Plan C: We keep both, the Lattice AND the Hex

[psijaka]

Originally Posted by TheDrone

Aha. You admit thus that this game relies in popularity to succeed.

Then you should be quite in favor of my idea.

All Lattice: [Group of players that like the Lattice]

All Hex: [Group of players that like the Hex]

Both: [Group of players that like the Lattice] + [Group of players that like the Hex]

In stead of violently forcing people out of a game they were promised you would in fact attract more kinds of players and the game would offer a lot more variety, this allowing people stay for a longer time.

This makes up for more than the lack of trust you have in the devs doing what hundreds of development teams have done before them.

BTW, you have yet to understand or probably grasp that you keep operating solely from your personal and selfish point of view. You should try to come to terms that in the realm of personal opinions yours isn't necessarily better than someone else's.

We're going round in circles here. Developing dual systems will do nothing more than frustrate experienced players, confuse newcomers and waste valuable and expensive development time.

And cut out the trolling; there's no need for it.

[Kail]

Originally Posted by basti

Fixing the Hex is impossible. The fundamental idea of the game is capturing territory. The hex allows you to many options to directly capture territory. Those options could be used to have a zerg vs zerg fight, or have small squads fighting each other, or having squads ghost hack. The latter is the issue, because it actually is the best thing to do in order to capture more territory, alerts showed that. For the playerbase to stop that, people would need to constantly jump around the territorys to resecure, and that for all factions involved on the continent. Thats what drove a lot of players away over the last 6 months, because battles didnt happen in any predictable form, but just randomly whenever two enemy forces met. For Joe Bob random player, that isnt fun. But Joe Bob Random player is needed, or you wont have a full continent, means merges, means less players, means less cash for SOE, means less Devs, means less stuff coming in, means even less players, means a dead game. We depend on Joe Bob to play and Pay

I disagree.

1. The fundamental idea of the game is to shoot things.
2. Waterson must just be some crazy outlier server, because I don't see ghost capping during alerts, and even during non-alerts only on underpopulated continents.
3. Most of my friends who stopped playing did so because they got the game and no idea what to do or where to go. Nothing to do with lattice or hex.

In all seriousness the problem isn't the hex, its the rest of the systems. Ghost capping is encouraged because you get mongo XP for destroying generators & turrets and defending a base is only XP profitable if there are attackers to fight for the passive bonus. Losing territory only matters when you lose enough of it. Vehicles are at their most powerful in small conflicts, and almost useless without a zerg in massive ones.

The only thing the lattice does is force bigger battles because actual incentive to do so isn't otherwise there. And that's the real problem.

The lattice is better for the map given the current game systems. Arguing that it's unilaterally better than the hex, or even that they've tried to fix the hex and failed (what have they tried? From beta I can only remember they got rid of Auraxium, and they renamed resources) just makes me sad.

[Vashyo]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Stalemates were the bread and butter of PS1.

When they finally broke off in another sides victory = pure bliss

[GraniteRok]

Originally Posted by basti

The hex system cannot be fixed. That is a simple fact. It is broken because it gives to many connections.

The Lattice fixes that very fundamental flaw of the Hex, but does introduce different issues the hex didnt have. Those issues however can be fixed, because they all result in the same fundamental flaw of the lattice: Not enough options of stuff to do.

Adding new options is easy. Benefit generators, NTU, a ressource system tied into the lattice, plenty of ideas are floating around that give more options.

Fixing the Hex is impossible. The fundamental idea of the game is capturing territory. The hex allows you to many options to directly capture territory. Those options could be used to have a zerg vs zerg fight, or have small squads fighting each other, or having squads ghost hack. The latter is the issue, because it actually is the best thing to do in order to capture more territory, alerts showed that. For the playerbase to stop that, people would need to constantly jump around the territorys to resecure, and that for all factions involved on the continent. Thats what drove a lot of players away over the last 6 months, because battles didnt happen in any predictable form, but just randomly whenever two enemy forces met. For Joe Bob random player, that isnt fun. But Joe Bob Random player is needed, or you wont have a full continent, means merges, means less players, means less cash for SOE, means less Devs, means less stuff coming in, means even less players, means a dead game. We depend on Joe Bob to play and Pay.

Now, the very basic issues is: The hex and the lattice are fundamentally different. Benefit generators and any ressource overhaul put into the lattice would not work on a Hex continent. Means the devs either just ignore the hex continents, or try to develop systems for them as well. Means double the work, means less new stuff in X time, means Joe Bob gets bored quicker, and Bang we are down half of the devs, and the cycle crushes the game.

100% Disagree. The Hex and the Lattice can be quite similar. Indar was a special beast. Too many small hex facilities. This made it way too many connections. Compare Indar to the other two continents. If you drew lines from one facility to the next for adjacent regions... Surprise! There's your lattice. Regional areas on Indar needed or needs to be redrawn to lessen the multitudes of connections. Instant fix to Hex while maintaining a lattice type battleflow. On Esamir and Amerish, it's pretty simple to determine where must be hit next or defended against. There's really only about two options per base facility, some three. Indar, different story, some had upwards of five facilities. Call it Hex, call it Lattice (like); Amerish and Esamir have it right. It is Indar that was broken. The lattice there now shows that it was.

[GLaDOS]

I haven't been keeping in touch much with the MLG part of PS2, and I haven't read most of this thread, so keep that in mind reading this idea. I have heard that the battle islands are going to be made for MLG, though, so what if we kept the lattice (which I do prefer) on normal continents, but had a modified hex on the battle islands? I feel like a smaller place with less overall territories and connections would fit the hex system better, it would give some variety, which is always nice, and maybe the more split up, smaller battles would suit MLG more (I really pay no attention to it, so this is kind of a guess).

Failing that, maybe the hex system could be used for the caves, if something like that ever comes into PS2.

[psijaka]

Originally Posted by LtWelsh

After reading this thread, I am exceedingly disappointed that almost all of you dodged the OP's actual question in favor of arguing Lattice vs Hex.

Very few if any of these posts actually brush an argument against keeping Hex and Lattice.
Most of you are just saying Hex is simply inferior to Lattice.
Unfortunately, as Drone points out, this is actually irrelevant to the issue he has proposed!

By dodging the real argument he attempts, you all just come across as mindless drones (I'm sure there's a pun in that somewhere) who are hard-wired to disregard anything Hex due what must have been severe previous trauma with it, I'm sure.

Addressing the actual issue; I feel we do not have the resources (Namely time) to adequately develop both systems to their working order. However, until such time as we iron out the flaws in Lattice, which I hope no one disputes it has concerning small-squads, keeping a Hex continent would be advantageous to retaining such players.

This is what I've been saying all along, but I still get trolled by Drone. He seems determined to antagonise and be condescending towards anyone who doesn't agree with his point of view.

[Dougnifico]

I see a lot of complaints about the lattice, but it really is better than the hex. Besides, most problems in the lattice will be solved with global warfare. Is refinement needed? Absolutely. But everyone should really scream for a global dynamic instead of this "select your map from a terminal" crap. If you yell about this enough, it may cause SOE to prioritize new continents and get them out faster in the future.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by psijaka

This is what I've been saying all along, but I still get trolled by Drone. He seems determined to antagonise and be condescending towards anyone who doesn't agree with his point of view.

Just so stubborn.

SOE is going to spend months re-doing Amerish to get the "flow" to work with the "lattice". If SOE spent that SAME TIME working on improving HEX instead so things like solo capping bases isn't possible, we'd have TWO systems to learn from catering to two different player bases.

And don't come back with "but how will intercontinental lattice work?" Duh, the same way. The Warpgates are linked just like they would be with Lattice, but in between warpgates is Hex instead.

[psijaka]

So now I'm stubborn as well as a selfish simpleton.

So much trolling in this thread.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

Just so stubborn.

Could say the same thing about the all the pro-hex people. SOE could have spent time trying to fix the hex. Hell, they might have actually done so behind the scenes doing play-tests with their own dev team. They tried it this way, they tried it that, but something didn't jive with what they saw and so they said, hell, let's try the lattice. Perhaps a dev team member had to spend time building a mock up test lattice to demonstrate how it would work before people on the dev team bought in to the idea. We don't know that. But we do have a lattice now and it does look like the dev team is sticking with it. They have the test data that tells them what works properly and what doesn't. We don't.

EDIT: It would be awesome if they had a chronicle of behind the scene development steps they take. I suppose we might get a story after the game has been out for a while though.

[Rstormrider]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

Just so stubborn.

SOE is going to spend months re-doing Amerish to get the "flow" to work with the "lattice". If SOE spent that SAME TIME working on improving HEX instead so things like solo capping bases isn't possible, we'd have TWO systems to learn from catering to two different player bases.

And don't come back with "but how will intercontinental lattice work?" Duh, the same way. The Warpgates are linked just like they would be with Lattice, but in between warpgates is Hex instead.

the hex had its chance, it failed. this game does not have the room for both systems.its one or the other and it looks like its lattice from here on out. money does not grow on trees and time must be used wisely by the devs. to propose for them to maintain and develop 2 different territory capture systems at once is pure folly.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Rstormrider

the hex had its chance, it failed. this game does not have the room for both systems.its one or the other and it looks like its lattice from here on out. money does not grow on trees and time must be used wisely by the devs. to propose for them to maintain and develop 2 different territory capture systems at once is pure folly.

Catering to a wider audience is pure folly?

Option 1:

Spend X man-hours to modify Amerish to Lattice. Hex lovers no longer have any choice, Lattice nor nothing. Some leave, some play until something else similar come out, some play but resent being ignored.

Option 2:

Spend X man-hours to modify Hex system to work well on Amerish. Hex lovers have a place to play. They get one out of 3 continents. Maybe more in the future, maybe not. Lattice lovers have their place to play too.

Why is Option 1 so much better than Option 2?

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

Just so stubborn.

SOE is going to spend months re-doing Amerish to get the "flow" to work with the "lattice". If SOE spent that SAME TIME working on improving HEX instead so things like solo capping bases isn't possible, we'd have TWO systems to learn from catering to two different player bases.

And don't come back with "but how will intercontinental lattice work?" Duh, the same way. The Warpgates are linked just like they would be with Lattice, but in between warpgates is Hex instead.

Pure BS. It's convenient to make a claim that can never be proven.


How are two different systems in any way beneficial to the game? There was already a thread where someone was pointing out all the logical discontinuities we see already like 'F' for most classes but 'Spacebar' for light assault and blowing up targets but hitting 'E' to blow a gen and what not. Adding 'Capture territory like this on this continent but like THIS on the other' would be very poor game design.

NOT to mention AGAIN, the dev time for two different directions.

Adding lattice links to bases has been the best answer for improving the hex system.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Wahooo

Pure BS. It's convenient to make a claim that can never be proven.


How are two different systems in any way beneficial to the game? There was already a thread where someone was pointing out all the logical discontinuities we see already like 'F' for most classes but 'Spacebar' for light assault and blowing up targets but hitting 'E' to blow a gen and what not. Adding 'Capture territory like this on this continent but like THIS on the other' would be very poor game design.

NOT to mention AGAIN, the dev time for two different directions.

Adding lattice links to bases has been the best answer for improving the hex system.

What part is BS?

The part that if there are 2 systems, they'd be able to learn more?

The Devs are ALREADY going to spend LOTS of man-hours to modify Amerish. If that time was spent specifically on improving Hex to get rid of the irritating issues Hex has, nothing is lost.

Going 100% lattice, you stand to lose current players. Are current players going to leave if 1 of 3 continents is not lattice, when they can play on the other 2 if they hate Hex so much?

[Wahooo]

Claiming more dev time would fix the Hex system.
You have no idea if this has ANY truth to it at all.