Lattice is so boring

Lattice should lead to a region and once in that region you are free to attack any satellite base that you want.

For example, lattice leads to a tech plant, once there you have to take out the satellites to engage the main facility. The satellites should control defenses of the main base but be lattice-free to allow the population to spread out and utilize some actual strategy.

Lattice has turned this game into one giant ignorant TDM.

Hex based system just meant that a single infil with an ESFcould ghost a dozen bases and rehack them after the resecure squad moved onto the next base.

Got real tedious, real fast playing a 3d version of whack a mole when I wanted to be playing a first person shooter and spent to long doing nothing but waiting at a cap point...

you're overselling the lattice................ players managed that on their own.

Let's not also forget the map has a lot to do with this. A number of bases are not reasonably assailable from different directions, not only in terms of terrain lay but distance, and, if they were, it'd actually make sense to set up offenses and defenses from different angles. Amerish is prime example of this, espeically once you get a ways into the continent.

Imagine if those mountains between West Pass Watchtower and Heyoka Bloodworks weren't there. (Or, at least, were more navigable.) Tha Lattice doesn't have to go between those bases, but you had a chance to reasonably attack between the two bases and the West Pass assault is a sticky out of the way affair that can't be perfectly deterred (by your lane) until Chimney Rock.

Why did we impose the rule that players could not cap Lattice-connected bases if they did not have a connection at least to one friendly base without any points capped by an enemy? I remember there must have been a good reasoning, but those arguments escape me.

Half of the base links need to be removed in my opinion..
Some of those small outposts are worthless detours, and should just be neutral bases, similar to tower in PlanetSide 1.
The Lactice links should be what base need to be taken to progress, and the hex none lattice linked bases should be linked by the Hex influence. (i.e touching another piece of your territory)

Lattice overall is good but there are some areas that could use a looking at. Indar in particular I feel can really bog down with a lack of options because there are particular points where the strategy stalls and the lattice doesn't give you enough options to try something else. Indar bogs down all the time in the exact same places.

Amerish is kinda bizarre too. The lattice layout seems to intentionally create a small number of fronts and restrict you to them.

Esamir is decent, lattice-wise.

And of course the Hossin lattice is quite good, probably because the lattice concept pre-dates Hossin design, so they knew better how to build the continent.

I think they should just go back and overhaul the original continents. The old hex layout was far too open and the game was just an aggravating mess of round-robin base captures with no frontline cohesion at all. The new lattice is definitely better, but a bit too constrained in some places.

We do that every night, how is the lattice stopping you from doing that now? It doesn't, unless you mean you would send 1 or 2 squads to one base, 1 squad to an adjacent base and another squad to another adjacent base...Now, you may have thought you were being tactically superior, but in actuality all that was happening is you were exploiting the fact that defending under the HEX system almost always reactionary and always lead to a lose/lose situation.

There was no strategy under the HEX system, other then attack all available territory possible and grab what you could grab and snake your way around the map, pretending to be mini-Pattons. Defending was pointless and territory felt worthless because it would switch hands constantly because attackers never had to actually dislodge defenders, they would just go around them and keep taking territory, until those defenders decided to give up on their cut off territory and go elsewhere.

Sounds like you were too stupid to handle the hex system. Congrats on getting the game watered down for people on your level. Outfits that still pull gals in redeployside are useless and moronic. I play with a tiny group who constantly redeploy to bases on the defense list and I love seeing zerg fits show up with their pinatas. Yes, following a dotted line across the map, unable to attack adjacent territory or surround a facility and lay siege to it is far more "tactically superior". Well put superior baddie.

To be fair, "his level" was very broad. It wasn't merely a vocal minority that were complaining about the Hex system and got it changed; it was quite a significant population. The nail in the coffin was when the developers were playing the game and repeatedly encountered the same conditions that "his level" were complaining about, that they previously had been trying to either dismiss or appease with token alterations, and found themselves unsatisfied with those results too.

The lattice was supposed to link with an inter-continental lattice as a second phase. which obv. never happened and probably never will (unless rian Burness gets his way).

When all this was under discussion several alternative 'lattice' mechanisms were suggested including a lattice/hex hybrid and a lattice that only linked the main bases.

The playerbase were fully involved in everything regarding this to the point that one outfit leader (of AT I think) travelled from the UK to SOE offices to discuss the issue with Matt Higby, the video should still exist somewhere.

Part of the discussion was about predictability. At the time the world was full of zergs that moved around the continents collecting 250xp per capture with no fighting involved, by narrowing down the capture options magically fighting happened.

@ viper, great first sentence, that's an excellent way to convince people of your case.

When you can't argue your point...Make insults...

The HEX system was not complicated, there was absolutely nothing to figure out, It was an open system that allowed you to attack any adjacent territory with little to no restrictions and attacking was the only viable strategy, because defending was pointless. The lattice didn't water the game down, it did the opposite, it forces the attackers to actually deal with the defenders head to head, sorry it doesn't allow you to hit all of those undefended bases and snake your way around the map with little opposition.

The HEX system was a game of chess where every piece is a queen, the lattice system is a game of chess where the pieces actually have restrictions on them allowing two sides to make both Offensive and Defensive tactical and strategic choices. Nothing is stopping you from attacking an adjacent facility and using its position to assault a lattice linked base, cut off the defenders reinforcements or hit them from an unexpected direction or feign an attack on another base on the lattice to drawl the enemy out of position.

Another issue, that many people do not consider is the long term aspects of the HEX system as the game ages and new continents are added and as population decrease over time. The HEX system is much more sensitive to population imbalances on continents. If one faction had even only 2-4 squads worth of players, that gave that faction much more flexibility and capability in attacking more places at once. The lattice restricts the number of possible attack locations, thus making it easier for a faction with a smaller continent population, to actually put up a decent fight and not lose their shirt everywhere.

This is one of the main aspects of the HEX that just could not be solved no matter how you tweaked it and as more continents get added and over all player populations decrease off the initial game release high, then this would be a really aggravating issue for players locked out of the full continents or even as we move to a system where the continents are linked via the warpgates.

Ahahahahahaha, it's been a year and you've still never caught on to the idea that "oh maybe I should have left some people to hold this against ghost cappers". Flying around in an ESF, chain-capping literally everything on the map, and leaving nothing but proxy mines and assrage behind were absolutely platinum moments. One guy could outwit a squad, even a whole platoon, simply through the expedient of not being a zerging sheep. Scouting, mobility, defense in depth; you never discovered these things, and thanks to lattice, you'll never have to.

But what am I doing here? I gave up on this hopeless crap last year after Amerish finally got mutilated and went to go play Defiance instead. Don't regret it in the slightest. I've never seen Hossin and don't particularly care what it looks like.

Have fun with your unplayable "massive battles" with lag supreme and a render distance of 25 feet.

Sorry, but pre-lattice was incredibly boring. Ghost-capping is a stupid game of hide and seek with an invisible guy (oh the fun).

The whole point of this game is the large fights. If you don't want large fights, you're better off playing battlefield.

this thread is filled with arm chair generals who only remember the Hex system through their rose tinted aviators, re-living their "glory days" when they could pretend they were being strategic.

people forget that no one wants to sit at an empty base to prevent ghost capping, its not a fun mechanic. no one was outwitted, just annoyed. but then again i doubt you were ever they guy who sat on his hands at an empty base earning no XP just to keep one player from being an *** hat.

is the hex system perfect? nope, but hex wasn't exactly a shining beacon of depth in its day.


also my battles sit at about 40fps and i render out to 300 meters. so I have no idea what you are getting at. if you gave up then why keep reading the forums? I guess it caters to your need to feel superior through little effort.

You ever notice when u get in a giant battle your latency goes to crap . But when u go to a place where theres not 200 people fighting it stays playable !! Maybe one day the internet will be able to handle these kind of wars but for now its just not happening. I have a pretty decent MS around 80- 100 but for some reason when i go down lattice and hit a giant zerg it goes haywire. Must figure out a better way to spread out the amount of stuff in one area . Have we come to a block in the road of internet protocols or is game just screwed?

There needs to be a hybrid system. I like to take example of a game that, in a way, came before it's time: Frontlines: Fuel of War.

That game boasted something called a "Frontline" system. Basically the map was divided into frontlines (wonder where they got their name) with each of those having two or more capture point. Push the line one way or another required you to own all points on a line.
Now what if the continents were divided into regions of 4 or more bases. Some areas like facilities and their satellites can easily be grouped up while as some other bases are a bit more difficult to create a single region for.
But the idea is that to these regions are the "frontline" To advance from region to region you need to completely own previous a region.

This has two benefits that I can see. It maintains the promised "large battles" of lattice as these regions are not very big when you think about it in terms of facilities and their satellites. But it spreads the battle out over a larger area then a single base. Meaning your 96vs96 zerg fests aren't concentrated into a single area no larger then 300m across. But they are also not spread out all over the map. At most they all occupy an area 1km across.
It also gives smaller, dedicated groups such as small outfits that can only field a squad at most something to do and feel like they are contributing. Not everyone wants to be part of a mindless salad munching party. And many very dedicated, small groups of friends have left the game simply because people want to do more then follow the dots. So they can be the ones fighting over smaller or less contested bases within the region while still contributing to the larger picture in tandem with the large outfits.

Also this might curb redeployside a bit since you need to not only capture, but HOLD all the bases within a region to advance. So just deploying into a base, securing it and redeploying the next will not be as viable because the enemy can just walk right back into the base you cleared and start over again.

This is just a basic "what if" idea. It'd take me a whole day and more then an essay to figure out all possible variations of this system to cover things like how do regions interact with eachother in terms of how do you make one region contested and others not. Etc etc.

I s

I suggested something similar to hybrid awhile back but the thread was shot down by some Higby butt-buddy wannabe who kept screaming "Higby already talked about this in his stream" ( I checked, he took 2 secs to mention that the game needs a change).

Anyways. Primary bases should be the center of a region surrounded by satellite bases. The satellite bases should control the defenses of the primary, things like really good auto turrets and shield walls/domes. A platoon will follow the lattice to the region and once there is free to deploy and attack as they see fit. As the game is now, I see more ghost capping now then I saw pre-lattice because everyone and their mother is at the 500+ zergfest. I know because I was in an outfit that watched the current ghost caps, hoping they would turn into smaller fights between skillful players.

lattice has killed a lot of outfits because the people that enjoyed the strategy of leading have left the game. They don't want the token, trinket crap that leadership directives offer, they want the strategy put back into the game. As planetside stands now, it is no different than any other FPS with a online module attached. Instead of returning to a lobby and picking another map, we just go to the redeploy screen and follow the dotted line to the next match. It's stupid to pretend that Planetside is anything special or better at this point and I think that is why outfits like DA and AC have so much fun at the expense of the average Planetside fanboi.

I play this game to fight stuff, not sit around bored waiting on a ghosted cap timer to return to zero for 5 minutes and then rinse and repeat a dozen times.

There is no strategy in generating a dozen hacks in the hope 1 or two get through, there is no defence in depth to this game with or without lattice as there is no resources other then how many zerglings you have and are they enough to out DPS the defenders.

Now if ANTs existed and bases ran out of power periodically there would be strategy as the further you got away from your warpgate the longer the Ant runs would have to be as well as the option to attack enemy supply runs thus even if they have capped the base if its on 10% power and no Ant is forthcoming it will go neutral...

Wrong! There was no real strategy in the HEX system, please stop with this nonsense. When you can attack anywhere you have adjacency and the map tells you exactly how many and where players are on the map and those individual locations, strategic thought is not required to attack those undefended targets.

Please answer me this... How will a faction with a lower population of players on a partially full continent be able to do anything meaningful against another faction, that may have as little as 2-4 squads worth of additional players, under the HEX system? The answer is they will get warp gated and there will be nothing they will be able to do about it. Even if they match up head to head with the other factions main force in a few locations, those 2-4 extra squad of players will easily attack the myriad of undefended adjacent bases and grab base after base and if the defenders try and respond, they will thin themselves out and the main attacking force over whelm them, rinse and repeat until they are warp gated.

A good strategy game requires both OFFENSIVE & DEFENSIVE strategies, that opponents can employ against one another, the HEX system only provides offensive strategies, because there are very little limits placed on the attackers, while defenders at best are left with only reactionary strategies.

I do however agree with you about a Hybrid system...

/Agree - A hybrid system would probably work much better and help alleviate some of the negative aspects of the Lattice system, while using the lattice to reduce the problems of the HEX system.

Have a look at this design I did a while back... Hybrid Lattice / Hex - Sample of a Hvar Tech on Indar ...I also did a full remake of Amerish - Amerish with Lattice.Hex Hybrid capture mechanic .

I like the idea of a Hybrid system, because we can use the Lattice to create restrictions and stop gaps on the map, places where we can utilize defensive strategies while the HEX system would allow us to spread the fighting out around those lattice linked bases and give a little more dynamics in the approaches and attacker may make when assaulting a base. We can also then implement a siege mechanic (resource draining), which would give attackers an alternative way to capture a lattice linked base...