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I don't mind the wide open areas on Esamir as they encourage different kinds of battles that contrast Indar's, and thus offering a diverse gameplay experience. I have been in 50 v 50 stand-offs on open fields, using the berms and trenches to fall back behind, and it is great to see, and still there are areas that require your standard base raids and capping.

I also like the fights at 'The Pit' and other places that are "carved out of the ground;" fights that occur between interesting land forms. I was disappointed that their weren't any major caverns sunken into the ground; caverns so huge that highly skilled pilots could fly through them, and bases could be built into them. They wouldn't be like the caves that the vets seem to hate, but just slight, but pronounced, dips in the terrain. And some thick forest battles as well; I have yet to see a thick forest in Planetside 2 -not even Amerish presents this feature.

As for what makes a great battle? two words: CLUTCH MOMENTS.
I played BC2 rush with my squad for over 300 hours and one of the things that always made us come back for more was those last moment, 'hail mary' disarms; when the attackers are down to ONE ticket, and you guys are on the last mcom (bomb), which has been set off by the enemy. We would go in the building -or where ever it is, and shoot everyone, sweating bullets as one of us disarms to the tune of a chaotic bomb siren getting increasingly irritable. When that save was made, and the 'Your team won' comes up on the screen, there was no greater feeling in that moment; we were all just feeling a great sense of 'YESSS. I am not saying that BC2's mechanics should be copied, but that in whatever way PS2 can achieve ITs OWN brand of clutch moments, it needs to do so.

Battles in PS2 in contrast just consist of one mob rolling against another mob, with no high stakes and few limits. It never comes down to the the wire. The battles feel almost bureaucractic in their process, as one force simply advances through the stages of assembling, moving, killing, capping, reassembling, and moving again. Defenders have nothing to lose as nothing significant happens once a base is 'lost.' The defenders who just lost the base, can simply just keep trying until they get the recap.

A 30 minute lockout timer would GREATLY improve those circumstances, I believe. If I were at a base that I knew I would no longer have ANY access to if I didn't repel the enemy, that base would become all the more valuable to me, and I would probably be sweating bullets while I am trying to repel the enemy at my gates.

Also, how about having bases run on finite resources that have to be replenished, so that when the base is running low, it becomes open to barbarian invasions from the other factions? This would create yet another opportunity for clutch moments. Think about the doom and gloom looming in the air as your platoon is isolated in an amp station that is cut off from influence, and your base's local resources -some kind of power generator, or nanite generator, is running low. And if no one goes on a supply run, your base will soon be indefensible (let's say this is in the future where SOE actually gave walls to amp stations and made them NOT porous). The feeling my team would get if at the last moment, someone came speeding in with fresh supplies and ensuring a measure of continuity to our operations at that base, would be great.