Armored Core

[Midboss]

ACV is coming out soon, already out for importers. Why does the English speaking world have so little love for Armored Core?

[dauntedjester]

Because for some reason we just don't enjoy giant robots blowing each other up as much as the Japanese. Guess we just don't dig it. Although I am mildly anticipating the game I'm a fan of the series but not enough to get all OMGGIUYSLOOKITSANARMOREDCOREGAMEHORYSHET.

I haven't looked at the game at all I wonder if its dumbed down more than the last one if its back to being overly complicated or if its about the same.

[Midboss]

I wouldn't call AC4 'dumbed down'. Quite the opposite, actually. The value of a finely tuned AC didn't change at all, what changed was that a skilled pilot became more valuable. In that regard, AC5 is still quite similar; you can't win against a more skilled pilot even if your AC is a little better, but the differences between ACs are still a huge deciding factor in the outcome of a 1 on 1 situation.

As far as what's different...

Boost is a simple toggle, you're either boosting or you aren't; if you jump, having boost turned on will cause you to hover. It will even recover with most generators while hovering, but you can't gain altitude easily like before and will continually fall with most AC configurations (some ACs can achieve perfect hovering). I haven't tried it but I wouldn't be surprised if turning your boosters off decreased the range you could be detected from with scan mode.

You only have one shoulder weapon slot. Some arms actually appear to double your shoulder weapon, but I can't tell you exactly how they work because I don't have weight left for shoulder weapons on my AC. The weapon itself is stored INSIDE your AC's shoulder instead of being a visible part like before.

In place of the old shoulder weapons (visually anyway), all ACs have left and right hangers for additional weapons, and can switch between weapons without discarding either (barring weapons too heavy to go on the hanger).

Quickboost is still present. Seems maybe a little more costly than before. Holding down the button lets you use a melee attack at the end of your quickboost, the damage is based on your leg parts. Heavy bipeds can actually destroy some tanks in one shot by kicking them during overboost.

There are now several weapons that have scopes and must be fired from stationary positions. They're extremely powerful, I like to use them occasionally and play support, though I've seen some players use cannons as primary weapons and gun down speedy lightweights with them, which was quite impressive.

There's no more radar. It's been replaced by recon units and scan mode. Recon units give you a simple count of how many enemy units are in their effective area. Some are fired from afar and stay in a set place, some hover above your own AC. Scan mode deactivates your FCS but allows you to scan enemies if you can keep them in your sights to see their equipment (and additionally can scan them through buildings allowing you to find sneaky enemies with it).

There's three types of damage now instead of two. Kinetic, thermal, and chemical. Each class of part seems to be best suited to dealing with one type of damage.

Probably my favorite new feature is the operator. Each team can optionally have an operator who has access to the full overhead map, the ability to set waypoints, and can scan for enemy ACs and view their stats and weaknesses to help form a more effective strategy.

Maps are much more detailed. Lots of cover to use, lots of room to move around. As I mentioned above, you can't gain altitude the same way you could in previous games. This time, you have to use the map to do it. You're able to walljump to scale buildings or move quickly away from them.

The game is very heavily focused on multiplayer this time. Singleplayer is pretty lightweight.






I've been totally on board ever since AC3 and that hasn't changed any.

[Colticide]

Getting it! Looks fantastic and I see now how awsome From Software are.

[Midboss]

I'm still really, really disappointed in them because they haven't made an Armored Core movie yet. DAT CG

[Colticide]

it looks like it could be, sadly we have cod fans as our representatives so any game that actually require skill goes out the window, thats why you dont see monster hunter on a good multiplayer platform or some that dont come out in america.

[Godot343]

I really hate necroing old threads, but I recently picked ACV up, and I gotta say I really love it. It's got a nice multiplayer system, but I have yet to find an active team to join. That's the only thing that disheartens me about this game.

[Squeezit]

Necroing old threads is fine here, as long as it's still relevant.
And not like 8 years old.

[Midboss]

Yeah, a lot of teams just gave up and/or moved to free battle instead of the main conquest mode because it's a little broken right now. Parts weren't balanced very well at launch, and Namco hasn't brought over any of the patches yet. I personally quit playing the NA version and went to the JP version again until we get them.

[Godot343]

It died too fast for launching like two months ago.