You know what, that was really the most fun time I had in PS2. Lots of fights in different locations, from tiny to huge, all over the map. Something for everyone and it gave a fun vehicle a big, fun role to play.
Removing the Galaxy AMS and creating the adjacency system really sucked the life out of the game and I feel it did so for the wrong reason. What was the reason? They made adjacency to solve the annoyance of people taking hexes almost instantly and then leaving them. They called this whack-a-mole and they solved it completely the wrong way.
What they did was add adjacency and remove the Galaxy AMS, some strategy, nifty human randomness, options, and most of the small battles (despite the fact that many people prefer small battles). What they should have done instead is actually really simple:
1. Require 3 to 6 people for an Outpost capture point to be captured, thus solving the truly annoying "one dude keeps capping this when we leave" issue. It also makes capturing a point a strategic event involving positioning, situational awareness, and communication - exactly what small outfits keep saying they wish they needed to do in PS2!
2. Put a 5 to 10 minute lockout timer on all Outpost captures, such that once you cap it, it's yours and can't be taken for that amount of time. Now Higby called lockout timers "hamfisted" when I suggested this in beta (despite the fact that they actually DID THIS in beta), but if the ham fits... Truth be told, this would work fine and it suits the way game is supposed to be played.
Bringing back the Galaxy AMS and removing adjacency will give people the ability and the reason to spread out and use the whole map for fighting. That's a good thing in massively multiplayer online FPS game, especially one that tends to play very poorly when too many people are fighting in one area.
Ps. Also posted on the SOE foruns here.
2013-02-04, 02:59 AM
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