Armored Core V

[Sno]

Anybody here looking forward to this?

Worldwide release is in a couple weeks, but it's been out in Japan for a while now and the buzz around it has been very exciting.

[Wrestlevania]

Crap, I'd completely lost track of when this was coming out. I'll have to wait a while now, as Real Life Stuff needs paying for.

[Sno]

If anybody here is interested, we should try and get together on the same platform and form a squad for the online metagame. I ultimately don't really know how feasible it will be within ACV's online environment, but i already had plans for trying to setup a small squad for some friends, something i had previously done with Chromehounds.

I'll be playing on the 360, as i tend to with most things, but buzz seems to have pinned it as the best version anyways. PS3 apparently has some pretty bad framerate problems.

[Sno]

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I've always been a sucker for a slick CG intro, ever since Mechwarrior 2.

[TheLastBaron]

I played a ton of Armored Core 2, and then less of 3 because me and my friends got burnt out, and haven't played anything since. That trailer makes me want to buy this game though.

[Orv]

I'd watch that movie.

[Sno]

If anybody is curious what the game actually entails, Namco has been slowly "translating" some tutorial videos From put out a while ago.

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[lumberbaron]

Armored Core is one of the only games that still comes out and I stupidly buy without fully completing the last one. Who knows, maybe that streak will be broken this time, but probably not.

Either way I am pretty sure I am picking it up for the 360.

[Roderick]

The full extent of my experience with Armored Core is watching the Armored Core 4 VideoGaiden review, in which Rab explained that he pronounces the game as 'arMORRRRed Core'. Since then, I do the same.

I'm vaguely intruiged by building a badass mech. From the videos it seems it's a big multiplayer thing though. Is there a singleplayer campaign where you can take on those cool bosses by yourself?

[Sno]

ACV's focus seems largely on the multiplayer, but it still has what sounds like a fairly sized campaign apparently with full support for co-op. I understand it to be about ten missions that are each around thirty minutes to an hour in length. There's also going to be a typical-looking suite of multiplayer match-making options, free for all and the like. Also, that territory-control metagame, if you don't have a squad, or your squad is short a man, there's a mercenary system that lets you either be a temporary hire or fill out your own team's ranks.

[lumberbaron]

So it kind of sounds like a more fleshed out Chrome Hounds that isn't terrible.

[Sno]

That's more or less the impression I've been getting from ACV, From is taking much of the multiplayer metagame design they had in place for Chromehounds and hanging it around the framework of considerably more tested Armored Core game systems.

[lumberbaron]

That's more or less the impression I've been getting from ACV, From is taking much of the multiplayer metagame design they had in place for Chromehounds and hanging it around the framework of considerably more tested Armored Core game systems.

So everyone wins?

[Sno]

So everyone wins?

Well, i don't know about everyone, but I certainly win, i love Armored Core and i loved Chromehounds.

[Sno]

This game had a pretty rough launch, a lot of stuff was busted online, but it'll probably be ironed out soon enough. (Update: It was.) Anyways, it doesn't seem like anybody really even noticed, there is palpable apathy towards this game from the internet.

So yeah, the issue was that ACV is like 90% an online game, you boot straight into your online squad's lobby, there's no offline menu system. Even the campaign stuff is accessed through this online lobby, a lot of features like that were dead-ending because the master server wasn't talking back. (Though if you care, the game does apparently work if played offline, you can still get into the shop and play all the solo content. The game won't let you take your offline save back online though, you have to purge any offline-purchased parts from your warehouse before you can, it seems to be a pretty strict anti-cheating measure.)

Still, a lot of the competitive stuff was working, and I do really like this game, what I've played of it.

I mean, but the battles revolve around an astoundingly convoluted and layered set of boosting mechanics, the mech lab is thoroughly overwhelming, and the entire front end is just menus inside of menus inside of menus. This is a seriously, seriously hardcore game. You need to be familiar with From's mech games, or you need somebody else who is. This game, i could tell immediately, will be incredibly off putting to anybody who isn't willing to invest some time into it.

I am still pretty jazzed about it though, there's exciting stuff here. I can't wait to put more time into this.

If anybody is looking for a squad on the 360, i can probably hook you up. It's just me and a couple buddies right now, but we're probably going to be playing a lot of this.

Edit: A couple days out, game is working fine, and i'm feeling like i have a good grasp on how everything works. Took some territory, lost it immediately, etc, etc. Unfortunately, there's some really troubling issues with how the match-making works, problems that only exist because the player base is fairly small.

Also - Just... Don't read reviews. This is a very obtuse and complex game, but the amount of misinformation being pushed is shocking.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Sno

[Raff]

Thinking of getting this, if I get it on 360 will I be able to possibly play with you from across the pond well enough? I've not played console games properly (competetively) online for a few years now, I can't really remember how sensitive it all is. It's a long time since I braved the northern stoners and french racists of XBL. I played Dark Souls on PS3 because I couldn't be bothered to buy an XBL subscription. Also I'm a bit drunk having just finished my dissertation and had some gin and some Tribes. Sorry.

[Sno]

So i want to elaborate on the problem I'm having with ACV right now, it's a strange and complicated issue in a game that i think is otherwise largely executed with aplomb.

So there are invasion and conquest missions, and defense missions against both of those. Invasion missions earn a team points that allow the invading team to eventually launch a conquest mission, the victory of which will give that team their own instance of a given territory to develop and protect. Both types of defense missions help teams restore their territory's condition so they don't lose it.

So it sounds awesome right? The problem is defense, nobody really bothers to defend their territory, despite significant rewards for doing so. The problem is that to defend your territory, you have to prepare for a defense mission and kind of just wait... Just wait and hope that somebody happens to decide to try and invade that territory and that the system will match your instance of the territory to those invaders while you're waiting. So defense is not properly a reactive move, it ends up a weird preemptive thing, it's silly. (Even so, on invasion defense, you have a reasonably good chance of running into an invading team if you're willing to sit for a few minutes. However, you can pretty much forget about trying to find defensive matching against a much-less-common conquest mission, which is seriously problematic because doing so is the last-ditch condition for reclaiming a territory you have almost lost.)

In Japan where just a ton of people are playing this game, it probably works. (In fact, I've heard as much.) Everywhere else, so far at least, you end up mostly fighting just a lot of customized compositions of defensive emplacements because nobody is defending their territories. Actual team vs team engagements are currently so rare that it is common to find people thinking that destroying turrets is all that the game is about.

It gets more problematic when you stop to consider that conquest missions will spawn defending AI mechs if no enemy team is present to defend their territory instance, making the turret-ness of standard invasion missions even stranger. (To be fair, fighting through some of the more elaborate and developed defensive compositions that you can come across deeper into the game can be more interesting and challenging than you might expect.)

The game has only been out for a few days, so i hope the situation improves as more people come to the game. (It's not even out in Europe right now.) As it is, though, not enough people are playing to allow people the experience they're meant to be having. It makes me a little worrisome about the future of this game.

I don't want to make it sound horrible though, it's not broken, it just kind of means the meta-game is sort of limping along right now. It's obvious it's not really working out like it's meant to. It's also only one aspect of the game, there's still a bunch of other ways to organize battles not tied into the failings of the meta-game, and for all of the unavoidable emphasis on the multiplayer, there's actually a real ton of solo content. (10 half-hour story missions filled with hidden side-goals, and 80 "order" missions that range from 1v1 battles with AI Cores to fairly elaborate missions with multiple objectives.)

To be absolutely clear, putting the limping meta-game aside, I think this game is goddamned incredible. It is marvelously intricate and demanding, by far the biggest thrills I've ever had with an Armored Core game. I am so fucking stoked about robots right now, i love this game. There's the usual caveat that these are boosting mechas, these are not Battletech mechs, but if you got this far into my post and then read that and wasn't turned off, you should probably play this game. It is glorious robot porn.

(Holy shit, wall-jumping! I know, right? Wall jumping is an integral game system in ACV, and it's awesome. It is the right kind of weird and cool, and it's backed up by a seriously interesting implementation.)

Thinking of getting this, if I get it on 360 will I be able to possibly play with you from across the pond well enough? I've not played console games properly (competetively) online for a few years now, I can't really remember how sensitive it all is. It's a long time since I braved the northern stoners and french racists of XBL. I played Dark Souls on PS3 because I couldn't be bothered to buy an XBL subscription. Also I'm a bit drunk having just finished my dissertation and had some gin and some Tribes. Sorry.

My understanding is that the only division is between Japan and the rest of the world. (And the PS3/360, obviously.) North Americans should be able to play against Europeans with no problem.

If you have a choice between the PS3 version and the 360 version, I've been reading that the PS3 version has a larger community playing despite its framerate troubles. (For the reasons mentioned above, if more people really are playing on the PS3, it would not be an insignificant point in its favor.)

Still, if you're looking for a team on the 360 version, you're certainly welcome to join my squad. There's only a few of us, but we all share a good grasp of the game and our team is ranked such that we have access to quite a lot of the shop stock.

Edit: A small update, I now understand that the European version of the game is running on servers separate from North America. (Which was itself running separately from Japan.)

The situation with the metagame has also deteriorated, it has quickly become all but impossible to find a match. A lot of the peripheral things like the mercenary system and free battle options reveal a small and active community, but it's not enough to sustain the bizarre way the match-making works for the territory control metagame. The thing the game greets you with every time you load it up is essentially non-functioning.

It is a remarkably frustrating outcome for a game that is so excellent in every other way.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Sno