Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon (FromSoftware)

Leadsalad · Sep 4, 2023

Rajaah said:
Got a whole day to myself here so I'm playing this. I'm midway through chapter 3 now, about 12 hours on the clock. Is chapter 3 the last one? Saw a few online guides that end with it. The percentage on the home screen indicates that there might be five chapters. And at the rate I'm going I'll finish chapter 3 within 15 hours and I don't think the game is actually that short. How much do I have left?

Zaide I've been using the same build for most of it too, even though half the fun of Armored Core is trying different parts. Keep feeling like I should be trying something else out, something more agile/fun. Problem is, once I got the HK Tank treads, with their sky-high HP and weight allowances, I couldn't go back to anything else. From there I just loaded up with the heaviest, most defensive Havel-type stuff. With a Bazooka and two Songbirds I generally just charge in and face-tank foes while unleashing as much hell as possible, going for a Pile Driver melee hit when they're stunned or cornered. That last thing chunks boss HP, but you have to look for opportunistic strikes.

5 chapters total, 3 is the longest.

Zaide · Sep 4, 2023

Rajaah said:
Got a whole day to myself here so I'm playing this. I'm midway through chapter 3 now, about 12 hours on the clock. Is chapter 3 the last one? Saw a few online guides that end with it. The percentage on the home screen indicates that there might be five chapters. And at the rate I'm going I'll finish chapter 3 within 15 hours and I don't think the game is actually that short. How much do I have left?

Zaide I've been using the same build for most of it too, even though half the fun of Armored Core is trying different parts. Keep feeling like I should be trying something else out, something more agile/fun. Problem is, once I got the HK Tank treads, with their sky-high HP and weight allowances, I couldn't go back to anything else. From there I just loaded up with the heaviest, most defensive Havel-type stuff. With a Bazooka and two Songbirds I generally just charge in and face-tank foes while unleashing as much hell as possible, going for a Pile Driver melee hit when they're stunned or cornered. That last thing chunks boss HP, but you have to look for opportunistic strikes.

I've got 40 hours played. My first run was like 30+ hours, NG+ was a sprint. I spent a ton of time doing every arena, getting combat logs, finding the files, and getting S ranks on replays for the first chapter before I decided to say fuck all that.

Can't wait to wrap up NG++ and have all the ending/combat logs and arena tiers done.

OhSeven · Sep 4, 2023

Not really worried about S ranking every mission, I ended up settling into the dual miniguns and songbirds/stun needles with tank treads. Total brain dead build with so much AP and impact damage I ended up just ignoring a lot of mechanics on boss fights. Sure, I died a few times but it's been getting the job done.

Zaide · Sep 4, 2023

OhSeven said:
Not really worried about S ranking every mission, I ended up settling into the dual miniguns and songbirds/stun needles with tank treads. Total brain dead build with so much AP and impact damage I ended up just ignoring a lot of mechanics on boss fights. Sure, I died a few times but it's been getting the job done.

Same thing w/ shotguns and needles. I went back and found out some boss fights have like mid fight options to spare people or betray them and I was missing these because my DPS just burst them right down to dead before the trigger. The fight against Swineburn is one example. There was a whole bonus boss if you spared him and I never even got the option to spare him lol.

Intrinsic · Sep 4, 2023

What? lol I need to look some of this up. Been slowly playing through at night with newborn on my lap. The long term plan is to expose him to this early on so that by the time he’s 13 and the world has fallen apart he’ll be a savant mech warrior. Like Robot Jox.

Rajaah · Sep 5, 2023

I didn't know you could spare anyone either. I've been chewing through most of the bosses in seconds, then occasionally finding a boss where I die like 10x trying to figure out what to do. Ice Worm was a particularly annoying one until I realized I had to equip the rail gun (and then it was still annoying).

Whatever that graph was showing the game's difficulty curve as a flat line with a bunch of spikes, it was right. Most of the game is just steamroll territory and then the occasional super-hard fight.

Up to the Enforcer now (the one in Chapter 4 at the end of a really long mission) and I keep losing with him around 30% health. Such an annoying fight.

Switched from HK Tank to HK-Centurion build now and I think I'll stick with that for the rest. 2 Gatlings and 2 Songbirds.

I hope they have a special thanks to James Cameron in the credits (or Harlan Ellison lol)

Rajaah · Sep 5, 2023

I defeated the last possible foe in the Arena and didn't get the Master of Arena trophy. It must expand the list in NG+ or something along those lines.

Anyone going for the platinum? Sounds like

Zaide might be. I tend to plat From games but I'm not sure about this one, depends on how time-consuming it is.

Bloodrocuted · Sep 5, 2023

Yeah you unlock new arena opponents in both NG+ and NG++. I haven't checked requirements, do you need to S rank all missions for the plat? That could take some time

Zaide · Sep 5, 2023

Bloodrocuted said:
Yeah you unlock new arena opponents in both NG+ and NG++. I haven't checked requirements, do you need to S rank all missions for the plat? That could take some time

You do need to S rank every mission for plat. I love the game but idk if I’ve got the time to dedicate to that grind with all the other games available and rl priorities.

Hatorade · Sep 6, 2023

Tried a quad shotgun build, it is just insane sustained damage. Shoot swap shoot swap, no waiting for reloading.

Intrinsic · Sep 6, 2023

Hatorade said:
Tried a quad shotgun build, it is just insane sustained damage. Shoot swap shoot swap, no waiting for reloading.

What was the setup? Laser shotty or regular? I wanted to try that next.

Rajaah · Sep 6, 2023

Yeah I don't think I could do the "S rank all missions" thing. Sounds way too time-consuming. I was doing replays for all the stages up until Balteus and I only got a couple S-ranks in that time before I just couldn't be arsed with it anymore. The rest of the plat looks pretty doable, shame about that one trophy.

Hatorade said:
Tried a quad shotgun build, it is just insane sustained damage. Shoot swap shoot swap, no waiting for reloading.

That sounds like an awesome thing to try out. I only have like...one and a half chapters left and tomorrow I'm going to take a few hours and see if I can knock off the rest. I do like 2x Gatling + 2x Songbirds a LOT, but reloading/overheating has become a real issue and there are times when I'm locked out of all four weapons at once for several seconds.

Intrinsic said:
What was the setup? Laser shotty or regular? I wanted to try that next.

Also wondering this.

Zaide · Sep 6, 2023

Just run the early game shot guns for the quad build, they’re still beasts and do tons of damage and stagger. They also one shot all the MTs and reload faster than the zimms. If you run lasers then you need to spec Energy on top of kinetic in your OS build.

Pancreas · Sep 6, 2023

I really like laser Lance + the grenade launcher with the sharp point coming off it. That plus the boost kick is just a lot of fuck you in a short period of time. Overboost into a charged up Lance rocket punch is kinda my favorite thing at the moment.

Rajaah · Sep 6, 2023

Zaide said:
Just run the early game shot guns for the quad build, they’re still beasts and do tons of damage and stagger. They also one shot all the MTs and reload faster than the zimms. If you run lasers then you need to spec Energy on top of kinetic in your OS build.

How do you buy a 3rd and 4th of a particular weapon? It's only letting me buy two total of any particular weapon, one for each hand. I've got two Haldemans and two Zimmermans and switching between those.

Yeah lasers are a bit too much trouble, with EN shortfalls and energy spec. I've got a pretty good OS build set up. All of the Arena fights in the main campaign (so by early Chapter 4) give enough chips to do this:

-Repair Kit Effectiveness maxed (+2000)
-Damage Mitigation maxed (+15%)
-Kinetic Damage maxed (+15%)
-Direct Hit Modifier (Stagger damage) maxed (+15%)
-Weapon Bay
-Access Speed 1 (+50%)

This build is working very well for me overall. Switching to quad guns instead of Songbirds freed up some points to move from Explosives to max out Kinetics and Mitigation.

Hatorade · Sep 6, 2023

Intrinsic said:
What was the setup? Laser shotty or regular? I wanted to try that next.

The reg shotgun and then the longer range longer reload shotgun. Have to charge the laser ones and that defeats the purpose.

Rajaah can only buy two of each weapons.

Pancreas · Sep 6, 2023

Assault armor is busted. And cheap. It's usually enough to stagger a boss all by itself. Which is sometimes all you need to win a tough fight.

Really great when you use it right after a boss recovers from a previous stagger.

Zaide · Sep 6, 2023

Rajaah said:
How do you buy a 3rd and 4th of a particular weapon? It's only letting me buy two total of any particular weapon, one for each hand. I've got two Haldemans and two Zimmermans and switching between those.

Yeah lasers are a bit too much trouble, with EN shortfalls and energy spec. I've got a pretty good OS build set up. All of the Arena fights in the main campaign (so by early Chapter 4) give enough chips to do this:

-Repair Kit Effectiveness maxed (+2000)
-Damage Mitigation maxed (+15%)
-Kinetic Damage maxed (+15%)
-Direct Hit Modifier (Stagger damage) maxed (+15%)
-Weapon Bay
-Access Speed 1 (+50%)

This build is working very well for me overall. Switching to quad guns instead of Songbirds freed up some points to move from Explosives to max out Kinetics and Mitigation.

I mean have two Zims and then when you go quad buy the early game ones.

Rajaah · Sep 7, 2023

Finished the game. Good time, probably gonna be the best mech game on PS5 for a while. I finished it with quad legs and gatling/songbird or quad shotguns depending on the mission. Either seemed to work for crushing the endgame but I think 4x shotguns was best against bosses. Got both endings (used the PS Plus backup save to replay chapter 5).

A few downsides. It's kind of shallow, not a lot of build diversity at the end of the day. The soundtrack was so much weaker than the old ACs. Gen 1 to Gen 4 had incredible, emotive soundtracks. I think AC1 and Master of Arena might have both been top 20 soundtracks on the entire Playstation and probably hovering near top ten.

So yeah, the lack of brilliant music held this back a lot and at times even made it feel kind of soulless. But hey, it's good to have the series back and on a modern system.

Zaide · Sep 7, 2023

Rajaah said:
View attachment 489700
Finished the game. Good time, probably gonna be the best mech game on PS5 for a while. I finished it with quad legs and gatling/songbird or quad shotguns depending on the mission. Either seemed to work for crushing the endgame but I think 4x shotguns was best against bosses. Got both endings (used the PS Plus backup save to replay chapter 5).

A few downsides. It's kind of shallow, not a lot of build diversity at the end of the day. The soundtrack was so much weaker than the old ACs. Gen 1 to Gen 4 had incredible, emotive soundtracks. I think AC1 and Master of Arena might have both been top 20 soundtracks on the entire Playstation and probably hovering near top ten.

So yeah, the lack of brilliant music held this back a lot and at times even made it feel kind of soulless. But hey, it's good to have the series back and on a modern system.

You’re doing yourself a disservice doing the endings that way. There are alt missions and shit in NG+ that are really cool and you can’t get the third ending at all (plus a ton of unique missions) without doing both endings on one save.

Did you ambush the Vespers or deal with the Red Guns?

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon (FromSoftware)

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