Killfeed feedback - competitive only

@mr-pink I think it'll remove some confusion and it wouldn't hurt as much as it'd help.

@thehappybub Which is wrong. If you remove the aspect of not clearly knowing if enemy is dead, Firefight-gameplay will suffer a lot and lose one of its most interesting aspects.
Ins2014 and insmod had servers with killfeeds and no, it was not as much fun as playing without. sry for nostalgia, but since thise is not cs forums but ins forums its worth mentioning it.

Just one of the thousand scenarioexamples: you nade an indoor objective that is under attack.. with a killfeed you know you cleared it. without its insurgency.

If people are confused by not knowing if enemy is dead or not when playing at comp servers, than this is might generally be the wrong game than.

last edited by mr.pink

@mr-pink maybe on comp, but for versus its annoying more than it is "fun"

@thehappybub said in Killfeed feedback - competitive only:

@mr-pink maybe on comp, but for versus its annoying more than it is "fun"

OP is asking for comp, hence I reply on him in that way.

It can be there for Push and Skirmish, even for coop or however that botstuff is called. The few rounds I played skimrish and push told me, that this is nothing more than team deathmatch most of the time. I dont think adding a killfeed will be bad there. But the last shelter for tactical players(firefight) should stay without, because it hurts more than it helps in my opinion 🙂 Besides, Versus Firefight should get reduced to 16 players total, because this one is much more intense, leaves space for communication and tactics and is easier to follow...

last edited by mr.pink

@mr-pink Ur right, op does only talk about comp. My bad. Still, personally I'd like a kill feed. I vote for it lol.

@mr-pink Another guy just claiming things without 0 explanation.

That's the way boys. Just claim things without explaining anything. Good arguments. /s

@mr-pink said in Killfeed feedback - competitive only:

Just one of the thousand scenarioexamples: you nade an indoor objective that is under attack.. with a killfeed you know you cleared it. without its insurgency.

Did you even read my entry-post in this topic? Otherwise you'd know i dont want a killfeed for kills, that arent in your line-of-sight.

You aren't disagreeing with me here. What's your point?

Can you actually read the intro post and try to come up with gameplay/user-experience arguments that support your claim of "no killfeed"? Or will you only argue by nostalgia and irrelevant examples?

Can you actually read the intro post and try to come up with gameplay/user-experience arguments that support your claim of "no killfeed"? Or will you only argue by nostalgia and irrelevant examples?

Yes, no killfeed is required because kills can be communicated either by using your mic, or the radial voice-command menu.

What else needs to be said on this topic?

Irrelevant for competitive, but will probably be added to custom servers in the future, though; just like Ins2, there will be plenty of kill feed servers in all of the game modes. Radial menu was plenty good enough for me when I didn't have a working mic during the first beta. If people aren't using it, that's not a gameplay flaw, that's user error. If the radial menu is too hard for you to use, rebind your keys. It's easy. I got mine on a thumb mouse button (same with my commander wheel).

Competitive mode should be for people who want to play competitively. For example, there have been times where someone is shooting at me and I drop prone immediately and they think I died; I use that split second of them deciding what to do to tap a few rounds at them and kill them. They have LOS on me, so in your example, they'd know they didn't kill me and simply keep spraying/tapping. The very reason for no kill feed is HUD clutter and a requirement for more teamwork and attention to details in the game. I'd even go so far as to argue it increases the skill ceiling because less-skilled players won't know how to use the lack of kill feed to their advantage and will have to learn to play around it.

Edit to add: I find that not having a kill feed isn't a problem. Just always assume that you're the only person with kills and worst case scenario, you're pleasantly surprised when the round ends earlier than you thought.

last edited by tedeski

@benz said in Killfeed feedback - competitive only:

@mr-pink said in Killfeed feedback - competitive only:

Just one of the thousand scenarioexamples: you nade an indoor objective that is under attack.. with a killfeed you know you cleared it. without its insurgency.

Did you even read my entry-post in this topic? Otherwise you'd know i dont want a killfeed for kills, that arent in your line-of-sight.

You aren't disagreeing with me here. What's your point?

Can you actually read the intro post and try to come up with gameplay/user-experience arguments that support your claim of "no killfeed"? Or will you only argue by nostalgia and irrelevant examples?

In your OP you say: "
"The general player experience in public competitive matches is awkwardly bad in some cases, because you lack basic information like kills, not because those kills couldn't be confirmed, but because people don't have a mic/can't use their mic."

So the problem is not that there is no killfeed but the lack of information given by players (to the player).

I found this one that describes the problem I got with your suggestion quite well:
"If you complain that you can't drive your car at full speed on a broken street, you repair the street, you don't make your car drive faster."

Remember that? Its your words from 2nd September in a one of the TTK-Threads.

Transformed to this topic it would mean:
Either hope the players have a mic and can use it OR put more attention to the radial menu.
So, I agree, the keyword "killfeed" of your OP made me stop thinking logical and starting to rant. Now I just say, killfeed wont make the gameplay better at this point, it will change the gameplay in a way I personally would dislike.
Reasons for that are already given, tedeski made some good points there.

Rather give "Enemy Down" voice command more importance, maybe change it to: "Confirmed kill" so players know what this one should be used for.
Also commands like: "Area Clear" or "Need help" should be added, to tell your teammates the status of the objective you are at (as suggested here)

Ins14 and even insmod had such voice comms (positive and useful nostalgia) 🙂 I want nwi to add it to ss aswell, rather than a killfeed option.
Besides, LOS-only killfeed can lead to more confusion (not to the rest of the team, but to the player itself), because new players might think their nades never kill.

last edited by mr.pink

I think adding a killfeed would hurt the importance of communication in competitive. Yes, it can be annoying when your teammates aren’t communicating (and I agree that keybinds are necessary for those without mics because they’re faster than radial menu), but that’s why you have to take the initiative and communicate to them and encourage them to communicate back. “Encourage,” don’t get mad and yell. I like that Insurgency requires communication to win, not just skill alone, it really drives home the importance of teamwork. So to me, that’s what the lack of killfeed adds, an emphasis on communication and teamwork.

That aside, the LOS killfeed is an interesting suggestion, but I wonder if this is just too complicated. For one, smoke isn’t a solid entity, so it would probably be extremely hard to code for it. Second, it creates confusion for newer players because only some kills show up in the feed.

I think adding a video new players have to watch before playing competitive explaining the rules (firefight is pretty complex) and the importance of communication could definitely help. (This was originally suggested by Link) I also believe that once the game is fully released and the competitive game mode becomes more playable (fix the queue bug please), we’ll notice that higher level players will have better communication and this won’t be as huge an issue.

This has been discussed for 5 years....

I am a hard no for killfeed for the player.

Killfeed for the spectator/shoutcaster is a must. (This was in source.)

I understand why people want it, I completely understand. It's easier for the player. It helps people know whether they should push or not. It determines a lot how they will play. It may even speed up the game a little bit. It lowers the barrier to entry but... it's not that big of a barrier and I'm a bit tough love on this one - to the new players, you'll be alright, learn, adapt and survive.

Adding a killfeed in for players removes a core part of the game. It removes fear and the intensity. You guys don't throw prenades like we do. I know a ton of prenades for Sandstorm already - I am probably one of the few who knows so many and have been teaching people openly. And there are a ton more to learn!

If I knew I got a prenade kills(s) every round that would totally change how I played and I think it would make it boring. I thoroughly enjoy not knowing if I got kills with my prenades. It's exciting. It's thrilling. In one of my replays, I get a triple nade kill from a prenade on Town to cut the cross off - my entire team would have just ran straight to B for free if they had known I got that. I think it would be unfair for me to know that and it would take away communication and skill. After awhile you develop a sense of whether you got kills or not based on how the enemy is moving through the map and how fast they reach objectives/counter rotate.

Does it make the game slower not knowing if you got prenade kills? Yes.

Yes it does, but I don't think it slows it down enough to ruin the spectating system experience. In fact, it may even enhance it because the spectators know things the players don't. That's the fun thing about watching a shoutcast - knowing things the player playing doesn't and watching that player react on their feet. Those split second decisions etc.

How does it remove skill?

You don't need to confirm your kills. You have to think less. Maybe that would speed up the game more but I don't think it would be enough for me to support the change. Part of the beauty of Insurgency is an IGL counting kills and calling out where the opponent will likely be based off of how certain players like to play and the best statistical play they can make given the time remaining and kills the enemy got. It's like being a UAV and wall hacking but just based off game sense and kills. Removing the need to count kills and keep track of them would be dumbing the game down.

Faking your death is a part of comp like @tedeski stated in his response.

@link while your wall of text is honorable, 95% of it is irrelevant, because you mostly talk about non-confirmable kills.

I thought i made it pretty clear: i dont want a killfeed for grenade kills, wallbangs, smoke kills etc.

Like..i literally only want a killfeed for kills you can confirm anyways because of you seeing them.

I highly doubt "faking" your death happens nearly as much, to justify the cons, nor do i believe good players get fooled by it anyways. Like..in no match i've played in SS so far has that happened to me. Not even once 😃 ... but you know what happens in every comp game? Rhetorical question :D.

@benz I successfully fake my death at least once a night in competitive. So, given the fact that your teammates aren't communicating and nobody is attempting to use the lack of kill feed to their advantage means you've been playing with/against worse players. That's not an insult, the competitive queue is a mess right now, and it's really a crap-shoot.

I understand why you want a kill feed for visible kills, but at the end of the day, if the kill is visible and is not confirmed by the killer, it's the killer's fault and you should encourage them to do better next time. Also, like I already said, if you just play like you are the only one getting kills, you'll find that the worst case scenario is you play more passively than you need to and the round ends sooner than you thought. I tend to play competitive based more around how many teammates I have alive rather than how many enemies I think might be alive.

If it's information you want, why not ask for teammates silhouettes through walls? You would play differently if you knew where your teammates were at all times without having to check your map periodically. Why not show your teammates' loadouts over their heads mid-round? Why not include an ammo counter like CS:GO et al? The answer to all of those questions is the same: the devs want a minimal HUD and communication to be a necessity. Wanting information to be easily available is not an automatic reason to be granted that information when the game is clearly tailored towards that information needing effort to be obtained.

last edited by tedeski

Having kill feed for some kills but not others seems stupid to me. Not sure what you really get from it other than confusion compared to full feed. Either you want clarity with full kill feed, or you want immersion without it. I'd go for the latter, should encourage people to pick that mic up so that other stuff can be communicated as well.

last edited by Snuffeldjuret

I vote for no Killfeed, as it is now. Its the most interesting: shooting through walls or doors, or throwing a grenade in the room and then wondering "did I get him or not". And then going in focused and checking "haha so he died here (or not)". Love it.

But.
I vote to see killfeed after i die, when it has no effect on gameplay. I often wonder what happened here and there when I couldn't check. For example once I door banged an enemy (an epic event) and I would not have noticed if only there was not a steam achievment notification pop up.

Even after you die, the count can be communicated to teammates who are still alive.
This can have a huge impact in the outcome.

This discussion is about 5v5 competitive and even after-death, killfeed is a no-go.