Lattice a considered view.

Yes, 4k words. It's an essay. Your not going to be able to sum up my position with a snappy one liner, read it or don't.

Lattice a considered view.



Now I’ve been one of the systems biggest critics, however I’m not a critic for negativities sake – I am a critic because I want the game to reach its full potential. By and large the game already stands well above its competitors and will remain the only truly ‘massive’ FPS for the foreseeable future. Importantly, however, I’ve been waving the ‘we need a significant amount of metagame’ flag since late 2012. At the end of the day what the game lacks most significantly is a meaningful context in which your actions on an individual level not only make sense but feel as some larger part of some war effort. This is what I define as ‘metagame’ (which literally means the game about the game). What I suppose, engaged ‘critic’ mode on the rush lanes system, was a lot of talk at its early development about how it would be a significant step in this direct. I am still at least partially unconvinced on this front and also have been pushing heavily for the resource revamp to be both radical and introduce tangible logistics systems, as this is what I think will deliver this metagame most in an important way. This all being said, I have been taking a lot of time to examine the lattice system as much as I can and try and judge it on its merits and issues.


Its also an important point to note before we are even out of the gate, that what is being changed is base capture logic. This is a trivial point, but none the less bears noting as obviously a lot of tactics and strategies available in hex – i.e as I’ll be going into detail, spawn camping at bases you can’t capture. Will either be decreasing or increasing in strategic viability given the increasing linearity of said base capture logic. So whilst there are certain things you can do at the moment and can still do. The attractiveness of doing certain things will be increasing and others decreasing.

These are what I feel to be the biggest ‘pros’ as it were from the lattice system and this is after playing it on the test server since its launch and also with it on live now for a few days.

Overview of issues

1) It focuses or funnels players into a smaller number of areas and creates if not larger, more reliable fights. Let us call this the ‘concentration’ factor.

2) It defines a ‘front’. The main if not only objective at a strategic level being to cap territory, it means that there are now only a certain number of ‘live’ nodes/bases adjacent to territory you hold = the front. The rest now being off the table entirely. This front now actually moves backwards and forwards from base to base.

3) It makes certain bases, which I’ll define as ‘belljars’ (suck in a lot of an empires players, meaning that the rest of the map is under populated) e.g. the crown or biolabs, less strategically important and often irrelevant and so better disperses players around the map as a whole when these are not active.

What I think are its biggest downsides.
A) In doing 1) it makes the strategic situation of a map, more (not to say it was not before) a function of the relative population sizes of the three empires. Lets call this the ‘steamroll or be steamrolled’ issue.

B) Following on from A), a single lane can be won in virtue of a relatively organised series of outfits in communication, having enough men to ‘check’ every possible move by the defender. In effect camping every lane out of each spawn along that lane in the lattice is now arguable the strategy to deploy if you have enough men.

C) The strategic situation surrounding a base now has no impact on how quickly you cap it (arguably this is more a cap timer issue and is already on live – one of the few things the hex did well in my opinion was having a tangible benefit of encircling an enemy).

And what I feel has been mistakenly touted as an advantage/benefit/gain:
X) Predictability- that the lower number of options in terms of strategic movement, benefits defenders. This as I’ve noted elsewhere and with B) is to me a blatantly obvious sword of Damocles. The predictability runs both ways to the point of there being no real net gain on the side of the defenders or attackers.

Y) It stops ghost capping/backcapping - It doesn’t, it makes it more likely that you’ll run up against resistance, but nothing in the game mechanics have changed such that a single person can fly out start a cap on a base, then simply disappear. If anything its slightly easier than it has been in previous builds, as you no longer are required to stand by a cap point and you can no longer have a quicker cap in virtue of having more people/adjacent territory.

Benefits

Firstly, I think this is a hugely important caveat. The system, as a whole, behaving with a busy map on a server at ‘high’ was not seen until it was launched. Thus, possible emergent behaviour coming about when the numbers on a lattice map are in the 1000’s not the 100’s was next to impossible to predict in advance. I’ve said it before and will say it again, if the number of people blindly supporting and cheering lattice was equivalent to the number of people turning up to stress tests – we’d already know a lot more about how it behaves well before launch. Please download the test client today.

Now in discussing the benefits, I think it important to note that the issue that the game is very different not only depending on what server you are on, but whether you’re in an outfit or not. On Miller for example, finding a sizable and engaging fight is far easier by running around as an outfit and bumping into other opposing outfits and with reports of enemy locations on leaderchat and such. On Ceres and Cobalt, playing causally and solo. This is significantly harder.

Thus, the main thing that jumps out at me about the new system is in both cases, outfits are now running into each other more often, and on my ‘causal’ characters it is far easier to find a cohesive fight on Indar.
It is thus, in light of this I feel the ‘concentration’ factor has merit and is the greatest potential benefit we might gain from this system. Less options for people to fight at, means more people at any one fight and thus a reasonable chance of a larger engaging battle at these fights. Moreover, despite the fact this way arguably possible with the hex system, it was fairly hard from a causal/solo point of view. A section of the community that simple cannot be ignored, as it’s how most people start playing the game (props also to the new tutorial here, teaching people how to spot – a triumph!).

Moreover, with 2) what I the potential benefit I largely see in this is in not only concentrating people into a smaller area of the map and thus making larger fighters far more likely, so in in making the base capture logic more linear and the player more likely to go to a more limited number of places. It also means that what appears to be a rather fluid front moves back and forth from base to base in a fairly coherent and continuous fashion. Indeed, an issue with the old system this was attempting to address was everyone sometimes dispersing after a battle, or moving out from a base and a large force not communicating well being reduced in number every time it reached a fork in the road. This largely no longer happens. It’s often the case that the only base you can capture is just down the road and so you do actually get fights in-between bases with fair regularity now. This I like as this is where some of the most interesting terrain is. The only downside to this are instances like NS research labs and reagent rock, where I’ve often seen people go from the one to the other trying to cap it, and confused why nothing is happening. This is not a call to make the make more funnelled however, FAR FROM IT. Only to make the new base capture logic (indeed when cut off you can’t progress a cap anywhere on that lane for example, we found out by trial and error) more explicit. It also proves me wrong in that different lanes can at times influence each other. And the Region around VS archives to Peris Amp station has been particularly interesting in this regard the past few days.

Finally in 3), hopefully we will see an end to a map being lost as 50-60%+ of an empires forces in effect camp a biolab or the crown, despite it having no strategic value at that point to the capture of a map. We are already seeing this to an extent, with the crown. Though down to changes to tis map largely independent of lattice. Whilst it’s still sucks in forces, it does it far less persistently due to tis vastly decreased defensibility. It is here I feel I must also praise the large base redesign. Which appears I think in part simply because satellite bases cannot be taken in mere moments, to make taking a larger base far more of a battle moving across its own self-contained front between the satellite bases and the main bases cap points and less a game of: ‘plug the tactical holes with as many men as possible vs. try and ninja back the satellite bases while there focused on trying to take the SCU’.

So the real payoff to the system, is simply (but not insignificantly) increasing the likelihood of a large coherent battle and the ease of finding one and making these fights occur in fairly well defined yet fluid fronts moving backwards and forwards fairly coherently.

Issues

Now to the issues, as I’ve covered these in detail elsewhere, I’ll try and keep it concise and brief.

The first and most important issue I believe is the exacerbation (that is making an existing problem worse) of population imbalance issues. To be precise, in moving people into a smaller part of the map to fight, you create fights that dictate more of the state map that are themselves being larger in number, dictated largely by who has more people. I am still experimenting on this front, but especially given significant population issues of late on my own home server. It appears to me, that once a population imbalance reaches around a factor of 1.5:1, the battle will reliably (as much as 70% of the time) favour the larger side. It in part simple comes down often to having that extra 2-3 squads to put pressure on a flank, which the smaller side simply does not have the manpower to check. As flawed as the hex system is, in virtue previously of allowing surrounding territories and the fights to affect larger battles they were adjacent to. The best example of this to my mind previously was the ability to attack NS secure data labs, in order to try to draw people away from a large Hvar tech plant fight. However now, if you do not hold Allatum west or eastern Hvar, that option is simply no longer on the table. However, obviously at the same time for everyone 1 legitimate use of this, the hex system has 19 ghost or back caps. At the same time, what it allowed and what has been lost, is the ability for battles to influence other battles, in a way that helped smaller numbers hold their own against larger ones.

I’ve also seen this a few times now on PTS and live, the zerging issue was of course always there, and often on Miller its coming up against several TR or VS outfits. But once a certain level is passed in population compared to you. Even in the hugely defensible bases, your just overrun, you can’t kill people, tanks or sundies that fast unless you focus on one, and so a mass swarm charge works every time. Thus, eliminating the defensive value of most terrain and base structures. Bar a few cases where your executing and absolutely A star defence and hitting all the right notes with around 7 other outfits making up 4 platoons. If your outnumbered on a map as a whole, you will loose that lane. And if your loosing in one lane, chances are your stretched elsewhere, it a rare, rare case where the underpopulated side has anyone in reserve.

Again I cannot stress it enough, Lattice does not create this problem, but it does by concentrating and linearizing population movements, it makes the population imbalance problem worse.

B is also to my mind a serious issue, in virtue of making. The strategic capture of a stretch of territory linear, and indeed X) the increasing predictability. It is now, entirely viable if an attacking side has about twice the numbers of the defender, to ‘leap frog cap’. Once a base is about to be taken, to send forces to the next base, or even next two or three bases, to park a sundy next to the spawn (but of course out of the firing line) and camp said base. Thus the defender can be effectively pushed back, with very little option to resist. This I think now becomes the games major problem. Simple making bases more defensible, whilst a stance already taken by the developers as part of this change to the map. Cannot be the final solution, as to make a nearly every base space Verdun, would simply make it impossible to take without overwhelming numbers and simply shifts what is a population imbalance issue currently favouring attacking (which I submit the game does favour somewhat) in the other direction.
This is something I think really has been skipped over by a lot of people, the increase in predictability that is supposedly one of the major gains of the increased linearity of base capture logic, is a doubled edged sword. Who is cut by it, is who has the least force to push it in his direction. Yes, defenders can now move back knowing the base that is the next node is to be attacked and ‘prepare a defence’. Only if the attacker has not already sent men to check that move, it being just as obvious to them. This indeed, I think may see the return of spawn camping as one of the game’s most serious problems. Yes, Scu changes might help a bit there. But fundamentally, simply being overrun to the point where you cannot leave the spawn will remain.

Finally c). Yes, ghost and backcapping was annoying and tedious (it not however gone in the new system, just less frequent). However, I worry that in losing the influence system, we lose the one part of the hex system that actually gave holding territory some tactical benefit and the ability of smaller battles occurring on the periphery of larger battles some actual importance. I hope that with the resource revamp something alike this will return. However, the ability of smaller outfits, indeed versus smaller outfits to impact the battle space has diminished unless they work in concert. The issue here is largely that the choice still remains between ghost capping an empty lane, or joining in one of the 3-4 larger battles going on. People are neither dispersing equally, nor so far, are the squad v squad side fights in other lanes yet materialising. Instead a large forces often several outfits working on concert tend to hop around as needed. This is not always bad and being in an outfit that regularly cooperates with other outfits and runs open squads we are not finding it that bad. I can imagine others do and have heard other outfits on Miller express this view. Nor can this simply be diminished as ‘you like ghostcapping, qq’. Yes the game is about large battles, what went on 100m away from the epicentre of one, and was itself a battle, was action on its flank. It was what made the battle something that extended beyond simply being in an overpopulated hex. I think here something has been lost, the one gem perhaps in the muddy morass that was the hex system. It least forced you to commit to a ramble across the map, though often boring occasionally ran into a particularly novel fight against an outfit of similar size (in amount the camping spawns at uncontested bases and running into the ‘zerg’ and getting your ***** mostly handed to you). This behaviour whilst still possible to an extent, now seems a poor choice as opposed to going to a large fight and thus, to the certs. Meaning that by and large most lanes at least start out uncontested, until a far larger force suddenly spawns in rapid succession.

What it does not do

Now I’ve already touched on X, I think summing it up is simply again to note that the predictability is a zero sum game. If the defenders or attackers at any point had a significant numbers of options more than their opponent predictability might be a virtue. However, the game space at least aiming towards balance does not afford that. If there were previously 100 options for either side, there now being 40 options. Does not engender more tactics or strategies. There are a lot of analogies being thrown around about chess and chequers and the size of the board. Both of which in my opinion are highly linear games in which strategy is largely going through the motions which PS2 should not aspire to. A far better analogy I have said for some time, given we are talking about the strategic capture of territory, is GO. In which a smaller board, is less possible moves. Simple as that. Whether or not this is a bad thing however, is what the topic of this essay is trying to address.

With Y, I think this is both self evident if you’ve played on the PTS and now live, and is thus one which people seem to be advocating a lot less. It only really stops ghost and back capping when a map is full or close to full. This however, underlies another problem of the lattice system I think might emerge. People piling into 2-3 lanes and ignoring the others. This will either mean that smaller battles might occur in these, or that needing to address backcapping and ghost capping, we might often fight zergs disengage from each other and chase their tails around a more linear system. Which unfortunately, I have also seen with large forces of organised units, on an alert finding the most logical way to win the alert, was not to engage the enemy but to capture territory in a manner that involved camping a spawn with 5 guys in it waiting for the timer to go through, lather, rinse, repeat. Either way, I think a uniform spread is unlikely as if the PS2 community was inherently efficient at self-organisation. We would not have the plethora of population imbalance issues we do suffer.

It cannot be stressed enough. This is not a defence of the status quo a big issue that currently harms gameplay is the over dispersion of players, that is largely unnecessary. Be simplifying and linearizing the base capture logic. You give people less places which they might reasonable go according to the game mechanics (you can always of course go to the middle of nowhere, but not expect others to go, and thus for there to be a fight there). You concentrate people in less locations, and thus, hopefully create more and larger ‘fights’.

My pleasant suprises and my remaining concerns

However, I think the greatest strength of the new system has shown itself by simply be the reduced capture logic making only certain objectives viable, not overall linear gameplay. A rather epic battle, last night for example on Miller between the TR and Nc at East Canyon checkpoint, was epic largely because It involved no less than 7 attempts at assaults from different approaches, gal drops, harasser charges and so on. The same battle going on at broken arch, merely would have been a boring grind. This is a hugely, HUGELY important lesson for the other continents, the open Esamir and valley filled Amerish. Lattice when it works, works because there are less strategically logical places to go, not because we are fighting merely down a corridor. Do not, please god, do not make it such that Esamir and Amerish are changed significantly and thus loose their charm, just to placate to the person who might try and run off pointlessly into the distance if a safety barrier is not put in their way. It’s also hugely important, to my mind, that in order to keep these battles as tactically rich as possible, combined arms is persevered AT ALL TIMES. Yes base shields and giant walls, I’m looking at you. Lattice fails to be an engaging change. UTTTERLY, if it’s merely the occasional fight along the road, linking to which is at the end of the day just another Online FPS map dressed up as a base with strategic significance. Indeed, section of the game into ‘infantry fights’ seriously harms the metagame by sectioning off a game that’s mean to be continuous and freeform into discrete linear chucks. Use the resource revamp to make vehicles more precious and less throw away, don’t just throw in the towel.

Yet, we also saw what I must underline is the great issue lattice brings out and the remaining largest issue this game faces. Population imbalances and the fact that a larger force has no weaknesses. The battle at East Canyon was fun and was lost fairly, shortly after that however TR population started soaring ahead, the next 3-4 bases lost, were simply overrun. A Process that is even less fun given how obvious its inevitability is. A smaller force in this game (even multiple platoons, if against larger), even with the high ground and organised, cannot defeat a larger one with TTK so low and so many targets your simply overwhelmed every time, every 1 bullet you can put in the air, they can put 1.85 or more You loose.

Conclusion

To conclude then, I think the lattice in large part achieves its goals, in a way that makes the game better in the respect of the frequency of fights. The touted benefits that as I’ve discussed are in reality zero sum games at best, are frankly not even needed and were strange to even be mentioned. Most strikingly, I am pleasantly surprised with how battles do move from one base to another. Yet my largest concern remains, we urgently, urgently need a game mechanic system that makes the strategic situation of a map, indeed the game. More than simply ‘who has more territory = who has more guys’. I cannot stress this enough, we need a game mechanic that give a larger force a weakness the smaller force does not have. In order to give underpopulated sides a competitive chance in a given map or indeed lane. As in real life here, I think we must look to the strategic necessity of logistics, and make a larger force vulnerable not only in necessity of having a logistics train from the WG to the front of some sorts, but also having this itself vulnerable to attack. ANTS and Gen’s here are a good model for exploration. Also however, both vehicle availability and spawn times (in bases and sundies), need to be effected by how well this is maintained.

However, again. Largely on the lattice, I am pleasantly surprised on the one hand, whilst being disappointed in some of my concerns being proven correct. Therefore, It simply cannot be the last word on Metagame development for 3+ months. It leaves that project at best 20% finished.

I hear this point consistently, so I figure I should comment, since it's referenced in your posts:

1)Small outfits have no place in the lattice

To which I would alter in this way:

"Bad small outfits have no place in the lattice"


As you can tell from my sig, I'm a Connery player and I run in a small outfit, usually anywhere from 5-15 people, and no matter what composition we've got, we can always find a niche to fit into and, if I do say so myself, dominate. The lattice does not limit tactical options for smaller outfits, it simply makes these objectives harder to accomplish without really solid teamwork. My outfit, for instance, is very teamwork-oriented, some would say "tryhard." Teamspeak is mandatory, we communicate, stick together, etc. The result is that we can go into outnumbered situations and still kick ***, whereas a less organized force of the same size would disintegrate and complain that numbers mean everything. They don't. Very important factor sure, but to a good outfit, this isn't a problem until you're absolutely swarmed. For instance, while a smaller outfit cannot attack another base, they can shift their attention to smaller sections of the main fights and find a niche. For example, my outfit will frequently MAX crash via Galaxy into point building of a "Zerg" fight. We're not trying to cap the whole base ourselves, we're just trying to lock down this single point and allow the zerg to finish off the rest. So, we set up our little testudo max formation and we bunker down and farm, every time getting better and learning from our mistakes. Countless times, our stalwart defenses have helped victories.

There seems to be this idea in the minds of players that when in a small outfit, for some reason you're excluded from participating in larger fights, and this is ridiculous. In a good small outfit, even in a big fight with various other outfits involved, if you maintain your squad cohesion WITHIN the zerg, man for man your squad will be an efficient killing machine without the trouble of being outnumbered. Most of our fighting is in this style, we ride the zerg while maintaining our tactical philosophy, so basically we view ourselves as a sort of elite force within a main force and it works for us.

So the problem isn't the game design, it's smaller outfits wanting smaller fights instead of learning how to make an impact in the big fights.You'll do better, personally, in a small outfit riding a zerg than you will actually being part of that zergfit.

All that said, I'm on Connery, one of the most populated servers(probably the most populated, who knows), and even on Indar during primetime there are lanes that are basically undefended or lightly defended at all times, so the ghost cappers still have some fun. The difference is that defenders will show up more rapidly than before and in bigger numbers, so all these "strategic ghost cappers" and otherwise arm-chair generals are starting to figure out that they're not so elite after all.

Lattice separates the men from the boys, I've been saying this for months before it even dropped. Good small outfits will still finds ways to perform.

I dont want to be annoying here, but longer threads will result in alot of people not reading it

I'd like to think I went into more detail than that, but at the same time, I don't devote an entire point to it as I don't think its as much an issue as people (myself included) made out previously.

Indeed I appreciate your adressing a point thats already in the debate, but a large part of what im trying to do here is move the debate on from what are a lot of now very stale talking points on both sides.

As an outfit that cooperates a lot with other outfits and runs open squads, as I say, its not effecting us that much.

The issue, which I do go into a bit of detail about which does effect oufits which are smaller, and don't do the above. Is that I don't think the new system makes it more likely that smaller outfit v outfit combat happens in the relatively unoccupied lanes, and everyone seems to largely pile into the large battles at the 3-4 places on the map where they are occurring. Leaving the other parts of the map to largely be ghost capped or spawned camped.

Thats how the issue of 'smaller outfits' is really cashing out to my mind.

Frankly, good. If people want to just shout at each other about lattice killing the game or ghostcappers crying, this thread is not for them and I suggest one of the 7 dozen other threads on lattice.

I spent a fair bit of time from the inception of lattice analysing the **** into it in my capacity as a community council member, this is my focused feed back thats a result of at this point at least a hundred hours of testing and talking to all sections of the community that would respond to me.

to sum the essay up, if it can at all be summed up (I mean I make a point of making it rely on individual premises and having a logical progression from premise, analysis to conclusion - so really if someone can't handle that..) The lattice has its pros, it has its cons. I think predicated upon these and pre-existing issues in the game largely independent of it, the direction to take next is somewhat clear.

I also wanted, as i've already hinted out to try and cut through this 'debate' in the community, in which there is a 'pro' and 'anti' side doing everything but discussing it like adults and calling each other everything but children of god.

Just so you know, the devs consider reading only short threads. Be specific and break this post into multiple threads, thank you!

Have you ever actually started "ghost capping" into undefended territory? I don't know how it is on Miller, but on Connery, if you keep pushing an undefended lattice link, eventually you'll get resistance, and, assuming you don't buckle, that resistance will grow until it's a big fight on it's own. Yes, there are less "small fights," but in a game like this, I'd like to think that's a good thing. Players need to be forced into applying ACTUAL tactical strategies relevant to the combat instead of focusing on meta-game, the hex offered too many easy ways out for cowardly leaders, fearful of their unorganized players getting stomped.

Yes, the bigger force usually wins, but that's the nature of the game. Finding a niche, even when it's against the odds, is the fun in this game. For me anyway, being the underdog makes the grind even more satisfying. There's always fights, they last for hours, and I think it's better for the game that this system forces players to start thinking about combat instead of the map. This way, we'll actually start seeing some more cool tactical stuff on the field.

Wall of text.

eventually yes, I make a point of mentioning that. It normally is the case that several squads of an outfit spawn in at once. Again I mention this.

My issue, which I've tried to discuss is that its not tactics that largely win or loose larger fights as i've also noted, when numbers go far enough a certain way, it doesn't matter if your well organised in a prepared defensive position. IF they have about 1:1.7-1.8 times your number, your nearly always destined to loose.

My problem is precisely that game mechanics being what they are, tactics don't come into it nearly enough. Because, and this is the real take home point, the larger force has no weaknesses.

And as a player on Connery, which has a rather large NC overpopulation issue I believe. How engaging do you think allways loosing due to being the smaller force is for the TR and VS.

And is being the larger force allmost allways destined to win, as an engaging experience as it could be?

Is it good for the game as a whole on the long run, no.

And as i've note, the nature of the game, the biggest force usually wins, in spite of the skill of the defenders. Is the problem i'm really trying to highlight here.

I'm on the community council. I'm under contract with Sony to provide feedback on their games. This is me doing that. I also sent a version directly to them. This is so everyone can debate about it and hopefully point out somewhere i've made a mistake.

Yeap, better get reading.

That's simply not true, my outfit, in my experience, laughs in the face of those odds. Even then, that's how it should be. You shouldn't be able to hold up a massive number of people with just a small force, that would create massive stalemates in all the even fights, let alone the uneven ones. You say that you want defense to be easier, but at the same time-to paraphrase- you don't want a bunch of small arena maps when you get to a base. Well, if you want to improve defense, limiting vehicles is the best way to do that.

The larger force DOES have a weakness. If I may quote my man Euripides for a second,

"A large army is always disorderly"

Basically, a large zerg is easy to farm. Pull a tank, roll up from a distance, and start shelling. Alternatively, hold up in a chokepoint with a bunch of MAXes. Pull a harasser and flank a sunderer-I once ran a 100+ killstreak in about 15 minutes in a harasser at the crown, and yes, we were outnumbered. Basically, our 9-round fury grenade launcher pushed back an entire zerg to the point where we reached their sunderer, farmed for a bit, and then ended the fight. This is an extreme example, probably my best run I ever had, but you get the point. Sure they'll cap a few bases, this is the nature of having numerical superiority. They DESERVE it because they put the pressure where they wanted it. That's how war works. Still, if you farm them, slow them down, fight for every inch, they'll whittle down. Every base they push pushes them farther away from their MBT spawns-assuming they're not attacking a facility- so often if you farm a big zerg enough, their armor/air support will diminish and the infantry will get farmed before losing interest and leaving. A big zerg is defeated with attrition, make the casuals get bored and leave. It's that simple.

Hardly. VS own Indar, the fights in primetime are almost always even, and territory control is balanced and highly contested. No empire is truly underpowered anymore, especially after the merger. It's actually very well balanced in my opinion.

It's more fun being in the smaller force. You don't get any kills riding a zerg with minimal resistance, but there's always an even fight to find on Connery.

This is a problem with the modern gamer, not the game itself. My outfit is living proof that organization can beat numbers. However, you can't replicate that teamwork in a big platoon, the logistics are simply unreasonable, and since everyone can't be expected to join a bunch of small, coordinated outfits, this isn't going to happen. Well, I suppose the game could use defense improvements, naturally, but this isn't the fault of the lattice, this is just a basic numbers game, the harsh reality of any war, simulated or otherwise. Don't want to make bases TOO easy to defend, stalemated zergs are harder to break than a rolling zerg.

Yes but as noted, your an NC outfit on a NC server which often is dominated by NC and merged with another that had an even greater problem with this - I am correct?

But the other points you raise here, I think limiting vehicles is in part a way to go, by which I mean making them most likely slightly stronger, but not something you can just pull pretty much as you want whenever. I think segregating them is certainly not the path to take as then the base is only combined arms, some of the time.

Well this is where the term 'zerg' breaks down somewhat.

On Miller when we are being rolfstomped by a massively superior TR force, its normally around 6-8 of their outfits each running 1-5 squads. The disorganised zerg is the exception not the norm. Its normally the fairly well organised steam roller.

Thats the thing, I don't want to disparage the TR on Miller, by and large they are nice guys and several of the outfits have very strong, very competent officer corps. The issue is more prime times than not, we are outnumbered by 5, even 10 percent, we've had 12%'s on Alerts before.

And this is not just unique to miller I feel.

My point is, all other things being equal (so organisation, tatical adeptness etc) if one size outnumbers the other by about 1:1.7 the larger will win, lattice concentrates this issue it does not create it, and what is needed now and lattice cannot provide. Is changing the game mechanics to give larger forces an achilles heel.

Seems to depend on the day.
http://sirisian.com/planetside2/population.php?world=1&timezone=0&allfactions=false

Either way, my point is not that it needs to get to 10% advantage, it appears that even 5% can do it.

Its the thing, being at the crest of the 'zerg' is in my opinion boring, you might get a good 3-5 minute fight as you overwhelm the defenders. But then its a boring spawn camp.

And the lattice, in the openish bits like east canyon when its 33%/33%/33% ish, is amazeballs. The problem is we need mechanics to snap into play when numbers start drifting sigficant from that, to keep the fights still engaging, and not the bigger guy looming over you shouting at you to bite over the kerb.

Thats the thing, its a problem of the lattice and its a problem of other underlying game mechanics. So you can in one sense not balem the lattice and in other sense, given the changes it makes the game mechanics dose perhaps make a problem allready existing worse.

I don't want the lattice to go because of it, I just think we urgently need other game mechanics to engage with it.

A decent analysis...I cant really see any glaring holes in what you've said from my perspective. The population imbalance is a tough nut to crack...made even more so with 3 factions. Part of the problem with the battle last night on MIller between TR and NC, is that whilst we were fighting TR, VS were also attacking NC and there were no hotspots anywhere on the map where VS were fighting TR, so both factions were pretty much fully on NC.

But that just how it goes sometimes...the flow of battle etc.....

Overall I think the lattice systems is a huge step up from the random mess that was the Hex... an improved meta game with supply being key, would be another huge step

To damn long and didn't read. Lattice is fine, it brings the big fights. I play this game for big fights. /thread /pancakes

And if you'd read it, you'd realise I don't necessarily disagree with that standpoint, more that I am trying to bridge the debate between 'IT ARE ****' 'IT ARE FANTASTIC, Y U NO LIKE BIG FIGHSZ'.

Either way, if people want to keep bumping this with TL;DR, by all means carry on. I'd rather you read it, but whatever.

there was some significant contact around saruva for most of the night. Thats biolabs for you though.

Its not being 'double teamed' thats the issue on the strategic level I worry about so much, your right it does happen and we do it as well when it suits us.

Its that

1). In a given battle, which due to the 'flow' now leads to the next battle and so on and so on. At a certain level of overpop, doesn't matter how organised you are or how good your defensive ground is (i.e on a massive hill overlooking and approach with no cover, you could not wish for better) if the enemy is larger and organised enough to at least attack all at once in a swarm attack. you're done.
2) In larger platoon sized engagements, there needs to be more to it than who can throw more guys into it. Yes, if the other side about the same size flanks and wins because of that maneuver, great for them, the deserve the win. Its the gradual grinding down, and the steamrolled and spawn camped that are the next things game mechanics need to address as they game can do better.

Well yes, and it is the next step. I'd personally like to see it take a very strong tangible route with actual attackable supply lines. As i've said before if we have ants and Gens to go after, it gives something to be done by smaller squads with ambushes and perhaps even patrols, but also it would give air something to do than peck away at the edges of a battle before being AA'ed into non-existence.

The issue is though.

1) Has to be fun.
2) Has to effect the larger battles without being disproportionately OP.

Have to say I agree with you Mondando, and it's nice to see a well writen post on these forums for a change.

To be fair a lot of the grammar is awful and it has been pointed out to me a few of my points are fairly difficult to unpack in the slightly confusing syntax. It comes of spending too long on this, and massively editing a previous version I aimed to have out pre-patch and Lattice going on live, with the current version and my findings post going on live for a few days.

For a smaller force to win they have to either have superior tactics or an equipment / tech advantage. Superior tactics is too situational and cannot really be created by a small group of players, so can never really be considered a realistic way of consistently allowing the smaller force an opportunity to out perform against a larger force.

So what about a tech advantage? ..this is where the much maligned BFR's of PS1 could help a smaller force....a strong tech on the battlefield that is 'severely limited' in its availability. If the smaller force has more advanced tech equipment, or they just simply have better players in the Adv tech equipment they could hold out against the larger force.

Lets not call them BFR's though, because to some people those 3 letters alone would make them uninstall the game. Lets call them Mk2 tanks. Tanks that are significantly stronger than Mk1 tanks, which can take a lot more punishment from AV infantry weapons, but are still readily destroyed by AP rounds, even from MK1 tanks.

These stronger tanks would have to be on a very long timer to avoid zergs of MK2 tanks and a return to the infantry farming days. Of course if the larger attacking force also has more Mk2 tanks then it becomes even more one sided. However, if they are balanced right, to the point where it takes skill to really maximise the potential of improved tank, and low skill players still die in them quickly , this could give a smaller opposing force a chance to hold out in some situations; without the MK2 tanks being too overpowered and dominant.

One of the big things about vehicles in PS2 as opposed to PS1 is that, if you played carefully and intelligently in PS1 you could survive a lot longer in a tank than you can in PS2. Right now there is just too much AV weaponry, which can take all tanks out too quickly, simply because of the shear number of AV projectiles hitting the tank. Tanks have no influence unless it's in a mass zerg, which comes back to just the numbers game, of who has the most.

BFR's currently in PS1 are not overpowered, they are fairly weak in the hands of an unskilled player, but 2-3 of them in the hands of 2 -3 skilled players really can turn a battle.