115 replies to this topic

[Vandul]

Rather than reflect damage back (which can cause a whole different type of trolling), simply reduce the firer's damage output for 10-20 seconds after striking teammates. This should include fire support missions as well.

This will stop trolls who melt people at the start of the match, as the target can turn around (assuming it wasnt an accident) and melt the jackwagon down with impunity.

[Pjwned]

Damage reflection is beyond stupid for 3 reasons.

1. It's too harsh of a penalty, especially if people get in your way despite any efforts to not shoot teammates.
2. It makes no sense at all, especially in a game where friendly fire matters and OP even says friendly fire is important.
3. It's still easily abused by bored trolls who can get you killed simply by walking in front of you.

Damage reflection for damaging your teammates is not a thing and it's like that for multiple good reasons.

[Sjorpha]

I'm against any mechanic that doesn't make sense.

Damage reflection makes no sense, so no. Immunity to friendly fire makes no sense either, so no. Damage reduction of any kind makes no sense, so no.

Cbill panalties for friendly damage makes sense to a degree, it can be construed and paying that pilot for repairing the damage you caused, so yes. It seems unlikely that real pilots could keep perfect track of FF but I'm willing to overlook that. I don't think the penalty should kick in until after a certain treshold or be too severe, because it's important that players take risky shots in critical moments, like shooting over a friendly shoulder to snapkill that light zooming by. I've had lot's of shots like that saving someones ass and I don't think they should be penalized when they fail.

And a visual and/or audible indication of friendly fire would be great.

Yes it is annoyning to be teamkilled or FF:ed, but it isn't a huge problem. I've seen teamkiller trolls maybe 4 times, in a year of playing. It is far more important to preserve immersion and a sense of risk, running around in a chaos of war where everyone is shooting, yes you will hit friends and be hit by friends, **** will happen and it needs to happen.

If you need to test heat at the start, you need to take the 15 seconds to face a wall or walk off the teams path and look into the ground while doing it, doing it while walking amongst teammates isn't acceptable because people may run by, and in that case it is 100% the shooters fault. Better yet test your build in the testing gounds on some maps, takes 5 minutes tops.

Edited by Sjorpha, 25 February 2015 - 04:17 AM.

[Bellum Dominum]

Reitrix, on 25 February 2015 - 03:50 AM, said:

What we really need is a visible ranking system for players.
No, not so people can "lol look at how leet i am", but rather, so the MatchMaker can make groups that make sense.
Not only that, but have the game apply a role to a loadout when you save it. If you put an AC20 into a Raven, the game gives you the role "Fast Striker", put in a pair of ERLLs and you're a "Scout Sniper". That sort of thing.

Right now we have the invisible elo system. Sometimes it makes a nice match, most of the time not.
If we had a "Cadet/Recruit/Lieutenant/Sergeant" etc, using proper BattleTech titles, we could have the MM throw together a team that has equally skilled players in equal amounts.
But maybe i just want the Trials back from Ghost Bears Legacy.

As it is, people tend to follow the pack not because someone is truly leading, but because of herd mentality. New players will follow anyone so they can see what it is they're meant to do, and if the new players are following other new players ...

Besides, having visible ranks would give people something to work towards. At least in my opinion.
Edit: Also, having Ranks instead of a Magic Number would give us visibly balanced matches. Unlike now, where for all you know you have 2 skilled players stuck with 10 Cadets in their 26th match because the Magic Number says because the total number = XXXX that the match is balanced.

The Elo system isn't really invisible btw. Unless they've fixed this you can see the Elo ranking of your team in the sense of who's rated highest to lowest by looking at the Alpha to Charlie lances. MM grabs highest Elo rating first and fills the first slot of each team with that and then moves down in rating as it continues to fill the teams. This of course only works in the solo que.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

maybe been said before (tl;dr) but how's this:

we do have a "most damage dealt" reward for enemy mechs.
how about we get the same thing as a negative reward (yep, - c-bills) if a friendly mech dies and you inflicted most damage on him. fair? not?

[Kilo 40]

I think a good chunk of the problem with team damage is people don't pay attention to who they walk in front of.

I've had team mates start shooting at me in retaliation, when they where the ones who walked right in front of me while firing.

I mean, I'm sorry you took damage, but don't be so stupid next time.

[Rashhaverak]

No offense to the OP, but the idea that friendly fire is reflective is a terrible idea. Creating magic damage reflection would ruin any realism and be as bad or worse as if there was no FF at all.

That said, the penalties for FF should come at the end screen, and they should be heavier than they are currently. Right now you get a penalty for a team kill, but no penalty for damage inflicted. The game should really be adding up your FF damage and impose a stiff penalty for every point inflicted. This would help reduce FF and would maintain realism, after all, someone has to pay to repair the damage the FF did, why not take it out of the money the guilty party earns at the end? If you destroy a friendly component, the penalty should be even higher, and cumulative. Do enough damage to a friendly and you might end up with a zero for earnings in c-bills and XP.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Kilo 40, on 25 February 2015 - 04:28 AM, said:

I think a good chunk of the problem with team damage is people don't pay attention to who they walk in front of.

that, plus

alphastrike key is used to tab in. (duuuh)

events making half the team going batshit crazy about who's going to get the last few kills.

Edited by LOADED, 25 February 2015 - 04:31 AM.

[Pjwned]

Death Drow, on 25 February 2015 - 04:17 AM, said:

The Elo system isn't really invisible btw. Unless they've fixed this you can see the Elo ranking of your team in the sense of who's rated highest to lowest by looking at the Alpha to Charlie lances. MM grabs highest Elo rating first and fills the first slot of each team with that and then moves down in rating as it continues to fill the teams. This of course only works in the solo que.

It's possible at 1 point that this myth was true, but ever since lances have been filled by similar weight classes (you will see a light lance, heavy lance, and assault lance as your team often enough) this is definitively not the case.

[Willard Phule]

Death Drow, on 25 February 2015 - 04:17 AM, said:

The Elo system isn't really invisible btw. Unless they've fixed this you can see the Elo ranking of your team in the sense of who's rated highest to lowest by looking at the Alpha to Charlie lances. MM grabs highest Elo rating first and fills the first slot of each team with that and then moves down in rating as it continues to fill the teams. This of course only works in the solo que.

You're absolutely certain of that?

Please link any and all posts less than 8 months old that support this opinion. Odds are, you can't.

[Zordicron]

The Ratfink, on 25 February 2015 - 01:55 AM, said:

How about a limit of FF dmg say 20 per match then everything over this is reflected for the rest of the game. This way the odd stray beam or AC shot shouldn't mess you up to much but as soon as you do it a few times you start to take the Dmg, maybe do it on a curve when it gets to 40 dmg you get x2 reflected , 60 you get x3. I like the idea of a big HUD warning of friendly fire.

I thought of this in the shower this morning lol.


Well, as a summary of sorts:

Reflection has mixed reactions here. 100% is to sketchy IMO after reading feedback, but partial(50/50) or "grace period" like 20 points might be some middle ground workable thing.

C-bill penalty: I like this, it would need datamine to see avg team dmg vs earnings etc, PGI would have to do that part. I think it should happen regardless.

Feedback: green crosshair, can;t be hard to implement I would think. The one "screencap" with MEGA RED CROSSHAIR feedback would also be OK I think, depending on the duration, maybe longer duration based on amount of dmg or something.

[NovaFury]

Some mechs don't reposition well. If I had a nickel for every time I'd died or took critical damage because I had my firing solution filled by a frantically retreating friendly mech who didn't know how to drive in a major fire lane, while I was piloting an assault? I'd be rich. Indeed, this is one of the primary reasons I don't pilot assaults much, not for lack of owning them or any disrespect for their toughness or firepower, but because in many situations you will die because your team doesn't have awareness of you.

You're encouraged to push aggressively, but not scout. You can't peek like other mechs can peek, so you take second line at a choke point, and wait for the call. Fire erupts, you move to support, allies move to flee, and it becomes a cluster. Many maps are too small for 12 mechs a side, as they were designed much earlier in the game's lifespan.

Just the other day I was on Viridian in my DWF, watched my left and right, clear, charged my gauss, sighted my enemy, activated advanced zoom... Took a deep breath, charged gauss (again), threw a frantic glance at my tarcomp's readout of the enemy's armor, picked out a component on the enemy mech, released and jammed the PPC group at that magical point in time so all four projectiles converge. A completely undamaged allied Cicada lept in front of me, wedging between the cover and my mech, ate 50 points to the CTR, and died. I didn't see him because he was so fast the moment between me switching to enhanced imaging (robbing me of peripheral vision) and charging my rifles, he'd come out of my blind spot.

I felt awful, but you know, when there's a 100 ton mech coming to a halt, making audible noises while drawing line of sight to the enemy, what do you expect to happen? Would I do it again? Absolutely, I didn't even notice him until I flicked Adv Zoom off.

Oh, and he robbed me a kill too. That jerk.

TLDR: The burden of positioning is on the lighter vehicle. Battleships don't maneuver around destroyers, because they can't. It's Maritime law, interestingly enough.

Edited by NovaFury, 25 February 2015 - 05:52 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Eldagore, on 24 February 2015 - 09:09 PM, said:

FupDup, on 24 February 2015 - 09:13 PM, said:

The problem with nearly any team damage suggestion in general, including this thread's, is the case of False Positives. Not every infliction of team damage is deliberate, and sometimes it might even be more of the "victim's" fault than the shooter's.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

Exactly this.

I like the damage mirror theory, but too often (not saying in your case) the FF occurs from teamamtes in CoD killwhore mentality, running in front of me while I am already shooting. Why should I be penalized for that? Also, it will only encourage that kind of behavior during Tournaments and such, where people pretty much already plumb the depths of stupidity with great regularity.

The issue is, as you say, too much stupidity, selfishness, etc. Most people pay no attention to their minimap, and once you have a fire position, I regularly have idiots 1) park behind me, cockblocking me into friendly fire, and or shooting me in the back, 2) park in front of me and block my established lane of fire, 3) move into or through me, instead of using all the other avenues to get someplace, when I am peeking/sniping, etc. and the list goes on.

Would I like to see that "punished"? Sure. Unfortunately, I don't think Damage Mirroring is the way.

The Ratfink, on 25 February 2015 - 01:55 AM, said:

How about a limit of FF dmg say 20 per match then everything over this is reflected for the rest of the game. This way the odd stray beam or AC shot shouldn't mess you up to much but as soon as you do it a few times you start to take the Dmg, maybe do it on a curve when it gets to 40 dmg you get x2 reflected , 60 you get x3. I like the idea of a big HUD warning of friendly fire.

I like it, but still think it will only encourage killwhopres and other other such behavior to act with even more impunity. Already have every fast light and medium on most teams runnign into my fire to "secure the kill" most weekends.

[mogs01gt]

Any player who strips my back armor gets their weapons stripped! They dont need them any way!

This is at the beginning of the match, not during.

Edited by mogs01gt, 25 February 2015 - 05:59 AM.

[zeves]

TBH i dont think friendly fire is needed at all, apart from maby CW and thats a maby.
and the only punishment you can give a griefer is a perm ban. anything less they dont care about.

But then again accidental team kills are hilarius when you dont do it on purpos.
But thats from people that take the game no more seriusly than it actually is, A GAME

Edited by zeves, 25 February 2015 - 06:17 AM.

[Lostdragon]

Death Drow, on 25 February 2015 - 04:17 AM, said:

The Elo system isn't really invisible btw. Unless they've fixed this you can see the Elo ranking of your team in the sense of who's rated highest to lowest by looking at the Alpha to Charlie lances. MM grabs highest Elo rating first and fills the first slot of each team with that and then moves down in rating as it continues to fill the teams. This of course only works in the solo que.

This is not correct. They have stated that the match making starts with a target ELO for both teams and begins filling the teams with players in that ELO band. As time goes by the MM expands the tolerance, so you may have a player with the highest ELO on the team in Charlie lance because the MM expanded to include his ELO toward the end of matchmaking.

Your lance or position in your lance is not indicative of your relative ELO because of this and also because of 3/3/3/3. You may be in the same ELO bracket as everyone else in the match but the MM has already put 3 heavies on your team. After a period of time it expands and allows another heavy and you get slotted into Charlie lance.

[Soul Tribunal]

Eldagore, on 24 February 2015 - 09:09 PM, said:

NOPE, this is not the thread you think it is.


Got out of a match just a bit ago. Got killed by a desperation shot from a dieing enemy at the end of the match as we won. It was the only dmg the enemy had given my HBK the whole match, and it killed me.

Still reading? Good. I died, because my team mates, specifically some clan mech laser boat durrhurr, stripped ALL my back armor, turned my CT red internals, and side torsos to orange internals, and even managed to turn my front CT armor red. (with some orange and yellow side torso armor)

I asked him to be more careful. Then I complained, then I told him he was an idiot and had nearly killed me.

So, Myself, and many others as per the QQ threads we see periodically, are tired of total idiots or worse, those trolls that end up banned, potentially ruining a match. I would have been at 100% at the end of this match, by careful positioning and focus firing support with my assault pals(I had well over 250 dmg and 8 assist, this was not even that close a match) but instead died to random laser strike from a dead enemy's final trigger pull.

So what then? Friendly fire(FF) is actually an important part of the game, it keeps the actual act of positioning important, basic combat tactics required, and various other vital game functions working. So how does one make FF go from the target being the one that is punished, to the shooter?

Implement 100% dmg reflection for team dmg.

I am pretty sure this has been bandied about the forums before, but I have never chimed in on it, and honestly, never had enough of it happening to think it was worth dev time. NOW however, it is more and more on pug matches, possibly because of an influx of new players, not sure. I do know, that if we are going to go to Steam, there WILL be new players, and new trolls, and IMO having new players shot through the back by new trolls is not likely to be beneficial to the new player XP, much less anyone elses fun.

Dmg reflection does two very important things:

First, it keeps the importance of positioning and all the other things that go along with friendly fire currently in the game alive.

Secondly, it punishes the trigger puller instead of the target.

Turning on my somewhat spiteful mode: when new player, or, more likely bad player, begins being careless with laser fire, he will in turn be damaging his own mech. Now, it is always bad to have friendly fire take away from the overall armor total of your team, BUT in this case, at least it is applying to the guy that can;t aim anyway. it will also either reinforce the idea "hey I should watch where I shoot", or remove the issue from the match. if someone shoots enough team fire to kill themselves, it is more than likely it was not accidental anyway. if it was accidental, well, get gud as they say, learn to pay attention, or uninstall and we will be all the better off for it.

What it will do to trolls goes without saying.

I feel this issue has gotten bad enough in pug land with the prolific laser vomit that it is affecting the fun of the game, and as such the things that go with it including new player experience. it is important to have some anti troll measure in place before Steam release IMO, one that easily doubles as a simple self teaching tool about the importance of where your guns are pointed.

So then, community thoughts on this age old topic? I know there are some immersion concerns, but IMO as the game slider moves closer to CoD and farther from Battletech/mechsim, something like this is becoming more and more needed.

Its very simple on how to at least penalize this.
If a person does a % of their damage in total on a given match in FF damage, then they are penalized heavily in credits.
It happens in WoT, and tends to work fairly well. And to further that, the Credits he ends up being deducted, go to the player(s) he damaged.
SImple, effective, and tends to work well.

-ST

[Nori Silverrage]

FupDup, on 24 February 2015 - 09:13 PM, said:

The problem with nearly any team damage suggestion in general, including this thread's, is the case of False Positives. Not every infliction of team damage is deliberate, and sometimes it might even be more of the "victim's" fault than the shooter's.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

Agreed. Got killed by a buddy last night from his AC20, 2x LPL alpha into my rear CT. It was a legit accident. I was going after the same guy he was and stepped into his line of fire (was in a light). He was doing what he should have been as was I. Thankfully it didn't make much difference as we ended up winning anyway.

Lots of people step in front of my shots, or get too close on one side or the other and shots somehow magically hit them. Not saying it is fair to them, but team damage is not always clear cut...

[MechWarrior3671771]

Also, as a light pilot I am rountinely weaving in and out of firing lanes. I try to stay out of my team's way because its stupid for me to block damage meant for the enemy, but I often fail. Reflection damage would just punish them more for something that's my fault.

Edited by Fenrisulvyn, 25 February 2015 - 07:02 AM.

[Mawai]

Hi ... two comments ...

1) Friendly fire is irritating and a bad habit. It is especially bad when you are just leaving the spawn point and the other player blames you for walking in front of them.

2) However, your story is significantly exaggerated:

"Still reading? Good. I died, because my team mates, specifically some clan mech laser boat durrhurr, stripped ALL my back armor, turned my CT red internals, and side torsos to orange internals, and even managed to turn my front CT armor red. (with some orange and yellow side torso armor)"

Unless you run with extremely low armor .. it is impossible to do the amount of damage you describe with a casual friendly fire incident. It could only happen if they were actively attacking you.
HBK CT armor = 64 structure = 32
HBK ST armor = 48 structure = 24 each side

Typical builds will have at least 10 CT rear armor and 8 on each rear ST ... though usually a bit more than that
all rear armor removed = ~26 damage
red CT structure = ~20 damage (maybe more)
orange ST structure = ~8 damage / side maybe more = ~16
red CT front armor = ~35 damage

= ~97 total damage applied.

CERML = 7 damage
CERLL = 11 damage

This damage would require abou 9 CERLL or 14 CERML

So a Nova with 12 CERML firing all at once would come close ... however, I did this in my Nova for Lols ... both times it blew itself up due to ghost heat .. so it is unlikely that would be the culprit.


Anyway, the point I am making is that friendly fire is extremely irritating but your specific story is exaggerated unless they were actively attacking you and not just test firing weapons where you were in the way.


3) Damage reflection is a bad idea.

-There have been a number of times when I have knowingly crossed my team mates lines of fire intentionally taking the risk of FF ... this is usually when I am in a light and skirmishing at close range ... the target mech often focuses on me leaving them an easy target for team mates but my team does not need a penalty if I decide to engage in risky behaviour to help take down a target.

- I have also played a number of sniper builds ... it occasionally happens that a friendly gets between me and my target in the time between firing and the round hitting the target. Often this is someone who was not even in line of sight. It isn't often their fault but it isn't usually the shooters fault either. This can often happen because the sniper is either zoomed in or using an advanced zoom module which can really limit local battlefield awareness.

- another case are the folks who intentionally run in front of team mates either because they want to get in the fight or want to get the kill. You do NOT shoot these folks as much as you might like to ... just move to another firing position.

- the only case that really needs a penalty is when a team mate decides to use members of their team for target practice ... maybe friendly fire within 15s or 30s of the start of the match should be penalized or negated ... but all the other cases are quite valid and do not require a draconian response.

Edited by Mawai, 25 February 2015 - 07:18 AM.