Sadistic Savior, on 30 September 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:
If I am test firing weapons in front of my, I cannot necessarily stop quickly enough to avoid damaging you if you insist on darting in front of me. because I cannot see behind me.
To avoid being damaged, you have the option of darting somewhere other than right in front of me. They are big maps.
You don't have to do this of course. If you want to take the risk of darting in front of me, you are free to do so. I will do my best to avoid hitting you if I see you.
What if one loads in front and to the side of you? Out side your visual and their visual. Then, they turn sharply to the right to go for a cap, still don't see you as you loaded behind them, but to the right. You don't see them, they don't see you, and you BLAM, shoot all your weapons just as they run inside your fire. Of course, it's their fault for not seeing you pulling the trigger (how do they know you intend to shoot invisible foes?) and it is their fault you didn't look to either side of yourself, or use the peripheral vision (your targeting reticule is in the middle of your screen) to see them coming before they cross in front of your targeting system?
"Your majesty" should probably just wait a few moments into the match and then test fire. If you say 10 seconds wont hurt the game for a cap (or light mechs), then throw your own statement at yourself. 10 seconds of delaying your weapons test (which have little to no benefit in the live fire game anyway) and let the light mechs move out and start those caps 10 seconds sooner (which does have impacting, game altering advantages and can make some games go from a win to a loss) doesn't hurt you in the least.
The problem here is, you can not control your teammates. If you suspect that they might/probably/will run in front of you, then you should look out for them as they're moving out isn't going to hurt you. You, however, have complete control over your own mech, which means any action you take is your responsibility. Fast mechs moving out doesn't hinder nor risk your mech. You shooting your weapons at start of match can hinder and risk your teammate's mechs. Which do you think is a greater reward/teamplay between the two options?
The whole point of the thread was nicely summarized here, and I feel it was well worded:
Hammerfinn, on 30 September 2013 - 12:41 AM, said:
This thread, short version:
FF happens. It's nobody's fault.
Testing weapons at match start is not penalized, but is extremely stupid since any advantage gained can be attained by running the testing grounds.
Match start FF is selfish and inexcusable, and you take that onus (as selfish and {Scrap} teammate) upon yourself if you choose to engage in such behavior, which, if repeated, is punishable.
I also noticed you conveniently had nothing to add to the list of ideas?
Tesunie, on 25 September 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:
So, here is my question to help the topic:
What can be done to prevent this from happening?
So far, I've seen this list causes for why someone shoots at the start of the match:
- I like hearing my weapons fire.
- I don't want to waste time in the testing grounds.
- I can't help myself from shooting my weapons.
- I'm too lazy and impatient.
- I alt-tab out of the game while it is match finding or loading the screen so I can do other things, and then when I click into the game it accidentally fires all my weapons, sometimes resulting in friendly fire.
- Sometimes a bug happens which is outside my control that fires all my weapons.
- Sometimes, while I type, it didn't type but instead it fires my weapon groups.
- Sometimes, instead of hitting f4 (or whatever), I hit the number 4, shooting off all weapons in group 4.
(Did I miss any?)
So, what are possible solutions to these problems?
- Testing grounds. You can test heat endurance, weapon reload, damage output, etc.
- If you have to test in a match, you can turn around and shoot the (more than likely) wall behind your mech, inconveniencing only yourself and not your team. Also helps minimize risk of friendly fire.
- Wait about 10-20 seconds into the match for the faster mechs to remove themselves from the group and go where they are going, and then commence weapons test.
- Change weapon group 1 to be blank, and upon start of match use the arrow keys to select weapon group 3, having that set up as what weapon group 1 would be.
- Report a fire bug when you see if happen. If you can repeat it, include what you did to make it happen.
- Try to make sure you are typing into chat, but sometimes it will happen. No suggestions from me here.
- Try to make sure you are hitting the correct button, but accidents do happen. Apologize and move on.
Anyone else have anything to add? Did I miss anything? Any other user side solutions that others can think of to counter some of these problems? Any suggestions one can make to PGI to make it less penalizing to the team or to punish the responsible person more?
For PGI, I'd suggest some of the following ideas to consider:
- Make mechs immune to friendly fire for the first 10 seconds of the match. (I do not recommend this, but it could solve the problem.)
- Make FF penalties apply to damage only. The more damage you cause to a friendly mech, the worse the penalty. Keep or remove the current teamkill penalty. I'd suggest removing the teamkill and replace with team damage. Make it similar, but more expensive, to damage done rewards. (Make it like Damage Done/Component Destruction rewards, but as penalties and maybe at twice the rate. That way, you blow off a friendly mechs arm, you pay for the component destruction.)
- In combination of FF damage and/or teamkill penalties, maybe have these penalties be shifted as an income for the person on the receiving end of the damage. (You blow off my arm, you pay for new arm. Just like with a car and an accident. You damaged my car and it's your fault, you pay for the damages.)
- Disable weapons fire for the first 10 seconds of the game. (Would probably help prevent sniping from base to base in river city too.) (I do not recommend this.)
- Try to enforce testing grounds more. Possibly have mechlab as a spot on a map, and testing ground is your default area where you load in? Then you can walk to your mechbay for mechlab construction and mech changing, and when you exit the mechlab, you enter into a testing ground area. From the testing ground area, you can launch into missions. If we have lobbies, testing grounds could also be merged with a "while you wait" area. (Random idea, probably require a lot of work.)
Instead, you harp on me saying you don't take adequate precaution with a whine that said "You don't know that". I can know that. You hit someone at start of match willfully pulling the trigger? Well, you didn't take enough precaution then. You don't use the testing grounds, which would be all the precaution you would ever truly need, and you admit to actually damaging friendly mechs with a "willful" pulling of the trigger (intent aside, as no one but you can possibly know what you intent was).
So, instead of arguing the same points over and over again, you have anything productive to say? Have anything you wish to add to the list? You take so many "precautions" to prevent your test fire from hitting an ally, want to add them to the list for user side solutions to preventing friendly fire? You must be the expert, as I see it as too dangerous to attempt unless it can not be helped.