Community Question: Friendly Fire

(badman) #1

Community, today we’d like to get your thoughts and opinions on friendly fire. Is it a must-have for achieving the ultimate level of tactical depth? Or is it a bottomless source of griefing and frustration thanks to teammates that appear to do everything in their power to always end up in your line of fire? We must know.

Hence, this week’s community question is as follows:

What is your preferred friendly fire setting and why?

Please cast your vote in the poll above and hurl any comments you might have about the advantages and disadvantages of friendly fire at us in your replies.

(Apoc) #2

Depends on game, and number of players per match. Anything over 24 players needs friendly fire off. Also when it is on, friendly players need to be easily discernable from foe. With a punishment for tk’s. Battlefield is an example of a game that needs friendly fire off. At the start of the beta when ff was on, people got instantly tked when they spawned on their team, as their teammates got suprised and couldnt see the friendly indicator when they were so close, so just mowed them down. Games like etqw need ff on, as it is easy to tell who is on your team, and promotes smart play and not just spam everywhere.

(UJERebel) #3

Only on lame flamer games for fun or panza matches i would suggest it is off.
Like real life and it reduces brainless fragging and more teamplay :slight_smile:

(matsy) #4

I can’t imagine playing any game with friendly fire off. It’s one of the first things I set in the filters.

As I play medic nine times out of ten its useful to be able to TK revive, assuming the player won’t complain or tap out.

(tokamak) #5

Friendly fire gives more depth. Anyone can play in an environment where they can non-discriminatory hit any target. However, when there’s also targets that need to be avoided you add an entire new layer to the game. For example players who make bold moves and jump into enemy groups can stand a chance because the surrounding opponents risk friendly fire on each other.

Or is it a bottomless source of griefing and frustration thanks to teammates that appear to do everything in their power to always end up in your line of fire?

You need a more elegant penalising system for that. Give the duped player some way of retribution as well as an automatic penalising system that’s also context sensitive. If one of the four kills with that mini-gun spray is a team-kill then that is less bad than someone bleeding a team-mate in the spawning area. That bounced grenade team kill is way less bad than an accurate three-hit headshot on someone doing the objective (and would certainly prevent you from gaining any reward for doing the objective yourself).

(light_sh4v0r) #6

Depends, I’m very glad it’s off in Tribes, but generally I would prefer it on. With the note that Apoc made: you have to be able to clearly see the difference between friend and foe instantly.

(Snotling) #7

I voted for both cuz it’s too funny complaining against your mates on TS! :smiley:

(tokamak) #8

Chaotic games definitely are better suited with FF off. But tactical shooters happen in a more controlled fashion. The chaos is there, but not constant.

(tangoliber) #9

On PS3, we always played friendly fire on. Most of the people in the chatroom games, including myself, wouldn’t have it any other way…though the Big Teams chatroom liked FF off I believe. I became very accustomed to holding my fire when there were friendly bodies in front of me… to the point that I naturally held my fire in FF off games as well.

On PC, I find it hard to find a game with friendly fire on. I once played on a server with it enabled, and someone said that it was idiotic and Brink should never have friendly fire on. I’ve gotten very used to FF off in recent months, and I would have to relearn how to play with FF on at this point… But trust me, it works very well when you get used to it.

Though I like FF on, but there should always be an option. That goes for consoles too. PC goes without saying, but even for consoles, you should allow people to customize everything in a match from what weapons and abilities are allowed, to bomb detonation times, to friendly fire, etc…then you need a match browser so that games with custom rules can be popularized, and not only played by people on your friends list.

(Runeforce) #10

ET + no FF + defense + flamethrower = full hold

And I voted always on. I especially agree with this comment (my emphasis):

[QUOTE=AO;388046]Always on, but admin configurable.

I never had a problem with friendly fire or team kills in Quake Wars except for once or twice. A complaint system made it easy to kick someone who was obviously griefing.

Team kills occasionally created some comical deaths that were obviously accidental. Firing a clip into a friendly without doing damage also breaks immersion imo.[/QUOTE]

(TheSgtBilko) #11

PC - There’s one alternative missing: Let server admin decide. What’s wrong with good old cvar g_friendlyfire ?

Personally I prefer FF on, since it tends to keep players a bit more team aware, as along as you have active admins and/or an automatic warning/kick system.

But I’m all for keeping options open. Makes it easier for each clan/community to niche their own server.
And we could easily change depending on whats needed for a closed match or public.

(Slade05) #12

Definitely on for clanplay, whether it is on or off on pub depends on the gametype.

(CaRe) #13

Always on, but optional via server config is best!

It’s good for new players that shot everything that moves to turn it off.

Also a kickvoting ability would be nice to kick the people that troll or teambleed.

In addition to that, I disagree with lakersforce because of rifle nades and grenades in ET.

(BioSnark) #14

on because players may be able to reduce the disadvantage of being outnumbered by using braincells and splash damage weapons get an interesting drawback.

(Humate) #15

Im surprised this even needs to be asked to he honest.

Hitmarkers - team and enemy
Manual Vsays - sorry, whoops
Voting System - F1 for deliberate
Faction models - make it easy to discern who is who
Warnings - if you have artillery, or airstrikes allow the game to tell friendlies its coming their way.

All these things allow friendly fire to work.

What I would avoid completely is allowing people to walk through each other, to avoid door blocking.
I would rather be shot in the back, than have someone walk through me and shoot at the person im aiming at.

(deems) #16

For ETQW, I would only play on servers where FF was on. Although there were some griefers, they could usually be taken care of by admins, and FF increases the need for intelligent tactics.

A good feature to include in any future game that has FF, would be some sort of warning (perhaps like the “combat intuition” in Brink) but only for friendy-fire. So you’d be warned that you’d just stepped in front of the cross hairs of a team mate.

(gr33nf4c3) #17

TF2 is pretty much the only game where I don’t want friendly fire. In any other game, I’d rather complain about idiots on my team shooting me all day than not having to think before shooting at all.

(Nosferatu) #18

Public games are seldom team oriented games, FF on in public games would destroy the game. Too many new players and lone-wolves, intelligent people/players are hard to find these days.

(Humate) #19

In which case, creating a team-based game is pretty stupid right? lololol

Theres zero relationship b/w team-work and FF.

(Om3ga) #20

FF ON only in clan matches.