The Lattice is a false Messiah. Think twice.

[UberBonisseur]

Originally posted here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/the-lattice-is-a-false-messiah-think-twice-illustrated-rant.105491/


"Where they make a Zerg, they call it Flow"

-Tacitus

Greetings Auraxians -

Many of you have requested that we take a serious look at the shortfalls of our territory control, influence and base connectivity in order to ensure we're routing players into great fights and encouraging a better overall battle flow.

I won't lie; the "new" old upcoming Lattice system does not sound like good news.

Taking it the other way around:

Convince me this will improve the actual strategic depth we've been asking for.

Since that and that only would set PS2 apart from the hidden deathmatch that is BF3 conquest mode.

Where is my tactical approach in this Lattice prototype ?

http://i.imgur.com/hv7nMe0.jpg

What we're doing here, in a nutshell, is reducing the number of adjacent territories from an average of around 6 to an average of around 3. Smaller outposts will have 2-3 connections in general, larger "hub" regions will have 3-5. "But, why?" you may ask. We see several benefits to doing this which have also been brought up by many of your fellow players who are advocating for some of these changes:

This Lane / Corridor approach means that rather than 5 different targets you can attack next or fall back to when defeated, we've got a more limited set of locations to fall back to. This will hopefully encourage fights to progress more often from outpost to outpost instead of "dispersing" after a large battle as often happens today.
Defenders will have a better idea of what targets attackers will be gunning for next, that predictability should hopefully encourage more active defense of outposts and facilities, as well as allow for proactive deployment of combat engineering.
Tactical severing of supply lines and base benefits will be more feasible as well as more understandable.

Okay. He made it clear.

Let's go over, one by one, those points:



-Limited ammount of connections:

From 2-3 to 3-5 connected territories, minus one for your own in the back, which means potentially 1-2 to 2-4 different territories to attack. That's not much. But setting facilities as big lattice nodes make up for that, right ?

Well... That means the only way to have an actual tactical approach; your only instance of choice will happen once you capture THE BIGGEST AND MOST DEFENSIBLE BASES OF ALL.

You are offered tactical choice once... you capture the hardest bases. Which means, in the order of capture hierarchy, from hardest to easiest, you have:

Continent => Facility => Tower => Outpost

Shouldn't ALL of the strategic approach revolve around taking what's the hardest to take ?

By making the facilities the CENTRAL POINT of strategic choice, you are essentially removing it. Worse, it could take the slippery slope of snowballing for who owns facilities. Anyway...



-Better predictability

Well that's pretty obvious. However, you're entirely forgetting what Amerish has accomplished: funneling attackers.

The TERRAIN does the job. While you still can Gal-drop all over the map, which is usually how my pals plan their territory conquest, the bulk of the ground force goes from base to base in a very specific fashion.

It's easily predictable for whoever can open his map and look where the road is leading.

Indar ? A barren desert for the most part. It's not nearly as bad on Esamir due to the limited number of bases.

-Cutting off supply lines

How do we do it ? Sure, it's easier, but... what's the plan ?

According to reddit, no clue:

Higby:

Well we'd like them to be benefits that greatly help defenders in territories. MBT benefit is ok, but the others suck in that regard. example ideas would be to make biolabs reduce hardspawner timers by 5 seconds which could stack. If you had 2 biolabs connected to a territory you were defending the hard spawns would have very short respawns, providing a spawn advantage for defenders and making severing the benefit actually worth thinking about. an idea for the amp station is tying it to a potential "anti-deployment" zone around the outpost / facility. if you had no connected amp stations it would be a small radius around the facility that enemy sunderers could not deploy - with an amp station that radius gets pushed out 100m or so, providing a different kind of spawn advantage.

Those are just examples of ideas we're kicking around, but hopefully you get the theme.

I can see why we have a problem with the current system:

It's BINARY while the adjacency can include a huge ammount of surrounding territories. If only one hex is in contact, the whole continent is linked. If the SCU goes down, the base is lost, etc...

You can fix that; INFLUENCE, a system that already exists, can fix that. Instead of having a flat +10 hp regen/sec with the biolab benefit, how about basing it on Influence ? The more you have, the stronger it is....

Which leads to:



Standardizing capture times - influence and # of players on the control point will no longer cause the capture time to fluxuate so defenders can have a better timebox to gather reinforcements or set up their next line of defense.
Making facilities which are under capture contention no longer provide adjacency for capturing other territories. If you are playing TR and own Xenotech Labs but it is being captured by the NC, you will not be able to use it's connection to to Crossroads to begin capturing Crossroads until you've secured Xenotech.


-Standardizing capture times (aka goodbye influence)

Remember, Influence ?
The more surrounding territories you have, the faster the base is captured ?

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/1210/influence.jpg

Turns out it is not exploited at all

Back in beta, Facilities had multiple control points, some of them located OUTSIDE the facility.

Unfortunately, those where placed in the satellites, far away from the actual base which left attackers no choice.

It was an interesting concept. By controlling a great majority of surrounding territories, you could slowly but steadily capture the sieged base. You would lock defenders in until the capture process ended, but you also had to hold those adjacent territories for this plan to work.

Now that Facilities have either a single control point or all of their control points inside (except maybe Saurva on Indar), you can't use this system anymore. It still works on most Tower outposts, but not on the biggest bases of the game.
It's a great loss for the strategic aspect

Are with just forgetting that BETA had more strategy than the current game ?

By also applying this "capture block" adjacency thing, you also kill off preemptive capture. That's a big thing I like(d) with the BETA; if one of your bases was under capture, but had 0% influence, the capture would come to a dead stop, unlike now. But then again, it was not BINARY. Influence mattered and it was a slow and strategic process of gradually slowing down the enemy capture.

And you might argue:

"But, the current flow of battle is awful, you idiot !"

Yes it is. In which forms ? Ghost capping ? Zerging at the Crown ?

Then how about we adress those problems first ?

That thing right here, is our deployment menu

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/6277/deployawful.jpg

Notice anything ?

There are at least 5 of our territories under attack/capture.

NONE OF THEM ARE LISTED IN THE "REINFORCEMENTS NEEDED" SECTION.

How could you possibly defend your faction from ghost capping when no quick deployment options, visibility about those areas, or even XP incentives prompts you to go and stop those caps ?

Why can a territory cap itself when no one is on the point ?
Why can a single person turn a control point ?
Why does that control point remain when no one stands next to it ?
Why can you still cap a territory with 0% Influence ?

Ghost capping CAN be adressed, without fostering everyone into a lattice.
But you have not even tried to do so.


And The Crown ? Or any other "impossible" place ?

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/4474/crownfix.jpg

That's it. This is all it takes to fix the Crown. No more no less.

It's about stepping out from the BINARY side of base capture/logistics and start using a mechanic that has proven working in BETA.


Back to the main point:

Convince me this will improve the actual strategic depth we've been asking for.


Yes, this is a rant.

Because you bring the Lattice back doesn't mean it will be properly implemented. Not without a complete overhaul of anything else and a change of game mechanics.

Any improvement can be seen as the "Messiah update", because such an absurd ammount of awful design choices was made so far. You shot yourself in the foot multiple times, dragging down gameplay along the way, and now, it's like you're descending from heaven with the cure.

But it does not justify another phase of Beta, nor it should make the old one null and void.

In other words:

Think twice before you support this change.


Also a good read:
A take on fixing the Flow in one big picture (http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/19gkcz/a_take_on_fixing_the_flow_the_big_picture_yet/)

[Crator]

I never did really like the hex system. Give me multiple attack vectors with links and a hack-n-hold timer and I think things might work better. <shrug>

[Nathaniak]

I don't get the Crown-hate. The problem is not with the Crown - the problem is with almost every other base. The Crown is the right level of defensibility. Other bases are not. If every base was as hard to take as the Crown, players would be prepared to actually try to defend at other places, so we'd get huge fights at these other places. If your new invention is broken, but the plug never fails, do you get a worse plug? No, you make the rest of it better.

The Crown is a sign that players want defensibility, and are happy to fight for hours over a single base. SOE should read into that, and make every base as defensible. This way, we can actually have some proper fights across the map.

[ringring]

The lattice won't fix things on their own but it's a big part of the necessary jigsaw.

Some of the rest has been announced and they include the additional continents. We also need more 2-ways and fewer 3-ways and we need better organisation.

More 2-ways will be the result of more continents an inter-continental lattice, whach are on their way, plus better organisation which isn't.

The unfortunate part is that more continents will take time and the elapsed time it will take will test the patience of many. My ideal would be for the game to have lauched with 5 continents and to have expanded from there.

[p0intman]

some more reading material for you OP:
http://ps2.riptidegaming.com/?p=8
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51906

I'll let figment explain the rest, or somebody else. I'm tired of having to write about this.

[Figment]

Like P0intman, I believe I've said enough on the matter and will keep this short.


Less links allows for more control by fewer people. Our problem has not been that we can't beat the zerg, it's that we're not given the opportunity to. The zerg overflows us like a pebble in a river even if we hold any terrain for a short amount of time (eventually we'll get overrun due to base design).

We don't get to stall. We don't get reinforcements because the amount of options disperses the defenders as well as the enemy zerg. The problem is that the enemy zerg has the numbers to disperse and the defenders do not. In fact, a worse problem is that the enemy zerg has the numbers already present and the defenders has to get them into place. Which takes time. It takes a lot of time for a response to muster and if there's no obvious points to gather and any point fall too quickly, than such a response won't form and you're stuck with stinging your opponent till some of your groups ignore them and take the territory they left behind undefended by outghosting them.

See, our hold might stall them at our position, but when they attack a dozen targets and we can only hold a few while other people on our empire attack a dozen more potential targets for quick expansion purposes, far from enough people are considering defense and they won't be in the right places to defend together against a zerg.



However, what I'm going to say is that a lattice system without well designed supportive gameplay will not be sufficient.

*capture options*
*capture mechanics*
*base design*
*tools*
*weaponry / units*
*command system*
*communication system*

These and more all work together to influence gameplay flow. If even one of these stinks, the system can topple over. When PS2 started, most of the above were empty shells and the gameplay based on top of it had a very weak foundation and would frequently breakdown. Today it still does, but less frequently as you see that some of the issues have been partially adressed to make them less flawed.

I'm saying less flawed, since I'm not really content with any of the above sub-systems. They each have a lot of development to go.

[UberBonisseur]

some more reading material for you OP:
http://ps2.riptidegaming.com/?p=8
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51906

I'll let figment explain the rest, or somebody else. I'm tired of having to write about this.

I've already read it.
And you are too deep into the mindset of BIG BATTLES = BETTER

If you can find the Orangesoda "Indar re-imagined thing" I actually come up with a similar mindset of conclusions;
-He just EXCLUDED outposts from the lattice and gave them benefits (resources, radar, stuff) rather than including them,
-My proposition INCLUDES the outposts in the Hex system using Influence to dynamically change respawn times, benefits, and capture times.

Less links allows for more control by fewer people. Our problem has not been that we can't beat the zerg, it's that we're not given the opportunity to. The zerg overflows us like a pebble in a river even if we hold any terrain for a short amount of time (eventually we'll get overrun due to base design)

Fewer people also means fewer people.
PS1 had from 266 to 400 players on a continent. A squad/platoon easily made up 20% of the total faction on a continent. Not the case in PS2. It's just a matter of relative numbers, smaller battles make individuals more valuable.
You can easily win a 12v12 Crown battle, but not a 100v100.

However, unless there is a huge overhaul of strategic/logistic mechanics, the only meaningful thing you can do is busting the vehicle zerg.

[Figment]

But even if there's 100 vs 12, we could stall them with the appropriate CC resecure mechanic.


You know how often we held a place for three hours straight in PS1 against a full platoon with just 5 people? All we needed to do then, was get ONE guy into the CC alone for half a minute to a minute. Hell, I did that whole "resecure to stall for another 15mins" on my own back then several times a weekend. Meanwhile, our faction could finish up other fights and respond without half the continent having been lost.

Now we need to continuously hold it for 10-20 minutes, while we can't even find a way to get there in time in the first place.

[UberBonisseur]

That is base design though.


Can't say I agree with most of PS1 super-tight corridors and doorways. And BR40 universal soldiers. It was like thermopylae. Both epic and annoying beyond belief.
But at least NTUs could break the holds.

[Nathaniak]

I'd be in favour of a system where you didn't have to hold the base to take it. The bases could therefore be much more defensible. You could overwhelm it by sheer force, or you could contain the defenders until... something. I don't know. Maybe a re-implementation of ANTs would act as a siege-breaker?

[basti]

Think twice?

We are thinking about this since before the beginning of time itself.


Trust us here mate. This change is better than anything else they could do. It doesn't adress all issues, but it is a gigantic leap into the right direction, allowing a proper look at the other issues, rather than trying to fix stuff while the major system is broken as fuck.

[p0intman]

Think twice?

We are thinking about this since before the beginning of time itself.


Trust us here mate. This change is better than anything else they could do. It doesn't adress all issues, but it is a gigantic leap into the right direction, allowing a proper look at the other issues, rather than trying to fix stuff while the major system is broken as fuck.

mate,
we cannot be seen agreeing like this, it hurts my credibility as a leader of the NC.

Thanks in advance.

For real though, How are we on the same page like this?

[Ghoest9]

The problem with the current model is that their is no battle front at all. Just isolated battles of various sizes.

The lattice will have problems - but it will bet betterthan we have now.

[Redshift]

So long as they add back some semi defendable generators that can be used to break lattice links i'll be happy, that would be one giant step in the right direction as far as making smaller outfits usefull again

[UberBonisseur]

Trust us here mate. This change is better than anything else they could do. It doesn't adress all issues, but it is a gigantic leap into the right direction, allowing a proper look at the other issues, rather than trying to fix stuff while the major system is broken as fuck.


The last thing I can do is trust; this game has none of the mechanics which made PS1 work. It's entirely different in the classes, vehicles, base design and flow.

I can see the appeal of a lattice to the veteran crowd but it has been a shot at nostalgia rather than going in detail about how it would work, and seeing how Higby discusses about it, we're in very early stage, thus it'll take at least 4 more months of non-improvement till we get something potentially decent.

In other words:
While it might or might work, it requires another phase of open beta.

[basti]

mate,
we cannot be seen agreeing like this, it hurts my credibility as a leader of the NC.

Thanks in advance.

For real though, How are we on the same page like this?


Its obvious.
Im VS, i have the brains.

[basti]

The last thing I can do is trust; this game has none of the mechanics which made PS1 work. It's entirely different in the classes, vehicles, base design and flow.

I can see the appeal of a lattice to the veteran crowd but it has been a shot at nostalgia rather than going in detail about how it would work, and seeing how Higby discusses about it, we're in very early stage, thus it'll take at least 4 more months of non-improvement till we get something potentially decent.


I see your point. I raised it some time ago as well on some other topics, but came to a simple conclusion in the end:

Better shut up and let it play out.


Sounds harsh, but what i mean is this: Whatever potential system you dream up or someone else dreams up, there will be downsides. There is no magical "fix everything" button.

However, to fix the problems we have, there are two potential approaches: The Band aid, and the surgery.

Band aiding would be to attempt to fix all the little areas where we have problems. The bunch of crown changes we had, the tunnels, the change to base walls, heck even during beta the change from many capture points to a single one and a bunch of generators, all that was attempting to quickly fix a small part of the game to make it better overall.

A lot of those band aids helped, together they helped a lot, but you can only go so far with them. There are problems you simply cant fix that way.

The flow of battle, the fact that people just spread out after they took something, rather than attacking somethign together, the inability of defenders to predict where the enemy is goint to, their inability to prepare and properly defend, thats stuff you cant fix quickly with a band aid. Devs tried, didnt work. The whole map stuff with instant action and the change to spawning was all attempts to improve the situation, but it all didnt work good enough.


Thats what brings us to the surgery.

A deep cut into the very basic mechanics of the game. The result wont be perfect, and will need new band aids, but it gives new playground to improve, as the problems the new system is going to face are different that the problems of the old. Thats the entire point: Fix the problems you couldnt fix before, deal with the new problems and hope they are not as bad as the old ones.


Im quite sure the new lattice like hex system will improve the game a lot. Just by looking at the map, i get the same chills i got from PS1, as i can see right away where i am, where the enemy is, and what they are going to do next. That means i have time to call for folks, and set up a proper defence.
With this, we will hopefully get more even fights, and then we can take a look at all bases to see how well you can defend them. Earlier you couldnt do that because whenever the attacker ran into a wall, they just went right around it, ignoring the wall completly. They cant do that now anymore. :)

[Snydenthur]

The flow of battle, the fact that people just spread out after they took something, rather than attacking somethign together, the inability of defenders to predict where the enemy is goint to, their inability to prepare and properly defend, thats stuff you cant fix quickly with a band aid. Devs tried, didnt work. The whole map stuff with instant action and the change to spawning was all attempts to improve the situation, but it all didnt work good enough.

But how is the flow of battle because of the game? You can't fix players. The hex system now surely allows people to attack and defend together, but since every player is individual, they like to do what they want. Someone likes to move with the zerg, someone likes to defend bases, some people just want to run off alone and try to cap smaller bases alone. Forcing people to play the game like some people want might lead to more players quitting the game.

For me this concept doesn't really sound like it would be a good thing. I'm not saying current system is perfect, no way. But it could be easily fixed by adding something to make people want to defend instead of constantly attacking. Maybe just giving xp for defending a base would be enough.

[Phantomdestiny]

But how is the flow of battle because of the game? You can't fix players. The hex system now surely allows people to attack and defend together, but since every player is individual, they like to do what they want. Someone likes to move with the zerg, someone likes to defend bases, some people just want to run off alone and try to cap smaller bases alone. Forcing people to play the game like some people want might lead to more players quitting the game.

For me this concept doesn't really sound like it would be a good thing. I'm not saying current system is perfect, no way. But it could be easily fixed by adding something to make people want to defend instead of constantly attacking. Maybe just giving xp for defending a base would be enough.

right now new players don't know what to do therefore this new system will give them direction instead of zerging

[Carbon Copied]

I'm pretty stoked for the new hex adjacency system - I like the potential for the push/pull it gives both the defending and attacking fronts. I have the potential to know where they are and what they're going for I just don't know how they're going to go about doing it (which is good).

The big bonus is that this being tested prior as a mini-beta on the new test server(s) rather than simply using live as the guinea pig. Hopefully this gives way to constructive criticism that influences it for the better. As basti mentioned: band aids and surgery.

[Badjuju]

Bases will still need some work but right now cannot stop the larger faction because either you are spread to thin with the sheer number of areas the enemy is capping from, or the larger faction is spread out so much they flood every point.

This limits attacking options which allows you to plan defense strategies, prepare for assaults, and allocate the appropriate amount soldiers to attempt a defense with out them attacking 8 other hexes instead because you put up a good fight.

The underdog should have more of a chance to defend continents and you have the opportunity to make more strategic decisions as you can see the possible courses of actions your enemy can take.

[wave]

Listen up. Armchair game designers who have not even played the Planetside 1 lattice system have an opinion about the lattice system.





.

[Kerrec]

I'm worried that I won't be able to find fights that have the right balance of "not too many players to kill my FPS" but not too few to make sure "I have a challenging fight".

I can't declare this new "lattice" will take that sweet spot away, but I'm afraid that it will.

IMO, if they would just give bases real WORTH, then people may try to defend them. And the varying worth of the bases will give the predictability people want.

[Badjuju]

Fewer people also means fewer people.
PS1 had from 266 to 400 players on a continent. A squad/platoon easily made up 20% of the total faction on a continent. Not the case in PS2. It's just a matter of relative numbers, smaller battles make individuals more valuable.
You can easily win a 12v12 Crown battle, but not a 100v100.

However, unless there is a huge overhaul of strategic/logistic mechanics, the only meaningful thing you can do is busting the vehicle zerg.

In theory that sounds great but unfortunately it is just too much. It just leads to lots of ghost capping and the larger force taking to many hexes at once to handle.

I made a comment about a value of the system so I wont go into that. However there are still roles to fill by smaller groups, and hopefully they will look at some mechanic changes that will as well.

For one, keep in mind there will still be many fronts unless you own almost no territory or almost all the territory on the map. Fronts will just be less chaotic and unpredictable, but youll still have the opportunity for smaller battles.

In larger battles you can take/hold key objectives such as satellites, gens, choke points, and flanks. I ran with SG the other night and they dedicated a team to defending an Amp station satellite and it was a hell of a fight. VS were pushing hard to get that spawn point, and holding them off was a huge blow to their ability to take the base which was completely cut off. You can make strategic drops to either interrupt a defense or wreak havoc on an enemy offense (on a ridge with AV behind an advancing tank column for example). ect..

More importantly, this should help develop more battle flow, strategic depth, and be a start to a decent meta game. As we progress all of these issues, the community will have more of an opportunity and hopefully be more inclined to start working together and coordinating more. It took a while in PS1 but eventually you had great empire cohesion.

When this happens, smaller units have a greater chance to excel as strategies are made and team work among the empires is used to achieve goals.

I agree capture methods need a serious look at and changes to them could help smaller groups allot, but that is down the road.

[p0intman]

Armchair game designers who have not even played the Planetside 1 lattice system have an opinion about the lattice system.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/13/call-of-duty-red-orchestra-2-interview/

unfortunately true. Too many Cod and Bf armchair tacticians opining on things they haven't a clue about.

[Badjuju]

I'm worried that I won't be able to find fights that have the right balance of "not too many players to kill my FPS" but not too few to make sure "I have a challenging fight".

I can't declare this new "lattice" will take that sweet spot away, but I'm afraid that it will.

IMO, if they would just give bases real WORTH, then people may try to defend them. And the varying worth of the bases will give the predictability people want.

Worth dosnt matter when they the larger force can attack 10 hexes at once. That is the problem were seeing now. There should still be plenty of approaches of attack.

[Electrofreak]

Think twice? It worked for the better part of a decade beautifully in PS1. Why think twice, it's tried-and-true.
:rolleyes:

[Kail]

Listen up. Armchair game designers who have not even played the Planetside 1 lattice system have an opinion about the lattice system.





.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

[Palerion]

Listen up. Armchair game designers who have not even played the Planetside 1 lattice system have an opinion about the lattice system..

Well now, I've never played PS1 (well, briefly; my computer couldn't handle it :/) and I still happen to think a lattice system would be great. It helps players to know which way the battle will flow and, therefore, gives a better combat experience. Also creates more 2-ways, less 3-ways, making matches more push-pull, like it should be, instead if chaotic.

[Gonefshn]

This change is mostly to allow fights to continue after a territory flips. Having a more predictable game allows for players to develop the meta game. There is a reason people in RTS games don't like big changes to the game. They spend so much time working off the rules that are set in stone to develop meta game strategies. Changing the rules resets the strategies.

The lattice system allows a more predictable game, allowing defenders a chance to prepare for an upcoming assault. A more understandable battle flow means outfits and players alike can plan better and develop a more solid and deep meta game.

[AThreatToYou]

You've got it backwards OP, honestly. At least that's what I am getting from you.
We want facilities to be the focus of battle, and you seem to imply that we don't? Something like that. We also want facilities to be more defensible, because they are apparently important. In the past, if you had a defensible facility, the best choice was to just take all of the territories around it and capture one of the satellite points and watch the successful enemy defense find themselves losing, because influence. That was a part of BETA that made facilities a little worthless.

Most PS1 vets (not all, of course) want the fights to be focused around a couple central choke points with relatively few options for moving out. In PS1, these central chokes were facilities and the areas immediately around them (SOI/Tower). The new lattice is going to try to return us to that.

In addition, PS1 had the glorious Bridge Fight and that nicely defined space in which you would expect the bulk of the enemy force to move, with a wide enough space available for flanking maneuvers, because this space wasn't linking to any other territory. Right now, the closest thing to the Bridge Fight in PS2 is between The Crown and Ti Alloys; if the spaces on each side were flatter, and there really wasn't a way underneath the bridge (aside from infantry digging the catwalks), you'd have it. My best imagination is we don't want choke points just for the meatgrinder, we also want the choke points so it means more when you flank and outsmart the meatgrinder.

Because the new lattice will give us less connections, every path available suddenly becomes more meaningful because in a lot of cases, that base is the only way for your faction to gain access to more territory along that path. That's part of what the lattice in PS1 did.

[Rumblepit]

current system......" we have a massive front setup to defend the tech plant,mines and claymores are deployed, turrets are up,repaired and maned .while your a waiting the enemy to move on that location, they see your ready to defend, and make their move. the enemy goes around your defense , looking like they are planing to flank, but wait!!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE GOING AROUND THE BASE AWAY FROM THE FIGHT AND TO STRAIGHT TO THE UNDEFENDED BASES BEHIND US:(.............. this is the problem

not sure if the OP was in beta, but we have tested many many different versions of the hex system, and they all have the same problem.you can bypass what you want when you want,and do it all while avoiding the enemy. there is no way or place for a front line to form. this creates many problems when defending bases and territory.

with the lattice system in place, you will no longer be able to avoid fights..... you will have to take the crown, or a biolab if you want to progress . this is the way it should be.
you should never ever be aloud to just go around a defended base.

[Gonefshn]

current system......" we have a massive front setup to defend the tech plant,mines and claymores are deployed, turrets are up,repaired and maned .while your a waiting the enemy to move on that location, they see your ready to defend, and make their move. the enemy goes around your defense , looking like they are planing to flank, but wait!!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE GOING AROUND THE BASE AWAY FROM THE FIGHT AND TO STRAIGHT TO THE UNDEFENDED BASES BEHIND US:(.............. this is the problem

not sure if the OP was in beta, but we have tested many many different versions of the hex system, and they all have the same problem.you can bypass what you want when you want,and do it all while avoiding the enemy. there is no way or place for a front line to form. this creates many problems when defending bases and territory.

with the lattice system in place, you will no longer be able to avoid fights..... you will have to take the crown, or a biolab if you want to progress . this is the way it should be.
you should never ever be aloud to just go around a defended base.

This guy makes an awesome point. The lattice system simply put provides you with obstacles. It forces you to take territory to advance. Imagine if the only option you had to advance your territory was to take the crown. This adds so much depth. You would have real goals and would have to plan accordingly.

The lattice system creates priority which is lacking in the current system.

PS2 would benefit greatly from a system that forces players to buckle down and take the territory necessary to advance their control of a continent.

[Stardouser]

Since that and that only would set PS2 apart from the hidden deathmatch that is BF3 conquest mode.


This quote here is what really highlights the problem with so many fights being deathmatches:


Well we'd like them to be benefits that greatly help defenders in territories.


They don't realize that defenses are already overpowered in so many situations. If you don't want fights to stagnate into deathmatches, then the front line needs to keep moving. That means bases need to be easier to capture if the only defensive tactic the defenders use is respawn spamming from the base being attacked, because, so long as defenders can hold onto a base just by respawn spamming, they won't do anything else, and the attackers probably won't either. I am talking about small bases here mostly, large bases are a bit different.

That said, we need at least three changes:
1. No bases should be designed like TI Alloys where there is one easily defensible cap point, easily defended by the respawn spammers.
2. Somehow, we need to encourage thinking outside the fight you're currently at. If the base you are currently attacking is too swarmed with defenders, breaking off a force to hit the next base down the front line might succeed since it's probably not well defended. For defenders, you'd like to see them pulling vehicles from other bases to hit the besiegers from behind.
3. In the event there isn't a base down the front line because the fight is over an isolated hex with no adjacency, there should be a palpable penalty for the defense that makes it easier to capture.

Basically, find ways to discourage both sides from digging in for sieges.

[typhaon]

I don't think it's a solution, either.

The problem is a lack of definition about the actual endgame/metagame/whatever. If that was established, I think better base and world design would've worked without the invisible walls of this lattice system.

[moosepoop]

anyone that thinks lattice is a bad idea is a moron.

[UberBonisseur]

You've got it backwards OP, honestly. At least that's what I am getting from you.
We want facilities to be the focus of battle, and you seem to imply that we don't? Something like that. We also want facilities to be more defensible, because they are apparently important. In the past, if you had a defensible facility, the best choice was to just take all of the territories around it and capture one of the satellite points and watch the successful enemy defense find themselves losing, because influence. That was a part of BETA that made facilities a little worthless.

On Indar, facilities are worth 10 to 15 outposts worth of resources. They also grant significant benefits. They also have heavy vehicle spawns.
And they are strong footholds.
All of this create an imbalance when it comes to territory value.


You need to make the rest of the territory relevant, there must be a point in capturing it. If the only reason you can come up with is "it links facilities", that's very cheap.

That's why influence was good, it gave a reason to spread and actually fight for smaller outposts to act as a lever on the facility itself. It's exactly the same thing as draining NTU: a siege, slowly bleeding out the defenders.
Slowly being the key word. NTU drain wasn't the best strategy in PS1, was it ?

In the end, you could remove all the benefits from a facility, people would still fight for it because it's a strong defensible position, just like the Crown is always being contested.

They will always remain the focus on the battle, but surrounding territory also needs to play a part in the battle, and not just "be there". Not every base is a facility like PS1.

That and snowballing with 2 facilities can lead to a curbstomp battle faster than fighting over 30 smaller ones.

Most PS1 vets (not all, of course) want the fights to be focused around a couple central choke points with relatively few options for moving out. In PS1, these central chokes were facilities and the areas immediately around them (SOI/Tower). The new lattice is going to try to return us to that.

Terrain is going to return you that, Amerish proves it.
The lattice just directed players on those choke points, but it's nothing world design can't do. And the average Facility to Facility in PS1 distance was bigger. Now you can just put outposts in between.


In addition, PS1 had the glorious Bridge Fight and that nicely defined space in which you would expect the bulk of the enemy force to move, with a wide enough space available for flanking maneuvers, because this space wasn't linking to any other territory. Right now, the closest thing to the Bridge Fight in PS2 is between The Crown and Ti Alloys; if the spaces on each side were flatter, and there really wasn't a way underneath the bridge (aside from infantry digging the catwalks), you'd have it. My best imagination is we don't want choke points just for the meatgrinder, we also want the choke points so it means more when you flank and outsmart the meatgrinder.

Once again, Amerish. Or south-east Indar (when it's fought for)
You can ALREADY outsmart the meat grinder. In a variety of ways.

Because the new lattice will give us less connections, every path available suddenly becomes more meaningful because in a lot of cases, that base is the only way for your faction to gain access to more territory along that path. That's part of what the lattice in PS1 did.

Can't disagree since you are forced into this.

[AThreatToYou]

Terrain is going to return you that, Amerish proves it.

I'm not going to moot your point, because it's valid, but Amerish is not a popular continent. If we want it on all continents without having this level-design business (which is difficult since I'd like to fire some folks on that), we have to force the flow of battle with a lattice.

Once again, Amerish. Or south-east Indar (when it's fought for)
You can ALREADY outsmart the meat grinder. In a variety of ways.

I know, but there are not enough opportunities and they aren't very clear.

[Figment]

Amerish is a bad example, because terrain doesn't actually do that much on its own. You can ignore all terrain by flying or driving straight through mountainous area.

It doesn't stop zergs of Liberators and ESF even mildly. You can't block East Hills from being captured if you even lose ONE connecting territory. At that point, you can't go there to defend either for:

1. You'll get there too late.
2. You'll get to a spawncamped area.
3. You'll lose whatever you're defending currently in the process.




Making it "worthwhile" on a theoretical level by tieing a reward to it in terms of gameplay (tanks, etc) or experience is far from enough and only devaluates other territories further by reducing them to influence zones.

Buffer zones are far more worthwhile because they gain you time. The most precious and rare of resources.

[DviddLeff]

All the lattice system will do is restrict our options for attack to less locations making more fights actually happen instead of forces bypassing each other and chasing each others tails.

It will harm strategy in that it will restrict options, however at the moment this is needed.

[camycamera]

I WANT THIS TO WORK, FIX IT HIGGLES! :lol:

[Silent Thunder]

Yea the problem with people claiming that it will restrict options is that there are simply too many options for a actual fight to develop. The open area, between base fights should be something that happens fairly often, not once or twice a playsession before degenrating into more zerg vs 20 guys standing behind a shielded doorway.

[Empra]

I think it's a shame they got rid of doors completely. Bases just seem to get swarmed too quick and theres nothing you can do about it. With this system in place it will truly put to test the defense of bases. They are slowly coming together with SCU and tunnel changes. IMO the outside spawns are a little too campable.

I think this change will be very good. The test server will be up way before it goes live so I'm not worried.