Lattice System.... Not a good idea.

No, joining the zerg does have nothing to do with the lattice system. The lattice system just turns every fight into a zerg fight. By restricting each continent so that there are 5 or 6 'battle lanes' essentially, you put 100-300 people on each of those battle lanes. As can be seen currently, once numbers reach a critical mass (which sits in that 100-300 margin), a fight can only be decided by who has the larger force. There is no need to be in any way co-ordinated or think ahead. You take one base. Then you take the next base. You might go right or left after taking a base, but these pathways will immediately close off another section of the battle lines as you meet your team mates and then redeploy.

There is no need for a 'top level' of command for planning and strategy; the game plays out in one of 5 or 6 ways every time.

The correct solution was to stop the zerg mentality altogether, not to accept its presence and then twist the game around it. In the old system, a team with 600 well organised players would always beat 600 zergers, because the zergers are out-manoeuvred and don't respond appropriately to threats. Now, it's going to be decided purely by who quits the meat grinder first, and that's pathetic in the extreme.

I'm not scared at all of getting 'zerged' under the lattice system. If its a true zerg then it will be just as easy.... probably easier to destroy than a zerg using the hex system. For sure most of the less aware PS2 players will think they are playing in lanes or funnels and act accordingly as if some sort of mechanic stops them using the rest of the map. Someone who is able to implement even basic tactics is going to destroy them.

However if I know my flanks and rear are safe and I don't have to bother running around the map I would be free to focus on using effective tactics on the battlefield. Having to split up a platoon almost every 5 mins to rescuer territory hardly gives me time to regroup let alone try anything tactical.

Hex system - you can go from being secure to being deeply cut off in less than 20 mins. Especially if there are not many friendly organised squads on the continent.

As for the worry about zergs, that happens all the time in PS2 now. Basic strategy is to attack a weak hex with a superior force, everyone does this now... you can easily see the strength of the enemy and act accordingly. Enemy squad in a hex? Simply zerg them with 2 or 3 squads depending on how well they fight. Tactics, as I understand them are very rarely used, its just get as many people there as possible - cap the point and cap the spawn room. Some people try clever tricks but that's about it. I can count on one hand the times I have had a battle against an obviously well lead squad that uses proper manoeuvres, takes up positions and so on. There is simply no need.

Of course people are going to be outnumbered in the lattice, but its worth fighting to delay the enemy and the rest of the empire will be able to send help because they won't be chasing down a few loan hackers with an entire platoon. If you can't get enough help to mount an effective defence then you are screwed under the hex system as well. At least if you are outnumbered in the lattice the entire empire can fight on one front and maintain a connection to the WG. If the enemy have enough numbers to push back one front and defend the other 2 or 3 then that's a empire pop problem on the continent - a problem that players can easily solve by using teamwork. E.G get your noobs out of the crown and doing something useful.

Sure the lattice is not perfect- but its a big step in the right direction and way better than the hex system. Its something tangible to work with and will be tweaked - and hopefully a NTU supply system incorporated.

IMO Everyone posting here should be capable of defeating a zerg with a few squads. The bigger the zerg, the easier it is to defeat. Why worry? Let the zerg do their thing - most of the best fights will be in the neutral zones.

The zerg mentality has been around since the early days of Planetside 1. If that game couldn't stop it this one really has no chance, considering it encourages killwhoring at every opportunity. Truth is a lot of people like zerging, any solution that tries to get rid of it is just not going to work.

The only stalemated meatgrinders will be zerg on zerg fights, where no organized groups step up to hold a gen, or organize a MAX crash, or hunt down Sunderers, or bring in an armor column, or do some Galaxy drops, or spawn into beacons. Otherwise your organized group's actions will directly affect the battle, break the stalemate and allow your empire to advance. Personally I think that's more rewarding than using your organization to cap almost empty bases only to see them flipped back 5 minutes later.

Well, I guess we'll see in the next game update.

The lattice would make for a fantastic foundation for adding Dynamic Lattice Links.

That system would provide both tactics and a sort of "supply-line" which could be destroyed.

Gen holds etc still happen in the zerg. The zerg doesn't mean individual players on their own but near one and other, it includes platoons and squads. It just means they're operating under a 'hive mind' mentality (i.e. no leadership on the strategic -not tactical-level).

Again, yes, tactics in a fight are more rewarding than ghost capping. What -should- be happening is that all 600 people on a continent are working together and communicating with one and other so no ghost caps occur, creating small fights in low-priority places, and massive fights in high-priority places. This is what's happened every time there's been TRAM ops at the same time as NCTO; there are no ghost caps because there are no zergs. Even with a front line of 10 bases, you've still got 60 people defending each base.

The problem is the end goal of capping the continent was never incentivised enough to make it worth getting organised. Now what they've done is guarantee the big battles that proper organisation would have guaranteed you, but removed the necessity for any form of communication/co-operation. That's a tragedy in my book.

I mean, PS1 was overly complex, right ?

This game, is a game in which you are supposed to sink hundreds of hours.

I know one other game that is overly complex: DotA
Hell they even managed to import every DotA bug into DotA 2 and make it a game feature.

Or even freaking DayZ.
It was impossible to play this game without spending hours on the wiki.

Or Minecraft.




The "complexity" barrier is in fact very minimal if you manage to find a "gradual" player engagement.
When Bob plays for the first time he'll just press instant action and find it fun. When I joined DotA for the first time I had no idea of what I was doing. Still had fun.


While I like the Extra Credits reference, I think you are blowing it out of proportion compared to... any MMO on the market. As long as complexity doesn't act as a barrier for the average player on the first minutes/hours, it won't really keep that many players at bay.

The Hex system is fairly shallow at the moment.
If you still believe it's overly complex, you have my skepticism

Indar is a mess because the connections often make little sense and lead to unintuitive behaviour (though Amerish is guilty of that as well), not because of anything inherent in the hex system.

Examples?

Indar Bay is a clear one. It should be a barrier. That means no connection from the SW warpgate to Sandstone Gulch and no connection from Indar Bay Point to either Sandstone Gulch or Hvar. For that matter, Sandstone Gulch shouldn't be connected to Quartz Ridge either, that's just silly.

Then in the SE we have Old Auraxium Mines connected directly to The Stronghold. That makes no sense; Feldspar Canyon should be a focal point and connection between those two as well as between Arroyo Torre and Valley Storage Yard.

Crimson Bluff is another candidate; its connections to East Canyon and Abandoned NS Offices shouldn't be there.

And then there's the nice valley cutting northern Indar cleanly across. That should have exactly two bases connecting east to west at its ends, J908 and Indar Waste Treatment. Put neutral territory inbetween, then it's clear from just looking at the map that you shouldn't try to cross that way.

... and that's not even touching on the weather and terrain. We have such nice sand storms in northern Indar. Do they lower (vehicle) view distance, unpredictably (unless you watch which way the wind is blowing) affect bullet trajectory or make piloting anything near the ground or building a dangerous task, requiring adaptation of tactics and troop composition to compensate? Nope. Again, dumb as hell.

The lattice system seem to be the most de-motivating feature/fix/whatever i have ever seen coming to PS2.
I pretty much sit here and write that this is just bad.

I enjoy being in large fights, because of the amounts of guns and explosions going off, and sometimes the teamwork.
But i also enjoy smaller fights in outposts and such. I do not wish to be in large fights 100% of the time im playing, i like to run with a small group of people to cap smaller hexes. The "big fights" thing is going to the head of the developers. Big,huge fights are not what makes this game all the time.
PLEASE don't add this to the game.

Hi guys.

I see the pros and cons of the lattice system.
Ofcourse we will have more and hugher fights. And some might be realy freaked out and totally f*** up.
Some of you reporting they have problems like 30 Meters of plopping enemys and stuff.
I cant confirm this at all. Since one Patch, (dont know what GU) this problem is gone. Yes Sometimes it might get a bit messi and your allies will pop out all of sudden, but no enemys.
Next you mention these laggs and stuff. Again I cant confirm this.
You may say thats because of your internet connection. Nope thats not true. Im haning around at 4800.
I never had this problems since some GU. Well sometimes the cont or the server have lags, but thats on every point on the map.

For those who say, you never seen big fights. I play on Miller, so I have, and I´m enjoying them.
But I like the small skirmishes too! What I dont like is this wierd running aroun:

CAP ALL THE ABONDEND PLACES TO GET MORE POINTS

So I think lattice will cut this down, but cant kill it.

Your Next argument is, that there will be only some big battles. Whats your definition of some? 4,5 or 6, spread over the whole continent? Over 16 square km?



So here you can see a normal fight on Miller Afternoon at about 5 PM. Its not Primetime, but its Miller and Indar and, so we can guess its pretty full.
As you can see, we have only a small number of Big fights. As I would say, some big fights. 3 actually. So ok lets say at Primetime we will have double the count. lets say 6 over the whole continent.

Now lets have a look on the new lattice.



As you can see we have 9 direct frontlines. 9>6. So you will still have 3 points where your badass strategy can roll.
Somehow you will reach a point of no return, so why not redploy and crash a smaler party? If you think everything is cut down with the lattice, you might have a very poor imagination. Its puts strategy on a very different level.
No you dont have to look, where are the less enemys. No you have to keep in mind, how the bases you can attack looks like. From which side can you attack, wich is easier to cap. Where are some good spots to place a sunderer. All this things do matter now more then before.
Lets say we have 6 frontlines and about 600 people each faction so that would make that would make up to 300 people at every frontline. 100 each faction. Now we now there are not 6 threefights, so lets say we have say we have 6 fights with 150 on two sides.
Now tell me, real zergs might be huger, or dont they? SOE data would be nice here. Still there are 3 spots most times open. or less defended, and this will bring us fights like 50 vs.50. 25.vs 37 .... fights smaler outfits will searching for.

What im trying to say, even if there are big zerg crushing their heads, there will still be smaler ones, even very less defenders/attackers and other weakspots. And your outfit can lead a Zerg by doing awsome stuff like braking the attackers back and so on...

While I agree that they should bring some links at some parts, for example to pass by biolabs etc, I think most of you are painting the devil at the wall.

Just because you have no link to a Base behind a enemy base, doesn´t mean you are not able to drive around there, hack the terminal and attack the defenders of the "zergbase" from a different direction?

I´m pumped to see this thing envolve.

____________

Ok now to an idea what might bring back a reason for cutting of and rewarding it, if you manage to cut of something while we have Hex, or better, Lattice.

So after a Base is cut of from the warpgate. A timer will start for this point. for small 8, for big 14, and for labs tech, amps 20 minutes. If this time will tick down, so a base is wihtout connection to the WP for 8 minutes, it will get neutral, nobody can spawn there anymore and whoever can cap it again will gain it, even the defenders. but im not sure if they are able to hold out 2 minutes but nevermind. skill and such stuff

So now you asking me whats happening if we would cut off more bases. Lets say a Biolab, a Big outpost and 2 small ones.
Well this would work pretty much the same.
But:
The same timer like before will start, but not for every base each. One timer for ALL cut off Bases.
Now we do a little bit of Math.
Captime biolab 10 Minuts + Big 7 + 4 small + 4 small. = 25 Minutes

Defenders have this much time to bring up a Link again. And here we go Outfits and Generals. Do you think you could work with this?
What would you need to do: Find the weakspot.
Push down, Cut down, Hold it. Spam the Chat that you helped the zerg for moving on?

I personaly think this could somehow work, without some crazy new ideas and, whats even worse, more work for the devs.
And we could use this on Hex aswell on lattice.

Edit: oh and one point for the lattice: Every base will matter. You will be proud of every base, because it was hard to take it( thoughts of the Zerg) and i dont want to lose it to soon.

Basically it comes down to this.

Current setup:

Faction can attack/hack any 'hex' neighboring a Hex they currently own, Whether they are connected to their warpgate or not. They can be 8 hexes away from any other allied land, yet still able to attack neighboring Hexes.

This leads to 2 things:

1. Zergs moving across the maps en-mass, chasing each others tails (the circle run).
2. 'Alamo' style fights that go on for hours because you HAVE to fight the people turtled up inside the Bio lab deep in your controlled territory because if you dont, then they can simply push out and start to 'back-hack' you.

One thing that people do which servers no real purpose at the moment is:

1. Cutting off the enemy land from their warpgate. I think we have beat this dead horse enough that its turned into a fossil. There is NOTHING gained by cutting off your enemy from their warpgate. As they can simply jump continents for 5 minutes to get resources back, which is the ONLY penalty for getting cut off.

Lattice System:

Factions can ONLY attack certain points, at any given moment. Rather than having 'choices', you're forced into a DOTA style 'go here, and here, and here only' style of play. Your massive war has turned into 'lanes' on a 3d FPS DOTA map.

Those Zergs that use to chase each others tails are now 'forced' to fight each other head-on, YET THEY WILL STILL BE ABLE TO CHASE EACH OTHERS TAILS IF THEY FOLLOW THE DOTA ROUTS. This will cause 2 things to happen.

1. Smaller 'non-zerg' groups will be 'FORCED' into joining those zergs, as they will be unable to go 'around' said zergs, due to the new DOTA lanes. There is no more 'ok, 50 vs 2 here... lets just go around and hit them from the side' As there ARE no sides. Its head-on only.

2. As those 'zerg' fights get bigger and bigger. PS2's hardware faults will come to life. More and more 'fights' will drop down to the 30m hard-limit on the Active Draw Distance, Vehicles of all types will be getting obliterated by infantry they cant see (which happens now, but it'll be even MORE prevalent as the infantry can now get up to 31m away form you and STILL be invisible. Rather than only being invisible past 200m. You'll also see Ammo packs, revives, repair tools, med-guns, and grenades all having longer and longer delays on their activations. Along with infantry flickering in and out of view as they move through that 30m bubble that will now be around your character.

Option?

Rather than turning PS2 into a 3d DOTA FPS, add in that if/then check, as well as bringing back the 'influence'.

What will this do?

2 things:

1. Allow the Zerg on Zerg fights to still continue for those who like massive lag, and 30m view ranges. You may even still see the 'tail-chasing' of the 3 zergs going on from time to time.

2. 'Smaller' non-zerg groups will have an actual JOB/Tactic that they can do now.... What is that?... Flanking/back-hacking (whichever you prefer), As well as 'encircling' the current 'zerg-on-zerg' fight. How you ask?

2a. Influence being back in play means that the 'smaller' groups can help the zerg without actively being 'in' the zerg by capturing the area around a stubborn fight were two zergs are fighting each other. This helps their own zerg by increasing the speed by which a base is captured once points are taken. And will also force those 'turtled up' Zergs on the defensive to come OUT and fight as a fully encircled land can be captured by holding only 1 capture point, even if the enemy has the other 2-3. This means the smaller non-zerg group helped, and the two zergs are forced into fighting each other ACTIVELY instead of simply turtling up and make sure they hold more points than the other guys.

2b. Flanking/Back-hacking. These smaller groups are now able to 'try' and flank the enemy zerg, and cut them off from their warp-gate held land. Previously, (and currently), this does absolutely jack squat. Doesn't mean a damn thing, and doesn't even bother the Zerg that just got cut off in any way, shape, or form. BUT, with the added if/then check thrown in. That 'small' force, just nailed the 'zergs' feet to the floor. They can no longer MOVE anywhere, except back the way they were cut off from and 'only' if the hex directly next to them will re-connect them to their warpgate connected territory. If they are more than 1 hex 'cut off', that land is essentially 'CUT OFF' and cannot progress until the front-line (so to speak) re-connects to it. This means that even while two zergs are going at it in their lag-fest, draw-distance-limiting, fight. Smaller groups can be engaging each other while both trying to cut off the other zerg (and stopping their forward progress until they re-link to their warpgate connected land) and while trying to protect their own zerg's link to their warpgate.


It's as simple as that.

Lattice isn't going to 'help' anything, its only going to cause more problems. Leaving things as they are is not going to help anything. Returning to the "influence system" on its own is not going to fix anything.

Returning to the Influence system as well as putting in that if/then check will fix quite a bit of the current complaints, while STILL allowing people some freedom in what they do.

Heh, probably took you longer to chop up my post than I took to write it. well anyway.....

The point is that you can defend a base against odds of 3-1 but its useless, there are a couple of infis back capping your squad all the way back to the warp gate. The base you are in loses all its strategic importance the moment the bases in your rear start to flash. If your empire does not have a significant pop advantage then there is nothing you can do about it apart from fall back and rescuer. Leaving the base you were in totally open to the attacker... skill plays no role, its all about moving people around the map. 1 or 2 enemy can easily tie down a squad just by hiding near a base, if the squad moves out just cap it. It can take less than 10 mins to totally cut off an advance so, unless your empire has a zerg to back them up then a squad, not matter how skilful cannot move forward - most of the time you are forced to rush from base to base.

The most effective strategy in PS2 is to spread yourself as thin as possible to cap as much as possible - if there is any resistance, concentrate your force and zerg it. Whoever can move people across the map fastest wins, bases have no extrinsic value or strategic importance, it barely matters which hex you cap. All you need is a group of people willing to stop what they are doing and redeploy every 10 mins or so.

You are right, its the proper thing to do to IRL is to bypass a heavily defended position. But IRL you are forced to fight a battle when you have no choice. E.g Napoleon was forced to fight at Waterloo because of terrain, roads etc. The allies had to fight for citys other than Bagdad in the Gulf war and so on. With the hex system you can avoid everything and no one can force a battle on you, all bases and places on the map are essentially the same and no matter what the terrain is like between them they are linked. The lattice makes the overall situation way too fluid, front lines exist only for a matter of minutes, if that. A squad can be defending or attacking an apparently crucial facility one moment for it to become meaningless the next.

Worked for 10 years in PS1 and was nothing like COD, the fact is that it makes for more bigger fights.

There's a big difference in why the Lattice worked in PS1 vs why it will not work in PS2.

There were no 'hexes', if you wanted a base, you simply attacked it along the Lattice. Towers were not 'part' of the lattice, they were simply there. There were no 'outposts' or anything of the like either. I even have foggy memories of pre-lattice PS2 were you could essentially attack any facility anywhere at any time. The only requirement i believe rested on being able to 'HART' in, which required at least 1 captured building on the map.

PS2 is a bit more complex thanks to the HEX system, as well as outposts an towers being their own separate entities that actually matter. PS2 also cannot handle the same size fights that PS1 could (im sorry but its true). I RARELY ever got into a point, even in PS1's hay-days, were i could NOT see infantry past 30m. The most i couldnt see them beyond was myabe 150-200? This was the hardcap nomater how many people were around you. The biggest issue i remember is doors being open for some people, while closed for others when the fights started gettig really big.

Not sure what others think but this picture here of the new system, its just really ugly and hard to read. The original version has very clear lanes so you could easily identify what base/outpost was next and could follow the paths along, but this current version just seems to be a bunch of different shapes thrown together randomly all over the place which makes it harder to see and follow the path, also some of the lanes get very close to each other in same places without touching so you have to actually look at the map carefully to see what connects and what doesn't, it just looks ugly and needlessly complicated to me.

Or am I the only person who thinks so?

I don't want huge fights. I want fights at every base along a hard-to-move front line with actual defensible facilities, AND deep enemy territory activities. I want SOE to raise the 2000 player cap on each continent. I hate the zerg. Even with our best mechanics now gone in PS2, we still had huge fights. Everyone's needs were met. Now it's just the needs of those who want huge fights.

...

If you don't like huge fights or zergs, why are you playing Planetside? There will always be battles at other bases, small outfits who dedicate themselves to capping smaller bases, and giant outfits who push towards facilities and hotspots. Planetsides SELLING POINT is massive warfare, and zergs are just that- massive warfare. A zerg is a game of logistics. Good, organized outfits can hold off zergs twice their number, it has been done before.

Yeah, I liked the original Lattice better. But that's barley an issue, what's really the meat of the conversation is how this effects the flow of combat.

You want to know why many of us play this game?



That's why. The game is advertised on massive fights and global strategy. The current version of the lattice cripples the later feature.

You keep bringing up the outpost thing. Is this your main pet peeve? Cause you do know we can fix that?

EDIT: Ah, never mind, I see what you're saying.

What a well thought out idea! It very much will give cutting-off a viable reason, but at the same time not make it an annoyance.

It really think the evolution of Lattice will come in the form of the respawn system, which I suggested be advanced by not allowing you to bases that are not neighboring you, and to alleviate that, add Teleporter rooms in every facility that teleport you to other facilities you are currently connected to (though that my be a problem for the number of bases and routes Indar has...)

I'm gonna start working on a post that will combine my idea with Lattice... maybe SOE might find greater add-ons to their current system...

By what, removing the ability to capture bases you can't drive to? Strategy comes in many shapes and forms, and Lattice is certainly one of them. It simplifies the capture system, while at the same time opening up new ideas for tactics and strategies. It gives clear direction for where to go, giving more focus on the fights that happen in bases and outposts and their possible tactics for offense/defense, while still giving you options on how to approach each factions warpgates. Big battles will be here, tiny battles will be there. Everywhere, people will be fighting.

If you think that's gonna ruin Planetside, I think you came to the wrong place.