Higby on rule sets and lattice

Unfortunately for a good section of the community (shall we say 30%?), the situation is completely reversed. It's lattice they hate and it's lattice (in part) that will drive them away.

Can the game afford to lose 30% of the population?

I think not.

Yes and no.
What matters is the number of links, for example this quick, dirty little number:

This is based off the current hex lattice of Amerish, and you can obviously see the links I would cut. around 30 in total. No one would confuse that for a hex system, but no one would think it's the current Indar style lattice system. Keeping strategic choice for commanders is possible under the lattice, but it requires the abandonment of the concept of lanes which is what the current lattice is built on.

How many have been lost due to the Hex? 30% may dislike it, but 30% will not leave, just as many who dislike the hex have stayed to play. Some will leave because of the lattice, and the lattice will attract some of those back who have left.

I'm going to update my game tonight just so I can get a little taste of the lattice, even if it it's not tweaked yet.

The bottom line is, the Hex was a chaotic, random, unpredictable mess. Crown farming, Boredom Lab fights, ghost capping. The rest of the action felt 'stringy', like wet string hanging from a clothes line blowing in the wind. There's no point to wet string blowing in the wind, except that, it's....wet string blowing in the wind.

That is the basic argument of some here. It's a shooter game, you shoot people. Everything else is viewed as irrelevant and is just candy for the kiddies who will one day grow up and realize that the only thing a shooter game really needs is guns.

There truly are, many people, who don't care about any depth beyond, "I shot you, you're dead", "Now I shot you, now you're dead". I'm trying to figure out whether their lives are so boring that boring games seem normal to them, or their lives are so boring that any game that does anything at all is exciting to them. Or perhaps depth in an fps is too much like an RTS or RPG. I wonder how many who bash fps depth have a strong distaste for rts and rpg games, and perhaps prefer racing games, where the only thing that matters is zipping around in circles. Either way, I'm amazed that this crowd has flocked to PS2 when there are so many other pew pew games to choose from.

So, the lattice. What is it that will be so devastating to Hex lovers? Is it the lack of ghost capping? The inability to zerg empty bases? Will they miss 'strategically' dodging enemy zergs so they can take a 10 minute coffee break at the next empty base? Is it true that, they are actually, genuinely terrified of what this game was supposed to offer in the first place? That being, meaningful, massive, constant firefights over territory that actually has value of some kind and serves an ultimate objective?

I have always gotten the impression that the Hex crowd wants to be able to just screw around and hang loose. You know, have a drink, zip around, shoot a lil' bit, chat.

The continual misunderstanding of 'end game'. The end game in the typical shooter is to win the darn game. You wouldn't watch a sporting event expecting the teams to walk away at the end with no score and no winner, would you. So, shooters have winners and losers.

In PS2, the game doesn't end, so instead there are other options, or.....there should be. Continent locks do not interest me in the slightest; it would take too long to explain why now, but base lockouts interest me greatly, but, the impression I get is that they still have not been implemented.

Base lockouts would allow for a stair step style progression across the map. A true feeling of accomplishment as you work across the map. Then combine a global scoreboard which keeps track of the number of bases captured by each faction, and how long each continent is held, and you have something that everyone can look at over time and say, "Yes, we did good that week, but lost it the next". Simple. (Have they implemented a global scoreboard yet?)

This game needs continual big fights, even if it has to force it on us. And it needs meaning, just like a real war. The pew pew crowd is just going to have to come to grips with that, otherwise, there's always Counter Strike.

Everything you wrote after that tidbit is pointless. You are throwing out stereotypical excuses regarding the dislike for Hex. For example:

Crown fights blamed on Hex: Dumb association... Crown fights attracted people because it was a defendable base. The current crown has 2 bases on 2 bridges. Put this "new" Crown on a Hex map, and it would just be a standard cap like all other bases currently. The fact that the old Crown attracted such a crowd should have been a wake up call for the forum fighters and SOE alike. People want defensible bases that act as a force multiplier for the defenders.

Boredome biolab fights: Umm, you should play the game with lattice before making these absurd correlations. That had nothing to do with Hex and is proven by the fact that they STILL happen with Lattice.

Ghostcapping: This is a generic term thrown around by forum fighters. There is no "real" definition. To some, it means capping a base that has almost no defense. To others, it means flipping the point and leaving the base to let it flip on its own. By either definition, "ghostcapping" is still alive and strong in Lattice. If this was the demise of Hex, well let me inform you: Lattice didn't fix it.

The inability to zerg empty bases: See my ghostcapping comments above. This still happens on Lattice.

Meaningful, massive, constant firefights over territory that actually has value of some kind and serves an ultimate objective: Umm, what? Meaningful in what way? This game is still a big TDM with Lattice. Massive, yeah. But I had massive in Hex too. Territory that actually has value? How so? In what way does territory have more value in Lattice? All I see is colors yo-yo'ing across Lattice lines as faction populations wax and wane. What is the ultimate objective in PS2? Capping a continent? Prior to GU11, neutralizing a continent during prime time on Hex was very difficult. On Lattice it was impossible. But really, PS2 has no objective, Lattice or not.

So in the end, all the Hex hate you justified with your comments is all rehashed, tired, old and incorrect propaganda. If you're not even playing, why did you bother?

The bottom line on your server perhaps.

The hex for me on Woodman/Miller was never as you describe.

I guess it must have been very server dependent.

Even if you add "generators" in every base, it'll be the same:
You will have a number of readily available objectives equal to those in the Hex.



Hell, it existed in PS1.
"Ghost hackers" going around every single base blowing up generators, turrets, and stuff.

You had depth that did not revolve around capping.
But "annoying" nonetheless

Probably the best description of the sorts of options, decisions and tactical possibilities under hex that wouldn't have been possible under lattice I've read on these forums. An objective, initial plan followed by several branches and fragmentary orders with initiative and maneuver as the situation developed. Excellent. Fun to lead and fun to participate in as long as the leadership is communicating with the players.

To be honest - the Lattice system is not really an 'improvement' over the hex system. It does funnel attackers, which means part of the strategy element is dumbed down to people knowing the for sure 'defendable paths'.

As much as I don't like blackcats, he is right. It is a bandaid, as it still leaves how bases inbetween the big bases are designed somewhat not corrected. There are still several places, even after the revamp, where I can still park a tank and spam HEAT/HE on infantry going out to try and defend, and does not lend well for stopping air from f-ing up defenders. Some areas have improved a little, other areas have not.

Hahahaha yup. Exactly............

By that logic it will lose a lot more if they had decided to keep the hex system. Will be interesting to see how the numbers do once they put the lattice on Esamir and Amerish. I mean according to this forum PS2 should have died at least 4 months ago. That's certainly not the case, Miller is full again just matter of days after they put it on the server list again.

Anyway, its not like anyone is going to miss the (alleged) 30% of the population who either got ignored or squashed on the hex.

The issue I keep going back to is that these "strategies" available in the old Lattice that are revered directly showed how uneventful capturing a base was. That strategies involve capturing bases, in order to capture bases. Without more things mattering, players will eventually figure out how inconsequential capturing a base is. In the new Lattice, it is not so easy to capture a base, losing or gaining a base requires effort and is not a tool to enact tactics and strategies, it is (should be) the reward of implemented tactics and strategies.

More depth is required beyond capturing bases. After we have some actual depth maybe some real strategy can occur.

did someone already mention the little Heil Hitler at 33:41?

I did get sloppy by lumping things together without clarifying. I'm well aware of the poor base designs, but I also believe that the core elements are inherently connected. If it's still just as bad, my first question would be, 'what are the server populations like now'? No matter how well the design is, if the server pops are low, the machine will not function well.

Bases need work yes, but how do you get to the bases, and why? What is the map wide objective? (those are rhetorical questions, btw)

Ghost capping really means, 'broken capture mechanism'. Furthermore, the biggest problem in the past with ghostcapping was low populations. I don't know what the pops are like now, put maintaining high populations has always been a critical factor in this game. Nothing truly works right without it, unless all a person is concerned with is the 'pew pew', which many seem to be.

This sounds like a population problem. Lots of emptys on low pop, not so many on very-high pop. Not to say that the Lattice doesn't need tweaking.

Yeah, I had massive too, mainly at the Crown and biolab, with the occassional tech or amp, but they were more on the rare side for me, and they were boring, and not just because of the base design, or even the benefit of capturing the base, but also the method of progression across the map, i.e., hex.

The objective and 'end game' is something they have to work on.

Because I was a good boy, and did what I was told. We were told, "if you don't like the game, come back in 6 months". So I'm back to check it out. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that Lattice didn't solve every problem. I wouldn't expect it too, not after having waited this long and damaging populations with so many issues.

Connery was (is) mine. Yeah, it was bad.

I agree with you completely.

Been on connery since it was connery, you must not play during the same times that I play, because I have not seen this there.

The little constant explosions you see on the map, this means stuff.

The hex system is only crap because the base designs are horrible for defense and don't really promote decent fights. Out of all of the maps, Amerish is the only one with actual terrain handicaps that do force a certain combat fight and some points in Indar, but the rest, it is easy to skirt around planned defenses and also attack places where your defenders can't provide decent defenses.

Someone linked crown as being the problem with Hex. This is not so. The crown, the way it was, was one of the few places people could get to to get into a big fight. People were drawn to it because you have the ability to defend and fight from there. The rest of the bases were not so and even more craptastic because they lent so well to vehicle spamming where as Crown and Biolabs did not. And no, this isn't purely on an NC conjecture, but VS and TR as well. The next only place similar to the Crown now on indar is Scarred Mesa, but it is only fought by two factions instead of two, and is still a highly defendable area due to the fact there is only 1 way to get to the capture point from the ground, easily defended, and narrow air approaches, which again, makes it hard to assault, but limited to two factions fighting due to where it is.

While the lattice helps funnel people to make it easier to defend, the simple fact is, that with the current base designs, you need this as a bandaid, when real warfare is a bit more fluid than this.

Base design has nothing to do with lack of defence. As has been pointed out many times, defending anything on the hex system is a total waste of time. Whats the first thing that anyone does when they see a group defending a base? Back caps them. Defenders hold one hex, the enemy gains five.

People only went to the crown because it was famous for its battles and easy to reach for all 3 empires. There were probably plenty of players that had no idea if it was easier or harder to defend than some other bases, because they never bothered to fight for them.

That's a failure of the defenders, not the hex system.

No, It IS a failure of the hex system. As it is, defenders are stuck in a no win scenario. The only options available to them are either:

1) Stay and defend their base, at which point, as Zukhov pointed out, the enemies completely ignore them in favor of capturing the surrounding hexes,
or
2) Spread out and try to cover as many bases as possible, at which point they are spread so thin, that the attackers can practically blow down the defenses on all of the hexes in order to make them collapse like a deck of cards.

No matter what they do, it is physically impossible for the defenders to win, specifically because there is nothing forcing attackers to commit to capturing a base if it displays even a token resistance, in favor of taking over empty bases that pose no challenge.