Hello, everyone. It said ingame you could provide feedback, and I am a veteran of the first game, and have now spent quite a few hours in Insurgency: Sandstorm, so I felt I should contribute and give said feedback.
First of I want to say, what a great fucking game. The intensity is amazing. That feeling of being shelled with artillery, or seeing grenades flying through the air towards you is truly awesome. I love the game already. It's everything which I liked about the first game, but more of it.
I want to go over some specific things, both great and not so great, and hopefully try and provide some constructive feedback. Everything is obviously my own opinion, so you might not agree, and that's alright. I can only give feedback based upon my experience, and your experiences may differ from mine. So please feel free to comment. But anyway, let's get started.
Add different colors to the chatbox depending on whether it's actual typed chat, the team messages, or other.
Currently everything in the chatbox is the same color, and having different color text depending on what was in the chatbox could be great. It'll make it easier to distinguish typed text from team messages, etc.
I think tracer rounds should be optional
I don't see why this wouldn't be optional. Sometimes you don't want tracer rounds. Simple.
I think the maps are absolutely amazing.
It's very rare I genuinely like all maps in a game. The maps fit the game so well, both in theme and in layout. It's the perfect mix of open areas and closed quarters. Couldn't be happier about the maps.
When you are in the buying menu, it would be nice if you could see if the round or your wave was about to deploy
Currently when you're changing your kit, the information usually found in the top right corner about whether you're about to deploy or if the game is about to start isn't there. So you have to switch away from the buy menu to check if the round is starting, or if your wave is about to deploy. No reason that information shouldn't be in the buy menu.
Optional ammo types, like the original game
For some reason we lost this in Sandstorm. I don't quite understand why. I thought it was just another layer of welcome mechanics and tactics.
I'd like heavy armor to be a bit more effective
Currently heavy armor or no armor at all doesn't seem to change anything. I think it could be nice if heavy armor was a little more effective. It would give me a reason to sometimes pick it up, because as it is now, you basically die instantly, heavy or no armor at all. In my opinion it would only add more customizability to the game by allowing people to customize their build even more. This slight increase in effectiveness could come at a slight additional movement penalty as well.
Kill cam
I am not personally a fan. I don't think it adds anything to the game, but only takes away. If I get my ass shot from some obscure angle or something, I want to find the guy myself, not see him on the kill cam. It takes away skill from the game, both for the guy being shot, and the shooter who have spent time and effort to find great hiding spots.
There's no scoreboard at map end, only those award things
I like the awards. They highlight important players, but I'd also like to see the regular scoreboard. I know you can switch to it, but I think it should be displayed for everyone, seeing how sometimes people have a great score in the game, and have arguably contributed way more to the round than the guy with the most headshots. This is a team game. Show off those great team players.
Gore
The gore is absolutely fucking amazing. I love seeing characters lose limps and be ripped apart when coming into hugging distance with explosives. That's what's supposed to happen.
Invisible walls on rocks
On some rocks, my character is clearly able to get on top of them, but invisible walls are stopping him. Now this is okay, I trust your map design, and if you tell me my character shouldn't be able to get on top of this place, because it makes the map better, that's great. You are the map designer, not me. I have faith it's for the best. But then you need to make it more clear that this isn't a part of the map, instead of putting an invisible wall. Put some fences, raise the rocks more. Make it more obvious what's off limits.
Observers and Commanders
I think the commander brings a lot of interesting gameplay to this game, but the observer is completely and utterly pointless, and it's a thankless job that's neither fun, nor rewarding. You're just there to stand next to a guy so he can get both the credit and the fun of calling in things for the battle. I think this is the single biggest blunder in the game I've found. I understand why the observer is there, for balance and authenticity, but it doesn't make for fun gameplay, at all. And it's to such an extend people don't want to play observer. You're basically someone else's puppet, and while winning the match is ultimately the goal, and you're an important part of that, it should still be a good experience, and running behind someone else being their waterboy isn't a good experience.
In my opinion a possible solution to this issue is to simply nerf the tools at the commander's disposal, and let him call in things without the observer being there. Or you could go another route and let the commander keep his current tools, but only let him carry a pistol into battle. There's many way to balance this. But the observer-commander due thing isn't working. You may think this would make it too easy to use the commander's tools if you don't need to lug around the observer, and that's true, but we can find a solution to that.
The technical
So the technical seems like a great addition to the game, but I hardly see it utilized. I'd possibly make it a bigger threat, so it would see more use. Imagine if the windows were armored up a bit so taking out the driver wasn't so easy, or if the armor on the gunner was more comprehensive.
Weapon customization and selection
I think the wide array of weapon choices is fucking awesome. I absolutely love that I've got so much to choose from, and on top of that, every weapon feels unique. I'll often find myself switching up weapons because the situation on the battle field have changed, and now another weapon is more suitable, and I love it.
Sounds
Sounds in this game are great. From the wiz of a rocket flying over your head, to gunfire in the distance. I truly think it's a 10/10. Explosions are also a big part of this. They sound incredible. They're fucking terrifying. It's great.
Character animation and ragdoll
Another 10/10 in my book. I love how shooting someone in full sprint lets them keep a tiny bit of that forward momentum as they fall. Often games have these completely unrealistic ragdolls, but Sandstorm does it perfectly.
Leaning your weapon on top of boxes, cars, and similar things
I've been incredibly surprised at how damn well this feature works in this game. Countless times I'd lugged my giant ass RPK over to some obscure box or something, and been worried if the game would figure out that I wanted to use the object to rest my weapon on to shoot from, and every single time the game understands perfectly my intention and places the weapon down and lets my character rest it as I aim down sights. One time I was trying to hold some obscure angle against the incoming wave of attackers, and I saw a tiny little corner of a car and I was worried the game probably wouldn't let me use that corner of the car to lean my weapon down on, but it worked perfectly, and I had the pleasure of mowing down a whole wave as they crossed the road.
So to conclude. I hope this is some valuable feedback, and that it can spark some discussion, because I am truly enjoying the game.