Lattice is handy for forcing bottlenecks to create larger Battles during Low Population times. But during high population events, they just make Solid Brick Wall Bottlenecks that stagnate on the same Bases every time. Can we schedule some Alerts that actually remove the Lattice Bottlenecks, and let each Faction choose what (connected) ground to take, and not get stuck in at the same Bases attacking from the same Exact facing Fronts over and over?
Once upon a time, Amerish was as free as it was beautiful. There was not a lattice line in sight to choke fights into tiny bottle necks. People were free to choose when and where they fought. People were free to choose when and where the major choke points would take place.. People were at peace. The peace did not last long however. The people started to believe that because of this freedom, Ghost capping was becoming rampant on a few bases here and there. In reality, It was people who were simply trying to stay out of the zerg and have fun in a smaller fight. One day, The Developers decided to listen to the people and put a lattice over Amerish. When this happened the people rejoiced, For they believed ghost capping would be gone forever. Unfortunately, Ghost capping was only empowered completely, But instead of being on one or two bases, It moved to entire continents. To this day there are some who regret their decisions to break Amerish's freedom, And to them I say: You will reap what you sow.
Hex was terrible. What I'd rather see is most bases removed from lattice, leaving only facilities and larger bases in the lattice, and make the other smaller bases spawn outposts that can be captured if close enough to a lattice base you own. This would allow some limited "back capping" but only for strategically giving your faction a strong point to push from towards the base of interest... and then make sure there's a lot more lattice links of those remaining bases connected to each other, so it's less of a straight line and more a web. Owning of spawn outpusts could affect capture times of bases perhaps, or maybe lattice base "influence cloud" affects how quick and easy it is to flip one of these bases over yourself. This could add some extra benefit to owning the outposts around the primary lattice fights, and/or make back-capping enemy a lil slower and recapping more friendly side outposts quicker. To fix redeploy side, you can spawn anywhere that isn't in progress of being flipped. (has capture bar, all the way until fully secured) For outposts, maybe require being under influence cloud of lattice base that is not in contest (ie; you could spawn at an out post as long as you can spawn at at least one lattice base that extends influence cloud over that outpost)
Playing this game without lattice always reminded me of those chase scenes from Benny Hill. Cue the music...
You know, for some reason I have noticed that most of lattice and big fights complainers have infiltrator icons and showoff of auraxiumed SMGs in their signature. Talk about ghostcappers...
as great of a suggestion as this is, i remember it being raged at so hard and so violently at the time that it still gives me a nosebleed. i think it was just because "lattice" was a PS1 concept. as such it was viewed as sacrosanct and infallible, and any opposition or suggestion of hybrid solutions was met with immediate outrage. i remember the problems of hex too, but i also remember a lot of the issues stemming from other mechanics that have changed since, and simply from players making choices that abused those mechanics. if we look back i wonder if we can identify which of those issues still persist and whether hex itself is still as bad as it was, or if we could make the changes today that would have fixed it then. i personally remember one major issue simply being that people follow platoon leaders, especially large outfits and newbs. they'd join in search of focused gameplay and instead, they'd get leaders who wanted to avoid big conflicts. i specifically remember leaders who hated the old Crown just because everyone wanted to fight there and not play their boring ghostcap merry-go round. i'm not saying it was perfect at all. i definitely think the hybrid approach i suggested would help. but i also think some base design philosophy should be reviewed as well. i think the quote from Ronin Oni above hits very close to the mark, but i also think it would then be worth it to review the value of the old tech plant and Crown designs that made for longer, more intense battles.
The problem was that, in terms of effectiveness in claiming territory, locking into battle was a losing proposition. Ghost capping as many bases as you can while preventing the enemy from doing the same with slightly larger forces was the name of the game. Any fight that dragged on for more than a couple minutes was a waste of time unless you had a significantly smaller player count tying up a larger player count time. I dunno, I think the points of interest need to be focused, but the small bases cannot hold that larger focus of combatants. They tried to scale up some bases that just still don't support it, because at that critical mass vehicles just lay waste to too much of the base. I think a sort of hybrid is the best way to go. I always did really. Small bases allow for some skirmishing and giving smaller squads something to do to help the greater faction by securing or defending spawn options that surround the larger fights. remember when Facilities had satellites before they were turned into their own bases entire? It allowed the attacking faction to set up staging areas to attack from, there were skirmishes at and between them, and it helped spread out the massive multiple platoon fighting off just swarming 'A' point. Many of the smaller and skydock type bases should only be strategic locations providing avenues of attack. I imagine the outpost bases would draw off power from nearest lattice link when that phase of resource overhaul is finally completed.... In any case, I can understand the frustration with current lattice, but I still hold to it being better for battles than old Hex. There's just many bases that have no business being in the lattice at all, so we need a new "outpost" system of sorts to remove smaller bases from the lattice links, and increase # of links at the remaining lattice bases to allow for more options and strategy.
Yup...I want the devs to realize that Territory 2.0 would balance out some of the 'problems' with the current lattice (redeployside, stalemates, lack of choices.). They went from one extreme (Hex) to another (Attack Lanes)... The thing is, I was really hopeful about it when Higby actually showed interest in the idea: Several mock-ups have sprung up, I like to refer to Vindicore's example: https://sites.google.com/site/planetsideupgradeproject/home/planetside-2/terrain/territory-2-0 Just need to shove it in the devs face!! (love you guys, but seriously...all you gotta do is change around some adjacency rules...i would hope)
i agree 100% with where you're coming from. first of all there's a definition we have to get sorted, because "ghostcapping" has two meanings today. the way we're using it in reference to the hex territory system meant that 1 person would take an esf and flip 2 or three points without staying at the bases. the enemy commander would see 1-12 in each of those because the system has a bit of lag and leaves behind a "ghost" who is nowhere to be found when their forces arrive to secure the point. the way people mostly mean it today is that a large group of people steamroll an empty base and wait for the timer to wind down. call that what you may, they are both symptoms of problematic gameplay. we want the player's best interest to be finding conflict that is population-appropriate for the base they're in or around, and if there is a zerg steamrolling we want them funneled into a base that breaks zergs by design like the old Crown did. that's why PL hated it so much, if you recall. it broke vehicle zergs like waves on a rocky shore. you go right up the lane to the old Crown and in minutes that majestic parkinglot you'd gotten to Zurvan was history and you had 48 men happily trickling uphill having the time of their lives. now that we've identified that i also want to clarify that much of the steamroll effect of old hex, the main reason you had to adopt the strategy of ghostcapping territory, was that territory (and exp gain!) was tied to resources. remember? that was a major problem in two distinct ways, again creating two problems. the first was that the faction steamrolling most effectively took away the ability for the side losing ground to pull equal amounts of vehicles. it was a negative feedback loop that enforced the idea that defending was useless. at the very least, lattice and the removal of territory-resource hamhandedly fixed that. and so i'm not sure that tying lattice to nanites is the right way to do things. the second problem was that certain places, like Allatum biolab, were infantry resource gold mines. two or even three whole factions would cram in there and spam C4, MAX units, AI mines and grenades/rez grenades. sure it could be kindof fun, and great certs, but it tied up battle flow in a bad way because of a positive feedback loop in which using infantry resource to gain xp refilled infantry resource which gained you more infantry resource. at least now there's a 4 minute timer on refilling 2 bricks of C4 and a minimum threshold of 7 minutes that you have to keep a MAX up in order to chain pull. but wait, there's more! let's move back out into the field, and look at how sunderers were pulled. back then, there was a small cert investment for AMS, and it cost mech. resource, and there was a timer that began at what? 15 mins? nowadays every swinging dlck in the platoon can just about pull two AMS sundies back to back every 15 mins. that's a huge difference, and not really a bad one in my opinion. again i almost 100% agree with what you're saying and suggesting. i think hybrid lattice regions with influence or regional benefit is a great idea. a return to the old outpost system of surrounding strategic bases and hardened central facilities would be a good way to go. but here's where i think we should focus the discussion next: population caps for spawn rooms. i feel like we should balance the steamrolling problem from both sides, to make defending as much of a logistical challenge as attacking. if spawn rooms are rated to accept spawns only at pop caps, then both contesting factions will need to rely on pulling and defending mobile, player driven spawns like AMS, beacons, and Gal/Valk drops. the small bases won't (as often at least) get swarmed by 48 players from the spawn tubes, or surrounded by masses of vehicles, unless those are on the way to be broken against a tech plant or other large facility. i think the pop caps that should be put in place are probably pretty obvious; 12-24 at outposts, 24-48 at towers/3 point bases, and unlimited in the major facilities. it would create a creeplike spawn-wave effect from the smaller bases, and shift focus to the AMS and other mobile-spawn strategies, and create tangible gameplay incentive for their defense. i'm not saying i have the answers. i'm saying we're getting close to the right discussion. i'm interested to see what you and others think. i suspect that if we can get to a good place with regards to balancing defense of the big facilities and supporting regions, then it will be natural to move on to actual warpgate sieges and intercontinental offensives that work better than the halfarsed locking mechanism we have now. of course the joke is that the players can figure out what the best structure would be, but the developers have to actually do some work to bring it to that point. and since that would "cost money" or even simply "require people to do a job" it's not likely to happen.