Ace Combat Infinity (PS3) review

[Darwock]

The scary thing is that the community was split. Plenty of people in my rooms were not even logging points for the tourney, as they were in the wrong plane. If everyone had been participating it would have been insanely difficult to reach the first prize.

Curious as to why you wanted that nickname, I get that its the zodiac sign and not the disease, but it seems mighty unappealing to me...

[jimtendo]

Yeah, born in june, so the zodiac callsign was quite nice. Plus I am a blight in modern society.
I've not yet got the Morgan, though if the drop rate for me was anything like the Zipang, I won't get it until the last week of July.

[Darwock]

It's already turning up as MVP aircraft with those 2100+ guys with the Phoenix emblem... sigh...

[Darwock]

Any luck getting the plane to drop yet Jimtendo? Nothing for me, not even the F-2A skin. I swear they have nerfed all the drop rates, all I ever get is 1200 credits, I used to get free fuel fairly consistently. Not anymore.

I might break my resolve to not use stocked fuel until there is a prize that is worth it, it is getting too frustrating waiting for that drop.

[Profit]

Played about 9 hours total of this game, using nothing but free fuel. I think it is great for a free game but now I do not feel I will get much gameplay variety by paying for fuel.

Hope this model works as I would love to see a new retail Ace Combat game. Or even a quick port of this to the PS4.

[Darwock]

If this model works it means we won't ever see a full retail version, doesn't it? Sadly it looks as though they are absolutely raking it in. There are many, many players who are paying for fuel.

I binged again yesterday, ran a contract and burned stocked fuel, hoping for Moby Dick II or III and a chance to get the Morgan drop. Luck was against me, I got a MD I after two rounds and nothing at all for another 13 or 14, when I finally got MD II. No trace of the Morgan. My fuel supplies are much lower than I hoped to be, but I'm about where I want to be on the research tree. My level 10 upgrade for the Strike Eagle is ready and I have the 900'000 credits, but I'm reluctant to drop it when the plane performs well enough as it is.

We are about to get another two and a half days of downtime, after which PvP mode will be included. Next tournament is PvP in restricted low tier aircraft (hopefully this means high tier planes are excluded from playing, not just excluded from earning the rank points). Rewards are the crow and silber squadron emblems from AC0. Worryingly the top prize bracket has been shifted to only 200 places, when it was previously 1000. 1000 is now second place, third place is top 3000 (used to be top 10'000). The numbers are a lot less attainable, which may be a sign of shrinking game population. If they roll the same numbers over to the next co-op tourney I think I may retire. The combination of having all the desirable stuff given out as prizes and the fact that they make it incredibly hard to achieve would just be a step too far for me.

[jimtendo]

Yeah I got my Morgan drop a week ago, but not used yet until I can get it to lvl. 4

As for the new rewards ranking for the PvP aspect... Well, less said the better.

I think I'm getting to that stage you are where I'll just give up, as it's skewed so much towards shelling out for fuel.

It's a good game granted, but if it keeps the pricing/ fuel structure then I won't be too surprised if players start moving on to other games.

On a side note, I managed to get the 'Gust Notch' nickname by defeating a Bacura in Tokyo mission. Jeez these things can take a beating.

[Darwock]

Yeah did the bacura thing myself, collided with it thinking I would surely destroy it before I got too close. Then had to do multiple fly-bys, never sure if I was lining up on the same one each time.

Did you get your Morgan on supplied fuel? Logically I know there is no reason to use stocked fuel but I'm starting to get nervous, especially as we lose the next few days.

[jimtendo]

I got mine via a stocked fuel if I remember right.
Would not surprise me in the slightest if that's how a lot of unlocks are had.

As for PvP what planes would be ideal?
I'm either thinking Mirage > get up to lvl. 4 to use 4AAMs as that has quite a decent amount of slots for plane enhancements.

The other planes viable have really air to ground specials, apart from the F-16 which has 4AAM from the get-go, but has abysmal amounts of slots.

[Darwock]

Either F16 with QAAMs (dont want to invest so heavily in a crappy plane though) or the Mirage at level 4/5. I am not going to commit to anything until I see how PvP is going to be. My Mirage is currently level 3 so if it looks like its worth participating I will use reports to bump it up to level 4.

[Darwock]

Opinions of PVP at this level?

I find it to be rather pointless, boring and frustrating... No matter how you try and approach a fight it always degenerates into just turning constantly, hoping an enemy strays into view so you can fire off some missiles and if you are lucky you get a brief moment of satisfaction as your missiles connect.

I don't actually feel as though what I am doing has much influence on whether I win or not, but I have won a few times and consistently finished in the top three - presumably this is the difference a higher levelled plane makes rather than any indicator of skill on my part.

Thing is, the next tourney is unrestricted TDM and I expect that will be worse as QAAMs make a further mockery of any piloting skill. No word on the prize brackets yet, but the prizes are limited planes (stripes F-15 S/MTD and shogun F-2A). Not looking forward to it at all.

Not to mention the only grinding I still need to do is for rank and credits, and TDM gives crappy amounts of both compared to co-op.

On the positive side, I got both the Morgan and a non-standard upgrade form in drops last night, yay! Although I think I'd rather go for the Su-47 now that I have the choice...

[jimtendo]

Yup.
PvP is abysmal.
Before I used to just circle strafe and try to get behind the oppositions plane. I found it better to take very wide elliptical sweeps to avoid the clusterf*** and just pick them off when I sweep back in.

If someone happens to notice me and tries to tag me, just do a large high G turn continuously until missiles are gone. And hopefully sweeping back in you can line up an unaware target.

But yeah, the next PvP event is going to be worse. F-22 & QAAM mirror matches.

[Darwock]

Lets not forget the fact it is very easy to cheat in PvP for ranking - I have already seen some asshats trying to find partners in crime to just take it in turns to coast and let yourself be killed for max points. It is really badly thought out, much like a lot of things Namco have done with the game.

For legitimate play, I wonder if high level Morgans will be dominant. High manouverability, lots of slots for standard missile upgrades and ECM for defence. Although I actually found most of my kills are had after respawning, and there is no deduction to points for getting blown up, so survivability would actually hinder my ranking potential.

God, I dont even want to think about it, wish I could just ignore it completely but they had to go and give away the goodies in this ****ty mode.

[jimtendo]

The Morgan is crazy expensive to upgrade. For level. 4, it costs something around 400,000cr!
That's what your looking for at lvl.7 for the F22.

Another flaw is that heavily upgraded low level planes for the recent event would match the mid tier planes easily.

I've had a few matches where a lowly F-16C would absolutely wipe the floor in rankings, due to it being higher than lvl.7 for QAAM and the better manoeuvrability it has.

What they should've done was to cap the planes to default lvl.1 and no upgrades. Of course a few planes would be unusable due to special weapons. Although the majority of my sorties were with a lvl.3 Mirage, with the air to ground missiles.

Oh and that TDM is timed (in that whoever has he highest amount after 5 minutes wins) instead of reaching a score threshold is especially lame.

One last thing.
Sorties in PvP don't count towards any current challenges... Thanks Namco!

[Darwock]

Just seen the details of the general TDM event. First prize is once again limited to 200 only, with the big draw being the Shogun F-2A. The F-15 S/MTD goes to 2nd and 3rd as well (so everyone in top 3000). First two places also get Galm squadron emblem (to be honest I want that more than the planes!) which plays AC-Zero music on earning MVP. The special planes don't appear on the tree yet so no idea how good they are.

The mini ranking in co-op keeps the old prize brackets, top place (1000) gets the Schnee squadron emblem along with the F-15C skin, although only the emblem is limited to first place, near enough everyone can get the skin. Bit odd, Schnee were an F-14D squadron. AgainI would like the emblem but I dont fly F-15C so dont care about the skin.