Ace Combat

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Do you guys think Dision will show up in DLC, or even just be alluded to? Project Aces never seems to do outright bridges between games, preferring simple references. But that would be great set up for AC3, even if they only hint at his sublimation rather than making it a plot point.
 
Just S ranked the campaign on Ace difficulty. Not too different from Elite save for more orange-chevroned enemies. Plus the white-chevron planes go after you a lot more aggressively. As usual, Ace Combat games are more fun the higher the difficulty. The FA-36 with the SOD makes the ground destruction missions pretty simple. Between all the end-game planes, I'd say the Su-57 with QAAMs is probably the best for taking on any of the squadron boss fights. It has 6 body part slots so you select all the maneuverability parts plus the ECU + Airbrake parts which makes it high-G turn and PSM better than the F-22 and FA-36. As for weapon parts, I usually full stack standard missiles for every slot save one, then use that one for the reinforced mount to carry more of the special weapon I'm using.

Mission 28 was the hardest to S rank because you only have 3-4 minutes before the time bonus starts to decay after the mission update cutscene. That was one where the Su-57 helped out a bit.
 
Americasbig250th said:
Do you guys think Dision will show up in DLC, or even just be alluded to? Project Aces never seems to do outright bridges between games, preferring simple references. But that would be great set up for AC3, even if they only hint at his sublimation rather than making it a plot point.
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there's a few corportaions and brands that show up in ac7/ac8 that reappear in ac3. end of ac8 heavily implies ac3 is going to happen with enso being bought out I think if they want to bring Dision back, any ac8 dlc would be the time.

AC8's multiplayer mode is directly based off gundam battle op 2, which is live service and had releases follow the real world release order for content. if it's the same team working on it, I think we'll slowly get 2031 stuff and have the online section start adding things until it hits year 2040 jets
 
Phantom said:
there's a few corportaions and brands that show up in ac7/ac8 that reappear in ac3. end of ac8 heavily implies ac3 is going to happen with enso being bought out I think if they want to bring Dision back, any ac8 dlc would be the time.

AC8's multiplayer mode is directly based off gundam battle op 2, which is live service and had releases follow the real world release order for content. if it's the same team working on it, I think we'll slowly get 2031 stuff and have the online section start adding things until it hits year 2040 jets
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I don't mind longrunning online support, but hopefully we still get single player content too.
 
The problem I have with MP is that it is extremely dull. There's nothing really going, feels like an alpha or beta. UI/UX is atrocious (don't even bother trying to use the in-game menus to join a party, join friends via Steam). Lots of stuff partially implemented and/or not explained (difficulty levels for missions and abilities levels for planes). Abilities and parts are very abstract in what they provide (at least it has been datamined).
Meta is unbalanced hard in favor of LAAMs right now. Warfare is an auto-win for the team that did remember to bring an EW aircraft (bonus points if it's a Barricader).
Leveling and uncapping planes is fucking boring, the already boring progression is artificially slowed down by the golden blueprints requirements, while silver blueprints might as well not exist in their current form since you're just gonna buy them from the store.
There's not enough content to keep you interested in playing (even just interesting liveries to unlock, weird there's so few when 7 turned into a nice liveries library with the updates over the years while the ones that you can unlock in MP are so uninspired) and gating new planes that can also be used in SP behind a limited pass is also extremely gay.

And this is only the gameplay side. It manages to be boring even on the setting: as far as I'm aware MP takes place in an alternative world/universe to justify why we're fighting over locations and against superweapons of the previous games. You're a mercenary pilot for a random corporation enlisted by an ??unspecified?? client going up against an ??unspecified?? enemy.
They could've easily tied it in with Strangereal by making you a pilot for General Resource, with the sorties you fly framed as being part of the narrative leading to AC3 (IF Simon's simulation about the Corporate War is actually accurate anyway). You could then simply justify superweapons fights as being simulations to gather some sort of data if you really wanted to.
But I can also see that it would've required a much more hands-on approach by Project Aces (if the narrative that Online is being handled by a different team is true).
 
Yeah, the MP is severely undercooked. It's especially disappointing because Ace Combat Infinity did almost everything better except for having worse monetization (if you can believe that). Ground attackers could compete with fighters in score (in a lot of maps, they even had the edge) and while there were clear best SPW choices (6AAM and LAGMs, respectively) their advantage was not so overbearing that nothing else could compete. Assault missions need to have, bare minimum, twice the number of targets and more interesting mid-mission updates. Keeping the aircraft tree from Infinity for the campaign but nixing it for the online mode is also a confounding choice, and one I can only presume was done for the benefit of their harebrained 4 currency and blueprints system, which sucks.
 
On a somewhat related note I tried shooting down all the Savian Rafaels in the rocky island mission to see if it changed the ending, but they respawn indefinitely and you always get the cutscene with their carrier.

Some missions do change a little depending on whether you engage certain enemies, like the Sotoan rookies at Expo City or Shark Squadron over Newfield.
 
Americasbig250th said:
On a somewhat related note I tried shooting down all the Savian Rafaels in the rocky island mission to see if it changed the ending, but they respawn indefinitely and you always get the cutscene with their carrier.

Some missions do change a little depending on whether you engage certain enemies, like the Sotoan rookies at Expo City or Shark Squadron over Newfield.
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Also during one of the Theve missions, the second I think, if you destroy the ground targets around where Jackpot squadron spawns after the mission update you can save Jackpot 9 from getting shot down and add another waifu to Rex's collection.
 
Pascal's Wagie said:
Also during one of the Theve missions, the second I think, if you destroy the ground targets around where Jackpot squadron spawns after the mission update you can save Jackpot 9 from getting shot down and add another waifu to Rex's collection.
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I do appreciate these little game details.

I wonder if there's distinct dialogue for if the FA-36 Game rookies don't take any losses at Expo. I didn't engage them or have my wingmen engage them last time, but some unnamed FCU pilots actually bagged kills and they mentioned taking losses at the end of the mission.
 
1P campaign was enjoyable enough. I was looking forward to the multi since it sounded like Ace Combat Infinity 2.0. It was enjoyable for an evening but between the threadbare content and the grind I get the feeling I'm not coming back to it anytime soon.

I don't know whether to regret pre-ordering because AC8's long-term value seems like a coinflip but I'll at least get some mileage out of AC0 (never played it back in the day).
 
Glory To Arztotska said:
1P campaign was enjoyable enough. I was looking forward to the multi since it sounded like Ace Combat Infinity 2.0. It was enjoyable for an evening but between the threadbare content and the grind I get the feeling I'm not coming back to it anytime soon.

I don't know whether to regret pre-ordering because AC8's long-term value seems like a coinflip but I'll at least get some mileage out of AC0 (never played it back in the day).
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Hopefully MP gets some tuning up (I think jt will since the game sold so many copies) but it definitely launched with needed work.

Between 8 and 0 full price feels fair how much single player content I'm getting, at least
 
Americasbig250th said:
I do appreciate these little game details.

I wonder if there's distinct dialogue for if the FA-36 Game rookies don't take any losses at Expo. I didn't engage them or have my wingmen engage them last time, but some unnamed FCU pilots actually bagged kills and they mentioned taking losses at the end of the mission.
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I left them alone (mostly because I can't even find where they were and I was busy sandbagging the Sotoan shitters at the airfield), and they had a line where they said they didn't do anything.
 
Thank you for the datamine @Watermelonutria , I hated that.
500 matches for every single aircraft just to get the no-lifer nicknames
3 million shekels
30,000 splashed enemies total
10,000 using each type of aircraft
5,000 with missiles
200 with guns (this one wasn't actually that hard)
5,000 aircraft
500 boats
100 other players
100,000km distance
1,000 Assault matches
1,000 Warfare matches
100 scrambles
100 Emergency Sorties
ec2.jpg

50 rescue requests
25 supplies collected
Maximize the threat level 30 times
and reach the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.


Well, better get cracking
 
Pascal's Wagie said:
Also during one of the Theve missions, the second I think, if you destroy the ground targets around where Jackpot squadron spawns after the mission update you can save Jackpot 9 from getting shot down and add another waifu to Rex's collection.
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I had no idea she could die until I was doing an Interceptor only run and was wondering where she went. I had always initially been confused with her going on about saving her life, because I didn't realize she was ever in trouble.

I wonder if anything happens if you let the two idiot generals in the fleeing Osprey live

Also, because Special Weapons take it out so fast, I had no idea how gruesome the radio chatter with Battleship 2 got:
A reminder that Sotoa is a blight on humanity

Finally, I played through in Japanese. For one, Dealer actually has a character instead of just "British." He has a very young sounding actor, he has better direction in selling his aaaahhhs and ummmsss, and everyone else is better at sounding annoyed when he can't pull it together. So him probably just being a guy who blossoms under fire comes across way better. Also they gave Tasha's father a ridiculous accent where he hard rolls every single R. I think they're trying to really imply that he's a Yukie spy
 
Sotoa losing the war is not enough.
I want every single Sotoan crucified and their entire desert salted just to add insult to injury.
HT-9XZ6XsAApugU.jpg
 
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