The state of PS2 and what I feel must change.

Instead I'll draw hexes on Ishundar, just for you.

The only reason for that is absence of neutral, uncapturable territories. I'll quote something for you just after I draw the thing for the guy above.

Hang on.. If this is the case, how can con'ts be full adn yet quite significantly imbalanced? I've had to que to get into one continent or the other quite regularly, to see say the VS/NC/TR balance as something in the region of 22/35/43. IT doesn't happen often, but it does happen. This would imply the TR have broken the cap, at 860 players (or something of that ilk).

I'm not saying your wrong, but i've never seen any official communications on it, my experience appears to contradict it, and simply that it was in beta. Doesn't appear a likely reason for it to automatically be in the game as it is now.

1) Whether not lattice will force the game to be massive zerg corridor slug fests from base to base, I hope at this point is not being contested. We arn't talking about large fights (for example 3-4 sizable outfits slugging it out 100-200 people all rendering in combined arms etc), we are talking about absurd mecha zerg interactions of nearly if not a thousand people within 500 meters.
2) How much optimization will ever deliver at this point is an open question. As such its an independent valid reason to argue against lattice, that if suggested, as we know the engine now. Most fights will result in sigificantly lower FPS. Again as i've said in nearly every tech thread about FPS ever, try Miller at 7-9gmt and go into a 3 way major base fight. No one, no matter how many nitrogencooled i7 server farms their using breaks 50. Most high, high ends get 40ish. Medium folks like me sit on 30ish, everyone else 20-28. Given we are fundamentally talking about simulating a firefight between 900 odd people and such an events unpredictable nature. Manage you expectations how well that can be optimized.
3) My concerns about lattice are really not being addressed in detail. Just 'chill brah - no worries', and 'lattice was better - trust'. Sorry, but I'd like more in the way of expanded argument.
4) I played PS1, admittedly for at most 2 weeks. But I did play it. fighting up a tower for 4 hours with FPS mechanics that reminded me of laser quest (aka laser tag) bored the **** out of me.

You have to que because your faction is full up. The others are not.

Great post. I really hope the devs take the time to read and consider it.

I think thats contingent on your cashing out HEAT as 'AV' in terms of this game and not 'all-round'.

I'm also honestly surprised your arguing so heavily against HE being useful or even used. I've been on the receiving end of it a reduckulous amount of times and a regular tactic for me in a base fight is to roll a HE lightning and drive around blasting like a mad man.

I think that distinction AI - All round - AV is a fundamentally good model, and at least from cases i've seen proves it can be done, in terms of specialization. Situations reward you for being specilaised into X or you can go jack of all trades and sort of hack it.

Likewise with vehicles and AA, either you roll with some AA component, or you should be very vulnerable to it. I think becuase of this there's a lovely niche for people who want to run around with skyguards these days. I find it fun for one.

Think there's room for improvement. MASSIVE room. I think it barely works at all for ESF (I have argued in the pad for the same to be done to missiles) for example.

But the notion of specialization depending on tactical or at most operational level context is a big way this game is getting it right.

and just giving everyone flak or faster recharging shields, is a step away from that and its a major buff to infantry, I'd think Buzz's argument would be a hell of a lot stronger if he'd not stuck that in and kept it a sever population vs. 'flow of map' (shall we say).

I also think people need to actually read the whole thing and (as seriously, its so diverse no one really 100% agree's again a thematic weakness of the peice) give it some critical thought before going /singzored.

Do you still disagree?

Yeah... and then I get in and said fraction has a higher pop % than us..

I'm ready to be proved wrong, but this 666 cap seems extremely urban myth and directly contradicts with my experience.

World pop does NOT equal continent pop. Be careful when reading statistics.
Example: You need to que to get into Indar. But overall your empire has less people online than the others.

I kind of agree, I was hoping more of a lattice system would be in the game by now. I even wondered if they just simply added larger areas around the main bases. Let them swallow up some of the smaller base's hex's and just make these small bases similar to the towers in PS1 able to be captured but only useful as a spawn or repair/rearm location but not actually hold hex status.

Ultimately it may just be to difficult to really do like that which is why the lattice may simply be the better choice.

Very wise words. That's pretty much how it should be.

Lots of good points , I would just like to make a few comments.

Random instant action:

Sounds good, I'd just remove drop pods from that equation and reserve them for the squad beacon. I know that they are a visual spectacle and a fun thing to draw in new players. I actually liked the idea of your first spawn being in a drop pod even if it was poorly implemented here... but that is another issue completely.
I would just add an instant action teleport tube in the warpgate, entering that tube will teleport you to a spawn-room or sunderer where you are needed, based on the number of attackers vs the number of defenders.

Auto turrets:

I'm skeptical. I kind of like the fact that if something moves on Auraxis it is because another player is moving it (apart from the antenna array on Saerro listening post, that moves on it's own). Hopefully making the turrets a viable and a desirable place for defenders would remove the need for automation.

Lattice:

Yes, more massive battles would be a good thing, but I would like to point out that massive does not always mean concentrated. 1K players fighting over a 1 km long front is as massive as the same amount crammed into a 100m x 100m tech plant but much easier on the processors. What is needed is an incentive to spread out the zerg over a bigger front, not to focus them on a single point and hope that another zerg will be there to defend.

I agree that the influence system is flawed but I'm not sure that a lattice system will fix it.

SCU in all bases:

Depends on the actual implementation, but anything that reduces the spawn camping is a good thing. Not sure of the pain field though, the removal of all force fields and the current pain-field should be enough. Ideally the defenders should be outside fighting to save the SCU not already pushed back into the spawn where they can set traps, but if they do it's just a minor inconvenience. Tower spawnrooms would have to be re-designed though, that is true. Dunno how it would work with the tunnels in major installations though, fighting while zooming around in those horizontal lifts would be horrible.

Flinching:

Needs a re-design to balance the ROF, the current spastic flailing is just annoying. While I like suppressive fire in a game in theory... I'm not sure about the practical implementation.

good post(s) you have put into one thread many of the ideas that have been thrown around on these forums, and refined them into something that people will pay more attention to. Lots of good ideas in there, not a fan of the pain fields in spawn rooms idea, I think a little more protection for the people spawning would be better, like not allowing MBT's to encircle them (some sort of base design change is in order)

Actually it is different. It is entirely possible with the hex system to by-pass one BASE and attack another BASE deeper into enemy territory. We see it all the time, when the defenders decide to hold a single installation and the attackers just move around it, ie. The Crown or any BIO-LAB. In a lattice system, this would not be possible. In a lattice system, you would be required to capture the first BASE before a hack would be possible on the 2nd BASE, regardless of whether you controlled some or all of the territory around the 2nd base.

I am in favor of a combination of both systems. I would add the requirement from the lattice system that BASE 1 must be captured before BASE 2. However, I would include a secondary capture mechanic revolving around the hex system, which would basically work as follows; If the attackers are able to completely capture and hold all of the Hex's around a BASE, then that base would begin a 15 minute timer until it goes neutral and only an empire with a link to said base would be able to hack it. Thus this would force the defenders to actually come out of the base and attempt to re-secure adjacency to their territory.

BuzzCutPsycho, I'll be frank. I don't like you. At all. So I came into this post expecting something entirely different.

That said, these are some of the best suggestions I've seen in ages for the direction of this game. I haven't seen anything comparable since OrangeSoda posted about some of the same stuff back in the beta. I wholeheartedly support all of the changes enumerated in your original posts.

However, I personally see the Crown as an almost perfect design. It's one of the few positions on Indar that can reliably be defended against a numerically superior enemy, but I too think it's a little too hard to capture. Ideally, I'd like many major bases and chokepoints to be nearly as defensible as the crown, to create major continental objectives that are truly rewarding to capture and provide a large area of control and effective beachheads to smash enemy forces upon. At the same time, Indar is so far from recoverable that there's simply no place for crown-style bases within it if it is to survive. Amerish, on the other hand, is ripe with similar locations and great opportunities reminiscent of the Crown's defensive might.

On that note, the one thing I would like to see above anything else, is a massive population shift from Indar and occasionally Esamir to Amerish. I've been playing since early beta, and I've never fought a decent fight on that most astounding of continents. The design is just so beautifully planned and constructed, but the endless population feedback loop that is Indar forces it to be a dead continent, at least on Connery. The only time I've ever seen it receive significant attention was during the poorly implemented Ultimate Empire Showdown, and even then I was unable to experience it due to 5+ hour queues.

Basically, server mergers are a must. I should see every single continent covered in raging battles, but as it stands now on Connery, only Indar receives such attention, aside from the occasional outbreak of conflict on Esamir. This is partly because the population is low enough that the vast majority of players can fit on Indar at one time. Noone else is playing on Amerish or Esamir, so why should the new player? That new player goes to Indar, where the action is, and then the next new player comes along and finds the same situation. I log in every day and sigh with resignation as I notice that, once again, the only option I have if I want to experience a good fight is to play on Indar. It's incredibly likely that the vast majority of the playerbase feels the same way, but you log in and see that Indar is ~30%/30%/30%, covered in action and "multiple enemy platoon" sized battles. Then I look at Esamir or Amerish, where the population percentage is extremely one sided (likely because the only five people on Amerish are all the same faction), and all territories are entirely devoid of enemy activity, or at most have too few to be considered a squad. Who in their right minds would try to find a fight there? So much simpler to simply log into Indar, even if you'd rather fight elsewhere. As anyone who's organized a large-scale "invasion" of another continent can tell you, the vast majority of the time your attacking force meets with little to no opposition for the few hours it may take to fully cap the continent, so attempting to jump-start the action on a continent rarely if ever works.

In summary, all of your proposed changes look great to me, but I feel like the number one most important and pressing issue would involve extensive server mergers and other initiatives to imbue life into the dead other two-thirds of the game area.

Just an observation, I find it ironic how many of the systems you wish SOE would add to the game are from PS1, yet when other people suggest something from PS1 your against it. Nearly every base fight in PS1 came down to the spawn room being a last stand.

There are tons of ways to get "free kills" in this game, spawn rooms being on the top. Making it so the shields drop when the SCU dies is the middle ground between your extreme idea and the extremely lackadaisical idea that's in game right now. You would still get what you want, the end of people sitting in the spawn room and getting easy kills, and everyone else gets a few more kills before getting completely kicked out.

Another observation, you don't want the people on the inside to get "free kills" but it's perfectly OK for you to get "free kills" when they are forced to exit the spawn into a firing line that they have no chance of getting past?

BATTLE FLOW - WHERE IS IT?
I can agree w/ the pain field activating after the SCU is destroyed. The whole spawn shield door spam game is plain stupid. However with that said, we need something to do while we wait, the door spam game at least gave us something. Now what? We need something. What ever happened to the idea of the SCU destruction only slowing spawn?

Spawn options? I see what your trying to do here but it needs more for me to agree. Something would have to be done so the steamrolled players don’t just keep getting steamrolled back to the next base and back and back. You could be just making zergs even more important, more fun. Now your giving the zerg even more incentive, there will be a guaranteed battle they can steamroll at the next base. Yeah if the pops are even all is fine and the battles will be big and awesome. But most of the time it won’t be an even battle. Also not being able to pull MBTs at some bases could also be a problem. I like allot of spawn options cause I’ll tend to go to a base where I can pull a MBT or I like a base with an easy accessible air pad.

INSTANT ACTION, GETTING INTO THE FIGHT - JOE CASUAL IS THE FRONT LINE

So you want to lower our spawn options yet let us instant action any time? Seems like your countering your spawn options argument a bit, depends how your look at it. Also this might help Joe Casual quite a bit but I can see big outfits taking way to much advantage of this.

INDARSIDE - BEING STUCK ON THE WORST CONTINENT SUCKS
Allot of people think Indar sucks but allot more like it(obviously). Your suggesting a Indar revamp and I agree w/ allot of your changes. But why not take what is great about Indar and give it to the other 2 conts? What makes Indar such a pop magnet??? It’s NOT because it sucks! My guess would be the other 2 conts suck. Esamir w/ it’s 1 tech plant (WTF?) and Amerish with it’s insane terrain, what a pain in my ***.


MERGERS NOT TRANSFERS - THIS IS ESSENTIAL TO THE SURVIVAL OF PLANETSIDE
Yes!!! Totally agree here, this needs to happen NOW. The one thing I’d like to add is they limit the mergers/transfers on their faction. Basically don’t merge a server w/ a huge TR pop w/ another server w/ a huge TR pop. The other options would be to just shut down a server and give everyone a transfer token. I’m afraid that players would just go to where their faction has a high pop making the problem only worse. Whatever they end up doing I can only wish they take faction pops into consideration.


AMS NO DEPLOY ZONES AS WELL AS CLOAKING FIELDS - THEY'RE ESSENTIAL
I can agree w/ no deploy zones as long as they are not too big. Some bases are really small, are surrounded by flat land and only really have the base buildings themselves for cover. Cloaking fields? Sure why not? I’m getting used to the way it is now but I’d be ok w/ cloaking.

AUTOMATED TURRETS & BASE BENEFITS - HINDER GHOST HACKING, MAKE ME CARE ABOUT A BASE
I can agree with this but look at the bases atm, there are TONS of turrets atm(minus the biolab). Imagine all the turrets on an amp station automated? Obviously there would have to be restrictions.

OUTFIT PLAY & COMMUNITY GROWTH - HELP US HELP YOU
This section of your thread is my favorite!

Platoon options:
Just last night a outfitmate was asking me shuffle people around in platoon and that was only 10 minutes after I just thought I had it all straightened out. I said screw it and gave him platoon lead, told him to take care of it. I’m SO SO SO sick of playing Platoon builder 3000 rather then Planetside 2!!!!!(in your own mind please add a cuss word between every word in the previous sentence)

Currently the only way to create a platoon is to A. Have a full squad and invite a 13th. B. Platoon invite someone (which usually means kicking someone from Alpha and then platoon inviting them). What a pain!!!! Why can I just click on the box next to their name and move them to bravo??? Why can’t a squad just be considered a platoon from the start?

Let me give my platoon permission to just move around in the platoon where they want.

Give my outfit a “Auto join Outfit squad” upon log in option or maybe a button for it in the outfit page on. The little check box in the squad listings is nice but I’d like to see more.

When the listed squad is full just the listing disappears. Come on really??? Just put the player in the next available slot in the platoon.

I’ll take anything to stop “Can I get an invite?”, “Can you move me into Bravo?”, “How come the squad isn’t listed?” and “Alpha is full you have to shuffle!”. Let me play Planetside PLEASE!

Outfit options:
They’ll be adding the recruitment options soon. There should be a organized listing of outfits where players can click and a get a brief explanation of the outfit. Maybe they can fill out an application or just click a button to request invite that is sent to the outfit leaders to approve.

More sortable information needs to be added to the outfit roster. I’d like to see level(or XP points), date joined and last logged on added. This will help leaders manage promotions better and kick inactives if they choose to do so.

THE LATTICE SYSTEM - PLANETSIDE 2 NEEDS IT

My favorite part about the lattice system is what it did for the overall metagame in Planetside 1. You held a sanctuary that was connected to 2 home conts which connected to 4 other conts. The lattice system prevented you from going just wherever you wanted and you needed to hold one your home conts before moving on to the other conts. This will be something to tackle once they get more conts but it will for sure be necessary.

Great post BuzzCutPsycho! Hope they take allot of your ideas into consideration.

Oh no, someone disagrees with my views, therefore his opinion doesn't matter!

I hope you realise how stupid you make yourself look when in an argument you attempt to render a person's entire opinion as invalid simply because you do not agree with one specific part.

Then by all means continue discussing your wonder solution with your friends, without recognising the core problem. And I'll say it one more time since no one including you will likely read much more of this thread at this stage (which is a great tactic by the thread starter, write a thread so large that few people bother to respond with criticism, and fewer would read long posts with said criticism since they already read so much. The big bold one liners pointing out known potential problems are enough to convince people who don't actually read the suggested solutions.): The core issue is some servers having significant population problems. If each server was as populated as Miller, we would not be having this discussion.

I get a laugh out of the people who start to talk about complex flanking, faints, pincer maneuvers and whatever other military wet dreams they think they practice in PS2 on a nightly basis that in reality has no impact on the game.

That's not how PS2 actually works. It might be how you want it to work but that's not how it really works. There is no complex flanking or tactical depth because there isn't an established or solid front line to actually flank. There isn't a reason to care about those random territories because they have no value or worth. There isn't a reason to defend those ghost captures because they capture far too fast and don't really contribute anything.

Back when servers were jam jacked we still had the same issue of ghost hacking and the effect of "two ships passing in the night" in regards to the primary force of both factions completely missing each other. Population wasn't the issue 8 months ago and it isn't the issue now. The problem with PS2 is at it's very core and at it's very core is this horrendous hex system.

Another thing I've noticed in this thread are the very vocal minority claiming that the "lattice system" sucks don't seem to realize that you already have a lattice system in PS2.

What do you think "hex adjacency" is? Hex adjacency is a very unstructured and disorganized lattice system which promotes no flow of battle. All of the improvements people suggest to redesign, improve upon and tighten up the hexes just go further and further to making it like the PS1 lattice system.

Think before you post.

Those all seem like vital ideas to me.

SOE: Do it.

Im gonna pull this out for a sec.

Planetside 1 had auto turrets. Everytime you passed by an unmaned turret with run mode turned on(think sprint), you were attacked by the turrets. BUT, when un manned they had a much lower rate of fire, accuracy, and turn rate IIRC. The turrets dont need to be like turrets in tribes ascend (sniper turrets from hell), but animated enough to make you think about where you are going.

You mistake overabundance of bases with a hex based territory system.

The hex system is nothing more than a lattice with influence playing a (minor) role. The rest is just more, often uninteresting bases than in PS1. Amerish has a decent flow in this regard because troops are funneled via terrain and not flashy lines between bases, and also has a lower ammount of bases compared to Indar

I've explained it in detail here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/the-hex-system-needs-to-evolve-or-perish.95342/

Current Hex system is flabbergastingly mediocre, but Lattice definitely isn't the end all be all