Miscellaneous Thoughts and Suggestions.

I've been playing Sandstorm from since the alpha stages, closed beta and of course release. In total, combined beta and full release I've racked up 86+ hours and I thought I'd talk about some things I feel may suit a change or addition.

Gameplay involved

  • Gas masks: While there may be something in place for this already, I can't tell; if you can get the gas mask it seems like there's little to no reason not to equip it let alone take it off. I personally don't find the overlay very obstructing, (it also appears unaligned and I'm not sure why) it muffles your voice which could be considered another pro of it if your voice is less noticeable. I can't say I have a genius balancing idea other than some sort of stamina hindrance since you're breathing through a filter or make the overlay more obstructing.

  • 1x-2x Sights: Firstly, the holographic and reflex sights, when aimed, have zero shake or movement. Personally, I find it a little jarring and although I understand it's good from a competitive stance since it makes it substantially easier to see where your shots are going but at the same time, but it also renders laser sights useless when aiming which is the opposite case with scopes and ironsights. On top of this, when focusing with these sights since the reticle doesn't even change whatsoever, I personally find this obnoxious and for one main reason: Because the entire reticle stays the same size relative to the screen, focusing does not make the inner circle more clear and the fuzz doesn't help. While I prefer the holographic sight usually, this seems to be an issue almost exclusively with it. This also follows into my second issue with 1x-2x sights.
    I, like many others, find them too fuzzy to begin with and, again, I feel as though the holographic sight suffers from this too much. Some suggestions to these complaints collectively are: Give 1x-2x sights some parallax and/or make the reticle scale with focusing, reduce the fuzz overall with 1x-2x sights (specifically holographic) or possibly make focusing with these sights reduce the fuzziness and only when focusing.

  • Item switching: I've found something I found obnoxious (but have found a work-around) and that is when using the number keys to switch weapons, you can only start switching to another item using the number keys once it was "finished" equiping, however, when using the mousewheel this case is not present which is an odd inconsistency and rubs me the wrong way since I always prefer number-key-switching to mousewheel-switching but I'm seemingly forced to use my least liked.

Cosmetic involved (Little-to-no gameplay impact)

  • Class based outfits?: What about a system where you can have your cosmetic outfits applied to specific classes? I personally thought it would be interesting if, let's say for Security side you have it set so your Rifleman or Marksman class is set to be an Iraqi soldier or militia outfit with fitting equipment while your Advisor class is set to a Spec-Ops voice with a fancy high cut helmet to compliment the description of advisor being a foreign agent sent to train local forces and using exotic equipment.

  • Suppressed voice lines: I absolutely love the energy of the suppressed voice lines but I very rarely hear the ones I always enjoy to hear (Intimidate, Enemy Down, Negative) and I feel this is because by the time I use these voice lines, (promptly after a firefight) the suppressed effect, specifically on voice lines, has worn off. I would prefer if the suppression effect on voice lines exclusively (I have no issue with the duration of the visual effects) last maybe 2-4 seconds longer so you get a chance to use the voice lines in a quieter environment rather than in the middle of being shot at muffling said voice line.

  • Cosmetic weapon switchouts?: Definitely an unrefined idea but an idea I would love to see. Insurgency 2014 had tons of wonderful workshop items that changed out weapons for interesting models or even entirely different guns.
    The idea is to have a weapon be able to be switched out for a cosmetic equivalent (absolutely no stat changes whatsoever) but would be a different gun model or variant that performs (or can perform) very similarly in real life and would not be purely client side as the workshop mods were. Some examples could be having a cosmetic switch out for the Mk18 be to a HK416, the M24 for a M40A5, or AKM for one of the many interesting AK clones (e.g. Type 56) as for these the differences in real life are arguably minimal enough to hypothetically not have a noticeable effect in Sandstorm gameplay.
    Essentially, these would work as weapon "skins" that fill the void of extensive weapon variety without adding unnecessary gameplay fluff with tiny stat changes to virtually the same weapons.

  • Legacy cosmetic items: I would absolutely love to see some cosmetic choices very closely resemble the character models from Insurgency 2014 (not to say Modern Infantry Combat is out of the question) such as a headset and baseball hat for Security resembling the light-armor variant of Security and possibly a neck and lower face wrapped shemagh for insurgents alluding to the VIP insurgent.

@rexze said in Miscellaneous Thoughts and Suggestions.:

I, like many others, find them too fuzzy to begin with and, again, I feel as though the holographic sight suffers from this too much. Some suggestions to these complaints collectively are: Give 1x-2x sights some parallax and/or make the reticle scale with focusing, reduce the fuzz overall with 1x-2x sights (specifically holographic) or possibly make focusing with these sights reduce the fuzziness and only when focusing.

Yup, the EOTech reticle needs some love for sure. Myself and several others have been complaining about it since early beta. Admittedly it's not a high priority, so I'm not upset they've not fixed it. I'm mostly hoping for a quick mod to take care of it now.

The EOTech should, realistically, be a little fuzzy. It's an effect from the laser projection system it uses. Weirdly enough, trying to concentrate on the reticle will make it appear more fuzzy, it's designed to be sharpest when the eyes are focused on the target.

  • Cosmetic weapon switchouts?: The idea is to have a weapon be able to be switched out for a cosmetic equivalent (absolutely no stat changes whatsoever) but would be a different gun model or variant that performs (or can perform) very similarly in real life and would not be purely client side as the workshop mods were.

This has been suggested a few other times and I think it's a great idea. It would be a great way to get a lot more weapon variety in the game without needing to make them all unrealistically different.

Class based outfits.

I really like this idea.

I agree that red dots/holos are too fuzzy, but I don't think they should be made more difficult to use. That pretty much defeats the purpose of equipping one, and it would encourage people to run disgusting irons (I'm looking at you, M24 and M16).

Laser sights don't need to be useful while aiming; that's not their role.