Is this game really 'Massive scale?'

rekt

This is why I like roaming with rocketpods on an esf, better feeling of scale to roam between battles.

I certainly wouldn't mind if we got huge artillery emplacements that could fire over 2km and destroy four tanks bunched up together really tightly though.

Obviously they'd have to get rid of hit indicators for that, you'd have to have a forward fire control team to direct shots.

Yes and No.

Sometimes the game plays out like a small FPS: handful of troops on both side contesting a small base. (think small 2 faction base fight)

Sometimes the game plays out like a MMOFPS: massive troop movements, over all three continents, contesting for shared objectives. (think Capture All X Alert, where one faction isn't the dominant population and everybody else gives up)

If the game struggles with total population, the MMOFPS element dies. If the game struggles with population balance between faction, the MMOFPS element dies. So in practical terms this means that the game can fluctuate between MMOFPS and Small Scale Deathmatch FPS. And which one it is depends on how well SOE is getting players into the game and how well they are motivating players to balance factions and engage each other.

Lack of multi-zone & mutual objectives, existing lack of multi-zone coordination and communication tools in the game, population imbalance, low population, and lattice, all contribute to pushing engagement to be more non-MMOFPS. When the game first launched, The Crown and surrounding area definitely was a very large scale engagment. (though not a Continent-wide or Mulch-Continent scale you can *sometimes* get with the Alerts)

Your example really isn't a good one for covering the issue. Specifically because it is an area that severely limits the play area and mobility of most units:
1) the extreme terrain elevation and very limited travel routes from Howling Pass to NS Materials keeps ground forces at NS Offices from being able to impact the Howling-Material Front. It also limits the ability of grounds troops from Howling able to use AV well vs. units either defending Material or even pushing South.
2) This area is on the Eastern edge of the map, so there are NO zones or lattice connections to the East of Material or Howling. Again, this severely limits the scale of the engagement. Being on an edge and with only 3 total lattice connections to the 2 bases of the Howling-Material front, so it is extremely difficult to get all 3 factions involved here.

Pick a place more Central on the Map, with less extreme terrain elevation differences, greater mobility route options for ground forces on both sides, and more Lattice connections, and you will see areas that see more multi-zone tactic engagements. Sometimes battles stall and become marathon battles at certain choke points on the map, because those area are much harder for one side to advance and units get stuck in. But such choke point areas are often poor examples of areas that allow for multi-zone engagements, because they were designed to be choke points and NOT multi-zone engagement areas.

It's a mesh of "Maps" with a preset timer for each "Map". Then deploy elsewhere. Avoid Zerg clashes. Farm. Deploy. Get new vehicle cuz you're out of CD and full of Resources due to farm. 20" to cap = Leave. And so on and forth. Massive scale? Sure, if we count 80 people crammed in what's smaller than the WCs of some of those expensive hotels, with another 80 people right outside, one side playing Peek-A-Boo and the other playing Whack-A-Mole. That's massive. A massive Fail. This extends to vehicles more than we'd think, definitely, make no mistake about it. Massive random, frantic exchange of CQC InstaGibs in copied environments. "Massive" being relevant to total player count too.