Scale of Map compared

[Saintlycow]

Its all going to be fine

[Landtank]

Originally Posted by cellinaire

+ the attention to detail and various biomes within a single cont.

+ more emphasis on urban fight and interior implementation.

And hell, why Skyrim and Just Cause2 are soooo small compared to Daggerfall? I'm disappoint

HAH! HAHAHAHA thats such a great post. I wish I could favorite that like on twitter.

[capiqu]

Yo can kill this argument by introducing one of the PS1 maps into PS2.

Who works for the US geological survey? :\

[Haro]

I think, regardless of actual map size, we need to take a few things into consideration: things like army flow, population density, and ground usage.

For example, Malorn points out that there are some zones that are not realistic combat areas (the edges, for example.) the specifics of that argument are up to debate (I think that's totally valid for fast aircraft or stealth forces.) But compare that to an old planetside map, where most of your population was likely to be fighting between, or more likely in and around 3, maybe 4 bases at most on a map. There are large expanses of land that are nowhere near bases, nor do they have any strategic incentive. Therefore, the vast majority of players could be found in only a few areas, and the majority of the map went unused.

Compare this to the map of Indar from PS2. The majority of the map is comprised of contestable hexes that encourage combat. A more fair comparison of size across maps from the original and PS2 would be to compare all the hexes from current Indar and the immediate areas around bases in PS1 maps.

Which brings up my next thought on how people perceive density, and how that affects how the empires may accrue territory. First, let me tangent into a little story of my own.

A few weeks ago, I was involved in a rather large paintball game. How large? Around 1,500 people, actually, playing on one field that was around 1-2 square kilometers. Granted, we weren't all in tanks and dropships (did have a couple modified trucks) but we still managed to fit lots of people in, and move around. All 1500 at once, maybe not, but certainly a LOT.

If we were to divide the continent into (very) rough thirds, each empire would have roughly 6km of border with the other two empires, and distribution of forces along these lines will probably be anything but uniform. If a lightning tank is, say 5m long, then it would take 1200 tanks, end to end, to take up one of those borders. Similarly, if you took a max, and let's say he's 2m tall (6 foot 5, approximately) and lay them end to end, foot to toe, then you'd need 3000 of them to completely fill up one border. Both of these are absurd scenarios, but they go to show the difficulty of maintaining a frontline. It's a very large amount of space, and it is likely to be very permeable.

We also cannot underestimate the importance of many more territories of varying size and value. In Planetside, bases were the only real estate that mattered. You only capped towers to get to bases, and therefore territorial gain only came across a few, easily visible routes. Not to mention, the process was gated by cap timers. With smaller zones likely capping faster, if not instantaneously, I could easily see empires "leaking" into enemy territory via smaller outposts and territories. From their, maybe they flank or even encircle bases, or proceed ahead to other, small areas.

If the population density of the demo is anything to go by (around 100 people for every 1-2 square km) I think that's going to create a very enjoyable and pretty fluid environment. No way to tell until beta, though, SO LET US IN HIGBY!

[Landtank]

Originally Posted by Haro

I think, regardless of actual map size, we need to take a few things into consideration: things like army flow, population density, and ground usage.

For example, Malorn points out that there are some zones that are not realistic combat areas (the edges, for example.) the specifics of that argument are up to debate (I think that's totally valid for fast aircraft or stealth forces.) But compare that to an old planetside map, where most of your population was likely to be fighting between, or more likely in and around 3, maybe 4 bases at most on a map. There are large expanses of land that are nowhere near bases, nor do they have any strategic incentive. Therefore, the vast majority of players could be found in only a few areas, and the majority of the map went unused.

Compare this to the map of Indar from PS2. The majority of the map is comprised of contestable hexes that encourage combat. A more fair comparison of size across maps from the original and PS2 would be to compare all the hexes from current Indar and the immediate areas around bases in PS1 maps.

Which brings up my next thought on how people perceive density, and how that affects how the empires may accrue territory. First, let me tangent into a little story of my own.

A few weeks ago, I was involved in a rather large paintball game. How large? Around 1,500 people, actually, playing on one field that was around 1-2 square kilometers. Granted, we weren't all in tanks and dropships (did have a couple modified trucks) but we still managed to fit lots of people in, and move around. All 1500 at once, maybe not, but certainly a LOT.

If we were to divide the continent into (very) rough thirds, each empire would have roughly 6km of border with the other two empires, and distribution of forces along these lines will probably be anything but uniform. If a lightning tank is, say 5m long, then it would take 1200 tanks, end to end, to take up one of those borders. Similarly, if you took a max, and let's say he's 2m tall (6 foot 5, approximately) and lay them end to end, foot to toe, then you'd need 3000 of them to completely fill up one border. Both of these are absurd scenarios, but they go to show the difficulty of maintaining a frontline. It's a very large amount of space, and it is likely to be very permeable.

We also cannot underestimate the importance of many more territories of varying size and value. In Planetside, bases were the only real estate that mattered. You only capped towers to get to bases, and therefore territorial gain only came across a few, easily visible routes. Not to mention, the process was gated by cap timers. With smaller zones likely capping faster, if not instantaneously, I could easily see empires "leaking" into enemy territory via smaller outposts and territories. From their, maybe they flank or even encircle bases, or proceed ahead to other, small areas.

If the population density of the demo is anything to go by (around 100 people for every 1-2 square km) I think that's going to create a very enjoyable and pretty fluid environment. No way to tell until beta, though, SO LET US IN HIGBY!

Except for the last part, which I agree with! Well said.

[Haro]

Originally Posted by Landtank

Except for the last part, which I agree with! Well said.

Yeah, lol, lost track of things.

Major points:

1. Much larger playable, contestable area. Compare the areas of and just around all the bases in a ps1 map with all the hexes in a ps2 map. Biiig difference. PS2 looks to use space much more efficiently.

2. Not limited by the lattice. Various small bases can be captures, not just a few big ones. behind lines captures are possible as well. Small bases will likely capture very quickly, which could prevent stagnation and stalemate.

3. A solid, defensive line along a border is likely to be impossible. Heavy vehicles like galaxies and Sunderers will likely be able to bypass some of the main combat areas to flank, encircle, or do other sneaky things.

4. Let us in Higby.

[meiam]

Well people were only fighting in the base because the pop density was lower than what it will be in actual game, when 200 people will be fighting in that area, people will start moving toward the road and smaller structure. Also the respawn point was only added for the E3 demo, in game it'll will be farther.

Also 90% of fight will happen along the border, so making huge continent won't really matter if 50-60% of the area are never fought over. Now I do hope that the other two continent aren't box shaped and we get some more variation, maybe huge mountain/sea/island, stuff to change the gameplay.

[LordReaver]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...079#post568079

That's where the Oshur with the red box came from.


I went back for a more slightly more accurate (though still rough) measurement, and under PS1 units, Oshur has 24.4km² of area within the coastlines and Ishundar has 33.4km². Don't put too much weight into the units though. Time taken to fly across the cont, is probably the best way to compare the difference, as there is currently not enough information to make a conversion.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

Originally Posted by Haro

fluid environment.

Except the whole purpose of the original lattice was to give the fight some 'form', since everyone just played musical bases without it.

PS1 had large areas between bases with not much going on, this gave people opportunities to actually get around without running into people. PS2, TR area for example, just look at the proximity between the bases and the fact that the terrain actually funnels forces even more. The oft quoted 100 people is 2/3rds of ONE Empires old poplock, PS2 each Empire now has the equivalent of 4 old poplocks now and they're going to be concentrated in territory closest to their foothold.

How is anyone supposed to successfully hit rear area targets when you have to:
1.) Fly right over the enemy 'frontline' to do so.
2.) Get any ground vehicles past their frontline and through 'difficult terrain'
3.) Match enemy reinforcements closer to their foothold
4.) Prevent every 'resecure squad' from rushing your target 20 seconds after the alert goes out

Please tell me how you think you're going to 'spec ops' past 4 poplocks worth of troops defending 1/3 the area of an old PS cont?



Why wouldn't you just have an old poplocks worth of troops at each base with another poplock ready to just zerg the bejesus out of anything that somehow got by?
Why would you want to bother with deep strikes if the enemy only has 3 bases and you can hurt them more by denying their use... then would an Empire collapse if they lost 1 base? If Bases are not essential for an Empire to keep, why have so much real estate dedicated to them? If Hexes are more important than bases, why would you ever not just have as many 'teams' as there are hexes and fight that way, which then raises the question, is that then any better than just a mass team death match?

It is funny though, the TR do look pretty screwed since the VS and NC both have ways of getting the high ground advantage on the majority of the TR area, VS having it slightly harder since Rashnu Biolab is on the top of the hill, NC are fighting downhill all the way.

[TeaReks]

Well if you have 4x pop-lock too I assume you would bring 4x the troops you used to. Maybe 4 gals full of people instead of one? Or hit 4 targets at once. Or because bases are not the only targets maybe spec ops will be used to hit resource points. I mean in real life spec ops does not capture things as important as bases. That would be like delta force capturing a city.

Just food for thought.

[PsychoXR-20]

I know this is by no means the most accurate assessment, but I took the map of Indar and overlayed a layer of hexes roughly equal to the size of the current hexes used for territory.

It came out to a total of 313 hexes that had a portion (even if only 1 pixel) of Indar inside it.

I then cut out all hexes that are "used" on the continent and counted the remaning unused hexes.

The result was 112 unused hexes (unused in this example were hexes that I felt had more unused space than used space, so some of the hexes in this count were indeed partially playable).

This equates to roughly 35% of Indar that is either inaccessible or uncontrollable (and if it's uncontrollable, than it's unplayable since it serves no purpose).

Now, since they have said that every inch of the map is controllable, I will assume that these outside boarder hexes are "out of bounds" and thus unplayable, which means this 8km x 8km continent is in reality about 6.5km^2.

Edit: If all 3 continents are like this, than that results in more than an entire 8x8 km region, or, an ENTIRE fourth continents worth of playable space that's not. That's pretty huge.

[Bobby Shaftoe]

Originally Posted by TeaReks

1. Well if you have 4x pop-lock too I assume you would bring 4x the troops you used to.

2. Or because bases are not the only targets maybe spec ops will be used to hit resource points.

1.)Except it's not a 2way fight, you bring more people to that particular fight, you lose troops to fight against the 3rd Empire, so you maybe gain one TR hex but you lose one to the VS.

It really does just appear to promote a 3way grindfest or complete mayhem with no form whatsoever.

2.)The whole problem with hitting those other Hexes is that they're no more than 15-20 SECONDS flight time from any base or foothold.

You not see a problem with Hexes being cappable within that sort of time frame?
Just send out one person per hex, ghost them, a bunch might go through, then what? Now that Empire is down a f*ck ton of resource income and as a result, they can't replace their vehicles and then they get overrun in short order.

They've made this amazingly hard for themselves to try and balance.

[Eyeklops]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

I think one thing we're missing. It seems like a person is smaller in PS2, compared to PS1. Not just in relation to bases but the whole map.

Like someone said, PS1 dudes were like 3m tall. I'm not worried about continent size.

The only thing that I've really though about is that it'd be kind of odd to have nothing but 8x8 maps filled out to the edges. 6x10 or something that's irregular. Io mix it up.

Honestly, I like having all the hexes be important...but I'd also like to see places that are relatively less dense.

I wouldn't mind seeing an ocean type map with about 15~20 or so scattered oil rigs/platforms (for resources) and 5~6 large island complexes. More of an air and infantry map with dense urban areas, less tanks. Sparse spawn points on the island complexes could force respawns at ocean rigs or galaxys. Semi-secure landing areas for Galaxy's that can be guarded will be defense points to push out from. I imagine some massive A2A fights would ensue.

[T-Ray]

The new warp gates are about 2x bigger than the old ones

[Bags]

Originally Posted by T-Ray

The new warp gates are about 2x bigger than the old ones

And 2x prettier.