Concerns about the hex system

LoopbackZero · 2012-04-10, 07:34 PM

Hey guys, I wanted to get your thoughts to make sure I wasn't alone. Looking at the 'hex' system and seeing how it works, I'm really worried about longevity of the game. You have this truly massive area to do battle in, but should the empires be balanced, you will only see a small fraction of it in a month's time. With the hex system, going behind enemy lines serves no net benefit so everyone will be locked onto this two hex wide front line. It will move slightly, but I can't see it moving anywhere near the safe zones of the map. So you have these vast pockets of map that barely get played because there's no benefit in going there.

Even worse, since the area really is massive, your faction is spread into smaller forces across this sprawling front line that the hex system creates. Also, there are (currently) three of these front lines! For example I'll use Miir's updated video with the TR faction at 3:22. Let's say this map represents the average of the three. There are 53 hex borders on that map for the TR. That's 159 total "front lines" for the three maps. With a server's limit of 666 players per faction (PC Gamer, April 2012, p.48), that's just over 4 players (4v4) at each adjacency. Even if the battle isn't perfectly spread out as calculated, you're still not getting anything massive without leaving huge holes in your defense. If everyone decided to play on the same cont, you would still be at 12v12 battles spread across that line.

Raymac · 2012-04-10, 07:43 PM

I highly doubt it will happen like that. People will reinforce each other to make larger groups. Groups will face off against each other. It is not going to turn into a 4v4 game.

Also, Planetside 1 saw the battle moving from 1 side of the continent to the other and in that game we were bottlenecked into highly defendable bases due to the lattice system.

I believe it's the devs' goal to have massive battles but still use much more of the map than we did in Planetside 1. The hex system + resource system play right into this. I highly doubt it will turn into a stalemate where we only fight over the middle hexes. It wasn't that way in PS1, so it won't be that way in PS2.

Atheosim · 2012-04-10, 07:51 PM

It didn't happen that way in PS1 because of the lattice system mostly. It won't happen this way in PS2 because the resource system creates demands that can only be met by capturing hexes rich in the required resource. You're always going to be fighting to balance your resources or to get more, and that requires moving across the map.

Ruwyn · 2012-04-10, 07:57 PM

The OP's concerns are not to be dismissed outright. The easiest place to cap will be along the "frontlines" and the most contested place will be the center of the map, due to that is where the 3 factions will come together.

However, the playerbase can beat these flaws by changin their thinking away from must kill, must die, must respawn and actually follow some strategy put forth by those who emerge to be leaders.

For instance:
a simple change to attack one empire more then the other.

a focus on one continent more then any other.

a plan to capture coastline since it can only be attacked by 3 directions not 4.

Open Beta will show us the mindset of the mob. Hopefully we, as players, can adjust so there doesn't have to be some redesign of things. Right now I'm not convinced we can. I believe, like the first, there will be a lot of ground that you will never see unless you go on a little tour yourself, whether there is a reason to fight there or not, since it will never get to the point where you have adjacent territory.

Raymac · 2012-04-10, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by Ruwyn

For instance:
a simple change to attack one empire more then the other.

a focus on one continent more then any other.

a plan to capture coastline since it can only be attacked by 3 directions not 4.

Well combine that with the goal of getting more resources, and the fact that resources are not going to be concentrated in the middle of the map, and that's why I think we don't really need to be worried about it.

However, you are right, if it is a problem that is exposed in beta, then I'm sure there will be ways to fix it.

Crator · 2012-04-10, 08:08 PM

I have same concerns and hopefully something will help to mitigate this. One thing Mirr's capture system video failed to point out is if an empire decided to attack behind the lines, away from owned hexes, and was successful, then they would be able to capture the adjacent hexes fast. That's the benefit of pulling something like that off. I'm hoping, if you use the right tactics, have the appropriate amount of people, and the right equipment/certs used, it can be done.

Cosmical · 2012-04-10, 08:24 PM

my main thought is, although the entire map is covered in Hex's. Do we know if they all contain spawn abilities? Say for example you take an enemy base, and theres another 8 enemy Hex's left to take to lock out the continent. Does that mean there will be 30 minutes of you all running into empty enemy Hex's. Or will the enemy be fighting till the last man to retain their last Hex?

Stardouser · 2012-04-10, 08:26 PM

I don't know what the mainstream, frontline game is going to do as far as how deep and often it will go across a map, but I am very interested in behind the lines missions. That's the number one thing I want to know about. IE - going behind the lines to blow something up, and it actually have an affect on the overall efforts.

Cosmical · 2012-04-10, 09:17 PM

Why the hell havent i thought of this joke before!!?

Knocky · 2012-04-10, 09:22 PM

Sorry Cosmical, but the censors are hard at work defending the copyright of the into song to a 30 year old television game show.

Cosmical · 2012-04-10, 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by Knocky

Sorry Cosmical, but the censors are hard at work defending the copyright of the into song to a 30 year old television game show.

Can i have a "P" please Bob?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!

Machine · 2012-04-11, 12:10 AM

awesome. love the hexes alternating to midi. need some 8 bit doom to go with it.

Eyeklops · 2012-04-11, 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by LoopbackZero

With a server's limit of 666 players per faction (PC Gamer, April 2012, p.48), that's just over 4 players (4v4) at each adjacency. Even if the battle isn't perfectly spread out as calculated, you're still not getting anything massive without leaving huge holes in your defense. If everyone decided to play on the same cont, you would still be at 12v12 battles spread across that line.

Others will correct me if I am wrong but, that 666 per empire figure is the developers target for each map, not the whole server cluster/shard. So calculate from that. I also think we will see a somewhat Gaussian curve distribution of player density along the front-lines extending from major capture points.

Miir · 2012-04-11, 12:36 AM

There are way to many factors to account for with this new territory system. I decided to try and model it a bit but it's not as easy as I thought.

I gave each empire equal resource nodes and bases and spread the troops out equally on the map to get a feel for how things would look. This is a little under the 666v666v666 just to keep the numbers even. It's basically 640v640v640.

This is starting to look like a cool board game.

DOUBLEXBAUGH · 2012-04-11, 12:44 AM

The worst fights in PS1 was the big 3 ways. They were just a big cluster fuck that went nowhere till someone went to another cont and made 1 empire pull off so the other 2 could fight it out. With PS2 it seems like they want that annoying 3 way 24/7. Yes the large battles of PS made it great, but if the map wasn't moving it was very boring. With only 3 conts at launch I feel its too small to allow this type of thing during prime time. Other times of the day I'm sure the servers wont be at capacity and people can move around to make other empires respond somewhere else, but during prime time, I don't look forward to it.