Friendly Fire?

[Raymac]

Well the latest interview from StrategyInformer.com made this poll inevitable. Real simple. It seems the devs are still debating on whether or not to keep friendly fire. While it's really hard for us to test this without playing it *cough* beta *cough*, and I can already predict what the poll results may be, but lets talk about it. Try not to accept it or dismiss it out of hand. Fire away.

Should Friendly Fire be in Planetside 2?

[Sirisian]

I won't jump to a bias result, but thinking it over I feel keeping FF is important to stop weapon spam. If special assault still exists then I feel having FF is a good deterrent to it being used "unrealistically". (Not that I'm advocating realism). It just seems odd if you can aim at the back of friendlies with it and kill units in a hallway. Same goes for spamming any fast rate of fire guns or things like flame throwers or camping a doorway with a tank.

[Erendil]

Um, WOW.

Yes, I believe with 100% certainty that FF NEEDS to be in the game from Day 1.

I don't even want to think of the never-ending barrage of grenades, tank shells, bombs, rockets and other AoE weapons if they don't have FF in the game. A large-scale, combined arms game like PS1/2 has way too many large AoE weapons for FF to not be in the game.

TBH I can't believe they're even considering not including it.

EDIT: For those who haven't read the article yet, here's Matt's quote from the article:

Matthew Higby: Friendly-fire is still something we're working out - the original Planetside had friendly-fire, we have friendly-fire on currently, but we're not entirely sure it will be in at launch. Right now we're iterating on the mechanics for weapons and vehicles.

So I hope that I'm interpreting this correctly, that the Devs believe from a gameplay/philosphical standpoint that FF should be in the game but there might be some technical/Game-mechanics issue that may prevent FF from being in at launch.

[Quovatis]

Strange. Higby's response is quite different from what was given at Fan Faire. At Fan Faire, they said they already had a grief system in place, but differed slightly from PS1. They never hinted at all that friendly fire might not be in the game.

[Erendil]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

Strange. Higby's response is quite different from what was given at Fan Faire. At Fan Faire, they said they already had a grief system in place, but differed slightly from PS1. They never hinted at all that friendly fire might not be in the game.

Ok, that makes me feel a little better. My instinct is telling me that it might be some technical or game mechanics issue that may prevent its inclusion at launch.

So it may not be a question or whether or not it'll be included, but how it will be implemented. And maybe, just maybe they don't want the issue(s) with FF to delay PS2's in-house projected launch date.

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by Quovatis

Strange. Higby's response is quite different from what was given at Fan Faire. At Fan Faire, they said they already had a grief system in place, but differed slightly from PS1. They never hinted at all that friendly fire might not be in the game.

I'd almost forgotten that, but you're right. So I guess it's either a technical issue or some sort of major philosophical shift?
Regardless I think FF is one of those things we absolutely need. Just too many spammable weapons in the game otherwise. I mean the crazy shit you could do with liberators...

[Graywolves]

No friendly fire on a max crash? On infantry in the doorway/stairwell/corrridor?

The only moment where I'd be happy there was no friendly fire is if I get hit by a friendly flail.

[Logit]

This game will have way too many people playing for Friendly fire not to be in.

Besides it's not "real" without FF right?

[Miir]

Hell yeah!

They must have friendly fire and the grief system at launch.

[Nephilimuk]

This really is needed from launch.

No ff and it will soon become thumperside

[Accuser]

It's possible that there will be no FF, but there WILL be a grief system. I think that might be best to punish the griefers for hitting friendlies, but ease the pain of friendly fire hitting me in the back all the damn time.

It would be unrealistic, but imagine the possibilities if FF damaged the offender and left the victim unharmed?

[Logit]

Originally Posted by Accuser

It's possible that there will be no FF, but there WILL be a grief system. I think that might be best to punish the griefers for hitting friendlies, but ease the pain of friendly fire hitting me in the back all the damn time.

It would be unrealistic, but imagine the possibilities if FF damaged the offender and left the victim unharmed?

Bye bye dueling

[Infektion]

Dueling was stupid... it was just a time killer. I want my FF on, makes no sense to have grief system without friendly damage, that's just retarded. Why get punished for no harm done?

[DviddLeff]

Grief system was one of the near perfect systems from PS1.

No need for any change.

[Brusi]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Grief system was one of the near perfect systems from PS1.

No need for any change.

Personally i think that if anyone you know who is palying the game seriously, attempting to minimise their friendly fire and not TK'ing and is still getting weapons lock, then i would not say that it is perfect.

Weapons lock happens if:

• You play a lot
• You play as infantry in primetime basefights using aoe a lot
• You play as a flail
• Probably quite a few situations that others will recognise...

I don't do these things very much and thus i never hit weapons lock, however unfortunately there are some game mechanics that rack up greif much faster than others.

The system is not perfect, but it's definitely not that bad. I definitely can see how they may have scalability problems with the current system tho...