The state of PS2 and what I feel must change.

Players Helping Players: Yes yes yes!!!!! Give us the tools to quickly identify new players and offer to help them! Implement an easy to use system that new players can find right away to locate people willing to help them! It doesn't have to be too fancy either. If I could hold Q over someone and it would have an indicator showing they were a new player I would engage them. From the Social menu if new players had a button that said "Request Help From Veteran Players", it brings up a menu of people who have signed up to be on that list, and they just start messaging them.

Instant Action Improvements: OMG YES! I'm a casual player in a small outfit. I play at weird hours a lot of times. I've wasted hours running around trying to find ANY action! Where is the current roaming zerg? Where is the current big fight on this continent? If it's not peak hours you have to waste time basically jumping from area to area (usually the big sites) trying to find 'the front line' or the zerg. Many times I've just given up, hop to a major facility, and go repair stuff for easy low risk certs.

Start communicating then. Whenever we're in an overrun base and it doesn't look like we can break out and no relief is incoming, I suggest bases to fall back in /region. If you don't, it's your fault.

You cannot expect every casual player to ask in region where to fall back to since most of the time he will get responses like "LOLNEWB, go back to the warpgate, LEARN TO PLAY," or something else childish.

The game should have natural fall back points for players...not everyone announces their plans in /region plus it doesn't work half the time.

You cannot blame a casual player for not knowing where to go and tell him to start communicating when the game should be handling this issue though design.

I don't expect that.

I take the initiative and tell them where to fall back to before being asked. If you know what you're doing, you should too.

Lol, just let the thread sink to the bottom already, I think they know...

Is this Buzz's revenge for not having his other annihilator thread up all the entire time?

Yeah the bumpings getting rather artificial now all these new players suddenly joining in after its sunk to page 2 or 3 and then an enclave member responds. SEEMS LEGIT.

all of the suggestions hve been discussed to death.

Stuff that was legitimized by some of the grander population issues, is being addressed by server mergers, which people have been arguing for since December - nice bandwagon jumping there by the way.

The lattice stuff, which turns the game into a linear zerg fest, No. PS1 had to have ti as it has far few people, it removes all strategic complexity from the game- Computer melting too boot.

Scu and spawn room stuff - meh, game only really needs to be faster again if bases are not contested due to low pop.

And the stuff about cloaked sundies, faster shield recharge and default flak, just bias infantry combat- hmmm wonder why?

Buzzcut has a way of saying exactly what us vets are feeling only better and more focused.

Do I look like a Enclave member to you? lol...definitly no.

However this thread has better constructive discussion and is more important then most of the crap on this forum imo, Plus I am not going to be critical of a good post just because of who wrote it.

Back on topic...
The SCU stuff is a good idea IMO, more objectives = more fun most of the time.

Would like the suggested SCU changes, but I'd also like to see ALL SCU and generators be shielded until at least one adjacent hex is controlled by the enemy, at which point all the generator shields would fall and can be overloaded like normal. Nothing is more annoying than having to chase around ghost cappers deep in your own territory because they wanted some easy certs by blowing generators in a base, as well as having to repair them all afterwords. Needless work that serves no other purpose than to be annoying.

Wasn't thinking of you.

I will however be critical of the points that deserve criticism, also fo the form which lumps as lot of stuff together into a single thesis in a manner which leaves the hierarchy of reasons confused.

My major presenations to this effect are page 20'ish and 40ish.

The issue now is that people continue to pile into this thread, strangely after it spends sigificant time on page 2-3. as if none of this discussion had happend.

Indeed, as i've said a few times there are and remain serious issues with some of his suggestions, that should be apparent to most people. It's at least odd that people accept what is a very diverse set of proposals, that by its own lights. Many of which don't really seem to even by trying to address the main issue it cites 'population problem'. More simply push the authors aesthetic judgements as to how the game should be.

As i've said, I feel the SCU only works in larger bases, as they have satalite bases. Thus, taking the SCU is in effect 'taking the keep' leaving the capture of the base as a whole as a seperate tatical matter. IT then forces the defenders, if they are still capable of it, of fighting their way in from a satalite base (that they should have also defended) into the keep to recapture it in virtue of recapturing the SCU.

AS i've said several times, there are certain cases this might work. I cannot see however, how it would work in bases like the bastion, quartz ridge or the pit - to name but three potential examples.

Agree with everything apart from putting the originals lattice system in - the hex system works and with the other changes you mention would make it work even better. I am not saying that the lattice system wouldn't work, because it certainly would, but the hex system is alright as is.

Oh and personally I would prefer the shields to go down in spawn rooms when an SCU is blown, so the defenders can still defend but the attackers can't just camp the exits and have to actually attack it.

Good idea, I doubt anyone has thought of that before. That'd probably make it work, although there would have to be a shield generator covering the SCU (like in major bases) so that it couldn't be destroyed quickly. The SCU would also have to be placed close enough to the spawn room and/or be defensible enough so the SCU would be hard to take down, seeing as smaller bases are captured fast enough.

I like every single idea on that list, I so want lattice system back.

Actually we already have a lattice system, it's just a lattice system with more connecting lines.

A non-lattice system would be where you could cap any base even if you had no adjacent territories. In WWIIONLINE it's called no-linky no-cappy.

What you really mean is you want an extremely linear lattice system where there is no thought involved in strategy. Like it would make a difference, we can't defend (therefore there already doesn't exist strategy righ tnow) without the PS1 cloaking AMS, PS1 mines, PS1 spitfires and PS1 motion detectors,

And more ragey.

So you like the open lattice where u have upto 8 possible hexes you have to defend simultaneously, it SPLITS all defending force everytime a hex gets taken to surrounding hexes making defense impossible because you dont have comparable numbers to the more focused enemy attacks. I hate it, there should be atleast 50% less bases in my opinion preferably even less. Hence I'd much prefer the old lattice system with more linear connections, it gives you a clear image where to strike and where you should expect the enemy to come from. Strategy did exist on PS1, it was just made so that 1 person couldn't cap a base but could disable defenses, a small team could destroy a generator and just hold it to make the base cap easier for the coming friendly force, that's exactly how I want this to play.

Yeah it sucks. The PS1 cloaking AMS, PS1 mines, PS1 spitfires, PS1 motion detectors would fix that problem.

No actually the lattice system had nothing to do with it, it was the longass 15 minute cap timer, CE and cloaking AMS as a backup spawn point in case **** went south for the base spawn.

Hey devs how about a 15 minute cap timer? *wind through trees*

Alright, didn't think so, all that is left is the PS1 cloaking AMS, PS1 mines, PS1 spitfire, PS1 motion detector.

Have to totally agree on OP's post.

While I like the idea of pain fields, SOE needs to fix the ones we already got. Getting hurt because my pod landed on the air pad sucks.

As for the lattice... a mix of hex and lattice would work best. going from say: zurvan to mesa com station is an utter pain, having a big bright line saying not got there would be great; BUT being able to grab an adjacent hex not next in line of the lattice should allow for strategic movement by, say, adding bonuses to influence to the attached latice points. Simply put the latice should be the highway; hexes the backroads which route you take should be up to you.