[Guide] Why Nay-Sayers to the Prototype Hex System are Wrong

Breaking apart my argument piece by piece just means you don't really have an argument, so much as just attempting to negate anything I have to say as though I'm wrong. No, the back capping must go. I don't care if you're the one guy that waits for that one other guy. Nor do many others. There A: aren't enough people willing to stand around an wait and B: no one should be forced to abandon the epic scale battles just to stop someone whose actions WILL end said epic scale battles, if through attrition. You're missing the entire point: It's a zerg FPS. This will always be supported first and foremost. A mechanic that can destroy a good fight because people don't want to be bothered with leaving it is a bad mechanic for the game.

This can not be refuted. This isn't my opinion. THIS IS HOW THE GAME IS INTENDED TO PLAY BY DESIGN. If SOE is changing the current mechanics to more reflect this ideal, then they ****ing agree. Wake up to that fact and find another game.

Thing is, I'm not forced to abandon anything. I'm playing this game for my team. That's how I want to play it, that's what I want to do, that's what is fun to me. If the best thing I can do is stand on guard for an hour or two even if no-one comes to attack, that's what I'll do and that's what will be a fun and fulfilling evening in the game for me. On the other hand, if rezzing people, repairing tanks, planes, turrents and MAXes, mining the hell out of every approach to the base, making sure everyone is restocked on ammo, scouting the area, driving and guarding an AMS Sundy, providing covering fire (which involves not shooting at people, but shooting at places where you don't want people, specifically the enemies, to be) or shooting people is what is the best I can do at this moment to help my team, I'll do that instead.

They key principle is: I do what is the best for my team, to the best of my knowledge and abilities. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm not trying to force my way on others. Why are others - like you - trying to force your "one true way" on me?

Actually, if the individual assertions and premises of your position don't stand up to scrutiny, then your conclusion based on them is probably flawed, as well.

It seems like the basic issue is you don't like the tactics being used against you and insist they be off-limits, allowing you to operate as you please without being challenged to use critical thinking.

the problem isn't that this can be done in the game currently. Out maneuvering an opponent should be rewarded. As it is now, its too rewarding though. Take a look at the current TR/NC border. The TR need to hold Quarts Ridge and West Highlands to protect their territory. As soon as one falls, the flood gates open. If Quarts Ridge is taken it opens up Hvar, Sandstone Gulch, and NS Secure. Loose one of them and it opens up 2 more places to attack. Each of those open up 2 more.

The worst case scenario is NS secure is taken. It opens up Indar Bay, Highland Solar, Vanu Archives, and Allatum (is West Highlands is still held by TR). Either one of those being captured opens up at least another 2 bases, Vanu Archives opening up 4. The amount of territory the TR now needs to go back and re-secure or defend skyrockets. Done right, a squad or two can force a platoon or more troops to do re-secure work and are taken away from the main fighting. A squad should not have this much influence on the fighting. It also leads to it being abused by large clans who can drop its group off at multiple undefended bases behind enemy lines and wait for their link to start capturing immediately, giving the defenders no time to react. By the time they realize what is going on, they've lost half their territory back home.

predictability is something ALL games have and need. If everything was random the player feels like he has little or no control. Take a look at LoL for example. The game would be MUCH different if you could attack any structure at any time. You could easily have a ranged character jump over the base wall and start hacking away at an inhibitor. maybe not right away, but once they get strong enough it could be easily done quickly enough before you could get there in time to retaliate. You could argue that it adds more options to the game and more strategy, but is it a better game because of it?

This is what PS2 is like currently. Sure, we now expect to get back hacked at undefended bases, but no one wants to sit at those empty bases to swat away the occasional gal drop, one that may never come, when they could be on the front lines fighting. By the time they see a base being capped, it is almost too late to do anything about it. You could set up defenses at the now contestable bases, but it requires the enemies man power X the number of bases. It becomes a game of cat and mouse that most people find extremely boring. It actively discourages large fights in favor of highly mobile, small units. In a game where "size matters," this is not a good thing.

of course those strategies are possible now, but with the new system they're much more defined and their effects are limited to the local area instead of the whole region. Small squads can still change the tide of a fight by poking a hole in the front or adding a new one, not just end it by moving the front past the fight.

"Anyone who quotes Sun Tzu and thinks it makes him a strategic genius is an idiot" - Fortress.

Good thing I don't think that, then.

"Anyone who quotes Sun Tzu at all is an idiot" - Fortress.

Well, people who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Pursue that path at your own peril.

SavageOc, I agree that games need predictability but isn't the micro-hex completely over doing it? And Ghost-capping does need to be addressed but isn't it overkill? I really believe it wont fix any of the real issues, we're STILL going to have crownside 2, resources will still mean nothing. I really believe the micro-hex system wont do what its supposed to at all.

I'm presenting an alternative, give it a read.

Has Higby said they were going to a "lattice" system, or is this just a reworking of how the map displays information? Are you guys reading to much into this map? Setting aside the lattice debate for a moment, I like the new map system, assuming nothing else about the game changes. It's more intuitive and will make it easier to visualize the various routes to our objectives. The current map system looks like amoebas on acid in a never ending battle for supremacy over the same brain matter.

First of all, there is no static border, the border is wherever the factions have pushed/fallen back to.

Second of all, everything you just said is as true going one way as it is the other. Again, you have the tools to observe which way the enemy is going and respond accordingly. Just because you choose not to use them doesn't mean an attacker having options is unfair in some way.

Where the hell are all of your forces while this is going on?

Oh, that's right, they are sitting at the wrong base, having failed entirely to bother so much as open their map and see the blinking hexes and 'multiple enemy squads' warnings, let alone actually sent out scouts or moved to a better position for counter-attack.

What exactly is stopping your platoon from going to where the squads are and crushing them?

A squad has as much influence on the fighting as you allow them to have. Since you've apparently done diddely to stop them, that is going to be a lot.

False dichotomy, there are more options than 'predictable' and 'random'. Besides, it is predictable now, you are just all but willfully refusing to use the tools you have to make better predictions.

I see at least 2-3 multi-platoon fights occurring at any time (prime time, that is) on every continent as it stands.

"but it requires the enemy's man power x number of bases" Why is that a bad thing, exactly? You expect to be able to fight back with less people and win? How about the SOE devs come to your house and stroke you off while you play, too.

The time it takes to move the entire front and isolate your forces gives you a window to get off your butts and respond to it.

You've got to be unfathomably slow to react if you are allowing that to happen. If you are already fighting a large force where you are while other forces surround and isolate you, you were outnumbered, outmaneuvered, outgunned and generally outplayed. Make fair comparisons. If it is zerg vs. zerg + squads, then clearly the group with more man-power has an advantage. If it is zerg vs. zerg-that-sent-squads-out, then you send squads out, too.

War isn't fair, get over it.

over doing it? I don't think so but i'll admit it will be hard to tell until it's released since we've only seen a small fraction of the map.

True, this doesn't address the resource issues with the game. But it really isn't meant to. The main thing it should an will address is battle flow. Whether or not it will need tweaks is yet to be seen. But I firmly believe it is a step in the right direction.

looking at your post, I agree that it will "MOBAfy" the game a bit, in the sense there will be "lanes" between larger bases. However, many FPS have this on smaller scales. Look at TF2, one of my favorite FPS. Many of its maps are designed around combat areas and corridors connecting them. There is often a main path between the areas that are often direct pathways. There are other paths where you can flank the enemy, but can take longer to get through.

Take a look at Dustbowl's first area when attacking the second point. You have 3 paths to take to get to the next area surrounding the point. The bottom left path is the most direct, but easily defended. The bottom right can lead to that overhead area, allowing to attack the enemy guarding the final path, the top left.

Every game on Dustbowl is predictable. Does this make it any less fun? does the limited effective strategies make it any less fun? if so, then why is Dustbowl so popular?

The game still has a lot to fix. Bases need to be more easily defended. But having better flow will give more reliable data to the devs, and us, to see what needs to be done to make them defensible. This system won't fix everything, but it is the right step to fix a crucial problem with the game so we can start fixing other things.

I agree with the OP. The lattice system will make this game so much more awesome.

Yoxn approves this post!

True it will give more accurate data to the devs and the players. It's just that the map will essentialy be a large portion of the backbone from which this game will grow. I know what you mean about dustbowl but that's the difference between terrain and map.
Ps2 has a completely open terrain, to me limiting what players do via map and not terrain is not the way to go. There definitely needs to be more data released before proper opinons can be formed, but from what I've seen of the map and how the lattice system works. I have a hard time beleiving it'll fix half of what people think it will.

just going to focus on this part

So are you saying that to defend their territory defenders need to either defend backwater bases that have a small connection, or fight off the large zerg? We're already in a fight. So when you go and back cap bases in a few minutes, in that time when we're holding off your zerg, we should just up and leave to handle the 2 squads running around?

We do do that. We do send a platoon out to deal with people like you. and you know what? It's boring as hell. To put a stop to it we have to send way too many people to push you out and reclaim our land. And in that time the zerg won the battle we were at and are now pushing in to our less defensible bases.

Just because you want your small battles doesn't mean I can't have my large battles without loosing a ton of territory behind us. When you do it is it predictable? yes. We KNOW it's going to happen. But the bases flip so fast we usually have little to no time to react once we know what is going on. I'm sorry in the 2 minutes it takes to capture the base we didn't open our map and immediately send troops to stop you.

Fixed that for you

the problem with using only terrain in PS2 is that you can easily bypass it with air. The Enclave uses heavy use of Gal drops and drop pods to assault a base. With the current hex you can easily move across and capture parts of the map, bypassing any defenses people have set up using terrain.

This problem was worse in beta. When they were talking about the adjacency system being added, people complained then too. It would remove "too much strategy," "limit player choice," "zerg fights 24/7." It gave more flow to battle, but not enough. Without adjacency you could go to any one of the 70+ territories to attack or defend. Adjacency lowered this number to around the 20+ choices we have now (lower or bigger as we gain/loose territory). This new system will lower it even further and localize fights and the game will be better for it.

I remember the g-ams's were all over, though it was great to see them on biolab landing pads.
I'm not saying that terrain should be the only limiting factor but rather, what works for terrain won't work for the map system.
to quote the forefathers

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?"

What I mean is that people will cheese any system you throw at them. I designed my alternative to the micro-hex system with this in mind. when they try to cheese things they'll actually be contributing to the gameplay.
I accomplished this by adapting the adjacency system to further limit and stabilize the number of available places to push. without limiting or removing strategic elements.

Thumbs up.