Lattice vs hex : how about neither

Ok here's the idea.

Remove the lattice lines

That's it. Remove them and don't use hex rules as well. Cap what you can hold.

People will say this will start ghost capping. But with the current alert system and only playing two continents typically, this would force a game where you wouldn't be able to extend too far, but also making sure you can defend what you took.

It would force more natural battle lines and add a more organic flow to the game. This would allow the player base to be creative and add a new dimension to game play.

I'd like to think that's true, but I feel like it would end up more like Whack-A-Mole: Zerg Elite

Before we continue down this train of thought, please offer your ruminations of the most likely (or expectant) form that inter-factional combat would assume under your "all doors open" system.

More like Clash of Zergs.

You and this Zerg........................

That's kind of what we have now. At least they can be funneled into each other so that they cancel out in a 4 hour biolab fight. Imagine if they were given the freedom to just ghost cap?

Hell, I don't even know what would happen.

This is why we need a wonky ruleset server that changes daily. Make a fake continent and try lattice, hex, freeform. Just see what happens over time. And when you also give maxes jetpacks, and everyone free MBTs, or unlimited C4 on various days... egads, the videos alone would quadruple PS2's overall pop.

I would expect to see a lot of main base battles tech plants etc. you would also see lots of 3 way fights as they wouldn't be limited to just certain parts of the map. But then again in a free form , sandbox, anything can occur. you name it it could happen. there would be no funnel and people will go where they go.

There might be something too this. To avoid lone wolf ghost capping, just require every control point to have 3 people on it to flip it.

This ensures there's some sort of fight at any base you respond to.

one thing I miss the most about Hex was our air team being useful as heavy recon. we would use the lib to search and destroy vehicles, deploy LA from the tail to place (and kill) MLG beacons, then dismount and either do the clear ourselves if it made sense, or get AMS in place for a platoon redeploy if it turned out to be actually warranted.

It doesn't matter daybreak has their own plans

You're new, aren't you?

Some long time ago, PS2 didn't have lattice, and it was indeed "cap what you want" system. And you're right, it was endless ghostcapping between half the population, while the other half was fighting for the Crown, which was a bit different base back then.

You could also Instant Action on top of any fight.

In fact, I vaguely remember one of my first days in PS2. There was no tutorial at the time, the faction leader would read a motivational speech and then you were instant actioned to a random fight.

So I joined one of the squads, and I remember some comm chatter about how it is double XP and let's all just farm. And that farming consisted of standing around in a base without any enemies and watching the very long cap timer tick.

Back then you also had to stand near the capture point to actually cap the base.

I had no idea what was going on, so I just went along with it.

So yeah, ghostcappig we would have.

This could work only at one condition: the capture timer should stop and eventually reset if attackers do not stick to capture points. And if they do not reach a certain number then the timer should be rather slow.

Until one lone wolf can land, flip the points then take off again there is no way to get rid of the lattice system, forget it. Conquest Mode proved this perfectly last June.

Btw that was the way the game used to work in the beginning. It has been changed because players felt bored ti be forced on capture points instead of being allowed to camp the spawn room.

So, its basically going to be crown or ghost cap. Again.

I guess with a completely open door policy, the fears about ghost capping would be in some way allayed by the fact that it doesn't really matter in the same way it did with hex adjacency. If some lone infi wants to stealth into territory next to the warpgate and set the timer off, who cares? It isn't going to stop you being able to attack wherever you wanted to, or go where you wanted to.

Might need to revisit how quickly these bases actually flip under those conditions, and how quickly they could be reset should anyone decide to go and defend, but I quite like the idea in principle (so long as everyone doesn't just gather at the Crown 24/7). It may even be the catalyst for getting people to think about logistics rather than redeployside.

I was thinking about this a bit further and it could work. And it could give a ton of options and playstyles that normally don't work currently.

First of all, Ghost Capping. Let me point out that this was my biggest complaint about the Hex System. However.. the Hex System didn't cause this. The way you capture points did. In fact with the Lattice System they made it WORSE. Again, not the way the lattice works, but the control points.

In the Hex System, control points had a number. Usually 2, 3, or 6. Small bases usually used 3, larger bases used 2 per point, and bases like Techplants and Amp Stations with their single point used 6. What this number meant is if you filled it up with people next to the point, the base would capture twice as fast.

Why did Ghost Capping happen? Because you weren't required to keep anyone on point. It just capped slower.

Why is Ghost Capping Worse with Lattice? Because like the hex system, you don't need to keep people on point. AND it caps as fast whether they are there or not.

The only thing reining in ghost capping now is the fact that there are only 3-5 bases you can do it to, unlike the 6-12 per continent in the hex system.

With that being said. It can be fixed and should be fixed even if we keep the lattice by REQUIRING a number of players to be on point. Falling below the number slowly returns the cap to the defender. I would use the old numbers. The singular large bases need 6 per point. Small bases require 3 on their point. And large bases require 2 per point.

That fixes ghost capping. Well mitigates it. It means you have to put effort into a ghost cap. Even to take a small base requires Three players to sit on it for the full 4 minutes. So if you have three lanes on your back side and the enemy wishes to ghost cap.. if one is a Techplant, one a small base, and one a large base.. it would take 15 players total working together.

That's 15 not on the main front. And 15 that can easily be wiped out by a single squad, move from the small base, to techplant (easier, one point) and then the large base. That could be plenty to stop ANY of them from capping. So ghost capping is still possible.. but not generally effective.

So what would this do to a non-hex/lattice system? Well it means you can spread yourself out, or condense your forces. Everyone would be able to do this.

What I like about a non-hex/lattice system is it lends itself well to a resource stage 2. Imagine if each base generated nanites. And then think for a moment what that would do if it required your faction to have connection to the warpgate on its territories to get those nanites.

Attacking beyond your reach means not getting anything for it other than VPs or cutting off enemy supply lines. But moving slowly from your warpgate ensures nanite production keeps coming in.

So what do you do? Try for all the outposts, or the slow but sure crawl through the map? Choices are always good. And this is why I think the new system lends itself well. Especially with the new ANT and player made bases. There's a lot of possibilities here.

I think this would bring back ghost capping as well. Even if you implemented a required players number for each base it would still happen simply because all it takes is for one player to place down a sunderer and then others will spawn in if they are in range.

This would seem to remove a lot of the strategic elements from the game, you would no longer have to fight your way through to the major bases, just do a drop on them immediately, job done.

How would you defend against anything? There are no good tools for coordinating the playerbase, you would only be able to slowly react to bases coming under attack which would always put the defender at a disadvantage. The maps are also too large to effectively create a unified front with the number of players on each faction, so it will be easy for each team to push past and capture rear bases.

I think a lot of problems with the current lattice are less about the system and more about the map design. There are too many places where the layout simply forces you to go through a strong point and there is no alternative or flanking route. They seem designed to create stalemates in many cases. This may be fine however if warp gates become attackable, in that case the rare scenario where the strong points are broken through will actually matter, instead of being reversed within 30 minutes.

Just make it so that the points auto return to the host faction ownership unless somebody stands there and holds it.

which would make ghost capping, impossible. problem solved.

they are talking about 48 guys zerging an empty base, or maybe spawn camping like 2 defenders. they call that "ghost capping." you would think it means the other thing, where you flip a point and leave, so that when defenders arrive the 1-12 shown in the map turns out to be no one. but that's not what they mean. "but people Zerg empty bases all the time, even more with lattice, really. " you might say to me. and I would reply yes, yes they do.

There is no ghost capping in this system. There are bases that you took that you no longer can defend or want to defend.

By having no adjacency or lattice rules you only get to hold what you can keep. You don't get the force your way across a continent with a 5% pop advantage.

Like real war. Take it to the next level.

The problem with requiring defenders to always need to be near the point means that defending the point as attackers stops being dynamic. In other words, when you are attacking, you have you to stay in the point zone, and when defending, your first and last line shouldn't be in the same place, otherwise that's poor defending.

Yeah, having a minimum person requirement on a point would stagnate ghost capping, but it would also stagnate battles to be nothing but a slog for the point room. I know that fights can often be like that anyway, but requirements will force it to always be so.

My daft idea is a joint lattice and hex system. Hex is simple, you can go cap territory which touches territory you own. However, for Tech plants, Biolabs and amp stations, you have to own key places along the system, which are connected by spaced lattice links. Key places would be places like the Ascent and NC arsenal on Amerish, multiple point bases that are usually harder to capture. Of course, you can hex cap your way to a tech plant and take it away from the opposing faction, but it's no use unless you own the lattice links

Prepare to fight on Indar for eternity. Or Hossin.