The true test of Sandstorm

Hi there developers and community,

I have been thinking about this for a while and wanted to see what your reflections are. By default we might assume that the measure of how good Sandstorm is how it compares to the 2014 Insurgency game, and thus orient our comments towards that goal. I want to propose that the true measure of how good Sandstorm is would not be found in 1:1 comparison with Insurgency, but rather with Day of Infamy.

In my mind without question, DOI was a more polished and developed game than Insurgency. The SL/Radio additions, adjustable points based on performance, the BOT AI, and just the overall feel of the game made it overall a better game than Insurgency. Some might argue that the difference in weapons, particularly the lack of scopes in DOI detracted from the overall experience, but that's more a matter of preference than an indicator of how good the game is.

As it stands, I think Sandstorm is promising in being a worthy successor to Insurgency. We are missing some gameplay tuneups, some future weapons, and of course several unreleased maps. Nonetheless, it's looking good. I do not think however at this point that Sandstorm surpasses DOI in the fun factor. The character personalities are more flat, there is no way to gain more points through performance, the leader/observer role is not quite there yet, and the maps & terrain are just not as fun and colorful.

What do you all think? What could Sandstorm learn from DOI that it cannot from Insurgency?

@aslan14 Sandstorm surpasses neither right now.

@cyoce, In terms of pure gameplay and fun, I agree. Both the originals feel more fun and fluid - that said, the game is in Beta and NWI is notoriously generous in their post-launch content. I would like to hear from one of the developers how you are assessing the current state of the game vs the originals.

@aslan14 said in The true test of Sandstorm:

DOI was a more polished and developed game than Insurgency

I don't know if I'd agree with this lol. It had a nicer main menu and some unlockable features like the units, but I always felt like doi was just a mod of ins2 which got slapped together with a pinch of fire support and thrown on the market.

The maps in Day of Infamy should be a general template for future maps. They were properly designed and had a good flow to them; a clearly defined theme for each section for each objective in push. One thing I dislike in Sandstorm is that firefight is just a portioned off area of one of the large maps. When they said that they will be developing firefight and competitive further, I thought they meant exclusive maps based off those gamemodes that would be a similar size to Uprising.

Maps should be made specifically for a single gamemode.

Brittany and the Tank factory were designed for non-push gamemodes for example.