Lattice System.... Not a good idea.

Im posting this here, taking a post i made on the General Discussion board in response to a Thread started by someone else. Figured posting it here would make it more visible to the Dev's as its related to the Test Server more than the 'live' server.

More and more i am beginning to again feel that PS2 was made for the COD crowd, not the PS1 vets. I think i said this back in Beta when complaining how MBT's were 'one-man-amy' machines instead of vehicles that required teamwork.

The changes already made to the capture mechanics and the new Lattice system are examples of this.

SOE Does this alot. They will make a game with great gameplay ideas and features, then over the course of months, or years, dumb it down to the point where its 'just another game'.

I HATE the loss of Influence effects
I HATE the new 'timer' system.
I am going to HATE the lattice system.

What SOE needed to do to make things more interesting was simple and could have been done back when the game first launched... but they didnt do it.

What was needed? A simple "IF / Then" check placed into the capture mechanics of the outposts and facilities which checked to see if the neighboring/connected territory was connected to the empires warpgate. IF it was, THEN allow it to be captured/attacked. IF not, THEN dont allow it to be captured/attacked.

What this would have done is made 'back-hacking' an even more VALID tactic as the cutting off of an enemy's territory from its warpgate would STOP that cut off land from being able to continue moving forward (cutting off resources is nice, but doesn't mean a whole lot when someone can simply warp to another continent for 30 mins, then come back with full resources). This would have instantly put a stop the map-wide circle-chase that happens currently, would make the cutting off of land from its warpgate actually MEAN something, and would still give us the freedom to pick our battles rather than be forced into a meat-grinding tunnel (which is what the Lattice system is).


Rather than force us into meat-grinding tunnels (lattice system) which will just enhance PS2's most glaring problem (30m draw-distances on infantry when more than 100 people are fighting at a base, due to the Active Draw System), Do the following?


Put back in Influence.
Take away that silly timmer system.
Add in that IF/Then check.
Watch more Tactics being used
Watch people enjoy the game again.

Well you can't really say the lattice was made for the COD crowd since PS1 had it.
But it also had so much more.

What it didn't have was smaller outposts.
Towers kinda felt like the equivalent, but a tower itself is smaller than a PS2 spawn room


Every base was a facility, and every facility had a particular Benefit, but also a NTU silo.
How will outposts be taken in account in the lattice is what really differenciates PS1 from PS2 Lattices

All outposts are really in PS2's lattice system are 'extra steps' added in between bases. Nothing more. Instead of going from a Bio-Lab, directly to a Tech Plant, you now go from the Bio-Lab, to a Outpost, to a Tower, to Another outpost, then the Tech Plant.

Its still the 'funnel-system', just with a few extra stops along the way.

And while no, the lattice system isn't necessarily made for the COD crowd, bringing it 'back' is a likely a step towards 'keeping' the COD crowd. That group wants to be able to log in, and 'instantly' find a fight. They dont want to log in and sit there for a moment with their group and go 'ok.. if we go here, we can do this. But if we go there, we'll force the enimy to do this'. No, they want clear-cut, 'go here and only here' battle lines.

Thats what the Lattice System does.

Seing as how the last few updates, including the removal of the influence system, have made this game MORE like PS1, im forced to say that you have no idea what your talking about.

And, sorry to put this bluntly - But as others have said, if you just want to paint the entire map your color, GET A COLORING BOOK.

PS2 exists for fights. Its not a RTS, its an FPSMMO. What you ask for seems to be to just paint the whole damn map your color by wildly running around, capping each and every small base, and never having a fight larger then 12 to 16 men. Well sorry to brake this to you, but theres ways to influence a batte OTHER then to mildly piss your enemies off by making them sit around, killing anyone who pops there head up for a longer period of time. Its called FIGHTING.

I swear to god, if half the people on this forum would lead there squads in organized assaults against sunderers, the zergs would be an extinct species faster then you guys could find a new reason to complain...

Lattice is needed so we can actually have HUGE fights and not several small ones along with several outfits going behind enemy lines to capture bases on the other side of the map just to farm points with ease.

Actualy, the precious lattice system is only going to cause 1 thing.

100%, full time, larg fights.... were you cant see anything beyond 30m.

Why? Because of the Active Draw Distance system that is hardcoded into the game. Even without the lattice system this has reared its ugly head. I can think of quite a few major fights i have been in that came down to people popping up, and disappearing every single second as they passed the 30m mark due to so many people being in 1 area at a time.

Your not going to have your 'massive fights', your going to have hundreds of 30m wide fights scattered over an area with people constantly complaining about lag, and how ammo packs, grenades, and C4 do not work. All the while every vehicle in the area is going to be getting killed within 4 seconds by missles they cant even see, fired by people they again, cant see, even though that person is 40m away standing in the open.

As for wanting to draw the entire map in my color. Who mentioned that?. As it stands right now, we have fighting all over the map.. none of it limited by anything other than 'you must have a land connected to the one you wish to attack'. Does this spread out the fighting? yes. Are there ANY tactics involved? Not really no. Why? Because cutting off enemy territory from their warpgate does nothing worthwhile, Influence is completely gone, so there's really no point in attacking the outlying areas of a major base to 'encircle' it.

Will a Lattice system solve this? No.

What WILL the Lattice system do? Force people to fight at 'specific' points, were the only 'tactics' involved are those that include that immediate fight. Force people into 30m long fire-fights with ghost-avatars, and generally cause the one biggest drawback to PS2 to the forfront.

Getting Rid of the Lattice idea, and instead throwing in that if/then check along wiht a return of influence would:

1: spread the fights out, but STILL cause 'point fights' when factions notice the other trying to cut them off, (or having been cut off) Rush back with a force in order to block the flank attack (or reconnect with their warpgate).

2: Still allow us a bit of freedom to chose were to fight at.

3: Bring back the tactics which let a smaller force take on a larger one that was 'turtled up' inside a base by capturing the surrounding territory then grabbing what they 'could' of the larger one. Which either forced the larger force to come out, or let the smaller one capture the base out from under the larger force.

So then why not just have 3 bases in a map the size of a square kilometer, and jam everyone in between those three bases, and when a base is capped the battle resets?

That way there's none of this "RTS" stuff where you have to think. There's none of these silly small battles on the side. There's none of this "take the continent" objective stuff. It's all just big battles like the game is meant to be right? Right?

The game has a lot of depth, you just don't like it. That's why you like the lattice. It removes the depth that makes the game into a pseudo-RTS that feels like a real war. All you want are giant ADHD-satisfying battles with explosions everywhere (which you can already get, but I guess going to a Bio Lab/Amp Station/Tech Plant on the front lines or to anywhere on Indar is too difficult).

There's no reason to remove any of this stuff except because people like you hate the fact that there's something besides a giant cluster-**** going on, and because people with brains but smaller forces use the map to beat your giant unorganized zergs.

It depends on your objective. Do you want to find the biggest battle and shoot stuff, or claim the most territory for your empire and win?

If people wanted certs they would go to medium-large sized battles. You get way more certs fighting than you do capping bases. The reason people capture territories is because you're not defending them

If the objective is to win, and to win you take territories, it's only logical to capture territories you don't control.

If you lose a territory, it's because you didn't deserve to have it in the first place.

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If the only objective is big battles and everything else is pointless, then just reduce the map to a square kilometer, jam 3 Bio Labs in there, and let everyone zerg. That's what you want after all, right?

No friend, some also want to gain certs without getting killed in the process.....For that purpose empty bases are the best alternative.

The lattice will give more opportunities for tactics. Currently I spend more of my time checking the map and running from base to base fighting 5-10 min battles to use anything other than basic tactics.

Under the hex system no matter how skilfully you defend a position it can easily be bypassed and ignored while the rest of the map is capped. So, skill counts for nothing. You can push a front forward for hours only to find everything behind you capped. There is little point in fighting delaying actions or setting up ambushes (except for fun), simply find a weak hex on the map and cap it asap.

If you hold a base for hours while outnumbered 2-1 then well played, but look at the map - you are now cut off and have to start again from the warpgate.

With the lattice system a skilful defence is actually rewarded, with the hex system its just bypassed.

Similarly if you make a deep push into enemy territory then 9/10 its wasted because all the territory behind you has just been capped by a lone infi. Under the lattice system the enemy has to push you back or put up a decent defence- and if they do try and cut you off you get more then 5mins warning and can make plans to deal with it.

With the lattice system a deep push into enemy territory is a threat, with the hex system you are less than an annoyance.

Personally I enjoy playing on the lattice more because I can focus on battle tactics, rather than checking the map every few mins and sending people all over to resecure bases. With the lattice I will know that defending or attacking a base is worth it and that victory will have an effect on the map.

P.S do not underestimate how much importance people give to base capping xp. The friendly pop of a base usually doubles in the last secs before capture. And just try getting a pub squad to leave a base before the timer is up, they would rather stand at the CP doing nothing rather moving out fast when necessary.

I need to ask, how big have the fights you've been in been?

Less tactics and less strategy on the macro scale. Less tactics even on the micro scale. I fail to see how tactics will be more effective when there are more people there, unless you can coordinate more people. It's like diseconomies of scale, less effective the more you have after a point.

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Being able to choose where to defend and attack, and where to flank are part of strategy and tactics.

You basically sound like you want the only strategy to be attack in a straight line. You're complaining about someone countering your tactics.

Your only macro tactic (as opposed to micro tactic like in-battle), based on what you said above, is attacking head on while ignoring everything else. They counter by repeatedly cutting you off because you don't defend anything else.

Blitzkrieg is alright as long as you maintain a supply line and keep them on a wide defense. What you're doing is pushing ahead and not defending your rear at all, nor spreading the defense thin. Just pushing in a straight line.

You will love the lattice, I agree.

If that if/then check is put in. The MOMENT your 'back' is hacked/captured, your 'front-line' can no longer move, This means you'll HAVE to go back and re-connect your area, There wont be no 'we spend 8 hours going across the map, and now all we have is 1 place surrounded by the enemy 12 hexes away from our warpgate' As you wont be able to GO any further if your not connected. This gives you the 'battles' you want, while also letting people do something other than 'beat their heads against the zerg'.

If you let yourself get cut off that badly, then your 'alimo' is lost. Any army that gets into that position would pull out and try to push back out again.. thats basic warfare.

There wont BE any 'skillful' defences, it'll just be zerg on zerg fights, were masses of people throw themselves at each other, not wholly because they 'want' to, but because that is the ONLY place they can go.

That lone infil can capture the bases behind you because no one CARES about the backfield currently. And Why should they?.. Cutting off a section of land from a warp gate does absolutely nothing at the moment. Resource loss is a joke when you can simply jump to another continent for a few mins, then return with a full supply. If you literally CAN NOT MOVE FORWARD the instant that lone infiltrator cuts you off. Then you'll start to see people actually caring about what happens in the rear of the field again.

Even with the Lattice system, you'll see people not caring about the backfield as you CAN (barely) bypass places with the lattice system, though you can only do this from 'hubs' such as the Major facilities. You'll STILL see instances were VS or NC or TR have one 'clump' of land, 100% cut off, out in the middle of nowhere, yet they wont care that their cut off because they will STILL be able to push out from the land they do own. The lattice system isnt going to fix that, its just going to make it even more limiting than it already is.

With the If/Then check, a deep push into enemy territory would still be a threat, but would have the added benefit of NOT limiting WHERE you push from.

There wont be any tactics with the lattice system. It'll be a simple "ok we hold this point, they hold the one next to it.. Lets try to get that 1 single point which we need before we can go to this point, before we can go to the next one... " It turns the 'battle' into a side-scrolling game.

Simple fix for this is to do what they did in PS1.

You get EXP when a base flips, as long as your on the CONTINENT, and participated in its capture. The amount of exp you get is based on how long you were there + how much fighting you did. You didn't have to 'wait' around for the cap to finish. Once the base was secured, you could leave a small token force behind to ensure it went threw fully, and begin pushing on the next base. Secure with the knowledge that your exp from that fight wouldnt be 'lost' as long as you didnt leave the continent itself.

Rhapsody, we had a few really big battles on Miller, and the draw distance was fine, we could see people up to 500 meters, but it still was impossible to fight.

You want to know why? I'll tell you
The server itself got so clogged up that it couldn't handle 100-150 people from each faction faction at the same location.
there was no teleporting, or enemies popping out of nowhere, there was just a ridiculously high delay on everything, grenades didn't explode anymore, you pumped a full Gauss Saw mag into an enemy without him dying, you saw people aiming at shooting at you but for 20 seconds nothing happened and then you just dropped dead.

So even if the lattice funnels battles, we will have to worry about instability and major hiccups from the server self, which we can't do **** about, but SoE would have to improve hardware or recode the game, which will cost them lots of money.

And seeing there inability to even fix small things like Vanguard/Heavy Assault shield certs, i doubt that they can get the servers stable for 600 person fights.

Some have been small. Which always happens once and a while.


Others have been so big that you literally spent the entire night shooting at the people within 30m of you when they 'would' show up. While wondering what the people beyond the 30m 'blank-zone' were doing, or were they were going.

And then there have been the ones were their just borderline of tripping that 30m Active Draw Distance crap.

It all depends on were we go and what we decid to do.

I still remember the night we were fighting up at the northern point of... i think it was Indar?.. When the NC had the northern WarpGate and the TR and VS BOTH pushed up trying to take all of our territory. We were down to 2 hexes and to the west of the warpgate we had lines of NC troops walking forward, while shooting at TR when they happened to 'pop' into view as we took that 1 step to force them into the 30m range. Then watching as the VS tried, and failed, to Gal-Bomb us in order to help the TR try to push us back yet again. Which failed of course =P

I also remember firefights were we were fighting across a road on Amerish, again, 30m view range. Could only see people on the edge of the road, not beyond it.

There have also bene small platoon on platoon fights where we had full 100% view range over outposts or even main bases back behind the 'zerg-lines'.

And of course, there have been the 'capture a empty base/outpost' fights, when we try to be tactical and work our way around a stubborn fight of zerg on zerg.

Sounds like you want PS1.

Go play PS1 if thats the case. Planetside 2 is a sequel, not a revamp to the original game. The mere fact that it contains modern day FPS elements drastically effects the games strategy.

From what I see, you're mainly mad that cutting people off is no longer a valid tactic. Well I'll tell you this, I don't want it to be when factions spend their whole bloody population trying to warpgate people. Lattice system will drastically put a halt to this, and that's a GOOD thing.

Don't be so afraid of predictable battles. Big battles are fun. Big battles are engaging. If you can predict a battle, start making strategies to stop them. If not, then go have fun ghost capping bases.

That's usually what happens on Matterson as the fights start to get large. It gets even worse though if people refuse to back out because of it. After a while, you'll start to see your view range dropping when it comes to infantry. You can still see vehicles at max range as an infantry, but other infantry will slowly start to disappear closer and close to you, untill it hits that 30m hardcap. People have found out that once it gets that bad, you can 'run' strait... and make it almost 100% past the enemy line before anyone happens to start shooting at you as it takes that long for the system to finally let someone know that 'hey, there's someone within 30m of you!'

And yea. thats why i DONT want Lattice systems. It'll only cause the glaring issue of the Active Draw Distance system to come to the front even more than it already does.

I really wish we had more continents with lattice than just Indar. Indar is a really broken continent, the flow is just horrendous. I'm gonna hold my opinions until Esamir or Amerish get lattice.

Cutting people off has NEVER been a valid tactic, because it does nothing. The cut off land can still expand as if it was still connected. So when has cutting off a land ever done anything?

umm thats the point of the game? to conquer the map?... Lattice system will not halt this. It will still be the primary goal. What it WILL do is make it even harder for a 'warpgated' or 'nearly warpgated' faction to push out as they are FORCE to fight in 1 or 2 specific places, rather than having the option to go to 3-4 different areas.

If you cant move forward because someone 'ghost-capped' the base behind you due to the if/then check... its not much of a 'ghost-cap' anymore is it?.. as everyone will KNOW something is up and go back to defend it. The lattice system does nothing to change that, you'll still have people chost-capping the 'other rout's' in the lattice while the zergs are caught up in the big fights.

You claim we can develop strategies to stop zergs. The only strategy is "Oh hey, every single person on the map knows exactly where everyone is about to go. Look, they're heading to the Amp Station next. Redeploy there". That is the only strategy.

There's no deception. There's no hiding your numbers. There's no choice in where to attack/defend. There's no hex flanking. There's only A->B->C->D.

I consider something to be engaging when I have to use my brain. 300 people spamming themselves from sunderers in a meat-grinder doesn't sound engaging. Sounds like a WW1 simulator.

There's a guy who made a great post about how Hex vs Lattice is like WW2 vs WW1 in terms of gameplay and strategic value.