We want the one hit kills.

I'm gonna recap some of the points here that pop up for me, when I'm reading and what I'm understanding so far:

Some people want 1-hit kills and back it up saying that it would promote tactical skill instead (ie. positioning) of mechanical skill (aim). I can see a pattern that all the people promoting 1-shot kills want the games tactical skill side boosted.

Problem is that 1-hit kills removes a big portion of mechanical skill of aiming. It becomes only about quick target acquisition. With 1-hit kill mechanics, there are no more things happening when aiming. If it took 50 hits to kill something that would obviously promote a lot more of the other areas of aim like tracking and recoil control and make target acquisition not that important . Of course that would be way too many bullets to kill, so players would probably want a balance, where each of these aiming skill areas are all important. DISCLAIMER: Yes, there might be more skill areas in aiming, but these were the ones that quickly popped into my mind, so proplayers gimme slack here 🙂

If we take these 3 areas of mechanical aiming skill:

  1. Target acquisition
  2. Recoil control
  3. Target tracking

And we then implement a mechanic into the game, which removes 2 of the mechanics. 1-hit kills would effectively result with only:

  1. Target acquisition

Result is that we have reduced the number of skills required from 3 to 1, thus effectively made the game simpler. This in fact proves that the game would be actually dumbed down if 1-hit kill mechanics would be implemented.

What about the tactical side? Doesn't 1-hit kill mechanics make the game more tactical and that way increase the skill required?

Answer is yes and no. It does not increase the tactical skill game requires. It only removes another skill from the game, so tactical skill takes a bigger proportion of the skill set required. So in that sense you could argue that the game would be more tactical after this kind of change.

My question is: if we would like to make the game more tactical, why focus on shooting mechanics? That is all about the mechanical skill anyways. Why not focus on movement mechanics to make the game more tactical?

There are issues in movement mechanics that make the game LESS TACTICAL at the moment:

  1. Instant acceleration to sprint speed
  2. You can zigzag and change direction without slowing down.
  3. When you are hit, your movement is not affected. Players can keep on running full sprint while taking a hit.
  4. Also MAYBE the maximum sprint speed with heavy armour. I really don't have a 100% opinion here at the moment.

These issues effect how people choose positions and paths in the game. They can get away from positional disadvantage more easily at the moment. They are not afraid to run in the open, because you can get away easily from that disadvantage even if you are hit once. They strafe in CQB, because it is possible with these movement mechanics.

Now when I've been thinking about this more and more, I believe the root problem here is actually the movement mechanics, not the damage/health/armor mechanics. Now this is what @Benz means when he says: "if you want drive car on road that is broken, you fix the road, not make the car go faster". Or something like that, can't remember exact word to word.

Tweaking the points I mentioned would most likely change game to make positioning more important and making it harder for players to get away with huge positional mistakes (but not making it impossible to retreat from a minor positional disadvantage to try and find a better position) and rewarding better positioning and thus RAISING THE TACTICAL SKILL required without removing any shooting skills required by the game.

Any thoughts on this theory?

last edited by jensiii

@jensiii I think you have a good head on your shoulders, +1.

@jensiii i will throw out another fact that will blow people's mind:

1-shot-kills literally reduce the importance of positioning. The sole reason why you try to put yourself into a better position than your enemy is to maximize your chances of doing as much DPS as possible.

Assume you have incredible aim/aimbot/whatever. What difference does it make if you hide behind cover or stand in the open? 0. You will 1 shot your enemy no matter what, he has 0 time to react.

What if you need...let's say 4 shots. Even with your incredible aim/aimbot/whatever your enemy has X time to react. Where do you wanna position yourself to maximize your chances of surviving? Correct. At the better position.

I'm already curious how people wanna spin this fact 🙂 .

last edited by Benz

The bullet damage needs buff.

The gunshot should echo louder.

Insurgency 2 was fun because of the gun sound and the bullet damage.

last edited by Nick Kim

@biass said in We want the one hit kills.:

@jensiii I think you have a good head on your shoulders, +1.

Thank you! 🙂

@benz said in We want the one hit kills.:

@jensiii i will throw out another fact that will blow people's mind:

1-shot-kills literally reduce the importance of positioning. The sole reason why you try to put yourself into a better position than your enemy is to maximize your chances of doing as much DPS as possible.

Assume you have incredible aim/aimbot/whatever. What difference does it make if you hide behind cover or stand in the open? 0. You will 1 shot your enemy no matter what, he has 0 time to react.

What if you need...let's say 4 shots. With your aimbot your enemy has X time to react. Where do you wanna position yourself to minimize your chances of the enemy killing you in this encounter? Correct. At the better position.

I'm already curious how people wanna spin this fact 🙂 .

That is actually true!

You could run into the open and have a horrible position, but the enemy player would have to expose some part of his body to take the shot at you, even if he was in cover. If you have higher reactions and better target acquisition, you win by default every time. So this scenario becomes effectively about:

  1. Reactions
  2. Mechanical skill of target acquisition.

@jensiii yep yep. 1-shot-kills don't just lower the skill ceiling for aiming skills, but also positioning. It's astonishing to me how people want an easier game.

@jensiii got even 1 more for you:

1-shot-kills lower the importance of ammo. Because they are freaking 1-shot-kills. Even rn with all the hitreg issues i never run out of ammo in a comp ff match. There's a good reason why in pro-matches and frag-movies you mostly see people bursting and spraying.... and not 1 tapping like some people try to make it look like:

why on earth would you risk missing a shot when you can just burst an get a higher chance (cuz more bullets) getting the kill?

inb4 people spinning this as well, while theres dozens of prove thanks to frag-movies and pro-match videos.

(actually lol at the "dozens" in regards to frag-movies for ins. never seen a competitive game with so few frag movies on youtube...prob. because there's barely anything impressive happening....).

last edited by Benz

If I wanted to play a slow TTK game , I would not have played Insurgency 2014.

There are so many other games with slow TTK.

The main reason why I played Insurgency 2014 is because of the fast TTK.

If Sandstorm decides to go with slow TTK , what will make this game different from other shooters ?

last edited by Nick Kim

@jensiii said in We want the one hit kills.:

I'm gonna recap some of the points here that pop up for me, when I'm reading and what I'm understanding so far:

Some people want 1-hit kills and back it up saying that it would promote tactical skill instead (ie. positioning) of mechanical skill (aim). I can see a pattern that all the people promoting 1-shot kills want the games tactical skill side boosted.

Problem is that 1-hit kills removes a big portion of mechanical skill of aiming. It becomes only about quick target acquisition. With 1-hit kill mechanics, there are no more things happening when aiming. If it took 50 hits to kill something that would obviously promote a lot more of the other areas of aim like tracking and recoil control and make target acquisition not that important . Of course that would be way too many bullets to kill, so players would probably want a balance, where each of these aiming skill areas are all important. DISCLAIMER: Yes, there might be more skill areas in aiming, but these were the ones that quickly popped into my mind, so proplayers gimme slack here 🙂

If we take these 3 areas of mechanical aiming skill:

  1. Target acquisition
  2. Recoil control
  3. Target tracking

And we then implement a mechanic into the game, which removes 2 of the mechanics. 1-hit kills would effectively result with only:

  1. Target acquisition

Result is that we have reduced the number of skills required from 3 to 1, thus effectively made the game simpler. This in fact proves that the game would be actually dumbed down if 1-hit kill mechanics would be implemented.

What about the tactical side? Doesn't 1-hit kill mechanics make the game more tactical and that way increase the skill required?

Answer is yes and no. It does not increase the tactical skill game requires. It only removes another skill from the game, so tactical skill takes a bigger proportion of the skill set required. So in that sense you could argue that the game would be more tactical after this kind of change.

My question is: if we would like to make the game more tactical, why focus on shooting mechanics? That is all about the mechanical skill anyways. Why not focus on movement mechanics to make the game more tactical?

There are issues in movement mechanics that make the game LESS TACTICAL at the moment:

  1. Instant acceleration to sprint speed
  2. You can zigzag and change direction without slowing down.
  3. When you are hit, your movement is not affected. Players can keep on running full sprint while taking a hit.
  4. Also MAYBE the maximum sprint speed with heavy armour. I really don't have a 100% opinion here at the moment.

These issues effect how people choose positions and paths in the game. They can get away from positional disadvantage more easily at the moment. They are not afraid to run in the open, because you can get away easily from that disadvantage even if you are hit once. They strafe in CQB, because it is possible with these movement mechanics.

Now when I've been thinking about this more and more, I believe the root problem here is actually the movement mechanics, not the damage/health/armor mechanics. Now this is what @Benz means when he says: "if you want drive car on road that is broken, you fix the road, not make the car go faster". Or something like that, can't remember exact word to word.

Tweaking the points I mentioned would most likely change game to make positioning more important and making it harder for players to get away with huge positional mistakes (but not making it impossible to retreat from a minor positional disadvantage to try and find a better position) and rewarding better positioning and thus RAISING THE TACTICAL SKILL required without removing any shooting skills required by the game.

Any thoughts on this theory?

You are making a bit of a wrong assumption here. A low TTK or "one shot kills" does not eliminate the areas you mention.

1. Target acquisition.
You have to find the target like everyone else.

2. Recoil control.
This is only eliminated if you always manage to hit your target with the first shot. This is now always happening. If you do not land your first hit, you will have to control the recoil of the gun. Just in a different way than in full auto.

3. Target tracking.
Same thing here. This is only eliminated if you can always hit targets in with your very first shot and you land it in a area that would instantly kill the target.

Generally speaking I think hat a high TTK in Insurgency is rewarding the wrong players and not the other way around.

@mefirst said in We want the one hit kills.:

You are making a bit of a wrong assumption here. A low TTK or "one shot kills" does not eliminate the areas you mention.

1. Target acquisition.
You have to find the target like everyone else.

2. Recoil control.
This is only eliminated if you always manage to hit your target with the first shot. This is now always happening. If you do not land your first hit, you will have to control the recoil of the gun. Just in a different way than in full auto.

3. Target tracking.
Same thing here. This is only eliminated if you can always hit targets in with your very first shot and you land it in a area that would instantly kill the target.

Generally speaking I think hat a high TTK in Insurgency is rewarding the wrong players and not the other way around.

Thank you for your reply @MeFirst.

I have to define better what I mean with "target acquisition" = finding visually AND aiming at a target.

So yes, with this definition I assume a successful target acquisition, so the first shot will hit where the reticle is (unless there is RNG spread in the weapon used).

While you might be right, that recoil control and target tracking skills might not be 100% completely eliminated from the game, they fall into insignificant role. With 1 hit-kill mechanic the player with better target acquisition still wins by default over time, regardless of recoil control and target tracking. If player A misses his first shot, player B can react and acquire target and finish player A off with 1-shot. Regardless of position.

Can you specify more, what you mean excactly by high TTK rewarding the wrong players? I would like to know more.

@benz said in We want the one hit kills.:

@oldkingcole225 gj generalizing those games. real deep. /s

By following your awesome generalizing you'd also say:

INS:S is still a tactical team-based FPS with a lot of realistic elements.

Nice way of making your point. /s

Well, every game has somethign unique about it that makes people play it. That person just mentioned all of them for the main shooters out there and INS2 had the low TTK and map strategy, but now, both of those things are gone and Sandstorm ain't INS no more, that's the whole problem.
Tbh, not only you confimed that you're a newbie of INS series, you're also going against literally everyone that have a diffrent opinion and etc. Fit in or jump out as they say.

@jensiii
You often get situations like this in Sandstorm right now:

  • Player A is seeing player B first.
  • Player A shoots first and hits.
  • Player B is not dead due to weapons doing not a lot of damage, or him having heavy armor etc.
  • Player B can found the enemy and is shooting back and can kill him.

This could also be the case in Insurgency because of a the hitreg not working properly or due to issues with the netcode.

Another game where this is the case is Quake (Arena or the current game called Champions). In general Quake has a high TTK. Players have a lot of health and that can be boosted further with pickups. In Quake you will often loose fights because the enemy has simply more health/armor than you do. Quake put's a lot of focus on map knowledge and the ability to hold spots that have good pickups/weapons. Personally I don't like that, but those are skills you need in the game nonetheless.

Once again, I think people also use the wrong terms here. I don't think that most players want that every weapon can 1 shot kill enemies disregarding where you hit them.

  • I think that a headshot should be a one shot in the game, disregarding your weapon.
  • Assault Rifles should 2-3 shot kill people by hits in the torso. It wold be good if the game would make a difference where you hit people in the torso. The chest area should be 2-3 hits, while areas like the lower upper body should be handled a bit differently.

Omg that escalated quickly 😃
I feel like this discussion is interesting, but is going nowhere.
I think you can argue a lot, but people might not change their mind. It's just personal preference.
There are obviously people who like high ttk and people who like low ttk.
I bet at the end of this second beta there will be another feedback survey, where people can say, whether they liked the ttk or not.
Based on these results the developers will balance the ttk I guess.

@benz said in We want the one hit kills.:

@jensiii yep yep. 1-shot-kills don't just lower the skill ceiling for aiming skills, but also positioning. It's astonishing to me how people want an easier game.

I agree with this. People probably aren't aware of this because it requires you to dig a lot deeper. I think we need to discuss about this more and break it down into little pieces on how all the aspects of the game are affected by different changes in mechanics. I've already learned a lot from these discussions! 🙂

@benz said in We want the one hit kills.:

@jensiii got even 1 more for you:

1-shot-kills lower the importance of ammo. Because they are freaking 1-shot-kills. Even rn with all the hitreg issues i never run out of ammo in a comp ff match. There's a good reason why in pro-matches and frag-movies you mostly see people bursting and spraying.... and not 1 tapping like some people try to make it look like:

why on earth would you risk missing a shot when you can just burst an get a higher chance (cuz more bullets) getting the kill?

Yes, I watched also a few fragmovies and competitive matches after you linked a video here I also noticed the same. Filling the air with bullets to increase the probability of a kill is logical choice.

last edited by jensiii

@mefirst said in We want the one hit kills.:

@jensiii
You often get situations like this in Sandstorm right now:

  • Player A is seeing player B first.
  • Player A shoots first and hits.
  • Player B is not dead due to weapons doing not a lot of damage, or him having heavy armor etc.
  • Player B can found the enemy and is shooting back and can kill him.

If all the other things are equal (except player A acquiring target faster), I think player A should win the situation due to advantage. Mentioning weapon damage or heavy armor is irrelevant IF they are equal in this scenario for the two players (both players have the same weapon and heavy armor, then TTK for both players is the same).

If player A has no armor and uses a pistol and player B has assault rifle and heavy armour, player B might actually be in advantage even though player A has acquired target faster. In this example the TTK is different for the players because of different equipment so the situation is not equal.

This could also be the case in Insurgency because of a the hitreg not working properly or due to issues with the netcode.

Yes, I think these need to be fixed first, so we can be sure that techical issues aren't skewing up the situations we are talking about.

Another game where this is the case is Quake (Arena or the current game called Champions). In general Quake has a high TTK. Players have a lot of health and that can be boosted further with pickups. In Quake you will often loose fights because the enemy has simply more health/armor than you do. Quake put's a lot of focus on map knowledge and the ability to hold spots that have good pickups/weapons. Personally I don't like that, but those are skills you need in the game nonetheless.

Yes, in Quake health and armor are areas where the players are trying to get an advantage. If one player has a big advantage in health+armor, the advantage of attacking first might not be enough of an advantage to win the situation against this player (because he has even bigger advantage due to health and armor).

Regardless of high TTK, if all things are equal (skill, weapon, health armor, position etc.) even in quake the one getting the first would win.

Once again, I think people also use the wrong terms here. I don't think that most players want that every weapon can 1 shot kill enemies disregarding where you hit them.

  • I think that a headshot should be a one shot in the game, disregarding your weapon.
  • Assault Rifles should 2-3 shot kill people by hits in the torso. It wold be good if the game would make a difference where you hit people in the torso. The chest area should be 2-3 hits, while areas like the lower upper body should be handled a bit differently.

I've noticed that some people mean a bit different things with 1-hit kills. Also think that people should be more specific on what they exactly mean: are we talking about every gun 1-hits or just certain situations (headshots, specific rifles etc.)

In high level Quake games position and tactics matter way more than aim....lol... why would you bring up Quake as an example against high TTK? It's the prime example of a high skill ceiling game with a really high TTK.

@malarki83

Because they don't understand how good gameplay is important, plus they're bad.

@benz
You did not understand me I guess. I was making a example that other skills exist and that other games put a different focus on different skills. For example I would say that you don't need map knowledge in Battlefield (or it is not the focus of the game).

Insurgency is obviously not Quake

@mefirst yes, lower TTK lowers the skill ceiling and therefore it puts "a different focus on different skills". We've established that already.

I don't have fun in low skill ceiling games for a long period of time.

last edited by Benz