What's Wrong With The Lattice?

There's a lot of complaints about the reimplemented lattice system, mainly about restricting gameplay and forcing small groups into the zerg. But PS1 vets know the lattice is best! So what's going on?

Well, we got our wish, and like most wishes, we got exactly what we asked for and not much else. We got the lattice, but not how PS1's territory control system worked.

The two big issues (are there actually any others?) with the reimplemented lattice arise from two admissions from reimplementing the lattice system. Territory and base control.

First off, territory. Here are all of PS1's continents, check them all out. Now compare any of them to Indar. There are two things to notice. First is the complexity of the terrain, Indar is only defined by the cliff face that bisects it. Every map in PS1 has major features throughout the map, mountains, rivers, lakes, peninsulas and islands are all common features. Second, the holes in the lattice. That's an album showing the 5 that I noticed (one screenshot has two). These are areas between two bases that are easily passable, easily an advancement route for armies, yet are not followed by the lattice. Such holes do not occur in any of PS1's continents (or between bases on either side of Indar's cliff face), as the major features create and define paths between bases. These two things combine to create the feeling of unnatural restriction. In PS1 you followed the lattice because it made sense, in PS2 you follow the lattice because you have to. The solution for this isn't simple, PS2's terrain obviously wasn't made for PS1's lattice. Partially melting Esamir's fully frozen river and partially reflooding Indar's north while forming either thick forests or tall mountains in Indar's south-west sound most practical as modifications of previous landscape and not entirely new designs.

There's still the issue of zerg assimilation though. As it is now, the biggest zerg wins. It makes sense but it isn't that fun for small groups and might get boring for individuals. Well, how did PS1's lattice deal with this? Logistics in the form of NTUs. NTUs fueled PS1's bases (and in a sequel might fuel more...), a base without NTUs was neutral and uncapturable, it could cut off your ability to continue capturing other bases and blocked the enemy from capturing it. If you wanted to take a neutral base you both had to fuel it (which required moving a weak vehicle from the closest warpgate to the base's inner courtyard) and capture it. This ordeal could only be caused by a group of saboteurs being overlooked, or a dismissive response from the defending faction being stopped by determined players holding the generator room. A simple dynamic that gave outfits the ability to work outside of the zerg while still affecting the game. In PS2, NTUs could solve both the problem of massive number of spawns (and the incredible ease of travel it causes) and the issues of small groups having nothing to do besides join the zerg.

I'm making my pet PS2 NTU expansion a separate bit though, a logistics system is needed, the complaints on the forum about the lattice prove that, but exactly what is up in the air. Mine involves the (currently squandered) resource system itself though, so I quite like it.

Ok, so, we have this cool resource system that could mean so much for persistent gameplay, but all it does now is pretend to prevent spam...

NTUs could fix that...

Step 0: Pre-conditions: SCUs are always destructible somehow (hacking doors???)

Step 1: Make everything that isn't just a bit of wall destructible by pure damage alone, that means jump-pads, jump-pad landing spots, grav-lifts, teleporters, generators, SCUs, terminals etc, etc. If it serves a gameplay purpose besides "you can hide behind it", you should be able to make it useless through damage. These all auto-repair over time (with a lockout after taking damage). Even before NTUs, this gives engineers some stuff to do.

Step 2: Add a second resource that bases gain... NTUs. Main bases make a lot and hold a lot, outposts make a little and hold a little. Warpgates make none, hold a ton (they're only sanctuaries right now). Everyone can see how much NTU their base is holding, it does not reset when bases change hands.

Step 3: The NTU must flow! NTUs flow between bases, warpgates now fill up. When destructibles are destroyed, that base gains less NTU per tick, if enough are destroyed the base might even drain NTU! Use this time to find a good balance for NTU flow rate, NTU auto-repair drain rate, and NTU gain rate. Preferably, a base that is totally destroyed should be able to go to 0 NTU pretty fast, and a base that has lost its SCU should eventually find its way to 0. Outposts should be a lot more resilient since there just isn't much to drain NTU.

Step 4: Involve the players. Add ANT modules for Sunderers and Harassers, big and small holding tanks respectively. Now players can affect how much NTU is in a base or outpost. It'd be a good idea to make sure enemy factions can't just roll up with Sundys and drain a base dry, or own-faction griefers for that matter. This might be PTS only (unlike the other steps which progressed from PTS to primary) before you...

Step 5: FLIP THE SWITCH. Oh my god everything is burning. Oh wait, no... Now when the base is empty of NTU it goes neutral. But wait... when a base is neutral it's off and isn't making its own NTU... or any interior lighting for that matter. And since it's neutral the pipes won't pipe NTU there... Oh, now players have to get NTU to the base through those ANT modules to be able to capture it! Boy I sure hope any dangerous saboteur groups don't go through all the effort of destroying and holding the SCU to drain my base to neutral, that might cut off the massive zerg's effort up the road...

In no particular order

- Numbers determine the outcome of every battle

- Battles tend to be extremely, extremely predictable

- Exacerbates every problem with lag, latency, desync, etc

- Results in fighting the same damn battle over and over and over again, removing any meaningful sense of progression

- Most importantly, by being such a heavy handed straightjacket on choice, variety, and player input in drastically reduces the re-play value of the game. If every battle plays out the same way and every attack and defense is predictable eventually you get to a point where you've fought this exact battle - hundreds of times. Some people like that. Look at WoW. But WoW is a click to receive loot theme park, not a war game. WoW is certainly very profitable, but it does that by exploiting human tendency towards addiction, not by being a good game.

I'm really hoping the Dev Team has a plan with Lattice beyond "PS1 II: Electric Boogaloo". As I understand things (I wasn't really mature enough to understand game development pressures while I was playing) Lattice was a sort of hack-job quick-fix to shore up flagging populations after players proved incapable of actually functioning without being told exactly what to do.

I'm really hoping the Devs have another direction in mind. I liked Planetside 2. The last two days have been Okay, but the fighting is pointless, now. You just go where you're told and kill things until you hit a bigger zerg. There's still some decision making, but not much, and I'm concerned by proposed base designs that add even more heavy handed constraints on what you can do and how you can do it.

Might want to read my second post now

What's wrong with it? To some people nothing. To other people a lot. I think it's telling of the intellectual level of this community that everyone seems to assume that all people need to have the same taste and that it's somehow possible to cater to everyone with one single game mode.

This is not possible.

All games have different ways to play the game. Different game modes. Rush and Conquest and Capture The Flag. Nulsec and Empire space. Survival and creation.

Why is it so ******* hard for this game to have two game-modes that cater to different kinds of players?

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...be-in-the-game-on-different-continents.128648

This is sillyness, what do you mean gamemode? There are no gamemodes in Planetside, only the game.

The NTU system gives small groups something to do besides join the zerg, is that not exactly what you want?

There COULD be game-modes in PlanetSide 2. Team Fortress 2, for example, has more than one (Capture The Flag, Team Deathmatch, King Of The Hill, ...) way to play the game.

I'm proposing that we divide the continents between the two game-modes we now have. The advantages of this far outweigh the disadvantages.

Your reply denotes a distinct lack of empathy, an allergy for imagination (or copying existing solutions) and a morbid love for pointless tribal bickering.

FrankManiac's post from another thread puts the points amazingly well:

- Battles are reduced to numbers. The biggest zerg wins

- Players have no decisions to make. You zerg forward down your lane until you run into a numerically superior force then you retreat

- Every battle is the same, and you're continuously forced to fight back and forth over the same ground with no prospect of every getting anywhere

- Most battles become so chaotic that they devolve into team death match. There are so many people crammed into such a small space that you just run around shooting and hope for the best

- The very high population density punishes anyone who doesn't have the best possible gaming rig, a good connection, and good luck

- Lots of ghost capping happens, anyway. When the numerical advantage of one side hits 2:1 or better the defenders are very quickly reduced to being spawn capped, at which point the attackers are no de facto ghost capping - Taking a base unopposed with no one to fight

- Biolabs are just god awful under this system. They were god awful under the old system, but this exacerbates all of the games problems

- There is never any sense of accomplishment. More people will realize this as time goes on, but you never "Win" or "Lose". You just Outnumber, or are Outnumbered.

- There is no variety. You will fight the same battle, over and over and over again, with the same objective, over the same ground, against the same people, until you give up and log out.

- And if you decide to go somewhere else to try a different fight you're just unbalancing the population numbers, which means the lane you left will collapse and the lane you're going to will steamroll.

- Finally - There is no down time. No down time at all. You never have time to stop, catch your breath, cool down, and assess your situation. You are constantly being hammered. If you stop for even a few minutes your enemies will come pouring back towards you and slam you into combat. The result is frayed nerves, frustrated players, angry commanders, and a fair amount of yelling. This isn't a problem in traditional TDM games - You play a few rounds and log out, or find a different server with a different game mode. You don't have that option in Planetside 2. And under Lattice you don't even have the option to find another kind of fight - Every fight on the continent is the same kind of zergroller you just left, and if you leave the continent you're just hurting your side's chance of holding the line and making it worse for everyone else on Indar.

As folks pointed out - It really is a lot like WWI. And it produces a lot of the same effects as World War I - Endless trench warfare that leads to a sense that every battle is completely futile. Morale is destroyed by the constant fighting with no cool down time. The shear pace of things is nerve wracking and watching everything be determined by the number of players in the lane makes you wonder why you're even bothering after a while. For commanders, especially, it's very frustrating - even if your players are on top form and kicking *** out of all proportion they're still going to get washed away by a stream of zerg, leaving you with nothing to show for it.

It's also becoming harder to find satisfying fights. Not huge fights, not epic fights, not massive fights. Satisfying fights. Fights that are fun. Fights that are enjoyable. Every fight is either a steamroller or being steamrolled. When the numbers are even it turns into a chaotic team death match where your life expectancy is seconds. That's fine in Quake III or Call of Duty, but it's not very satisfying to the crowd that likes the tactical shooter side of Planetside.

Overall - Lattice is a low effort system to appeal to low effort players and it creates more problems than it could hope to solve. For every person who wasn't able to cope with Hex you're going to have a player who is sick of being just another number thrown into the great mathematical meatgrinder. And unlike Hex, which did offer large battles, Lattice has no room for anything but the most enormous, futile zerg grinding.

Read my post about NTUs, the current lattice is a shell of its former self. There is absolutely nothing to do besides join the zerg. But with a logistics system you can infiltrate key hubs and cut off entire portions of the continent from warpgate. You can pull the rug out from the larger zerg's feet, split it in two, and leave your own zerg victorious. You can engage other small saboteur groups while defending or attacking in this style. You can sneak to underplayed continents and leave underdefended enemy bases in ruin, etc etc.

Every thing you said boils down to the two issues I pointed out in the beginning of my post, did you do nothing more than read the title?

Also biolabs are just an atrocity of base design, sinking them into an under-ground greenhouse with a shield roof would be good.

I don't think you quite understand the kind of game PS2 is, ask yourself if there are multiple gamemodes in Eve Online.

What will you do when the Lattice expands to a Continental Lattice?

I very much understand the kind of game PlanetSide is.

And yes, yes, there are various rule-sets in EVE and other mmo's. Eve has nulsec and Empire space. Both are popular, both compliment each other, both serve as a break in monotony, both feature PvP and both are quite different.

As for the continental Lattice, I suggest we'll see when we get there. My suggestion is to keep the continental Lattice between the Lattice continents.

Needs more lanes

Current # of permutations makes it very linear.

Increased number of lanes will make non lattice people lattice people.

Really, it will. Make it more of a web.

This. I'd be interested to see what new lanes could do for it. I hope that the lattice in place now is not the final version.

Because this certainly did not happen on a hex map... I'm shocked to find gambling in this casino!

So players are suffering from a lack of creativity when faced with a slightly more complex set of options. And yes, there are options.

Personally, I really like that I can log off, go enjoy real life, and know that the entire continent is necessarily going to change hands five times while I'm away. I like the continuity. It makes it feel more like a war that I contribute to when I can. Players need to adjust to the fact that they will not always have a single-player style beginning-middle-and end to their experience every time they log in. You log in, you do your part. In the long run, things move. Not in a matter of one small play session. Different type of game.

There are other options. You are not forced to walk the yellow brick road step for step. You can still approach from a different angle. You can still look for the high ground at a greater distance than the middle of the fight. You can still, and in fact more effectively, take the fight upstream and hammer their reinforcements trying to roll in.

That is probably true. It is unfortunate. I sympathize with people facing this issue. That said, there have always, and I mean always been games that push the envelope. My rig is a few years old, yet somehow I still get good framerates at the highest settings. If I didn't, which has happened in many games in the past... it's just the reality of my finances at that time.
Perhaps the netcode could be improved. I don't know. The devs could maybe take a field trip to Reykjavic and have a beer with the Eve Online devs. They seem to have very large battles and while it completely locked up my system in the past, I presume they have improved.

A well organized defensive force can hold certain territories more effectively than they could in the past. I've seen it happen several times now. Part of that is the change in SCU mechanics, but it's also happening at smaller bases. You do have to adapt your strategy to the type of base in question... and there is no shame at all in having your only goal be tying up the enemy's resources where you are for as long as possible knowing you will eventually have to fall back. Remember the Alamo.

Stay away from Biolabs. Other members of your team will enjoy the challenge and rise to it.

Again, this is a game focused on long term war. There are many games that offer a compact, neatly packaged beginning-middle-and end in various forms with closure at each play session. For Planetside 2 to offer a different model is very refreshing, and precisely what I want to find. I really wanted to see that in Battlefield 1942. It's taken a long time, but we're getting closer to the virtual experience of longterm commitment. In the long run, the sense of accomplishment is greater.

Which is vastly different from hex maps... nature of online gaming with a limited population. Some games have larger populations than others. You can always roll a different faction for a while, try a different server.

Not a lattice problem. A player problem. I agree there are at times gaps in organization. Different people will have different understandings of the battlefield and how it will develop one, two, three moves from now. Perhaps we can brainstorm ways to increase strategic organization... not sure, but I'll certainly spend some time thinking about it.

Experienced plenty of yelling little generals in hex. More indicative of that individual's lack of social aptitude than anything else.
It can be hard to step away knowing your presence might well make a difference, but considering the time-frame this game operates in... it's okay to take a break. However short or long. It's okay to head to the VR to cool down for a while and mess around.

Hex maps are no more meaningful than lattice maps. On the contrary, often times defending an area on hex maps doesn't really make a big difference as it is so easily side-stepped.
Defending an area on a lattice map means you really can be stopping an enemy advance, and holding on to the territory behind you.

-Wrong. The side with smarter numbers overcomes the larger zerg because they flank around and kill the enemy AMS thusly removing the zerg of any and all traction in that area until they bring more sunderers. Battles are stalemated and swept by good use of smoke launchers, and finding advantageous areas to fight the enemy on. Just because the enemy zerg with greater numbers wins on your server does not mean this is for true all the servers.

-Battles tend to flow in predictable patterns. The people not so much. Clever flanks to take out tanks from their rear, and good use of liberator bombing runs make even the larger parts of the zerg tremble in their panties.

-PROGRESSION HAHAHHAHHA. What a joke. We don't even have continent caps in and yet you whine about progression. What progression is there to be had here? You're not fighting for progression here. Stop lying to yourself and then extend that lie to others.

-Every battle does not play out the same way. There are hundreds of people all doing things differently within the next battle occuring at the same territory. Just because you lack the imagination to actually pull something off does not mean you can come to the forums and cry about the lattice somehow removing any and all incentive to play the game.

The only issue here is that all the outfits are funneling into one continent, and not caring about the other continents because they like the lattice that much.

Just as long as it doesn't become a Hex map decorated with pretty yellow lines connecting every base

I think a resource system was expected down the line, but it doesn't necessitate the lattice. If anything it would make expansion outside the zerg more valuable and denying enemy resources more viable and purposeful.

A resource system would have added much depth and could have perfectly helped the hex model as well.
All taken territories had to be connected anyways.

You hit the nail on its head

Lattice has been great on Indar for the most part. The only issue I had was a huge battle between the north Tawrich gate and Broken Arch where two massive zergs were just so big that both sides simply could not move and the render distance was like release render distance. Not that great of a time for either side.

If they do add a resource system along the lines of NTU, it would help immensely. Logistics would be a concern and zergs wouldn't have such an easy time attacking from base to base without worry.

You realize Eve has the exact same rules all throughout its space right? Shooting someone you have no reason to shoot hurts your relations with space police. In Nulsec this has no consequences because there are no space police, and in hi-sec this has consequences because there are a lot of space police.

The main issue I have read is people can't ghost cap as easily. They justify this under a thin veil of tactics


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