its fun, its relaxing, you'll learn the game and its systems better, and also you get to do extremely funny shit like S-ranking Operation Wallclimber with a meme double laser shotty build
beating the shit out of balteus with the fucking missile hell power loader. instant fucking mood boost
make silly or experimental builds and instead of testing them in the test zone just replay an old mission to see how they work. my mecha Macross started out as "i wonder what's the highest amount of missiles i can fit on this thing"
this game is a mecha playfield split into missions
also: you'll make a basically infinite amount of money.
I keep looking at my timeline and see people I know going on about 'all these bosses need to be nerfed and my lightweight build isn't working nerf this shit game', and like, this thread here is exactly what you should be doing in this game. Mess around, try new things, learn and discover and you'll not only hone your skills, you'll understand the tools you have to deal with new challenges, or come back to old things you didn't have the ability to execute on before.
For example, for me, it's so fucked up because I'm already 80% through a NG+ run and I have:
- Figured out how to make my original frame, which I had abandoned due to lack of skill around chapter 2 in my first run, work for me
- Discovered a boss who gave me immense trouble for a second time is weak to a weapon type I haven't used forever and kinda dismissed as niche, missiles, and could probably feasibly be beaten with another weapon type I rarely use but didn't have multiple copies of
- Have beaten most of the Arena at sub-20 seconds, and about a quarter in about 15
- My primary build is using only weapons that are available in Chapter 1. The actual damage-dealing part of my strategy is made of things anyone could use
And this is with what is, by Armored Core standards, a lightweight build. It's got reverse legs, not the lightest ones ever, but I chose them more for aesthetics than actual quality because I don't need the extent of the carry weight unless I'm doing silly things. The kind of thing people keep complaining 'doesn't have enough ammo to compete'.
And like, that's nonsense! This game is staggeringly generous with ammo, more than almost any AC game I've ever played. The only weapon I've found where I've ever actually run dry in a fight was a NG+ gun that I'm pretty sure is intentionally balanced around that, because its alpha is insane and I don't think anything else has as much instant damage as it. If you are running out of ammo, you are either not using your weapons appropriately, and yea, it's gonna suck if you do, or you're in one of a handful of missions that are staggering endurance runs that are purposefully meant to test that.
Like, there's just this trend I noticed in Elden Ring, where most of the bosses I liked, are the ones people are specifically bitching about. And it's even more full force here. And of course, those bosses are all the ones that need a change in strategy, or don't reward standard behavior, basically all telling you 'try something new or you won't succeed'. And people didn't, and bitched, and Fromsoft eventually caved and nerfed them.
I'm not exactly worried that will happen here, Armored Core has always been a more niche series with less respect for public opinion, but that attitude of 'my build doesn't work, the game is broken' is just, so backwards and entitled and Souls fans, for all their get-good bullshit, are projecting an entirely hollow facade. Getting good at a Souls-like is mostly a matter of mindset change, not actual mechanical skill. It's not a game where raw execution matters as much as understanding what you're fighting.
Armored Core is so much more intense. It is demanding, on your brain, on your inputs, on your build, even for fights you've won before. And it really puts the myth of the snobby get-good excellence to rest, because there are multiple angles you can get good through, but the only one that's not available is pissing off, grinding up your stats, and coming back objectively stronger. You adapt, you improve your technique, you find a better way, or you die.
Change your builds, change your tactics, admit your one setup won't work for every scenario. Experience all the game has to offer. Don't stick into your comfort zone then say the game is bad if it doesn't hand you a victory because you followed a netguide that says this is the OP build.
You do have to get better, but this is not the same as smarming about 'getting good', and there's no smugness about it, and it's making so many people with bad opinions about Soulslikes mad because they assumed that's all that Fromsoft makes, and I'll be lying if I said that doesn't make me feel so justified in some opinions right now.
Armored Core 6 is sublime, and it is uncompromising, and it rewards any time spent with it. Mess around and try new things, because the only correct playstyles are the ones that work for you, nothing else.
I think a fundamental problem with souls-born peps coming into the game is the mindset of creating a static build like you do in souls games, most of those game do not give you the space to fuck around and force you to engage with the game in it one primary method.
Armored core on the other hand is exceptionally fluid and fuck with this mindset a lot as want you to explore and find new goofy anything you hit a wall or even with the replay mission to get S ranks way of maximizing via experimentation with different part for different situations.
Also I think a lot of it is just refusing to see armored core as armored core just like a lot of people did serkio for a while. People just want to see anything that fronsoft make as another souls game and will only use the mindset that works well in those games with it mechanic but completely ignore AC 6 mechanics and call it being a different game series all together bad because they want homogenous soup of a game that doesn’t make them have to try something else. It a problem that a lot of game have now aday we’re if you don’t be X or Y that everyone already know is some how bad or two hard when a game is just asking you to engage with that game specifically instead of being more of the same that you already moderately understand.