Game Changer: Lattice

so its ok if the whole rest of the game gets devalued and becoming shallow and unimportant, as long as you all can dial in and be pointed directly at your HugeBattleTM

Just I wish you guys wouldnt be so selfish flagwaving this pile of poop and recognise (perhaps not you) that a lot of people are unhappy by your selfishness and would have liked to work together to get both HugeBattleTM as well as having an area where so called important parts of this game called Outfits can make a difference.

However all I see are selfish short sighted people who likely will have moved on to another game once they get bored of HugeBattleTM every day leaving the people who actually wanted HugeBattleTM PLUS OutfitLattitiudeTM PLUS a more natural way of having HugeBattleTM break out at any place of the map, not just this stupidly fake carnival processon of bases, which obviously you guys dont mind and are prepared to 'suspend disbelief' marching the same road having the same battles at the same ridges between exactly the same bases with the enemy always coming from the same direction, as long as you can shoot ur gun.

Sad really, no idea about depth and no compassion for those with a wider worldview on this game, nup just vote for the popular option because you had a couple of nights fun with the enemy being falsely served to you like chow to a pig, and everyone else can go to hell.

Wheres the fun in that? What kind of battle skill are you showing? Who cares if you have a big KD or SPM when its only a button press to find a fight and then the enemy have no alternative but to just throw themselves at you, thats fake, nobodys going to respect lattice fight stats as a genuine reflection of how good you are, its pre-massaged junk.

I don't have to justify Lattice, it's already here. We got what we wanted. You can take your small scale warfare and go play BF3 or CoD.

1) See there you go, more one liners, including insults, i knew you wouldnt fail to show us exactly what im talking about

2) you dont know me, I hate BF3, yes you people who only want one thing from PS2 got what they wanted, im just saying youre selfish by not caring about whats lost and not taking a step back to think hey, i might get bored of this same battle after a few weeks, then what do i do?

If we just blindly adopt the lattice youll have your fun and leave, meh ps2 is boring, its just a big battle all the time, ding! It could be so much more but i know im taking to an inert wall here, im not going to change your mind, but maybe I can say 'told you so' in a month or sos time, when you realise we all want the same things and its too late to stop the bickering or for either of us to change anything.

1) I didn't insult anybody. The only pro-hex system arguments I've seen is "I prefer small battles" or "My small (outfit, squad, group) can't compete anymore." If people don't want large battles in a game advertised as having large battles, then all they can do is play a different game. PS2 was not designed around squad v squad or 1v1 combat.

You're right, I do only want one thing from PS2, and that is to win. Unfortunately, even with Lattice, the terms of "winning" are still a little hazy, I consider it to be locking a faction in their warpgate. My faction on my server has done this several times since Lattice launched. I'm enjoying the new fights Lattice has brought. There's no more ghost capping, and you are forced to fight your enemy, not run away or around.

If you only think like sheep.... if you do it's just more meat for me to shoot at

Well actually you can still go around. But some are too damn stubborn to find out how and would rather rant on the forums.

St0mpy. if you don't like the direction this game is going, then get out.

complaining isn't going to do anything, the majority of people like lattice, so too bad.

call us sheep, call it dumbing down, it isn't.

Exactly, now the only difference is the movements are more predictable allowing for better defense. Now there's an attack/defense order, not "Hey let's go take this territory 6 hexes behind them."

Actually, getting behind the enemy and steathily contesting bases is a good way for small squads to disable the enemy offensive. In that sense 12 people can offset dozens in a platoon by attacking the base a force came from. I'm of the understanding that when a base is contested it cannot be used to attack another. THAT is real small squad tactics, special forces work. Sending a squad to roll from place to place and stare at the ground while the place caps just to bother people "back capping" is not by any means tactical, or even sensible. That's not how war works, you cant drop 12 people wait a while and own a place, you hit something populated and important, and now that's what you have to do.

Presently the new old lattice system has the strategic qualities of Snakes and Ladders.
Perhaps when there are more options other than butt heads along a predictable front it may turn out all right sometime in the future.
Right now it's "strategy" for the hard of thinking ... and quite boring.

A very good summary +1

I've asked before elsewhere Karma, but I'd be interested to see your critical analysis of lattice.

If it were really just a bed of roses, it would not be nearly this derisive.

And to all the 'the game is designed for massive battles'.

Actually, its not, its designed for 3-4 massive battles if the server is populated. the issue is how to create descent squad v squad combat in the other areas that still strategically effects the map without being overpowerd.

As things stand, it certainly has not gotten rid of ghost capping as everyone piles in the 3-4 fights, and the rest of the map is largely platoons going around spawn camping underdefended bases.

As i've said, what feels like over 9000 times, the only way to really get around this I think is to add more to the strategic game than capping territory. As at the moment, you can only effect the larger fights by

1) Going to them.
2) Trying to cap territory around them to draw people away.

and in the case of alerts

3) Get as much territory as possible.

and 2) and 3) involve a lot of spawn camping or sitting around at the moment. Most of the boring behavior that we had in the old system.

People make it out as if the game has fundamentally changed, its simply been a reduction of base capture logic and remapping. I think the transition from fight to fight is nice. Otherwise, most of the old problems remains, the question is are they better or worse.



As to the relative population issues, which i've been going on about for a while. They are holding largely steady it appears so far. I need more data, but the approach of simply making bases more defensible only seems to shift the issue. If your vastly outnumbered on a map or server, there is still not a whole lot you can really do bar loose most of your engagements.

Ok so in the process of trying to get some constructive criticism from your post i am guessing you are struggling with small combat and small objectives. This game was not built only for large engagements but also for smaller engagements it was built to give a varied battlefield where a small squad can be effective but still not get steam rolled.

Small battles are still in effective but are not as apparent with the continents of Amerish and Esamir still being on the hex system. Often on the lattice system the small battles will stem into the larger battles.

One of the primary things that was removed that was very central to small squad teamwork was objectives. This was not due to the lattice system. With the removal of the SCU. Small squads cannot be as effective at attacking neutralising and defending an objective as they could before.

Personally with my outfit and with a few others ive seen that this lattice system is just as if not more strategic and tactical as the hex system. Also when a small squad rolls up to a large battle. You have so many options on what you want to achieve it is impossible to fulfil them all.

The lattice system to me just seems like an entirely artificial way to make up for the game's complete failing when it comes to defending and metagame. They have taken PS2 which they have heavily touted as a sandbox FPS and turned it into the most linear RPG ever. Now, your only option if you want to take territory is to mindlessly throw forces into a zergfestated corridor.

Instead of actually trying to improve the metagame SOE as usual just throws in a bunch of artificial stops to simulate it which has effectively turned the game into, "You stand over there...and you stand over there...now...KISS." <_<

I used to get so sick and tired of wondering where to attack or defend. Now the game does my thinking for me. THERE...JUST THERE...MAYBE THERE...BUT PROBABLY NOT.

Instead of base capturing mechanics and layouts like they had in PS1 they just say, we'll just add another wall here, here and here...instant Metagame! Just add walls! It doesn't require any strategy or tactics by the playerbase to overcome...nope...just more zerg here, derp.

It doesn't require anyone to think harder. It just requires more zerg. Small squad tactics are pointless now and you can't even prep bases anymore. You can't even overload generators in bases adjacent to ally controlled hexes which makes no sense. (but someone will say it does)

See thats my fundamenetal issue i've been banging on about for a bit.

Taking territory should largely be what the big battles are for. Thats not to say i've not had plenty of hugely enjoyable 1 - 2 v 1 - 2 squad engagements with various TR and VS outfits. A particular night where we were squad v squad (both not even 12 people) against SOV trying to stop them taking a base, was particularly enjoyable and involved some really persistent and innovative paths of attack.

It was rare enough, and again im not here to pretend hex is particular good at doing this, its more a factor of outfits running around fairly cohesively and then banging into each other.

The issue is that, im yet to see anything that looks like this on Lattice, is it just the novelty of the now fairly regular 3-4 large battles on indar, not sure.

But so far most of the impact we've had has been in concert with other units at the same objective. Not to say theres anything wrong with this.

I'm also seeing just as much ghost capping as before, platoons turns up to base, only a squad to defend it, squad rapidly gets bored and disappears after about 2 mins, leaving a boring wait for it to go through.

If there were objectives behind the lines, that effected thouse large 3-4 battles, indeed in a way that gave a larger force a vulnerability(maybe a gen, a base behind if down, raises spawn times by 2 seconds, or prevents spawning of vehicles) and it took a squad to take it, up only ever made sense for a squad to go retake it.

I think that would make everyone happy.

And I hope its what there going with the resource revamp. Indeed, the discussion I think, is less and less whats wrong with lattice. More what the game still desperately needs in terms of larger strategic metagame.

Being critical of the lattice system is hard, because in my opinion the items that are missing from the game are not directly related to the lattices. As i posted elsewhere.

Vehicles
Vehicle spawn points are really a problem at the moment. Being able to spawn vehicles at any point on the map is breaking the front lines and not spreading the fight out as much as it could. I think much like Planetside 1. Vehicles should only be able to be pulled from the warp gate and major facility's. This also lends itself back to the usefulness of galaxy and making that more apparent within the world.

Resource Systems
The ANT system in Planetside 1 was needed to make sure that the fights did not become stale and stable. Much like many people are complaining about. If the bases were to have power levels which would decrease with use of turrets terminals and teleporters. This would allow the offensive teams to create small time windows to attack the base and destroy the offensive ability's.

Ghost Capping
Ghost capping in the hex system involved of grabbing adjacency and then running getting to the other territory's fast. This allows you to pull the enemy back and make them concentrate on defending. Which once you removed yourself became another round of ghost capping for themselves.

Ghost capping does not exist in the terms of the base being empty and worth nothing. If you are Ghost capping now in the sense there is no one there. You are still active on the front line. At some point you will push and hit enemy's. You are also accomplishing the same thing pulling the enemy back to defend. But this time you have the chance of defending and slowing the enemy's progression across the map. Defence has been brought to the game and it is with conjunction of the new base design and also the new lattice battle flow.


Anyone that post any other concerns gripes i will reply to them.

Simply put, I refuse to believe that the lattice is "breaking the game" when it has been part of Planetside since 2003. Period.

Well enjoy your lattice, because if it comes in youve lost not only a lot of the uniqueness we started with, and you will no longer be able to enjoy the truly epic battles which happened less often and less predictably on the hex.

Lattice battles dont/cant scale like hex can, so while you can still 'win' your normally predicable large battle and know there will be the same predictably sized battle nicely prepared for you tomorrow and the day after and the day after, like chow for a pig in the fake limited procession, you wont realise by doing that youve ended the days of the spontaneously occurring truly epic battles.

THATS what I want back, those are such a buzz and bigger than lattice battles but latticers dont seem cogent about losing those just to pad predicibility. All I hear is yay, we want lattice and will scream and scream and scream so we cant hear anyone else with serious and real concerns.

WAKE UP!!

Battles with a cap on numbers will get boring real fast and youll be left thinking thats all PS2 can provide, and it will be because everyone is bewitched by the simplicity of finding a large battle, not realising its losing so much in the flexibility department, including not being able to have one gloriously massive battle which the whole server joins in, thats hex, but you dont want that.

Shame.

Throwing yourself down one corridor is the wrong way you are looking at it. Previously you can take a base and head in any direction. Which i agree was a good point. But heading in 3 of those directions you would end up finding an empty base with no one there. And one base with a massive offensive.

Now with the new lattice ( and this would be even better if it was applied across the continents.) you have 7 or 8 lanes across the entire continent to choose from. This gives you the option of fighting wherever you want. With one check of the map you can check the strength/size of the fight and jump straight in. These battles evolved and change.

Prepping bases is also a touchy subject i agree removing the ability to do this is a bad idea but do not lay the blame on the lattice system. Prepping bases can have severe outcomes if it is already prepped. And yes this should rely on the defender, but it can make a hex or lane get steamrolled.

I agree more small squad objectives need to be added. But do not blame the lattice. As i said above this is the foundation for a complex and intense meta game.