Has the TTK been increased? if so... why?!

A security solider took 3 shots to the chest of my FAL. Granted he was using heavy armor... but still, this is absurd

Making this kinda post is absurd.

First of all, credit where credit is due: compared to the last time that I played, the improvements made to the game by the devs have been plentyful and I am absolutetly amazed how much they have improved things in this extremely short time frame! I know how ridiculously hard gamedev is, and I would have thought it to be impossible, to improve the game so much in such a short timeframe! Kudos to the devteam, I'm very impressed by what you pulled off here! And I feel like you are actually listening and quite a few of the things that I criticized have been greatly improved! In terms of movement and aiming behaviour you have taken great strides in making old Insurgency veterans (I have over 500 h in the old one) feel at home again. It no longer feels like a Squad clone to me, that is a huge improvement!

Right now, the single biggest complaint that I have with the game is the very very high time to kill. I have played a fair number of shooters and old Insurgency always stood out as having both tight controls, impactful satisfying gunplay, and super high combat lethality. It made you feel absolutely badass when things went right, and when they didn't... you often didn't even see it coming.

It used to be that when I see an enemy before they see me, I shot them and they dropped dead. In Sandstorm so often I see and hear that I have hit them, but they turn around and land a lucky headshot with their spray and pray counterattack and kill me. It used to be in Insurgency 2 that every weapon felt powerful and usable - pistol-only-play was a viable option in pvp - and now I feel I have to pick the highest caliber gun, and even then I need waaaay too many hits to kill an enemy.

In the steam forum I was advised to just aim for headshots, but I would argue that for that to be the winning strategy, the weapons would all need to have way less sway and spread. CS:GO is a game that very much relies on players being able to make headshots, but it also has a way more precise and quick aiming system. Consider where in the gaming landscape Insurgency fits in, what do various shooters stand for? I want Sandstorm to be the game that Insurgency was: the only game with super low TTK that doesn't rely on headshots, provides gunplay that feels like every weapon is powerful and viable, and gameplay that rewards people with quick reflexes or good strategies more than players who exceed at recoil compensation and staying on target while full-auto firing, forcing 2v1 encounters through teamplay, or headshot precision. In some ways the skill ceiling of Insurgency was higher than in games like COD, but in others it actually was lower. It hat its very distinct identity, it felt like no other Shooter out there (and still does).

As a player I'm having much more fun when encounters where I land a good flank allow me to really capitalize on it, and on the receiving end when someone else flanks me, I'd be fine with just dropping dead at the first shot if they have good aim. It's unambiguous, either you did everything right or one thing wrong and you're dead. It keeps you on your toes and allows players to have a much greater number of "holy shit, did you see what I just did???"-moments, than is possible in any high-TTK game.
If I go around a corner in Sandstorm and see 3 guys standing there, now it's basically a given that I'm dead if I engage. It used to be that I could just drop 3 guys with 3 hits, I want those days back.

I've read that you want to get rid of the AP ammo system because "you had to have it". And I agree, that was kinda dumb - a non-choice basically. But the answer isn't that TTK gets higher, the TTK without AP must now be at least as high as it used to be in old Insurgency with AP ammo. Personally I would just get rid of armor too. Imho it made Day of Infamy a very satisfying experience back when I played it (shortly after realease, in case you've rebalanced it at some point). Or if you absolutely want to keep it, make armor help more against explosions and less against projectiles. I would generally find the choice between an anti shrapnell or anti projectile type of armor more interesting than the choice between light and heavy.

Right now, I find most matches frustrating, because of the amount of times that I hit people first and they don't die, even if I end up on the winning team and with a good K/D stat. The high-TTK gameplay is fundamentally frustrating to me. I think this is right now the biggest obstacle that will prevent Insurgency veterans from loving Sandstorm the same way they loved the previous game.

Consider it from a marketing perspective: you'll want your game to stand for something and have a clearly defined identity of its own in the minds of the players. Old Insurgency had this, Sandstorm is still too close to Battlefield in my humble opinion.

I understand very well that there may be considerations at play for rebalancing the game so that it "works" on console where everyone plays with gamepads. I see it very clearly in all mainstream AAA games like The Division, that to accomodate console gamers they gravitate towards higher TTK and full-auto weapons with just enough spread to give you good chances to land hits even if you can't aim as well as with a mouse. I suggest if you want to make balancing decisions to accomodate consoles, do it in a separate fork of the game. It is likely impossible to balance it so that both console gamers and PC gamers have the most possible fun. I think the key lies in making the PC version super hardcore low TTK (if I had my way, 1 shot kills from every weapon at any range, possibly with slightly reduced respawn delays to get you back out there quicker), and the console version as hardcore as still makes sense in that ecosystem. You have so little competition there, I think it will be much easier for Sandstorm to be recoginzed as its own brand of gameplay among the CODs and BFs.

If AP ammo gets reintroduced later, you'll just be back at the point where you feel "you gotta have it". If you want it to be the risk/reward decision for players to do a gamble on whether they might encounter enemies with AP/armor, like it was in old Insurgency, I could kind of understand and live with that, but as it is right now, I think the gameplay is flat out worse than it used to be, and could very easily be greatly improved by buffing all weapons and lowering the TTK.

I remain hopeful to see some improvements to this in future updates.

And let me close with something positive: I love the new local play mode that is designed for solo play! With some more maps added in the future, I think this alone can justify a purchase of the game. Very well done and much appreciated! Thanks for all your hard work, the passion you're putting into this really shows!

@grotesqueshadow beautifully put, sir. I couldn't agree more

@grotesqueshadow said in TTK and the identity of this franchise:

Going to quote some important lines from this post for emphasis

I want Sandstorm to be the game that Insurgency was: the only game with super low TTK that doesn't rely on headshots, provides gunplay that feels like every weapon is powerful and viable, and gameplay that rewards people with quick reflexes or good strategies more than players who exceed at recoil compensation and staying on target while full-auto firing, forcing 2v1 encounters through teamplay, or headshot precision

It has its very distinct identity, it felt like no other Shooter out there (and still does).

If I go around a corner in Sandstorm and see 3 guys standing there, now it's basically a given that I'm dead if I engage. It used to be that I could just drop 3 guys with 3 hits, I want those days back.

I think it will be much easier for Sandstorm to be recoginzed as its own brand of gameplay among the CODs and BFs.

Personally I believe implementing Day of Infamy's system of NO ARMOR and NO AP ROUNDS will be the best for the game.
Insurgency2014 and Day of Infamy's gunplay was the same. The latter, day of infamy, while having the same gunplay did not have AP and Armor and thus, did not have this "meta of everyone using AP round like stopping power in CoD" that the Devs keep fussing about

last edited by Slazenger

@tuliottr said in Has the TTK been increased? if so... why?!:

@benz your point?

He doesn't have one, he's been trolling many threads here complaining about the high TTK which is universally unloved by the vast majority of Ins2014 players. I tried to engage him in debate and he avoided it entirely.

Constructive criticism please. This is beta2 and we are here to give them the fixes, not cry.

last edited by RifRafJonesy

@rifrafjonesy how am I not giving constructive criticism?

@benz do you know if those enemies were already hurt? plus, you are using full auto, makes it much easier. Try using semi auto guns and you will definetely notice the high ttk

@tuliottr no, they werent. lol. it was the round start (2nd clip) and i was the only one there. the pistol kill was a headshot.

why would i use semi auto in close range engagements? sense? not found.

last edited by Benz

@benz because full auto fire is rarely used in real life, and I want to feel immersed while playing Insurgency

@tuliottr said in Has the TTK been increased? if so... why?!:

@benz because full auto fire is rarely used in real life, and I want to feel immersed while playing Insurgency

And i was already afraid you gonna come up with actualy gameplay reasons for a game that wants to be competitive.

Have a look at actual milsim games maybe.

seems like you didn't understand my last post. maybe re-read it.

@benz oh, I thought you meant to take milsim games as a reference.
But still, why not make it so semi auto and full auto balanced like it was in Insurgency Source?
I think Insurgency is in a sweet spot between milsim and arcade. It's just immersion breaking for me to use full auto

There's still hitreg issues, that's likely why.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=11tO_LbSEtytGKC6fpuHnInl2-xwWIePw
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Q15V7vZKfd7rCtQ6riLU1MhDxkD9NnJO
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GC7Qvd9KRbFT0KWwT3T3k6rzp5dk02A_

Tell me on what planet this is considered high TTK.

Can you actually provide me with some gameplay footage where you think that "high ttk" is present?

If your only reasoning for a lower TTK is "realism" ... we can't have a discussion. I don't give 1 penny for "immersion" or "realism" .... i only care about having a good, modern and competitive FPS game. If you want "immersion" and "realism" there are other games. Milsims. Insurgency is not a milsim.

@whitby Battlefield shitter detected. Please fuck off. I misread and thought you said loved but it was unloved.

last edited by Slazenger