First Impressions - Nov 8 Update

OK, so I've just put in some playtime after the new update, and here are my first impressions.

I can tell a lot of work has gone into this and quite frankly I like it!

The Alpha AK:
The new rifle is easily my favorite. I'm a sucker for the AK family of rifles and I adore the new Alpha AK. It's easily my new favorite weapon in the game.

Cosmetics:
My main gripe about the cosmetics being too expensive is long gone! They are now IMHO reasonably priced and feel very achievable. I no longer feel like I have to grind through hours just to unlock a camo. THANK YOU NWI!

Quality of Life:
I couldn't help but notice some really thoughtful QoL improvements, like the scopes etc being highlighted in the selection menu. God, you've saved me a lot of eyestrain. I'm also very happy to see the drum magazine finally getting a world model.
I like the new stances and models on the menu and in the customization screen. They're so much improved. Now they look like actual people instead of Ken, Achmed and Barbie dolls. Hahaha.

FPS:
I appreciate the new graphics options and as of this moment, I have yet to tweak my graphics to gain optimal performance.
That said, I was playing at a decent 20-25 FPS before the update and now I'm getting between 15-20 FPS. The game is still playable, mind you, but just barely. I suspect that as I tweak the graphics settings and as updates roll along, performance will improve. So I'm not overly worried. I've read a lot of people complaining about how their performance has "dropped from 100 to 50 FPS! OMG yadda yadda yadda!" I don't know what the fuss is all about. Yes, the frame rates have suffered a bit, but the game is playable as it is and I am hopeful that it will improve. If you're having FPS issues, try tweaking your graphics settings. (I will leave my system specs below for reference).

Stutter:
For me, for all intents and purposes, the stutters are GONE.

Final thoughts: Sandstorm is improved and better off. I'll play a hundred or so hours more and give my impressions on the gameplay changes and whatnot.

My Specs:
Intel Core i5-3317U
Radeon HD 8700/8800
RAM 8GB

how on earth can you say 20fps is playable. really come on

@b4ndo it is for me. 30 is ideal. I guess it's subjective by the end of the day. Look at my specs. I'm not expecting 50 FPS

@b4ndo
Some people can tollerate it. Its mainly when youre used to high framerates that you cant cope.

@rover said in First Impressions - Nov 8 Update:

I've read a lot of people complaining about how their performance has "dropped from 100 to 50 FPS! OMG yadda yadda yadda!" I don't know what the fuss is all about. Yes, the frame rates have suffered a bit, but the game is playable as it is

The "fuss" is about not getting the frames we would expect from a sequel to Insurgency that's trying to be competitive. Once you get used to 144 fps, anything below 100 feels worse and noticeably hurts your aim. And that doesn't just apply to good PCs. On my old crappy computer, the difference between 60 FPS and games that could only run 30 was drastic.

Yup that’s crazy man anything under 60 fps is unplayable to me and I wouldn’t bother.. I’m not overly happy with the fact that I have to lower my settings quite drastically so that I range from 80-140fps as opposed to 60-120fps maxed settings but at the end of the I suppose fps is just much more important to mean than visuals. My hopes for a steady 140 fps with almost or mostly maxed settings are quickly fading away but maybe I’m asking too much out of my i-7 8700k/msi gtx1080/16Gb HypperX Furry ram gaming pc? Lol I was really hoping I wasn’t asking for too much because my monitor is 144htz but I am just so doubtful these days.. Sigh...

@cyoce I understand. It's just that my FPS haven't suffered much, and also I'm pretty comfortable at lower FPS. Hopefully, your problems will be ironed out soon too!

20 FPS playable? Damn, I thought my standards were low. For me 40 is OK and 60 is perfect, but 30 is the bare minimum after playing a lot of Halo PC/Custom Edition which had 30 FPS unless you had vsync enabled.

My performance since the most recent update also dropped a bit, but I'm sure they're still working out the kinks, still got quite a way to go to December 12.

As much as I rage at bots blowing me up with well placed frags and laser guided molotovs it does mean I can no longer just camp a spot forever, and I feel that overall the new update is great. Nice being able to see models for magazine and muzzle attachments besides suppressors too.

My only...problem, for lack of a better term (it's really not a problem more than a wish) is that the flash hider and compensator models seem to be custom made - I was kind of hoping they went the PUBG route with attachments in that the models were based on real life attachments for the guns. Let's look at the SCAR-H for example. In PUBG, applying a flash hider to the SCAR-L gives it the 3 pronged flash hider of the SCAR-H, I thought it'd be pretty cool if in Sandstorm the same thing happened. Similarly the AKM could use a slant cut compensator that actually is made by Izhmash, while the AK74 could use the 6P20-020 compensator (google image search it, looks pretty cool). In fact, the FAL in the game already has a flash hider on its vanilla model but applying the flash hider attachment replaces it with a different one.