Co-op isn't fun anymore

Ever since the buff to the bots' accuracy, there's basically only one way to play checkpoint effectively: Rush the fuck out of the objectives. No teamwork, no working as a squad, no tactics other than rush rush rush. Why is that? Because the bots have stupidly good accuracy and will ALWAYS win in medium and long range engagements unless you get incredibly lucky. It's ridiculous just how precise they are. They see so much as a pixel of you sticking out from hundreds of meters away, you're hosed.

The roles are basically irrelevant. You can't setup an overwatch with an LMG because you'll just get sniped the moment you start firing. You can't setup sight lines to snipe from long range because you'll get counter sniped almost instantly. You have to push the objective as fast as possible and never stop moving because for the bots' terminator like accuracy at range, they fall apart in challenge in CQC. They love to form conga lines when pushing into objectives, so you can just leisurely pick them all off as they slowly creep through a doorway. They'll never take a proactive approach to defense and will always just sit in corners waiting for the players to kill them. Get yourself a handful of incendiary grenades / molotovs and you can form an impenetrable defense by setting doorways on fire. The bots will just stand in the fire as it sears the flesh off their bones. Molotov a doorway during a counter attack and watch the charred bodies pile up.

And the damn technicals. Trying to take one of those things out is a fool's errand because you'll most likely get a face full of .50 caliber the moment the gunner detects you. The thing is, it's not even like he's trying to suppress you. He fires one or two rounds to take out a player and immediately stops firing... it's like a bloody automated turret. Your best hope is blowing it up with a rocket shortly after it guns down one of your teammates and hasn't locked onto you yet.

Did I also mention helicopter support is entirely useless because every bot in the vicinity will lock onto it and gun it down in seconds? It doesn't even matter if you try to protect the heli from RPGs because it will be destroyed by small arms fire in literal seconds.

But here's what gets me... all of these are things we've been complaining about since INS:Source. Why has the AI not advanced in the slightest in 4 years??

last edited by Quadsword

@quadsword said in Co-op isn't fun anymore:

all of these are things we've been complaining about since INS:Source. Why has the AI not advanced in the slightest in 4 years??

Word my dude, word. Every one of your points. The AI is breaking this game, and it baffles me that there's been no improvement on it whatsoever. I find coop to hold my interest longer than pvp anyway, I can play coop all day. It's really sad that its so shitty.

I've said a few times on these forums that the 2 problems are optimization and AI. The AI doesn't just need tweaks it needs a complete makeover.

NWI Developers , please listen to what we are telling you about A.I. !!!
It really needs overhauling and you know that .. so please put all your efforts into the A.I. programming , and if you cannot do it because it isn´t your expertise, then at least hire some external A.I. programmers to get the job done ! It´s your only chance to make this game a successor that is superior to the old insurgency.
Otherwise it will just be Insurgency 2.1 with better graphics and more intense war athmosphere.
The A.I. behaviour is the most important element of a coop game, please don´t mess it up ! We really would like to see progress in this sector.

Rushing is the most lucrative way to play at the moment. Confirmed.

Completely agree to all said above,.. and disappointed. Didn't expect to see the very same sins in a "new" game, occured in fact just a new wrapper for them. Plus one thing that completely contradict to the logic are windows - the chance you ll be shot there in short time is higher than when you stay on open places outside of the building.

I don't know what they did, but co-op has gone from fun but frustrating to just straight up misery.

Some of the new tricks I've noticed the bots using... they will literally not even appear until they're right next to me. I had a Kurdish woman shoot me to death AFTER I had gunned her down with my AKS (I knew she was dead because I heard the screams). I'm having bots headshot me perfectly when they shouldn't even feasibly have line of sight on me, let alone have a shot at my dome. I keep losing gunfights in CQC even when I prefire around corners while having my sights trained directly on the enemy's head... apparently the bots have such insanely fast reaction time now that winning an aim duel is pure bloody luck, no matter how hard you try.

So that's it. Can't win playing conservatively, can't win playing aggressively, can't win playing completely recklessly, can't win with smart tactics or strategy, so what the hell is there to do?

And the frustration is showing in-game as well. It's not uncommon for 75% of the team to quit out of frustration before the end. The topic of how OP the AI is dominates text and voice chat. I played for two hours tonight and couldn't even find full matches most of the time... people are abandoning this mode, which makes it even worse because the challenge doesn't scale to player count, so having fewer bodies to shoot at the bad guys makes your life that much harder, which leads to even more people quitting...

PLEASE, NWI, do something about this. I know you guys have a lot on your plate, but the issues in co-op need to get sorted out soon before the mode is abandoned by the community altogether.

The teams that do best are the ones that are super reckless and steamroll through. I honestly have a little fun with a steamroll team, we just jump around and freaking dodge our own artillery or rockets, it's pretty intense … but not realistic and not the way I think coop should be played.

Basically agree, but not sure if it's the bots causing the rushing tactic. I think it's the other way around.

People who rush forward are causing the bot trouble for the more team focused player.

You're rewarded for getting cap points and blowing up ammo, you're not rewarded for helping out team mates with things like being tail end charlie covering the rear (A very important real-life requirement) giving supporting fire from MG/sniper to protect advances. etc

Lets face it, CO-OP is NOT CO-OP if you're being rewarded to always be the guy that caps.

Until some form of reward for team work is introduced, cap rushing will just increase, unless you get a team together and always play with that team. Something not all of us can do.

@ehwot said in Co-op isn't fun anymore:

Basically agree, but not sure if it's the bots causing the rushing tactic. I think it's the other way around.

People who rush forward are causing the bot trouble for the more team focused player.

You're rewarded for getting cap points and blowing up ammo, you're not rewarded for helping out team mates with things like being tail end charlie covering the rear (A very important real-life requirement) giving supporting fire from MG/sniper to protect advances. etc

Lets face it, CO-OP is NOT CO-OP if you're being rewarded to always be the guy that caps.

Until some form of reward for team work is introduced, cap rushing will just increase, unless you get a team together and always play with that team. Something not all of us can do.

I agree with this. My group of friends... up to 6 of us that play together... will start on a server with one or two others. Those two rage quit after the "rush" they do and then it is just us. We take our time, work methodically, and seem to get to the final objective more often then not.

That said, the AI definitely needs some more work. There are valid concerns with the aim and shoot stand offs, the "dead" bots suddenly killing someone, the head shot when your head is completely in cover, the .50 cal that seems to immediately see you even if you creep around a corner... well the stuff people are complaining about above.

I don't know why I even play this stupid mode anymore...

Last match, all of my deaths came from things I couldn't possibly see coming and had no way of counter playing. Molotov comes from the heavens and lands right on my head as I'm moving into Foxtrot. Engaging two enemies in the streets on the way to Golf... one immediately draws a rocket launcher and blows me up after I put 3 rounds in him as I see his dead body slump over on the ground. Trying to engage enemies outside of Hotel, SOMEHOW one of them cooks off a perfect grenade that blows up in the air right in front of my face.

I'm so done with this bullshit. Co-op just makes me angry now. At least in PvP I know it was the other person outplaying me when I die, not some stupid AI deciding it no longer has to follow any rules.

Also the bots keep spawning back after you kill them, so the longer you wait the more of them you have to fight off. Combined with super high bot accuracy you can only really rush the objectives and hope to cap it as soon as possible.

I have created a breach build with a silenced shotgun and IED/C4 that I just use to rush objectives one after another, because there is no reward to playing tactical, the longer you sit still the more chance you will just instantly die from bots that sight you from miles away, I abuse cover and out sprint the enemy rushing back to an objective before they can settle in, on objectives where I need to blow the point, I just prone and toss an IED/C4 (the range you throw pretty much quadruples while prone)
and blow it up from safety.

All commander call its such as support choppers and the IED drone are useless as bots will all 360 no scope it as soon as it enters the area, and because sitting still causes the most issue mortar/artillery take far to long to impact to be useful meaning no one plays commander as its pointless in coop.

Another thing I miss is the defence missions like in Day of Infamy where you have to defend a point and when most people are dead one man can run back for a respawn, this would also allow for commanders to use abilities defensively, this attack and random defend points currently are quite tedious not because defending is no fun, but because of players rushing often there are too few bots actually getting to the point to counter attack as they spawn miles away and take forever to get there, and the timer ticks down, a more constant assault mode would be beneficial for the community on the whole I think. With the defend a point after capture just removed from the current assualt coop mode.

One more unexplainable AI behaviour (that came from Ins-2) when some player stands between you and the bot, bot shoots you before, farther you are, more precise his fire is. Bot may completely ignore the closest player.

@starsbarry said in Co-op isn't fun anymore:

I have created a breach build with a silenced shotgun and IED/C4 that I just use to rush objectives one after another, because there is no reward to playing tactical, the longer you sit still the more chance you will just instantly die from bots that sight you from miles away, I abuse cover and out sprint the enemy rushing back to an objective before they can settle in, on objectives where I need to blow the point, I just prone and toss an IED/C4 (the range you throw pretty much quadruples while prone)
and blow it up from safety.
All commander call its such as support choppers and the IED drone are useless as bots will all 360 no scope it as soon as it enters the area, and because sitting still causes the most issue mortar/artillery take far to long to impact to be useful meaning no one plays commander as its pointless in coop.

Pretty much sums up the experience tbh. I like playing commander just to call in bomber drones and rockets during a final defense, or for security to call in strafes or see how long cleric lasts (not long).

last edited by thehappybub