Essamir redesign is awesome, but lattice has made it incredibly zerg-centric

Badjuju · 2013-07-28, 07:57 PM

Cant say enough about the new map design, particularly the bases, however the lattice has ruined what I would consider healthy battle flow.

Essamir prior to the lattice, was great in terms of battle flow. You would have a zerg or two, then a number of decent sized smaller fights which tended to be very balanced in numbers. Even if they weren't, numbers are not as decisive in determining the victor in smaller fights and they end up being very competitive fights. You had a great variety of battles and lots of room to make tactical decisions on how you are going to approach conquering the map.

Post lattice, everyone is funneled into a few zergs, which are almost never even fights. Those extremely large battles are almost always very off balanced, and often not enjoyable whether your the one steam rolling or the ones getting stomped. When you limit the number of options for this many people to fight to such a degree, your bound to have massive imbalances. If 70% of your faction are hitting one location, that only leaves 30% to fight at the other. When you have more avenues of attack, the numbers tend to balance out allot more and you have the option to make more reasonable infantry shifts. I spent more time looking for a good fight than actually fighting it seems, typically only finding huge spam festivals.

Beyond having trouble finding good fights, the meta game has taken damage in my opinion as well. How your going to tactically approach the map, and your options of attack are severely limited. As I said before, forces are funneled into a few avenues of attack, instead of leaving empires to chose what they think will be the best way to conquer their enemy.

Overall essamir is a 100% zerg centric map. Battles are almost never even, and often can be too big for the base it is taken place at. With this design pre-dictating battle flow and doing so with so little options, numbers are all that really matter.

The only way I see this being less of a problem is with the implementation of continent locking, where the lack of constant 3-way fights will open up the map more.

I am usually against hasty judgements with the idea of feeling things out before complaining. However, i feel the lattice made indar worse, and is even a bigger problem on Essamir. As a PS1 vet, I was an advocate for the lattice initially, but will admit I was wrong. It is awful getting funneled, especially when there is this many people to get funneled.

NewSith · 2013-07-28, 08:05 PM

You guys need to chill and understand that there's gonna be a point when there will only be enough people to field, say, 3 continents, while there will be 6+.

Lattice will work wonders by then. I really hope devs figure that out before merging servers the second Hossin is out.

Taramafor · 2013-07-28, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

You guys need to chill and understand that there's gonna be a point when there will only be enough people to field, say, 3 continents, while there will be 6+.

Lattice will work wonders by then. I really hope devs figure that out before merging servers the second Hossin is out.

And what happens if only 3 of the continents are actually really used? Essamir is known to be one of the avoided ones after all. Admittedly more active now with GU13 but only time will tell if it keeps it that way.

Anyway, my solution for zergs is in the idea thread here. To cut a long post short, my way of countering zergs (and therefor the lattice making zerg forming an easy process) is to have XP tied to the number of troops on both sides. In other words, if two sides have a lot of troops, both sides should get a lot of XP. But if one side only has a few, both sides get little XP. Less farming and therefor more people actually fighting and therefor looking for big fights to get XP. And it would also fix lattice making zerg forming an easy process (or rather making it a pointless process of pure farming and instead have them engage in large fights).

Ok, so not as short as I thought. But my point still stands.

NewSith · 2013-07-28, 09:09 PM

Zerg will keep zerging no matter what, it's not the XP they are typically after, they just want to "shoot shit". Hence, I'm sceptical.

BlaxicanX · 2013-07-28, 10:38 PM

Exactly.

That, and it's human nature for people to herd together. There's no kind of artificial system you can instate into the game that will prevent people from zerging beyond literally just going "okay, only X amount of a faction can be in a base at a time".

That aside, I think people don't understand that zerging in this game... is working as intended. When the game slogan is "numbers ALWAYS matter", what are the odds that a mechanic that actively punishes people for mobbing up (giving less exp for zerging) would ever work? The entire point of the game is to basically form up into as big of a mob as possible and having giant battles with each other.

typhaon · 2013-07-29, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by Taramafor

And what happens if only 3 of the continents are actually really used? Essamir is known to be one of the avoided ones after all. Admittedly more active now with GU13 but only time will tell if it keeps it that way.

Anyway, my solution for zergs is in the idea thread here. To cut a long post short, my way of countering zergs (and therefor the lattice making zerg forming an easy process) is to have XP tied to the number of troops on both sides. In other words, if two sides have a lot of troops, both sides should get a lot of XP. But if one side only has a few, both sides get little XP. Less farming and therefor more people actually fighting and therefor looking for big fights to get XP. And it would also fix lattice making zerg forming an easy process (or rather making it a pointless process of pure farming and instead have them engage in large fights).

Ok, so not as short as I thought. But my point still stands.

If it's really XP you're after - I often seek out fights where my team is badly outnumbered.

1) More targets
2) More noob targets that have acquired 'high threat' status.
3) XP bonus for being the weak side.

One of my favorite techniques is to go to any tower that is being overrun - grab a ScatMAX and start dropping from the top level down on the heads of the zergers... killing 3 or 4... running back in the doors, repairing... repeating... If my MAX gets killed, similar carnage can be pulled off with a variety of infantry.

I'll often get 5k+ XP in the time before it flips - while I pity the attackers sitting around hoping just to share a kill with 100 others and earn their 1k for the win.

Levente · 2013-07-29, 04:35 AM

i like zerg. epic fights always, thats what planetside is all about. hell yea

Taramafor · 2013-07-29, 04:37 AM

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

Exactly.

That aside, I think people don't understand that zerging in this game... is working as intended. When the game slogan is "numbers ALWAYS matter", what are the odds that a mechanic that actively punishes people for mobbing up (giving less exp for zerging) would ever work? The entire point of the game is to basically form up into as big of a mob as possible and having giant battles with each other.

Therein lies the problem. I don't mind the zergs themselves, just the fact that a zerg overuns base after base with little to no resistance until said resistance eventually pops up. Meantime all you're doing is flipping bases and snoring. Or getting trapped in a spawn room if you're defending. Smaller zergs can get away with it because they'll be countered at some point. Larger zergs don't because either they don't slow down 'till reaching a plant or tower or they get bored and spread out for more fair fights.

Baneblade · 2013-07-29, 07:00 AM

Esamir zerging was worse before GU13. At least now it is not a guaranteed win.

Sledgecrushr · 2013-07-29, 07:33 AM

I love the big fights. Really different from the arena shooters out there.

wasdie · 2013-07-29, 10:38 AM

Zerging is the entire basis of this game or pretty much every team based multiplayer shooter. What you need to do is find a way for your squad to help your zerg during a fight.

You cannot build in mechanics to stop people from playing together. That's counter intuitive. When the continental lattice system and resource system come into play, you'll find plenty more opportunities for squad and platoon level objectives within the zerg. As long as we have the 3 disconnected continents, this game is just a large Battlefield.

It's coming but it's going to take time.

Rolfski · 2013-07-29, 12:58 PM

The upcoming resource system overhaul will probably fix some of these zerg issues.

CraazyCanuck · 2013-07-29, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Rolfski

The upcoming resource system overhaul will probably fix some of these zerg issues.

Agreed
+1

**Malorn** · 2013-07-29, 04:27 PM

One of the key goals of the resource revamp is to spread out those large fights a bit and give smaller groups indirect impact to the front. That's while keeping players relatively in the same general vicinity but not all mashed up in one spot.

Dragonskin · 2013-07-29, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

One of the key goals of the resource revamp is to spread out those large fights a bit and give smaller groups indirect impact to the front. That's while keeping players relatively in the same general vicinity but not all mashed up in one spot.

Good luck with that and I mean that in a very non-sarcastic way. Zergs have been a huge problem in every large scale PvP game I have played and most of them seemed to have given up trying to spread out the players.