Doors in Comp Need to be Removed

Hello,

I'd like to make a long winded and well thought out complaint about the existence & number of doors in comp maps.

TLDR; Doors are bad for comp, because they give away your position, and block you from being able to flank your enemy.

The Best Solution
Lets talk about a solution first, because there is lots to discuss on why doors are bad, but I dont want that discussion to make you think that re-thinking the location of doors is the solution.

The best solution is not to re-think doors and their locations but to just remove them entirely from the comp maps. There is only a single location where that could be a bad decision and that is the door between A and the back hallway of the Hotel on Summit East, which could easily be fixed by adding some lockers or something that block the sight line from A all the way down to that little courtyard behind C. That is literally the only place where removing doors would maybe have a bad effect as far as I can tell, and it has a very easy fix that is not a door.

My Complaint on Doors

At first glance, doors are a fun addition to insurgency. It allows for lots of cool busting down doors moments, and helps give a bit of protection, and section off parts of the map. However, if you start getting into the details of competitive gameplay, most doors create major map balance issues.

Lets discuss the 3 ways that doors have made competitive gameplay unbalanced and generally a terrible addition to the game.

1) Doors Are Audio/Visual Beacons
Whenever someone opens a door there is both an audible noise heard by all players as well as a visual component where players can see the door move as it opens. This makes it very easy for players to camp doors. Footsteps are loud enough that it is pretty easy to hear an enemy coming and determine at least the general direction of an enemy, however when a player opens or breaks down a door, it is instantly obvious that a player is right on the other side of the door.

Any player who sees or hears a door open that is near them, can immediately kill the player coming through the door. Since the audio cue plays well before the player who is opening/smashing down the door can aim and fire at whatever is beyond the door, the person who is on the other side always has the advantage.

2) Doors Incentivze Wall Banging
There are two types of wall banging that are incentivized by the existence of doors.

The first is general wall bangs. I can make an example using basically any objective that is inside a building, but lets go with the A objective on Hideout East. The main point has a room with 2 doors and a single window. When someone is capturing that objective, they can sit in a corner of that room and watch both doors and kill the first person through one of those doors basically without question. This leads to the enemy team just shooting through the walls to try and kill the player in that room. They may shoot through the door, or maybe peek the window, but if the player capturing A is sitting in the corner opposite the two doors, you cant see the player from the window. Also, since you cant shoot while vaulting, you cant vault through the window to kill the player because they will still kill you before you can get a round off. So the best strategy in that case is to either sit on the point, blocking the capture until a teammate arrives so you have a better chance, or to just shoot through the walls at obvious corners where most people camp. However this also doesn't work sometimes, because once you shoot through a wall, the enemy on the point will know where you are, and just fire right back through the wall you shot through and can kill you that way too.

The second kind is the door camp wall bang. This is especially bad on objectives like the C objective also on Hideout East. Players can often camp right in front of the door that is above the garage (left side of C if you are looking at it from Ins spawn) and kill anyone who runs up the stairs. The player who is camping behind the door can hear the footsteps of anyone running up those stairs on the other side of the door, and just shoot through the door at the top of the stairs, without the attacker even knowing they are there.

3) Doors Make Flanking Difficult or Impossible
Because the person who is opening or breaking down a door is at a massive disadvantage, it forces players to try to never use doors if at all possible. Unfortunately, this means that many positions which could theoretically be quite vulnerable, are now very secure since you can easily kill anyone coming through a door that is near you or on your flank.

The biggest example of this is on the balcony above B on Precinct East. Currently, the security forces can get on that balcony faster than the insurgents can, and in addition to that, the insurgents have to breach a door on their side which makes attacking the balcony nearly impossible for the insurgents. This means that the security balcony player needs to be killed before an insurgent can try to get on that balcony, or it forces the insurgents to flank all the way around and go up the same stairs that the security team uses.

In apartments (the opposite side of B from balcony) on the other hand, security can run up those stairs just past the security side archway onto B, and kill the insurgent player from either the window that looks into the demolished wall, or by just running into the apartments area and killing the insurgent player. The security team has an easy flank on the insurgents side of B, while the insurgents have no easy way of flanking the security side of B.

More Examples
Here are a few more examples of situations where doors make the game very uneven.

Precinct - East (Easily the worst)

  • No way for insurgents to push onto balcony except from B or through a door
  • No way for insurgents to push under balcony except from B or through a door
  • No way for insurgents to push into the jail entrance to B (which is on their own side) except from B or through a door which is easily visible from the security street.
  • Insurgents have 2 ways on to B that don't involve doors, security has 4.
  • Insurgents can get flanked in Apts with no doors involved, while security cant get flanked on balc

Precint - West

  • Security side of B has that door which security get to way after insurgents can see it, making it an impossible method for getting onto B.
  • Security has 2 ways on to B that don't involve doors (3 if you count jumping out the window above the van)
  • Insurgents have 3 ways on to B that don't involve doors.
  • the C objective can be held by a single player watching the stairs and the door.
  • No way for insurgents to get on A that is not through a door unless they run almost into sec spawn.

Summit - West

  • There is only one effective route on to both the C and the A objective if someone is on the point, since they can kill anyone who goes through the second entrance which is a door.
  • People will just wall bang expected camping spots on A because doors prevent easy flanking.
  • The sniper window in the building at the center of the map is only accessible through multiple doors. making it impossible to flank.
  • The B objective can only be entered through doors or windows. There are enough walls that this is not as big an issue as some other places, but there are still several places you can camp and effectively watch most entrances, and easily wall bang the ones you cant.

Summit - East

  • The security side can get into the lower hotel lobby hallway by the reception desk (between A and C) before the insurgents can open their door into the same hallway, allowing security to sit there and watch both the door and the open entrance by the reception desk and kill anyone running to A.
  • Anyone looking over the B objective from the rooms accessed by the red bridge cant get flanked because doors.

Hideout - East

  • Both C and A can be easily held by a single person camping the door entrances.
  • Both A and C doors cause people to just wall bang expected camping spots rather than try to actually fight them.
  • Pushing through the red building between A and C is very difficult because doors

Hideout - West

  • The A objective can be held by a single person camping in a corner because of the door.
  • Wall banging is used heavily at A for the same reason.
  • The upstairs rooms in two story building between B and the river is easy to hold and camp because doors.

Farmhouse - West

  • B kitchen can easily be held by 1 player watching all entrances.
  • B bathroom can easily be held by 1 player watching the window.
  • A can be held by 1 person watching the 2 doors and a Window that are the only entrances to the room.
  • All of the above have caused players to randomly wall bang areas they know are likely camping spots.

Farmhouse - East

  • C can easily be held by a single guy, watching the 2 doors and the hole in the wall (at least we now have a hole in the wall, since it used to just be 2 doors).

In summary, please just remove the doors. They make comp bad.

I personally like doors. It gets on my nerves when my teammates knock them down while on defense. Offensively, can't you use rockets or grenade launchers to take the door off? You can also open or knock it down but not enter. Toss a grenade in to clear the room for entry. It's real hard to get away from a grenade if you are prone camping a door.

@kronik907 said in Doors in Comp Need to be Removed:

Whenever someone opens a door there is both an audible noise heard by all players as well as a visual component where players can see the door move as it opens.

Yes, that's absolutely true, and absolutely realistic.

Yes, it gives away your position once, but it doesn't let the enemy know exactly where you are. It's only a problem if you open the door and then immediately go through it. If you suspect resistance on the other side, don't do that.

Open the door and then retreat. Wait to see if someone fires at the door or wall. If they do, now they've given their position away as well, maneuver and kill them. Open a door, retreat, and wait to see if someone comes to check it out. If they do, kill them. Open the door and then walk away, go somewhere else, distract your opponent and divide their attention. If there are two doors into a room open one, then move to and open the second. Either go in the second or move back and go in the first. Distract your opponent and divide their attention.

Or there's always the old standbys: open the door then frag or bang it.

I once had a instructor say "think of CQB as a series of ambushes and counter-ambushes." Leave kicking down the door and storming the room in a hail of gunfire to the action movies. That shit doesn't work so good in real life, and it doesn't work very well in Sandstorm either.

@maa_bunny said in Doors in Comp Need to be Removed:

I once had a instructor say "think of CQB as a series of ambushes and counter-ambushes." Leave kicking down the door and storming the room in a hail of gunfire to the action movies. That shit doesn't work so good in real life, and it doesn't work very well in Sandstorm either.

Exactly correct. Now, the problem is less about how action plays out when doors are involved, but the fact that doors are ruining the balance of the map. Again, my biggest issue is with precinct where the security can flank the insurgent side of B without ever encountering a door. On the other hand, the only way for insurgents to flank the security side of B is through multiple doors.

I think it would be better without any doors, however if that is not a majority opinion, I guess I can settle for at least making the flanking opportunities even between the two teams. The doors in some cases are objectively (pardon the pun) ruining the balance of the maps, and that is the primary issue I have right now.

Secondarily, its much less satisfying to watch or even play a game where players can hide themselves on objectives, and just wait for enemies to breach the door, but that is my opinion and is not objective.

I get your point, I really do. I don't agree on it though. Doors in the game, much like real life, are bottlenecks. They are extremely dangerous to traverse through, and I think the game signals that well. Insurgency thrives on these realism elements to make the virtual battlespace feel a tiny bit more real. A map without doors, doesn't convey that.

Also, since when has map balance been a priority? Sinjar anyone?

last edited by Xiddy

@xiddy talking about competitive here. Read the subject

Where in my post did I specify this wasn't competitive? The realism elements persist in the competitive environment.
Adapt to the battlefield and the dangers within it, or you'll die. Both in competitive, and casual. Simple.

last edited by Xiddy

You can shoot the hinges from a distance to remove a door without making yourself an easy target for the person on the other side.

last edited by Quadsword

I think doors are good and you can use frag grenades to get rid of them and time it right to use the door as a distraction

I agree that doors don't belong in competitive, and for other reasons too. The only reason doors should stay is if:

I can open a door slightly without making sound and peek through the crack
I can open a door fully without making any sound and push without alerting everyone within twenty yards
Doors actually start working properly and don't take 2 or 3 attempts sometimes just to open the door.
The teleportation from beating down a door is fixed (when a player uses a sprinting-melee to bust down a door, they do not smoothly transition outside the door for everyone else, they suddenly teleport a couple feet past the door and can make you miss if you're at an angle.)

I love the doors, it just adds another element to the game. A dynamic one at that.