When was the game at its best state?

I kinda a agree with this.. in my own way

I also liked it when I played NC after launch and we were low pop most of the time. Everything was spread out much more and the fights were often smaller. It was also easier to steer clear of the zergs cause there was always something going on since we didn't have lattice. I actually cared about saving/taking bases back then, and looking at the map. Now I just jump between them like playing battlefield cause it's either zerg or be zerged and most ppl don't care to be anything else than sheep (TRID and what not) and dumping everything into one or two lanes.
Early on I actually enjoyed our smaller fights that lasted a long time, even if we lost base after base I had fun with the fights.

Logistics are also thrown out the window. 90% of my sundy (driving) time is from the early days, now it's just a short trip and it's useless after a base or two, as you either get joined by a bunch of sheep, or you get a massive zerg in your face because it's so easy to jump around the map.

Before the introduction of the lattice system aka. the zerg funnel. The game has devolved into a mindless and neverending game of whac-a-mole since then.

I totally agree with you that the game world experience then was better for me. More sandbox. Less locked into set battles. More interacting with the many choices of the game world, and not just logging in and jumping into the linear game available.

I think one reason I enjoy flying an ESF is that you have a lot more control in terms of what type of battles you want get into or where you want to go or what you want to do. And one reason people complain about the same battles now, is that the Lattice forces the same general conditions for each Base-to-Base battle and even each multi-base progression.

I know that Power Creep and Knowledge Creep, both have made what's possible in the game different now. Players are smarter at gaming the system, and there are more types of abilities and many pre-existing abilities are available at more powerful levels. But I still believe the game can be designed to provide that "old experience" even given these.

I think a lot of "it" (what type of game we get) comes down to (1) Player and (2) SOE and PS2 Devs. For Players, the question is what type of game truly compels them to play/spend? People may complain about something, but that something may motivate them to play more or spend more. Whereas other times, that something the complain about may just be poison for the game with no real upside.

For SOE and PS2 Devs, it comes down to Want and Ability. What kind of game do they Want to make (even if that means one they don't have to pay attention to) and what Ability do they have to make that game? Ability includes things like Vision, Aptitude, Budget, Approval, Labor, etc. Right now SOE/Devs want a game with an MMO/mixed unit/scifi hook, familiar feel to FPS players, and linear game system they can tinker with to try and make it generate more profit. I don't think they have a Vision for it (beyond just trying out various derivative stuff from PS1 or other games) and I don't think they are happy with its current profitability/success.

You're dodging the point.

The entire issue with hex is that there was no significant fighting whatsoever outside THE CROWN 24/7!, zerg or no zerg.

Lattice was (and still is) necessary for this game to have a legitimate claim on being an FPS rather than a driving simulator.

When you could one shot fools with the Phoenix! Plus when you had more control over the drop pods and could knock liberators/galaxies out of the sky if you hit them just right. Good times...

Depends on what you mean.

If you were to ask, 'which version of the game is the best put together,' I'd say it's this one. There are no glaring balance issues, and the factions are more or less on par with each other. Performance, though not at it's best, has been better lately than it had been through much of its life. Most of the really bad bugs (yes, there are still many bugs out there, but many more have been forgotten) have been found and removed. There is more content in game now than there ever had been before (obviously), and it all really does add to the overall experience.

Which era I enjoyed most? 2013. Back then, outfits meant something, both friendly and enemy outfits. Leaders were still putting effort into open platoons, outfits were competing with each other for new recruits, you KNEW when you were dealing with a NUC or a TIW squad. People gave a **** about that stuff. The game itself was typically semi broken, either bugs, performance, or balance, but bad as that **** was, you grinded through it anyways, because winning meant something, even though it really meant nothing.

Goddamn do I miss that ****.

I'd say just after the Hossin release or right now.

Really? I guess you could count spandex as a trait.

This title lives on 'what if' and 'if they did this' and always has.

Initially there was the hope of what the raw beta could turn into, being as there was time still for it to happen, stoked by the marketing hype they still cling to even now.

The exact point this would have disappeared is by player patience.

It must have been the first year that had the most hope, lessening as the patches went by. This would have been revived by the roadmap, evaporating again as it became blatantly obvious that this is it and they removed it out of embarrassment.

For me the low point has been t-shirts, a title in the state it is in and casual apparel is the focus of the development. Maybe the developers harbour an ambition to have a market stall realised through this title.

It is now undoubtable that there will be nothing more than TDM as the central game mechanic, which cannot sustain something that is 2 1/2 years later.

Yet you can easily find players on this forum that would defend their beloved title to the death, very much like those 150 global SMNC players that just won't let go.

So your question is based on how that one person sees it, from me you'll get nothing much more than a 'meh' and pointing at the innumerable games that far exceed anything PS 2 can ever deliver and unlikely to ever even bother to login again because I don't have enough life span to play them and waste on this, from others you will get foaming religious fanaticism not found outside of Syria that will never fade even when the player count drops below 100.

When was the game at its best state? Soon™

Salty

I loved pre-nerf Crown.
It wasn't untakable, it just required organized effort and a plan to take it.
Mindless zerg got crushed at the Crown no matter the numbers.

Instead of making more bases to be like the Crown SOE killed the only base that was worth fighting for.

I miss the times when vehicles were powerful and dangerous. Yes, it was called "tankside" or "vehicleside" at the times, but SOE chose the worst solution IMO.
They could have made vehicles expensive, so killing a tank or losing a tank would actually matter (like it is in Eve Online). Instead they leaved the chain-pull thingy in place and killed vehicular gameplay to balance it against infantry.

I miss the times when people actually used sunderers to get from one place to another (12/12 sunderers)
Now everyone just redeploys.

The game was at it's best when there was still hope of roadmap stuff getting implemented and when there was actually a development team instead of a maintenance team. Devs would tease of us about all cool features that would be implemented in due time...then postponed again and again and in the end archived.

Now I get the feeling that all that stuff was just hype to keep players playing 'n paying.

Still, I enjoy this game a lot, I'm just sad to see all the potential wasted.

It was at it's best when Engis could UBGL camp spawn rooms from the roofs of Biolabs.

It was at it's best when you could put C4 and mines in spawn rooms just before ownership flipped. I got soooo many C4 kills from that. Good times. Good times.