 So now that we've talked in depth about gaming philosophy, let's talk about one of the most heated topics within the Armored Core community and try to analyze it from a developer perspective. For those of you who don't know, Armored Core 6 added the ability to hardlock your enemy, which has never been done before in an AC game, which essentially makes the camera system more similar to action-oriented games like Souls, Zone of the Enders, and Gundam. Now, I do believe both sides have a valid reason for holding the respective opinion, but if you take a step back, as with most game issues, this is really just a battle between two different gaming philosophies. So today, that's what we're gonna be diving into. Now, just to be perfectly clear about my stance, I've been playing Armored Core religiously for the past 23 years, all the way from 2000 in the PS2. And I think hardlock is good, and I think it amplifies what the game is really about. I hope it stays and I'll explain why. But first, I'd like to steelman the other argument as to why they don't like it. The main one is they don't like how it allows less skilled players to keep up with advanced players' movements. But I think their strongest argument is that essentially it weakens lightweight builds because lightweight's trade armor for speed, and part of the reason you want that speed is so that you can outmaneuver and make it difficult for the enemy to keep a lock on you. Also, in the past with older AC games, when there was no hardlock, instead, your camera speed was basically determined by a stat in your legs called turn speed. Lightweight legs generally had a very high turn speed while heavyweights had a very slow turn speed. And in the past, at high level play, the optimal strategy as a lightweight was to get inside your enemy's blind spot and use their slow turn speed to your advantage to basically ensure that they would never be able to get a lock on you. But now that hardlock is a thing, it's impossible to do that. And even the heaviest builds will be able to keep a lock on a lightweight no matter where they go. Now I actually agree, and I think this is an excellent point. However, I disagree, and that I don't think it's mainly a hardlock problem. I think it's more on the fact that lightweights in general are not well balanced and they have a lot of issues, especially with the new stagger system, knockback, range, risk and reward. Hardlock just makes the problem worse, but it's not the root. And I think there are many ways that FromSoft can fix lightweights without getting rid of hardlock and that they should explore those options because as one of the few people who mastered the tank controls where you had to use R2 and L2 to look up and down. Without hardlock, it really just becomes a game of who has better aim and movement. Back then when there was no stick and no mouse aim, the match was over before it even started once I realized I had better aim than you. Because if you didn't master the tank controls like I did, you simply did not have enough control over your AC to keep up with me. And there was nothing you could do to overcome that challenge. All your strategy and all of your skills and all of your weapons and all of your parts, your knowledge, your experience were basically useless because you were never going to see me. And this is something that the devs have seriously thought about each game and clearly tried to take steps to mitigate. Remember how we talked about the game devs deciding what skills they want to reward the players for? Well, let's talk about the skills that Armored Core 6 is trying to reward. Aiming is just one type of skill. And then we have other skills like experience, knowledge, strategy, movement, positioning, timing, awareness, creativity and grit. I think these are a pretty good summary of the most important skills in Armored Core. Now, a lot of people against hardlock say they don't like losing to players with less skill. And when they do lose to an enemy who uses hardlock, they feel cheated because they assume the guy using hardlock is less skilled than they are. But on the flip side, I would argue that could be true. Maybe they do have less skill in aiming, but Armored Core was never about who has better aim. It's always been intended for people who like to spend time understanding all the parts, the stats, strategizing and building a solution in the garage. That's very clearly designed as a single player experience. Verse mode is just an afterthought. And the devs were hoping that the player spends most of their time in the garage, just messing with parts and customization, not spending all of their time in training mode practicing their aim. As an old AC vet who's played way too much Armored Core, all of my experience is on console with controllers. So my mouse aim is pretty much garbage and I have no shame in admitting that. If it wasn't for hardlock, then I would no longer be able to compete anymore in Armored Core because I simply don't have time to spend 200 hours in training mode perfecting my mouse aim before I go into a lobby. It's just not feasible. It's not fun. And it's not what the game is about anyway. You don't play this game to practice your mouse aim. You play this game to customize and build a giant robot to complete the mission. And if aiming was more important, it would undermine all the other skills that the game is actually about. When I was playing AC on the PS2, just destroying everyone in my state. Yeah, it was fun for me, but it was also kind of sad because after my opponents realized that until they spent 900 hours mastering the tank controls like I did, they were never going to be able to compete with top players. They just gave up the game and you just kind of run out of people to play with. And honestly, I couldn't really blame them for feeling that way because from a new player's perspective, it's really not fun to play against a top player. This is what it was like if you were a new player fighting a veteran in the older armored core games. Objectively, not even as a developer, but just as a viewer, there's nothing good about this. Until you've perfected your aim, you simply don't get to play. You don't even see the enemy. It doesn't matter what parts you've picked, all your creativity and strategy becomes pointless because your enemy is never going to be in front of you. And that is precisely why I believe hard lock does more good than it does harm because we don't want to go back to this. Now you just get to focus on all the fun stuff that the game is really about. And for all the people who say the game feels like rock, paper, scissors, to be honest, yes, you are correct. And that is by design. The Debs wanted to reward strategy and knowledge over aiming and technical skill. And yes, I am aware that a lot of builds are sort of funneled into the meta, which is a completely separate topic that we'll get into later. But as far as the single player mode goes, this is how the game was designed. Hard lock has made the game much more enjoyable to the types of players who just like to build giant robots and overcome challenges with their own designs. And I don't think we should go back to a point where matches were decided on who has better aim. And listen, if you're a new armored core player using hard lock and people are giving you shit about it, as one of the oldest AC vets out there who probably has more hours invested in the series than the guys giving you this shit, allow me to just give you the past to just ignore them and enjoy the game. You are not a fake Raven just because you use hard lock. I've been a Raven for 23 years. I use hard lock. I enjoy it. And I'm just glad that you enjoy it too. Because for the first time ever, we have a generation of new players that really enjoy the game for the right reasons. And I don't think people really understand just how important that is because our beloved series was almost dead. Armored Core 6 almost didn't happen. And now not only is it back, it has a new fresh player base who are experiencing everything awesome that we love about the series just like we did back in the day. And ultimately, I think that's gonna be what keeps the series going into the future. So I hope that shed some light and perspective on this topic. Thank you so much for watching. And as always, we have a fantastic day and I'll see you around.