Armored Core VI - Rubicon of Mango - The Bear and Badger

drumbeg

The tank has been my go to on some of the tougher encounters. I just try to overwhelm with brute force. Plasma is particularly effective in this game, so I tend to stick dual plasma cannons on my tank shoulders then dual Zimmermans in hand for that up-close feelin.

Am loving the hand held siege missile launchers at the moment. I was expecting to have to swap them out for some boss battles but they have absolutely owned everything I've come up against whilst using them.

drumbeg

NG+ done. 2nd ending in the bag. One more to go.

Think I'll take a break and come back to NG++ further down the line to get that final ending.

Skerret

I'm ripping through the Arena fights, quad lasers for the win

stormyskiesahead

I might have to try quad lasers. Just blasted through C and B tiers and the first couple of fights in A tier with dual Zimmermans and dual Stun Needle Launchers. Absolutely broken.

Finally finished act 3 as well! A certain boss AC with a familiar name took a good few goes to take down, and that little cut scene before the fight was a proper "Oh shit..." moment. Great stuff.

drumbeg

I didn't find the arena battles any trouble at all either. I rarely failed on 1st attempt. Enjoyed the end of Chapter 3. Nice spectacle.

A patch just dropped and I was half expecting a slight nerf to the Zimmermans, I used that setup a lot couple with a close-range FCS in my play-throughs.

stormyskiesahead

Act 4 and the first mission of act 5 done, and yeah you were right @drumbeg, it just gets better and better. That act 4 final boss though, fuck me, it crushed my go-to general play build. Had to go full-bullshit to beat them. Got a certain very cool sword from that mission as well.

Speaking of, I've been playing around with arena builds for that wonderful old-school FromSoft sword. For the moment I'm running a laser lance and the sword on my left shoulder via the weapon bay, plus a Zimmerman and a stun needle launcher. It's clearing A rank arena fights pretty easily but I'm gonna continue to experiment. As it is this build's really rotation dependant.

drumbeg

Yes, very frustrating fight that one. In my 2nd run, I went almost full homing missile with plasma cannon sweetener, which seems to work well. Some of the stuff you unlock in NG+ is super useful.

I love a double melee built, usually I pair the pile bunker with some kind of laser/pulse blade, then it's an extra bit of skill to swap between them at the right moment.

stormyskiesahead

Yeah pile bunker has been my go-to for dual melee 'til now, it's so strong if you can get it to actually hit anything. I really wanna make this sword work though so I'll be experimenting for a while.

Just finished the campaign as well! Loved it, might just be my GotY and I haven't seen the NG+ stuff yet. Speaking of, think I'll jump right back in.

stormyskiesahead

The first NG+ mission divergence was a nice surprise. I'd blitzed through the early missions and didn't pay enough respect to my new adversaries though, got a royal arse kicking for my insolence. Got 'em on the third attempt.

drumbeg

Ha, yeah, love how they implemented that first bit of new content. They whooped me a few times too before I switched to the old tanky steamroller.

Wookienopants

I still don't have this game but I'm going to buy a Mango Rubicon right now

hylian_elf

Rubicon, must have some.

Moot_Geeza

I bought this, started this evening. First impressions very mixed for me. There's such a delay on the sword swipe and the reload window is humongous, which feels awful on a gun that effectively turned into a peashooter for the first boss (which was happy to hide out of bounds for half the battle). Hopefully once I can kit the mech out with different weapons it'll start to click, but I'm not feeling satisfied by the main cannon, the melee attack or the lock on missiles as of yet.

Moot_Geeza

Can I replay missions to get a bit more cash? Think I might top up my funds for a bit before tackling mission 2, the first boss was kicking my arse for about 20mins and I'm worried I'll get rattled if the difficulty suddenly ramps up.

stormyskiesahead

You can but don't worry about replaying that opening mission, that tutorial boss very tough. The next few missions should be a breeze and feel like they were designed to be farmed for cash.

Skerret

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Can I replay missions to get a bit more cash? Think I might top up my funds for a bit before tackling mission 2, the first boss was kicking my arse for about 20mins and I'm worried I'll get rattled if the difficulty suddenly ramps up.

There's a mission worth 270k a bit later on that once you're kitted you should breeze past every time. Recommend a quad leg build for floaty ease.

Skerret

I have cleared the S rank challenges and the last one was as easy as any I've encountered, funny that.

Changing weapon configs really does make a big difference in a given context. A certain subterranean duo game me grief for a few goes until I switched to plasma+laser/spread grenade+two shot cannon thing and wiped them out very quickly.

Moot_Geeza

Aha, I must have misread/misremembered something because I thought the second boss was billed as the true meanie. Which had me worried given that the first one was a doubleard bastard.

stormyskiesahead

There's a couple more tough bosses in act 1 (although one of those is a lot easier with a certain weapon type), but most missions don't have boss fights.

Completion time for the average mission can be anything from 1 to 10 mins, and quicker on replays.

drumbeg

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Aha, I must have misread/misremembered something because I thought the second boss was billed as the true meanie. Which had me worried given that the first one was a doubleard bastard.

The Chapter 1 boss is significantly harder than the tutorial boss if those are the ones you mean.

I thought the tutorial boss was hard initially, on going back later it was no bother whatsoever.

Moot_Geeza

Oh noes.

Moot_Geeza

The one I thought was bothersome was a helicopter that seemed impervious to gunfire unless you tenderised it with a sword a few times first. Haven't played further than that yet.

drumbeg

If you look at your weapons, you will see that they have an impact rating as well as attack power. The higher the impact, the more damage you will do to their stagger bar, then once in stagger state you can hit them with more attack power focussed weapons.

impact->stagger->damage->repeat seems to be the rhythm that the game is asking of you. It's the way I played it anyway.

stormyskiesahead

^This is absolutely the way^

Moot_Geeza

That's kind of the way I got rid of the heli boss. Will have another go tonight.

stormyskiesahead

Yup, it's a good boss for teaching you those basics, even if - like me - you were unaware of it at the time. Against bosses and elite-type enemies having a good build and managing your weapon rotation (you don't wanna be reloading while the enemy is staggered) becomes essential the further you get.

Even against the chaff in easier missions there might be certain weapons that'll make things even breezier. From multi-lock missiles vs mobile enemies, to AoE for groups of slower enemies, to vertical missiles for those with shields or behind cover. There's so many routes you can take with it, especially when you start to experiment with AC parts as well.

I liked it a lot from the very beginning, and as Drumbeg said, it just keeps getting better. The first part of act 1 gets you used to the mechanics and systems and gives you easily farmable missions, and from there it just ramps up. And man it all just feels so good to play. The speed, mobility, and satisfaction of the various weapons make combat a joy. It's basically everything I've wanted from a new mech game for the last decade or so.

Moot_Geeza

I want to like it (as of course anyone does with something they've just bought) but I did struggle a bit with that first session. More to do with not enjoying the general flow of it than the difficulty, most good bosses should take a few attempts anyway imo. It didn't have the 'OMG OK wow' first impression that Returnal made, for example (odd comparison perhaps but I don't play a lot of third person 3D shooters). All eyes on the next few stages.

drumbeg

Yeah, Returnal was love at first sight for me, whereas this took me a while to get into it.

Moot_Geeza

Thank God I've found the reload button, couldn't handle what I thought was an insistence on depleting the whole magazine. Breezed through a few small missions and just took out an enemy AC. I like this now.

My main problem at this stage is a control issue - I keep accidentally pressing the L3 button in the thick of it. I might try remapping it next time but I'm not sure where to.

stormyskiesahead

Aye, I had exactly the same issue with assault boost early on. I did try swapping L3 with quick boost on square/x to try and minimise the issues with miss-clicking but it didn't feel right for me. In the end the problem just disappear the more comfortable I got with the crazy high actions-per-minute during fights and began to relax my death grip.

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