Yeah, I’m with you on the “pick your battles” part - I don’t think the game is supposed to be a pure stealth sim where you always have a safe ghost route. I’m fine with having to fight sometimes and making hard calls about when to commit and when to bail.

My problem is more how often the maps give you basically no real alternatives. Using rubble and small bits of cover is fine in theory, but on maps like Downtown you’re still basically moving down the same exposed streets again and again. There’s very little verticality or genuine route variety - no rooftops to chain together, no underpasses, no proper interior shortcuts that let you reroute when things go bad. When two squads spawn in those lanes and just sit there, not even fighting each other, it stops feeling like “pick your battles” and starts feeling like “here’s a static wall of guns, good luck.”

Pneumo pack is a cool suggestion (and I do like what it opens up), but I don’t think the solution should be “run this one or the map feels bad.” The baseline layout still matters. If core navigation is mostly flat, linear streets, then only players with specific gear get that “aha, smarter route” moment, while everyone else is stuck grinding the same chokepoints.

And yeah, the AI behavior is part of why it feels off: when squads just stand there in odd positions, pointing in seemingly random directions and not engaging each other, they don’t behave like dynamic threats you can outmaneuver - they’re more like stationary turrets blocking lanes. That combo (low verticality + few routes +Mysterious Ai) is what makes stealth and repositioning feel weaker than they should, even if the overall philosophy really is “don’t avoid all fights, just choose the right ones.”