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I pretty much only play the insurgency game mode as I love the asymmetrical warfare aspect of it, and I have been meaning to make a thread for a while giving my feedback on certain maps and layers of maps that simply are not balanced at all. I know it is hard balancing asymmetrical warfare but still I will give my feedback here as to what I think should be changed for the next version or the future going forward to make insurgency a more balanced game mode on some of the maps that do not favor such.

The structure of this post I will first address infantry layers in general then move to map-specific feedback (which will be for ONLY standard and alt layers since infantry layers have been addressed).

First off: Infantry Layers.
Infantry layers for insurgency are hardly ever played, and for good reason, these layers are incredibly unbalanced. Insurgency is all about asymmetrical warfare, which is usually in the form of BLUFOR getting vehicles, such as air and armor vehicles, to gain some sort of high-tech advantage over the INSURGENT factions. The infantry layers, with the exception of Korengal INF and Khamisiyah INF (which the devs said should be fixed for 1.4), remove many, if not all of these assets from these maps. The server I play on has played several of these infantry layers lately in an effort to give the the players a change of pace from the layers they usually play, but the absence of these assets is a HUGE blow to the BLUFOR's ability to win games. When I have been playing these infantry layers lately, the INSURGENT factions, despite not having optics, will get more and sometimes MANY MORE kills than the blufor factions since the infantry layers are basically a game of infantry pushing against each other but the BLUFOR has no assets to gain an upper hand, while in INSURGENT FACTIONS have no tickets to worry about and continually spawn and die and simply hold the line with no worry about armor or anything else to push them back.

I know the purpose of the infantry layers on insurgency maps is to provide some variety in layer choice, but these infantry layers are hardly ever played and just DO NOT FIT with the goal of the game mode in my opinion. I would suggest based on what I have seen that it would be beneficial to remove the infantry layers from all Insurgency maps in the interest of balance.
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Now that infantry layers are out of the way here is my feedback for the other insurgency maps. Again, standard and alt layers are the only thing I will be commenting on here. Not all maps have an alt layer so if I do not comment on a layer it means that said layer does not exist.

Al Basrah
Standard: Balanced
Alternate: Balanced

Assault on Grozny
Standard: Balanced

Black Gold
Standard: Seems a little one-sided in favor of Militia, 100 more tickets could maybe fix this or one less cache for China to destroy (they have to kill 6 currently)

Dragon Fly
Standard: Seems one sided for militia. Perhaps make it so British have to kill 4 caches instead of 5. The urban fighting is very unforgiving for british armor and infantry

Fallujah West
Standard: Balanced

Gaza Beach
Standard: Balanced

Iron Ridge
Standard: Balanced

Karbala
Standard: Seems Balanced
Alternate: This layer is simply BRUTAL for the US Army. This layer features the removal of the Blackhawk, Kiowa, all .50 cal humvees, the CROWS humvee, and 2 strykers. So the US on this map lose air support, air mobility, humvees with the ability to protect themselves, all in exchange for 2 Bradley IFV's. Not only do the US lose half their assets and ability to more safely traverse the map, but on top of this the US have to kill 6 caches instead of 5. They get worse assets and have more work to do on this layer, and its incredibly brutal. I recommend removing this layer completely, the alt layer serves no purpose but to make the US team ragequit.

Khamisiyah
Standard: Balanced

Kokan
Standard: Balanced
Alternate: Balanced

Korengal Valley
Standard: Balanced in my opinion. I have seen a lot of people complain about this map being really bad for US, but I have seen the map go both ways, its all about where the caches spawn and how good your team is.
Alternate: See Standard feedback.

Kozelsk
Standard: I haven't played this map enough to form a meaningful opinion.

Lashkar Valley
Standard: Balanced

Operation Archer
Standard: Unbalanced. I hardly ever see Canada win this map. The uneven terrain somewhat funnels Canada to go on certain roads and routes which are ideal for ambush. On top of that, the only gun transports that Canada has are GWagons that have M240's on them, which are really no match for Taliban technicals that have .50cal machine guns on them. I often see the taliban end the round on this map with more kills than the Canadians. This map is very difficult for Canadians and I have two suggestions to give them more breathing room. One would be to reduce the amount of caches that Canada has to kill from 5 down to 4. The other option would be to Increase Canadian ticket count by probably about 150. 550 tickets is simply not enough tickets to kill 5 caches on a map this difficult. The asset layout seems ideal though and not much could be changed, which I will address in the Alt layer feedback below.

Alternate: This layer is even more hell for the Canadians than the Standard layer. The Canadians on this layer get 500 tickets instead of the 550 they get on std, and on top of that they have to kill 6 caches instead of 5. This layer suffers from the same problems encountered on the standard layer. This layer also features the Canadians getting 3 LAV-III apc's. Many would think these apc's have the potential to wreck the taliban, but down be fooled. One of these apc's does not respawn, and the apc's cost more tickets than the benefit they net for Canada. With so many hills and uneven terrain it is incredibly easy to sneak up on the APC's and destroy them as taliban, as the taliban have SO MANY tools to destroy these apc's with, notably two bombcars, three SPG technicals, and a Gary. Its interesting having a layer of this map where Canada gets armor, but if it is going to be balanced the Canadians need a lot more tickets, less caches to kill, less insurgent vehicles to deal with the armor, or a combination of all the above.

Operation Marlin
Standard: Balanced
Alternate: Balanced

Ramiel
Standard: Balanced
Alternate: Balanced

Sbeneh Outskirts
Standard: Balanced. MEC has a lot of tickets (800), while syrian rebels have a lot of tools to fight MEC with
Alternate: Havent played this layer, no opinion

bromley wrote:Operation Archer
Alternate: Many would think these apc's have the potential to wreck the taliban, but down be fooled.

...it is incredibly easy to sneak up on the APC's and destroy them as taliban

yeah ocay

Lol that APC has no competition on that map

The only real game killer on INS is one side has mortars to kill FOBs while the other doesn't.
Either give Blufor mortars again or remove them for both sides.

bromley wrote: Operation Archer
Standard: Unbalanced... This map is very difficult for Canadians

This is one of the funniest threads in a while.

ARCHER -> Standard: Unbalanced. I hardly ever see Canada win this map.
KORENGAL -> Standard: Balanced in my opinion.

what actual?



Korengal isn't even that funny for USA. Taliban camps main, RPG left and right etc. If you want to win it, you need to send it one ninja to the cache at a time and hope he can blow up the cache.

5/7 thread m8

bromley wrote: Khamisiyah
Standard: Balanced

ok

bromley wrote: Operation Archer
Alternate: This layer is even more hell for the Canadians than the Standard layer. The Canadians on this layer get 500 tickets instead of the 550 they get on std, and on top of that they have to kill 6 caches instead of 5. This layer suffers from the same problems encountered on the standard layer. This layer also features the Canadians getting 3 LAV-III apc's. Many would think these apc's have the potential to wreck the taliban, but down be fooled. One of these apc's does not respawn, and the apc's cost more tickets than the benefit they net for Canada. With so many hills and uneven terrain it is incredibly easy to sneak up on the APC's and destroy them as taliban, as the taliban have SO MANY tools to destroy these apc's with, notably two bombcars, three SPG technicals, and a Gary. Its interesting having a layer of this map where Canada gets armor, but if it is going to be balanced the Canadians need a lot more tickets, less caches to kill, less insurgent vehicles to deal with the armor, or a combination of all the above.

It's actually one of the easiest maps for APCs to get kills and survive the whole game on.

The LAVs can only die if they go straight into the enemy. You can sit 800+ meters from a cache, atop a hill, completely smoked, and you will not die if you are careful of enemies.

A bomb car is almost useless against APCs here (and on many other maps..) because it will either: explode from terrain damage getting to you or you will see it coming.

bromley wrote:
Operation Archer
Standard: Unbalanced. I hardly ever see Canada win this map. The uneven terrain somewhat funnels Canada to go on certain roads and routes which are ideal for ambush. On top of that, the only gun transports that Canada has are GWagons that have M240's on them, which are really no match for Taliban technicals that have .50cal machine guns on them. I often see the taliban end the round on this map with more kills than the Canadians. This map is very difficult for Canadians and I have two suggestions to give them more breathing room. One would be to reduce the amount of caches that Canada has to kill from 5 down to 4. The other option would be to Increase Canadian ticket count by probably about 150. 550 tickets is simply not enough tickets to kill 5 caches on a map this difficult. The asset layout seems ideal though and not much could be changed, which I will address in the Alt layer feedback below.

Alternate: This layer is even more hell for the Canadians than the Standard layer. The Canadians on this layer get 500 tickets instead of the 550 they get on std, and on top of that they have to kill 6 caches instead of 5. This layer suffers from the same problems encountered on the standard layer. This layer also features the Canadians getting 3 LAV-III apc's. Many would think these apc's have the potential to wreck the taliban, but down be fooled. One of these apc's does not respawn, and the apc's cost more tickets than the benefit they net for Canada. With so many hills and uneven terrain it is incredibly easy to sneak up on the APC's and destroy them as taliban, as the taliban have SO MANY tools to destroy these apc's with, notably two bombcars, three SPG technicals, and a Gary. Its interesting having a layer of this map where Canada gets armor, but if it is going to be balanced the Canadians need a lot more tickets, less caches to kill, less insurgent vehicles to deal with the armor, or a combination of all the above.

The most balanced map is - without a doubt - Khamisiyah INS Alt:

The guys I kick at round start from the squad...

I always say this when the discussion about balance on INS comes up and today is no different.

The balance takes two forms:
- balance in terms of KDR, how easy it is to fight as inf and which assets can counter-balance one another.
- balance in terms of who wins the round. How many caches/ intel points/ tickets etc

The issue being that the INS team might win the round because the BlueFor can't co-ordinate on a cache (or the cache positions are very easy to defend). But if each INS player is 2:15 KRD they aren't going to have fun.

Cheers, Murkey.