Why Armored Core remained niche, while Demon's Souls became so insanely popular From can't stop remaking it?

Nah. Get fucked. From is going to make something new and I don't blame them. Pro tip: The Mega Man fanbase is not one you want to emulate.

Because they are better and harder games that millenials can't handle.

Nah, it's new loop of the same game for 15 times. We already have 4 DS reiterations sans the original, at least 10 more to go.

Mechs make normal people feel insecure.

Also all the numbers probably scare off people who, for some reason or another, have developed a fear reflex when staring at numbers and trying to figure out how they relate to something. But it's so obtuse that it might even scare off people who are too autistic and want to know EXACTLY what each number means. So you need a middle ground of "people autistic enough to love that much detail, but not actually autistic".

They games have always been perceived as difficult to control. And the idea of 3d combat seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable as well. Also the game requires a certain smoothness to it, that even seasoned game players find difficult to do.

Every game, without exception, has not been "pick up and play" in the sense that a regular person would enjoy it. You have to invest some time and energy thinking about the mech, how you control it, how you want it to control, etc. This is innately a type of self-reflection, something that (I don't know why) games very rarely ask you to do. The game requires you to think about how you play it, but in a technical manner. It's sort of strange when you realize what I am referencing.

It's also always been sort of a strange game. Settings are always a little strange, art design many people find strange, and the narratives always seem impenetrable compared to other games which spell it all out for you.

And there there is the variety problem. You essentially have 3 armored core game series: 1-LR, 4/4A, and 5/VD.

It's like everything about the series is designed to be repellent to a passing interest. Which is fine, but it isn't because that means there is no reason to make more of them.

That's some spiteful shit.

No AC in your future then. Guess you will have to be content with the vast library you already have access to.

From literally made 20 Armored Cores. I like the series too but crying like a bitch that you are getting shafted is ridiculous with this series.

Who are you trying to implicate? Hey people who like the series want more. Blow it out your fucking ass. Do you have an argument for why not? Why people shouldn't want more of the series if they like it?

Your opening post was crying about how they are making too many meme souls and that they need to make more AC. Last I checked 20 is five times more than 4. Your butthurt comes off as whiny and ridiculous m8.

Yeah but several of those AC games are dated and of a lower budget than the AAA quality titles from puts nowadays.

I'm not OP, genius. Pay attention to detail, you will last longer.

...

Fair enough. I got too hasty and didn't check my wording. My point remains and pointing out a mistaken word doesn't constitute a counter argument. We have been blessed with 20 games is a great series. Like said some of them weren't as good as others but a high overall quality was consistent through the series. I will not begrudge From for wanting to make other games. Every great series should be so lucky as AC to get so many quality games. A new good mecha series is what I desire and feel upset by not receiving. I fear the genre will never recover in the current industry climate.

Armored Cuck is garbage, and it invented nothing new. Shogo from 1998 had everything AC has, minus the customization, but who cares about customization.

Souls is garbage too, but the combat is fun, simple, and unique. No wonder why it go so popular.

Seeing what happened with post PS2 AC I'd rather not have more of that shit

Souls brings in the normalfag cash, that's why. At least AC got a lot of games and might still get more, unlike pic related that sold less than 50k units.

Normalfags are scum.

...

I only played the PS2 Armored core, and I liked it, I liked that I could make myself into a tank, or be a big fighting mech, and that my radar choices, or choosing to mount hella guns instead of radar mattered.

Wait am I thinking of the right game? With all the many many parts for mech customization and everything?

Only thing close to it that I liked was Phantom Crash with its Gun Launcher. Only thing I didn't like with that was only 3[?] maps, and only 3 bodies/types of mech.

I'll bite.
In shogo there is virtually no difference between controlling dude and robot. Robot operates just like big human.

In AC robot actually operates like a machine, not a person.

No it wasn't, each game sold like several hundred thousand copies.
Are you implying FromSoft didn't make 15 AC games?

Fuck your AC

Five of which were mobile games that never released outside of Japan, V was trash and Nine-Breaker was never much of an Armored Core game.

Someone bought that IP.

It's the guy making the early access clone

Yeah, and I wish they did but each souls game was actually WORSE than DaS. Dark Souls was the only step up from DeS. Dark Souls 2 and 3 somehow managed to be MORE buggy and shit than Dark Souls.

C-c'mon, no need to be like that!
Armored Core 6 is gonna come! And it'll be good!
They might even have Miyazaki on it like they did in For Answer!

Which is currently on sale. It's 40% off for memorial day. He never puts the fucker on sale so this might be your only shot at it for cheap.

twitter.com/BombdogStudios/status/737146468708941824/photo/1

Buy it from his site, not steam. If you want to use steam he'll give you a steam code. As of the most recent updates the sound system has been reworked, parks fly off and throw debris, the unlock system works for parts and it runs better.

If you were a whore for chrome hounds this'll scratch the itch.

Honestly, if they ever made another AC I'd hope for it to actually end the series. V shows they don't really know where they want to go with it.

Fucking scratch that apparently it's not on sale on his site. Email him and he might give you a deal and bitch me out for increasing his workload

Cant buy it at the moment internet went out in my dorms and probably wont be up until later this week, I dont really mind buying it full price though.
will there be economic and political mechanics like in the 360 multiplayer?
how did he get the ip

Yeah, all I want is one more and an HD release of 3-LR.

Biggest problem with V/VD was the online focus especially when everyone isn't on the same server.

Yeah the campaign mode will be a persistent war like the Neroimus War mode. There'll be a story aside from that, those aren't the same game mode. He bought the IP, don't really have details past that. Why are we talking about the IP in spoilers, is this like whispering? :^)

Tell that faggot to hurry up.
You were the one who got him here a while ago right?

because AC5 and Verdict Day were dogshit

Yes I am the DESIGNATED shitposter. I can say with some certainty he's working at a good pace because holy fuck he replies to threads on the bugfixing forum immediately but ignores any attempts to contact him otherwise. It's like playing yandere sim trying to get a hold of him I swear to fuck.

They betrayed the vision and turned the project over to a bunch of asset monkeys for easy cash. They did the same to the Souls series. The people that are left are not worthy of making either.

No way in Hell am I doing that

Armored core died mainly because the fans of AC didn't like the next installments. I myself really liked AC2, I didn't like the bunny hopping in 3 and beyond. In addition most of the fan base really hated 4 and 5, it died due to the later games being too different in play style from the previous games. As for the souls series it only really got popular around Dark Souls, and that was a success of marketing not game design. It was marketed as being really hard(it isn't) and the people who play things like lol or DoTA flocked to it. Ruining everything forever

I tried playing 4A and while I S-ranked every mission (even the Hard levels holy fuck), it was tough getting into it. Playing multiplayer you had to complete every mission on S-Rank to get your mech to it's full potential, otherwise you would get wrecked. There was a lot of number-crunching which I usually don't mind, but fuck me if it wasn't tedious trying to figure out how to properly build a mech. First you build your mech, then you test it out in the practice arena, then you find that your mech feels off, but you don't know why, then you quit the practice arena to tune-up your mech in the vague hopes it will work this time. Taking into consideration how many parts you had that you could choose from (nearing 20 or so), it was almost impossible to even start making your own custom mech that wouldn't get it's shit pushed in the moment you started a multiplayer match.

Had there been an easier way to tell what parameters improved your mech's actions a bit better, it would have been a half-way serviceable game. Autistically going to the garage screen, then to the part screen to change one part, then heading off to practice mode to see if it improved my movement, then figuring out it didn't after "feeling" for if it improved or not, and then doing it all over again a gorillion times wasn't my idea of a hard mech game. It isn't so much hard to make a mech as it is overly complicated.

One part is making the thing, the other is learning to control it. If your robots stats are already fucked, there's no point trying to learn to control it. If you don't know how to make a mech work and you don't know how it should control, how the fuck can you even get started? I really tried to like it, looking up builds and "practicing" (jumping into multiplayer only to get a faceful of Kojima particles in the first few seconds), but it was just too damned much.

That's not a bad comparison, two fanbases who got a shitload of games and still won't shut the fuck up begging for more.

Mega Man had multiple annual releases for thirty years, Armored Core only has half of that because it did the same thing, but only for fifteen years.

>AC 4/FA happened in my humble opinion they're the best ones

The instruction manual tells you what all the variables are. And you ignore a lot of variables when you decide what your planning on doing since they're worthless for certain roles, period.

Even with a guide you still have to trial and error the hidden variables like aerodynamics.

Who the fuck complained about that?
One of the most fun things in the original game was flying around, but you could barely do that without losing control.

Armored core was pretty popular relative to the industry size.
Fromsoft just dropped the ball hard with 4 and 5 and killed the series for good.

its n1 streamers/twitch game

The problem isn't that I didn't know what the variables did or that I tried to evenly distribute my stats. It was more of a problem that I couldn't tell the difference if something changed when I started to control my mech. Energy and weight I could get a handle on, but trying to balance my mech to turn quickly? Or trying to figure out how leg mobility worked? Not to mention if my weapons would even hit their targets by getting a suitable processor or arm parts? It was confusing and frustrating. I wish I could be good at this crap, but there's no way to tell if what I'm doing is improving diddly squat.

You know what's going to happen if they make another Armored Core? It's going to be F2P

Are the PSP ports of 3 and SL worth playing over the PS2 version I'd play the PS2 version but PCSX2 has borked transparency and this triggers my autism more than it used to

If you're playing on an actual PSP, your hands going to suffer. If you're emulating, the controls are still pretty ass.

Demon's Souls only became popular some time later after released. It was initially shit on because people didn't understand it.

Armored Core is sweet, but the older games were better.

We are never getting a sequel to Crome Hounds are we?.

Yes, I remember this very well, my acquaintances told me about this game and how shit it is because of stamina bar and dying and not still getting your points unless you go get them, and the "poise" thing etc.

And I felt the same for the first five or so hours, but after that it was love. I don't think many can claim that DeS was love at first sight.

mechs aren't as accessible as fantasy, and playing armored core "right" involves some study

dark souls at its core is pretty simple, you can still beat the game with crummy stats and the the stat allocation is mostly "level this up to kill faster, and this up to die slower" and AC is more in depth

MAV is a solid game and the guy is really nice. He came over here one time and said he was scared to visit but glad he did because people here were honest and gave critiques.

that's not how i remember it, it was going to be JP only but everyone got curious about because at the time it was pretty unique

I remember when this wasn't true

I'm pretty sure normalfags just get turned off by mecha. Why else do we not have more SHOGO, Slave Zero, Earthsiege, Mechwarrior or Steel Battalion(okay maybe steel battalion kinect killed it) games?

Pretty sure it's like 50 or something

Also the reason why I want another one is that I want one that's made well and not a rushed hackjob.

Depends on which AC though, AC2 you can wing it with a retarded build, starting from Nexus though you have to put research in it or you're gonna get fucked.

Except the fact that everyone was zipping around so fast, the servers and frame rate could keep up, leading to the popular practice of lag-blading

Not to mention the amount of hacking that went on in the multiplayer, jesus christ.

I liked V/VD for slowing the game down and making it a bit more tactical, rather then just who can make their make go the fastest to the point where you might as well not have the FCS at all. That or you would just get Kojima-lanced and die right off the bat. Super fun.

the soulsfags i've talked to find mecha too obtuse and unapproachable, adding three armor/damage types in v didn't really help

souls was a good game in the right place at the right time.

i just want one with an actual playerbase ;_;

do people still play vd in the west or do i need to buy a japanese version to even get matches?

...

The PS3 version is moderately populated, while the 360 is a wasteland.

Though, if you want a big population, you'll have to grab a jp copy of the ps3

Every game made before demon souls sold 0.1 M

who cares that niche is niche

People just straight up don't like robots/mecha (yeah I know, what a bunch of faggots).
I remember reading some Pacific Rim review by some hipster (he gave it 4/5 or 3.5/5 I can't remember) and he said something like this: "This film is good, but with robots it looks kinda childish, ugh…".
What kind of animal you have to be not to like some nice robot/mecha?

Nigger MAV is unoptimized as fuck. My rig is pretty powerful and this piece of shit chugs at 20fps on absolute lowest settings. I know the dev is a decent dude but he really needs to get busy fixing his game if he want's it to go anywhere.

Armored Core at least has had a lot of entries. Meanwhile, other various From Soft IPs, like Otogi, Lost Kingdoms, Shadow Tower, and Echo Night have two, maybe three entries at best.

Doesn't help that the media apparently didn't think Xbox owners here cared to hear much about those games.

Probably because AC has mediocre combat compared to many other mech games, while DeS/DaS have very good combat compared to the vast majority of ARPGs.

what the hell would they prefer to fight the kaiju

Oh good an Armored Core thread.

I got started on the series with the PS1 games but I got bored during master of arena because all 3 games are basically the same but progressively better. Once you have all the parts, infinite money and a loadout you're comfortable with the game becomes a chore.
Should I go back and finish master of arena or move onto the PS2 games?

I would suggest finishing MoA, since it has some impact on the story of AC2.

Explain Transformers

The focus of the bayformer movies is not the transformers because they are targeted at normalfags. Normalfags don't give a fuck about any other part of the franchise.

For majority of people giant robots are somehow more ridiculous than dragons, magicians and space monsters combined.

I mean the toys and the cartoons
They lasted this long non-stop with conventions every year to boot
That has to count for something, no?

You really think they targeted anything other than a niche audience? Most people could not give a fuck about the cartoons and toys.

I want some more Otogi and 3D Dot Game Heroes from From.

At least give us a HD remake of AC, one with proper clunky machine controls and crazy customisation. I want to build a spider mech with no arms, just guns.

Normalfags hate it because "not realistic"

There are "space monsters" out there in the universe, and fiction featuring them is able to tap into our primal fear of the unknown for an excellent horror experience.

High fantasy largely draws from European culture and mythology, so it's easy for whites to take pleasure in that setting.

Meanwhile, giant robots (that are being controlled by humans) are ridiculous, impractical, and ridiculously impractical in a "realistic" setting, so the only way for them to work is to take place in a highly stylized and futuristic alternate timeline which is something nips excel at.

The quick rapid turns are not based on parts but is a specific controller based input involving skill.

Leg mobility is decided by the type of legs you use first, the rest of the stats are in comparison to the legs in it's type. The light thin legs are fast and the big bulky ones are slow but allows heavier loads, the quads, treads, and hover are "special" and they have very different ways of operating then the rest of the leg selections.

Weapon accuracy is dependent on ballistics velocity (how fast the shots you fired are), arm maneuverability, melee ability, and FCS. In addition to arm maneuverability and firing ballistics there is Stability and Firing Stability this is involved with being stunned when hit and recoil impact respectively because if your stunned it fucks your FCS (auto-targeting). Some other factors include Aim Precision which is a cap of how accurate you could ever be with an arm vs the weapon's accuracy (the lowest variable between the two not the highest), ECM Resistance which affects your Radar which in turn affects your range (but nothing else involving FCS) lower is better, and parralel processing which determines how good your FCS is with using multiple weapons and weapon types at once if your not dual wielding this isn't that important. Finally for FCS the head part is the most important.

Regardless of these factors you still have to git gud at keeping yourself positioned to keep that lock-on.

*Oh right, some weapon types are deliberately obtuse in how they fire or are full auto in execution, skill is the deciding factor in their use.

plebs, tacticool with is best

the audience overlaps m8
manchildren
seriously if you want to go after the real normalfags then you gotta capture the manchild audience first

**full manual in execution

Fuck Armored Core and Souls, I want a new Tenchu Z or Tenchu game at all.

I'd kill for a Gurren Lagann-esque Transformers show.
It's not like it already isn't considering they already have fucking planet sized robots.

I am disappointed at your low power level

I was looking forward to Xbox emulation just so I could play Otogi without it fucking up. I loved that game and its sequel.

The game might not be great, but fuck if I didn't like that take on how to do an action games. As far as I know, no one copied that way of doing action games, either. At least with From's mech games there is a high possibility of imitators showing up.

i would love to play ninja gaiden black again too but so far there doesn't seem to be anything good

Fuck you. I am all over the place. I check this shit hole randomly and here you are, shit talking. Don't you have more ranks to hit 100 in ;)

Working on it, I swear!

What is the best way to connect PS2 to pc monitor with vga/hdmi inputs. Are these any good? Is there a delay input?

amazon.com/Jrelecs®-Video-Monitor-Converter-Switcher/dp/B00UWDIEGW

Wanna play some AC and AC.

Yeah I forgot about those.
My only explanation is Shia, Megan Fox, FUCK YEAR US ARMY and Michael Bay-esque visuals and directing. If any one else tried directing those movies they wouldn't be as half as successful.

An XRGB framemeister or some otehr model and because the PS2 is 480i you'll always have 2 frames of delay at the very least.

There are mods to output 480p via VGA but those are hit and miss and more than half the games do not work at all.

Fuck that's expensive. I can buy top of the line tube TV for half of the money.

Even with XRGB that you posted, or just with low tier models like in my last post?

Yeah even with that, ceapezr model generally just have worse image quality but the very cheap ones can add a few frames on top of that.

*cheaper
I dunno what happened there

Fuck it I'm buying tube. I could even get decent one for free.

The 4th movie had no fox, shia, or blatant US Army propaganda, yet it made the most money so far

Mecha is not massively popular.
8ch.net/m/res/13974.html

Judging from every discussion on the matter i've seen, they have actually been arguing in favor of building the wall. They don't even always talk about adding guns, just making the wall bigger

That's because the Chinese actually like robots. They made Pacific Rim a success too.

Hold the fucking phone. Lost Kingdoms was From? I must've rented 2 like four times from Blockbuster. That game was the fucking shit.

Lost Kingdoms is one of the greatest franchises that few people have ever played, lol

Yeah. Both were developed by From Software and published in the west by Activision (for whatever reason; not entirely sure why they were interested) under the name Lost Kingdoms (IP goes by "Rune" in Japan; think there's a Norse themed game/series in the west that already had that name here, hence the change). Of course, only Activision's name is on the front covers if memory serves. Have to flip it to the back to see From mentioned.

From Software used to have a decent variety of things they did, and up through sixth gen had a variety of IPs that could have kept on going. Lately it's seemed like mostly Souls games though, for better or worse.

At least Lost Kingdoms is still pretty cheap for a Gamecube game, at maybe $15-20 these days where I live. Lost Kingdoms II is at least $40 though around here, and that's if you can even find a copy.

I don't know that I ever played the first one; might just check that out. Sweet.

I can't pick up an AC game now without having flashbacks to simpler times

AC has Animu
DS doesn't.

So what?

Animu ruined Japan. It's absence allows for depth, faith in depth.

Once touched by animu something has no soul.

Not serious, not human, an invitation to degenerates to reappropriate it and anything coming in into their religion.

What?

Pretty sure Fort Tower Song was shitcanned.

All over the place like a fart in a glove.

You're acting a bit like Phil Fish right now, mate.

Nah, he's just taking the piss. He couldn't hit phil fish levels if he tried.

I don't know about armoured core. But Dark Souls is taking advantage of a niche that hasn't been touched since 2001, a niche which at the time was already incredibly popular. I'm really confused as to why it's so under populated.

Shit hurts man.

Ded gaem, mech customisation is non-existent and the game does not respect the robot enough.

Closest we got is AC V for the operator view but servers are dead now so have fun with that. A shame, could have made a 8ch Holla Forums mercenary clan.

AC has that, but based on the limit, I'm tempted to say you played Phantom Crash's sequel on PS2 rather than a normal AC game, since there were several PS2 AC games.

...

I put the ;) in there and everything!

Armored Core was never great. Most of the goodness of the series came from the ideas it presented rather than the execution of them. The controls were sucky for the longest time and the graphics were always kinda ass for the era. The voice acting was hokey in the bad way and the localization wasn't great. It had cool customization and decent gameplay though which saved it, but games don't sell purely on gameplay, you have to pretty it up. Gotta polish that turd you know; polish it long enough and it'll outshine a diamond. FROMSOFTWARE never quite got this down pat. Most of their games sold like ass and I stand by my judgment that Souls' was a happy mistake made purely by the grace of Sony who helped fund and develop Demon's Souls. Had that not have happened then we would still be getting AC sequels that only barely sell in the west. AC4 really rocked the boat while ACV was just plain bad and nobody liked it which split a chasm in the fanbase. Demon's Souls was a success but Dark Souls outright exploded and became le hard game xd which garnered a lot of internet cred. Combine that with the rise of let's plays and general monetization and it went out of control from there.

You can't blame FS for wanting to stick to the easiest copy-paste shit that guarantees millions of sales. They accidentally made a great game for the first time in ~10 years, they ain't just gonna let that go.