Wall of text incoming
One of the key innovations of PR has always been using game mechanics to influence player behaviour and to solve perceived "problems" with player psychology. In some cases it is used as a hard barrier, for instance you literally cannot crew a tank with any effectiveness unless you have 2 people working together. In other cases it is used as more of an encouragement, e.g. the rally point mechanic where players would be advised to stick close to their SLs if they want to get back in the fight quickly (more so in previous versions of PR).
I would say that the Insurgency game mode as it stands has large over arching issues with how players act and think, and Insurgency maps often play out very messily. There is an overall lack of focus; it seems fairly obvious that the game is supposed to play out with the Insurgent team largely defending the known cache, and the Blufor team largely attacking it. Obviously there can be some scope for disruption tactics for Ins, and perhaps some smaller units spotting and actively searching for unknown caches on Blufor, but on paper it seems reasonable to say that 80% of the players on the server should be focused on the known cache.
However, this is definitely not how a substantial number of Insurgency games play out. As it is a large number of Insurgent players will often ignore the known cache in favour of other things. Things like spawning on unknown caches, either because they think it needs defending or because they think it is closer to the action. Things like the afore-mentioned disruption tactics, mining choke points and well traveled Blufor routes, setting up ambushes etc. Things like actively hunting down and engaging Blufor squads even though they are no where near the known cache. This frequently leads to situations where more than half of the Ins team is hundreds of meters away from the main objective and hoping that someone else will defend it, and then wonder to themselves how the caches keep going down so easily.
An average and fairly scattered defence.
Why is this? I would argue it is because the Insurgent game mode in its present form is too unfocused. It may be unpopular of me to say this, but defending known caches is boring. Necessary if you want to win, but also boring. An Insurgent player sitting on or near a cache could be waiting 10/20 minutes or more between engagements. And why is that? The known cache is the main objective, why are Blufor not attacking it almost constantly? Well, a lot of the time they simply don't have too. To use the most extreme example, the US on Karbala can and frequently do win by hunting unknown caches almost exclusively. There is a saying in this community; "Players are hardcoded", which for me means players are largely interested in their own satisfaction and players, like water, will usually take the path of least resistance. Why would I attack the known cache when I have the option of hunting for the unknown and could easily get a free kill on it if I find it? And if no Blufor are attacking the known why would I sit here for 20 minutes bored out of my mind, when I could go find them and kill them and get that enjoyment I am here to have?
For me this is a breakdown of the fundamental problem with the Ins gamemode, the root of which is that the principal gameplay conceit does not function as it should. That is; players do not feel they have to/do not want to attack/defend the known cache.
I feel like situations like the one below:
A handful of people defending the known cache.
Could be avoided by a major revamping of the Insurgency game mechanics. So here comes the actual suggestion part
Remove Unknown Caches
Remove the second cache altogether. One cache to defend and one cache to attack. Suddenly all those Blufor squads that were out hunting unknowns have no real choice but to attack the known, and those Ins players who were out hunting Blufor miles from the cache want to defend again, because that's where the action is.
Similar to now, every time a new cache spawns it has 5 minutes before becoming known to Blufor, allowing the Ins to prepare.
Intel System Tweak
Now that there are no unknown caches to gain intel on, what could the Intel Points system be used for, if anything? One possibility; the cache marker could start out with something like a 200m/150m/100m radius for Blufor. As they gain intel that radius decreases in 25m/50m jumps.
Cache Timer
I think I saw Rudd say something along these lines once; make it so that caches will disappear after 30/45 minutes. This would count as the Insurgents having successfully defended and "moved" the cache. This would largely be to allow the Blufor to still win if the Ins get an easily defended cache location.
As above the new cache location would become known after 5 minutes, to give the Ins time to set up Hideouts etc. Blufor would still have to destroy X amount of caches (however many makes sense with this system, possibly a lot less than with the current one.)
In closing, obviously the Devs are awesome for giving so much of their free time to us for PR and this is not a slur against them, but I honestly do think that the Insurgency game mode in its current state is borderline broken. I do not believe it works as intended, and if not the ones listed above, I think it definitely needs some kind of drastic alteration.
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