why no pvp balance?

[colui]

if you have a personal build(like me) and want to play like you want, simply you cant, there is this broken meta of double pistols or shotguns, i dont mind if u use that in pve, but in pvp is uncanterable

[Lannach]

PvE-focused game. They told us from the beginning and did some PvP balancing nonetheless.
Thing is : there's no saving AC6 PvP while remaining AC6 even if you balance everything
and rather than shotguns being too strong i would say AC6 itself is overtuned for it ; think about it :
- No long-range bc no projectile speed stat and ricochet + everything being omega fast => getting mid-range or close-range.
- You need high-impact weapons to induce significant dmg and if it doubles as high damaging all the better.
Take all AC6 gameplay mechanics and remember Yamamura told us "BURST" is the one-word characteristic for AC6 .... Seems only natural shotguns highly performs with such a suitable environment.

[Alamaut]

Exactly. Game was not meant to be PVP, it is still one of the best single player games out there. If you want to PVP I suggest the co-op mod, it is a lot more fun.

[frowningmirror]

The best pvp armored core was Verdict Day, they got emulation working for it. I liked VI's story but the movement was awful, everything feels like it's on auto pilot, I think a lot of people wanted another 4th gen for answer style game

It's a shame gameplay suffered to please the casuals

[Not Brian]

Sounds like you have a skill issue. Truth is you can't build what you want. That's been the case with every PvP game, you will lose if you don't kit yourself with the best weapons for the situation. You have a PvE mentality that going to make multiplayer sour for you.

Shotguns are not good anymore, but a tank with dual needle cannons should do the trick countering pistol builds. They're built like fairies and have to fight close, but you should be able to overpower them. A tank build works a lot, unless you're fighting a skirmisher, but that's only 1/10 PvP players anyways. You just need to adjust to different builds.

[Blackmage]

As others have already explained, PvP is an afterthought. It's shoved into the game because it's expected to be there. That's how Armored Core has always been since day 1. That's why you could use even the most broken weapons in PvP, like the original KARASAWA rifle back in the day.

The given PvP strategy in the classic AC games was to stay out of your opponent's cross hairs but keep them in yours. But it had a problem where the most skilled players could always dance around less experienced players. Meaning, for new players, it didn't matter how they designed your mech, they always lost because they didn't have 1000+ hours of experience. FromSoftware wanted to address this for AC6, and make it noob-friendly because they decided they wanted AC6 to be the new gateway game into the franchise.

But as a result, AC6 has its own set of PvP problems unique to it.

Hard-lock was meant to serve as their multipurpose solution in AC6 tom, 1) level the skill gap. Yes, AC6 is a zero-skill game by design, 2) make your mech's build matter more, and 3) make the game viable on a controller since they gave each weapon its own input in lieu of swapping weapons.
The problem with this approach is its turned PvP into DPS races since you're just shooting each other in the face the whole time. This is incredibly good for heavy AC's, but very bad for light AC's. Heavy and light AC's are supposed to be the trade-off between bigger guns and armor against maneuverability. But hard-lock without a turning-speed makes heavy AC's as maneuverable as light AC's, taking away the primary advantage light AC's had.
Hard-lock could easily be fixed by reintroducing the turning speed stat. The idea being, you cannot lose lock-on, but you still had to get your opponent in front of you, rather than letting the game aim for you.

The stagger gauge amplifies this problem because light AC's are easily staggered while heavy AC's are harder to stagger. I have no idea what FromSoftware was thinking when they added this mechanic. It feels as completely shoe-horned in as Primal Armor was. I can only guess they wanted to depth to combat in some way, but all it did was create a meta because it rewards burst damage too much. Between stagger and hardlock, shotguns got OP. In the classic games, shotguns sucked.
Stagger could easily be fixed if it built more slowly, but you were greatly rewarded if you pulled it off. Like, 5-6 consecutive Zimmerman shots instead of 2-3.

That's my 50 cents.

[Daviodraan]

On the contrary. PvP nerfs have affected PvE multiple times. Buffs as well. They have never balanced this game for PvE, at all. Just some bug fixing, and 1 set of very little boss tweaks at the very start of the game's lifespan.

Every stability buff, mobility buff, generator performance buff, melee and firearm specialization buff, booster buff, all the weapon buffs and adjustments, were completely aimed at the PvP scene. The very minor nerfs here and there as well.

They released a game with, not super overpowered builds, but, a bunch of terribly underpowered parts and weapons, that made the viable sets shine way more than they should, and slowly buffed everything else to compensate.
Everything is currently so comparable in power, that 2 players can go completely brain-off and it will probably be a matter of chance, netcode, and lock on variations, who will come out on top.