Armored Core 6 - PvP Criticisms from a Melee and Stagger Enjoyer: Recommendations for Future Games

In this video, I explain my criticisms for Armored Core 6. Basically, these can be summed up as a lack of balance, and a lack of fine-tuning of the game's mechanics to fully integrate stagger punishing (ACS Overload) into its core PVP mechanics. In particular, I focus on how melee attacks tend to miss, latency sabotaging combos, and other factors in its core gameplay that dissuade stagger punishing. Among these factors is Pulse Armor, which is counterable with Assault Armor on paper, but in practice this so-called counter is wildly inconsistent. Furthermore, even when Assault Armor destroys enemies' Pulse Armor, they still fall downwards if they have been staggered in the air, which means your melee punish shall miss. This means that running melee builds to punish stagger, has various disadvantages. Furthermore, other factors, such as big maps, and gameplay which encourages running away from enemies while firing missiles at them, simply makes the play-style non-competitive. Other factors which discourage skill, are the lack of an ability to dodge consistently, and the amount of punishment that heavier ACs, such as tanks, can withstand. Added on to the aforementioned factors, shields cancel the utility of many builds, and the fact they 'prevent' users from attacking while utilizing them, is mitigated by using weapons with long cooldowns, such as the Zimmerman [edited sentence]. For these reasons, and many others, many Armored Core 6 players have acknowledged that this game has one of the worst competitive metas (standards) in the series. Some proposed changes are: 1. Adding the ability to attack while dodging (Assault Boost). 2. Adding omnidirectional movement. 3. Retuning stagger, impact, and accumulative impact. 4. Rebalancing weapons and armor. 5. Eliminating tank kicks, making the Assault Boost ram it's damage option. 6. Adding smaller maps with more cover. For the future, some great innovations would be: 1. Deathblows to punish stagger and ACS overload. 2. Regenerating EN in mid-air. 3. Abandoning ricochet, and re-scaling damage based on weapon distance. 4. Right and left hand melee weapons. 5. Variable melee weapon swings, horizontal and vertical swings. 6. Blade clash mechanic. 7. Clan integration and matchmaking.