I'm writing this mostly to voice my opinions and concerns to the developers. I'm not intending to start a discussion, but obviously constructive criticism is welcomed. TL;DR is the next paragraph. The lattice system seems to amplify a lot of old problems I had with Planetside. Because of the increased density of fights, the uselessness of defensive options in a base gets amplified, the weakness of vehicles gets amplified, the amount of vehicles get amplified, and the low time to kill gets amplified. In short, this game isn't build for it at the moment and the defensive part needs to be buffed. These were all old problems, and they have been brought to light a bunch of times already, and I hope the developers have heard about them already. Though lately, people have been coping with these problems and have been bypassing them. The defensive options weren't used and you just shot the enemies instead while they were in you base. Vehicles were just strong enough, and fast enough, to deal with the smaller amount of people that tried to kill them. The amount of vehicles didn't matter either, since they were spread out all over the map. And people generally coped with the low time to kill since it was fair ground for everybody. The lattice system does exactly what it was intended to do though, and that is to concentrate people and fights. And this isn't a problem itself. The problem lies in the fact that with every fight being at pretty much critical mass, you start to see the problems with this game a lot more. The defensive options get destroyed before they can be used because there are so many people. The vehicles are destroyed even quicker because there are so many people. The ease to get vehicles seems worse since they're much more concentrated. And the low time to kill gets really annoying because a lot more people are shooting at you. And this all happens because everything has been balanced around not concentrated fights. You can't change pretty much the entire battle flow, and increase density, without changing the rest. What the lattice system essentially does is give a faction more concentrated power, which basically means more power. What you've forgotten to do though, is give people more defence. Yes there are more defenders, but it never gets spread so evenly, so everything still dies way too fast (especially turrets since they weren't increased) and the zerg can basically just waltz into bases without trying. So what I think needs to be done is to upgrade base defences so you can actually defend, stuff like turrets/mines/walls/shields/doors/SCUs/etc. Make vehicles more sturdy, and decrease the ease of getting one. And make infantry less prone to dying so fast. These changes will make zerg vs zerg fights a lot more tolerable I think, and zerg vs zerg is what I think Planetside should be, massive warfare and what not.
indeed, the lattice system was made to get people closer to the front line and reduce the number of backhacks there was. However there was a backdoor option to the lattice and that was the NTU drain. The problem with the current setup is that there is no alternative other than take over the adjacent region. Though it is necessary to prevent the speckled regions and give the flow of combat more structure focusing people on the fronts it does not have any other say BD option other then occasionally finding a way to flank and surround a highly contested territory to cut off barley noticeable resources and have a higher tug of war pull. However if the lattice was put in place I would like to see it as an overlap over the hex system so it does exactly the opposite of what the Planetside (1) lattice did. Make it easier to capture non adjacent territory. So connect the lattice only to bases that have a line. You could A) capture each territory one by one until you get to the base. or B) capture the closest base giving it a link thus bypassing all other territory. Of course the influence would make option B harder but it would allow for those special ops teams to attempt some behind the enemy lines capturing. Also ad in say a 3D option of attacking enemy territory allowing to go over territory but only from base to base. Still there needs to be other base improvements as well in to making them defendable. Doors and windows so making base fights more of infantry vs infantry instead of vehicles shelling the spawn room. Better spawn mechanics so the focus is on denying the enemy spawn points instead of camping them in their little spot. Interlink facility which allows turrets to be slightly automated but include other restrictions so that it would be better if they were manned. Like longer activation time and slower tracking speeds and no heat management or faster overheating.
