You have completely removed smaller tactical squads from the game.

Even solo players can have fun with Lattice.
Small outfits should find a way...

Towers were not connected to the lattice and could be back-hacked at any time

You could hack or take out objectives such as removing spawn tubes or taking out the "base fuel" resource that base's relied on to operate. If you took this, eventually the base during an assault would run out of this resource and become neutral (nobody could own the base). This was essential in clearing out entrenched positions. Once you felt like your security over the base was garunteed, then you'd get the fuel thingy back online to start capping the base for yourself.

In other words, smaller groups had the capability to do things in a fight that didn't directly relate to the main force, which was fun and offered variety and allowed spec-ops roles to exist, versus what we have now where if you want to do anything you have to do your ops with the main force and just fight it out.

Come on... The difference is that on D-Day there was ONE man in charge Einsenhower with ONE plan. There was a commander in chief and a clear chain of command to coordinate the whole thing.
Nothing like that in PS2. Every outfit does his own thing and even solos have the freedom to do what they like.

Imagine D-Day if every single soldier had the choice of where he's going to fight anywhere in Normandy...
What a mess!!! And I'm sure a lot would have chosen the places where there were less germans.
That's what we had before Lattice.

...Last night I witnessed a galaxy drop a squad behind enemy "checkpoint" towers and neutralize their anti vehicle guns, snipers and the shield generator, all of which were keeping their faction from advancing.

I'm fine with that. There's already plenty of games out there for small team tactics. This game is all about large team tactics. I'm not saying one is better than the other but they are different and if people can't stand big battles then they still have many options.

What is a large outfit comprised of?

Platoons.

What are these made of?

Squads.

A squad is the base unit. It has - by far - the most influence on any given battle. You take a squad somewhere and set an objective, you can change the entire tide. The rewards may not be obvious, the effect may not always be immediate, but you definitely matter.

Dropping on an satellite with your Galaxy, hacking out an AMS and securing the point is something that can be done with a single squad, and like that you've changed the entire dynamic of the battle. Assaulting an Amp Station and securing a generator. Hunting out enemy Sunderers and killing enemy spawn points is by far the most important aspect of any fight, and a handful of men can do that. Providing Burster cover, dedicated anti-tank squads...

There is alot in this game that squads can do, individually. All you need to do now is co-ordinate. The difference is that instead of circumventing battles entirely and screwing up the dynamic of the entire continent, which is no fun for anybody(No matter how much of a difference you feel you're making, outfits that have been ghost capping are the ones that have died/become useless), you now instead are forced to engage and come up with new methods of effecting the battle, and this comes with focused tactics, specializing your squad(important), and knowing when and where to be. You see a zerg taking one base and you can't win? Look at the lattice link, and set up a trap for them on the road. AT Mines, Striker/Lancer/Phoenix nests, you name it. That screws up and slows down and entire attack when done well.

There is plenty of room left for tactical gameplay. More than ever, really.

I love the new game because people are so blind to the front battle lines my squad of 4 guys could sweep behind them and snipe and take out takes to our hearts content.

This is not BF3.

SIZE.ALWAYS.MATTERS.

That's not true. You can still work as a solid small tactical squad despite there being a large number of enemies all around. And it will make you more effective than all the other randoms running around with their heads cut off.

If you guys separate at 100km and call that a small tactical squad, you are kidding yourself. This game is about massive warfare and combat. Learn to accept that you may have to deal with punishing odds from time to time. It's not going to make everyone happy. Best of luck to you in the future.

The lattice system was a very good change because zerging an empty base due to poor mechanical organization of the game, led to boring ghost capping or futile defense, which in my opinion would kill the game eventually. Since logging in yesterday, I have never had so much fun playing Planetside 2. Very fun fights were had and I made 700 certs roughly. And they improved the bases so vehicles can't just run in and spawn camp like they used to.

Great changes but you can't make everyone happy. Thanks SOE. If only these changes and updates were here on release, I think you'd have retained more players.

We might have lost some STRATEGY (not really) but its about time we start thinking about TACTIC.
Learn to win a battle by deploying a couple of AMSs in the right place (surround your enemy with mobile spawn points), with a smart galaxy drop, by using shield breaker sunderers, not just by rushing the most undefended bases on the map like we did for months.

Deploy an AMS on the top of a hill, organize an AA team and a veichle team to defend it, and basically you just built yourself half a base.

This said, towers should not be connected to the lattice.

Small tactics still exist. My outfit usually runs 1 squad because we love the smaller squad stuff. We have adapted when playing on Indar. Instead of engaging the zerg we Defend bases behind the lines. Or we sneak in front of the line and set up an attack on a base that we know is next in line and about to be attacked that way when the enemy is forced out they immediately have to keep defending.

I was a fan of lattice but it has changed up small squad tactics. I never wanted to ghost cap and we never did. The biggest problem I see with this lattice update is too few connections. I wanted the lattice because it made for a battle flow but overall all their needs to be more connections in the current lattice.

I also hated the hex because it was too open. The current lattice feels to constrictive. They need to find the perfect balance between.

Not the same job. If we can only defend one outpost, we can protect all backland in the lane system. In the multi-lattice (hex) system, we would have to protect all those backland areas individually with the same amount of troops. We will stand a much better chance being a rock in the river, than if we're a pebble in the ocean.


You don't seem to understand what a chokepoint is. Ever read about the battle of Thermopylae? I'm talking about protecting the pass against the zerg. You're talking about protecting the pass, the plains, the hills, the cities, the fields all at once.

Hear that Waterson VS & NC? Someone putting words in someone else's mouth.

For the record, yes, a lot of ghosting is involved in the previous system when you make a swift push deep into enemy territory. Shut up, it's not like we've not done that ourselves. There's nothing to it. It's not an achievement. Don't pretend ghosting five bases in a row was hard even on a full continent in the previous system. It was boring and trivial.

I'm not sure if you really understand the issue I'm adressing, or thinking of something different. The previous system required people to pre-emptively sit in far more places without doing anything to hold terrain. The only thing that would happen in a lot of those areas was someone farting. :/ With a bit more restriction (I'm not saying the current system is restricted exactly right, I have not played sufficiently in all areas to comment on all links), you will more easily leave an area behind to move on. That changing of scenery is important, but it's only valuable if there's actually something to do there.

Otherwise, you might as well get a travelguided tour.

I don't think a reward system fixes anything. It's one incentive, but it can also cause tirement and apathy if the concept of the alert would be continuous: "Oh we lost this one? Maybe the next then. Or the one after." I think you should be quite careful with instant-gratification type rewards, their appeal can wear off over time as well.

Could be.

As long as you have a sense of accomplishment. You'll find that each of these fights, even in the same locations will be different, as long as there's no set way to win (for instance, camping from a specific area wins by default). I'm quite sure we'll see more feedback on some areas of the map that till now have seen hardly any action. For instance, Saurva.

So far, I've seen more action at Mao than I've ever seen before, so the variety has definitely increased. I'd even say there's a much better north south flow where the hex system was a far more west-east oriented fight.

/sigh. And you're comparing the choke point in Thermopylae where the defenders were in the "saddle" of the mountain pass, with impassable mountains or cliffs on either side (ps1) to the grand canyon where you are in the bottom of the ravine and the enemy is all up on top (PS2). PS2 doesn't have the chokepoints that PS1 had. And I am paraphrasing YOU when saying that. And it is an important factor to account for.

"Ghosting" a base is not eliminated in the lattice. It is just as possible to push down a lane, take 5 bases in a row uncontested. Nothing changed going from Hex to Lattice. If there is no incentive to defend that lane, it won't be defended. Exactly the same as if there is no incentive to defend that hex, it won't be defended. The lattice does not prevent an attacking force from taking an undefended base. The lattice is nothing special with respect to "ghosting" compared to the Hex system.

Because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I don't understand what you wrote. That being said, it is also possible I didn't understand what you wrote. Just don't assume because someone continues to argue their point, they are incapable of understanding what you write.

As for the hex vs. lattice. There were 2 scenarios I experienced in the hold hex system.

1) A true full out push to capture a continent.
2) Just playing on the continent.

In your arguments, you tend to refer to scenario 2. People take a base, then leave it completely undefended and attack the next base. Which leaves it open to be "ghostcapped" and it all devolves into a territory merry-go round of cert farming for the sake of cert farming.

In my arguments, there is a concerted effort to actually WIN the continent, and the bases are held long enough for adjacency to be eliminated, removing the threat of ghostcapping. Not hours at a time of sitting and diddling around doing nothing. Well, not necessarily. But that becomes a test of commander skill at moving troops in appropriate responses to threats.

Assuming the attacking force starts off warpgated, they will increase the number of hexes they have to simultaneously hold up to a point, and then that quantity will decrease as they near the enemy warpgate. However, the enemy will either:

a) spread out and try to attack all hexes at the same time, which requires the attacking commander to retaliate by spreading out his forces in appropriate sizes, or

b) focus a huge zerg at one hex to break thru. The appropriate response is to leave all the outlying hexes lightly manned and focus the majority of the troops to countering that huge push.

And then, there opens the door to other tactics, like feints where you get your opponent to burn up things like squad deploy and spawn becons to hurt the ability of the enemy to reposition quickly to the "true" attack.

Getting back to the point. The hex system requires holding and securing territory as you "bulge" towards the middle of the map. The lattice requires the same thing. As you progress towards the middle of the map, the territory you have to secure "bulges" as lanes split. So I don't buy your "the hex has to hold more territory" argument. Lattice requires just as much "holding" of territory to continue towards continent domination. Problem is people don't play to dominate continents. And the lattice did nothing to change that. In 4 hours of playing last night, all I saw was colors changing from South East to North East, from South West to North West and from South East to South West. At no point during that 4 hours was there any belief that the continent would be challenged by either faction.

I referred to the Alerts to argue that the Hex system worked just fine when incentive is present. I now regret even bringing up the Alerts because you are getting hung up on it. Forget alerts.

What I propose is for the Continent reward (10% reduction on either Infantry, Armored or Air resources) to be awarded to the faction that manages to hold the majority of the territory on a continent for 15 minutes... updated dynamically. This means how a faction pushes is important. If a faction pushes into one enemy faction and not the other equally, they run the risk of taking the continent bonus away from one enemy faction and giving it to the other enemy faction.

I proposed this as an experiment to show that the Hex system would work just fine if INCENTIVE was there. But to be fair, this proposal would work JUST AS WELL in the Lattice system.

First of all, don't compare ancient war tactics to modern ones. The invention of the gun, and especially the aircraft, has completely changed strategical warfare. The only reason to mention ancient battles is for basic ideas like flanking, diversions, etc.

Speaking of flanking, do you remember how the battle at the hot gates ended? The Persians used an undefended route to flank the Greek forces. The Greeks didn't react in time to this discovery. The Spartans, along with Thebans and Thespains, held the pass in order to save the remaining Greeks, and they were subsequently slaughtered. That doesn't at all sound like a zerg that is too focused on one particular front, does it?

You don't have to follow the path. Now that they've changed the spawn system, you just have to spawn at warpgate, and take a vehicle to whatever base you want to defend, unless you want to be trapped in the spawn room, surrounded by 50 tanks, like we were last night.

It is hopeless for small squads, and small battles now. They won't exist. It's just going to be huge groups following the paths to the crown.

This is supposed to be a FPS, last time I checked. A lot of the people who play this, play it like an RPG, have no FPS skills at all, and last night I was treated to a COMPLETELY skill less TR outfit with a macroing noob that was impossible to target.

The fundamental FPS elements of this game are so broken now. It's an XP grinding, farming, zerging noob friendly, bad play incentivizng, joke of a game now. Unless you follow the zerg, you get no XP, and with the new spawn system, it basically forces you to the warpgate or to the zerg surrounded spawn room. It's ******* BS.

I made a big CONSTRUCTIVE post about this begging the Community to fix this problem themselves by not playing Indarside 24/7 and actually getting all the smaller outfits to agree to start a small outfit 'Fight Club' over the less populated Continents. But it was deleted b/c the thread title contained the word "Hypocrites" <--- OH NO .... God forbid we call a spade Triangular Shovel a spade Trowel... (ironically, this is the same sort of reason Smedley himself says he doesn't use these forums either).


Well I guess it's already been Decided FOR THEM now thanks to GU09.
So yeah, if you're a smaller outfit, then Get Thine Hind Quarters off Indar finally and actually start 'providing content' to other Smaller Outfits. You guys might actually discover it's kind of FUN. Even the Larger outfits I'm in have already started doing this just b/c they dislike the Indar Link system so much.

you could fight on the other conts?

yup they shouldve redesigned bases and the whole gen system ... they are really starting to limit this game in may ways . these arent large fun battles . these are a giant version of metro from bf3 which only happen when the factions zerg meet . people wanted order because they couldnt handle the chaos of the battle before the lattice . it was to alive , it changed to often . a frontline that actually has less fighting going on than you think is somehow better than a battleground where large areas of the map were fought over all the time . as ive said before the hotspots give the illusion of a battle going on all along the line . but in reality there is still only one or two big fights and they are now more concentrated , while the rest of the map is full of outnumbered soldiers getting stomped by one zerg or another .

I'm not convinced the introduction of lattice is bringing about doom and gloom just yet, but I have to agree that individual squads and light outfits have lost a lot of strategic relevance.

Tactically, everything's still in order.

I could think of five ways that would have improved the hex system and eliminated ghost-capping, but I'll see how lattice works first.

My first six hours with it on Mattherson, NC was stuck at the warpgate and couldn't push beyond Feldspar Canyon, but I'm positive that's more due to Indar's terrain being hideously unbalanced (seriously, one side spawns in a position of dominance, the other spawns on a wide open field that's easy to spread across quickly, and the other gets shafted with narrow maneuver-restricting canyons. What the hell, man. Even when they rotate warpgates, I only feel sorry for whoever has to deal with it.) than the lattice system itself.

uh... ZERG are gone? what? There are only zergs now.

losing a Biolab is practically impossible now. Air and Armor are confined to the exterior and satellites. The best strategy before was strike hard and fast with infantry and destroy the SCU, cap the points and wait out the long timer, which was long enough for the defenders to mount a counterattack. But now you can't destroy the SCU, and new max zergs easily overpower attacking infantry.

i have no idea what you're talking about with this "meta" game. You're basically saying that the Lattice system is currently better than Hex, but only if they completely revamp the game's missions and resources in the future. There are still battles (better ones) on the other continents. Hex IS better.