Since the recent patch for Armored Core VI landed last year the game has added in ranked multiplayer, but it is definitely a mixed bag.
There are few things to unpick here, from actual game design flaws to shoddy netcode, so let’s get into the big stuff first.
Armored Core VI was clearly built as a singleplayer game, with the multiplayer being a tacked on extra. Back at launch, this was fine. The multiplayer setup was unranked and a full on free-for-all.
However, once you start ranking players, then it becomes more serious and a supposed empirical exercise in skill.
The issue with this is that Armored Core VI’s skill ceiling was lowered for newer players to cope with piloting mecha. From the target lock system to the stun setup, the game was trying to make itself more accessible from a singleplayer standpoint.
While that didn’t exactly work due to wacky balancing of early bosses, that were rightly toned down in later patches, the other singleplayer game design related concessions clearly started to break down when you treat multiplayer more seriously.
In that, the stun system makes most multiplayer matches sort of pointless. Whoever stuns who first tends to win outright. Yes, you can make builds that cater to this and win accordingly, but it is a far cry from the more considering multiplayer games out there.
The lack of pacing and strategy is a real issue for the most part, but this is only exacerbated by disappointing netcode.
FromSoftware is sadly already known for its haphazard netcode. What complicates this though is FromSoftware clearly doesn’t know or understand how shooting games work. The result of this is that not only is the timing sensitive stun setup rife for overuse, the netcode renders this system pretty unreliable.
The result is a ranked multiplayer that is by no means structured or supported in an empirical, balanced or fair way.
Overall, I don’t think this really affects Armored Core VI as a game, as the singleplayer focus was properly executed and that is the bulk of what this game is made for.
It’s just that the multiplayer design of the game wasn’t thought out properly in a longterm sense and didn’t have the netcode support and experience it needed.
I am still working my way through ranked multiplayer and I am sort of having fun, but it’s clear that the game is not structured properly for this kind of thing and is far inferior to prior Armored Core games.
Whether FromSoftware will continue to support the multiplayer is unclear, but I am not sure how these design issues can be resolved at this point, let alone the game’s netcode.
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