Lattice System.... Not a good idea.

I don't see what's wrong with that either as long as the base is at a natural choke point as well, like Quartz Ridge.

Rashnu is not one of those unless the terrain around it changed rather heavily from the last time I checked it out.

Thanks for that pic mars, i did make one too but its outdated as they changed it again. That image certainly does clarify the 'lane' issue people see on Indar test. Perhaps you could try making your own custom links and see what you come up with? ( ive got one i made, its a touch more connected than the official one)

Maybe one or two here and there could help it a little. Ultimately however:

I do feel that it (if its possible) would be better to just put it on the live servers and see how it goes. They will get far more effective feedback and data that way. They can then watch the flow and make alterations as required.

Sorry ive not highlighted base types but this is Esamir's live lattice:
Personally i feel its too connected in some areas. (i think i got them all)


Rhapsody, your idea over all for that if/when thing, could work. Does have its ups and downs, downs mainly depend on how people react to the cut off action. I feel that yes, it could go in to the test lattice though cutting off might be hard. As for live, yeah it could solve an issue or two but still does not solve the issues surrounding too many connections. (not saying im against the idea)

Might repost a thread today, depends if all the talk about the toys on the test server has died down a bit. Its all about the flow of battle, whats things are of high importance, what things are/should be low importance. I have some ideas but thats for another thread.

Also dont forget, PlanetSide's lattice networks wernt designed purely around enforced 3 way battles.... ! (continental anyway). Imagine if in PS2 you could have one on one fights like in PS... if only.


I dont think being able to redeploy at any base you own is a good idea. 'Physical' movement should be encouraged.

You're wasting your breath, as it clearly is.

There's no dynamic strategy in lattice. There's just "Go. Mass here." And then the zergfits can crow about how they beat back a huge force with their superior battle tactics (while outnumbering that "huge' force 3 to 1, but that won't stop them). They hate doing anything that doesn't involve sending everyone to one place. But their opponents don't want to play with them and swiftly go somewhere else. So we get zergfits demanding a system that forces them into the fights they want them to be in- but remember, you can't make people play a video game!

It really is that simple, and it really is what a lot of this is all about.

Them, and people infected with PS1, who forget that PS1 was a niche game even in its heyday. Trying to make a modern game into PS1 is even worse, because if people really want a big fight (with a guarantee of even teams!), they can just pick up the military-shooter-of-the-day their friends are playing. Someone managed to hack Battlefield to support 64x64, and in a game of that, the teams are actually 64 against 64. You don't get 100 players on one side and 10 on the other, which is common, and you don't get 80/20, 70/30 splits either. That's it. There's your big fights. Nearly invariably a steamroller.

This is where the hex system shines, by forcing these massive, outnumbering zergs to either break up or lose territory, making the fight more rolling and fluid.

The last 6 times i've been on Test, it's been a ghost town. People aren't playing it. I wonder why...

I'm with Rhapsody on this all the way.

Here's my design:

• Keep the terrain and facility re-designs.
• Add the "if/then cut off from warp gate you can't expand" mechanic.
• Knock off 1-2 connections here, 1-2 connections there, and ZERO connections most everywhere. Put in neutral large hexes where the terrain makes sense (not a wholesale 50% slaughter of base connections).
• Put adjacency back in.
• Re-design all spawn rooms to not be camp-able (fish bowls out in the open) and not be able to target anything noteworthy out of the shields (unless the enemy comes deep inside a building or tunnel up to the spawn room.)
• Put in up to half a dozen mechanics for advantages toward defenders of facilities (pick anything off my former list.)
• Put capture point numbers back in that favor defenders.
• END one-man-army ghost capping. You can' t leave. You have to stay! And I'm not sorry, but a major facility will take you a LONG TIME if you want to solo cap it at 4 am.

TEST THAT!!!

There a lot of missing round yellow dots on this map. And if they were included, it would show how silly it is that you can't move across such-and-such a field as a connection to take them.

Really? Yellow dot = base with three connection. Orange dot = base with four connections. Facilities are coloured the same, just with hexagons.

I didn't include any base with two connections because they are irrelevant to the strategic-level flow of the battle.

+1

Mind if I steal that picture?

"More and more i am beginning to again feel that PS2 was made for the COD crowd, not the PS1 vets."

DID YOU EVER PLAY PLANETSIDE 1 ? are you famliar how "lattice" actually works? ,cos EVERYONE who play planetside 1 can tell that it work fine for years. you seems to be that "false messiah" cos all you do is repeat same lies over and over again how all fights turn to god knows what. you have been spamming this "lattice ruins the game" more than most combined and most players wont agree with you.
how about we test/play with it in live servers so everyone can see/feel how it works in REAL GAME instead of inside you own personal mind ? IF it works then you will be forver the "boy who cry wolf" OR you can be the "i told you so " guy .

The rights to most of the picture belong to SOE and not me (derivative work and so on) in case you're troubled about the legal aspect of it. I certainly don't lay any claims to it. Go right ahead.

But the hex system has problems as well, and it's not better than the lattice imho.
On the hex map attackers can come from every direction and outnumbered factions simply have no way to keep the frontline under control: you take a base, move elsewhere, and 3 minutes later what you conquered is still in danger because a team of 3 jerks is attacking from another territory. Lack of predictability furstrates players who feel they cannot influence the battle flow in any way. Guess what's the real problem? Enviroment and terrain do not stop zerg, do not encourage people to follow rules of tactics and military logistics: redeployment via drop pod, galaxies and ESF make actually possible to attack quickly every base connected to your territory. Result is current system forces people to redeploy every 10 minutes to resecure bases. Call it strategy, I say abandoning a long epic huge battle to resecure almost-empty bases all the time is pure s**t.

I'm neither satisfied with lattice at the moment, but I see room for improvements: they should change the way base connections are displayed on the map, possibly change capture mechanics to definitely stop ghost-hacking, stop ghost-gen overcharging. This system must evolve again, SOE must find a better shape than current dispersive hexagon map.

And again, SOE must find a way to bring more people on test server. As long as it's a ghost town, we will never be able to see how it really works.

Well I agree with you there. Strategic-level flow of the battle has been made irrelevant at all these bases. What a shame

The hex system could have been made better with many, many suggestions put forth by the community. As it stands now, they "threw the baby out with the bath water."

SOE never decided to curb the ghost-capping problem. They just threw the system away instead of fixing it. How do you stop frequent interruptions from re-securing bases? You slow it down, slow it down, slow it down. You use wonderful features like adjacency and soldiers-on-point that punish attackers more. You bring one-man-ghost capping down to a grueling crawl, and make them stay in one spot if they want to maintain the progress they're making. Did SOE do this? NOPE. They just threw the system away instead.

Could we have used some sector-hex adjustments? Hex size adjustments? Thrown in some neutral hex's here and there to break a connection or two? Yup, yup, and yup. Are we going to get that now? NOPE!

Played PS1 for years actually. And yes, the Lattice worked there. But it will not work here. Why?. Because there are about 30+ 'more' facilities per map on PS2 than on PS1. Because 90% of the PS2 lattice are 'lanes' which give you no option but to go forward or backwards, there is NO left or right. Go back to a PS1 map and name me 1 single facility (not including warpgates) were you had 1 and only 1 option on where to go from that place. ALL of them had at least 2 directions you 'could' go. And again, smaller maps, with even MORE choices on were to go, than this new lattice system gives, on a LARGER map.

Take this as an example:

Now looking at this, you see a repeat of PS1.. all those yellow dots with at 'least' 2 choices in where to go. BUT, what you don't see, are the outposts/towers that are along those white lines, that have NO choices. You have forward, or backwards, thats it.

Also. Again, looking at this map. If you take it in as a 'whole', you have a total of 4 'lanes'. One set of 4 going vertical, one set of 4 going horizontal. With 1 single point in the middle connecting the 4 'lanes' that cross in the middle. Its basically an oversized DOTA map. You have 4 choices. Lane 1, Lane 2, Lane 3, or Lane 4. Once your in that 'lane'. Your pretty much stuck there. There is no 'going around', there is no 'flanking'.. You're in a LANE. And if you happen to bump into a 'zerg' within that lane... welp, you might as well start walking backwards to wever the nearest Lane crossing is, as you cant go 'around' them... again, because your in a 'lane'.

Did PS1 have a Lattice system? Yes.
Dit the Lattice System WORK in PS1? Again Yes.
Will that same Lattice system work in PS2?. I highly doubt it, all it will do is lead to is 'zergs rule' constantly. You'll STILL see 'blobs' chasing each other around the map, only now it'll be blobs chasing each other around 'lanes'. There still will be no 'check' in place to make cutting off a section of territory worth doing, or even worrying about.

Thats were the 'if/then' check i mentioned comes into play. If you see a 'line' of territory being slowly taken, and someone scouts it to find that its only 2 or 3 guys. You can let them take 1 or 2 points, then send a squad to hack one of the territories further towards the front line to cut off that section of land from the enemy's warpgate. That group of 2 or 3 guys is now 'cut off' and they can no longer go ANYWHERE further into your territory unless they re-connect back to their warpgate land. Then you can either leave them stuck there. Or continue to push the front line while sending a squad over to flush them out at their leisure.

There's an easy fix for this. the Exact same if/then check ive mentioned on control points, just apply it to generators as well. If you dont own a hex next to the facility the generator is attached to, or the facility it is attached to will not 'reconnect' the hex you do own to your warpgate controlled territory. You cant blow it up. Though i wouldnt suggest this if the Gen's actually controlled the 'perk' the facilities gave out (as it stands now i do NOT believe they do. A tech-plant with every generator, and SCU blown STILL lets your faction pull heavy tanks.)

Just going to reiterate this point.

You can be as loud as you want. You are still only 1 person.

So I posted this
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...d-bad-news-about-lattice.121741/#post-1665303


Additionally, the existing system IS a lattice, it's just a highly connected one, so instead of saying BOOOO HISSS Lattice, just state options for additionally connects you feel would improve flow and remove things like Scarred mesa being an infinite grind and basically shutting down a full lane.
mainly this image is the idea, that you have "lanes" but each lane is like a rope, and there's parellel threads between main facilities. such that while you can bottle neck a base it's never at a 1 point base.

Agreed. A lot of the support for Lattice is from huge, inflexible zergfits that are too slow to deal with evolving situations and too rigid to deal with changing tactics. Rather than adapt even the slightest amount or admit that they're obsolete and try new strategies they demand that everyone else in the game be forced to engage these huge but inflexible outfits in the only kind of fight that they are relevant or effective in - one in which the enemy has no option but to go through the meat-grinder.

They can't adapt to the game, so they demand that the game be changed to suit them.

There is nothing at all stopping you from changing lanes, using a base from one lane to attack the flanks of another lane, use a forward base to attack another lane from the rear and so on. No mechanic stops this, you are free to use the map as before. E.g you can attack peris amp from vanu archives to help people attacking them from the east. You are just unable to totally ignore the enemy - if you want a base you have to fight for it, not just back cap and leave them to rot.

If the enemy is able to outnumber you significantly on every front then they would have enough to do you over even faster with the hex system.

Isn't this exactly what the current lattice is? bases are removed, the size of a hex is smaller and the hexes moved around to fit the smaller size. The biggest difference is the use of neutral hexes. It uses a lot more of them to remove connections. So... what's the problem?

And I'm just going to reiterate my point about the hex. No military commander would have facilities that have infinite production capability be flipped through the wi-fi. You would more likely find them connecting facilities to a closed network to prevent hacking.

The reason behind the hex was to encourage fighting outside the bases and towers. The devs saw these battles from the first game and wanted PS2 to highlight these more. And while we have fighting outside bases more, we also have many players actively avoiding each other. This is bad for any FPS. Every FPS is, or should be, focused around combat. Now what does it say about a game that has a system that avoiding combat is the smartest move?

this is the biggest issue i have with the hex system. It goes against the core designs of a FPS and the core idea of PS2; Large scale battles featuring hundreds of players on foot, in the air, and in vehicles. Right now we get the occasional zergs clashing, but they rarely last long. One side eventually leaves because they are defeated or decide that going around the enemy is far easier than attacking them.

Rhapsody's if/then rule doesn't fix these problems, and could actually make things worse by encouraging people to avoid fights further by just surrounding a defending force to nullify their defense and then move on and come back to take the base once the defenders leave to defend the rest of their territory. Sure it can help with those annoyances of when an enemy has 1 base in your territory and uses it to capture more, but it is open for abuse which could make things far worse.

lattice solves both these issues of avoiding fights and annoying back hacking. With limited options, players only have a few places to attack and fall back to. Battles can continue past a base being defended or taken when there are only 1 or 2 choices. While there are fewer choices, they become far more meaningful. Taking a base means a more solid step forward than it does now, as well as defending that base. Holding a base means the enemy can't reach those behind it (a scenario that does not exist now).

However, the lattice does need something else to provide those spec-op objectives behind enemy lines. Something the hex does now, but over simplifies it among its other problems. The game needs another system to handle it, not tie it into another.

Sure, forces can do this, but will they? If one zerg is in a lane, and an enemy zerg is in the other lane (that would have been connected under the hex system), they'd have less reason to fight each other than they do now. "We're over here, they're over there, what happens over there isn't our problem."