Is PvP a bit dead?

[SpiraTech]

Is PvP multiplayer a bit dead? Sitting here with a room created for 15 minutes and no one joining - no rooms available at all. I have found two rooms so far in the last week. Maybe a timezone issue? (UK time here)

[REAPER]

Originally posted by csand:

Originally posted by Reaper:

the pvp system should introduce different weight classes as a matchmaking criteria
it would make for much fairer fights

for example:
lightweights: < 70,000 load
heavyweights: > 80,000 load

Wait but one whiner says lights are ez mode. Another says heavies are . What is it?

I guess it must be pretty balanced then 😂

those fools saying lightweights are ez mode are all using bipedal hover missile boats with aurora missiles or charged pulse blade instagib build with netcode delay hitboxes

lightweights trying any other builds mentioned above will be demolished by heavyweights AC.

[Humbled]

PvP could definitely use some love.

[Demonos3]

Pv...P? What's that? Can you eat it?

[SpiraTech]

Originally posted by DirtyMick:

PvP was fun at first, but then you realize it's all build countering. X build beats Y build. You bring the wrong build for the match up, or the map, and you lose. You change builds, you win. They change builds you lose, you change, you win, and so on. Missiles win on wide open maps with no obstacles for cover. Heavy tanks beat light builds as long as you have good weapons. It's all very out of your hands when you realize your build just isn't good against theirs. That's why I got sick of it. Matches are predetermined just based on build/map, not skill. Sometimes you play against a weird build and just wanna change stuff around to see how to beat it, but they leave, or they change builds too and theres no wat to communicate that you just want to test some stuff out with them. You're automatically at an advantage simply by hosting instead of joining. There's no real stats to look at as far as wins/losses/damage taken/damage dealt, etc... you get 2 points for a win? What's that do? Nothing. It just gets old fast because of all of this.

Very good points. After playing now a handful or two of games the above echoes very true. The netcode / hitbox issues were quite obvious especially in close gameplay / melee attacks.

A bit like Pokémon where one type against another wouldn't win, but at least you could swap them out 🤣.

I think I'll just play it very occasionally or with friends to test stuff out for a laugh.

The netcode is there for co-op...

[Blackmage]

In my exprience, Armored Core was really a single-player experience before anything else. It needed to be because of how niche it always was. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, if you ever met someone who also played Armored Core, you made that person your best friend because it was so rare.
My point is there was no real need to balance the game with a high quality PvP experience in mind. That's why the use of H+/OP-I and the Karasawa in the classic games used to be a major point of contention. They were deliberately made to be broken and were blatantly unfair to use against someone without.
Even the Souls games were dominantly single-player experiences. Yeah the invasions were there, but a lot of people chose to play offline because they don't like the idea of someone making their experience even more frustrating than it already was. If I am going to play any sort of PvP, it's going to be with friends I know IRL, not with random strangers who will happily act like total dickwipes at my expense because they can't be held accountable.
So the way I see it, the practice/experience for good PvP just isn't there.

FromSoftware made it even harder for themselves with the fact they replaced cycling weapons and assigned each weapon slot its own input. Cycling weapons actually helped to keep OP weapons in check. This problem is amplified by hard-lock. Nothing is there to stop players from loading up the most OP weapons they got and firing them all at once. From Software was aware of this during development and implemented the accuracy penalty as a solution. But the accuracy penalty doesn't mean ♥♥♥♥ to melee, shotguns, missiles.

AC6 also has very weak late game. The replay value just isn't there. Once you've bought all the parts there isn't anything else to do but the lackluster PvP. And there is no sense in starting all over from scratch because of the mission replay and campaign loop.

[Fall Damage]

Not fond of how PVP is for AC6. No idea why From went this route as it feels as if they couldn't shelve their Soulslike genre for this entry.

AC4 and For Answer is still peak PVP experience.

[NotBer]

Originally posted by Fall Damage:

it feels as if they couldn't shelve their Soulslike genre for this entry

unfortunately, FromSoft is just a one-trick pony now

[Legion]

Originally posted by Technex:

Is PvP multiplayer a bit dead? Sitting here with a room created for 15 minutes and no one joining - no rooms available at all. I have found two rooms so far in the last week. Maybe a timezone issue? (UK time here)

Its more like people have had their fill, It was really fun doing the story and the PVP is just as fun trying to make your build and play style work against other people but they won't be able to keep playing AC6 PVP forever, eventually people will get satisfied with what they've experienced in PVP and play a different game.

This is the natural cycle of games with PVP, the only way for AC6 PVP to fill up again is new content with an expansion or DLC that brings in new parts to mix and match and new features and mechanics that gives the game a new way to play.

If you want PVP you could join an AC6 discord group and setup a PVP session there.

[DwightAllRight]

Originally posted by nubi:

Originally posted by Technex:

Is PvP multiplayer a bit dead? Sitting here with a room created for 15 minutes and no one joining - no rooms available at all. I have found two rooms so far in the last week. Maybe a timezone issue? (UK time here)

No PvP is very active, you just need to change your region to Global in network settings, almost nobody uses the specific regional servers.

This is exactly what the issue was for me. Changed to global network and instantly got matches consistently.

[Sinicero]

All said and done beside.

The active pvp player pool is shrinking. I lost count of the time i saw familiar faces in both lobbies and ranked MM.

It just the same dudes, dude.

Steam statistic also show that around 3k~5k people even consider AC6 a pvp game. I have no idea about the console playerbase tho, maybe they have it better over there.

Here is hope for crossplay.

[Akira]

Originally posted by Blackmage:

In my exprience, Armored Core was really a single-player experience before anything else. It needed to be because of how niche it always was. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, if you ever met someone who also played Armored Core, you made that person your best friend because it was so rare.
My point is there was no real need to balance the game with a high quality PvP experience in mind. That's why the use of H+/OP-I and the Karasawa in the classic games used to be a major point of contention. They were deliberately made to be broken and were blatantly unfair to use against someone without.
Even the Souls games were dominantly single-player experiences. Yeah the invasions were there, but a lot of people chose to play offline because they don't like the idea of someone making their experience even more frustrating than it already was. If I am going to play any sort of PvP, it's going to be with friends I know IRL, not with random strangers who will happily act like total dickwipes at my expense because they can't be held accountable.
So the way I see it, the practice/experience for good PvP just isn't there.

FromSoftware made it even harder for themselves with the fact they replaced cycling weapons and assigned each weapon slot its own input. Cycling weapons actually helped to keep OP weapons in check. This problem is amplified by hard-lock. Nothing is there to stop players from loading up the most OP weapons they got and firing them all at once. From Software was aware of this during development and implemented the accuracy penalty as a solution. But the accuracy penalty doesn't mean ♥♥♥♥ to melee, shotguns, missiles.

AC6 also has very weak late game. The replay value just isn't there. Once you've bought all the parts there isn't anything else to do but the lackluster PvP. And there is no sense in starting all over from scratch because of the mission replay and campaign loop.

I completely agree with this. They should've focused on making the game 100% SP. Could've added even more ACs in the arena, making some OP ones to spice things up at some points maybe, or even throwback to past AC games (imagine facing Nineball or White Glint? it's a simulation anyway, so no worries breaking the "lore"), which would also make even more parts to play around with available.

But instead they shoehorned the MP mode, done in a huge rush, because people insisted it needed one, and dreamed it would be the PvP cult the Souls games had and have to this day. Instead it's now the worst aspect in a game that is already very "meh" to start with.

Thing is, a lot of parts are unbalanced and some are straight useless. You can't have a game, which is built around having the player have freedom to customize his playstyle, without having actual feasible variety. Plus stagger mechanics, because they also had to shoehorn Sekiro here... with no actual reason at all.

[SpiraTech]

On this topic... Since the ranked update using global region finds a match fast as expected but due to the netcode issues it's completely hopeless 80 to 90% of the time and makes me just give up.

Setting region to Europe and I wait ages never to find a match...

Fun. What a shame they cheaped out and went with peer to peer rather than with proper dedicated servers with such a well selling game.

[Sinicero]

Originally posted by Technex:

On this topic... Since the ranked update using global region finds a match fast as expected but due to the netcode issues it's completely hopeless 80 to 90% of the time and makes me just give up.

Setting region to Europe and I wait ages never to find a match...

Fun. What a shame they cheaped out and went with peer to peer rather than with proper dedicated servers with such a well selling game.

On the defense of FS, they actually didn't think the game would sell that well.

And let's be real, FS use p2p with every game they design.

[SpiraTech]

Originally posted by Akira:

Originally posted by Blackmage:

In my exprience, Armored Core was really a single-player experience before anything else. It needed to be because of how niche it always was. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, if you ever met someone who also played Armored Core, you made that person your best friend because it was so rare.
My point is there was no real need to balance the game with a high quality PvP experience in mind. That's why the use of H+/OP-I and the Karasawa in the classic games used to be a major point of contention. They were deliberately made to be broken and were blatantly unfair to use against someone without.
Even the Souls games were dominantly single-player experiences. Yeah the invasions were there, but a lot of people chose to play offline because they don't like the idea of someone making their experience even more frustrating than it already was. If I am going to play any sort of PvP, it's going to be with friends I know IRL, not with random strangers who will happily act like total dickwipes at my expense because they can't be held accountable.
So the way I see it, the practice/experience for good PvP just isn't there.

FromSoftware made it even harder for themselves with the fact they replaced cycling weapons and assigned each weapon slot its own input. Cycling weapons actually helped to keep OP weapons in check. This problem is amplified by hard-lock. Nothing is there to stop players from loading up the most OP weapons they got and firing them all at once. From Software was aware of this during development and implemented the accuracy penalty as a solution. But the accuracy penalty doesn't mean ♥♥♥♥ to melee, shotguns, missiles.

AC6 also has very weak late game. The replay value just isn't there. Once you've bought all the parts there isn't anything else to do but the lackluster PvP. And there is no sense in starting all over from scratch because of the mission replay and campaign loop.

I completely agree with this. They should've focused on making the game 100% SP. Could've added even more ACs in the arena, making some OP ones to spice things up at some points maybe, or even throwback to past AC games (imagine facing Nineball or White Glint? it's a simulation anyway, so no worries breaking the "lore"), which would also make even more parts to play around with available.

But instead they shoehorned the MP mode, done in a huge rush, because people insisted it needed one, and dreamed it would be the PvP cult the Souls games had and have to this day. Instead it's now the worst aspect in a game that is already very "meh" to start with.

Thing is, a lot of parts are unbalanced and some are straight useless. You can't have a game, which is built around having the player have freedom to customize his playstyle, without having actual feasible variety. Plus stagger mechanics, because they also had to shoehorn Sekiro here... with no actual reason at all.

Agreed either do PvP properly or don't bother at all. Or at least don't push it in updates and news.

The arena was my favourite part about single player but it always felt way too easy. I'm hoping for an area dlc that would be my dream. Or vastly improved PvP (big doubt, cause the players won't be here by the time they recode it and hype has died again).

[Vitamin defincensy]

This is a problem. I've been reliant on my results with 1v1 custom matches to tweak my builds to perfection but I can barely ever find one let alone against someone who doesn't have a cheap build