Everyone is using XL Mace is multiplayer...

[Pankek]

I know the weapon is meta, but I almost never see players running their own custom builds in favor of using Atomic Bazooka x2 and Barbatos Lupus's Extra Large Mace.

While I don't really blame the players for gravitating towards the most powerful weapon by a country mile, there's almost no build variety in the game. XL Mace is just THAT dominating, especially for PG fights on higher difficulties, which will just take forever even with a well-spec'd non-meta build.

I feel like we're in a kinda weird spot here, especially because the devs will probably just sit and let this happen until the next content update to drop a balance patch of some sort. If you nerf the obvious meta, I think there will be people who'll just say the devs are being a fun police. On the flip side, if you buff the underpowered weapons to reach XL Mace status, then the game will literally lose all form of challenge. Buffing the enemies will just make the non-meta even more irrelevant.

Your thoughts?

[Aldain]

I just spent about 6 total hours making a fully custom build where the most "meta" weapon on it is probably the pair of Micro Missiles on its back.

Knowing that all the effort I put in balancing the aesthetics, Builder Parts, OP/EX loadouts, Paint Job and sticking to the core theme (It's exclusively build from GMs and GM derivative parts) gets rendered moot by nuke spam is saddening.

[Outsider]

Game is stupid easy anyway. With HP cartridge, ANY melee EX and 50 level weapons you can just button mash anything to death. Normal mobs, bosses, giant bosses, doesn't matter.
So people just expedite the process.
I was running with versatile build up until I finished the story, now I'm using missile boat to clear up all rank checkmarks simply because it's faster.

[Snakester]

Those people probably just want to complete the missions more easily to grind for parts and achievements. There are some parts that you can only get doing missions. Other than that, most people probably done spamming nukes and are now just making gunpla or dioramas (like me.) The game is really absurdly easy no matter the difficulty.

The devs could probably rework the AI and make weapon choices matter more. Maybe buff majority of weapons too but I doubt it'll happen.

[Touvez]

I like my astray with dual axe and some close combat OP that allow to make some really nice aerial combo … maybe not as strong as 2H weapons but it s fun . I use missiles as well … auto aim + multi target + knockdown … anti ship rifle and yeah a bazooka for when they as closed to each other but I don’t often use it … good on pg fight .

[sintri]

Originally posted by Snakester:

Those people probably just want to complete the missions more easily to grind for parts and achievements. There are some parts that you can only get doing missions. Other than that, most people probably done spamming nukes and are now just making gunpla or dioramas (like me.) The game is really absurdly easy no matter the difficulty.

The devs could probably rework the AI and make weapon choices matter more. Maybe buff majority of weapons too but I doubt it'll happen.

1+2 had variety, different amount of damage, cooldown, effects which also inevitably just leads to some stuff being better than others. That all changed in 3 when most things ended up just being pretty much the same in all respects to another, thus you're left with obvious "meta" builds.

Thing is, it's fine if everything's different, not everything is equal and nor do we need it to be. If everything performed the same, there'd be no reason to need to pick since everything would be the same.

[Dustfire]

honestly I've just been running the onboard weapons for the psycommu zaku arms paired with unarmed melee.

[Paladin]

I have like 13 kitbash builds so far and none of them use that.

Game is braindead easy, no need for meta builds.

[Vivianite]

Originally posted by Cipher:

Game is braindead easy, no need for meta builds.

[White Rabbit Alice]

Those who need 2 Atomic Bazookas are definatly over-compensating.

add the shield, and well.... damn.

[MechaDeka]

Pretty much the only reason to do co-op is to complete high level missions faster, so it's to be expected.

[Howling-MoMo]

it comes down to the combat being so simple if there was more to combos people could use diffrent weapons just because the look/feel cool but they are to simple for that leading to people picking the thing that gets the combat over with the fastest

[Lur Nen Rue]

in addition its not even the best option to do things
for big target jigen haoh build burning easily outperform nuke spam

for commander type breaking part via micro missile, lev shotgun, wild dance into ground pound deals millions of damage and mace pales in comparison

in metafolding convenience and popularity beats everything i guess ++ point for following the meme

ever head of steam forum people talking about 70% reaction continuous beam damage?, no?, i rest my case your majesty.

[Charsiew]

Originally posted by Crimson Kitsune:

Those who need 2 Atomic Bazookas are definatly over-compensating.

add the shield, and well.... damn.

I'm using all three, sue me cos I'm lazy to spend a lot of time grinding.

[素晴らしいポッサム]

My build I’ve been using lately has Gerbera Straight and Tiger Pierce and it’s funny watching him fly between enemies in a whirlwind of slashes, but Newtype Dark Gundam took a couple tries with it, so I do wish it was a little better, I guess. Most bosses are still down in under a minute though.

Haven’t tried Maces though since I don’t particularly like the look.

[Kinkoz Sagan]

I have blendered every PG boss in the game on Newtype with my basic two Saber-type weapons and each one well under the S-ranking par time.

Skill issue.