Work in Progress Lattice Picture, Feedback?

[Shogun]

i like the wip pic!

the lattice is clearly visible now. i am all for better fast and easy information on the map!
and i was never a fan of the hexes at all. looks much better in the wip!

the only thing i would change is the owned by enemy overlay. the contures need to be more visible. so either defuzz the overlay a little bit with clearer borders, or just put clearly visible SOI on every outpost/base and scrap every factioncolor inbetween.

also the new system would allow for a rebirth of llu type bases. a little diversity with base capture mechanics wouldn´t hurt.

[Rivenshield]

I like it -- and not just because it reminds me of the original. It is simple and intuitive and will make finding a good fight easier and faster. The fact that the lines sometimes cross terrain features is a non-issue. People can follow the roads to whichever objectives they want. The lattice simply shows them which objectives are linked together, and how. It makes the strategic picture comprehensible at a glance.

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

Does this actually mean that after all of beta and half a year of release where people were repeatedly asking for a PS1-styled lattice and it was continously deemed inappropriate for this game, THEY IMPLEMENT EXACTLY THE SYSTEM OF PS1?

Yes. That is how long it took for the dev team as a whole to evolve and understand that behind the bittervet whining there was much good advice. This is how long it took for real-world gameplay to force them to come to the same conclusions we came to six months ago. This is how long it took to reinvent the wheel. (And he's finally calling it a lattice, now, you note.) Yes.

AND IF WE'RE DICKS ABOUT IT, THAT WILL ONLY GUM UP THE WORKS AND MAKE FURTHER EVOLUTION IMPOSSIBLE. The last thing we need now is paragraph-long victory dances. I don't feel triumphant and vindicated. I feel relieved that Higby is still willing to talk to us after all our histrionic doom-laden bullspit. He isn't CONCEDING anything. He's simply remaining open. And bit by bit, on little cat feet, we are getting the game we pleaded for -- not the one we wanted for ourselves, but for the new generations of gamers who need that epic fix and who will wither on the vine without it.

***HIGBY*** Hopefully you're read this far and will see this: YOU GUYS NEED A USER'S MANUAL. Something gamers can download and print out and refer to in-game without breaking gameplay that will explain how everything works and what all this bewildering stuff on the map and in the interface is. It is costing you more business than you can possibly realize. I've seen it over and over again. I've seen it make the difference between 300+ tech support calls a month and FOUR. It is the difference between a five-minute user and a loyal fan.

Put a .pdf out there with the basics and the results will be immediate and gratifying. I promise.

Sincerely,

-- Rivenshield, Senior Level Technical Writer

[Methonius]

This is so much cleaner looking than the hex crap. I approve of this change!

[Kerrec]

I just spent a very frustrating evening trying to defend Indar against a VS/NC double team. When we were down to a couple bases left, it became impossible to do anything. There were SOOOO many people at the last couple bases we held that I couldn't revive anyone, I couldn't replenish ammunition, I'd shoot people CQC and it would take 1+ seconds for the hits to register and the guy to die. I'd take incoming fire, run into an empty building and die seconds later to one guy who did 100% damage.

THIS is what everyone wants? Insane zerg vs. zerg fights, all the time with impossible frame rates, lag that breaks healing/reviving/replenishing ammo.... lines of tanks spamming HE from ridges way beyond dumbfire range?

Tonight was horribly frustrating. If PS2 devolves into this all the time... I wouldn't play this game anymore.

[Kail]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

I just spent a very frustrating evening trying to defend Indar against a VS/NC double team. When we were down to a couple bases left, it became impossible to do anything. There were SOOOO many people at the last couple bases we held that I couldn't revive anyone, I couldn't replenish ammunition, I'd shoot people CQC and it would take 1+ seconds for the hits to register and the guy to die. I'd take incoming fire, run into an empty building and die seconds later to one guy who did 100% damage.

THIS is what everyone wants? Insane zerg vs. zerg fights, all the time with impossible frame rates, lag that breaks healing/reviving/replenishing ammo.... lines of tanks spamming HE from ridges way beyond dumbfire range?

Tonight was horribly frustrating. If PS2 devolves into this all the time... I wouldn't play this game anymore.

I just came from that myself! From the VS side of course - did you stick around for when we crashed galaxies into your warpgate? Wish I could have seen that from the inside lol.

Anyway, to your point, rush lanes or lattice won't really create those kind of conditions you describe, because that kind of situation only happens at warpgates. Although you're completely correct in that normal base fights will be bigger, so there will be performance issues.

To the WIP piece itself, my feedback.

Connections

1. All connections should be unanimated, gray lines
2. Connections from your empire into an enemy empire should be a fat orange arrow (pointing to the enemy)
3. Connections between enemy empires should be should be slightly larger and colored yellow
4. By default, only "Your Empire" arrows are shown on the map

The goal: The map should be like a war documentary; Every part of the map should have a color of who controls it. The big arrows serve as the "Battle Front" indicators. The connections inside empire territory, and between enemy empires, are irrelevant for at-a-glance information (you only care when you want to plan capture movement, so it can be toggled on).

One thing I'm not sure of would be to have the connections between the facilities look like they do from the rush lanes - ie, the follow the actual roads / connections between bases. The Battle Front arrows (your empire > enemy empire) would always be straight arrows of course. The idea behind that being looking at connections shows you the true paths between bases, while the battle front is way to quickly see where you can attack next.

Control Area Coloring

1. The purple and the red seem too close, and should be more obviously different
2. Facility labels and icons should be on a layer above the coloring, not under
3. Instead of a darker color for disconnected facilities, an alternative may be to shrink the heat spot of a cut off base so that they just have coloring around the label / icons (note - I get the feeling a darker tint will still look way better)

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Rivenshield

I like it -- and not just because it reminds me of the original. It is simple and intuitive and will make finding a good fight easier and faster.

It's not intuitive at all. Does ANYONE remember their first experience with any original PlanetSide map?


Because my first experience, aswell as some of my friends' I can only describe as "LOLWUT?" Hex map or any territorial distinction gives WAAAAAAAAAY more indication as to what you are looking at on the map.

[MrMak]

There is one option missing from the poll.

[basti]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

I just spent a very frustrating evening trying to defend Indar against a VS/NC double team. When we were down to a couple bases left, it became impossible to do anything. There were SOOOO many people at the last couple bases we held that I couldn't revive anyone, I couldn't replenish ammunition, I'd shoot people CQC and it would take 1+ seconds for the hits to register and the guy to die. I'd take incoming fire, run into an empty building and die seconds later to one guy who did 100% damage.

THIS is what everyone wants? Insane zerg vs. zerg fights, all the time with impossible frame rates, lag that breaks healing/reviving/replenishing ammo.... lines of tanks spamming HE from ridges way beyond dumbfire range?

Tonight was horribly frustrating. If PS2 devolves into this all the time... I wouldn't play this game anymore.

Fun fact: This is exactly what doesnt happen with the lattice system.

It pretty much completly stops insane zergs from happening, as you have med sized zergs fighting it out, as opposed to getting pushed back to your warpgate before your empire gets its shit together.

[Shogun]

Originally Posted by basti

Fun fact: This is exactly what doesnt happen with the lattice system.

It pretty much completly stops insane zergs from happening, as you have med sized zergs fighting it out, as opposed to getting pushed back to your warpgate before your empire gets its shit together.

i hope you are right. the nc on miller don´t seem to be able to coordinate and usually it´s just a giant zerg steamrolling the cont while every base the terg is not located at, gets retaken in minutes. but i don´t see how the new lattice would change that.
by the way, are the nc on other servers capable of winning a cont? i haven´t seen a nc tagged cont on miller ever!

[ChipMHazard]

Originally Posted by MrMak

There is one option missing from the poll.

http://youtu.be/ussCHoQttyQ

Heh, aye. Can't say that I care which design they go with at this point. At the moment the only difference there is, is in the way it's presented visually. It works the exact same way as the current rush lane hex system does.
I don't rightly care which they go with, as long as they stick with one and expand upon it with features that tie into said system.

[Kail]

Originally Posted by basti

Fun fact: This is exactly what doesnt happen with the lattice system.

It pretty much completly stops insane zergs from happening, as you have med sized zergs fighting it out, as opposed to getting pushed back to your warpgate before your empire gets its shit together.

Well that's not quite true. Consider the case he's talking about - on that night, the last TR territory was Camp Waterson. Given that, the TR had 7 territories they could attack, and one territory to defend, for a total of 8 possible battle locations.

The problem? Everyone of those 8 had Enemy Platoons on them.

Lattice has no impact in that scenario at all, and indeed won't change warpgating situations. He was expressing the concern that those fight conditions will now be the norm across the whole continent - which from first blush shouldn't be that bad, but they will definitely be impacted negatively from a performance perspective compared to live.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by basti

Fun fact: This is exactly what doesnt happen with the lattice system.

It pretty much completly stops insane zergs from happening, as you have med sized zergs fighting it out, as opposed to getting pushed back to your warpgate before your empire gets its shit together.

By what definition in any human language is what you said a "fact"? Until it plays out and is proven in a game that has continent population locks of 666 per faction where every bullet, missile, grenade, etc... is an object requiring the server to do calculations, then what you say is purely a hypothesis.

"But PS1 did it", you're going to say. PS1 had much lower populations, multiple continents that could be locked and from hearsay, this created battle lines where a 3 way battle was relatively rare. That means factions "usually" fought one other empire on any given continent, a mechanic that allowed the possibility of fights to remain equal at 1:1. Until PS2 gets this kind of continent locking that enforces this kind of continent population balance, rush lanes in PS2 are going to be a disaster IMO.

Based on my experience (real experimental data) last night, I am swayed towards the opinion that a lattice forcing players to concentrate forces in "rush lanes" is going to reproduce the UNPLAYABLE conditions I experienced last night. IE:

-Heals didn't work (every death means you have to respawn at the spawn room, making it that much easier for the attacking forces to close the noose and camp it)
-Revives didn't work (particularly painful for using MAX resources wisely, makes the spawn room the only location to spawn from... see the "noose" comment above)
-Repairs didn't work (makes vehicles and MAXes pointless)
-Ammo boxes didn't work (assuming you live, you have to run back to a weapon terminal to resupply. Eventually, the only ones that remain are in the spawn room, meaning it just makes it that much easier for the enemy forces to close the noose and camp it)
-Lag was horrible. Deaths and kills took SECONDS to register. Means you dumped WAY too much ammo into one enemy to be SURE they were dead. Compounds the Ammo boxes not working issue!
-Many people complained about infantry culling. I personally didn't experience it, but if it is true, just one more reason why forcing battles at specific locations is bad for the game.

Now, the lattice:

http://www.planetside-universe.com/a...1&d=1368297940
This is what a VS player posted just after the battle. He verifies that all 4 hexes adjacent to the TR warpgate has VS platoons defending. All attempts to push out at one of the hexes was retaliated by having the VS move all platoons to that hex to squash the attack, then they moved back to their "assigned" hex to defend. Excellent teamwork that means for any push out of the warpgate, the TR faced 1:1 odds IF they could coordinate to send EVERYONE at one hex which never happened, so any TR push met superior numbers. Meanwhile TR held Camp Waterson and decided to hold it against the entire population of NC, again a 1:1 ratio fight in the best scenario. Given that we had the spawn room, it SHOULD have been possible as long as the VS didn't come to help. It never got to that because the realities of what the server can handle decided the outcome of that battle, but I digress.

The point I want to make is we had a situation where we could spawn at one place and move out in 4 directions or spawn at another place and move out in 3 directions. To illustrate:

Warpgate -> NS Salvage Yard
Warpgate -> Camp Connery (can't get there by foot or vehicle without going thru NS Salvage Yard)
Warpgate -> Crater Firing Range
Warpgate -> Alkali Storage

Camp Waterson -> Alkali Storage
Camp Waterson -> Mao Tech Plant
Camp Waterson -> NS Refinery

So the VS had a Platoon or Platoons at every link leading out from the Warpgate. NC cut off the two unique links leading out from Camp Waterson and could retaliate against any kind of drop with Platoons.

Now look at this Lattice:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/a...1&d=1368297940
Lets say that the VS control Valley Storage Yard and Old Auraxium mines cutting off 2 of our 3 "rush lanes" out of the warpgate. The TR have Tawrich Tech Plant which is being pushed by NC. So the sum of the TR forces are going to be at Tawrich against the sum of the NC, recreating the exact unplayable laggy scenario I experienced last night. Once the TR lose Tawrich, the same laggy unplayable scenario will replay itself at Tawrich Recycling. And again at Arroyo Tore Station and again at Copper Ravine Station.

So instead of having one stupid unplayable battle, we'll have 4. And to make it worse, instead of having the VS spread out among FOUR hexes to defend, they become concentrated into TWO hexes, which means it's that much easier for them to coordinate and succeed at defending them.

"But Kerrec, that'll only happen when you're being warpgated", you'll say. Yes and No. In cases like last night when two factions work towards the same objective, which is to neutralize a continent, it'll happen like this everywhere. One faction will push down one rush lane with everything they got until they reach a fork. Then they'll leave a force to hold while they rush down an adjacent rush lane to prevent any back capping due to the fork. Once the holding force is reunited with the attacking force, they'll push down the remaining rush lane until it reaches another fork. This will be repeated over and over until the targeted faction is warpgated. And the only way that targeted faction can defend is to go into the superpopulated contested rush lanes and fight thru the lag.

I'm sorry, but I'm convinced this is going to be bad unless there is never any kind of coordination and fighting is spread out everywhere.

[Climhazzard]

Originally Posted by Mox

Seeing these WIP-pics tell me that we were right with our proposals for a lattice since early beta.

Getting your way doesn't necessarily mean you're right.

Originally Posted by ringring

Also, is colour-blindness being considered from the start?

I assume the colors will be selectable, just like the hex colors are on live.

Originally Posted by Nathaniak

I prefer it to the system on the test server, but I still don't agree with a lattice in the first place.

That's my opinion as well.

[WSNeo]

Why not something like this?



No offense, I really like the cosmetic side of the WIP, but the color bleeding throws me off a bit (most likely because I'm not accustomed to it yet). If there was something that clearly shows the influence of the base (ie a circle) I wouldn't mind the bleeding.

Other than that everything else (line colors and indicators that show where they are clearly connecting) look fine!

[Rahabib]

Originally Posted by WSNeo

Why not something like this?



No offense, I really like the cosmetic side of the WIP, but the color bleeding throws me off a bit (most likely because I'm not accustomed to it yet). If there was something that clearly shows the influence of the base (ie a circle) I wouldn't mind the bleeding.

Other than that everything else (line colors and indicators that show where they are clearly connecting) look fine!

Exactly. Just show which faction owns the base. Move resources to bases not territory. This is far more intuitive imo., and I am not a ps1 player.