Stagger

[TimTriesAiming]

What a fantastic mechanic for Armored Core. Let's favor heavy builds more than they already are, and force a meta on the players based around building up a gauge in order to deal damage. I mean who wants dumb stuff like heat/energy management in a mecha game when they can have Sekiro stagger instead?
Why sweat for 5-10 mins zooming like a madman to avoid every hit in a light mech, when I can just Unga Bunga my way to the top by picking tank treads and doing nothing but spamming alpha strikes with high impact weapons?
It's also much appreciated they removed gear slots and overall customization. My tiny American brain is too smooth to contemplate and sort through advanced things like countermeasures.

Still a 8*/10 because I'm enjoying most aspects, but if & when AC7 comes out I hope they ditch this trash stagger mechanic and go back to heat/energy management.

[Mortis]

I'd like to know why stagger only really effects the player. Why am I brought to a entire halt unable to do anything, even activate a repair kit, yet enemies can still move around and fire their weapons? I've got no problem with stagger as a mechanic, I just want to know why it's one sided.

[HypetheKomodo]

Heat was an awful mechanic. "Oh, you're playing aggressively? Gonna punish you with not only heat accumulated from your enemies, but from you having the audacity of firing your weapons." It got worse when it went beyond doing damage over time to actively draining your energy as well.

Speaking of, you still have to manage your energy, just in a different way. Boosting hasn't cost energy since AC4 and it's better for it.

And trust me, heavyweight builds can get dumpstered in some missions. Going super heavy with Zimmers can very well backfire.

[The Rizzler]

Originally posted by TimTriesAiming:

What a fantastic mechanic for Armored Core. Let's favor heavy builds more than they already are, and force a meta on the players based around building up a gauge in order to deal damage. I mean who wants dumb stuff like heat/energy management in a mecha game when they can have Sekiro stagger instead?
Why sweat for 5-10 mins zooming like a madman to avoid every hit in a light mech, when I can just Unga Bunga my way to the top by picking tank treads and doing nothing but spamming alpha strikes with high impact weapons?
It's also much appreciated they removed gear slots and overall customization. My tiny American brain is too smooth to contemplate and sort through advanced things like countermeasures.

Still a 7/10 because I'm enjoying most aspects, but if & when AC7 comes out I hope they ditch this trash stagger mechanic and go back to heat/energy management.

Okay, can we like, stop?

Healing potions didn't come from dark Souls

Staggering Didn't come form Sekiro


And just because A game is hard Doesn't mean it's dark souls

[Blackmage]

Yeah, I originally thought the stagger system was going to be an improvement, and an optional feature. Like, you can choose to build around stagger damage, but base damage would still be key. I didn't expect it to be the meat of the combat system. You can't deal any meaningful damage to bigger enemies without staggering them. There is pretty much no point in ever bothering with light machine guns or rifles unless you know the mission consists of only light MTs.

[ptp120122]

Originally posted by HypetheKomodo:

Heat was an awful mechanic. "Oh, you're playing aggressively? Gonna punish you with not only heat accumulated from your enemies, but from you having the audacity of firing your weapons." It got worse when it went beyond doing damage over time to actively draining your energy as well.

Speaking of, you still have to manage your energy, just in a different way. Boosting hasn't cost energy since AC4 and it's better for it.

And trust me, heavyweight builds can get dumpstered in some missions. Going super heavy with Zimmers can very well backfire.

The closer we can get AC to a lite mech sim, the better. Heat draining energy did suck though. It should just cause AP damage, and explode munitions stored in your AC.

[DirtyMick]

Ya I don't like heat, but I also don't like this stagger ♥♥♥♥. Can't please everyone i know, but stagger is such an unfun mechanic that throws off the balance of everything. However, idk what mortis is talking about.. stagger absolutely wrecks bosses. It's the whole goal of boss fights. Stagger them quickly, and melt a quarter of their health bar during it. It doesn't just affect the player at all, not one bit. Its a huge part of killing enemies.

[MMB]

Akimbo Small smg's do more damage while boosting and increase stagger incredibly fast.

[Mortis]

Originally posted by DirtyMick:

Ya I don't like heat, but I also don't like this stagger ♥♥♥♥. Can't please everyone i know, but stagger is such an unfun mechanic that throws off the balance of everything. However, idk what mortis is talking about.. stagger absolutely wrecks bosses. It's the whole goal of boss fights. Stagger them quickly, and melt a quarter of their health bar during it.

I'm talking about in AC fights, only really had it happen in the Arena. Bosses have always behaved as I would expect but when fighting ACs the stagger windows are either ridiculously short or they seem to ignore that they're staggered

[Call Sign: Raven]

Originally posted by Mortis:

I'd like to know why stagger only really effects the player. Why am I brought to a entire halt unable to do anything, even activate a repair kit, yet enemies can still move around and fire their weapons? I've got no problem with stagger as a mechanic, I just want to know why it's one sided.

I've never staggered an enemy only for it to move around. They stand around just as long as I do when I stagger. Maybe you're encountering a bug?

[Blackmage]

Originally posted by ptphetsavanh:

Originally posted by HypetheKomodo:

Heat was an awful mechanic. "Oh, you're playing aggressively? Gonna punish you with not only heat accumulated from your enemies, but from you having the audacity of firing your weapons." It got worse when it went beyond doing damage over time to actively draining your energy as well.

Speaking of, you still have to manage your energy, just in a different way. Boosting hasn't cost energy since AC4 and it's better for it.

And trust me, heavyweight builds can get dumpstered in some missions. Going super heavy with Zimmers can very well backfire.

The closer we can get AC to a lite mech sim, the better. Heat draining energy did suck though. It should just cause AP damage, and explode munitions stored in your AC.

I actually liked the heat mechanic. It opened up many opportunities for play styles and environmental hazards.

People seem to hate it because it was an inconvenience. Being a problem was the whole point of the heat mechanic. If you hated managing heat, then it did it's job right. It's one of the reasons why I rate Nexus as one of the best games in the whole series even though everyone else says heat was over-tuned in that game. If heat was too weak, then there was no point in having it.

And heat didn't punish lightweight mechs, it kept them in check. And heavy ACs could benefit from the best radiators.

[Razek2648]

If Heat ever returned to replace the stagger system, it should be something that punishes you because you did it to yourself. If you go balls to the wall and overheat your mech, then you start taking more damage for it. That can be offset by damn good skill to evade those deadlier attacks being made against you. It was unfun to have your energy sucked away, your AP drained, and in the worst cases, your mech fully shut down. Taking more damage while overheated would be more of a tactical decision that less punishing to more skilled players. "Do I go beast mode and put it all on the line? Or do I hold back and manage at a steadier tempo?"

[RadioMars]

Are you acting fast enough? Go in multiplayer and compare how stagger works there. It's not that different really. People will be moving away from your attack if you're too slow. I'm actually finding myself occasionally using the same combos I came up with for enemies.

[HypetheKomodo]

Because I missed it because man I really hate the heat mechanic, my thoughts on stagger are mixed. On one hand I feel it's great to reward aggressive play. Being defensive and such is never a good time.

On the other, stagger is more or less required. It adds so much damage and the boss stops attacking you (unless you get input read and it breaks out of it's stagger state) which is a pretty huge deal. There's little reason to use weapons that cause little stagger because you're basically shooting peas.

I feel it could be more refined.

It's one of the reasons why I rate Nexus as one of the best games

Nexus is also one of my absolute favorites. It sure isn't because of heat, though.

[TimTriesAiming]

Originally posted by HypetheKomodo:

Heat was an awful mechanic. "Oh, you're playing aggressively? Gonna punish you with not only heat accumulated from your enemies, but from you having the audacity of firing your weapons." It got worse when it went beyond doing damage over time to actively draining your energy as well.

It definitely had its annoyances but I find it much preferable to building the game around a stagger meta. It reminds me of Vulnerable meta in D4, in that it limited viability across the spectrum. Also it really sucked how the management didn't apply to enemies in previous titles, and at least for stagger I can say it is applicable to them as well. So that's a plus.

Originally posted by HypetheKomodo:

Speaking of, you still have to manage your energy, just in a different way. Boosting hasn't cost energy since AC4 and it's better for it.

I do like this change. And yes, there is still energy management, but really where I was going is how energy weapons are solely tied to ammo reserves where they weren't completely in the older titles.

Originally posted by HypetheKomodo:

And trust me, heavyweight builds can get dumpstered in some missions. Going super heavy with Zimmers can very well backfire.

I enjoy this part of building for the mission requirements, it can just get silly depending on what sits at the end of the stage. Being able to switch builds is nice though.

Originally posted by The Rizzler:

Okay, can we like, stop?
Healing potions didn't come from dark Souls
Staggering Didn't come form Sekiro
And just because A game is hard Doesn't mean it's dark souls

Not once did I mention Souls, only a specific mechanic from one of FromSofts games that made its way into this one.

Originally posted by Blackmage:

Yeah, I originally thought the stagger system was going to be an improvement, and an optional feature. Like, you can choose to build around stagger damage, but base damage would still be key. I didn't expect it to be the meat of the combat system. You can't deal any meaningful damage to bigger enemies without staggering them. There is pretty much no point in ever bothering with light machine guns or rifles unless you know the mission consists of only light MTs.

This is probably the best way to describe my feelings on it. Requiring stagger just doesn't feel great and hampers viability of off-meta builds IME.

[RadioMars]

Stagger seems to be a failure because it was supposed to make players act more agressively in game, but instead it made them gather on forums and cry in unison.