Some ideas to balance armor WITHOUT changing the TTK

I'm glad they got rid of AP ammo in this, and I feel the protection values for armor should not be nerfed anymore than they already were. While I think the TTK is alright, I do worry that heavy armor is going to become a necessity, similarly to AP ammo in the previous Insurgency. I think some ways to combat this are:

  • Flinch mechanic. When you get shot, you flinch, throwing your aim off. It doesn't have to be much, just enough to cause you to probably miss your next shot or two, while also making sure the guy getting shot still feels like he has control of his character. I really like this idea because I feel it would make semi-auto more viable and make it so whoever fires first is at much more at an advantage, which is what Insurgency's gunplay should really be about.

  • Make people with heavy armor easier to hear. (Armor plates hitting each other as you walk)

  • Character slows down or dives after getting shot while running. Not sure why this isn't already in the game

  • Armor slows down ADS.

  • Armor slows down reloads.

  • Raise the cost of armor.

Edit: Okay so people don’t like the idea of armor slowing down ADS/reload, and they’re probably right. I was just throwing ideas out there, I don’t think every one of them needs to be implemented.

last edited by Tooth Decay

Agreed on everything.

@tooth-decay said in Some ideas to balance armor WITHOUT changing the TTK:

While I think the TTK is alright, I do worry that heavy armor is going to become a necessity

Don't worry about Heavy Armor lmao. It only has a guaranteed chance to stop a shot from killing you from six guns in the game, with three more possible if the gun lacks a Long Barrel attachment. Everything else basically just ignores armor in CQB.

@marksmanmax said in Some ideas to balance armor WITHOUT changing the TTK:

Everything else basically just ignores armor in CQB.

Which is Despacito-level sad

@tooth-decay said in Some ideas to balance armor WITHOUT changing the TTK:

  • Flinch mechanic. When you get shot, you flinch, throwing your aim off. It doesn't have to be much, just enough to cause you to probably miss your next shot or two, while also making sure the guy getting shot still feels like he has control of his character. I really like this idea because I feel it would make semi-auto more viable and make it so whoever fires first is at much more at an advantage, which is what Insurgency's gunplay should really be about.

  • Make people with heavy armor easier to hear. (Armor plates hitting each other as you walk)

  • Character slows down or dives after getting shot while running. Not sure why this isn't already in the game

  • Armor slows down ADS.

  • Armor slows down reloads.

  • Raise the cost of armor.

No flinch, please, for the love of god. It turns any FPS into a rage game. Imo, you should have a chance at retaliation if you get jumped and end up taking a hit first.

Characters should already slow down when shot, but it seems pretty janky currently and doesn't seem to work often.

Fuck armor slowing ADS down. ADS should honestly just be far slower to begin with. It's like Battlefield speed.

Armor wouldn't really slow reloads, IMO. Armor is under your ammo rig.

Armor is already pretty costly for the little it actually does.

EDIT: Having a stealth mechanic where armor makes you louder sounds like an interesting balancing mechanic.

last edited by MarksmanMax

@marksmanmax said in Some ideas to balance armor WITHOUT changing the TTK:

@tooth-decay said in Some ideas to balance armor WITHOUT changing the TTK:

No flinch, please, for the love of god. It turns any FPS into a rage game. Imo, you should have a chance at retaliation if you get jumped and end up taking a hit first.

That’s why I said there doesn’t need to be much. In CQC it shouldn’t have much of an effect, but once you start engaging at medium ranges, say, 100 feet, then you should start to notice it. I don’t like it when games take control from you to artificially increase the realism (like suppression effects), but I feel like this would help improve the gunplay, so long as a good (or lucky) player has a chance to counter it.

I like the idea of a flinch mechanic. If someone gets the jump on you I think you should be heavily penalized tbh. It would make the gameplay truly tactical because you would know that someone surprising you will be the end of you most of the time.

Take my comment with a grain of salt though, because the way the AI works currently would make the mechanic into a rage mechanic. If the AI worked better maybe @Tooth-Decay's suggestion would be good. Right now though, I have to agree with @MarksmanMax that it would just lead to some dumb situations.

I would be fine with / enjoy flinch as well. It makes armor something you more have to survivor while moving, less something you have to win 1on1 battles.

I would not enjoy slower reloads/ADS. It would mess me up as I would expect it to take a certain time, when in fact it would take longer/shorter time based on what I happened to ware. Lower movement speed I feel is more intuitive and easier to deal with.

More noisy seems interesting :).

@snuffeldjuret said in Some ideas to balance armor WITHOUT changing the TTK:

I would not enjoy slower reloads/ADS

Neither would I. As @MarksmanMax mentioned, slower ADS and reload times aren't realistic things that would be affected by heavy armor anyway.

Agree with slower ADS, but I prefer ads based gun type of guns.

I like the flinch mechanic but I think everyone should flinch if they get shot and don't die and think the main balancing solution should be vastly decreasing the effect of armor/weight on your ability to accelerate/change direction.

If different armor levels stay in the game (which I have advocated against in other threads, but I won't get into that here), armor could be balanced by slowing movement acceleration, especially while turning or sprinting. I like the idea of a ~10s acceleration stage in sprinting to facilitate map traversal without making people break the sound barrier in CQB, maybe heavy armor could reduce the max speed and take ~15s to reach it.

last edited by cyoce