Friendly Fire?

[wildcat140679]

As much as I want PS2 to have Friendly Fire enabled, after listening to the AGN broadcast and where the Friendly Fire topic got talked about it my mind started grinding over the topic, for Highby I believe talked about an improved/modified grief system or at least spoke about it confirming it was there.

With friendly fire turned off, whats the points of having a grief system?

So what if, Friendly Fire is turned off but the grief system still registers Friendly Fire hits?
Would it reduce careless use of weapons and abuse splash damage with friendlies and enemies in close proximity of one another?

[outsider]

When I was playing PS I actively tried to get as many friends come over and experience what is the best game I have ever played. And the main complaint they had was there was so MUCH going on they couldnt keep up, they didn't know what to do, they actually felt fear and reacted badly to what was happening. PS was so in youre face, so frontloaded that if you didnt have a hint of hardcore in you, you couldn't keep up.

Friendly fire occured. And they did lots of it. For most of my friends it was a turn off getting weapon locked, though for a couple it was a positive selling point that Firendly Fire as in place.

Now PS2 is promising there will be even MORE things happening, BIGGER battles. And I think of my friends who won't play because it's too much for them to be thrown in the middle of. And thats a shame.

I believe Friendly Fire needs to be in the game and I think the community here is so experienced with the tactics and the style of gameplay in PS that when PS2 comes out, our learning curve will be alot smoother than what the hordes of new players will experience. If the learning curve is too steep and the game overly penalyses players who are doing their best to learn but can't help but make mistakes along the way Then we are going to loose them. If a level 1 noob first time player gets weapon locked for 2 hours because he felt fear and stuffed up, than we loose that player for good, before they even realise there is a greater experience out there.

The Online space is alot different that it was 8 years ago and games need to change to accomodate.

What I suggest is Friendly fire disabled for basic non modified weapons, as soon as you start being able to mod your weapon of choice than bring in Firendly Fire. And to avoid possible exploit tactics perhaps make it level based as well, so say at lvl 7 Friendly Fire is enabled across all weapons.

It allows the new players to get an understanding of what they are seeing, get 'em "hocked" and when they start wanting to explore deeper into the game provide these deeper levels of gameplay.

[Bags]

I've never been weapon locked, even as a new player. And the people helping me "learn the game" did helpful things like load me into a galaxy and drop me into the middle of the ocean.

Beyond terrible players (your friends it sounds) should be punished for shooting friendlies constantly.

[Krowe]

Originally Posted by Bags

I've never been weapon locked, even as a new player. And the people helping me "learn the game" did helpful things like load me into a galaxy and drop me into the middle of the ocean.

Beyond terrible players (your friends it sounds) should be punished for shooting friendlies constantly.

That and chances are if they were hitting friendlies that much, they were either doing it on purpose or just didn't care until it hit them.

Either way they weren't doing a very good service to their faction.

[outsider]

Yes Bags and yes Krowe, my friends are terrible players. They are so bad in effect they qualify to be called Casual Players. Casual Players make up the large majority of any active healthy game and their needs must be taken into account for PS2 to warrant the financial investment being put in it.

I will take responsibility that maybe it wasn't a great idea to give my friends access to an end game character with an '03 Lasher.

If you ramp up the difficulty, force a steep learning curve with hefty penalties for not being proficient in the most basic mechanics all you will achieve is forcing the major bulk of gaming enthusiasts to disengage from the franchise. All that will achieve is another dead game that could have been, and a lot of people playing Firefall. Nobody wants to be learning something and getting hate tells from a bunch of angry people they accidentally killed, its just not fun.

Besides whether my friends suck or not isn't the point of my post ( nor to quantify just how much the majority of the gamer base sucks ). My post is about bringing in Friendly Fire at a latter point of the players learning cycle, so that we can still have the FF rules we like after the first few days/weeks of play, without it being such a contentious problem as to offside novice players struggling to come to terms with the scope of what this game offers.

A good time to bring in Friendly Fire would be when the player is at the point that they are starting to experiment with weapon modifications. So while you can mod to a better weapon that suits your playstyle with it comes further dimension of gameplay.

[Brusi]

What about if FF could not get you past 1 hp?

[Krowe]

Originally Posted by outsider

Yes Bags and yes Krowe, my friends are terrible players. They are so bad in effect they qualify to be called Casual Players. Casual Players make up the large majority of any active healthy game and their needs must be taken into account for PS2 to warrant the financial investment being put in it.

Casual does not mean bad bro. Your friends are just bad.

The point is making friendly fire have absolutely no downside (other than getting grief) will still allow spams.

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by Krowe

The point is making friendly fire have absolutely no downside (other than getting grief) will still allow spams.

This. The game has enough spammy weapons, and from some of the interviews it sounds like the PS2 devs would like to steer a bit away from that, but the simple point is the difference between a game with FF and without FF is the crazy amount of AOE spam that occurs.
It has always been the case. I've played many games such as UT and the original Tribes and Quake and the like, and games without FF or servers that have it disabled, result in massive amounts of spammy AOE weapons reducing the fun of pointing and shooting.

As to the point about having it be disabled for lower levels? That is even worse due to the tendencies of new, casual (read bad) players to gravitate to those spammy weapon choices. When I was new to PS I was grieflocked a couple times. Using SA and a pounder indoors did it. You know what i did? I didn't bitch the system was unfair or needed changed, I used weapons I could control, I stopped shooting friendlies unless it was on purpose. You know what happens now? After 4-5 hours in game i'm usually in single didgets in the grief department, which allows me to go spawn camp people like bluechina who IS careless and shows up with as many friendly kills as enemy in the kill spam.

[outsider]

Originally Posted by Krowe

Casual does not mean bad bro. Your friends are just bad.

Everyone is "bad" when they first start off learning how to do anything, it is human nature to fail and make mistakes when you are trying out something new. The great masses of people who will be discovering planetside for the first time in PS2 will all be learning and making big mistakes along the way.

If Planetside was as small in scope as the other games on the market than I wouldn't be as concerned about the learning curve, because there isn't that much thinking involved in other FPS multiplayer titles. PS was always titled the "thinking persons FPS" and forcing that much of a learning curve with harsh penalties for not being on point is the reason why the devs are talking about removing Friendly Fire in the first place and looking at something else.

There are reasons why Planetside became a dead game, which is why the devs are making these changes. I want Friendly Fire but it's obvious that a number of people who quit, quit because of it ( and informed Sony in the details box when they cancelled their sub ). I think Friendly Fire is an important part of what made PS so great and provided a deeper connection to the side I was playing with. There has to be a way that we can preserve it while still adressing the reasons why it's getting pulled.

And Krome quit the trolling man and come up with something usefull

[sylphaen]

About FF as a way to enjoy the game more

I really like a lot of the things the devs have mentionned up until now (still waiting to hear more about vehicle mechanics) but the "No FF" part would definitely push me out.

I cannot conceive playing a game without it anymore and it's not just about griefing, it's about the extra challenge you get when you play. When you decide to shoot in a pack, you take the risk of hitting a friendly by mistake. I find that having think and make such a choice in a split-second very exciting ! It's risk vs. gain condensed in an short firefight !!!

I am an average player and do make mistakes but those mistakes make the game more alive to me !

When I choose to fire and finish off a hurt friendly instead of the enemy, I stay speechless (thinking "ah f***********k!"). When I self-damage myself with a grenade, I feel terrible. When I make a very good shot and save a friendly, I feel like I saved the day !

A no FF game can be ok but I find that mode bland. I used to play Enemy Territory (RtcW) and would specifically look for servers with FF. Same with Day of Defeat. Same with CS. In my eyes, taking a shot without a risk to majorly fuck up (i.e. no downside) takes away all the upside.


About no FF as a way to abuse game mechanics

Examples such as thumper spam and people rushing into a room with guns blazing are good examples (mentionned a thousand times) of what would happen without friendly fire. I'll add my stone to the stack with the PS1 Aurora for camping towers as another example: park one or two auroras, spam a spot and let friendlies take that spot more easily since only enemies get damaged.

A game working like this could still be playable but imo, a lot of the enjoyment is lost. I found PS1 grief system quite adequate in pushing someone to be careful with FF (i.e. exponentially increasing penalty for a string of friendly hits in a short period of time with a constant rate decrease over time of accumulated grief). Once your grief points stock was nearing its max, you just could not take as much risk anymore because the lock bat would drop hard on you.

Not having to watch out for friendlies when being in front or in the back makes shooting a lot more trivial.


An idea for FF

If the whole point of no FF is to help new players, an option could be added so that you could switch freely between the 2 below:

1-No FF
You do 30% less damage to enemies with weapons, cannot hurt friendlies and get a brief grief lock (5-8 seconds or whatever) if you hit a friendly.

2-Activate FF
You do normal damage to friendlies and enemies. Grief points are accumulated when you hit friendlies. You get grief locked once you reach a certain level of grief points.


Choosing no FF would be penalizing enough that you would prefer to choose to activate FF over that. It would also prevent spamming of AoE weapons since a short weapon lock would trigger.


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Anyways, just my 2 cents... I'm glad that we are all so passionate about PS2. Great ideas to read all around.



Edit:
@outsider: btw, it is my belief that some players have trouble getting thrown in the heat of battle and shooting at things should not be a reason to dumb down the game. Planetside IS about great battles where things happen all around you !

A friendly shooting you by mistake is part of the immersion in the battle for both you ("Ah f***!") and him (*oh s***! I f***ed up!"). Things get confusing in a fight !

I guess you may have overwhelmed your friend by giving him a lasher... Did you run him to the training VR ? Because you do get a warning in there saying that shooting friendlies is highly disregarded by the empire, etc... but you need to follow the walkthrough to get there and learn to play.... Everyone feels confused when playing a game for the first time. It's like learning a new thing, it's normal.

Don't go conclude that I do not understand your point... When I tried playing EVE, I felt very confused so I did end up deciding not to play it (the other part was the "grind" game feeling - I'm scared about offline skills development in PS2 too but I hope they implement it well). However, it's not because I did not take the time to get used to EVE (while thousands of others enjoy it) that it makes it a bad game.

In addition, PS was a lot simpler than Eve:
1. start the tutorial
2. learn to use an equipment terminal
3. instant action !
4. point and shoot

IMO, a good tutorial for PS2 would be way enough to learn to play (with a short version for people who want to play NOW). FF is just unrelated to that issue for a new player: he will adapt to the rules of the game !

@outsider2: just noticed your other post. We do agree about FF then. If it makes people go away, then it's more about making it easier for very casual players to like FF as a challenge. I am pretty confident that if they played another FPS games they know well and had FF activated, it would not be a big issue for them. I think what you describe is more an issue of learning curve and getting used to something totally new... If they truly are turned off specifically by friendly fire though, well, what else can I say... Their gamer soul can't be saved ?
:P

[Accuser]

Originally Posted by Wahooo

I've played many games such as UT and the original Tribes and Quake and the like, and games without FF or servers that have it disabled, result in massive amounts of spammy AOE weapons reducing the fun of pointing and shooting.

I'm pretty sure those games don't have a grief penalty with no FF. Do you really think the F2P crowd feels worse about hurting friendlies than about getting grief-locked?

Make Grief receipt linear and double that of PS1 and disable/minimize Friendly Fire. There will be minimal spamming and the guys in front wont get F***ed by newbies.

[Kalbuth]

Originally Posted by outsider

Everyone is "bad" when they first start off learning how to do anything, it is human nature to fail and make mistakes when you are trying out something new. The great masses of people who will be discovering planetside for the first time in PS2 will all be learning and making big mistakes along the way.

If Planetside was as small in scope as the other games on the market than I wouldn't be as concerned about the learning curve, because there isn't that much thinking involved in other FPS multiplayer titles. PS was always titled the "thinking persons FPS" and forcing that much of a learning curve with harsh penalties for not being on point is the reason why the devs are talking about removing Friendly Fire in the first place and looking at something else.

There are reasons why Planetside became a dead game, which is why the devs are making these changes. I want Friendly Fire but it's obvious that a number of people who quit, quit because of it ( and informed Sony in the details box when they cancelled their sub ). I think Friendly Fire is an important part of what made PS so great and provided a deeper connection to the side I was playing with. There has to be a way that we can preserve it while still adressing the reasons why it's getting pulled.

And Krome quit the trolling man and come up with something usefull

I'm sorry, but if you shoot something and get a big red text on screen and a "BEEEEP", if you're minimally sane, you're going to at least ask questions about it, and once you know, you'll stop.
Continuing until you're grief locked, multiple times? This has nothing to do with being casual, this is being stupid

There are many many more reasons why PS lost subs. Grief is a very minor factor

[Krowe]

Originally Posted by outsider

Snip

It isn't trolling when you, yourself, say your friends are bad. They're bad, therefore they probably didn't understand how to actually play the game. THEREFORE, the game should NOT be built around their handicaps.

And honestly if they don't figure out what that ear-rending beep and flashing red +# means either by themselves or from their friend (which I assume is you), then maybe they should respec into something in more of a support role.

Of course if they can't figure out that shooting friendlies is bad, maybe they should play Black Ops or something.

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by outsider

A good time to bring in Friendly Fire would be when the player is at the point that they are starting to experiment with weapon modifications. So while you can mod to a better weapon that suits your playstyle with it comes further dimension of gameplay.

Or you (generally-speaking you, not you specifically) could just learn how to play the fucking teamwork-oriented MMO-FPS the way the rest of us play, and stop being a goddamned n00b. Just sayin'...

A good time to bring in friendly fire is exactly how it's done now - at the start of the game, and inside the VR room. Turning it on halfway through the game once you learn how to stop being a careless idiot is not a good idea.

[basti]

You guys got a good list of reasons why they may need to disable Friendly fire, but theres one thing:
None of those points are actually reasons. In fact, there is NO reason to disable friendly fire, but loads of reasons to have it on.

And thats enough on that topic. Everything else will be dealt with during beta.