v1.7.4 The Forgotten secret to good INSURGENCY

[waldov]

OVERWHELMING FIREPOWER.

All the ubiquitous, classic, established favorites of Insurgency understood this very basic formula:

A BLUFOR faction with a significant advantage in firepower, scoped infantry weapons, bulletproof vests, armored vehicles, helicopters, thermals, area attacks, CAS etc. tries to search out caches from a poorly equipped insurgent faction that has to rely on unconventional tactics: stealth, ambushes, IEDs, hideouts, suicide vehicles, snipers etc. to defend them and bleed the BLUFOR forces dry.

Somewhere along the way this great and simple formula seems to have been blurred or outright forgotten.

Think of the classics:

Al Basrah
Fallujah
Kokan
Gaza
Karbala
Lashkar
Ramiel*
Dragon Fly (kind of)

Still to this date the most popular and loved INS maps for that very reason.

But now we have a number of maps and layers where this formula has been skewered and the playing field far too balanced in favor of the Insurgents. I think of maps like Sahel which has so much promise, but also 2x T-62s and an armada of technical's against a singular French APC and 20 minute delayed light CAS.

Or I think of nearly every single INS layer with Russian BLUFOR. Did some of the layer makers forget Russians have nearly NO scopes or Thermals? Grozny is a great example, a single BMP is all the Russians have to their name in heavy assets (the BTRs are as useful as humvees for all intents and purposes) on one of the most unforgiving, urban heavy INS maps of them all.

By comparison on a map like Fallujah against an Insurgent faction half as well armed as militia, and a city half as comprehensive, multi-layered and nightmarish as Grozny the Americans get not one but TWO APC's with Thermals, automatic grenade launchers/cannons etc. either of which is objectively better then the BMP-2 on Grozny for the addition of Thermals alone. All the infantry have scopes too boot and on one layer they replace one of those APC's with a damn TANK, with thermals, modern protection and firepower. AND IT WORKS.

Heck look at maps like Dragon Fly, Gaza and Lashkar where 2-3x modern, thermal equipped laser gun/auto-cannon APCS and even Modern Tanks are standard, and those maps are still hard for BLUFOR.

*Ramiel is another sad story of the INS winning formula being thrown to the wayside with whatever nerfed, shell of a great layer we have now. The dismal popularity of it these days compared to just a year or so ago says enough on that matter.

I could go on with examples, but the truth is the majority of Insurgency maps/layers made since the classics suffer from this issue to various extents. Lack of scopes, thermals and the difficulties of attacking an urban/forest/jungle defender are factors that I think are MASSIVELY ignored or not given their due credit when deciding the balance of many Insurgency layers. A good litmus test is if a map often ends with the INS side having a equal or greater K/D, something is SERIOUSLY wrong with the balance.

Especially now that the Horizons have broadened from the traditionally powerful BLUFOR factions like the US, Germans, Canada, French and UK. No thermal, poorly protected Russian IFV's/APCs while easily capable of going toe to toe with Western IFVs in conventional combat, are worth 0.5 of modern Western counterparts in Insurgency/infantry dominated maps. The G3s and AKs of the MEC, FSA and RUS factions are also certainly no equivalent to the scoped laser guns of the traditional western Blufor factions.

Without some re-balancing I think many otherwise great maps with great INS potential are destined to be reluctant second choice maps when all the classics have been exhausted in a map rotation; or just outright laid to rest in the graveyard of maps that are resurrected every now and again when people occasionally forget how much they regretted playing them the last time.

There's absolutely no reason Grozny shouldn't have taken place as the king "go to" INS map, or why Sahel, Kafr and Sbeneh shouldn't dominate the top 5 INS maps. But it simply comes down to the superior balance of the "classics" despite the otherwise better map making and design of the aforementioned maps.

[puffkiller]

I think there are serious problems with the ins mode in which Poland participates, which is caused by various reasons. The map, as well as Poland's LMGkit and vehicle configuration, always put them at a disadvantage.

[puffkiller]

Additionally, IDF should be involved in more ins maps

[waldov]

Originally Posted by puffkiller

I think there are serious problems with the ins mode in which Poland participates, which is caused by various reasons. The map, as well as Poland's LMGkit and vehicle configuration, always put them at a disadvantage.

Agreed and this comes down to the same reasons I stated in my original post. Poor balance.

Shahada INS gives the Polish a single BDRM for weaponized asset support. Obviously a Modern auto-cannon thermal APC could be too OP in the open deserts of that map, but it also leaves Polish totally under supported on all the City caches and half the desert caches are caves anyway which nullify asset strength.

Karabala isn't as bad but repacing the 2xStrykers and Bradley of the US layout for 2xBDRMs is a bit of a spit in the face. Along with the PKMs in place of the usual laser gun SAWs, BLUFOR firepower is effectively halved on the ground.

The HIND is a nice addition that somewhat makes up for this, but Polands chances on that map depend greatly on a single 20 minute delayed asset, which is always a questionable balance choice IMO.


Outpost is alot better, and not too bad of a map/layer honestly only complaint being that the Taliban might get one bomb car too many too counter the APCs which already have a hard enough time in the city.

[dcm1]

Originally Posted by waldov

OVERWHELMING FIREPOWER.

All the ubiquitous, classic, established favorites of Insurgency understood this very basic formula:

A BLUFOR faction with a significant advantage in firepower, scoped infantry weapons, bulletproof vests, armored vehicles, helicopters, thermals, area attacks, CAS etc. tries to search out caches from a poorly equipped insurgent faction that has to rely on unconventional tactics: stealth, ambushes, IEDs, hideouts, suicide vehicles, snipers etc. to defend them and bleed the BLUFOR forces dry.

I am an opfor whore on insurgency maps and I agree with you.

I never wanted blufor to be nerfed. I wanted opfor to be buffed in some way, other than giving them asset parity with blufor, so they have some sort of response to the blufor's overwhelming firepower advantage. Without resorting to martyrdom, because that shit aint fun for noone.

Sahel is too hard for the french. Because 2x T62s have no adequate response from the french team. The french IFV cant really do shit to a tank. And cas can be very easily countered with a .50 cal techie.

On Grozny a single SPG techie can quickly demolish the russian's entire armor allocation. Not to mention the city fighting highly favors RPG users in high places. Even thought the Militia lat kits can be found lacking.

The best weapon that opfor insurgency teams have is the RPG-7. We need more of them, and for them to be more readily available and easily accessible. All opfor factions need to have their unnecessary assets curtailed and replaced with extra RPG-7s. I wouldn't mind dropping the T62s on sahel. And giving the ARF back their pick up kit RPG7s. Except this time instead of having them in main. Or on the cache. I believe that RPG7s should spawn in random places around the map. Like a treat for curious insurgents to discover. The same privilege should be extended to all opfor factions on all insurgency maps.

A couple years ago, I thought it would be cool if support technicals could drop insurgent kits. Like they drop ammo crates. I believe that idea should be looked at.

[Grump/Gump.45]

Originally Posted by dcm1

I am an opfor whore on insurgency maps and I agree with you.

I never wanted blufor to be nerfed. I wanted opfor to be buffed in some way, other than giving them asset parity with blufor, so they have some sort of response to the blufor's overwhelming firepower advantage. Without resorting to martyrdom, because that shit aint fun for noone.

Sahel is too hard for the french. Because 2x T62s have no adequate response from the french team. The french IFV cant really do shit to a tank. And cas can be very easily countered with a .50 cal techie.

On Grozny a single SPG techie can quickly demolish the russian's entire armor allocation. Not to mention the city fighting highly favors RPG users in high places. Even thought the Militia lat kits can be found lacking.

The best weapon that opfor insurgency teams have is the RPG-7. We need more of them, and for them to be more readily available and easily accessible.

All opfor factions need to have their unnecessary assets curtailed and replaced with extra RPG-7s.

I wouldn't mind dropping the T62s on sahel. And giving the ARF back their pick up kit RPG7s. Except this time instead of having them in main. Or on the cache.

I believe that RPG7s should spawn in random places around the map. Like a treat for curious insurgents to discover.

The same privilege should be extended to all opfor factions on all insurgency maps.

A couple years ago, I thought it would be cool if support technicals could drop insurgent kits. Like they drop ammo crates. I believe that idea should be looked at.

I see insurgents getting nerfed in little ways all the time. Like when they made each explosion against a crowd of civilians count as only one martyr. All because some people got the idea together to find enemy mines, go civi then have somebody drive over the mine.

If you place mines blocking the insurgent main that are so easy to discover you deserve to be punished for not helping BLUFOR on caches and going for easy kills on the few vehicles insurgents have.

I would like uniformness in some aspects for all insurgent factions. Free roadblocks(boulder piles for Taliban), rocks in all civilian kits, ARF/Syrian Rebel civilians, spawnable unlimited IED kit (30 IEDs x 50 players=1500 mines max), 2 DShK HMG per hideout, selectable spawn kits off cache for Iraqi insurgent(aside from officer/medic).

Then of course the breacher shotgun being able to instant arrest a crowd of civilians. It should remove stamina only. This would make realistic riot control requiring arrest teams, once breacher removes the civilian stamina.

Civilians could human shield the roadblocks from tanks, artillery and CAS. Then having kits in the crowd at their feet for arrest teams along with armed insurgents in alley ways and on roof tops. Drop kit, join crowd, mix yourself around because it even gives BLUFOR snipers realism opportunity to take out insurgents not yet civilian they can take out.

Rocks for civilians are hard to get kills with, so we need to be able to crowd up to throw the rocks, without a lone wolf breacher mowing everyone down or taking away a full BLUFOR squads need for cuffs.

[[R-COM]bad_nade]

The only reason, for me at least, to ever play on the insurgent side has always been higher chance of winning. Insurgent game mode is asymmetric but contrary to common belief, it's asymmetric in favor of REDFOR. And that's the way it should be in the future as well. The motivation to play BLUFOR is to get access to modern implements of war but at the cost of losing majority of the rounds.

I haven't been able to verify if the explosion-induced civi kill is indeed one martydom per explosion instead of one per dead civi but if that's true then that's a major screw-up by the DEVs. Dead civilian is dead civilian. IRL every corpse counts no matter what was the cause of death.

PS. Yes, I've seen the video where they bunch up a group civies around a mine.

[waldov]

Originally Posted by dcm1

I am an opfor whore on insurgency maps and I agree with you.

I never wanted blufor to be nerfed. I wanted opfor to be buffed in some way, other than giving them asset parity with blufor, so they have some sort of response to the blufor's overwhelming firepower advantage. Without resorting to martyrdom, because that shit aint fun for noone.

Sahel is too hard for the french. Because 2x T62s have no adequate response from the french team. The french IFV cant really do shit to a tank. And cas can be very easily countered with a .50 cal techie.

On Grozny a single SPG techie can quickly demolish the russian's entire armor allocation. Not to mention the city fighting highly favors RPG users in high places. Even thought the Militia lat kits can be found lacking.

The best weapon that opfor insurgency teams have is the RPG-7. We need more of them, and for them to be more readily available and easily accessible. All opfor factions need to have their unnecessary assets curtailed and replaced with extra RPG-7s. I wouldn't mind dropping the T62s on sahel. And giving the ARF back their pick up kit RPG7s. Except this time instead of having them in main. Or on the cache. I believe that RPG7s should spawn in random places around the map. Like a treat for curious insurgents to discover. The same privilege should be extended to all opfor factions on all insurgency maps.

A couple years ago, I thought it would be cool if support technicals could drop insurgent kits. Like they drop ammo crates. I believe that idea should be looked at.

I'm mainly an OPFOR player myself on Insurgency, because I love the idea of playing underdog but truth is that whenever I play OPFOR on Insurgency I know my team will win 80% of the time, at least on any of the newer or updated Insurgency layers.

Also agree that more RPG-7s/special kits is a far better option for balance than nullifying BLUFOR assets or the greater sin of giving OPFOR asset parity/near parity on insurgency maps.

Just a handful of additional pickup RPG-7s, tandem warheads, heavy IEDs and/or SA-7s can go a long way to evening the odds on some maps without going too far in the opposite direction and giving the Insurgents hard counters to everything BLUFOR gets or just outright removing them.

[dcm1]

Originally Posted by waldov

I'm mainly an OPFOR player myself on Insurgency, because I love the idea of playing underdog but truth is that whenever I play OPFOR on Insurgency I know my team will win 80% of the time, at least on any of the newer or updated Insurgency layers.

Also agree that more RPG-7s/special kits is a far better option for balance than nullifying BLUFOR assets or the greater sin of giving OPFOR asset parity/near parity on insurgency maps.

Just a handful of additional pickup RPG-7s, tandem warheads, heavy IEDs and/or SA-7s can go a long way to evening the odds on some maps without going too far in the opposite direction and giving the Insurgents hard counters to everything BLUFOR gets or just outright removing them.

I play OPFOR, because I answer the call of JIHAD!

Insurgent pickup kits are their greatest asset. But also their greatest weakness. Depending on who gets to them first. Other factions dont really suffer from that problem, because they have requestable kits. I think that's why devs overcompensate by giving Insurgents(and some other opfor factions) a shitload of assets.

I would love for the Insurgents faction to play much more into their 'Resisting Foreign Imperialism with whatever they can find' thing they got going on.