Hi everyone,
 
Today we released patch 1.1.1 which includes numerous bug fixes and improvements based on the feedback from last week's content update. The full changelog can be found below.
 
Our team had planned to start working on new features straight after the February content update. However, after reading community feedback, we have decided to dedicate the entirety of March to resolving ongoing issues and making performance improvements before moving onto any new features.
 
Developers not directly involved with these tasks will still continue to work on new art and level content where possible. Major code-related features will be in the works a little bit longer due to this re-prioritization. Bug fixes and optimization will be the top priority for our team, until we are happy the game is in a more polished state.
 
Stability
Fixed a potential crash when cancelling matchmaking search before receiving the first server response.
Fixed a crash triggered by interacting with a weapon pickup and firing an RPG at the same time.
Fixed a startup crash.
 
Optimization
Increased amount of item and cosmetic assets cached in memory during load. This reduces streaming during gameplay.
Improved audio bank loading to optimize memory usage, allowing all item banks to be kept in memory. This reduces streaming during gameplay.
Increased audio compression for the following audio assets:
All character voice over.
All physics interactions.  
All character movement.
Prevented all player character VO from streaming. It is now loaded into memory.  
Fixed ragdoll lighting so its attachments are not lit as a group. This should improve ragdoll performance on higher settings.
Disabled logging to disk.
 
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where a player’s first person hands and dead body could become invisible during gameplay.
Fixed an issue where players could be temporarily banned from competitive matches even if they re-joined within the required time limit.  
Fixed an issue where hands could also become invisible after respawning when having died in a vehicle.  
Fixed an issue where weapons fired in semi-auto would sometimes miss mouse clicks. This will make semi-auto firing much more reliable, especially with higher pings.
Fixed armor not mitigating explosive damage.
Reduced instances of gunshot audio playing but no bullet firing during full auto mag dumps when fired with high ping.  
Fixed an issue where characters at further distances would appear not to be aiming in the correct direction.
Fixed certain circumstances where players could appear desync’d for other players.  
Fixed an issue with doors becoming desync’d for certain players.
Fixed an issue with the 2x Holographic sight showing the holographic material when in ADS and using normal quality scopes.
Fixed an issue where normal scope quality materials did not swap correctly.  
Fixed an issue where the normal scope clip mask would not map to the correct screen coordinates, causing parts of the weapon to be invisible.
Fixed an issue where certain weapons could spawn attachments which they were not compatible with.  
Fixed an issue where VoIP from specific users were duplicated.  
Fixed an issue with the MG3 and M240B first person aim down sight deploy transitions.
Fixed an issue with camo materials for Security torso items.  
Fixed an issue where players could equip or draw rocket launchers inside of vehicles.  
Fixed an issue where aiming down sights could become broken when spawning and resupplying in both Local Game and Range.
Fixed an issue where weapons could appear broken when spawning and resupplying in both local game and the firing range.
Fixed an issue where arms could appear broken if entering a vehicle while in a grenade throw pose.  
Fixed an issue where no muzzle flash particle was assigned to the MP5A5 suppressor.
Fixed MP5A5 getting Compensator recoil reductions when equipping the Suppressor.  
Fixed an issue where the ceiling fan prop would disappear when broken.  
Fixed an issue where first person tattoos were rendering the third person tattoo.  
Fixed an issue with the M240B Extended Magazine box mount not showing up consistently.
Fixed an issue where ragdolls would T-pose when killed in a vehicle.  
Fixed an issue where ragdolls in a vehicle wouldn’t be removed when a vehicle despawns.  
Fixed an issue where the Bomber Drones could dive incorrectly and fly under the map.
Fixed an issue where the hand position for some rifles appeared broken in the Loadout menu.  
Fixed one-handed base animations for standing movement.
Fixed knife-related animations.
Fixed lean animation issues.
Fixed a bug where bots could equip a legacy hairstyle no longer available ingame.  
Fixed an issue where bots could be seen spawning in the air or in the ceilings of buildings.
Fixed an issue with the Scoreboard not showing correctly during replays.  
Fixed an issue with the map cycle on community servers not selecting levels properly if blank lines or leading spaces were left in the mapcycle text document.
 
User Experience
Created a fallback cosmetics system to ensure that other players do not appear in half-loaded states during slow-loading situations. Please note this only applies to other players and is currently not utilized in spectator.  
Updated the competitive leaver penalty to mark players as leavers if they do not rejoin within 120 seconds instead of 60 seconds.
Added ingame chat message for leaver penalty to indicate when it's safe to leave a match after another player has left the match.
 
Gameplay
Added Extended Magazine upgrade to the MP5A2 for Security Coop.  
Melee damage is no longer reduced when hitting armor.
 
Map Balance & Fixes
Hideout
Fixed an exploit near objective D on Checkpoint Security where a player could hide inside a rock.  
Tweaked exposure to make it less dark while looking at a bright light source.
 
Farmhouse
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective A Insurgent spawn on Push Security.
Fixed an exploit where players could go on top of the farmhouse building.
Fixed an exploit where players could leave the playable area.
Fixed an exploit near objective B on Push Security.
Tweaked exposure to make it less dark while looking at a bright light source.
Refinery
Reduced landscape layer usage to improve performance.
Reorganized various HLOD clusters to improve performance.
Fixed an exploit near objective B on Push Security.
Precinct
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective A Insurgent spawn on Push Insurgents.
Tweaked restricted area at objective A Insurgent spawn to address potential spawn camp issue.
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective C Insurgent spawn on Push Security.
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective D Insurgent spawn on Push Security.
Fixed various minor exploits.
Summit
Added potential fix for stuck player issue near A objective on Push Insurgents.
Tweaked exposure to make it less dark while looking at a bright light source.
Fixed various minor exploits.
Crossing
Fixed restricted area at objective A Insurgent spawn on Push Insurgents.
Addressed spawn camp issue at Security spawn on Skirmish.
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective C Security spawn on Push Insurgents.
Tweaked exposure to make it less dark while looking at a bright light source.
Known Issues
Looking down while kicking a door may show the top of the leg mesh.
Insertion drivers might not always show for all clients.
Certain unicode steam names might show as [Player Name] on the loading screen

Today we have released patch 1.1.2 which contains numerous bug fixes and improvements.  
 
As previously announced, we are dedicating the month of March to resolving some of the biggest issues reported by community. Expect more updates over the next few weeks.
 
Optimization
Optimized first-person weapon loading, reduce streaming during gameplay.
Optimized cosmetic mesh creation.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where the top of the player’s leg mesh was visible when kicking a door while looking down.  
Potential fix to mitigate door dysnc issues, if you continue to experience any issues with door dsync please report it to us.  
Fixed an issue where gas masks were not visible while watching a player in third person spectator.  
Fixed an issue with the M45 safety switch being weighted to the slide causing odd visual effects.
Fixed an issue where third person gas mask animations were not playing correctly.  
Fixed an issue where wooden foregrip materials were being rendered in normal scope quality.
Fixed an issue where ammo weight was not being calculated correctly if the player was not wearing an Ammo Carrier in the Loadout menu.  
Fixed an issue where singly loaded weapons were not calculating their ammo weight correctly in the Loadout menu.
Fixed bad morph targets for the Security Patrol Headgear unlock.
Regenerated LODs to fix morph target issues on the Baseball and Too Cool Security Headgear unlocks.
Regenerated LODs on all Security Headgear to fix all potential LOD morph target issues.
Fixed an issue where gas masks would not show on the third person mesh at the start of the round until it was equipped.
Fixed an issue where the player’s appearance credit balance would not update if it was zero.
Fixed an issue where the gamma setting in the graphics options was not being saved.  
Fixed an issue where if the player made changes to their gamma setting it was not updated until the user clicked apply. Gamma settings will now update immediately.
User Experience
Set a 20 character limit to Loadout custom presets.  
Gas masks will now show on the Loadout character’s hip when equipped in the player’s Loadout.
Updated Commander icon in Profile.
Gameplay
Foliage interactions will now play as non-positional audio for the interacting player and positional audio for all other players to avoid any confusion as to who is generating them.  
Foliage interaction sounds will now properly reflect the speed of the player and create different audio effects based on that speed.
Map Balance & Fixes
Farmhouse
Fixed bad counter attack spawn on Checkpoint Insurgents at objective A.
Addressed an exploit where players could leave the playable area.
Precinct
Improved objective C capture zone on Checkpoint Security.
Summit
Fixed an exploit near objective A on Push Security.
Fixed an exploit near objective C on Push Security.
Fixed an exploit where the player could jump on a ventilation unit and oversee a large part of the market main road.
Fixed an issue where a player could get stuck between a wall and locker.
Tweaked a restricted area in the far back of the market area on Team Deathmatch.

Hi everyone,
 
Today we released the third patch of our March bug fixing initiative. Our team has continued to focus on optimization and bug fixes, as well as addressing map balance and exploits. Details of today's changes can be found below.
 
Our team is still busy working on some larger optimization changes, as well as scouring the forums for additional community feedback. We encourage players to provide feedback for our team by following our community posting guidelines.
 
Optimization
Optimized landscape layers for Precinct to improve map performance.
Optimized landscape layers for Crossing to improve map performance.
Optimized various HLOD clusters on Summit to improve map performance.
Optimized all soundscape audio banks to decrease memory usage.
Optimized all explosion audio assets to decrease memory usage.  
Optimized all music assets to decrease disk streaming stress.
Stability
Fixed a server crash in Checkpoint after a map change.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where using the “Auto” benchmark preset would default to “Very High” graphics settings.
Fixed an issue where it was possible for a door breach to kill you even if the door only came close and had not actually hit you.
Fixed an issue where blood decals were “floating” on characters and not staying in place.
Fixed an issue where fire support was able to be called in before the round started.
Fixed an issue where the Mosin equipped with Stripper Clips could shoot two rounds in succession without cycling the bolt.
Added potential fix for an issue where the player could occasionally be flagged as spawning outside of the playable area, even though they had not, resulting in a negative countdown warning being displayed on-screen.  
Fixed an exploit where it was possible to use the walk key to silently crawl.  
Fixed an issue where if you opened the Comms Menu while aiming down sights, you would remain in ADS afterwards, even if you were no longer holding or had toggled the ADS key again.
Fixed an issue where the shotguns equipped with a Foregrip would be held like a pistol in third person.  
Fixed an issue with camera switching when watching Replays.  
Fixed an issue where the AK Alpha Extended Magazine was using the incorrect magazine mesh in first person.
Fixed an issue when playing at high ping where if you wanted to throw back a grenade without aiming it, you would be stuck in the prepping throw state until pressing Use again. It will now immediately throw the grenade if the Use key isn't being held.
Fixed an issue where certain weapons would not unequip correctly when entering a vehicle.
Fixed an issue where the Main Menu frame rate limiter was not always being applied correctly.  
Fixed an issue where enemies would not wear their gas masks in Checkpoint.
Fixed an issue with the “It's all in the reflexes” achievement where it could be granted even if you killed somebody with a grenade still in your hand.
Fixed a scope post processing issue when spectating in third person.  
Fixed issue where gas masks weren’t displaying properly in first person while in vehicles.
Fixed an issue where the Laser Sight beam could pass through characters.
Fixed an issue with third person spectator camera for vehicles.
Fixed a visual glitch where a player could potentially draw another grenade even if they didn’t have one when playing at high ping.
Improved Customize menu camera.
Fixed an issue where the wrong camouflage would be applied to gloves.  
Fixed an issue where certain certain effects could be stuck “on” when spectating players.
Fixed an issue with laser effects being invisible to other players after having spawned or resupplied.
Fixed an issue where friendly AI in the insertion vehicle could occasionally be seen not holding a weapon.  
Fixed an issue that stopped the on-screen explosion dirt from showing after explosions during online play.
Fixed an issue where spectating other players could result in a permanent fade out state until a new player was chosen to be spectated by via user input.  
Fixed an issue where the Loadout screen would exit and fade out if you were spectating someone who died.
Fixed an issue with the Loadout menu camera getting stuck on after switching to the spectator team.
Fixed an issue where the third person spectator camera would clip with the ground when spectating a vehicle.
Fixed various clipping issues with the Covered hair option and Eyewear items.
Fixed a misspelling in the profanity filter setting.
Fixed an LOD issue on the Insurgent T-Shirt cosmetic.
Gameplay
Made jumping changes so a player cannot easily jump around and attack other players.
Restricted weapon firing and aim down sights for 0.3 seconds after landing from a jump.
Adjusted deceleration and friction values for jumping. Lateral movement during a jump is now much more restricted.
Removed ability to perform weapon melee attacks while prone. This was felt to look too strange and unrealistic. A player can still use their knife while prone.
Map Balance & Fixes
Crossing
Reduced landscape layer usage to improve performance.
Farmhouse
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective B Insurgent spawn on Push Security.
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective A Insurgent spawn on Push Security.
Fixed an exploit where players could go outside the level near Insurgent spawn for objective A on Push Insurgents.  
Moved a bulldozer to make an invisible wall from an earlier exploit fix less obvious.
Precinct
Reduced landscape layer usage to improve performance.  
Added non-vault volumes for store shelves to make them less camper friendly.
Summit
Reorganized various HLOD clusters to improve performance.
Added HLODS for backdrop buildings to reduce slightly over a longer distance.
Fixed an issue where players could reach an unintended spot near objective D on Push Security.  
Fixed an exploit near objective B on Firefight East.  
Fixed an issue where a door got stuck in a frame when breached in the market area.
Fixed not able to throw a grenade through a small window near objective D on Push Security.
Tweaked exposure slightly more to make it less dark overall.
Hideout
Addressed spawn camp issue at objective B Insurgent spawn on Push Insurgents.

Hi everyone,
 
Today we are releasing our next patch: Patch 1.1.4. Our team has been focused the last two weeks on optimization and bug fixes based on your feedback. Today's patch includes fixes for jittering scopes, incorrect restricted areas on the Tactical Map, improvements to our AI’s vision cone/perception logic, and much more.
 
More changes are in the pipeline and coming soon, including broader optimization improvements and new server browser features. Bug fixing and optimization are still our top priority for the next few weeks. Later on however, we are planning to add new content including a new map, two new weapons, and a new official game mode. While we can’t reveal specific dates or info, we can say we will be releasing more details in the coming weeks.
 
We’d also like to say we’ve decided to take a community-first approach to Sandstorm’s post-release content development. We will soon be polling the community to identify on which areas, features, and content players feel our team should focus. As always, we will continue scouring the forums and monitoring social media for community feedback. All of these channels of community to dev communication are of course still important and taken into account. We encourage players to continue provide constructive feedback for our team by following our community posting guidelines.
 
See our changelist summary below:
 
Optimization
Decreased memory usage of various animation sequences.
Optimized animation blueprint sequence usage.
Optimized HDD read times with .pak file ordering.
Extended blueprint nativization to additional assets.
Fixed potential hitches introduced by Scoreboard background logic changes.
Optimized AI logic, reducing game thread usage by 15%
Disabled wind shader and blood pool spreading effects on low effect quality.
Optimized fire barrel particle LOD distances.
 
Stability
Fixed a startup crash that was reported by some players.
 
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where restricted areas were not being displayed correctly on the Scoreboard and Tactical Map.
Fixed an issue with Binds menu under Settings where cancelling a key assignment from a conflict would show the new key being bound anyway, even though it didn't actually change.
Fixed an issue where scopes would jitter while idle.
Fixed an issue where vehicles could despawn after 2 minutes even if they had not been entered yet.
Fixed an issue where the player would immediately throw an equipped grenade if they opened the Comms Menu.  
Fixed an issue where looking up and shooting would allow you to bipod inside a wall.
Fixed an issue where you could pick up a third rocket from Supply Crates.
Fixed an issue where weapons with initial trigger delays, such as LMGs, could occasionally continue playing their weapon audio even if the weapon was no longer firing.  
Fixed an issue where translucent geometry could be shown with jittering artifacts.  
Fixed an issue where the wrong weapon would sometimes be highlighted when switching weapons rapidly.
Fixed an issue where the third person character legs could appear as “locking” at the knee joint if the player was looking down while moving.
Fixed an issue where the player could occasionally be permanently flagged as being within a spawn zone.
Fixed an issue where it was possible for the player to obtain infinite magazines by continuing to Scavenge them in Local Play.
Fixed an issue with Eyewear cosmetics when wearing the Covered Hair option.  
Fixed an issue where a player would sometimes see a floating cube in Local Play when putting on a Gas Mask.
Fixed an issue where voice over would continue to play even if the player had been shot in the head.
Fixed an issue where camera movement from weapon idle animations could play in vehicles.
Fixed an issue where a player’s Gas Mask could be visually replaced by their weapon.  
Fixed an issue with the Gas Mask animation not playing when spectating.
Fixed an issue where scopes on the G36K would clip with the camera when using Aim Down Sights with a grenade launcher attached.
Fixed an issue where scopes on AKs would clip with the camera when using Aim Down Sights with a grenade launcher attached.
Fixed an issue where the Browning HP Extended Magazine upgrade could be visible during speed reloads.  
Fixed an issue with missing first person animations for the Browning HP’s extended magazines.
Fixed an issue where blood pool spreading would not occur properly in some instances.
Fixed an issue where crawling in certain directions with a grenade or pistol equipped could cause strange wrist rotations.
Fixed an issue where Heavy Armor groin plates could clip with the player in the Loadout menu.  
Fixed an issue where a player’s feet could clip into the bed of the Checkpoint Security transport truck while seated.
Fixed an issue where decals were not always being cleared from dismembered limbs.
Fixed an issue with the blood pool spreading and scaling effect.  
Fixed an issue where ammo was not showing during the first person Makarov reloads.
Fixed an issue where AI enemies would use fallback cosmetic outfits if they changed class while still alive.
Fixed an issue with LMGs using the incorrect third person empty reload animation.
Fixed an issue where the Gas Mask could clip with the player’s camera when dying while wearing it.  
Fixed an issue where a radial menu (Comms, Fire Support) could remain visible if open when the player was killed.
Fixed an animation weighting issue with third person MG3 and M240B lids during reloads.
Fixed an issue where the insertion truck driver and suicide bomber AI could occasionally be seen with duplicated cosmetics.
Fixed an issue where Insurgents planting an explosive on a weapon cache would not show the proper IED model in third person.
Fixed clipping issues with beards and certain Head options.
Fixed clipping issues with Combat Goggles Eyewear option.  
Fixed clipping issues with Three Hole Facewear option.  
Fixed clipping issues issue with the Patrol Headgear option.  
Fixed clipping issues issue with various T-shirt cosmetics.  
Fixed clipping issues with the Track Top Torso.
 
User Experience
Motion blur is now its own dedicated setting and is no longer influenced by the player’s chosen quality preset.
To help improve the spectator/replay experience, switching from free roam to first person will now attempt to go back to the player you were previously watching.
 
Visual Improvements
Added new flailing death animation for ragdolls. Shooting a flailing ragdoll in a vital organ will stop it from flailing and is seen as a humane act appreciated by most nearby players.
Improved the blood puddle decal.
Decreased blood pool sizes.
Made improvements to prone transition animations.  
Added dedicated third person reloads for the MP5A2 and MP5A5.
Added new animations for drawing and holstering pistols while prone.
Decreased size of the Insurgent Heavy Carrier backpack slightly.  
Added chin straps to the Bump Headgear option.  
Improved animations for characters with weapons equipped in vehicles.
 
Gameplay
AI
Reduced AI vision cone from 180 degrees to 124 degrees to better match human vision.
AI can no longer hear footsteps from players who are prone or crouched.
Reworked AI’s “Investigation” logic. They should now search an area more extensively and for longer.
Fixed AI ignoring molotovs or burning cars as a dangerous area if someone has died there recently.
Set AI hearing distances to match that of a player’s. AI can now hear a player’s running footsteps from 20 meters and sprinting footsteps from 35 meters.
Helicopter gunners can now see players seated inside vehicles.
Voice Over
Added suppression voice over triggered specifically by suppression from Fire Support.
Reduced minimum suppression requirement for explosion and Fire Support lines.
When getting a tinnitus effect from an explosion, a player’s suppression level will increase to 75%. This was previously set to 35%.
Improved hitboxes for the Insurgent Heavy Armor groin plate.
 
Map Balance & Fixes
Crossing
Fixed an issue where players could enter objective A’s capture zone outside the intended area on Push Security.
Fixed a spot within the objective A capture zone on Push Security where the player would stop capturing.
Fixed a spawn camping issue at Security objective B spawn on Push Security.
Fixed an issue where Security could destroy Insurgent weapon cache objective from too long of a distance on Skirmish.
Summit
Tweaked HLOD clusters at market area to improve performance.
Fixed a spawn camping issue at Insurgent spawn on Firefight East.  
Added extra cover for Security leading to objective A on Push Security.
Expanded restricted area slightly for Insurgent objective A spawn on Push Security.
Fixed spawn camping issue at Insurgent objective B spawn on Push Insurgents.
Fixed an issue near objective D on Checkpoint Security where a player could get stuck vaulting inside of a rock like some kind of rock morphing person.
Fixed an issue where a player could get stuck after vaulting over a table near objective E on Push Security.
Fixed an issue where shutters would vanish at long distances and expose players inside objective B on Firefight West. Some details in the environment vanish or “cull” when not seen for optimization purposes, but the culling for these shutters was previously too aggressive.
Hideout
Reduced terrain layer usage to improve performance.
Fixed a spawn issue where players would sometimes spawn on top of each other at Insurgent objective A spawn on Push Insurgents.
Fixed an issue where Insurgents could destroy the final weapon cache objective from too long of a distance on Push Security.

Hi everyone,
 
A few weeks ago, we made a blog post previewing some upcoming content and explaining the change in our development philosophy to take a more community driven approach to our post-release content production. Over 9,000 of you took part in our survey, sharing your thoughts on the direction you feel we should take the game. Our team have been analyzing your feedback and would like to thank everyone for taking part in helping shape the future of Sandstorm. Below are some of the results and what players can expect both near and long-term.
 
We asked you: Where do you think the developers should focus their efforts if you had to choose one?
 
The results clearly indicated a strong desire for new features and content (44%), followed closely by optimization at (33%). Quality of life improvements (9.5%), gameplay and balance improvements (7%) bug fixing (5%) and graphical polish (1.5%) made up the remaining sum.  
 
Over 75% of you said features, content, and optimization were the number one priority, and that will be our main focus for the coming months. While we do have new content planned, performance optimizations continue to be a top priority for our programming team ahead of our upcoming console launch.  
 
We asked you: Which new content excites you the most?
 
The results here overwhelmingly suggested that new maps are the community favorite with new maps making up 50% of the vote, followed by night maps at 23%.  
 
We are happy to confirm that the next update (v1.2) will include a new map ‘Outskirts’ which you may have seen us tease on social media under its development name ‘Compound’. We can also share that remakes of Insurgency fan-favorites, Ministry and Sinjar, are in the works. On top of these three maps, we have two additional maps in progress, which we will share more information about in due time.  
 
 
 
(Preview of our upcoming map Outskirts)
 
We are aligned with the community’s feelings towards new maps and are excited to expand the game with great new map content and lots of other creative maps when the community gets their hands on the level editor. Sharing progress of new maps even while they’re in a more early development stage will be a more common occurrence going forward, most likely in the form of screenshots or interviews with our level designers.
 
 
 
(Work in Progress images of our upcoming Ministry remake)
 
Later in the year, our team will also be working on night variants of our maps. These will include additional gameplay changes such as night vision goggles, flashlights, AI changes and more.  
 
New weapons was the next highest accounting for around 20% of the vote. As previously announced, the next update will also feature two new anti-materiel sniper rifles for the Marksman class: the M82A1 CQ for Security and the M99 for Insurgents.  
 
 
 
Questions 7 & 8 showed over 60% of respondents requested modern weapons and 65% requested more weapons for the Rifleman, Demolitions, Commander, Observer and Advisor classes. This data indicates a high interest in assault rifle-type weapons, and we can confirm we have a couple in the works.
 
We asked you: Which new feature excites you the most?
 
The results here overwhelmingly show a desire for mod support with 42% of the vote. Modding is a major part of New World’s company identity. We always strive to make our games open and accessible to players who wish to modify or create custom experiences; it’s how many of our team got their start in the industry!  
 
We are committed to adding mod support for Insurgency: Sandstorm as part of our post-release plan. The process in Unreal Engine 4 is different than that of the Source Engine, and our team needs to do a bit of ground work first to make it possible. However it is on our roadmap, likely for the second half of this year. Our current plan is to first roll out a beta level editor (as supported by the survey results) then implement a mod-distribution platform, followed by an expansion into other areas of modding, such as custom weapons.  
 
New official game modes were the second most requested feature making up approximately 21% of the vote. We have a new ‘Hardcore Checkpoint’ mode releasing with the next update which appeals to more serious cooperative players, with additional new official game modes to come that will be guided by your feedback. The results from question 10 in the survey indicate that the three most popularly requested official game modes include a tug-of-war style PvP mode based on Frontline from Day of Infamy (23.2%), a single life PvP VIP escort mode based on Ambush from Insurgency (22.7%), and a horde inspired mode with multiple defense points based on Outpost from Insurgency (17%). We can not say at this time which new mode will be next, but we can say that we are committed to these three game modes and will update you over time as they get closer to release.  
 
In regards to new arcade modes, team-based King of the Hill and Domination inspired modes were highly rated (receiving approximately 24% of the vote each), as well as a free for all Gun Game mode (19%). Considering the relative similarity between the team-based King of the Hill and Domination inspired modes, we are unlikely to pursue both. To determine which one we will pursue, we will poll everyone once again to hopefully get a more clear winner between the two.
 
We asked you: Which map scale and map release frequency would you prefer in the future? (More frequent small scale maps, or less frequent larger scale maps)
 
The results indicated the community was fairly split, with no clear outcome. Our team will experiment with both current scale and smaller scale more CQB focused maps. From a development standpoint smaller scale maps are likely to have better performance, however larger maps allow for different play styles with increased use of optics and vehicles. We currently have several maps already in production. However, we will be polling the community in the future on additional topics such as map density, thematics, setting and more.  
 
We asked you: Which competitive features excited you the most?
 
The ability to organize matches without matchmaking (36%) and exclusive cosmetics rewards (30%) were the highest rated features in this category. In the months ahead we hope to implement these new features, improve the general competitive experience based on continued feedback, and also continue supporting as well as offering cash prizes for community events.  
 
We asked you: If there were any maps with particularly bad performance for your PC.
 
The overwhelming majority of players said “All maps perform fine for me” (68%), which is great to hear. However Refinery saw a much higher percentage of respondents saying it was the least performant (16% compared to 4-7% for other maps in the list). Our ongoing performance improvements should help for all maps and we will be looking to collect more data on memory, CPU and hard drive configurations of players with issues. However, our team will revisit Refinery to see if any specific improvements can be made to that map.  
 
We asked you: If there were any game modes with particularly bad performance for your PC.
 
The overwhelming majority of players said “All game modes perform well for me” (73%). Push seemed to have a larger percentage of respondents saying it was the least performant (9% compared to 2-5% for other modes), which is likely attributed to the higher player density. Our team will once again be looking to collect data from users who are having performance issues and we encourage players to submit information about their hardware and software set up via the performance discussion and support section of the Steam forums or Focus forums[forums.focus-home.com] by following our performance feedback guidelines.  
 
We asked you: If there were carrier or armor options you would avoid?
 
The majority of respondents said they use all carrier options (41%), with most players avoiding no carrier (30%) and almost a quarter of players avoiding the heavy carrier.  
 
The majority of respondents (34%) said they use all armor options, with more than a quarter of players generally avoiding taking no armor at all (28%). 7% of players avoided taking light armor compared to 29% who avoided taking heavy armor.  
 
Based on this feedback we feel armor and ammo carriers are being used as intended in our design philosophy where heavy variants are used less frequently than their lighter counterparts. However, we do acknowledge there may be ways we can greater incentivize the use and utility of heavy armor and carriers provided it is in line with balanced play, and we are open to hearing your feedback. Please bear in mind, heavy armor during early beta and alpha stages of Sandstorm was better at stopping bullets, but this created a meta in the game where everyone would just take heavy armor. This went against our principles of maintaining a low TTK and ensuring Loadout choices promote good diverse gameplay, similar to our philosophy behind not having AP rounds as in the original Insurgency.
 
Near term content
 
While some of the feedback from this survey may take time to implement, our team also has several features that were already under development which players can expect to try out soon. These include; an XP gain system for community servers, server browser improvements, support for offline play, Steam cloud support, new cosmetic categories (hint: we see you, subreddit), Loadout customization in the main menu, character rotation in the Appearance menu, plus numerous bug fixes and optimizations in addition to the map, game mode and weapons mentioned above.
 
Feedback from our community is crucial for helping shape the long term future and evolution of Insurgency: Sandstorm. Our team is committed to significant post-release support on PC as well as development of the upcoming PS4 and Xbox One versions. We encourage players to make their voices heard by leading constructive discussions online and responding to our follow up surveys. We note the need for improved communication and our team will be endeavoring to increase transparency by sharing more of our development process and upcoming content through a series of regular developer blogs, starting with a closer look at Compound.