ideas (new MG handling,barrel overheating/melting,giving ammo,simple enter/exit animations,prone,sound,etc)

I'm just going to dump all of my ideas into this thread. I like other points of view so feel free to challenge them if you think they'll turn Insurgency into something it was never meant to be.

Technicals:
It was a good move on NWI to add the turret shield, to make the vehicle less of a deathtrap. This is a very important edition given that it usually only takes two bodyshots to down someone in this game.

  • Perhaps the doors/sides of the technical should provide some protection for the crew. (Depending on angle and caliber) There will be ricochets at some angles (with smgs, at least), but definite penetration if fired directly at the side.

  • Maybe to keep things at a fast pace, you won't be able to disable the vehicles engine,but you can cause it to "lose health" and eventually explode if you keep shooting the engine block. Sorry to anyone who wanted realism.

  • Headlights: On night maps you can toggle your headlights and they are blindingly bright. Maybe both tail lights are destroyed when they spawn.

  • Horn: I'm sure this is already implimented. Left click for the horn. It can be used to say "get in","get out",or "get out of the way".

  • Enter/Exit animation : A Battlefield style enter/exit animation would be allot of work, but there could be something simpler to prevent a teleportation exploit.
    As you enter a vehicle, a meter will fill up in two seconds. You'll be teleported inside when it has finished filling up. During the fill up,one of the following animations will play...

  • As a driver, you'll pull out car keys before you teleport in. (These cars are probably activated by button or switch,but whatever) You can't enter the drivers seat from the rear or bed of the vehicle.

  • As a passenger, you'll knock on the side of the door or tap the window.

  • As a gunner,well...I'd hope a battlefield style animation could be put in place for the left side,right side,and back. To keep the player from noticing that the turret is facing the wrong way,you could have the animation look away at some point. (This was done in Rainbow Six Siege with the grappling hooks. The player's hand blocks the view as the grappling hook is thrown so the player doesn't see the rope teleporting into place)

  • When you press exit as a passenger: You lose control of the camera,you reach for your backpack in your lap,as you hold it up in front of you,it obscures your view,when it's moved onto your back you find yourself at the opened door of the technical, you'll hear the door open. If you exit after someone else,the door will remain open. It will close if no one exits after two seconds or everyone is out of the vehicle.

The turret:

  • Maybe the sights are a bit much. Night sights and maybe a destructible spotlight would be useful on night maps. Perhaps with either endless magazines or an overheat system for the weapon. Red Orchestra Ostfront made the weapon jam (requiring barrel replacement) if the weapon overheated. Rising Storm 2 had the barrel warp, causing permanent inaccuracy if the barrel overheated.

So the turret will work like this.....

  • When you reload,you'll lose some control over the camera as your character hunches over to pick another magazine off the technical bed.

  • There will be a heat mechanic:
    The barrel smokes when it gets hot. If it gets too hot, you'll receive a message (text or your character talking) that the barrel has warped. (You might have to try to empty the entire magazine maybe two times in a row without pause to warp the barrel. Subject to balance changes.)

  • Warped barrel mechanic:
    Once the barrel is warped, it will become extremely inaccurate and will jam if you fire it more than a few short bursts.

  • You either have more magazines than what can be carried (since they're on the back of the truck), or infinite magazines. The barrel warping mechanic is meant to balance having infinite magazines.

Mines and traps:
I hope there are no mines/traps in insurgency as they would take skill out of the game and hurt the pacing. Anti tank mines would make technical less useful,making drivers hesitant to move close to certain objectives. In Ro2, automated traps were sort of balanced by destroying themselves if the one who placed them was killed,and would glow bright red if seen by certain classes.

Machineguns (PKM and M249):

  • Since players will nolonger be forced to be machinegunners (as riflemen are now an unlimited class), there is no need to give the MG class options outside of their machine gun role. You can't waste the role by unequipping your MG. You can choose to carry a sidearm.

An alternative weapon handling system:

The MG is heavy and takes longer to get to a ready position. After sprinting,there will be a noticable 2-3 second delay before you can fire it.

An alternative ammo system:

Machinegunners will require other players for ammo in the same way Commanders require Observers for a radio.

  • In Darkest Hour, the MG was a support role,given very little ammo,requiring a non-mg class (any class) to press G to give them ammo. This made MG players require being accompanied by another player, as if they were helping feed a belt into the gun.(Without actually requiring it)

*If you go up to an MG player and press F,you'll go into a "give ammo" animation where you see your arms reaching over your shoulder and handing over a belt of mg ammo.

*If you look at a Machinegunner,you'll see belts of ammo slung over his shoulder. When he's lower on ammo, you'll see less ammo around his shoulder.

  • He starts off with 65% of his maximum ammo. Any player (who isn't mg) can restock him to 100%.
  • To balance the potential "unlimited ammo", you'll have to manage barrel heat.
  • The gun barrel starts to glow if he fires too often without pause.
  • He'll have to replace the barrel if he keeps overheating his gun. (Only 2 spare barrels,after that he can't use it anymore)
  • At 20% ammo, there will be a UI element that appears when within 20 feet that says "need ammo". You can also ask for ammo.

Perhaps the gun barrel can start glowing earlier than it does in real life,for balance purposes.
Youtube Video

  • Since you're using an ammo belt instead of a magazine,you'll check how many times it loops around your shoulder (instead of magazine weight). Your left hand will hold the ammo belt up where you can see it and you'll see what looks like 1 belt,2 belts,or 3 belts with no exact number on how much ammo you have left.

Suppressors on MGs will melt pretty quickly (sooner than they would in real life,for balance) .

  • Mandatory tracers might be something worth looking into. (Might be too much of a disadvantage on night maps,maybe balanced with the resupply mechanic)

Melee:

  • Security might be better off with hatchets or tomahawks instead of knives.
  • You'll hear stab/slash sounds that only friendlies,you,and the victim can hear.
  • You can perform a stealth kill holding down right mouse button. It gets you stuck in a Battlefield 3 style animation, but you'll cover the enemies mouth so there's no death sound.

Bots and Animations:

  • If an bot melee kills attacks you, you'll be stuck in a Battlefield style animation of him pinning you to the ground and either killing you execution style or hacking you to death with a ghurka. This creates a window of opportunity for a friendly to shoot the attacker off of you.

  • Bots should use unique animations to give them more life (No more standing still as statues,they might stumble,crouch,look around,kneel, flinch upon spotting an enemy, point at an enemy,rally their teammates with hand signals, all kinds of actions that human players can't do)

  • Maybe all third person models should be animated to look more alive. In Battlefield 3, all third person models (even human players) would appear to be scanning with their weapon left and right (slightly). It made it harder to tell exactly what they were aiming at, but it looked much better than the robotic movements you see in the old insurgency.

  • Thermite/molotovs:

Used as detectors (with cough mechanic),area blockers,deadly weapons, night vision blockers (too bright to see anything past it), and cache destroyers.

You can run out of a fire, but you can't run into them. (They affect your speed if you move into one,resulting in certain death is you drive to move across). Maybe you can jump over them. Enemies will definitely hear your character screaming if you get burned.

  • Gas masks:
    (This is probably already in there) If you put on a gasmask indoors, you won't have to worry about poison gas or smoke from thermite/molotovs giving away your position by causing you to cough.The cough mechanics gives the incendiaries use as detectors and door blockers.

  • Flashbangs: If you can't shoot while flash banged, you'll see your hands rubbing your eyes when the effect starts to wear off.

Team recognition:

  • I've posted this before,but I'm including this idea in this post.
    Security and Insurgent must look distinct at long ranges without team markers. There can be no confusion as there is in games like Rising storm 2.

  • Both sides should have customization,but there are limits as to what you should be allowed to customize.

  • Security: As a security member,you'll be required to wear tan pants,a tan vest,and hats only come in one color, tan. (Except on snow maps,which in that case will come in white). Security members consist of a coalition of forces, so you'll see different nationalities and genders.

  • Insurgent: As an insurgent you'll have more customization options in terms of pants and shirts,but you won't be wearing anything that's tan (on desert maps),or white (on snow maps) and you won't be wearing any hats (Shemaghs are fine,pardon my spelling). Not very many outside forces join the insurgents so you'll see only fighting age men native to the region within their ranks.

  • Sprinting animations: In another game (but in the WW2 era), "Red Orchestra 2", each side had different sprint animations, to help differentiate opposing sides from long distances. (When it's harder to tell what color their uniforms are) Germans held their rifle in one hand while sprinting while russians held their rifle in two hands. Maybe each side could be animated differently while sprinting.

Doors:

  • You can lock them by holding down the action button. Trying to open a locked door from the outside will make a distinct noise, you'll have to kick down the door (3 kicks or one sprinting jump kick), or breach the door.

Sound:

  • Everything will sound different when you walk inside a building. You'll hear muffled footsteps upstairs,and echoing sounds in halls. A deafening mechanic might be a bad idea though. Carpet keeps your footsteps quiet,but marble floors will give you away if you're not sneaking. Sprinting makes you very audible and easy to detect. Reloading also becomes louder (and thus riskier).

  • Grenades tapping a surface will be louder and more distinct indoors.

Prone:

  • In this day and age,prone should no longer allow you to plank or float on stairways,hills,and other objects. Your body should follow the shape of the terrain. Also,going prone in buildings should have you lying on your back,to avoid having your legs clipping through walls. (Model culling could help alleviate this problem)

Movement system:

  • You shouldn't be able to move up a stairway super fast. The walking animation should also look different when standing on slopes. (Avoid the first insurgency game's floating feet) Perhaps you'll slide when on a steep hill (think Far Cry 3), or lose your balance if you try to stand on a thin object, like a fence for example. (You'll be pushed to one side)

  • You shouldn't get stuck on a concrete slab that is too low to mantle over and too high to jump over. (There should be an automatic step over animation that does not interfere with your shooting.)

  • Some surfaces will slow you down. Bushes,water,and hills (going up) reduce your movement speed.

  • Hills change the way you move (Prone is on your back if on a steep hill going downwards)

Team damage:
I hope team damage is kept in the game (to add hesitation and identification,before you shoot).

  • Hardcore servers offer FULL team damage, relaxed servers reduce it (as it is in the first Insurgency game)
  • Getting teamkilled brings up the TK interface.
  • The TK interface has "play","rewind","slo-mo" killcam options and a line that shows the trajectory of the shot.

A third person rotatable stasis capture showing where the victim and perpetrator were standing (with a line showing the trajectory of the bullet could help, along with number of kills of enemies in relation to kills of friendlies )

You can choose from several options before you respawn

  • Forgive (Says "X has forgiven Y for teamkill")

  • Warn(Says "X has not forgiven Y for teamkill" and puts a large red banner on their screen)
    Another warning freezes the shooter in place and requires typing in a random given key to continue. (This is meant to be annoying,but not team hampering. This might be used by trolls who jump in front of someones line of fire. )

  • Maybe just ask the victim if it was..."intentional tk","incompetence"(repeated accident tks)","forgivable" (The occasional accident).

Voice acting:

  • When you check ammo,your character might say "I'm good to go"(Full magazine),"I'm about halfway full"(Magazine at 50%) capacity, "I better make these shots count..." (Magazine at less than 20% capacity and no spare mags left). Only your character will hear these lines.

  • Battle chatter:
    Excessive automated chatter from your teammates can make things worse, not better. Perhaps an option to reduce it to only useful battlechatter would be nice.

The battlechatter options could be....
High: All the war cries and everything will be in game.
Med: Let's tone things down a bit. (No war cries, some useful chatter, no random shouts)
Low: They'll only say "I'm reloading", shout when suppressed, and say what objectives they're heading towards.
Classic: For those who can't get enough of Mikee. Just hope he doesn't voice the women as well.

  • Coughing:
    Only done indoors as a detection mechanic (when exposed to thermite/molotov or smoke grenade smoke), because there is plenty of oxygen in the open air. It seems to be done a bit excessively in the alpha.

Flashlights:

  • There could be an anti- strobing mechanic. By that,I mean you can't just bind your flashlight to mouse wheel up, spin it and make yourself a strobe light. This could be done with button delay/animation, but that annoys people who don't use the strobe light.

Lasers:

  • Smoke grenades will reveal a laser line and block the laser dot in some cases.

  • There will be an infrared laser sight available on night maps. You need to equip night vision goggles in order to attach it to your weapon. (You won't know if it's on or off without NV,unless there's a HUD icon)

Falling mechanics:
From what I've seen in the videos,the "kick up" mechanic is not as excessive as it was in the alpha (I hope that doesn't break any agreements mentioning that)

*When you fall from a height, you'll see your arms move upward for a few seconds as you observe the fall.

0_1530470324129_fall impact.jpg

  • If you fall from a damaging height, you'll stumble as you hit the ground (or do a parkour roll), for a few seconds you won't be able to shoot.

*Blood splatter/player damage:

  • Of course the whole "bloody screen" trope should be avoided at all costs,but perhaps blood effects when taking damage should be more apparent. (Not coming off the third person model, but made specifically for first-person, with more fidelity. Like the way the view models are made for first-person with more steadiness.)

  • Your boots will be smoking if you walk through fire.

  • You might go through "slow death mode" if you're killed by a shot in the arms or a shot in the stomach or lower. Which means you won't be able to move (slow limping or crawling on back only) but you'll have a 3 second window to shoot back at whoever killed you as the screen slowly fades to black. Some players find losing control annoying and would prefer the screen just going straight to black whenever they're killed.

*First-person death animations:

Often times the player's camera will clip through the floor,through a wall,or you'll see parts of the ragdoll's head attached to the camera,this just looks tacky. So I supposed some changes could be made...

  • You won't be able to see your own ragdoll. (I mean the third person model)
  • You''ll get a new ragdoll (headless, with an invisible barrier where the head is, so the camera won't clip through floors and walls)
  • Some deaths will use a pre-set animation before rag dolling. (Not as annoying as Battlefield 3's death animation. Different animations depending on how you were killed would be nice.)
last edited by MusicNote

i.. have no words.

all i can do is to give a BIG thumbs up for this, and pray that the devs will read this someday..

You make a lot of interesting points i'd love to read answers from the devs in regards to, also I've seen barrels and entire platforms become unusable; heat warping the design, internal issues causing rounds to bounce and deteriorate the barrel, but never before have i seen a surpressor get destroyed like that - I'd scree like a little girl if surpressed mg's in ins would deteriorate like that after sustaining so much abuse, but that's just me being a nerd and maybe expecting a bit too much realism.

1 thing i'll say about the bots and animations, you'll never have bots which act human like without making entire scenes just overly scripted or without a huge performance cost and waste of resources - sure it's in the Unreal engine which is an amazing platform for scripted events but in multiplayer scripts can and often break and what would be worse, forcing scripted events which could make bots look ultra realistic and mo-capped but which come at a heavy performance cost, or would you rather have bots which function as intended and have a few derpy moments which remind you of t-posed insurgents using rpk's like akimbo pistols as they glide around corners with x-ray vision turning entire squads into red mists of swiss cheese.

Peace.

last edited by Depleted

These are all really good ideas but I think you forget what Insurgency is. It's a fast paced tactical shooter. To have MGs that over heat after firing and melting suppressors and crap ruins the purity of the gunplay, similar to how a gun dirtiness mechanic would ruin gameplay. The point of the game is not to have superb squad gameplay and command coordination in the way that squad requires. This game is no frills when it comes to gunplay and thats what makes it great. You shoot a guy twice, he's dead. Vehicles are going to be fairly balanced as is. Huge target, you easily kill everyone inside it, or blow it up. They don't need to add a visual to mg gunners that changes in real time as his ammo depletes, thats much too much work. They were perfect in insurgency standalone. Provide heavy fire. Thats it. You spew bullets and its the other teams job to stop you, not your gun melting. I appreciate your ideas for animations and such, but they aren't going to spend so much work on such basic mechanics. You fall, you die. You get shot, you either live or die. Providing a "final stand" would only slow gameplay. You are dreaming big, but these aren't the things that make this game great. It isnt boots on fire or machine gunners with ammo over their shoulder. Its the raw gameplay. The quick time to kill. The movement, the freedom that the game provides to play how you want to play. Thats what makes it good. These either contradict the fast, no remorse gameplay, or are just random frills that require more work to do than to make most other things in the game.