A solution to the Lattice/Hex issue.

Purely semantics, but noted. Always helps to be clear when talking about these sorts of things. Thank you for your input

I go into greater detail how it would work in this thread... Lattice/Hex Hybrid System

I have been working on a remake of all of Amerish utilizing the hybrid Lattice/Hex system. I just haven't had the time to photoshop the sketch. Ill try and find time in the next day or two. It really turned out nice, because I only used the lattice between the main Bases and a few of the larger outposts and everything else utilizes the Hex adjacency between the lattice linked bases.

In theory, I think it would really open up the map, creating more fluid fights between the main bases, but at the same time it is restrictive enough that defenders can anticipate the next attack to a certain degree, but it is not 100% like it is now with a pure lattice map.

firstly, this may end up a decently long post. 2ndly, this was the closest relevant topic for me to post under as to hopefully not make a double post.

if anyone else out there is thinking the way i am, then it is safe to say combat in PS2 is growing stale. there is so little gained in the way of accomplishment as the game stands now. base caps simply fall into the classification of action-oriented redundancy. i posted a comment on a FB post on PS2's page in regards to my thoughts to help improve on this aspect of the game:

lockout timers... sick and tired of fighting for 45 minutes to capture/defend an important base just to have a handful of infiltrators sneak in 30 seconds after the dust settles, hack out terminals, gut the base, and start back hacking. give us some relevance to our fighting. not saying a sanctuary needs to be added, but we need something to give us a reason to want to fight for this territory... if a faction is beaten back to a warpgate, there are 2 other continents to be fought on. just....something! 5 minute lockout on small outposts, 10 on large outposts, 20 on your main bases... SOMETHIN'! nothing is more annoying that having your advancement hindered by a ghost hack...

after reading through a few of the comments here, there are clearly people for and against the lattice system. it has it's pros and cons, but due to a complete lack of a latice system i avoid amerish like the plague and heres why: BASE-CAP WHACK-A-MOLE

as i stated above, no one likes to have to constantly return to a previously capped base/outpost because a straggler snuck in an back hacked as soon as you left for the next target. hell, lockout timers would alleviate such a strong dependance on the lattice. more importantly, they would give some sense of reward after taking that tech plant you just fought your butt off for.

truth be told, i miss the NTU silos of old and the often epic gen-holds... lattice aside, going deep into enemy territory, dropping the gen/turrets to drain the NTU to allow a hack truly gave PS it's niche in terms of setting itself apart from every other drab shooter on the market. now all i feel going for it is scale...

please give us some "reason" behind the madness...

Why has this idea not been looked at?

Hex system was fine, just needed refinement like not being able to just flip a switch and walk away from a base (ghost cap). Hell they should add that anyway regardless of system, if you aren't willing to babysit a cap point, then you shouldn't be able to capture the territory.

I would also alter timers so that less defenders = shorter timer (some minimum value) which increases as defenders show up to (some maximum value).

Hex was way more sandbox and sandbox is superior.

To the poster and the 49 readers who upvoted this thread:

Does no one understand that the development cycle for Planetside 2 was set back by a year by the conversion over to the Lattice System? The system that was overwhelmingly called for by the majority of Planetside players? I'm sure plenty of you will read that and say "Nun-uh! I didn't want the lattice!" Well, too bad. That's not how the devs saw it. So they committed resources to fulfilling this communities request. And now we're stuck with it. Make the best of it because this is what we have going forward. There's no point in posting ideas about going back. There is no going back.

The year setback hurt this game incredibly and there is no going back, but I object to your claim that lattice was overwhelmingly called for by some majority. It was called for by PS1 vet mega-outfit leaders that didn't think this was really Planetside without having a lattice. The devs listened to them, yet many of these same players quit soon after or weren't retained for long after returning for the lattice. This is a post I made in May 2013, 2 months after the official Indar lattice roadmap thread was posted, and only 12 days before lattice hit live servers.

Original post

It was the #26th roadmap idea by vote only 2 weeks before it hit the servers, it was barely on the first page of threads! This idea that it was so wanted by the playerbase is myth. Loud, popular forumsiders wanted it and posted about it 20 times a day with the same masses upvoting the posts.

That's all well and good, but I made this thread over a year ago.

Since then, many resource changes have been proposed and have fallen by the wayside, and a redesign has been created, which has addressed some of the issues this thread was concerned with.

This thread is only relevant as a record of some of the discussion which occured when the lattice system was implemented. I would like to point out that development has not stopped, nor will it ever stop. We are seeing continued changes to the way the lattice works, for example lockable continents which will dramatically change the way the lattice will be used and how it will play.

The lattice system, for all its strengths and flaws, is something with which we have to live - however it is evolving. SOE assures us they are listening, and therefore generating ideas and suggestions such as this is always a valid and constructive thing to do. I certainly do not expect any idea I come up with to be implemented in any form... I'm not so arrogant as to assume mine is the voice which will be listened to - But posting ideas or coming up with laternatives will always open doors. The job of the development team is to explore ideas... To consider them, then to reject/adapt/alter/improve/implement as they see fit. The more ideas we post, the more opportunities we give to the development team to make the game better.

That was the intention of this thread. To provoke discussion and to open up a different line of thinking.

You are mistaking a suggestion, with someone saying "I think I am right, so what I tell you to do."

It was looked at.

The lattice creates a campaign-flow that becomes boring after you've seen it in action a few times. The back and forth is not the problem, it's the back and forth over the exact same routes each time.

This would bring me back to playing daily as opposed to the once a month I play now. Fantastic ideas here guys, good job! I'm just remembering the joy I felt in ps1 where a small spec ops crew could change the fate of battle and strategy was just as important as gunplay. This is the meta game I've been waiting for.

Huh, good to see people still think is a good idea.

DramaticExit, we meet again.

Thanks man. It certianly would put an interesting twist on the current gameplay and perhaps liven up in the manner Thrasis mentioned.

Might be a bit of work though and with hossin, the new air vehicle and the continental lattice, I doubt we would see it anytime soon

I'm late to the party, but the concern for ghost capping was solved with a combination of ideas on the first page. If you're capping via hex but not lattice, the time to capture is doubled, and unmanned control points revert to neutral.

Let's be honest here. Without the lattice the game would be even less popular today. The battles would be more fragmented than what they currently are due to the sheer number of hexes. You would have small groups chasing around these loner infiltrators turning the game into anything-but-big-battles for the chasers. How fun indeed.

The reason why the game is still in this sorry-*** state is not in the lattice, but how it was implemented. The PS1 vets who asked for it back then were definitely not thinking that anyone in their right mind would set it up between every single facility including those silly outposts. You see in PS1 the lattice connected the major bases only. That is killing the game. It took out all strategy/tactics out from it and forced the empires into these very specific routes which leave nothing for imagination. It turned the game into this petty shooter where number-wise inferior forces are being camped at their spawns every 15 minutes.

The thing which blows my mind is how difficult it is for SOE to realize the problem.

I'm pretty sure they know it is a problem, that's why they hired malorn. Go look at his old posts, the guy had some amazing ideas. The only problem is, I'm not sure how feasible this change would be to code or even whats binding their hands for creating meta. I hope they do though, people will start to play for the shooter, but without a meta game it's a shallow game that runs out of depth after a month or two. They need something to make it worth playing for years, not a couple months.

How about the simplest of fixes. Leave the lattice system in place but allow people to cap anywhere. Just don't give them any points related to the cap or other non-kill actions that occur in a location that is not connected by lattice at the moment.

Remove the incentive to farm far-flung outposts but leave in the ability to cap those places as part of a battle plan. Just make all XP that is not directly related to kills flow through the lattice from the warpgate. Make all resources other than the ones the current location generates flow through the lattice from the warpgate.

Yes, you will get griefers who cap way behind the lines to disrupt normal XP and resource generation. However the zergs will break down under that pressure and split up to go resolve the griefers. You could even have a requirement that an outpost is either connected to the warpgate by lattice or to at least two other locations in order for defenders to respawn there. That way the griefer infiltrators get killed once and go home.

The problem with the HEX/Lattice argument was that HEX was too chaotic and extremely hard to find fights and overall frustrating for most players. However the Lattice that ended up replacing HEX was too constraining. Even PS1 vets hated the system but it has gotten a bit better. The problem is that PS1 hex only linked major bases and towers together(at least from what I have seen). The current lattice links bases that should not be fought over by larger numbers.

This game does not need small Facilities that have to be captured. Every fight should be a large base with other outlying bases that need to also be capped.


Lattice was necessary so it could have a battle flow. However the map was not designed that way and has failed to be properly converted to what people called for.

Lattice should connect large bases and facilities together and allow for the smaller ones to be capped without being part of the link.

Example. You have rashnu and can attack Mao. You can now capture all the bases in the mao hex (maybe make it a south hex connected to mao. Now howling pass, ns secure, and southeast gate are captureable without having to go through the other to get to while fighting for mao. If you don't capture and hold these bases then you will have to truck in things all the way from rashnu. However if you hold the bases then you have supplies form them to help assault the tech plant.

This is the Lattice system PS1 vets wanted and called for. They did not get it.

How about putting real territorial incentives into the game instead of expecting the zerging back and forth to satisfy player's needs?

Allow outfits to claim specific bases (multiple outfits can claim the same base) and their outlying outposts and then defend those bases as an ongoing concern. Give the outfit a cert-incentive that is continuous to defend the area. Say a 50 cert an hour bonus for holding the base for each player in the outfit online and present in the defense area that then locks out for 30 minutes if the base falls to an opposing faction.

Let the outfits re-choose the base they want to be associated with (and defend) every 72 hours so the process doesn't turn into a rolling zerg over time. After a defended base is capped the bonus is re-asserted after 30 minutes if the base is re-capped by at least one outfit that has asserted a defense claim over the area.

With that established give players in outfits and present at the capture an immediate 50 cert bonus for taking a base that an opposing faction outfit has claimed and is defending. Have the immediate bonus lock out for 30 minutes after it is claimed by any assaulting outfit force. Multiple outfits could claim the capture if they were present at the time the base fell and each player in the outfit and present would receive the bonus.

Let things fall where they may in that system of incentives. Unclaimed bases, bases not designated as being defended by at least one outfit, provide normal capture incentives and none of the bonuses that the defense/assault system provides.

So you wind up with a board that has many outfits spread out defending "their" territory. You have incentives for people to mount a rolling assault on defended territory where the defenses are setup and staffed already. Defenders who are not challenged reap the benefits of staying in place by a continuous significant cert bonus. Alts could easily man those bases until somebody showed up to fight at which point mains could log in to keep the benefits.

You'd have safe territory in which multiple outfits were defending and front line territory with just one outfit defending and no-man's land where nobody was defending. Outfits could pick their poison. If they want safer points they could hang back and defend safe territory. If they wanted a non-stop fight they could stake their ground near non-man's land and wait for the hordes to show up and claim the bonus. Or they could be an assaulting force that tried to roll through multiple bases to get the one time bonuses that then locked out for 30 minutes.

The infiltrators who cap points and camp the people coming to recap would be at a disadvantage because the number of undefended areas would drop dramatically, with dedicated teams in place to defend most positions of importance. Isolated outposts would still provide fodder for the solo and duo commandos but not the heyday the current system provides.

People would have incentives to join outfits so that they could reap the benefits of the defense/assault system. Non-affiliated players would never reap the bonus certs from the system. Small outfits could claim the same bases as large outfits and reap the benefits of defense but only as long as they were logged in and present at the bases. Small outfits could claim the benefits of an assault as long as they were present at the time of the cap.

In all likelihood the cert bonuses would accumulate the fastest for the large outfits that were able to defend safe territory for a long period of time due to the number of players available to rotate in for defense roles. The second largest accumulation would go to the really good assault outfits that were able to take 5 or 6 defended bases at a time.

The maps would have meaning. AA would be manned all over the map on a continuous basis. That would spell the end of Air farming for the most part. Air assets would once again be force multipliers in fights not random sharks looking for swimmers. Outfits would develop defense and assault strategies for their favored bases and the surrounding territory. "You don't go over there without planning because that's enemy territory" would become a reality.

It would be a wargame instead of an FPS.

Isn't that what the real purpose behind a FPS/MMO hybrid should be?

I disagree that it would be less popular considering the year+ development time we lost for content and the people that are tired of the same daily lattice chokepoint farms.

But to your second point, the adjacency influence system and x/y on cap point affecting cap timers were in the game and a possible solution to this. The system should have been tougher with higher cap times. For example, 1/6 on a point with poor influence? Make it take 24 minutes to cap or something, if you can't send a squad to clear that, he deserves to take it. Make it so If he leaves the point for a minute make it go neutral or revert to the defenders after 2 minutes.

For some crazy reason again, certain 'community leaders' whined that the # on cap and adjacency mechanics should be removed, so they were removed and cap timers were also reduced before lattice came in, making the solo ghost capping problems worse with 4 minute cap times or whatever it was before they increased it again slightly.

As to questioning how it was implemented, the Indar mockup roadmap posted in march 2013 was praised on the forums by the PS1 vets and it showed the lattice connected down the 'rush lanes' much like we see today. Not to mention it was still heralded as the savior after being played in its release state on the test server. It was not a surprise SOE dropped on the players like you make it out to be.

Personally i think Planetside moved so faar away from what i hoped it would be.
So just given up all hope......And maybe its just having played the game to much.

But the gameplay really feels worse than ever if you ask me.