For anyone who hasn't seen this video comparing sway between SS and Insurgency.
Youtube Video

I think the biggest difference in feel between SS and Insurgency is the new sway mechanic. The sway while fatigued or suppressed is far greater in SS and makes aiming far too difficult.

There's two main reasons why I think the system should be reverted back/changed to more closely resemble the last game:

The TTK in SS is greater than in Insurgency, which means that shots should be easier to land to compensate. Insurgency, with its lower sway, allowed you to land more shots effectively even with 1-2 hit kills. With Sandstorm, it feels you are spraying while the gun sways/recoils everywhere while trying to land the 3-shots needed to kill someone.

SS is coming to consoles, and joysticks are far more difficult to use to aim precisely. The sway system in SS isn't necessarily terrible, but console players will definitely have a harder time landing shots effectively. Use any section of the above clip of sway in Sandstorm and imagine trying to compensate against that on console...

I've noticed that SS has also introduced a mechanic where sway can be completely eliminated by certain weapon/scope/stance combinations even without a bipod.

Ex. M16A2 with 3x scope, crouched, hold-breath.

M4A1 with red dot, prone, hold-breath.

Any sniper with 4x scope, prone, no hold-breath.

While this may be to compensate against the increased general sway, I feel this mechanic is kind of useless. For one, it makes spending points on a bipod almost redundant, especially with sniper rifles. And it makes the meta of crouching/standing still while holding breath too heavily relied-on. It de-incentivizes pushing hard since defenders can crouch or prone and have absolutely no sway while shooting attackers.

Insurgency had some trace amounts of sway even when prone and holding breath, and was impossible to get rid of sway entirely unless using a bipod. That system makes even more sense for SS over Insurgency given the new TTK and movement systems.

@wookieesteak said in Weapon sway: Insurgency vs Insurgency Sandstorm:

For anyone who hasn't seen this video comparing sway between SS and Insurgency.
Youtube Video

This video was posted Sept. 29th. A lot's changed since then.

The TTK in SS is greater than in Insurgency, which means that shots should be easier to land to compensate. Insurgency, with its lower sway, allowed you to land more shots effectively even with 1-2 hit kills. With Sandstorm, it feels you are spraying while the gun sways/recoils everywhere while trying to land the 3-shots needed to kill someone.

Not really. TTK in Sandstorm is only marginally higher than Ins2014, and if you factor out AP ammo entirely weapons in Sandstorm are far deadlier than weapons in Ins2014. Most weapons still kill in two shots, to my knowledge (haven't tested after the patch).

Also, absolutely not. Every weapon in Sandstorm was a laser beam before this update (when crouching, anyway) and the meta was extremely annoying. Insurgency firearms are hard to control. Period. If they aren't, it's just not Insurgency. Sandstorm was closer to Battlefield before the Nov. 8th patch.

SS is coming to consoles, and joysticks are far more difficult to use to aim precisely. The sway system in SS isn't necessarily terrible, but console players will definitely have a harder time landing shots effectively. Use any section of the above clip of sway in Sandstorm and imagine trying to compensate against that on console...

First of all, it's harder to aim on consoles, I suppose, but anyone who's actually good with a controller kind of negates that anyway. They aren't far more difficult, especially if console players are used to controllers (which they are).

The above clip is again outdated.

I've noticed that SS has also introduced a mechanic where sway can be completely eliminated by certain weapon/scope/stance combinations even without a bipod.

Ex. M16A2 with 3x scope, crouched, hold-breath.

M4A1 with red dot, prone, hold-breath.

Any sniper with 4x scope, prone, no hold-breath.

While this may be to compensate against the increased general sway, I feel this mechanic is kind of useless. For one, it makes spending points on a bipod almost redundant, especially with sniper rifles. And it makes the meta of crouching/standing still while holding breath too heavily relied-on. It de-incentivizes pushing hard since defenders can crouch or prone and have absolutely no sway while shooting attackers.

Well, no. Two of these require the shooter to be holding their breath (AKA they have to stop moving, crouch or prone, ADS, and then use Focus) and also leaves the shooter unable to move, so that's pretty easy to counter. Going prone also removes sway by itself but makes you a basically-stationary target and also means that any bullet that does hit you will probably be a headshot.

Bipods help with sway, but they're mostly used for negating recoil. Hell, after the Nov 8th patch bipoded weapons have no recoil whatsoever which makes them really useful for holding a position.

Insurgency had some trace amounts of sway even when prone and holding breath, and was impossible to get rid of sway entirely unless using a bipod. That system makes even more sense for SS over Insurgency given the new TTK and movement systems.

To be fair, sway is more of an RNG mechanic over anything else, so there has to be some mechanic that the players can use to counter it, whether it be take a fixed position or use their limited Focus ability for better stability. Having insane sway doesn't exactly make for a fun game.

RNG suppression sway (which this appears to be since it veers off in different directions) is a horrible mechanic and needs to go. RNG sway in general is poor design imo, but suppression sway is rewarding someone for missing you by messing with your aim. The advantage should go to the first player to land a shot, not the first player to click.

Insurgency have a quite easy to control gun mechanic, shoot in bursts when on auto, drag weapon in opposite direction, hold breath, play to your weapons strength and use single fire on longer shots. Insurgency compared to other games was never about difficulty of landing shots when familiar with the mechanics, but more oriented towards other aspects imo. Some more sway should not be a big issue as it just makes the game more skill demanding regarding aim as well. RNG is not an issue if it can be compensated by skill/technique, the skilled players just avoid situations with a lot of sway or compensate accordingly.

When it comes to consoles and first person shooters, controllers are horrible compared to mouse and keyboard, always has and always will be. I have no idea why they haven't introduced an option of keyboard and mouse on consoles, but the developers can't worry too much about tailoring the game to consoles by simplifying the mechanics at the cost of removing a skill based fps pc game. (controllers are for dark souls and zelda type games anyway imo, if two players of equal skill played a fps game with one on pc and one on console, the pc guy would mostly wreck the control user - that's just physics).

I think @MarksmanMax is spot on and don't understand why people complains about difficulty. Why is it not a good thing to play a game that give you some challenge? Games without challenge becomes old fast, and the same difficulty applies on both teams - The best team will win=)

@pacalis It's not the "difficulty" that's the problem. I'm up for a challenge of skill, but RNG mechanics just add a handicap to everyone. They don't actually make the game more interesting. As for skilled players avoiding situations with RNG, I don't think that's feasible. The only way to avoid being shot at is to flank (which isn't even possible on a lot of maps due to over-aggressive restricted areas), and the only way to flank in a timely fashion is to sprint. Either way, you're going to have RNG on your aim.

@cyoce
Well, as I said it is not regarded as a handicap by everyone, but an interesting challenge that makes the skill ceiling higher - More complexity and the need to think about approaches in new ways. There will be a ton of videos around with people finding successful strategies with this feature in the game, and is definitely many who already make it work. I am a low weight runner in these kind of games and enjoy flanking and rushing the most, it is probably about time players like me got some kind of nerf when choosing to run everywhere as it made slow approach players have very little advantages. It is a lot more realistic as well for those who like that part - Think about this: In a real situation people would rarely risk their own life unnecessary, but in a video game the consequences of high risk/high reward strategies is much more common because in worst case you have to wait until respawn and in best case you severely cripple enemy forces.

So a new features like this adds some balance between arcadey plays and more careful approaches. It is implemented as a feature and a pretty good one as far as I am concerned.

In Insurgency 2014 I saw no reason to wear armour whatsoever, in this game I might consider trying it out from time to time, which is good when you like to be challenged. Upload a video yourself made by either you or a video you find and place it here or write a detailed example about a situation where you mean it will not work to find a solution - I am sure we could see that there would be viable strategies. For example the sway will get reduced in a few seconds when not moving much, so if you need to move up yo also need to take a small pause into consideration. Smokes, frags, flashbangs, teamplay prefire, proning and situational awareness are all aspects that work wonders in the situations this game creates, even with sway - If you know a certain map and/or gamemode where this will not work because of restricted areas show/describe an example.

An intended feature:
Youtube Video