Friendly Fire - Complaints

[_WRX_Raven]

I am sure I am not the only one that gets pissed off when someone files a complaint when it was the persons own fault they got whacked! That apparently costs me 3 xp per complaint!

The first time I played ET (I was a noob, to ET but definitely not to RTCW which I have played since it came out (although I only recall playing FF once)) I filed two complaints without thinking, simply because it prompts you for your F1/F2 vote on it without having to do anything. I figured it just flashed some message on the other persons screen and that was it. Some dozen games later I had my first complaint against me, and was shocked to see you only got 5 complaints before it kicks you.

There is an option to turn the prompt off under the config…that is what I did. I think this should be off by default…that way only if you have a legitamate grievance would you go to the trouble of filing the complaint, rather than being a knee jerk reaction. FF is going to be new to a lot of people…everyone becomes a noob again for a brief period. Sure it ‘hurts’ to get whacked by your own side, but most of the time it ain’t intentional. Maybe I have just managed to play on well-behaved servers. Although last night I guy did get kicked for 20+ tks! :bash:

Some of the complaints filed against me:

1 - Airstrike called in on depot. Two teammates run into the air with the smoke. Both get whacked, one files a complaint. Was it intentional no…should I have been more careful probably. I should have checked the command map more closely - but still I cannot control where someone is going to pop-up. Airstrikes seem to be where I get the most complaints…maybe the smoke doesn’t hang around long enough as a warning? Some of the explosions (especially at the higher FieldOp level) can go on for a bit with no indication. :???:

2 - Covert Op in tunnel system. I had just come through the blown doors and he appears from a side tunnel. Nailed him (in disguise) with a head shot before I even got the red circle/bar. I haven’t paid attention but do Covert Ops in disguise show up with an enemy colour on the command map? Covert Ops in disguise are just asking to be shot, if it comes down to me waiting to see someones name at close range or lead the target and nail it, its going to be you rather than me pal. All I see is uniform

3 - Guy runs in front of my MG42. I am firing…along he runs and straight into the stream…my field of view wasn’t great and he appeared from nowhere. Tough, I am holding a vantage point (in this case the tunnel by the bridge) :disgust:

I guess what I am saying here is, just like in real war, friendly fire happens, it usually ain’t intended. Take the knee-jerk reaction to complain away and I think everyone will be happier.

I will now sneak over to this foxhole I have prepared and await the incoming fire!

[Iamthefallen]

I don’t think there’s much that can be done from Splashdamages side, if you hide the complaint F1, F2 prompt it basically means open season on newbies. If you remove (as some have suggested) the possibility for complaints for Mines/Airstrikes etc then of course the TKers will exploit that.

Personally I think it’s a thing that newbies should simply learn / be taught, don’t complain unless it was intentional or very negligent.

That said, I usually end up with 2-3 complaints against me in a normal game, someome runs inty artillery, airstrike, MG42 fire etc etc
My favourite is when I’m trying to place artillery somewhere and some moron pops up in front of me asking for ammo just as I pull the trigger causing the artillery to be placed on him. Then while I haul ass crying “Fire in the hole!” he stands right in the middle of the smoke going “Need ammo! Need ammo! Need ammo!” until he dies…and of course he complains…

Perhaps a variable that would be set that after 5 complaints from 3 different players you get kicked, or 10 complaints from the same guy.
That would make it harder for someone to intentionally walk on mines or run into smoke to be able to complain as they’d have to do it 10 times, however if 3 different people complain to make it 5 complaints total the TKer would get kicked. Likewise if a teammate was just out after the one guy he’d eventually get kicked.

ehr, hope that makes sense

[Kendle]

I’d long since forgotten about complaints in RTCW, but I’ve been stunned by the number of complaints I and others are receiving in E.T. I’ve turned the complaint message off (it’s an option in the menu so easy to switch on again if there’s a persistent TK’er on the server).

Some classics include having a complaint filed against me by a guy who ran into my line of fire whilst I was Medic coming to his aid, and this after I’d just revived the same guy at least half a dozen times in that round already!

The guy who filed against me after I was gunned down just after lobbing a Grenade. I’m lying on the floor dead, he walks past my recently dropped Grenade, dies, and he files!

And of course the classic E.T. special. The guy who files after he’s trodden on your Landmine even though there’s a bloody great flag sticking up out of the ground to tell him it’s there!

[_WRX_Raven]

I like the idea of the complaints having to be filed by different people that didn’t occur to me…that way one noob ain’t going to spoil your fun :bump:

…cool…this thread seems to be turning into my favourite complaint story…anyone got other good ones?

The guy complaining about my MG42 was later calling for a medic…which at that time I happened to be…darn it if I couldn’t remember the key to pull out a syringe for him :drink:

[shrOOms]

My favourite is when I’m trying to place artillery somewhere and some moron pops up in front of me asking for ammo just as I pull the trigger causing the artillery to be placed on him. Then while I haul ass crying “Fire in the hole!” he stands right in the middle of the smoke going “Need ammo! Need ammo! Need ammo!” until he dies…and of course he complains…

ROFL! That one is a classic!

Most of the time I get complaints is when I spot a covert ops from the other team trying to pass as one of us (noticing a fellow team mate close by without pants is a dead giveaway :P) and try to slice him into finely cut pastrami while he’s trying his best to blend in among my mates. Course when they see me shooting at, what appears to be, a fellow team mate, they figure I am the enemy covert ops and start shooting at me. At this point there’s bound to be some friendly fire losses, and I get the complaints. Sheesh.

[Vengeance]

Thats the worst when someone who clearly can see where u have put a mine and then files on you that sucks. I sometimes think when they see the flag they think

“whats that, hmm maybe its a power up or something”

Then they go kaboom and think

“stupid idiot why his he planting flags what kill his own team its very confusing, im filing on that newbie.”

[Sacrifice]

Raven, are you the Raven who was in the USF clan?

Does anybody know if the amount of complaints filed against you is reset after each round? Or after a certain amount of time?

Sacrifice

[SCDS_reyalP]

RTCW used exactly the same complaint system, and IMHO, it has worked very well. A few XP doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. Yes, there are currently a lot of people who file because of their own stupidity, but I suspect as more people get used to the game, this will happen less. It is by far the best system for dealing with TKers that I have seen in any game. The only place it needs adjustment is people who intentionally step on mines.

[Milbo]

“whats that, hmm maybe its a power up or something”

Then they go kaboom and think

“stupid idiot why his he planting flags what kill his own team its very confusing, im filing on that newbie.”

ROFL, LOL!! Hahahharahrhar
Exactly,…i just thought this in the first seconds before i checked that this are mines,…

But something is strange Raven,… I have the reflex to press F2,…
only map changes i react with f1
ah yes and TKérs than F2
But complainer, is like a lamer hehehe

[_WRX_Raven]

Raven, are you the Raven who was in the USF clan?

Nope…never been in a clan

Does anybody know if the amount of complaints filed against you is reset after each round? Or after a certain amount of time?

Good question…thankfully I haven’t had that many filed against me to worry about it

I would hope it resets at the end of the map sequence, but not sure how that would work in SW or single mission games.

I loved the story about the Field Ops and the guy popping up to receive the airstrike right in the kisser. That’s a classic

Milbo…not sure what you are saying there, but I agree with your last line

[NoSoup4U]

He forgot mentioning the ‘Flag Collectors’
Sad bastards that like to A. Ruin a team’s defense and B. Getting one engineer banned after filing three complaints… Those times you need other people on the server to put in a ‘yes’ on the kick-vote… but people sometimes don’t give a sh*t : even when ur explaining why u issued the vote.

Guess a devteam can’t make up for f*ckwiths.

But on the point : I think the message issue a complaint is ok to be there : You see it more than enough that people with sense just don’t file a complaint…

[BoltyBoy]

On the flip side there are times when you just can’t resist complaining when someone has been particularly stupid.

One time I was a co-op, three of my team mates had run past me and noticed I was in disguise so carried on past. The last guy, having been able to see I was clearly being ignored by my team mates, comes up to me and stands in front of me for about five seconds doing nothing but look at me. I purposefully don’t react so as not to provoke him. This guy must have had a whopping great red no-smoking sign smack across the center of his screen.

He decides to ignore this, as well as the fact that if I were an Axis I would have wasted him by then, and the fact that all our team mates had ignored me- and he shoots me dead.

I’m sorry the guy was an idiot - even if he was a noob! I complained.

[kUUh]

it takes some time but it’ll get better i promise. i dont think ive seen a complaint filed in rtcw for over a year, and i cheer if i do a stupid tk. not that i care if someone files a complaint against me, just ignore it. and lol boltyboy, the newbies are great fun, so adorably confused

[Dawg]

One of the problems with mines is that teammates will back up over them - thus, not seeing the little flag. This doesn’t excuse their filing a complaint however, since it is still a legitimate accident. I only file complaints if I see the perp deliberately attack me. Even then, I usually give a warning to knock it off first.

My worst offense was TKing a covertOps from my team. I was axis and was leaving the rear spawn area when I noticed an axis cov-op heading towards the spawn area. I thought it was a strange thing to do so I checked the TAB list and saw that the player was supposedly dead. Hmm, shouldn’t be running around my spawn area if he’s dead. So, I shot him. And killed TEAMMATE so-and-so. Oops. I quickly typed an apology and didn’t see a complaint so I’m guessing he figured my mistake.

I believe that it was mentioned that there are still some delays in updating things in-game that could lead to this kind of incident.

Dawg

[Milbo]

yoh Raven,… sorry my english was a bit confused

My reflex is to press F2 if the complain message pop up.
And if someone should be kicked,… I press F2, too.
Except it is a known TK’er oder TD’er or something
And if there is a map vote (rtcw) then i have the reflex for F1 (exept beach)
hehe
and i totally agree with Bolty, then i am angry enough to forget my reflexes hehe

[dermot]

I generally don’t complain the first or second time, unless someone is a blatant TKer. I mean, war is hell, we all make mistakes and if everyone stopped to double-check what team someone else was on, we’d be owned by those that don’t give a toss.

I’ve only filed a complaint against someone after I stepped on their mine once and that was because they put mines everywhere inside the depot, not just at the critical points (side gates and beside damaged wall). That just seemed stupid to me, because it made it difficult for Axis soldiers to move around freely and get into good defensive positions.

[ND80]

Ha, this very topic is talked about quite a bit on my forums. I run 5 ET servers, all with FF on. It’s amazing how many idiots file complaints when they are tked from their own stupidity. I have had to remind people often how stupid they are when they file complaints on me

I attribute this to the many new players playing ET that never were involved in RTCW or only played on ff off servers. I think once the full version arrives and people get more experienced, this should die down. At least I hope so. I had to up the number of complaints it takes to get kicked from 3 to 5 because too many good players were being kicked from idiots.

[dermot]

ND80:

Personally, I think some of it has to do with the fact that it’s not always immediately obvious how exactly you were killed, particularly when there’s a lot going on around you (and I’ve played on your servers and know that some of them support 24+ players). Tking is usually just reported as ‘ND80 killed team-mate dermot’, giving no indication as to how dermot died (ie, was he shot, in the path of an airstrike or did he run over a mine?). IMO the message should be ‘dermot was killed by TEAM-MATE ND80’s MP40’.

There will always be people who complain inappropriately, but making the TK message less vague would certainly help matters.

[ND80]

You make a good point. Certainly there is a big difference between the diferent types of tks. Some are outright intentional and I have zero tolerance for this. Often noobs will tk out of ignorance and just poor playing habits. And other times, the tks are purely the result of the poor play of the person tked. It can be difficult to determine what happened when you are tked. Each type requires different approaches to resolve the problem.

It just drives me crazy when someone is tked and immediately hits F1 without having a clue.

Most importantly, thanks for visiting my servers. Come back anytime.

[aougli]

Glad I found this site and thread.

I was wondering what the etiquette of filing complaints was.

I’m definately a newb at ET and this whole genre. I’ve never used Punkbuster before. My addiction is a totally different sort of game hosted by an individual for 4-8 players, but thats another story.

Without knowing about how to use Punkbuster, it’s a question of trial and error, which involves error. First time few times I got prompted to file a complaint I dismissed it, seemed a bit like telling tales and it was happening not that often and not from the same person or just to me. I did file a complaint later, coz I pressed the wrong “F” key; and then I filed one for real as I was stationary at the time and not in the middle of a firefight. I got told not to file complaints for stepping on a mine, hehe. So either it was lag (unlikely as my ping was 21 and I have ADSL) or it was something else.

The first time I filed a complaint nothing happened so I thought it was inconsequential.

Also, its not immediately obvious that those little flags are mines; takes at least 10-20 mins and a few deaths to find out.

I know I fired on some of my teammates (unintentionally; those uniforms look the same at a distance) but didn’t kill any.

This thread is more difficult to find than the Enemy Terratories demo, so ET will be taking some of the strain of introducing people to Punkbuster.

Is the a site with basic info about ET? Such as the differences between the soldier types?

Anyway, thanks for the demo, I’ll check it out some more and try not to be annoying.

Without newbies, frustrating as they/we are, there is no game; no one starts off a vet/skilled player.