Breaking Lattice

[Rumblepit]

Originally Posted by Obstruction

you can talk all you want, but this is because defending basically sucks and is a losing endeavor, due to base design. most of the problems you mention that have "been fixed" by lattice have actually been addressed by fixes after lattice that were never tried in hex. the reason some say amerish works as-is, is because mostly, it does. due to many of the changes made separate from the lattice system.

the devs on map level strategy elements are like the 3 blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is.

what really gets me is that they ruined good back and forth facility and crown fights, claiming that they didn't want all or nothing struggles that required a whole faction to break. then they turned right around and created exactly that at nearly every tower base on the lattice.

the first thing i saw when they put it in was a 12 hour fight at Regent Rock.

12 hours

they need to make ONE change at a time, see how it plays on live, evaluate, tweak, then make another change. you don't just take a system this complex and try any old thing based on what you think people will do with it.

lol we held eisa for 72 hrs straight during a xp weekend when esamir was launched."hex system" That happened because we made it happen.The hex systems lets the players decide where the fights take place. This was not always a good thing.

I can say I have my dislikes when it comes to the lattice. I think they tried to hard, and over complicated a simple thing. At major bases there is know reason to have the satellites attached to the lattice,but a attacker should not be allowed to progress until that major base is capped.Just small things like that.Im sure we will see more tweaks to the system in weeks to come.

[Obstruction]

lol we held eisa for 72 hrs straight during a xp weekend when esamir was launched."hex system" That happened because we made it happen.The hex systems lets the players decide where the fights take place. This was not always a good thing.

ok what i mean to say is you don't understand what i said, based on the reply here.

[Rumblepit]

Originally Posted by Obstruction

reading comprehension is a life skill. might want to invest some time in that.

Did you want me to comment on the rest?
Well these all or nothing fights you speak about ,I dont get to see those.A good group effort will break a fight np,and the same goes for a defense.But if you cant get it done with even numbers, and good tactics then your going to have to wait until your numbers go up.This can take time,and be very painful as im sure you already ready know.This is like the handicap for new players with a low skill cap.Numbers will force the hand if you cant.

There are some cases when bases become more defensible due to outside influence. I like to call it a perfect storm effect. Take allatum or eisa for example, if you can get both faction to attack you there you can hold the base with very little numbers for days. This is because no matter how many numbers they bring they will continue to engage each other while we hold the defensive position.This same scenario can play out in many other ways to allow the defenders to have that much more of a advantage.

And Amerish working as is???lol Its a never ending mess of backcapps that goes on 24 hrs a day.

You should try to join a good active outfit and you will see first hand these fights are not the impossible stalemates you make them out to be.

There have been many long fights with the hex system as well.Long fights are not a product of hex or lattice.
That is all I was trying say before.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Rumblepit

The problem with the hex system is this. It dose not force a fight, meaning the players have to choose weather or not they will engage a defended location or go around.We all know how this played out.The players choose not to engage and would around every defended base.

So your throught process was:

1) Why is Hex broken?

Because people choose not to attack defended locations.

2)...

You didn't go further than that. Looks to me like you just wanted ANY rationalization to have Lattice.

Let me finish what you started:

2) Why don't people attack defended locations?

Because there's no reason to attack one base over an other.

*** As an aside, this is STILL a problem with Lattice. When you get to a fork in the Lattice, what makes you choose to go one way over an other? There's NO decision process that leads to "we'll go this way to gain this advantage or to deny that advantage to our enemy". There's no overriding reason to go either way. ***

3) Why don't people want to fight in a PVP video game?

A)The game is designed around progression of Certs and Battle Ranks, not territory control. This caters to the addictive nature of standard MMO's. To compound the problem, capturing bases give flat XP reward that are relatively larger and more prominently displayed than smaller but more frequent XP rewards obtained in combat.

B) There is no control over fighting forces at individual objectives. There are no significant force multipliers that give smaller forces an advantage over larger forces. No one wants to be on the undermanned team that is almost guaranteed to lose.

C) It is human nature to think we are way better than we actually are. It is easy for us to rationalize avoiding a FPS confrontation (that we may lose) in order to win the metagame. IE: We fought no one, but we got more territory, so we win, you lose! And still got XP for doing it!

4) How do you make Territory Control the focus of the game?

First, Battle Ranks are generally pointless. Once a player has achieved the 3 loadouts that are rewarded at very low BR levels, there's no point to it beyond that. Yet there are players that will GRIND to maximized BR by using every overpowered and cheezy game mechanic (that often doesn't lend itself to territory control or fun and fair gameplay). The whole Battle Rank system could be discarded with very little impact on the current game.
That being said, Certs ARE tied into the "free to play" progression mechanic of the game and are part of real in game progression, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't take overly long to cert out a particular playstyle, which would leave territory control the only other reason to play. In other words, get rid of XP but keep awarding Certs. Certs can be tied to ribbons and the cert value of ribbons can be adjusted dynamically to encourage an equal distribution of played classes. (IE: if there are too many medics, then the cert reward for a revive or healing ribbon decreases. Same could apply for armored vehicles vs. infantry, armored vehicles vs. vehicles, etc...)

5) How do you control population at any given objective to keep things fair, so people will avoid stacking teams?

The way experience is awarded has to reflect the time and effort involved. As an example: Any battle or skirmish undertaken in a territory has to be tied to the capture or defense of objectives. Everything from healing, repairing, ammo resupply, damage done to enemy, enemy kills should go into an XP pool shared by both (or all 3) factions. Once an objective is captured or defended, the XP in that pool is awarded to the victors based on how much they contributed. So in essense, they get all of the XP they contributed AND a share of the enemy's XP relative to how much XP they contributed to the ally XP pool. This means the ONLY way to make XP is to capture or defend objectives and if there is no battle to capture a base, then there is no enemy XP to split, so no XP rewards for uncontested base captures. (In regards to my answer in question 4, XP and Certs could be interchanged here). This mechanic is already partially implemented in the game with Alerts. It just has to be improved to award XP to players even if they are no longer online due to crashing or logging out intentionally. As long as they participated in the victory and contributed their small or large share, they get awarded XP.

6) How do we counter Human Nature to take the easy route without taking away their fun?

If the easy route has the worst consequences, people will gravitate away from it. For example, allowing an enemy to take a base to deny them Certs/XP is an easy way to cheat the intent of the game, hopefully allowing your team to gain certs faster than the enemy team(s). But it's lame gameplay. However, if losing a base has undesirable consequences, it is not really an option. If the enemy gains the ability to buy grenades and you lose the ability to buy grenades, all hinging on that base... you will have a REASON to defend/attack the base. On the other hand, if the next base over upgrades ESF's to equip LOLpods and you die to LOLpods way more than to grenades, you WILL HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE.

TL;DR: There are plenty of inovative ways to "FIX" battle flow without having to tell someone he has no choice but to go there next. And when you do get to make a choice, they don't really matter.

[Crator]

Kerrec,

I'm not exactly certain how getting rid of XP and having only certs is tied to making Territory Control the focus actually. Although I do like what you said about something like that controlling which classes are played. Something like that might be over complicated for new players to figure out but something might be done to help that perhaps.

As for what you said about XP accumulation I think that would help with getting people to fight each other, instead of chasing the carrot of a static base capture award. If they made the way XP gain is obtained in this way, then we wouldn't need lattice. You might still have too much ghost capping just because people want to be annoying (if you use the hex adjacency system). Not certain they will do this because of the free-to-play system they've built.

If they did use an accumulation of XP for captures system they would also need to give a visual representation of accumulation for the player imo. This would make it easy to understand the outcome of the objective.

I did like the idea mentioned about removing many of the lattice links from smaller objectives on the map and making them connect to larger objectives. And also perhaps having a hex adjacency in between (like at Biolabs).

I've also heard an idea on the official forums about adding in a player control mechanic that would allow you to skip over a lattice connected hex to the next one over using a module from a vehicle or something that can be destroyed. So you would have to keep the connection safe while attacking the hex that you are skipping over to.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Crator

Kerrec,

I'm not exactly certain how getting rid of XP and having only certs is tied to making Territory Control the focus actually. Although I do like what you said about something like that controlling which classes are played. Something like that might be over complicated for new players to figure out but something might be done to help that perhaps.

Why do you think SOE had to add a mechanic to make newly spawned players worth almost no XP? Because people would prefer to sit and farm a Sunderer for XP instead of killing the Sunderer. In other words, they're not playing the metagame or the Territory Control game, they are grinding XP to gain some kind of accomplishment for reaching BR100.

Not everyone plays this way. But enough do. And these people abuse game mechanics for their goal of BR100. Farm infantry with Libs. Farm infantry with LOLpods. Farm infantry with Prowlers. Farm infantry with Maxes. Etc...

A lot of the nerfs we've experienced have more to do with reigning in people that play the game for the wrong reasons. If the goal was Territory Control, then having 10 Liberators in the sky is not helpful. One or two would have been enough and the rest could play infantry to push the objective. Liberators wouldn't have been nerfed to where they are now. Same with LoLPods. If they were used to attack infantry and vehicles in between bases instead of farming spawn points, they wouldn't have been nerfed to where they are now. How many people hate being farmed by Harassers speeding along making strafing runs where they otherwise have no impact on anything? As a TR, I've fought VS to take an objective while NC harassers race around shooting everything. What's the point of that?

What do Battle Ranks do for Planetside? Does it mean anything besides "this guy plays more than that guy?"

What's the difference between XP and Certs? As far as I'm concerned, Certs = XP/250 (boosts aside).

XP has done nothing for PS2 except encourage people to play in ways counter to the spirit of Planetside, which is supposed to be a Territory Control "metagame" on top of a FPS.

[EVILPIG]

Battle Ranks were supposed to provide thresholds for unlocking certain things, such as weapons and cert ranks. Somehow that was lost during development.

[Crator]

I thought that's what you meant. But I think people chase XP for certs, not to just chase them for an arbitrary Battle Rank # that means nothing (currently). So what I'm trying to say is removing XP (which actually drives certs, right?) won't do anything in regards to controlling how people behave (except for a few people perhaps).

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Crator

I thought that's what you meant. But I think people chase XP for certs, not to just chase them for an arbitrary Battle Rank # that means nothing (currently). So what I'm trying to say is removing XP (which actually drives certs, right?) won't do anything in regards to controlling how people behave (except for a few people perhaps).

And now we're back to my suggestions above. Even killing someone can be considered farming. Look at how vilified Infiltrators (snipers) are to most. PS2 is more about killing or helping someone else kill, than Territory Control.

The point of the post you quoted was to provide reasons to encourage the gameplay that everyone says they want. SOE has done this so far by saying, "you can't do anything else, you have to go there" (IE: Lattice). That's just heavyhanded herding of sheep. I don't know about you, but I want a game where I'm more than just a sheep.

I made suggestions... you know, constructive criticism. Do I expect something like what I suggested ever make it into the game? Lol, no. I have about as much chance to win the lottery. But my suggestions try to counter human nature, which is what this game needs, Lattice or Hex.

1) Get rid of the pointless BR/XP carrot. It's not meaningful to the game in any way and encourages "some" people to play the wrong way. Tie certs to ribbons. Have certs be dynamically awarded to ribbon based on supply and demand. IE: the certs are the supply, the quantity of ribbons the demand. If people flock to some overpowered (preceived or no) gimmick, then the Cert reward will be diminished. A self balancing mechanism that allows some weapons to be powerful. Look at the Striker whines right now. The Striker is already a poor XP/Cert source, but if it's used in huge numbers, then it becomes even worse. Its efficient, but people won't resort to it automatically in favor of other methods what WILL grant better Certs/XP.

2) No XP/Certs should be awarded unless tied to a battle at an objective. The mechanism is already in place with the Alert XP distribution, it just needs to be improved to include players that log or crash out of the game. Personally I would only award XP to the winning faction, but in this day and age of political correctness, a "for your participation" prize could be handed out too (IE: 1/4 of the XP awarded the winners).

3) Objectives (bases) are IMPORTANT. I imagine spawning a stock MBT at a Warpgate, then driving to some base to upgrade it to AP, then drive it to another base to upgrade the Secondary, then to another base to put armor on it. Same for all vehicles, aircraft and infantry. The thought of losing a base and the perk tied to it would make people think twice about avoiding the enemy.

That kind of game design would have fixed Hex just fine. However, Lattice is the future and it is just as broken. Lattice needs this just as much!

[Rumblepit]

LOL to bad we cant change human nature and redesign the entire game.Until then we cant allow the players to have those options,because they fail to produce.

Someone else said this in this thread ,and i cant agree more."No matter how you look at it, flanking, resource denial,cutting the enemy off from other bases,backcapping is backcapping."

And if the players have the option to backcapp they go for 1 objective. THE WARPGATE. lol im sure a few people have used backcapping as a valid tactic ,but most dont.

Just in case you didnt play during the hex system , this is how all fights played out, FOR 7 FING MONTHS ALL DAY EVERYDAY. There was know reasons to defend anything in this game at all ever.

Set up a defense at rashnu the enemy is at Old stock pile and getting ready to move in. Enemy sees a defense at the biolab , and decides it would be better to just cut them off .Ns material and crimson bluff are now being backcapped. Howling pass will be infested with backcapping losers in 3 mins. We need to think about defending our Tech they are almost there. Move the entire defense from the biolab to the tech plant fast here they come. Biolab gets capped by 2 guys with 0 defenses in place. The enemy caps howling pass and is moving to east canyon and briggs.They see we have a defense in place at the mao tech plant and decides to cut us off again.they move for j908 and the firing range.Well guys they are right on top of our warp gate now, we need to fall back there and push the enemy out.2 guys cap mao with 0 defenses in place..

OMFG,,,, this makes me sick just thinking about it. If one could look up planetside 2 and garbage gameplay this would show up.

Changing incentives ,and adding dynamic xp, will never change human nature.

Players would spend hours ghostcapping /backcapping entire continents in ps1. You think they did it for xp???No there was dynamic xp in ps1, they would get 1 xp per cap. Cant change human nature.

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

But my suggestions try to counter human nature, which is what this game needs, Lattice or Hex.

errr... um.... you don't like the lattice to force the battle flow but you think there should be a game mechanic that is counter to human nature and that would be good?

Originally Posted by Kerrec

1) Get rid of the pointless BR/XP carrot. It's not meaningful to the game in any way and encourages "some" people to play the wrong way.

Oh... I see "YOU CAN"T PLAY LIKE THAT!!!"

Please what draws a lot of people to planetside from other shooters? The size, the variety of play style the sandbox feel for what I can do. I can fly or drive a tank for an entire play session or move as an organized squad, or lone wolf snipe, or join a zergfit and ghost cap bases and pat our selves on the back for being so uber organized and tactical.
Long and the short of it is who the fuck are you to say there is a "wrong" way to play?
Like it or not, but K/D BR/XP Certs and kill achievements mean different things for different people and there is a whole host of players who really ONLY play for those things. There are things to like about PS2 over many other shooters and there are are reasons to go play other shooters over PS2, but to think these things don't matter or encourage play styles detrimental to the game IS wrong. They don't agree with your imagined TPS type meta-game you'd like to see, but the long and short of it is a TPS where actual human beings are the assets to be controlled in a GAME on the internet can never happen to the complexity of a simple and would be sub-par TPS game. YOU CAN"T BREAK human nature, if you try you will end up with a ghost town of a game. People play for stats, people play shooters to shoot people, people play a game touting 1000's in a single battle to be involved in a giant clusterfuck battle.

Lets see what the resource system changes bring. i'd love a re-vamp of the lattice, but I believe the lattice is needed. ANTs and resources and making the lattice a meaningful part of territory not just (but still) a line of the map telling you where to go. I also would like many outposts removed from the lattice but give them some kind of boost/benefit to the base they are tied to, whether it be resource gain or something else.
What is not going to work is returning to the frustrating, unfun game of whack-a-mole that was the hex system.

[Obstruction]

Just in case you didnt play during the hex system , this is how all fights played out, FOR 7 FING MONTHS ALL DAY EVERYDAY. There was know reasons to defend anything in this game at all ever.

except indar, the crown, the biolabs, tech plants, crossroads, other towers.

you're talking about the continents that nobody went to before alerts and barely go to now outside of them.

you call people losers for playing the influence system that was in place, rather than go to a 48 vs 48 because they just didn't want to.

i don't understand this discussion anymore at all, i think people are just cherrypicking things to complain about in order to feel right about what they are emotionally attached to.

[Obstruction]

the main thing i don't understand in this discussion is how "backcapping" or "ghost capping" is a crime. after launch there was the influence system that meant that a stalemate at a biolab could be helped by a small force that took surrounding territory, allowing their faction to have an advantage on the capture time.

this was a strategy given the rules of play.

first of all i don't think everyone means the same thing when they use those terms, but second, how is it invalid to ghost flip a base?

you can still do it in lattice if no one responds.

if 2 people can get into and out of 3 territories and turn them, suffer no losses, and create a situation that diverts enemy forces, that is a valid strategy that can turn the tide of a zerg stalemate. this still happens when pop is low enough on lattice.

if the enemy has to choose between losing territory (meaning, currently, resources) or diverting needed assets, that is an effective move.

so i just don't see the argument against it.

everything else that is said to have been fixed by lattice, either is not fixed, is not related to lattice at all, or was addressed by other changes.

one primary example is the "foothold" change that was made to the Amerish hex after lattice. there is no lattice but territories are locked without secure adjacency, which is a change that came in with lattice but is more closely related to the removal of the influence system.

what i said in my previous post on page 4 still stands. the devs make changes that interact with and/or counteract each other without considering the effect it will have once played out among the population.

some people here are blindly championing what they believe to be the one mechanic that exists, while just as blindly denying any merit to the systems that came before, without seeing that the whole thing is a broad interworking of related submechanics and player behavior.

[CrankyTRex]

Originally Posted by Wahooo

YOU CAN"T BREAK human nature, if you try you will end up with a ghost town of a game. People play for stats, people play shooters to shoot people, people play a game touting 1000's in a single battle to be involved in a giant clusterfuck battle.

Well the goal wouldn't be to break human nature, but to get human nature to work for you. The Lattice is the brute force method of accomplishing what more subtle mechanics should be doing, which is what Kerrec is getting at.

The Lattice just tells people "You must go here", which actually removes a lot of the sandbox elements from the game. It also really hurts the pacing of the game since it encourages the steamroll and the stalemate.

The mechanics should say "Right now, it's probably best that you go here." Then players still flow to that location for big battles, but people who see another option can take it. A continental fight should be a bunch of little battles that coalesce into a large one, the conclusion of which determines success.

Even a large battle should really just an amalgam of smaller engagements over individual objectives, so that smaller groups feel like they're accomplishing something. Instead it's just a meat grinder because the objectives are few, and most of them involve simply mowing down infantry while waiting for some kind of arbitrary timer you can't affect to run out.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by Taramafor

The problem wit lattice is that you can NEVER surround an enemy zerg.

What's stopping you?