Posted 25 February 2015 - 09:07 PM
Ok, a couple points as i thought more on this tonight, and read some more reply-
First, to the whole "it is both party fault"
NO, c'mon man, I have been pugging since the first month of open Beta, I know when something is accidental, intentional, or DERP. This incident that cheesed me off enough to create a topic was the last one. It was a laser boat Crow, fired alphas into the back of my mech 3 times, the first two times only ONE laser managed to miss me, and only part of it's duration, it was just enough for me to know who was doing it. My team was carefully moving in under ECM along side the mountain with the tunnel in it, with a couple small mechs(3) in the actual tunnel to prevent enemy light mechs from flanking in behind us. MOST of my team was solid, with a couple durrhurrs thrown in, likely to balance some Elo or something. I was not stepping in front of him, hell two of the 3 times I ewasnt even moving. DERPWAD was shooting a red target box, through both me and the giant hill the enemy target was behind. When he wasnt alpha striking me in the back, he was PUNISHING THAT HILL SO HARD< ARE YOU ******* SORRY HILL!! Anyway, you do the math on dmg from 6 laserboat crow into my back, 3 alphas worth. That doesnt count the dmg he got into the front side of my mech when he blasted me trying to hit the FS9 that ran in between us as we were closer to the end of the match. This was a case of total retardation on the part of the pilot pulling the trigger. I know what accidental FF looks like from thousands of pug matches. this was not light accidental fire in the heat of battle, this was a case of total obliviousness to his surroundings.
That said:
I see enough negative responses to reflection mechanic that i think it should be benched, for sure until some other things have been tried first. I personally don't see people running into my gunfire, but others do enough it appears there is concern.
I cast my vote with the visual indicator for FF, it would appear simple enough to put in, and fits into lore. i mean the mech has friend or foe ID on it, shouldnt be that out of line to expect it to recognize friend or foe hits then, especially considering it recognizes enemy hits already.
I would then follow with some kind of scaled c-bill penalty. I like the idea of % dmg dealt being the factor for this scale, as that is a true measure of how careful you were firing. My only concern with that is LRM fire, I have seen some durr's run into an Awesome 8R alpha SPLAT after a mech is already dead, and unless PGI finally decides indirect fire needs a rework, this could potentially still punish the wrong party. Even so, I would still implement something and sort that out later if it turns into some kind of issue- you can;t lock LRM onto your team mates so purposeful LRM FF is unheard of so far as I know.
In short:
Put in the visual indicators first
After a short grace period(so players that were oblivious before might notice their behavior now and have a chance to correct it-
Add a scaled C-bill penalty.
On the visuals, I would actually like to see that scaled also, from the little green color change for a MG mist spray across the back of a friendly light that ran through as people say happens, to giant obnoxious red X for sustained fire over time or huge alpha strikes, with some stages in between, and audio to go with the "bad" end, like a warning buzzer. Hell make the Buzzer audible to the whole team so they know what has happened too.
Anyway, it is obvious this is a topic of concern and needs addressing based on 100 replies in less than a day. I hope Russ or someone sees this, otherwise if someone wants to PM him or tweet him on the thread that would be cool beans too.
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AUSwarrior24, on 25 February 2015 - 04:17 PM, said:
