Armored Core: Verdict Day

[Sno]

Is anybody else here interested in this game? Is it worth a topic?

I've been playing a lot of it over the last week and i'm really, really into it.

[Sno]

Heh, I figured this one would be a longshot here.

I really do think it's probably the best Armored Core game i've played though. Most of the dumb, broken stuff from 5 has been sorted out, the teamwork-oriented metagame is awesome now and there seem to be enough people playing, and some of the newly-included elements are super fascinating. (Like programmable AI team-members to fill out your party when looking for matches.)

There's still that huge learning curve though, but the deep systems are honestly the appeal. (They're also probably why it continues to be such a harshly criticized series, it's very easy to have a horrible time if you don't have anybody to help you out.)

[Roderick]

For a while I was interested in big mecha games, but I have so little to touch upon and so many other games/genres yet to play... I don't think I'll ever come around to this. It's another big time investment to learn, I think?

[Problem Machine]

I used to be super into this series, to the extent where I even ran a fan forum for it, but it lost me with the console generation change and the switch over to FPS style controls. I didn't have the wherewithal to completely relearn the controls for a game series which I'd kind of burnt out on. It seems like more recent iterations have focused on horizontal movement over vertical trickery as well, which negates one of the big points I loved about the series, that it was a game with a strong three-dimensional tactical element. If I ever get disposable income sufficient to buy $60 console games again, maybe I'll try to get back into it.

 

Tangentially, as a long time fan of From Software in general and AC in particular, it's fascinating to see how some of those design tropes migrated to Dark Souls.

[Sno]

For a while I was interested in big mecha games, but I have so little to touch upon and so many other games/genres yet to play... I don't think I'll ever come around to this. It's another big time investment to learn, I think?

It definitely can be, it's a pretty steep cliff.

I think one of the main reasons it struggles to find a wider audience in the west is this... just...

You see this fast-paced mech game, 5 and Verdict Day even have this hilarious and awesome wall jump as a core mobility mechanic, and so people naturally assume that it controls like one would expect a fast-paced action game to control. So they play it and they slot all the parts into place and they go, and the control feels like shit. Their mech doesn't do anything they want it to do. Not even in the sense that it's just poorly armored or poorly armed, but that it controls poorly. Their free form assemblage of parts has resulted in something that is sluggish to turn, with weapons that can't track anything effectively.

At this point, they either think the game is full of shit, or they go deeper.

You get to this place where you start to pick apart how the dozens of stats on each part you've assembled your mech from interact from eachother, you get wiser about your choices and you put together a finely-tuned machine that can move faster, aim better, and have more power freed up for boosting. (Or you go the opposite direction, you tank up with insanely high defense and powerful cannons, but tanks have an even harder time managing power, there's even more difficult fine-tuning happening there.)

Then you have to learn how to play your role, work in a team, cope with the control and the pace and the systems. (Then there's target spotting, and shared radar recon, or target scanning to decipher armor weaknesses, and an optional operator role for an additional player with a god's eye view of the field to give you waypoints and battle information. A lot of these latter mechanisms might be familiar to anybody who's played Chromehounds. It even has the thing from CH where defeated players respawn on the field as tiny, helpless soldiers to wander around and witness the ongoing battle from a much smaller viewpoint.)

 

Verdict Day also brings in these programmable UNACs that you can use to fill out empty slots on a team, and that whole system was terrifying at first, but i managed to end up with a solid, capable UNAC that has survived more matches than its lost.

So yeah, it's quite an involved, complex game. I think it's probably actually a good deal deeper and more nuanced than many other ongoing series of mech sims, and i frickin` absolutely love it. It's delivered on the promise of Armored Core V's vast team-focused multiplayer metagame, and done it without the bone-headed design decisions that completely broke that game.

My biggest concern with Verdict Day right now is about how long the community will hang on. The matchmaking works well enough - and there's enough people playing - that i've never had problems getting into a match, but you definitely keep running into the same people. It's clearly a smallish pool of players on the international version of the game. (I'm playing on the 360, it's probably a little better on the PS3.)

 

 

I used to be super into this series, to the extent where I even ran a fan forum for it, but it lost me with the console generation change and the switch over to FPS style controls. I didn't have the wherewithal to completely relearn the controls for a game series which I'd kind of burnt out on. It seems like more recent iterations have focused on horizontal movement over vertical trickery as well, which negates one of the big points I loved about the series, that it was a game with a strong three-dimensional tactical element. If I ever get disposable income sufficient to buy $60 console games again, maybe I'll try to get back into it.

 

Tangentially, as a long time fan of From Software in general and AC in particular, it's fascinating to see how some of those design tropes migrated to Dark Souls.

What you're saying is probably true of 4 and For Answer, the ease of sustained flight in those games made it a very simple matter to move out of a unfavorable position, but the same is most certainly not true of 5 and Verdict Day. Climbing up a building and mounting an attack from an advantageous altitude is completely essential.

With the wall climb being the only way to gain any significant altitude, you end up often having these king of the hill-esque fights around tall buildings as each player tries to gain altitude over the other.

[Dewar]

I'm definitely interested, I just don't get much time with my 360 these days.

[Sno]

Well, if anybody does play it and has any questions, keep me in mind. A lot of the interactions between the different systems and different stats can be really opaque, that classic From Software vagueness, but i'm pretty confident that i have a solid understanding of everything.

[Wrestlevania]

I'm definitely interested, I just don't get much time with my 360 these days.

 

Same. Only time it gets switched on nowadays is when my kids play Skylanders. That and having no interest in paying for Xbox Gold for more than a year, otherwise I'd be all over Verdict Day (assuming it's a lot like classic Front Mission, which it sounds like it might be).

[twmac]

Sno has been bullying  politely encouraging me to play Armored Core V that I have sitting in my unplayed games stack (I picked it up in Poland brand new for 39 Zloty), I am planning to try and dedicate some time to it this weekend as long as I am not too busy.

 

I loved Armored Core IV so I will see what I can do.

[Sno]

(assuming it's a lot like classic Front Mission, which it sounds like it might be).

 

As in a turn-based strategy RPG? It's definitely not, though the build customization and intertwining systems are a good deal more layered and complex than anything in Front Mission, as far as i can recall.

Rather, the ACV games are very high-speed action games with a pronounced emphasis on teamwork.

 

There's a fifth slot on each team for an "operator" to act as a god's eye view and coordinator. As a practical matter of how many people are actually playing the game, the operator seat is often left empty, presenting a significant disadvantage against teams who do run with an operator. I've seen a lot of weird things though, like people playing as operator to a full team of UNACs, issuing orders like it's an RTS. Unfortunately, they usually lose, the UNACs can be extremely capable 1v1 if tuned properly, but they're largely incapable of certain tactics and behaviors important in more complicated fights. (They have some options for such situations, but not really the ones you'd want.)

I feel like i have to champion Verdict Day a bit more though, the game seems to have just gone so far under the radar, even moreso the previous games, even despite being so much better. I've been playing pretty consistently since it came out and my opinion hasn't really changed at all, i think it's probably the best mech game From's ever made. There's a huge range of viable builds catering to a remarkably wide variety of playstyles. (I believe there's around 650 parts in the game? There's dozens of different weapon categories.)

There are some issues, of course. Finding a match can be a little spotty depending on the time of day, though it's never been completely dead. The metagame at the core of the experience also tends to be fairly abstract in conveying what's going on, and it feels like there's maybe a small handful of balance issues that may or may not be addressed, but nothing as dramatic as the balance issues ACV had. (Some of the laser rifles in Verdict are probably too strong, but that's the only thing that has been standing out to me.) Some of the better teams are also just so organized that they tend to slaughter anybody who gets matched against them, but for the time being, there's still a lot of other people playing as well.

I do really, really like it. After ACV fell so flat on its face, it's a delight to see From deliver on the promise that game held, I would recommend it.

 

It's definitely a time-absorbing multiplayer-centric experience though, i don't think its solo campaign is in itself rewarding enough to warrant a purchase. (Aside from a neat unlockable hardcore mode that enforces permadeath and makes you use mission pay to build up a new stock of parts on a separate save file.)

And that's it, that's probably the last i'll say on this if nobody's into it. Just had to get those words out, Verdict Day's been one of the best experiences i've had with a game this year.

[Dewar]

So, with this coming up for sale on PS3, I thought I'd ask if anyone ended up playing this extensivly and how it is.

[Sno]

I obviously loved it a whole lot, i put a ton of time into it, i still think it's a really great game. Unfortunately, the community became a bit toxic, lots of boosting and network manipulation. I got a good few months out of it though, probably would have kept playing if it didn't go the way it did.

I haven't played in a few months, so i don't know if there's even still a community still around it on the western servers, but i think there's been several big patches since i last played. (Matches were pretty easy to find when i was playing, especially compared to AC5, which was just a disaster.)

There's probably enough solo content in there that it's still worth checking out if you're into AC, though probably not enough for anybody else, and don't put your hopes on the multiplayer at this point.

[Dewar]

With the game going cheap, it might get a renewed multiplayer presence, but I'd be mainly in it for the single player. I loved AC2, but i've only played sparingly since then.

[Dewar]

I finally got to play a little bit of this last night. Man, the menu system is almost incomprehensible, but I finally managed to get into the story mode and it feels nice to be in a AC game again after so many years. Is there any sort of online matchmaking that a single player person can get into? Every mode I tried I got a warning that I was at the minimum squad size and I really should hire mercs or get more teammates, but I don't have any mercs available.

Edit: And I guess there aren't any official forums around anymore to look up tips?

[Sno]

Which system are you playing on?

There isn't much of a centralized Armored Core community, i definitely looked. Some little fan communities here and there with intermittently decent information, but no big comprehensive resources. It's a pretty sorry state of affairs, it's no wonder the game still comes off to people as being impenetrable even when the Souls series sees booming success with a similar or greater degree of complex inscrutability.

I played quite a lot of ACV and Verdict Day, so if you have questions, i can probably answer mostly anything. The mechanics are actually quite a good deal streamlined relative to AC4 and ACFA, especially in regards to fire control systems and weapon tracking. (Which is just nonsensically complicated in the AC4 games. The often bewildering balance tuning mechanic from the AC4 games is also gone.) Probably the most inscrutable part of the AC5 games is how the defense curves work. (The stronger the target's armor, the stronger a weapon of a matching damage type needs to be to overcome the defense. Worst case scenario is that you land "ineffective" hits that are virtually worthless. The little notch in the armor curve indicates where damage type-matched weapons of a lower attack value will be ineffective.)

General gameplay tips: Abuse the wall climb as much as possible, an altitude advantage is an easy victory. Switch to scan mode whenever not attacking to abuse the increased energy regen. Also, probably remap high boost to one of the bumpers. (Probably in place of the toggle for activating/disabling boost movement, which is important for creating a fast descent so you can fall behind a piece of cover, but not as important as being able to easily high boost in the middle of a fight.)

Regarding multiplayer, i don't know how active the community still is since i haven't played in the last half year or so, but even if it's still active, put to rest any notions of starting your own squad and having people just show up. Even mercenaries will start refusing invites once they catch on that you're a one-man squad. You'll need to either seek out a group, or be content with playing a mercenary for other squads. (Which doesn't really earn you much of anything, but if you're good, it's a good way to get invited to join a squad.)

If no mercenaries were showing up in the queue at all, however, it's probably a pretty good indication that the community has died off significantly, because there were always multiple mercenaries looking for matches. (Additionally, if you start a match and it can't find another team to set you against, you'll likely just be sent out to attack a territory filled with boring npc enemies. Match-making was pretty consistent in the game's early days though, but was largely dominated by extremely organized clans and cheaters, it got a bit toxic.)

Also, play through the campaign until you unlock UNACs, then build your own UNAC, because the default ones suck. On top of hiring mercenaries, you can also use UNACs to fill out a squad. There's even an achievement for winning a match by serving as operator* to a team filled with UNACs. (I ended up with a good lightweight UNAC running a highly erratic and aggressive movement routine that was able to pretty consistently defeat most of the players i threw it at. For the purposes of filling out a team for multiplayer matches, it was often better than any mercenaries i could hire.) Also, even if you don't run any multiplayer matches, you can use UNACs for solo co-op.

* - The operator is the fifth spot on each team in a match, filled by a player with a god's eye view and the ability to set up additional radar beacons and issue waypoints and alerts to the team.

Also, the shop might seem a tiny bit sparse at first, but as you rank up your profile, the shop will open up dramatically. The game actually has - i think - over six hundred parts, it's kind of wild.

There's also a rad hardcore-mode in Verdict Day that i'd recommend checking out if you get through the campaign and want more, but can't find people to play against.

 

There is also a free-match option somewhere in the menus, but nobody really used it even when the game was new. (Don't confuse it with the options for launching practice fights against your own squad.)

[Dewar]

I'm playing on PS4.

There's defintely numbers changing on the map, so there's something going on Multiplayer, but it might be just a few teams fighting each other. How would I queue up to be a merc? I imagine I'd get destroyed, but I want to at least say I tried the online.

How many missions are in the campaign, it seems like maybe only 10 with the way the menu is layed out? I assume there's more than that at least.

Edit: One more thing, when in AC building mode, there's a couple of different display settings that show different sets of parts. Do you remember what the difference between them is?

[Sno]

I don't remember exactly how the menus were laid out, but the sub menu for registering as a mercenary should be pretty obvious. You go in, setup some basic information to present to people looking for hires, and then you're loaded into the test map where you can fiddle around with your bot while you wait to be matched. (On average, it usually took around five minutes to be pinged for a match, sometimes longer and sometimes right away.)

The campaign has like ten "core" story missions, but then also a huge collection of side missions, which are themselves often quite elaborate. It's not an exceptionally lengthy campaign, but it's not short. (There's that hardcore mode too, i think that's awesome. It creates a separate instance of the store where you only have money from the missions you've played in the campaign, and access only to the parts you can buy with that money. There's also a permadeath mechanic, you have a limited pool of lives. You can also only play missions once, no grinding out resources.)

 

About the different sets of parts, i don't know. I think there is a way to set "favorite" parts and then see only those, perhaps that's what you're doing? There should be a button you can hit that explains what the buttons do in the build lab. Also, as with all From games, hitting the back button - or whatever the dualshock 3 equivalent is - should bring up some fairly useful tooltips. That by itself should make most of the game's mechanics pretty clear. (Really, it should, the tooltips are pretty concise.)

Another tip, because it's a common mistake i saw people make and one you might make, you don't need an FCS with a high lock-on speed to go with weapons that similarly have a high base lock-on, it's just redundant. Save the fast lock-on buffs for builds that have slow-tracking weapons. Relatedly, firing stability on the arms affects reload time, which again, is a little redundant on weapons with low base reload times, though not as useless as stacking a powerful FCS with an ultra-fast base lock-on. (Also, because of the way the armor system works, the gats are nowhere near as good as their stats indicate. That low base damage against most builds having very good kinetic armor means they are extremely low dps weapons. Not useless though, you tend to get a lot out of their cumulative impact force damage, which while not enough to outright stagger the target, will cause it to feel more sluggish for the other player. The good tracking and high rate of fire also generally ensures a pretty constant and difficult-to-evade dps source as well.)

Make sure your generator has lots of overhead as well, because that extra power is your recovery rate, and your recovery rate is generally much more important than your capacity. (This one is probably very obvious, but the reason it's key in Verdict Day is because it's completely possible to create a build that has enough energy recovery to allow constant glide boost, which, combined with glide boosting not losing altitude, is something you'll see snipers do a lot in the multiplayer. You usually give up a lot of speed to achieve such a build though.)