Concerns about upcomming Esamir map changes

Hi all

Just watched the Friday night ops. where some of it was dedicated to talk about the introduction of lattice to Esamir.

As a Driver, who specialises in anti armor work, and am part of a small outfit. we have often specialised in small guerilla attacks on larger Armor groups, flanking and the like.

Currently out of all the continents, Esamir supports this best, due to its open area,s allowng many angles to attack from on a ground vehicle, while at the same time providing just enought cover to sneak up on people.

Now regarding my converns. After the introduction of Lattice to Indar, alot of map changes more or less funneled vehicles into a small roads, or ravines, with little to no way of flanking in a vehicle.

Often this means both sides start sniping at each other, which I know some players enjoy and thats good for them.
But it also means those of us, who enjoy flanking, even more so, those of us, who do it using close range AV. (Vulcan forexample). loose the ability to do so without having to recklessly charging straight into several sniper canons.

I understand that different continents support different gameplay, atleast thats how I see it. But please don't get so focused on controlling the flow, that it, removes our choices of going from A to B. The Sheer existance of a lattice link, already goes a long way to control that.

I hope it doesn't go lattice, nor get the restricted terrain treatment.

If it needs any changes, I'd promote one of the bases into a tech plant--it's current got the best tank terrain in the game and least resources available to use them.

As long as they input lattice without changing terrain, i'm happy. I love the openness of Esamir. As a sniper, hills on Indar are a b*tch to climb.

There's no reason they have to change the terrain, PS1 had open continents with lattice and it was great (and that's what I think/hope Esamir will be like).

Having said that I support their changes to bases in Esamir (walls/shields etc.) and adding some trees.

Esamir is the one continent where vehicle combat really dominants. Its in many ways its niche.

And they appear to want to remove that.

Unless said shields are able to be taken down fairly easily, they are in my opinion something that removes the esamir from esamir.


Also there is no need to remove the sweeping terrain, the base capture logic being simplified does not necessitate this.

Seems like a valid concern. Hopefully they don't make the whole map "infantry only", but from the sound of it they were only planning on making a few bases "infantry only", and I have a suspicion those bases already were a ***** to drive through as a tank and not intended to be driven through.

The wide open spaces between bases really are quite fun to drive through, and they would be stupid to completely change that.

Just been playing on Esamir all morning. IT was wonderful to get away from the joke that is lattice.

I really hope they don't add any form of lattice nonsense to Esamir (or any other continents).

Also just had a really close fought alert - a DRAW ! Never seen a draw before.

That makes it easier to flank. Everyone is going to the next base, which is predictable.
Geography hasn't changed on Indar, the only thing that's changed is the path your enemy takes.

The Endar geography actually has had massive changes in attempt to make the artificial lettuce system (jk) more "logical." Esamir would need an entire facelift to do something similar--one that complete change the character of it's vehicle combat.

Esamir is hog-heaven for lolpod spawn camping, anything that reduces that is a good thing for the game.

The lattice has been the best improvement to the game thus yet. I have seen more tactics and coordination than ever before and I hope it is applied to all the continents. The lattice implementation on Indar has only needed the removal of certain outposts which were clogging up battle lanes and giving people less room to use tactics. For an open continent like Esamir I hope they do not change any terrian when they implement the lattice. Esamirs open ground we can all agree aids vehicle combat more than any other continent but the addition of the lattice will only enhance this inherent trait. Before the lattice defenders had the hardest time doing what they had to do defend. With the lattice you can predict where the enemy will attack next. In that respect it limits movement options for an advancing army but what it allows people to do instead is use flanking maneuver s and tactics to capture or defend that next facility. Before the defenders had no idea where to go to fight the enemy zerg resulting in the zerg arriving, securing and camping the defenders spawn before the defenders could defend. This is a problem on Esamir and the lattice can fix that.

And a combined arms game in which vehicles are largely superfluous is good game design because?

I really don't see that much lolpod spawn camping, not since everyone got busters.

And this move also permanently shuts down the possibility of artillery making an impact as well.

Its not a good design decision.

I hope not, or most likely I will be done. Don't touch my beloved Esamir.

the removal of the road between tawrich/broken arch and xenotech labs is one of the more obvious examples. no lattice link, so they just totally removed the ground route.

Lolpodding isn't combined arms though, it's what happens then the supposed air superiority fighter is actually the most effect ground attack system too (especially when all rolled up in a single person vechicle).

It was a hideous balance mistake by SOE.

There's a few ways to fix it, but it looks like they are going for shields.

you realize that to get to that next base on the lattice you dont have to follow the yellow brick road right? this is not the dark tower where you and your ka-tet have to follow the path of the beam. stray away from it and go around. you can attack a base from any angle you want. you can even find that base behind the frontline where people are pulling their reinforcements from and start doing harassment strikes or start booby trapping well traveled roads.

before on the hex system, this was still possible yes, but it was also alot more likely you were just wasting your time and resources. it was not uncommon for people to see an ambush in the area, lol, then just go around. who cares if you have to fight the enemy, it was more about capping bases and coloring the map. not fighting. now, you have to fight and operate on a combat level. small squad play has become so much more rewarding when you see you can actually make a difference that is noticeable.

I honestly don't see mass lolpodding anymore, the counter to it exists in strong AA options both in the form of the buster max and the skyguard.

Does no one on your server have these?

The only time you see significant numbers of A2G ESF's getting to the point where they can camp a spawn on miller, is when the ground battle is already firmly lost.

If someone is with the Zerg in PT it is usually limited these days.

If someone is playing offpeak, on the not most constested continent (which is often Esamir), or (epecially with one or both of the former) moving/attacking some distance fromt the Zerg it is still pretty rampant.

It's also rampant, as you say, when one faction gets up to 50+% of the continent pop and everyone else may as well just log off or log to an alt.

I have to agree here...I dislike this continent due to it being so open but I also think it would be a huge mistake to take that away...keep it mostly intact when you put in lattice and I think it would go a long way in keeping people happy.

How is implementing a lattice altering the terrain so you can't flank? You can drive pretty much anywhere on Esamir.