STOP Latice!!! or give us a server without one.

Hex failed due to lack of development of deeper gameplay (resource development), shallow base defense small interior, outward only facing turrets that performed like crap, and bleeding population.
Lattice condenses the population, forces base defense because well links brute force it, and gets rid of any real need for resource development. Your lattice is a band aid. Trying to treat the symptoms and not the cause.

Finally someone with common sense.
Most people dont see it, doesn't see the game withing the game the RTS element is lost to them and they are winning. They will drag this grand open game to the lowest common denominator.

Its just sad that devs went in that direction instead of keeping it hard, hard to master. an equivalent of EVE in FPS world.

I do, but they are implementing lettuce on them to ....

Sorry to piss on your fireworks, but small groups of back hackers never did anything to move the map one way or another. They couldn't hold what they took and couldn't cap hexes as fast as a full squad or platoon. At best back hackers could delay an advance, if they were good and not afraid to get killed a lot. Countering them was as simple as saying 'Alpha squad head to galaxy solar plant for free kills.'.

Proper tactics were rarely needed on the hex because it was so easy to locally outnumber people. You really don't have to think about how to take a base when it hasn't got any defence set up and you outnumber the defenders 3-1.

yep, the lattice defenders can deny it but im glad people are beginning to realise its relegating outfits to friends lists and an optional extra to a linear game, not an essential part of surviving and conquering the unknown elements of a strange planet.

The enemy is predictable, so no real need to go around in a group, just find todays line and pitch in. Joining the outfit squad offers no real variation of what needs doing or what can be achieved, its the same battle.

Being in one doesnt give any extra ability to cap an area/base when as an individual you couldnt, now only the largest outfits have an influence on how a battle may go, and then only maybe.

So why join one? Apart from the social aspect which wont ever change their influence has been neutered thanks to SOE now deciding where we play and they offer no more protection or immersion than a pub squad or jumping in as a lone wolf.

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/bring-back-the-hex-system.132219/

meh, fumblepost

I know I have a lot to say but this wasnt one of those times

Oh, another nerf lattice thread. Without reading any of it I'm guessing the following things were said:

1. Less strategy.
2. Same fights.
3. Obligatory references to Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Now let's take a look at the outcome:

1. Lattice still here.
2. Lattice not going anywhere.

Solutions for next time:

1. Think of ways to improve on lattice would be more productive.

stop ****chat threads or give us a spamforum for threads like this!!

)

any ideas how ?
I dont see how it can be improved, by its design its broken.

I completely agree, and I must say I'm a bit surprised to see the same feeling about Lattice in large outfits. I thought it mostly ruined the fun for smaller outfits, and made it a lot easier for large outfits. I guess not everybody prefers easy.

Our little Fools outfit now only has 3 choices: join the zerg, try to defend against an enemy zerg that vastly outnumbers us, or play on a different continent.

The first choice is no fun, it's the reason why we are a small outfit. The second one is absolutely frustrating, and the third choice will also disappear when lattice goes to the other continents.

This. 2 main arguments in favor of lattice are:

1. It stops ghost caps
-> there are many other and better solutions to ghost capping. Just needing x number of players in the cap area (not the capture point) would already fix it.

2. It creates larger battles
-> It may create larger battles, but there are now less large battles to choose from, most of them are just zergs & spawnroomspam, they are always decided by sheer numbers, and both the location and the outcome are too predictable.

Hex already has large battles, and the new alert types also encourage large battles in hex. No need for lattice, other tools work just fine.

Fix ghost capping and give players an incentive to fight at certain places > force players to fight at certain places.

they are, get rid of it

improve hex to cut down circling (easy), remove ghost capping (easier than easy), and improve battle intelligence (harder, but not rocket science) to better create collisions between the larger forces creating lattice (and larger) battles but in a way where outfits and players can choose their own surroundings and landscape to have that battle.

Lattice size battles on a hex type virtual world, why wouldnt anyone vote for that? Isnt that what everyone wants? Or maybe all this bickering and fighting is more important?

I like this. I must admit I am having fun on Indar but I see the patterns emerge from time to time. I am not Anti Lettuce but I am PRO Sand Box. Vanus your description of ghostcaps and the reactions to them is spot on IMO. Players just couldn't be bothered with maintaining there own territory if it didn't involve a cert farm, so they gave the act a name and a negative connotation.

Give the players a different server that uses the hex is a cool idea. I guess it depends how many players really want the hex system over the lattice though. There would need to be enough players who want the hex system to justify having two different types of servers like this. I suppose they could try it out just to see what the consensus is, or perhaps do a poll via the launchpad to find out? Anyways, if there was enough people who played both types of server (hex and lattice) then they could probably justify having the dev team support both types. Otherwise, pick the most popular of the two and roll with it across all servers.

They dont need to remove the lattice, actually the lattice system has encouraged battles rather than taken away.

I was really, really bored of the same old ****: Base fights at the same bases, over and over (crown, crown and more crown) the map only ever really moved when outfits organized, and then it would be a clean-sweep because the zerg had ZERO chance at ever being able to focus a defense.

Now, with the lattice system the battles are more organized, bases move and fights move about. Furthermore, the 'front lines' tend to be about 3-4 places, which is good instead of every single hex which was frustrating.

As to the 'no tactics anymore'

1) Gal drop on base that is next in line. Infiltrators hack the terminals, turrets and so on. Prep teams at the generators if it has any. Lock it down.

2) When link created, base is now takeable. Should have the advantage already.

As above, do with other methods such as AMS sundys and so on. Heck maybe you could even gate crash a sundy and get your assualt team into a tech plant 20-30 mins early?

Anyhow. Their are still a lot of tactics and fun to be had.

Battles are larger.

Now, they DO need to improve the system. As you all have said:

It has removed some of the strategic element from the game.

My suggestion? Fairly simple.

Mobile Link Stations: Basically its like a sunderor, only its slow moving and heavy armored with no defenses. Organized outfits would have to defend it and somebody would need to cert to drive it.

What would this do? Simple. It would be able to create a temporary lattice link by 'hacking the lattice network' on any base it is deployed at. This would ONLY be deployable on a hex adjacent to territory you already own, to stop the back hacking rubbish.

To stop the zerg spamming them, they should be relatively expensive to use and hard to defend.

There you go. Now outfits will have something to move with.

Thoughts? Its a silly little idea x3.

I used to play with your Platoons during BETA, I was named WesternBaconCherriesJubilee or something to that effect.

You describe the awful, unstructured, avoidant gameplay under HEX extremely accurately, and I can attest to that being that I experienced it with you, as part of your platoons.

I shudder to look back at the HEX gameplay. Territory was speedcapped from underneath us as quickly as we could take more. It was like Snake: The 'tail' of captured territory that you left behind you faded away as quickly as you moved forward. It was FUTILE! The gameplay was utterly unsatisfying and disincentivising.

And people are ardently defending this cacophony of horrendously bad game design?! The stupidity... The sheer stupidity...

They've done this; it's called The Lattice System and it works well!

Yeah, i saw this as well. We began with tactics.

After a few days, we threw that out the window and the tactics became 'everybody spawn the fastest vehicle you have, cap in a line, go go go go'

Because that was the most effective tactic. Gal drops, ams, tanks, all of that was useless when you can simply get in a ESF fly to the top of the map, organize a ten man infiltrator squad to simply air drop into each base in a row and suddenly youve cut off half the NC or TR from their gate.

Lattice is repetitive. Boring. Contrived.

There is no reason (for me) to feel invested in the battles anymore. No-one created the battles we have now. We were led by the hand, and left there to see who can field more people for the longer time.

It really is simple economics though. The people buying all the crap are the ones that can't hack original gameplay. They spend the money. They get what they want.

Perhaps if you played intelligently instead of rushing about from cap to cap your experience would be different. It is YOUR fault you got hit in the rear- not the enemy's...and certainly not the game. You're actually blaming the game because you couldn't figure out how to stop the enemy. You wanted to call checkmate and keep the enemy in your front. How dare the enemy do something to annoy me! He must rush from the spawn I am looking at- and from no where else!

You were hit in the rear while you were fixated on the enemy's spawn.

Perhaps recognizing the enemy's intent to cap in the rear and flanks, and then acting against it would be a better solution than rushing off to the next cap. Side benefit? A battle is created. All by yourselves.