And so the dumbing down begins

What did you expect? You only need to take a look at the fps mechanics (limited movement / strafing speed, iron sights, cone of fire mechanic) to realise that this game has always been for casuals.

I still don't understand why they don't change the capture mechanics from passively standing around to actively doing something. All they need to do is have a look at the Enemy Territory maps and their objectives to get an idea how it's done well.

ROFLMAO

Well sure they have "plans". They have had such plans since alpha, but that didn't stop them from releasing an early beta product.

Do you think that the PS2 team will deliver on such plans? I mean in the next year or so, not 5 years. Sadly, I don't anymore.

In PS1 you had to hack the control console of a base in order to start a 15 min timer. The defenders could clear that by hacking it back. Believe it or not, but this actually led to last second resecures and incredible tension.

Every base had a fixed energy supply also and if that wasn't filled up again, the base would switch neutral. This also led to hail mary gameplay where the defenders managed to refill the silo in the last second.

Both mechanics were in the game right from the start, so nobody can tell me that it took time to develop these ideas.

These changes are anti Zerg.

So explain to me how this isn't meatgrinder, zerg vs. zerg like so many people are saying it is.

Sounds like you just explained that this is about to turn into The Crown x3 for each continent. That doesn't really sound like a positive change to me.

That is not true a majority of the time. Maybe some of the non-ODAM platoon members that we're carrying along with us.. but I run with this outfit too-many-hours a day and I hardly ever see this behaviour. I also platoon lead and can tell you that I never run from a fight unless we're about to lose a continent as is typical of the rest of our leadership.

You're generalizing and doing it incorrectly.

My new strategy for defending a base... is to not. Hopefully after a while it will bore the Zerg out of their mind capping undefended bases, with no action whatsoever.

I'm big on base defense, but I refuse to get farmed.

I know that place.

It's right around the corner from the land of gumdrops and berries where people believe that the lattice system is the second coming.

This game is less than 6 months into it's life and it's peak has already come and gone. Lattice isn't going to change that.

LOL!!! This post coming from an ODAM player. You know, the one's that follow TRAF around like the chihuahua best friend to the big bulldog, arf arf! You are COMPLAINING about ZERGS? YOU?!?! The very ones who ZERG non stop. YOU the very one's who coordinate zerg after zerg with TRAF? Please... this is too funny.

this,
old one was, oh ppl defending the point? Loluanchers/phoenix/dumfire/lolpods/whatever-HE-Spammers-still-left/c4-throwing etc.

Or helps you avoid one.

Guess which one the zergs are doing?

Not easy to articulate this, but I hate what the new standardised cap times have done to the game. Before manpower had to be allocated to a specific area to cap, now stay near the cp is a much more trivial action. In single cap point bases, it's a matter of either camping around the spawn room, or protecting the sundie ams. In the large bases it makes sense for everyone to move as a swarm from objective to objective, finishing in the SCU.

It's made defending much harder and it's made attacking a lot less fun. It also makes an overrun base utterly utterly boring. Before a small force with an ams had a chance of disrupting a cap or at the very least annoy those trying to hold it. With no incentive for attackers to be near one area, it's much harder for a small pocket of resistance to last for very long.

If anything I'd have liked it to have gone the other way, keep 6 on the small bases, 2/2/2 on the large. Make tech/amp 12, make bio 4/4/4. Keep the speeds the same but on facilities have everything maxed makes it faster that it did before.

Of course this could all be trivial once the lattice hex goes live.

Well not having a lattice sure didn't help did it.

It's been a while since I bothered to roll with ODAM but I have done it several times in the past, before the merger they were often one of the few outfits that had a public squad up so I joined them rather than playing alone. I have seen this multiple times and it's been members doing it, not pubbies.

As for defending continents, that doesn't seem to be high up on the list of things to do either. Remember when Indar was capped by the NC a while back after being neutral since GU2? Did you know that ODAM was one of the few platoons online at the time and when I told them that they were needed on Indar they just laughed and kept going on Amerish. They had a chance to prove that they could be useful and they ignored it.

ODAM will forever be considered crap in the eyes of players of all factions. This Slyguy also seems bent on making it worse by being an arrogant **** on the forums, all in the name of ODAM.

Dunno about you, but I think ghost capping is the most boring and unsatisfying part of the game. I can't wait for the new hex changes. I still have no idea why people are so damn insistent on "avoiding the zerg." That's the whole point of the game, pretty much (zerging, that is). Big freaking battles taking place on huge *** maps. If you want small, close quarters battles, go to your nearest Gamestop and pickup the latest Call of Duty.

Well for a start, yeah it's meatgrinder to an extent. The path of most resistance is now the path you pretty much have to take, at least in terms of capturing territory. You can still act off the grid, as ever, and this will be important. Smart groups will be operating behind the line and unlike before there actually is a line. But mostly, sure, you're going to be rolling right into the enemy, who will be rolling right at you.

How it differs from the Crown is the crown is a crap map that weighs too hard in the favour of the defender. Regular bases don't play out like that. What we will hopefully see more of is more confrontation.

What possible indications do you have that things will be further dumbed down?

The lattice system, to work, needs two things;

1) Predictability. This is more than just seeing where your enemies may be going, it's about being able to gauge how much time you have to do anything and organize accordingly. Don't have enough time to resecure a base? Set up on the route to the next one to ambush. This is what stabilizing the capture times has given us.

2) SCUs. Every base needs an SCU. While these capture timers are great, we all realize there is a point where it gets boring. This was an issue at the game's release, as we all remember. We would easily spend 2 or 3 minutes fighting followed by 15 minutes of standing around. If we have SCUs, we can blow 'em and move on to the next base to start fighting.

A bonus would be a meaningful resource system.

Look, I a'int pretending the lattice is perfect. But it's what this game needs. The lattice when it's implemented will have its own set of problems but it'll be far superior to the hex system we have now.

Honestly, why would anybody join a game that has the slogan of "Size Always Matters" and complain about gigantic fights?

You're talking about a couple months ago and rolling with a different group of people. This would be why I said you're generalizing and doing it incorrectly. You seem to not have any recent experience with the way things run lately. I can only speak for the last eight-ish weeks, but what you're describing is pretty inaccurate.

See above.

Really? He's said several times that he's speaking his mind and his opinion and not speaking for ODAM as a whole.

.

I'm all for more confrontations (plural).. I just think forcing it to happen at one specific locale (or one locale and the two bases up and down the lattice) over and over sounds dull. I personally don't enjoy repeated respawns and running into the same 3 platoons of enemy over and over again for hours. For a few minutes - even an hour - it's fun.. especially when you win. I just can't help feeling like there are going to be entire days when the same 3 bases in one line of the lattice are going to be fought for.. and that sounds really undesirable considering how many targets there are out there right now. If I can draw the comparison without getting trolled too hard, Alterac Valley back in Vanilla WoW was like this. I remember a few times going to work 3 days in a row and every day coming back to the SAME FIGHT. It was ******* epic.. for about a month. Then it got old real fast. People got bored. And yeah, I know this isn't WoW, but I can't help feeling like that's a pretty fair comparison.

I don't disagree that some changes need to be made to the way territory is taken - I just think this is the opposite direction than what they should be heading in. It feels like this is supposed to be a game about army tactics - thinking, planning, moving, frustrating your enemy. Multiple battles on multiple fronts. I can't help but think that it's going to turn into "Platoon 1, hit from the north. Platoon 2, hit from the west. We have no access from east and south." and battering against 2-3 enemy platoons holed up in a defensible position that can't be cracked.

If I'm wrong about this (and I hope that I am), please correct me. I keep hearing "LOL UR DUMB. IT WONT BE MEATGRINDERZ.", but no one has really been able to explain why without resorting to insults instead of information.