If you don't fix the playlist system, this game will die.

Every game outside of peak hours and most of the game during peak hours are push-only because of the current playlist system. All the other queue times are too long for people to start queuing. So, nobody plays because nobody is queued, and nobody queues because nobody is playing.

I can't tell you how many times I have decided to play literally any other game because I'm tired of the issues with push (that's a whole different post...). I love these games (Ins2, Sandstorm), but there's times I'd rather play Minecraft than play another round of mid-afternoon push.

And, frankly, it seems like the devs don't really give a shit and just want to focus on minor issues instead of issues that will kill this game. We don't need fixes to cheeky pixel walks or bad clipping/textures. We need better smokes, game mode balance tweaks, and a playlist fix. Until you fix issues that turn players off to the game as a whole, the little stuff should be irrelevant. You don't keep a game successful by fixing things that affect 2% of the community, you do it by fixing things that affect 90% of the community.

last edited by tedeski

Something diffirent must be done in order to make this game modes more popular. I like to play competitive with friends, once in a month, probably. But, i see no point in winning a match. I won im stronk thats all............ Most of the time push. Whats wrong with smokes? except for glasses? Playlist works fine. They said "we heard you, optimization" dont you remember?

The issue with smokes is that they don't have consistent rendering for all players. Meaning, one player can sometimes see you but you can't see him (not because of a cheeky one-way smoke, just because both players see different smoke blooms). Additionally, looking to the side sometimes makes smoke plumes completely vanish if you're at the correct location.

I'm not talking about optimization. I'm talking about critical game elements being broken.

Edit to add: I wish comp had more of an incentive as well, but firefight just isn't a compelling game mode in the same way that CSGO's defuse game mode is (as an example). I don't think any amount of playlist tweaking will make competitive "good" or "fun" for the average player. It's kind of a niche community of a couple dozen (maybe a couple hundred?) or so players who enjoy comp/pugs.

last edited by tedeski

Agreed. They literally killed Skirmish. I'm not playing the game anymore - I hate to say that, I'm just not a fan of Push. Firefight and Skirmish for me. But they killed Skirmish.

@tedeski said in If you don't fix the playlist system, this game will die.:

The issue with smokes is that they don't have consistent rendering for all players. Meaning, one player can sometimes see you but you can't see him (not because of a cheeky one-way smoke, just because both players see different smoke blooms). Additionally, looking to the side sometimes makes smoke plumes completely vanish if you're at the correct location.

I can so fckng agree with that. How often do I lay beside smoke on an Objecive just to get killed instantly after the first pixel of an enemy I see. It could be
that I´m just veeery veeery slow. I had this situation two times where I could discuss it afterwards with people and they said "I saw you", when I couldn´t
see them.

I'm not talking about optimization. I'm talking about critical game elements being broken.

Another Thing i totally agree. Wanted to try this new headshot mode. Well. Its Friday, I´m CET 0830pm, there are 4 players waiting in Queue. And you know what?
It will never never never happen, that people just wait for, idk, 15 minute, to join a server. (Besides, you dont even know if it ever happens because probably, theres no
second person on earth who´d wait for so long for something that barely will happen.) Let us, at least, join a "nearly empty" server where we can fool around
without any XP earned and I think more people will join then. But now as it is, I only can play Push. As I can in INS2. Why do you even develop other mods?

Another thing: Devs said night maps will come. As far as I can say from the former INS games, the majority do not like/play night maps. With the playlist system
as it is, it will just instantly die after you implent it. (except it is forced into the Push playlist I guess.)
Btw: I LOVE night maps. And I love the supressor. xD

Yes, I think the same, I hate Push and COOP, but I love a lot Firefight and Skirmish, at this moment is near to impossible play my preferred modes because all the people are playing Push and COOP, yes, this game will die soon, at least, for me.

Patch 1.4.1 is Now Live featuring changes to the playlist system, and several bug fixes. Read full changelist here:

https://twitter.com/InsurgencyGame/status/1180243324268974080

Patch 1.4.1 Now Live
Given feedback to update 1.4, we’ve decided to make some further changes to the playlist system. We’ve been listening closely to the community’s thoughts and opinions, and we are actively working to iterate on the system in a way that is healthy for the community and its playerbase. Please continue to share with us your feedback, and know that we will be making further changes as necessary as we did with this patch and the hotfixes before it.

It is important for us to understand our playerbase better and learn what experiences our players want the most. Do note that these experimental changes are not set in stone, and we will be closely listening to the community’s feedback. As mentioned earlier, we do welcome constructive feedback to these changes. We just made a new Suggestions/Feedback forum on Steam, and encourage the community to post feedback there. Please read the pinned post to ensure the best results to your feedback and suggestions.

In the interest of remaining open and transparent, here are our motivations behind each change:

The Skirmish playlist found under Versus has been removed
To remain committed to the overall health of our game, we have decided to remove Skirmish from official matchmaking to help better populate matchmaking, decrease queue times, and addresses the issue of splitting the playerbase. This mode isn’t getting as much attention as we had hoped it would as its own playlist, and has been historically less popular than our other Versus modes both in Insurgency 2014 and in Sandstorm. As we evaluate different systems and modes, we’re focusing on ones that we have the time, bandwidth, and resources to support fully, and Skirmish is not on that agenda right now. The low player count and overall experience of this mode is not representative of the experience we want for players, especially new ones. We want players to get into games playing on fun game modes quickly. It is important to note that Skirmish will not be entirely removed from the game. It will still be available in community servers for anyone to host.

Push and Frontline modes have been merged into a shared playlist: Ground Battle
In addition to removing Skirmish to better support the player queues and overall health of the game, we have also decided to merge Push and Frontline. These two modes are the most popular and similar in flow, so we feel it makes sense to combine them and let players vote in between matches what they want to play next. While Push is the most popular mode, we are hoping that by adding Frontline to this queue, it will give the mode more exposure so we can better evaluate the degree to which the community enjoys it.

Casual and Competitive Firefight have been given a fixed 2x XP boost
To evaluate the health of the Firefight mode, both in Competitive and Casual, we will be adding a perpetual double XP boost. We are hoping this motivates players to play Firefight and helps us better evaluate the interest in the Competitive scene as a whole. We will continue to explore data, and make decisions based on these changes and what we’re discovering there going forward.

Additionally, we have added a Steam group specifically for Competitive Player Feedback. We hope to start a dialogue next week with Competitive players to give updates on what our plans are in supporting and facilitating Competitive going forward, and to invite constructive feedback from the community on how to improve the Competitive scene.

Versus Firefight player count has been increased from 8 v 8 to 12 v 12
To improve the overall experience of Versus Firefight, we’ve increased the amount of players. This is seen to be better gameplay and makes it more distinct from Competitive Firefight, which was 5 v 5. Our 8 v 8 change did help address player population issues, but given the other changes in this patch we are hoping that 12 v 12 can still provide a healthy playlist population.

The frequency of Limited Time Playlists will be reduced
As we have been exploring Limited Time Playlists, we have made the decision to reduce their weekly releases to a more gradual cadence in an effort to limit the amount of playlists featured at any one time. We hope that by reducing the frequency at which we introduce new modes, it will make them feel more exclusive and special as well as prevent unnecessary splitting of the playerbase. We still have plenty of new playlists to come, but we feel we need to be more conservative with how many and how often we show them.

We will continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of all these decisions. Thank you for bearing with us through these iterations of the playlist system. We hope that this patch and the hotfixes before it demonstrate our commitment to improving Sandstorm’s first time player experience and adding new game mode content in a way that does not split the playerbase. We cannot thank you, the community, enough for your continued support and positive feedback and suggestions. It is as it has always been since the Insurgency mod: critical to our development and direction we take the game. We will continue to monitor our social channels, forums, Reddit, etc and listen to the community. In addition to these changes above, our team will continue to work on bug fixes, new content, optimization, and other improvements based on community feedback. In this latest patch, we address a collision issue that caused grenades, players, or other large projectiles to properly pass through broken windows, added new first person Melee, Sprint, and Run animations for Mines, and more.

See the full changelist below:

(provided in link)

after this patch i have no choice but to play frontline? really? is that a joke?

@Kean_1

I don't think I am the only one that played Firefight because among other things, it felt more paced and different when it was 8 v 8. Now that it is again 12 v 12 the small maps just feel like complete chaos, like in the other modes.
And because the other game modes do not tempt me at all, this just pushes me away from the game.

Sure there is competetive for the original Firefight experience, but when the playlist has 8 players in queue, well..

This post is deleted!

@Nobana said in If you don't fix the playlist system, this game will die.:

@Kean_1

I don't think I am the only one that played Firefight because among other things, it felt more paced and different when it was 8 v 8. Now that it is again 12 v 12 the small maps just feel like complete chaos, like in the other modes.
And because the other game modes do not tempt me at all, this just pushes me away from the game.

Sure there is competetive for the original Firefight experience, but when the playlist has 8 players in queue, well..

......I just posted the news and link to the Tweet as a courtesy. I have no dog in this fight.