After playing for a while with and without an alert on here are my experiences.While I dislike that large portions of the map are now unused, the overall changes make for more interesting combat, and easier strategic planning. The narrow "corridor" bases have made it easy to know what avenues of attack and defense the enemy had available, and meeting them there in combat was much easier without the aid of "hotspots", "instant action", or base-status indicators. The heavily connected bases now have much larger strategic value conquest, opening avenues of attack, and at the same time, make it harder for the team holding them to defend (as they can be attacked from multiple angles). Warpgating a faction is now slightly harder to achieve in one respect, as you can't simply "wrap" around the edges to lock them in. On the other hand, you definitively know which bases are available for a push to hit, so conquerors are more decisive about where to reinforce. In particular, the distinguishing of assault-bases for plants, labs, and stations as separate bases I feel just makes more sense than their original design. While the previous version gave the impression that these bases were larger and more important, the separate properties make it so by providing and guarding avenues of attack, and also by providing a larger incentive for taking these bases during an Alert. An amusing result of the base and connectivity reduction(due in no small part to the introduction of the Harrier as well) is that roadside combat between bases is more common.This turns areas that were usually passed over as both sides rushed for bases into combat zones, exposing more of the level design to active play, even with the reduction in actual combat objectives. It IS still possible to hit an edge of a corridor where no combat is occuring because two sides are simply defending, but as volume increases, the defenses will be more interesting as well. The biggest loss is that so much of the continent has reduced travel and strategic value. Granted, most of these locations were largely unnoticed as a result of the ambiguity in the previous maps, but its a tradeoff that opens the doors for far too many interesting options. There are ways to make use of those areas in the new system as well, but that can wait for another time.
AND the devs used these to make the make the map I like the new hex map it just looks ugly (i did read your post and i cant wait till this goes live)
I don't like the layout so far, This encourages large zergs, bigger fights. That is good and all if you can defend against one or attack with one. On helios we are constantly outnumbered, by a minimum of usually 10% or more. During peak times we are usually warp gated already. Now not only will we be warpgated, but we can't stop that by going up the cliffs and taking spec ops and lost end. They no longer exist. More choke points can create awesome fights if we have balanced factions. On Helios, we don't, plain and simple.
That is a valid concern. My experiences with this layout have been largely positive in a great number of ways. Now, if there were some sort of orbital strike that could be used to break out of bases, that would probably help mitigate this problem. =P. A more legitimate method of fixing this would be to have buffer properties similar to the larger facilities surrounding the warpgate that give additional breakout options to defenders, and make true warpgate locks harder to achieve I think. At the very least, even if you can't push out proper, it gives low-pop factions avenues of attack to do things without getting steamrolled as hard.
Just three comments. 1.) I agree, definitely easier strategic planning. Much easier. Not better though. 2.) I don't think the big bases are really that much more important strategically. I don't see any strategy being used involving them. The only strategy there is "big base choke point, defend it". No real thought involved. No decisions need to be made. 3.) Defense is much easier for big bases with the map changes, not harder. Before you could be attacked from just as many angles, that's not different. What is different is that you know exactly where and when the enemy is coming, and their numbers. When you're looking at the map, look at the lane coming toward your large base. You'll know the exact time and force size just by looking at the mini-map and doing a bit of math with 7 and 4 minutes per base in between.
Right, and really that's how it was before, but the math was slightly less intuitive. Sharp players could pick out on the old map how the battle was flowing by doing math based on population distributions, and population present on a territory. But this math was slightly buried in the interface. This system simplifies it, so any player can look at the board quickly and determine with some confidence the current board state. The current problem I have with the system is that "buffer bases" don't allow any wrap around at the moment. Some bases, like say crown, should be major chokes that are hard to push around and take. Others should provide some fluidity of battle flow, allowing the main facility to be bypassed. The reason base defense becomes harder is that the lattice forces enemies to converge on the choke points. They have no choice but to push through them, so its more probable you'll be facing down both factions at once, or split your forces as they attempt to push through another choke. As a note, I didn't mean base defense will always be harder, just that it will force situations in which bases are under a lot of pressure.
