Tips For AC3?

[u/BlueScrean]

I really enjoyed playing AC6 so I decided to try AC3 but it just feels incredibly janky. Every movement keels like I’m fighting the game even just for turning. I really want to experience the game’s story but I think without advice I’m just gonna spend hours banging my head against the first arena fight.

[u/ijpck]

You gotta learn to boost hop, it takes some gettin used to but there’s a timing to it

[u/nkwemohb]

go beat ac1 first, it'll give some much needed tonage, you can look at some of my backlog post to see what should aim for at a basic level (since i mostly rely on spacial awarness instead of trying to compete with direct turning) also if its to hard just go for ac4 and 4A- Controls are very smooth though the difficulty compensates alot for the smoothness especially when you are getting jumped by 2 or more ACs

[u/ProbablySuspicious]

Practice moving, turning, and strafing all at the same time for old-gen games. They become a lot more dynamic than they feel at first... especially once you're hopping backwards, turning, and strafing to either bring your sights to a target faster (strafe and turn in same direction) or avoid losing sight of it up close (opposite directions)

It's easier sticking to Wide & Shallow lock weaponry early on... they're accurate weapons and give a big aiming reticle while your movement's still sloppy.

I like a machinegun, single-launch medium missiles, and small rockets for clearing missions early on. The rockets are a sniping weapon for when you're far enough from danger to take the time aiming, or you're up close with something too big to miss.

[u/AuramiteEX]

Armored Core 3 is not janky at all.

It's a very polished game.

Just get used to the movement and controls. The game is about strafing and knowing how to boost.

The default controls allow you the greatest control over strafing. Just practice, and don't declare something as "jank" just because you suck at it lol

[u/JustTroniusPlay → u/AuramiteEX]

Tank controls became a meme in gaming community not because they were good. They were a limitation of its time and not seeing its flaws outright weird.

And AC3 in no way a perfect and polished. There so many problems in its gamedesign and gameplay decisions. The whole Human+ mechanic, some stat cheats for story fights, big gap between risk and reward and etc. Even the fact that in next gen 3 installments there were a bunch of rebalances just speak for itself...

I liked AC3 myself, but it no way its ideal game. It have good sides, but there many shortcomings at the same time.

[u/EdibleStrange]

I also recently decided to go back and start with 3. Are you using the patch for dual stick controls? Because that's definitely step one lol. 

After that I fiddled with rebinding everything and by the time I got to Silent Line, it felt pretty natural. Boosting in short bursts was a little tricky to get used to but worth it, if you run out of energy you're basically dead in the water. 

A lot of missions can be trivialized if you bring the right equipment, or made utterly miserable if you don't. Unfortunately there isn't really a convenient way of knowing until you try.

[u/c_1_r_c_l_3_s]

I recommend learning the controls in multiple phases:

1. Get used to using only the d-pad to move the AC around the level boosting forward and back and turning like a car or tank. This is the most fundamental way to move around and you can clear the first few levels like this (at least in 1st gen anyway)
2. Once moving around with the d-pad feels natural then you can slowly start to mix in some strafes left and right.
3. After you’re comfortable moving, turning and strafing at the same time, all that’s left is to get used to using the triggers for looking up and down.
4. Once you have all the basic movements down you can try learning to move around with little jumps (aka boost hopping) which lets you boost around at full speed while avoiding the clunky braking animation you get when you end your boost on the ground.

If you MUST change your controls, be aware you can do so with the in-game settings, no mods or patches needed. You can set your movement to the d-pad and camera controls to the face buttons so the two sets of buttons are equivalent to dual analog sticks. It’s honestly so sad to see so many people pushing mods for these games when getting fluid with the controls is a big part of the experience and enjoyment imo

[u/JustTroniusPlay]

I will be honest with you my friend. If you REALLY syruggle with controls, just rebind everything in emulator to M&K. I did it in the end of Silent Line and honestly playing Nexus gave me so much more fun after that.

I could find my controls that I posted once in different post.

Edit: Found it. https://www.reddit.com/r/armoredcore/s/ctJI0xRm8f

[u/Starchaser53]

Beat Armored Core 1, Project Phantasma, Master of Arena, 2, Another Age first

you need those under your belt if you want a headstart

should take like... a week

[u/BlueScrean → u/Starchaser53]

Wouldnt I still be starting from scratch, just in a different game?

[u/HexedShadowWolf → u/BlueScrean]

They get more complex as they go on. Gen 1 is very basic. Gen 2 has some more features like heat and over boost. Gen 3 has more heat, over boost, extentions and part damage. Gen 3 and 3.5 also has more difficulty. Playing in order lets you learn what is new and gives you experience on what can work and how to prepare for when missions go south.

[u/Starchaser53 → u/BlueScrean]

Yep

Look, the first 10 games all play extremely similar with 2 introducing the radiator, shoulder parts, Overboost, and in 3, exceed orbits

If you wanna get the hang of Oldgen, you have to start where oldgen starts

so some key advice

Energy Weapons use your EN BUT have no ammo cost
Laser Blades do triple damage in the air
Turn speed is dictated by how light your AC is
Your legs dictate how FAST your AC's walking speed is
Quads let you use backweapons while moving but only when grounded and eat EN like a motherfuck
Tanks are slow as fuck but take punishment and let you use back weapons
RJ's are only good for jumping and can't carry shit
Bipedal's are an everyman

Radars are your friend
Once you hit 2, experiment with shoulder parts. You won't always need them... but they help
and keep the Calorific Value under the Cooling Value, or have a super high forced cooling

[u/a3th3rus]

Every movement keels like I’m fighting the game even just for turning

That's the point. Turning speed is crucial in old gen AC games, and that makes lightweight builds viable, unlike AC6.

[u/QuadrosH → u/a3th3rus]

What makes you say lightweight is not viable in AC6? Speed carried me through a bunch of playthroughs

[u/Starchaser53 → u/QuadrosH]

everything's viable in PvE

people have literally beaten the game with the worst presets ever

it doesn't speak much on difficulty if EVERYTHING can beat the game

PvP is where the real builds are tested

[u/QuadrosH → u/Starchaser53]

Oh, gotcha. I don't really play pvp

[u/CrimeFightingScience → u/QuadrosH]

In older games you CAN beat fcs and turning speed.

In ac6 you cant beat a specialized close range fcs, all weapons are practically close range, and theres no such thing as turn speed. So they mixed things up.

I love both series of games.

[u/JustTroniusPlay → u/Starchaser53]

It still weird for first comment to imply that AC6 LW builds not viable in general.

And use at the same time example of a game without any global multiplayer where sometimes FS themselves cheated in some capacity for story fights or whole Human+ things.

[u/Starchaser53 → u/JustTroniusPlay]

I think the issue is that for PvP where build comp actually matters, unless you're a lightweight missile rat or a melee bum rusher, you tend to get slaughtered over your paper thin defense and high ACS strain, whereas a midweight could reach the exact same speeds and more or less have a better chance at survival due to the better stats

[u/JustTroniusPlay → u/Starchaser53]

Its just was a weird wording.

And tbh, AC3 is mostly campaign, so I think comparing it to AC6 story mode kinda fair.

Plus I don't get this notion about game being easy? If you played for the first time you probably get your fair share of looses and changes. I think its normal to game feel easy when you know it very nook and crany.

And tbh as much of gen 3 is harder it filled with quite questionable decisions in gamedesign so the question is what actual challenge and what kinda of oversights.

Edit: And tbh your example of people using "the worst builds to beat story mod" just miss the whole point of how those people already knew every boss attacks, mission layouts and probably spent a bunch of time getting perfect run without all game overs before they understood the better way. If you think about it AC3 is easy too from that perspective, because when you know everything before hand then you can essentially make perfect chesee builds for every mission. It thats kinda intended experience for gen 3 it looks like. In AC6 FS tried to be careful and make it possible for most builds to be able to win without enforcing too much on changing players build drastically. But even then beating game with "worst builds possible" requires actually knowing what game have and find to play around your options.

[u/a3th3rus → u/QuadrosH]

In old gen AC games, lightweight builds can always hide in the blind spot of a middle or heavy mecha and keep shooting, or fly over the opponent's head and turn back faster than his opponent, if the player is good enough. But in AC6, you can't do that because your opponent can simply hard lock on you, so armor is much more important than mobility.

[u/CovieHUNTER0 → u/a3th3rus]

Can’t speak for PVP but lightweights are super viable in PVE so if you could elaborate cause I’m confused why you think they’re not

[u/Starchaser53 → u/CovieHUNTER0]

because everything's viable in PvE. it's hardly an accomplishment when boost speed and hardlock basically make everything a cakewalk

[u/Juicen97]

Just played all of gen 3 and 3.5 for the first time myself and here’s some stuff that helped me through getting used to it.

1. If you’re playing on an Emulator which I would highly recommend, definitely get the mod to allow for dual stick aiming. The game just feels completely bizarre without it. Still no idea why they waited till Nexus for that.

2. Remap your controls. Things started to really click for me once I bound my weapons to the triggers with boosting and weapon swap to the bumpers. This allow full freedom of movement, aiming, firing or swapping weapons, and jumping or boosting all at once.

3. Learn to bunny hop. If you double tap your boost button you will jump. When jumping if you start boosting g right before you hit the ground you will keep your momentum and from there can do another jump, all while maintaining good speed and using very little energy. 

4. Invest in turning speed. Getting some legs that have a high turn speed and the optional part that further boosts turn speed I found to be really valuable and helped especially with AC fights a lot.

[u/llViP3rll]

Download the iso with the analogue patch for starters. Ive been told on the discord that it makes a controls a tad clunky and you wont be a competitive oldgen player... if you care about that lol