Hi everybody!

First of all big thanks to the devs for the massive update and all the changes/tweaks based on the community feedback.
Below, I have made some general points and some other based on my experience these past days, after the release of the patch. I am mostly focusing on "negatives" as those are what needs to be addressed and discussed.

• Performance has increased significantly. Right now I am getting between 65 and 140 fps (avg. of 90+) with medium/high settings (gtx 1070, i7 4771, 16gb RAM DDR3 1666). Before the update I was getting the same fps but with low settings. The random fps drops though are still a thing and they are happening more often than they should and mostly randomly to the best of my knowledge. Such big variance in fps is not ruining my experience, but it definitely got me killed several times. Mostly, when trying to flick while there is a drop. What I also noticed is that each time an objective is captured, the game lags for a split second. Not sure why this happens but seems like something that needs to be fixed if possible.

• Melee attack is a joke. I hit an enemy 3 times point blank and he still survived,finished the reload and killed me. Apart from kicking down doors or breaking windows I do not really see any other use for it. Maybe if the damage was increased (e.g. 50 per hit), or if melee could cancel the enemy's ADS and made him stop firing until he clicks the fire button again, it could be viable. In any other case, pulling out the knife and attacking is far more reliable.

• ADS time was increased and I found it really frustrating the first couple of days after the update but I started getting used to it. Nevertheless, I think that it could still become a tiny bit faster so that you can flick in case the enemy misses his first shots.

• Muting teammates/enemies made games a lot more bearable, although after each round resets and "mute all" does not really work for me. A fix for this?

• Votekicking is something that is definitely required and I am sure it is going to be added at some point. There were suggestions from people to add a forgive button for TKs and sounds like a good idea. However, what I would like to see is getting teamkillers kicked out of the server after 2 TKs, unless you forgive the teamkiller. 3 TKs until someone is kicked out can ruin the experience of other people especially if it is happening at the beginning of the round.

• Shotguns take a lot of time to reload. What happens at the moment is that you while reloading you need to press the fire button, then go ADS, and then finally shoot, which gets you killed most of the times. It would be awesome if we could immediately cancel the reload by ADSing (same as in CS:GO) so that you can shoot someone that gets the jump on you while reloading. Then, by clicking reload again we should be able to continue reloading.

• Shooting animations (gun kicking while shooting) are a nice touch but look a bit strange. I am not sure what is exactly that I don't like but the guns seem to be all over the place when shooting (no, I am not confused with recoil). I really liked the way the animations looked on the INS Source, felt really tight. Unfortunately I cannot explain what I don't like in a better way

• Recoil was something that was widely requested to be increased. However, it is not quite clear what happens with the horizontal recoil after the update. It feels kinda random and screws up the aim big time. In combination with the sway, especially after sprinting, makes the whole experience as annoying as it can get. I think that horizontal recoil should either follow a pattern (same as with CS:GO), or should be so insignificant that will only add visually to the game. At the moment I need to spray almost an entire mag against someone who is behind cover and head-glitching (shooting at you while only his forehead is visible) in order to get the headshot, while at the same time I need to compensate for vertical recoil and sway. This might not be a problem in coop and versus, where you can take your time and aim, but in competitive play where you have many 1v1 situations it kinda rewards the slow, passive play. I may be wrong though, please share your thoughts.

• Competitive theater is something that I did not have the opportunity to thoroughly explore, as it has been almost impossible to find a game. However, I think that the balance between the available supply points and the equipment prices is really bad and restrictive at the moment. Ideally we should be able to get a primary with a couple of attachments (1 recoil balancing and an optic), a light carrier and a couple of nades (frag/smoke/flash), at least. Utilitty is super important in 5v5. Right now is just a primary with an attachment and a nade. The balance was really bad in the source game as well. It was only the DGL/Gym theater that were tweaked and offered a more balanced experience for 5v5. What do you guys think?

• Suppression effects do not really look nice. Other people pointed out already but the whole saturation thing does not really give you the feeling of being suppressed. The blurry vision effect looks nicer. Actually I really enjoyed how suppression looked in the Source game. You guys nailed it there. It would be really cool do it the same way in Sandstorm.

• Objective messages on the screen is something that I really disliked since the Alpha version of the game. I understand that this makes the game more user-friendly but there should not be any kind of messages in my opinion. If you are on the OBJ and the progress is not changing you should be able to understand that there is an equal number of enemies on. If you are on the OBJ and the enemies are capping progressively, you should know that the number of enemies on the OBJ is larger than the number of teammates (and vice versa). There is no reason to hold hands. If a message HAS TO BE on screen, then just "blocked" should be enough. At the moment, when there are 2 enemies and you are blocking the OBJ from being capped, you get a "Blocking" message. If one of the enemies leaves the OBJ (e.g. to flank you) then the message changes to "Stalemate". This is free information. Why give away information for free?

• Movement was one of the things that was significantly improved with the update and is moving towards the right direction. It is pretty close to the Source game, where it was felt fluid and responsive. Not quite there yet, though. What feels really bad at the moment, is movement with heavy loadouts. Closer to ice-skating than running/walking.

• Gunplay needs more changes. It does not feel as tight as it should at the moment. Unfortunately, I cannot describe or suggest what needs to be changed. Just try to shoot the M4 on full-auto (compensating for recoil) in both INS2 and Sandstorm and you will immediately understand what I mean by "tight".

That is all that comes to mind at the moment. Thoughts?

@bullet59 Some nice stuff here. I'll just toss my two pennies in.

Melee attack is a joke. I hit an enemy 3 times point blank and he still survived,finished the reload and killed me.

Melee attacks seem to damage an enemy based on hit location. Stabbing someone in the face should one-shot them (as well as a good pistol whip lol). There's also increased melee damage from the back.

ADS time was increased and I found it really frustrating the first couple of days after the update but I started getting used to it. Nevertheless, I think that it could still become a tiny bit faster so that you can flick in case the enemy misses his first shots.

ADS time is now determined by your weight/armor choice, so equipping less gear and grabbing Light Armor (or none at all) speeds up ADS. I'm not big on this mechanic, personally.

Shotguns take a lot of time to reload.

To be fair, they're extremely powerful (although maybe not quite as strong as before) so I think the reload time is pretty solid. IMO, if someone catches you off-guard while reloading you're better off switching to your pistol (that goes for reloading any primary, not just shotguns). Bolt-action rifles really need a reload speed boost, though.

Recoil was something that was widely requested to be increased. However, it is not quite clear what happens with the horizontal recoil after the update. It feels kinda random and screws up the aim big time. In combination with the sway, especially after sprinting, makes the whole experience as annoying as it can get... but in competitive play where you have many 1v1 situations it kinda rewards the slow, passive play.

This is honestly way better than the current rush meta for basically everything. Ins2014 should be slower-paced than CoD or BF, but it's still faster than milsim games like Squad or ArmA.

Overall, I think the recoil changes are great. Horiz. recoil is something I'm never too keen on, but if it's to balance out assault rifles and SMGs so you can't just full-auto someone 50 to 100 meters away I get it. Bipods are fuckin incredible now, as well.

Suppression effects do not really look nice. Other people pointed out already but the whole saturation thing does not really give you the feeling of being suppressed. The blurry vision effect looks nicer.

+1. I think the old Ins2014 suppression effect did its job much better than the current one.

Objective messages on the screen is something that I really disliked since the Alpha version of the game. I understand that this makes the game more user-friendly but there should not be any kind of messages in my opinion. If you are on the OBJ and the progress is not changing you should be able to understand that there is an equal number of enemies on.

Maybe the message should be smaller, but I personally like the idea. While Sandstorm isn't exactly "for casuals" it's definitely designed to be a much easier game to get into than Insurgency: Source was, which I think is a step in the right direction.

Also, it's annoying to stare at the objective marker to try to see if it's moving or not lmao.

What feels really bad at the moment, is movement with heavy loadouts. Closer to ice-skating than running/walking.

Been preaching this since the second I started playing after the patch lmao.

Just try to shoot the M4 on full-auto (compensating for recoil) in both INS2 and Sandstorm...

The M4A1 has a literal fuckton of recoil on it. Very few weapons recoil more than the M4A1 (maybe like LMGs and shotguns; possibly pistols). Not sure about the G36k.

Personally, I love the change. Why?

Because before this update, the M4A1 was honestly just fucking broken. It could two-shot Heavy Armor in CQB like the AKs could, it fired faster than the AKs, and it had less recoil. People were just running around lasering enemies at 50 meters with full-auto M4 spam. It got pretty cancerous IMO.

That being said, you should definitely try out the M16s on either faction. The burst-fire is just god-tier.