deploying at the moment. the failure in that design process is that it leads to all sorts of querky problems.

[Rachis]

You're a qwerky problem.

[Bakuhatsu Pengin]

ill quert ur problem str9 up

[exogen]

I just want them to put a good boost system in the game. I like hate that team based rock paper sicssors crap, but god damn they don't give me ANYthing to work with. ACV is so uncompromising.

[Rachis]

Jump, QB, Boost off, Jump, QB...PRESTO!

[exogen]

See, I think the wall-jump was a great idea, so I'm not hating on ACV. If they included that with a solid boost system it would be good.

 

 

Edit: Here are a few other major flaws in my view.

 

Lock boxes being able to lock on to targets that are above and behind you: In ACV if someone is above you, you can aim up and shoot them even if they are behind you. If they are to far behind you, you can't lock on obviously, but sinse when in armored core could you EVER do that? This just prevents people from flanking you, hence it contrinbutes to the damage race.

 

Lock boxes being able to be aimed down 90 degrees: In every AC to date you could never aim down, at least with guns, al the way to the ground (90 degrees). By not being able to aim down you allow those who would try to above the air and get to high in the sky from gaining an advantage over you. If someone goes into the sky to high you get right under them and blast them and they can't aim all the way down to shoot you. It helps balance build types and tactics out with one another. In ACV you can aim 90 degrees down with any weapon. this is dumb and it is a deviation of a tried a tested mechanic.

Edited June 4, 2013 by exogen

[Rachis]

You have always been able to aim further down than you could aim up so if that isn't the case in ACV, I don't remember, then yeah I would call BS on that and the near guaranteed hits thing. But again, there's a bunch of useable cover in this game so you're really not supposed to let it all hang out.

[exogen]

I think you have it reversed rach. Its being abled to futher up, than down, is what you could always do. You lock box wouldn't go all the way down. This had not changed, even in AC4, with the exception of missle locks. Missle locks were the only thing that you could aim down all the way with. And notice how AC4 had dudes abusing elevation with missles, me included.

 

But ACV doesn't make any distinction whatsoever. You can aim up, aim down, hell you can hit shit in back of you. I have literally gotten above and behind dudes in aCV and had them tag me just by looking up. wtf is that?

 

Now yeah I know there is plenty of cover, and believe me I was whoring it. But when you come out and get a good flank on someone you have to go back behind cover, not because maybe the other dudes teamate starts hitting you, but because these fuckers will get a lock automatically and you cAN'T keep the flank because the mechanics don't allow for it. That shit is dumb.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

I think you have it reversed rach. Its being abled to futher up, than down, is what you could always do. You lock box wouldn't go all the way down. This had not changed, even in AC4, with the exception of missle locks. Missle locks were the only thing that you could aim down all the way with. And notice how AC4 had dudes abusing elevation with missles, me included.

 

You mean like aiming straight down right, like making the bot look down then firing? Yeah you could never do that in AC1-AC3 era games. If your lock box was big enough you could hit funny angles below you but you couldn't actually look straight down through your body and legs. You could look straight up, though.

 

Silent Line had those wild huge lockboxes so you could hit behind you or directly down if the target was far enough away for example.

[Mom]

I feel like they finally force you to have to use some cover which has been sorely lacking since pre-AC4.

 

 

Yo what's this.

[exogen]

You mean like aiming straight down right, like making the bot look down then firing? Yeah you could never do that in AC1-AC3 era games. If your lock box was big enough you could hit funny angles below you but you couldn't actually look straight down through your body and legs. You could look straight up, though.

 

Silent Line had those wild huge lockboxes so you could hit behind you or directly down if the target was far enough away for example.

 

Exactly, and in AC4, although they didn't have lock boxes, the aiming system would not let you lock on straight down with guns. With missles you could, but not guns. So all the things you could do to people who were trying to use elevation on you like get under them and shoot up when they could not shoot down worked wonders. In AC4 if you were really good you could actually dodge all the missiles even with targets that were right above you or you couldn't see perfectly if you understood how missiles tracked. The ability to not aim 90 degrees straight down is balancing property.

 

ACV changes all that. Now you can look straight down and blast them, which makes it more noobish than ever.

 

Also, as I said before, for some dumb reason they allow you to lock on to people who are right above you but behind you, which again is noobish.

 

Why don't they just put an end to flanking altogather and make auto-turn-auto-aim so no one can ever flank anyone again? And with the weapon accuracy it will be a damage fest the noobs with relish.

[Rachis]

I really think you guys have it wrong. I mean what was the point of having the height advantage then? It doesn't make sense.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

If we're talking about AC1-AC3, than I got it mostly, if not totally, right. You can try it yourself bro just stand still and try to have the AC look straight down. They can't. They can practically aim under them though but you can't actually look 90 degrees down from straight forward. That's why one of the best ways to stuff someone trying to go high sky was to skate full speed directly under them. It breaks the lock especially cuz airspeed is slower than ground speed. The only thing we might be off on is looking straight up, the more I think about it the less I think you could ever look 90 deg up.

 

The height advantage is that you have more space to dodge and people have a hard time fighting looking up. At least with flying. With being on higher ground there was no advantage aside from you you being a smaller target cuz less of you is exposed.

 

peep my guy this is the highest high sky motherfucker I've ever played:

 

 

 

honestly if you want I can go look on a copy of the game and see for LR. That's the only one I still have. Well MOA too but yeah.

 

Those are SL matches I also got a decent LR example:

 

 

mainly for that beginning part

 

Alright my pal I just finished checking in LR and yeah I don't think you can look straight up or straight down. The camera gets stuck on your ass if you try to look straight up sorta like how it gets stuck trying to see through the core looking down.

[Mom]

If not the ps2 and ps1 games, I know you can't fully look and fire straight down in ac4. One of the grand finals matches between me and chode, I stayed under him for a good 20 seconds and he couldn't shoot me.

 

There's still plenty of advantages to being in the air. For one you're way harder to track. One of the easiest way to judge whether a player is decent or not in old games is if they actually looked up when pressured.

Edited June 5, 2013 by The OB Express

[exogen]

Yeah, in AC4 you CANNOT look 90 degrees down. Like I said, only with missiles can you lock right down. I know this because I used to pit bull idiots that would try and permaflight all the time. I would just go forward and get under them. If they tried to get to high, I would just go under them and they couldn't shoot me. I know this shit for a fact.

 

Rach, I think you are just confused from not playing in a while bro.

 

But this ACV is str8 wak dudes, it takes away all that boss realness.

[Rachis]

I'm not even talking about looking full up and down. I'm just thinking that you can look further down than you can up in the older games. I can't check myself and it has been awhile.

 

Now that I went back and read the previous posts again, whether I'm right or wrong on this isn't really relevant.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Rachis

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

word point is ac5 is lame

 

lol

[exogen]

haha ha basically yeah, shit is lame.

 

Here is my theory; AC1 was designed but that origional dude Natoshi zin or whatever his name was at FROM at the time. That dude understood the reason for all these AC essentials and why they made a balanced starting block to work off of. Things like what we were just talking about and build types being able to use cannon based weapons diferently. All sorts of things.

 

These dudes at FROM now have forgotten all the basics and endlessly mess shit up.

[Rachis]

But...FROM has always messed shit up. This is nothing new.

[Bakuhatsu Pengin]

from doesnt want to reuse mechanics because why play the new game thats the same as the old games if you can just play the old game

 

so they tryin to make new games that make use of online and stuff

 

also the looking down up thing jus go back to the whole macro thing i keep talkin bout man

 

aerial dominance gotta be strong cuz then it give players an incentive to use wall jumps and really makes air more valuable cuz if air didnt have nothin going for it then people would just be skeet shoots for the whole team u kno

 

besides as far as i remember, backdoor flanking a dude meant he couldnt turn around fast enough and wouldnt be able to shoot at you for a good 10 seconds cuz turning speed isnt that fast and theres no qt

[exogen]

But see the argument that I am making is that there are certain essentials to AC, and if they are not present, imbalances result.

 

That doesn't mean you can't build diferences on top of those essentials, but the bedrock must be there.

 

You can make air strong or weak, but you gotta balance it.

 

ACV has all sorts of problems and it shows in how few people play it. Its the worst AC game yet. You could go on AC4 years after it released and still find people to play. You think ACV is going to last that long?

 

Btw, in ACV you can turn around instantly if you are on the ground with one QB and the mechanics will force you to break the flank if you just boost correctly on reaction. There is nothing the person trying to flank you can do about it either. In games prior to AC4 you could in principle flank someone endlessly, but that is because you could move better with normal boost and OB.

[Bakuhatsu Pengin]

ac4 and acv are different as far as online goes too so its not really a good comparison

 

especially since acv is still strong in japan

[Pendragon]

I'd prefer FROM try new things then rehash them endlessly. A few bumps in the road don't matter much to me if they hit their mark eventually.

[YUNG MASTERLESS GLENCOUR]

They nearly hit the mark already and threw it out the window. That's the point.

 

from doesnt want to reuse mechanics because why play the new game thats the same as the old games if you can just play the old game

 

so they tryin to make new games that make use of online and stuff

 

cmon man that's bogus. Lots of successful franchises let their shit breathe before throwing it all away. AC started that way then didn't. Think about it this way: AC series got more and more popular all the way through from AC1 to SL, than NX comes out, and nearly killed the series. It never recovered, even after they mea culpa'd the fuck out of things with LR.

 

Straight up thats weak logic my guy

 

especially considering the consoles they were on they don't have the biggest advantage available now: updates and DLC

[exogen]

Yeah I agree with PD. And reusing mechanics isn't a bad thing. Look at the street fighter series or Mortal Kombat. By having the same solid engine it allows you to build new gimicks on top of that engine each game to add variety.

 

But if the whole fundimentals of the game keep changing all you do is piss people off. sure some people will always like the changes, but next game when you do another 180 on them, they too will be pissed off.

 

FROM seems to think that building robots is all there is to armored core. They don't understand it was also the solid gameplay that made it so fun. This gameplay was achieved by having a solid system of essentials.