Musicnotes suggestions BIG list: Foviated rendering w/ 3D scopes, heavy armor physics, prone lying on back,floating legs, etc

ESC menu: The esc menu should NOT take us to the loadout screen in the background. If you're in the options menu, you won't hear any audio cues that you may be the last man standing.

Last man standing:

  • Bring back the last man standing message. (With the big red banner at the top)
  • Make sure the audio message is loud and clear. When it's just the character talking, it sort of just blends in with the environment as more random chatter to ignore. Something distinct like Mikees voice will do.
  • Leave the music to the spectators, let the last man standing listen for footsteps.

Restricted Zones:

  • On the outer edges you'll hear static coming from your radio. As a warning. (Or maybe some red light blinking on your watch? Some kind of visual or auditory warning.)

  • After 5 seconds on the outer edges of the restricted area, you'll be disarmed. ( You'll be instantly disarmed if you're far from the edges while inside the restricted zone)

  • There will be a retreat warning at the top of your screen before an area becomes restricted. (When defense loses an objective)

Commo rose:
In the first insurgency (standalone), I could use the command system to say "I'm moving to alpha",etc. This feature should make a return.

Suppression:

In the first insurgency (standalone), just getting shot ay lead to suppression, which in turn , decreased your movement speed. This feature appears to be absent in sandstorm.

Heavy armor re-balance without AP rounds:

You know how it's impossible to go directly into a crouching stance while sprinting, as your momentum takes you into a slide, right?
When you're wearing heavy armor, you should have more momentum.

  • If you try to do a 180 turn while sprinting in heavy armor you'll fall on your back. (The delay before you could fire could be longer than it is while going into a slide)

(Simply stumbling a bit could work too)

*It should be a little harder to come to a stop after sprinting.

  • There should be a maximum turn speed while sprinting.

  • You''ll fall harder when you're wearing heavy armor. There will be a recovery period when you fall from a height. You won't be able to shoot for a few seconds.

  • "Tagging" mechanics: If you take a bullet while wearing armor plates, your movement will be slowed down for a few seconds.

  • Your weapon could lower for a second if you do a 180 degree turn.

Heavy Armor Nerfs/Tweaks:

  • The area it protects can be reduced to just the plates carried by the plate carrier.

  • Shotgun rounds that would have otherwise killed you at close range will just knock you off your feet. (You won't be able to do anything for a few seconds, you'll be "prone" on your back when you recover)

  • Heavy armor could be more effective at longer ranges, but less effective at close range.

No-Armor rebalance:

  • If you're wearing NO armor. You'll have to worry about your heart hitbox. (This hitbox won't exist if you're wearing light or heavy armor)
  • The smallest bullet in the game will one shot kill if it hits your heart.

Visual/graphical suggestions:

  • Fade in effect for scopes (Like Rising storm 2's new scope effect). This should be less hardware intensive than insurgency standalone's scope effect (when you're not aiming down sight)

  • The spectator cam should be centered on the face, not the pelvis.

  • Player shadows (so I'll know when my shadow is giving away my position)

  • Binocular effect as one circle. (As you put the binoculars to your eyes you'll at first see two circles that will combine into one as the binocular is focused.)

  • Feet/legs should adjust to the height of terrain. No one's feet or legs should be floating because the terrain is uneven.

  • Lights/flames/flares should not use a transparent sprite or bloom to simulate lighting, but instead using real, dynamic lighting effects that affect the level's geometry. This should be less resource intensive in a deferred renderer. It looks really dated when you see a red transparent sprite around a flame. Like a trip to 2008.

  • Visible legs/feet would be a treat to anyone who unlocks a cool pair of shoes.

  • The majority of the time, you'll only see your wrists and hands, so some glove and wristwatch unlocks would be very welcome.

New method of rendering powerlines:

  • As of now powerlines often look like dotted lines, due to the lack of MSAA. Games like GTA V had a unique remedy to this. Powerlines did not act like real world objects, they were like lines in vector art. There was never any aliasing, they had a fixed thickness and as you moved away from them they became more transparent.

Eye adaptation:
As of now interior shadows appear to be too dark. Even if they are lit realistically, the human eye would have a way of adapting to the darkness. They should appear brighter after spending a few seconds inside.

  • Building interiors will look darker from the outside.
  • When you enter a building, the corner shadows won't look as dark as they currently do.
  • Everything outside will look brighter from the inside. (This should be adjusted patch after patch until the devs find out what would be best for the game. Rainbow Six Siege (in it's early stages) took this to an extreme before dropping it all together. )

Prone lying on back:
To make the prone system more usable and keep legs from clipping through walls, influences could be taken from Rainbow Six Siege, in this respect.

  • When a rock or wall is behind you, going prone will have you lying on your back as opposed to lying on your stomach. Model culling should be used to prevent gun barrels, elbows, and legs from clipping through walls.

(This is some crummy old sketch I made years ago)
0_1535997424720_insurgency%20legs.jpg

Separate ragdoll for death animations:

Perhaps, for first person death animations, there could be a seperate ragdoll. In some cases, it can act just like the third person ragdoll, but in others it could be used for better first person death animations.

  • When it ragdolls, there could be an invisible barrier in front of the face, so your camera won't clip through walls.

  • You'll see yourself writhing in pain with your arms flailing if you get burned to death by a molotov.

  • You'll see yourself gripping your wrist if you manage to get your hand shot off.

Sound-play suggestions:

Some surfaces create noise or distinct sounds when you step on them. Having more weight or heavy armor creates more noise. There could be different categories for these kind of surfaces.

  • Hard surfaces : These include concrete floors and tile floors. Only crouch walking will keep you from making a sound.

  • Soft surfaces: You'll generally make less noise if you walk across a carpeted floor as opposed to a hard floor.

  • Noisy surfaces: Unstable surfaces like piles of rocks or bricks will make noise regardless of how slow you move across them.

Crouch walking should be quieter than crawling.

Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six Siege, and Escape from Tarkov all had unique ways of using sound to outplay your opponents.

Counterstrike kept all footsteps sounds loud and crisp, but made you as silent as a ninja if you held the walk button. Siege took a similar route, but you'd make varying amounds of noise depending on your armor level. Escape from Tarkov used the scroll wheel to adjust your movement speed, and made different surfaces require that you go below a certain threshhold to avoid making noise.

Major gameplay tweaks:

The time to ready weapons after leaning is a bit too fast.
Youtube Video

There's no ADS speed difference when using bipods anymore.
Youtube Video

  • It looks like ADS speed in the previous insurgency has been increased significantly from the 2016 version. I would persoanlly like to see the original 1.5 second delay returned.

  • The animation system can affect gunplay. This is a different game, but players can twitch their bodies inhumanly fast, making themselves difficult to shoot.
    Youtube Video

  • The freeaim system appears to be working differently from the freeaim system in the old isurgency, which messes with muscle memory.

New action animations:

  • Resupplying at an ammo box shows you removing your ammo carrier and putting on a new one.
  • Rigging a cache will have a unique animation.

Cache rigging overhaul:
Personally, I preferred the demotions class to be the dedicated cache destroyer back in the old insurgency, but maybe things could be tilted slightly more in the demotion's classes favor.

  • When you start rigging a cache, the enemy will be alerted of "suspicious activity at their cache".

(This makes it a better option to use thermite,molotovs,ieds,or c4)

  • There should also be a rigging animation. You'll see your character's hands shuffling through something in the cache, then using duct tape to put together some explosives, then looking for the detonator. (Let the game take control of the camera at this point, it looks away while your hands are fumbling offscreen. Games like Rainbow Six Siege used camera tricks to hide imperfections in the animations, such as the grappling hook animation.)

Random ideas:

  • A digital rangefinder built into the binoculars.

  • Spawn protection: Some areas are "out of range" of explosive artillery or protected by anti-air. (No A-10 strafing runs in that particular area)

Countermeasures: The commander could call in countermeasures, which provides a one-time 20 second window to cancel out any enemy abilities. It's basically an off map fireteam of guys with stinger launchers, getting ready to shoot down an A-10 or look for some enemies about to use mortars.

  • If it's used, and no enemy commander abilities are used in the 20 second window, the enemy team will be notified of your team wasting it's ability. " We've stopped some enemy ambushers, it should be safe to call in fire support"

Knocked out/stunned:
I think there might be a place in game for a knockout/stunning mechanic.

As of now, being on the other side of a door while it's being breached (by an enemy) will result in the player being killed.
It's not really realistic, but it is fun.

Maybe instead of being killed, you should be put into a "knockout" state. Your screen will go black, but 10 seconds later, you'll wake up, just a few feet from the door. This means you may have to shoot any bodies you see after breaching a door, just to make sure they're dead. Knocked out players will still have their guns on the sling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/insurgency/comments/9dj14o/after_this_i_am_now_terrified_of_doors_in_this/

  • Knockouts should not be overdone. It could be more of an annoying feature than one that the playerbase would like. Just in case you guys consider removing the door kicking kills, they could be replaced with this, instead of making door kicking completely useless.

Voice acting:
Personally, I'm not really digging the voice acting in the current beta. The voice acting in Insurgency (standalone) was too good, to the point where it's hard to top. They were generic, but in a good way. The security forces gave you this tough guy, Chris Kyle sort of vibe. The insurgents, well, they were entertaining.

The new American voice doesn't really work very well with me. He sounds like "the new guy". I mean, like some new guy with no combat experience is just came to the unit and he likes to act tough but really isn't.

Maybe it'll grow on me and I'll come to like the new American voice, but time will tell.

The pain sounds are mind-blowingly good, though.

On an unrelated note, I get FPS drops when I'm looking at other players, but not when I'm looking at bots.

last edited by MusicNote

In the earlier insurgency, there is a sense of inertia. Your speed decreases significantly if you make a 180 degree turn. Inertia is missing from Sandstorm, which is why it feels so "arcadey" and why other players seem to move like Speedy Gonzales.

Please watch the video below, as it is VERY relevant to this subject
Youtube Video

I have more ideas...

3D Scopes options:
Currently, scope detail options have two different settings. High and Low. High gives you a high resolution 3d scope, low just zooms in on the scope model, having no 3d scopes at all. I think some new methods of handling 3D scopes should be put in place.

How about this, a technique similar to foveated rendering could be put in place. Your vision outside the scope could be rendered at a lower resolution, to keep dual rendering from killing your fps. The following options could be put in place.

Epic:

  • Your scope is rendered at your native resolution, as is the area outside your scope. No blur is put into place. You might have slightly better situational awareness with this setting.

  • "High" is renamed to "Epic", given the extreme FPS hit one will receive from using this option. "Ultra" could also work.

Foviated/adaptive:

  • Your scope is rendered at your native resolution, but everything outside the scope/viewmodel is rendered at 50% of your native resolution. The resolution of the area outside your scope will automatically reduce itself from 50% to 20% depending on your FPS.

  • Some games like Super Smash Bros for the 3ds have been able to render characters at a higher fps than the environments. I hope something like this could be done with 3d scopes. (I mean by priority, just rendering the scope and viewmodel at the highest FPS attainable, even if it mean's rendering everything else at a lower fps.)

  • Far Cry 4 on the console used a some kind of blur/afterimage effect whenever the FPS dipped, to give the illusion that you weren't losing frames.

Off:

  • This is the current low option, more appropriately renamed to "off". It simply zooms in on the viewmodel, foregoing 3d scopes entirely.

  • Everything outside of the scope/viewmodel will be heavily blurred for balance purposes. (No extra fov for your scopes here.)

  • The area outside of your scope is not only blurred, but rendered at a lower resolution, to cut down on fps loss.

Mute options:
Every teammate should have a mute button next to their name in the scoreboard. The mute button starts off blue, when a player speaks (but only when you, the player, are around to hear it) or spams voice commands, it turns orange, then decays to yellow, then turns green, then back to blue. This way, you will know who spouted racial slurs a few seconds ago.

  • When player is muted, you won't hear their mic or voice commands.

Unlocks:
A player should be given 100 credits regardless of whether or not they win, but I have an idea for the unlock addicts.
This might be a bad idea, but I'm going to put it out there anyway.

  • When you lose a game, 100 credits are added to your "prize pool". You won't be able to use them for unlocks.

  • When you win a game, you get 100 credits, PLUS your entire prize pool.

  • It's like a reward for making a comeback.

  • Maybe some "frequent player" bonuses for keeping the playerbase alive.

I once came up with an alternative idea for the observer/commander dynamic:

It's not a very good idea, but someone else can build off of it.

0_1536434425198_Insurgency commander tablet.jpg

Basically, the commander gets a tablet. The Observers get binocs. The Observer places the mark, and the commander sends something to the mark using his tablet. That's about it. Oh, and the commander can recall the helicopter and if it doesn't get shot down he can send it out again.

Commander Tweaks:
As of now, smoke can block your fire support ability and cause you to rain down artillery on yourself. The fire support "painting laser" should go through smoke.

last edited by MusicNote

Good read, this pretty much sums up everything i also want in the game, maybe not for knockouts.

Also, the video is very true, sandstorm is missing that inertia as you can do a 90 degree turn and not lose any speed at all, this is what makes movement feel real off.

The point on Inertia is probably the most important point in this entire post alone. Movement and gunplay are the most important mechanics in any fps. That careful, methodical approach to engagements is one of the core aspects from Ins2 that really helped tie this tactical-based shooter series together. Sandstorm needs it back.

Good vid, and I hope the devs listen.

Graphics Options:
The graphics options could use some reorganization. Our FPS should also be displayed on screen, so we wouldn't have to enable the steam overlay or use third party programs.

  • Low, medium, and high settings need better descriptions.

  • There should be preview screenshots/videos giving us a better idea on what each option does.
    (Show us an explosion for effects, show us powerlines and soldiers in the distance for supersampling, etc)
    0_1536671693225_options preview.jpg

  • A bar showing us how much video ram we have to spare would be nice. (Along with the estimated required usage if we're not in a game)

  • Frame rate smoothing needs a better description, what it really does is that it keeps your framerate from increasing very suddenly as your video card is able to draw more frames in some instances.

Better organization for graphics options:
The options need to be grouped in some way. (In groups of 3s or 5s might be best)

  • Post processing options can be put together. (Post Processing, FXAA, motion blur)
  • The most demanding options can be grouped together (3D scopes, super sampling, tessellation)
last edited by MusicNote