First Test of Hex Changes Apr08

[Hamma]

SOE would like to run the first test of the new Hex changes tonight on Public Test:

Hello everyone! Our outpost and battle flow changes need some solid testing, and that requires solid players and outfits. We're doing a focus test tonight at 5pm PST (8pm EST). The focus of this test is on the Indar map changes and battle flow. We'd like as many organized outfits in there as we can get, so of you are in or run an outfit please encourage your outfit to play on Test tonight. We'll also have a lot of the dev team playing alongside you and observing.

For information on policies or how to download and install the client please see this thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/public-test-server-is-active.114080/

Be sure to patch early! Please use this thread for feedback on tonight's test.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/focus-test-indar-4-8-5pm-pst.114142/

[p0intman]

sooner than i thought. this is actually something i would ~log in~ for.

[ShadoViper]

I'm there!

[OctavianAXFive]

Well I don't have an outfit, I'm a mangy wolf.

I'll play mercenary though. If any outfit needs/would like an extra set of hands, I'd gladly join up on the PTS.

Any faction is fine obviously and I can voip with any program you desire.

Just send me a PM if you want to hire me on for the testing tonight.

[ChipMHazard]

Too late for my blood, sadly. But I'm sure I'll get to see it soon enough.

[DirtyBird]

I'll be jumping on.

[Hamma]

Yea Higby did say that they will be doing some more euro friendly times. :D

[Assist]

How does the test client work? Is it an entirely seperate client or just a launcher? I'm a bit short on room on my SSD!

[Aaron]

How does the test client work? Is it an entirely seperate client or just a launcher? I'm a bit short on room on my SSD!

Separate client I think. I had to download about 8 gigs.

[KALU]

Sadly I will miss this being in Australia time zone and working but I trust the Yanks to provide detailed feedback and some screen grabs and or footage of the new layouts....

Glad SOE and the team are fast tracking this. It should be No. 1 on the list of things to fix.

Good work.

[Mastachief]

Still downloading and too late for me, have fun.

[DirtyBird]

Sadly I will miss this being in Australia time zone and working but I trust the Yanks to provide detailed feedback and some screen grabs and or footage of the new layouts....

Glad SOE and the team are fast tracking this. It should be No. 1 on the list of things to fix.

Good work.

Grab the client and get on when you can and have a look around.

[Assist]

Separate client I think. I had to download about 8 gigs.

gracias, downloading now. Don't think I'll make the test tonight but maybe I can catch the tail end of it.

[DirtyBird]

Going to need a few more VS and NC with the current server pop showing TR @ 50% (58% on Indar)

[capiqu]

Looks pretty good to me. I just hope all those grey areas could have hackable facilities that can be hacked like Planetside 1 towers, no links needed. These large grey areas can be divided into hexes that add resources to your empire with adjacency. Enemies with no link can also hack them to deplete your resources or disturb reinforcement routes .

[Hamma]

Anyone participate in the test? How did it go?

[Assist]

Anyone participate in the test? How did it go?

Not enough people to test the lattice properly.

From what I can gather, not much will change as far as battle flow. Capture times are twice as long as they are currently on live, but there's still no incentive to rescue a base as opposed to going to another base and gaining a foothold there before the enemy arrives. There's too many connections so that it seems it's not that different from the current system.

The biggest positive is that most bases were reworked(Entire test was on Indar, Esamir/Amerish have no lattice on map yet). Almost every major base had their outposts redesigned, and there were a few new buildings(spawn-type looking ones) inside the amp stations. All the major bases now have outposts that seem like they're essentially their own base. Influence doesn't appear to effect cap times at all, I guess that's intended. But if you're at say Allatum Botany Lab(south outpost) and Allatum captures, you do not get Allatum capture credit.
Some of the minor bases were reworked and tweaked with defense in mind.
All-in-all, IMO, the changes to Indar are great. I love the changes to Western/North-Western Indar bases. But the current lattice-type system on test isn't going to change much as far as zergs, ghost capping, and battle flow. Too many options to simply leave a base being zerged and go elsewhere, and not enough reason to work to regain a base that a zerg got to before your defense got there.

edit: Oh, and 75% of the people were using the new pump shotguns, as they were available. (The same ones from the planetside2 players site, Diemos etc, although the MAX weapons on the players site was still not in)

[Rothnang]

I was on tonight to test the new lattice, but there simply weren't enough people to get a feel for whether or not this makes any difference.

There are several terrain changes that I noticed, like the road that leads from Allatum to West Highlands Checkpoint now goes around the northern Satellite before hitting the Biolab, instead of going straight up to it. That road also now forks at Indar Com Array and goes over the mountain into Dahaka.

Another really cool feature I noticed is that Mesa Comm and Blackshard are no longer functional bases, but there is still a road that leads through Blackshard that can be used to assault Zurvan or the Stronghold, and the serpentine that leads up to Mesa Comm is also still there. This basically creates a little backdoor into those largers facilities that lies outside of the natural "lanes" that the new lattice creates. Maybe that kind of concept could be expanded by creating really narrow little paths through mountains or underground caves or something that only infantry can move through to make a surprise move from an unexpected direction.

What I would really like to see is them redesigning the now defunct bases to basically still be there, but look abandoned. They could do something like have the rock arch over Blackshard partially collapsed, and the base half burried so that there is only a very narrow path still to the other side. I'd really dig it if they remained functional as terrain features that can be exploited somehow, even if they aren't capturable.



I think we will know more about how the new lattice actually works out in practice if they get a real stress test going. What I think they should do is simply say "Any account that plays on test for 2 hours on Saturday gets 500 SC", that should get tons of people to come online and play so we can see if it actually makes any difference.

[Aaron]

I didn't feel very impacted by the changes, but there weren't as many people there and my outfit wasn't really on. I mean, there was a ton of "The Enclave", but to test this micro hex system properly I think you need multiple organized outfits going at it. I have to yet to grasp what kind of strategic dynamics have changed, and how the flow can be utilized.

[camycamera]

god damnit, 8 gigs. well, hopefully it will be worth the weight.

[Kail]

I was able to hop on about 45min after it started and I couldn't find a fight anywhere - if there was any going on, then hotspots are currently broken on the map.

I don't think special incentive is needed to get people for testing, just more than a few hour's notice on the day the server becomes available.

[Chewy]

Like Kail said.

If the plan was to get whole outfits to do the testing and play out fights then we need time. Add in it being Monday and a good chunk of people needing an hour+ to download a few gigs of data after they finally get home from work/school, the odds of getting a high player count wasn't good.

I didn't even know about this until about 8pm est thanks to things needing done and tending to. Hell, by the time I finally got online at all I was already sore and worn out. Just wrote it off for today and went back to my Sam B fists weapons only solo replay of Dead Island to prep for Riptide. Not the best of games, but it is always damn good fun to punch a few dozen zombies in the face.

[Carbon Copied]

Ok well had abit of look around and my first impressions last night/this morning (early morning gaming syndrome). All these are entirely from my perspective.
Like mentioned pops were too low or imbalanced at times to get a decent feedback on how the first iteration plays out. However as a solo player I found making decisions and predicting where I should be helping fight at far easier. If I was in an unlinked hex it made complete sense that I was wasting my time being there and should be moving back to either support or defend a location - as opposed to trying to anticipate which direction the push was coming from or going to resulting in ghost cap syndrome.

Lot of things removed or changed from the initial Higby screenshot of the hex-adjeancy as per the patch notes. Some outposts have been removed from the equation however they are still in the game world they just don't influence the progression hexes (whether they will actually remain I don't know). Most notable the top 2 outposts to the left of the warp gate (Excavation & Nanite Pump Station) - I actually like the idea of there being these neutral bases as they could provide a place for factions to use as a FOB albeit with no spawn room relying on use of the AMS so could provide an edge to be exploited either by attackers or defenders while not directly influencing the hex lanes themselves.

Saurva now has a proper "fortress" capture point base that looks like it could provide some interesting attack/defend scenarios. Would be really good to see an openminded approach down the line of 1 or 2 main bases redesigned and tested in the manner of courtyard / walls etc. been plenty said on the subject so no need to add to it here.

Can't help but feel when looking at the maps side by side (post and pre test server release) that maybe on some of the Amp/Tech/Bio's maybe the removed hex lanes have been made alittle too limiting in places.

I think I remember a post mentioning that they're going to be testing different capture mechanics this was just to see the hex flow.

[ringring]

I hope there was a good sized population (it was too late for me).

I doubt this single test will be enough to understand how the new lattice will change things entirely but hopefully it will at the least stress test the change so that when it does go on the live there will be less change of major performance and other volume related bugs.


**Edit just read some of the newer posts above... ah well.

[Hamma]

So far about what I expected - I honestly don't see this system doing a whole lot to how the game is played today on the existing hex system.

Hopefully with some more notice they can get some bigger tests put together.

[Gonefshn]

For the hour I was on the other day it seemed like all anyone was testing was the crown.

[ThatGoatGuy]

VS and NC prepare you assholes cause that's where TE is running its Ops tonight >:D

[Rolfski]

I think the impact might be bigger than some people foresee here so don't judge too early.

For me, Indar felt totally different. They overhauled many bases, which definitely had an impact on the battle flow and as a squad lead I found my self setting waypoints differently then I used to do.

Where this system might really become a game changer for is for casual, unorganized players though. It will definitely give them a lot more direction where to go.

[Seafort]

VS and NC prepare you assholes cause that's where TE is running its Ops tonight >:D

I'll make sure I don't log in to test server then :)

[basti]

So far about what I expected - I honestly don't see this system doing a whole lot to how the game is played today on the existing hex system.

Hopefully with some more notice they can get some bigger tests put together.

Lets just do this ourself, shall we?

http://dk.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1c0849/call_to_all_outfits_and_players_play_on_test/

[Hamma]

Reddit link? That won't help anything. :lol:

[basti]

Reddit link? That won't help anything. :lol:

I suspect the PTS will be full during the weekend. ;)

Anyway, yea, putting a thread here as well.

[DirtyBird]

Of the changes made today with the map screen and loadouts I think this is my favorite.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/62192273/PS2%20TEST/cap%20timer.png

[Hamma]

That's pretty boss!

[DirtyBird]

I like how its visible from anywhere and you dont have to be in the base to see it.