Ace Combat 7PS4

[dacc10]

1 - The problem with having a hand full of super planes is that it effectively means that most of the roster is basically useless. With AC: Infinity, the vast amount of planes and options almost assured that a player would find their favorite plane and use it without fear of never being competitive. Having 100's of planes with near equal specs thanks to mods and levels is what kept the multiplayer at a nice balance.

2 - Like you, I enjoyed all the PS2 era Ace Combat games immensely (specifically the Yellow Squadron), but I just didn't reach the level of enjoyment that you did when flying inferior equipment. When I wanted more challenge, I handicapped the game myself.

3 - I spent a considerable amount of time in AC: Infinity and worked very hard to get my favorite planes to Level 15 (+/-). Along the way I did spend some money on fuel but as with any game I buy, I generally budget around $100.00 for it so buying fuel was easy for me. I do get your frustration though, I routinely ran into Level 20 "whales" and was quickly shown door until I leveled my craft to around 15. The system was really good to me but those who spent money did have the advantage.

4 - I would love to see all the US Aircraft share the same weapons but I also understand that by doing so, there will no longer be fighter-multirole-attacker classes that have nice bonuses and keep balance in my book. Would I love to have an F-35A with GPB's? Yes. But not at the expense of balance.

EDIT: Didn't need a reason to buy it, but this will surely make many people happy.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2016/12/05/ace-combat-7-return-strangereal-reason/

The planes in game are already balanced, by the developers ignoring different radar ranges, countermeasures, missile warning systems, avionics, etc. All this stuff makes more difference in modern combat, than pure agility or thrut to weight ratios. Planes with similar performance, will differentiate from each other because their respective avionics.

The balance here should be with the organisation of all aircraft in classes. Each class would consist in a criteria of era, maneuverability and type of aircraft.
If the game doesn't restrict the player to use a plane of a certain class, there should be a warning about the class that is in use in the server and which aircraft are recommended. A server using a class of top aircraft, could be open to lower tier aircraft, if the player wants, knowing that their plane is inferior. Lower classes shouldn't receive opponents from the classe above.

Other detail about balancing, the players should play with someone with similar skill level. Atleast in game modes like Deathmatch and such.

The thing is, if the game doesn't simulate every other feature of each plane, atleast it should simulate their flight characteristics. If not, the game will be a generic flying game, where the only difference between each aircraft is their looks.
Imagine a player who knows how a Phantom flies, enters an online game, sees other Phantoms and thinks that the planes are all equal, and then in the middle of the combat he notices the other planes are twice as maneuverable and their missiles lock-on twice as fast. Where is the balance there? The moment someone gets in a plane, he should know what to expect from the opponent, change is tactics and weapons of choice to win that confrontation. All this is lost with a bunch of mods thrown at each airplane. The planes lack personality, and strengths and weaknesses.

But the balance shouldn't be a concern.
Attackers would have much better resistance to damage, bigger amount of secondary ammo, faster reloading times for air-to-ground weapons and better canon.
Fighters should have a faster reload for air-to-air weaponry, more effective canon for air to air combat, higher number of secundary air-to-air missiles.
Multirole aircraft should fit in the middle, they should be able to be as effective as the other two in air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.

The big difference in weapons is that an Attacker will have a vast array of air-to-ground weapons and no secondary air-to-air missiles, a Fighter would have access to pretty much all the air-to-air weapons available, and a few options for air-to-ground (an F-22 could carry a small amount of guided bombs, the same goes for the rest) and Multirole fighters would be able to carry almost every weapon available, apart from extra-long range air-to-air missiles (limited to the Fighters) and larger bombs (exclusive to the Attackers).

There's also nothing stopping the developers from seperating the planes into classes or year of introduction, thus allowing for online games with less capable fighters.

This. It's not that difficult.

 

[Paulie]

I thought Infinity did a pretty good job already of separating the role types. Let's be honest, unless you were fighting a helicopter the Attackers were totally useless against air targets. The Fighters could do very little against tougher ground targets. If you were going after the wrong targets for the role of jet you had, you would fail miserably.

 

[nocturnalgrey]

Many 4th generation aircraft are perfectly capable of fighting and defeating 5th gen fighters in a dogfight. much of the advanced sensor, ECM and radar equipment can and have been installed in earlier designs, and since the late 70's, manoeuvrability has mostly been restricted by human limitations rather than aircraft limitations. Sure, thrust vectoring enables fighters such as the F-22 to do some fancy stuff, but not to the extend that it will consistently be a determining factor.

5th gen aircraft rely on "stealth" that can be countered by IRST and further advancements in radar, making them insanely expensive aircraft, that don't perform significantly better than their predecessors, or in the case of the F-35, even worse than the planes it is supposed to replace.

If I got into a BVR shooting engagement in an F-35, I'd be praying for my pathetic load of 2-4 Aim-120's to hit their mark, because I'm not winning a dog fight, nor am I fast enough to turn tail and run away.

There's also nothing stopping the developers from seperating the planes into classes or year of introduction, thus allowing for online games with less capable fighters.

I agree with you on 4th Gen v. 5th Gen because nothing is invulnerble, but you wont find many pilots that will want to choose a 70's era plane over something designed today with a noted BVR advantage. With the F-35's, we need to remember that a ton of information out there is all based on unclassified material. I also don't get to excited over hypothetical match-ups of the F-35 v. "XYZ" because real war is never that cut and dry. There are way to many factors such as pilot skill, fuel load, theater status, etc., to come to any final conclusions.

I agree, there is nothing stopping them from doing it, but there also has never nothing stopping Project Aces from implementing a more realistic weapon load out for the planes. It's a pure design choice. Along those lines, I have always wanted a "hardcore" mode for Ace Combat.

 

[Jawehawk]

Heads up guys. Another Famitsu interview containing a lot of new information about the game, including more evidence that VR won't be available for the storymode. Still no actual confirmation on that though...

https://www.reddit.com/r/acecombat/comments/5hdtlh/incoming_full_translation_of_ac7_2016_famitsu/

 

[Formidable]

From AC4 and 5, we've gotten the story cutscenes mainly from the "good" side. From the interview, it looks like we'll be getting stories from both sides of the war. I'd really like to see how it turns out.

 

[dacc10]

I agree with you on 4th Gen v. 5th Gen because nothing is invulnerble, but you wont find many pilots that will want to choose a 70's era plane over something designed today with a noted BVR advantage.

But you will still be able to choose the 70's aircraft, but instead of fighting against modern or futuristic fighters, you would fight against fighters of the same age. Just like you do in any car game, you can drive whatever car you want, but to win a race, you drive it in it's own class. Expecting an older plane to perform as well as an F-22, is the same as asking for a hot hatch to, through tuning, be able to compete against an LMP1. The game is already too arcady, so why not give each plane a realistic behaviour? I mean, the balance is already there, specially when every plane uses the same exact generic main weapon, radar, HUD information and so on.

 

[ClydeYellow]

An F-104 in the game? Huh. Wonder if it will be the original Starfighter, one of the upgraded Lockheed variants or the Italian 3rd-gen "S" variant. In which case, I know which plane I will be flying in multiplayer while blasting the National Anthem in a loop in my headset, any consideration about "realism" and "competitiveness" be damned!



Jokes aside, I wouldn't mind seeing more realistic performance from planes, perhaps coupled with an upgrade system that could allow all planes to compete on a more (but never perfectly) level field, but also made the upgrades necessary for, say, a 3rd gen fighter to compete with a 4.5th gen jet obscenely expensive.

(As for the BVR advantage 4th and 5th gen planes have over older jets: well, Ace Combat doesn't feature BVR engagements, and generally speaking allows for a maximum engagement distance of 7-8000 metres, so it's gone. Apparently in the Strangereal world they never thought that it'd be swell to engage a plane at distances >100kms, for some reason!)

 

[Chikane_GTR]

Really hope the best plane in the history of AC makes into AC7

Spoiler

Hope its not to hard to unlock

 

[dacc10]

Really hope the best plane in the history of AC makes into AC7

Spoiler

Hope its not to hard to unlock

A plane like that should be hard to unlock, like it was in AC5. So atleast gives the opportunity for lesser planes to be flown both in the campaign and online.

To me the best looking futurist aircraft in the games so far, is the X-02. And the CFA-44. Yet I still find modern and old aircraft more charming.

 

[Chikane_GTR]

A plane like that should be hard to unlock, like it was in AC5. So atleast gives the opportunity for lesser planes to be flown both in the campaign and online.

To me the best looking futurist aircraft in the games so far, is the X-02. And the CFA-44. Yet I still find modern and old aircraft more charming.

Well to be fair It really wasn't that hard to unlock in AC5,

 

[dacc10]

Well to be fair It really wasn't that hard to unlock in AC5,

Frankly, I don't remember, but atleast it took some time, especially for a non-english speaking kid. What I meant was that there needs to be a sense of progression, both in the campaign and online.

 

[RACECAR]

A plane like that should be hard to unlock, like it was in AC5. So atleast gives the opportunity for lesser planes to be flown both in the campaign and online.

To me the best looking futurist aircraft in the games so far, is the X-02. And the CFA-44. Yet I still find modern and old aircraft more charming.

Honestly, those are by far my favorite fictional aircraft (along with the Morgan). Probably helps that the X-02 kinda had some basis in real life (Even if only as a concept) courtesy of Northrop Grumman.

 

[Chikane_GTR]

Honestly, those are by far my favorite fictional aircraft (along with the Morgan). Probably helps that the X-02 kinda had some basis in real life (Even if only as a concept) courtesy of Northrop Grumman.

The X-O2 Was a ok plane nothing special, The Morgan was nice but only cause of the burst missile, The CFA-44 don't know anything about that plane since i never got a chance to fly it

 

[Revoy]

Honestly, those are by far my favorite fictional aircraft (along with the Morgan). Probably helps that the X-02 kinda had some basis in real life (Even if only as a concept) courtesy of Northrop Grumman.

Wait, the X-02 was based on a Northrop concept? Show me please.

 

[Dan]

Wait, the X-02 was based on a Northrop concept? Show me please.

Since I never played any AC games except for ACI (briefly), and there's differing images on google of the X-02, my best guess would be the Northrop YF-23.

 

[Revoy]

The X-02 Wyvern was designed by Project Aces member Isshin Yabuki, who desired to make an aircraft design with variable wing geometry and used several aircraft, including the Su-37 Terminator, the Su-47 Berkut and the YF-23A Black Widow II as reference.

@Dan You were right thanks man

 

[Dan]

@Dan You were right thanks man

Glad to help. Even though the F-22 Raptor is one badass fighter jet, I'm a little sad that the YF-23 lost, because it looks so unique.

 

[RACECAR]

Wait, the X-02 was based on a Northrop concept? Show me please.

More so the idea of the sweeping Dihedral wings then the aircraft design itself (via a patented aircraft design called "Switchblade"), should've been more clear about that. Interestingly though, Northrop consulted on the F/A 37 for "Stealth", which also has Sweeping Dihedral wings.

 

[dacc10]

The X-O2 Was a ok plane nothing special, The Morgan was nice but only cause of the burst missile, The CFA-44 don't know anything about that plane since i never got a chance to fly it

But from all the concept designs, is one that feels more grounded in reality. It has a balanced and believable look to it. You could actually believe that in the near future a plane like that could fly and be successfull. Is not the best in the game, stats wise, but to me that's not a reason to like a plane more or less than other.

Glad to help. Even though the F-22 Raptor is one badass fighter jet, I'm a little sad that the YF-23 lost, because it looks so unique.

Yeah it looked really good, but the production version of the F-22 also looks great. Wish the investment on the ideas behind the YF-23 was kept, the design seemed promising and its technology could evolve. Hopefully it's in game atleast.

 

[nocturnalgrey]

The thing is, if the game doesn't simulate every other feature of each plane, atleast it should simulate their flight characteristics. If not, the game will be a generic flying game, where the only difference between each aircraft is their looks.
Imagine a player who knows how a Phantom flies, enters an online game, sees other Phantoms and thinks that the planes are all equal, and then in the middle of the combat he notices the other planes are twice as maneuverable and their missiles lock-on twice as fast. Where is the balance there? The moment someone gets in a plane, he should know what to expect from the opponent, change is tactics and weapons of choice to win that confrontation. All this is lost with a bunch of mods thrown at each airplane. The planes lack personality, and strengths and weaknesses.

But the balance shouldn't be a concern.
Attackers would have much better resistance to damage, bigger amount of secondary ammo, faster reloading times for air-to-ground weapons and better canon.
Fighters should have a faster reload for air-to-air weaponry, more effective canon for air to air combat, higher number of secundary air-to-air missiles.
Multirole aircraft should fit in the middle, they should be able to be as effective as the other two in air-to-air and air-to-ground missions.

The big difference in weapons is that an Attacker will have a vast array of air-to-ground weapons and no secondary air-to-air missiles, a Fighter would have access to pretty much all the air-to-air weapons available, and a few options for air-to-ground (an F-22 could carry a small amount of guided bombs, the same goes for the rest) and Multirole fighters would be able to carry almost every weapon available, apart from extra-long range air-to-air missiles (limited to the Fighters) and larger bombs (exclusive to the Attackers).

I cut out the stuff from your post I quoted because I agree with what your saying.

1 - It's really the only flying game in town. You have to ask yourself why. I believe the answer is obvious as no other flying game has brought out world class graphics and easy to understand game-play. Project Aces have avoided the systems and details that turn it into a simulator and a result are the ONLY game in town.

2 - I am glad that Project Aces disagrees with you, because it seems their legendary balance is what kept the free to play Infinity active for so long which inevitably is now giving us AC07! I am not sure when the last time was you checked the unlock tree on Infinity, but I can imagine for the new players, it looks intimidating. Sounds fun to me, but for the majority, I bet they never even make it to putting their control scheme on "Expert". Ace Combat has always been about picking your favorite looking plane, shooting hundreds of missiles, and looking really cool like Maverick from Top Gun while doing it.

3 - I also believe (as previously stated) that Project Aces has a pretty good balance system in place with Fighters, Multi-role, and Attackers that worked really well in Infinity. You wouldn't find a QAAM on an attacker, nor would find a GPB on a fighter. Multi-roles can carry all the above. In fact, this is almost exactly what you stated, is it not?

 

[dacc10]

I cut out the stuff from your post I quoted because I agree with what your saying.

1 - It's really the only flying game in town. You have to ask yourself why. I believe the answer is obvious as no other flying game has brought out world class graphics and easy to understand game-play. Project Aces have avoided the systems and details that turn it into a simulator and a result are the ONLY game in town.

2 - I am glad that Project Aces disagrees with you, because it seems their legendary balance is what kept the free to play Infinity active for so long which inevitably is now giving us AC07! I am not sure when the last time was you checked the unlock tree on Infinity, but I can imagine for the new players, it looks intimidating. Sounds fun to me, but for the majority, I bet they never even make it to putting their control scheme on "Expert". Ace Combat has always been about picking your favorite looking plane, shooting hundreds of missiles, and looking really cool like Maverick from Top Gun while doing it.

3 - I also believe (as previously stated) that Project Aces has a pretty good balance system in place with Fighters, Multi-role, and Attackers that worked really well in Infinity. You wouldn't find a QAAM on an attacker, nor would find a GPB on a fighter. Multi-roles can carry all the above. In fact, this is almost exactly what you stated, is it not?

The game/franchise was kept alive for many years without that kind of customisation. The quality of the games themselves kept the franchise interesting. So, long before the game had any kind of mods, it was already successful.
Infinity had that amount of customisation, to grant longevity to a free to play game. Otherwise, people would swipe through all the aircraft tree and easily unlock every plane.

The gameplay of classic AC was already easy enough, and like any other game, you unlocked better equipment the more progress you made. It's still easy and simple and totally logical. Asking for yet another generic feature (like the primary weapons and cannons) just for the sake of balance, is not a good thing, specially for someone who loves fighter planes. Someone with some knowledge in fighter aviation, knows that each aircraft performs differently, so seeing an F-4 Phantom perform as good as an F-22, might throw him off.

My point stands the same, the balance already exists, because many of the features of the real planes are ignored, like radar capabilities, stealth, weapon loadout, even top speeds. Let's get each plane different in terms of performance atleast and then organising them in a few classes by era.

 

[Wolfe]

The concerns of balanced PvP multiplayer are different from the concerns of an engaging and varied singleplayer experience. I wouldn't want to go into a multiplayer lobby with a blatantly uncompetitive plane, but in the campaigns of the PS2 games I flew the F-14 by default and accepted the handicap of its limited maneuverability. I enjoyed testing the limits of older planes on Ace difficulty. The Draken in ACZ was another favorite for its attractive double-delta looks and challenging lack of dogfighting ability.

 

[Devil240Z]

All I know is AC04 was supposed to have vr support. Make it good!

 

[nocturnalgrey]

The game/franchise was kept alive for many years without that kind of customisation. The quality of the games themselves kept the franchise interesting. So, long before the game had any kind of mods, it was already successful.
Infinity had that amount of customisation, to grant longevity to a free to play game. Otherwise, people would swipe through all the aircraft tree and easily unlock every plane.

The gameplay of classic AC was already easy enough, and like any other game, you unlocked better equipment the more progress you made. It's still easy and simple and totally logical. Asking for yet another generic feature (like the primary weapons and cannons) just for the sake of balance, is not a good thing, specially for someone who loves fighter planes. Someone with some knowledge in fighter aviation, knows that each aircraft performs differently, so seeing an F-4 Phantom perform as good as an F-22, might throw him off.

My point stands the same, the balance already exists, because many of the features of the real planes are ignored, like radar capabilities, stealth, weapon loadout, even top speeds. Let's get each plane different in terms of performance atleast and then organising them in a few classes by era.

1 - Dating back to AC04, there has always been customization with the aircraft. Sure, it may not have been at the level of Infinity, but the customization is nothing new. If my memory serves me correctly, a PSP game several years ago brought out the plane upgrading. We also saw it in AC: Assault Horizon's multiplayer. Full customization of your character (or plane as it were) is just a natural evolution of the franchise as evident with the direction most games are taking.

2 - I don't see the issue here. I love airplanes and have been up close and personal with several types of military aircraft. I have personally seen just about every type of military plane imaginable (minus a few newer planes) and I am not thrown off by the handling in Ace Combat at all. I know the difference between a F-117 and an F-22 but it doesn't confuse me when I fly them in them in game because I understand what Ace Combat is. An arcade flight shooter.

3 - I understand your point, I just don't agree with it. Ace Combat doesn't adhere to generational classifications of military aircraft nor does Project Aces seem to be about pursuing hyper-realism. I am not against what you are saying nor am I for it. I just don't want the tried and true formula changed for the sake of realism.

The concerns of balanced PvP multiplayer are different from the concerns of an engaging and varied singleplayer experience. I wouldn't want to go into a multiplayer lobby with a blatantly uncompetitive plane, but in the campaigns of the PS2 games I flew the F-14 by default and accepted the handicap of its limited maneuverability. I enjoyed testing the limits of older planes on Ace difficulty. The Draken in ACZ was another favorite for its attractive double-delta looks and challenging lack of dogfighting ability.

1 - Agreed! If Infinity (and to a degree Assault Horizon) fails in one regard, it's the fact that I, with a higher level plane and more upgrades can be matched with someone who is just starting. Not fair, but nothing new either.

2 - I did the very same thing, and routinely beat the story line with just one plane. Just an Ace and his Jet...

 

[dacc10]

The concerns of balanced PvP multiplayer are different from the concerns of an engaging and varied singleplayer experience. I wouldn't want to go into a multiplayer lobby with a blatantly uncompetitive plane, but in the campaigns of the PS2 games I flew the F-14 by default and accepted the handicap of its limited maneuverability. I enjoyed testing the limits of older planes on Ace difficulty. The Draken in ACZ was another favorite for its attractive double-delta looks and challenging lack of dogfighting ability.

That's why you need lobbies limited to players of a certain level of skill, planes with a certain level of capabilities. It's easier and adds a tiny bit more realism to the game. That tiny bit more of realism adds a lot of personality to each plane, which, with all those unrealistic mods, those planes don't have. I get the need for balance and making all the aircraft playable, but that can be achieved by spliting them in two or three classes.
It would be much more appealing to the eye seeing lobbies for classic planes, instead of throwing everything to a bag, shuffle, and here you have the balancing system that makes little sense, where an Harrier can reach almost mach 2.

Sorry to disagree with both of you on this, but to me, the feeling of a formidable opponent because he sits on an F-22 is lost, because some dudes in an F-5 just turned "God Mode" with all those mods, making the plane impossible to kill, and impossible to avoid getting killed by. And it's not only the agility of each plane, or the acceleration, even missiles get ridiculously overpowered, since with the right upgrades, are one shot kill, or have twice the agility of the normal missile, or reaches to your plane twice as fast. This is not balance, this is just a skill ignoring mechanic, because someone who plays 10h a day will inevitably have advantage against everyone.

 

[nocturnalgrey]

From AC4 and 5, we've gotten the story cutscenes mainly from the "good" side. From the interview, it looks like we'll be getting stories from both sides of the war. I'd really like to see how it turns out.

Me too. That was one of the reasons why I loved the story from Ace Combat 04 so much. Even though we were shown brief glimpses of the "evil" Yellow Squadron through the narrative, I developed empathy for the characters and their planes "in disrepair".

Shooting down Y13 at the end was bittersweet for me. I hope AC07 captures this magic.

 

[Flex0r]

Me too. That was one of the reasons why I loved the story from Ace Combat 04 so much. Even though we were shown brief glimpses of the "evil" Yellow Squadron through the narrative, I developed empathy for the characters and their planes "in disrepair".

Shooting down Y13 at the end was bittersweet for me. I hope AC07 captures this magic.

Exactly.

I also liked the way of story telling in AC Zero the Belkan War.

 

[sumbrownkid]

I know for a fact some mook in AC7 online will have the Blaze insignia and his username will be 420Blazeit.

 

[Revoy]

BakedWingPixy(?)

 

[RACECAR]

I know for a fact some mook in AC7 online will have the Blaze insignia and his username will be 420Blazeit.

Can't wait for some famous ace names to just have some trolltastic alterations.