105 replies to this topic

[BlackFlag]

Idea for making griefing boring REALLY FAST:

After doing X amount of damage to team OR landing a finishing shot on a teammate, pilot auto-ejects, and must sit through a LONG (like 5 minutes) cut-scene where he's preached to about the importance of targeting discipline BEFORE he can join another battle. Exiting and restarting the game should not allow griefer to skip the lecture.

This makes griefing boring and annoying for the griefer, and minimizes the punishment for accidental friendly fire.

[Silent]

Keep friendly fire on but implement a forgiveness system.

If you are killed by a teammate you are given the option to forgive the player that killed you. If you don't then it's a point against them. If several points are accumulated on a server then that person is kicked and temporarily banned for a period of time. If there is a pattern of certain players getting kicked then maybe it could be escalated to the administrators and more extreme actions could be taken from there.

I suppose something like this could be tied into experience loss for each point given to you, so if you aren't forgiven during that game then you suffer a penalty even if you don't get kicked.

Edited by Silent, 03 March 2012 - 07:23 AM.

[Aegis Kleais]

MaddMaxx, on 02 March 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Red reticule for Enemy, Green for Allied. Trigger pull is up to the Pilot.



Must be in the City Square. I was hoping circle clusters might be a thing of the past. Oh well.

I'm all for a reticule that is context-sensitive so that when you mouseover allies, it indicates "don't shoot", but allows them to fire any weapon, however I feel that by default lock-capable missiles should not lock onto ally targets. You could still accidentally dumbfire the missiles and hit a teammate, but the weapons systems would not perform a lock while your reticule was on a friendly.

[Ian MacLeary]

My personal take:

Reticules should change color when over a friendly. Target-locking systems should not do so to a friendly. But you can fire at any time, assuming weapons have recharged.

As for griefers - I'm pretty sure you'll figure it out before the griefer can take down too many of the team, and take him out yourself. Implementing a penalty for friendly-fire will then be penalizing the people who are trying to play the game correctly, and since that is the griefer's goal in the first place (to ruin the game for others), they'll still be happy. So no penalties are needed as far as I'm concerned.

Personally, if I team with a griefer, I'll make note of his name. Then, if I'm feeling vindictive, I'll get a bunch of friends together, team with him again, and we'll blow him away point-blank at mission start. (If I'm feeling really vindictive, we may just blow off his legs and then I'll lead an enemy assault over to him.) I'll also spread the word privately to people I know that play the game 'the right way' (i.e., not griefing), and it'll get very difficult for him to get a team eventually.

In short: Leave it to the community to police griefers. Let the devs spend their time putting new 'mechs and new systems into the game which will enhance gameplay.

[Sarah Dalrymple]

Tuhalu, on 02 March 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

Amusing side thought 2: If no friendly collision damages: Using friendly mechs to form a wall to block LOS to a damaged mech?

I would just like to point out that even if there are friendly collision damages, this will be a great tactic for when the Clans arrive....

[Felicitatem Parco]

When paying "Halo" game titles, you are presented with the option to boot a player when they kill more than 1 teammate (you being one of them). I'm sure the Devs can institute some kind of Ban Hammer that shows its face when a teamkiller goes rampant.

[SwordofLight]

Pvt Dancer, on 02 March 2012 - 02:17 PM, said:

It is all fun and games till someone takes a AC 20 to the rear left torso.

I like FF games, keeps teh noobs from holding down the trigger and running around yelling Oklahoma!

Here is the full clip, for those to young or sheltered to have seen it in full context.

I think in all my years of gaming, I have never seen a more apt nor succinct description of on-line players. This is definatly a like.

-Don

[Scott Wolfpack Rider]

Bryan Ekman, on 02 March 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

Friendly Fire is currently enabled in our builds. The verdict is still out. It's mostly a pain when a cluster of people get together, you need to lay off the AOE weapons and use lasers/direct fire.

I hate to say it, but this shouldn't even be a topic of conversation. Friendly fire has to be in for it to live up to the ip and expectations of the core fan base.

Your best safety device in your mech should be the mushy mush in your helmet holder. If it is defective, fix it. If you can't then you don't belong on the battlefield (arn't ment to play in a team based game).

Switching tatics (aoe vs df) is an important dynamic that seperates the men from the boys so to speak. Hell, calling in a commanders arty strike on your position when everything is going wrong and you are surrounded by enemy should be a calculated and self inflicted death sentence and not a standard scout tatic (which it will become if FF is not enabled)

Edited by Scott Wolfpack Rider, 03 March 2012 - 09:08 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Friendlies start shooting me or allies around me past maybe 1 accidental shot and I will 'accidently' mistake that moron for an enemy...

Enough players have no tactical sense, we dont need idiots who think its cute to shoot friendlies while they are at it. There isnt anything gained from FF and it serves no purpose towards winning the mission....so just dont think its funny and do it....

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 03 March 2012 - 09:11 AM.

[Sassori]

Bryan Ekman, on 02 March 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

Friendly Fire is currently enabled in our builds. The verdict is still out. It's mostly a pain when a cluster of people get together, you need to lay off the AOE weapons and use lasers/direct fire.

Good. I think that friendly fire must remain enabled as well. If there is a mass group then yeah lobbing in there with area effect weapons /should/ hurt your friends, risk vs reward. Can your team mate handle the splash damage, is it worth the possible miss, Is there a tag beacon in play? These all need to be stuff that are considered on the battle field and come into mech design decisions as well.

[Maris]

Tifalia, on 03 March 2012 - 03:30 AM, said:

You all know how I feel on the matter. The more realistic the game play, the more fun and enjoyment (as well as tears, anger, frustration and annoyance) you get from it. Just like the Real World on a real battlefield, there is always the ris of friendly fire casulties. I do not see why things should be any different simply because some people do not like the idea of incurring damage at the hands of their own team members and then having to fork out their own hard won (I use that term lightly) C-Bills on battle repairs (you all know who you are).

I'm all for realism but at the same time, real world battlefields dont have teammates shoot at you just for ***** and giggles.

But then, I played WoT a whole lot, it has FF on and blue-on-blue rarely happens, due to the penalties for doing such a ****** move. So I think it can work in MWO, with the right controls and penalties in place.

[Wyzak]

If you want to get really technical you can make a distinction between directed fire weapons and indirect (LRMs). LRMs and arty cause damage to teammates, but you can be forgiven that because that's how battles work. Directed fire weapons on the other hand will only cause a lot of damage to teammates if you work at it (aiming, DPS) so if you aim at a teammate and shoot them, the game damages your mech on that limb instead. That way if someone tries to be funny they get a rude surprise when weird things start happening to their own mech (weapons stop working, center torso goes red). But just tagging somebody by accident won't do much damage to your own mech.

[UncleKulikov]

Keep it in. It requires more awareness of the player, and rewards good formations and tactics. Also being able to use one of your mechs as a reference point to shell other mechs with no penalty is a bad idea.

For example, in Red Faction Guerrilla, you can rocket an ally to kill someone near him with no penalty. That is a bad mechanic.

[SilentWolff]

Maris, on 03 March 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

But then, I played WoT a whole lot, it has FF on and blue-on-blue rarely happens, due to the penalties for doing such a ****** move. So I think it can work in MWO, with the right controls and penalties in place.

You hit the nail on the head here. You make the penalties harsh like WoT does and FF will be a non issue.
FF must be enabled imo. Cant be sim like without it.

[Atlai]

Geist Null, on 30 January 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

supposedly Its about LOS and targeting computers. that will involve IFF transponders so hopefully your mech will know better than to allow your weapons to strike an ally. no one knows for sure at this point tho

This
my Mech is stupid though so if i shoot u im sorry : )

Edited by Mason West, 03 March 2012 - 02:36 PM.

[Kusak Snowtiger]

ohhh yes Friendly fire a Must. good grief. If you dont know when to shoot or not to shoot. you sure dont belong in the command chair.

[Matthew Bishop]

Not only does friendly fire need to remain enabled, as a 24 year Army armor veteran, there are a number of times you're going to HAVE to fire at friendlies. If I'm in LOS of a friendly 'mech with crucnchies crawling his shins, you bet I'll light him up with my smaller weapons

[Tarl Cabot]

For the most part though, weapons fire will be almost instantaneous except for LRM/artillary (and tis why there were threads discussions on how targetting/tics/etc would be handled). At least with EGA/Solaris, weapons fire was determined when the trigger was pulled.

The other will be how tactics play out, formations and such. With non-FF game, the units will be able to be more tightly packed, as well as allowing units to ram an enemy without fear of being hit by FF.

Of course in the above scenario, if targetting is not pin-point accuracy but in a AOE bubble there be some serious FF, especially if the units are made up for both long range units and brawlers.

[Pvt Dancer]

Oh... I just know there will be a time I am sitting there in my Hunchback, setting up that rear torso shot on a mech and right when I am pulling the trigger, focused in on my target, some yahoo will jump behind my target, in my way, and I will destroy him with that AC 20.

Do I mean to shoot him? Nooo. Will I kill him, heck yeah, specially if he is a light. Will it happen... to be honest, I will be shocked if it doesn't.

Same thing happens to the 'sniper' with his PPC (or three). He is sitting back at range lighting a guy up and someone with shorter range weapontry, who /has/ to get closer, gets to close. I can see it now...a Jenner going fast, zig-zagging to avoid incoming fire, zigs when he should have zagged right into friendly PPC fire. Just a accident, no one's fault, but that Jenner is dead meat with that 4 tons of armor and like 3 points of rear armor.

Meanwhile, some 8 year old kid logs in, buys a Atlas, and starts laying into his own team because he wants to 'have fun' and the 20 seconds to start time left him squeezing the trigger in antisipation.

Then there is the 15 year old (or older) who is having a bad day and someone 'got in their way'. Screw this, that **** is going down...next thing you know, your mech is destroyed because someone effectivily had road rage going on. Joy.

Then there is the guy who doesn't care. His other games are games he looked up hacks for to be '733t' because he is a wannabe 'h4x0rz, LOL!'. To him, it is fun to make everyone else as miserable as he is. If a real hacker could hack the game, he would totally DL it to be cool on the hacker site he stumbled on. Ban? He will just get a new account, or a new IP, whatever he has to do to laugh away as he ticks people off.

All of the above are examples of friendly fire, some obviously worse than others, but all will be punished the same. I also like how WoTs does it, and I have purposily killed guys in WoTs, after they had fired on me... I do not tolerate that BS. I take my loss and my penalty and walk away, because going in damaged sucks. Does the WoTs penalty stop me? No... what stops me is my desire to play the game and win. that means my team needs every tank and every tank healthy. AFKs and Tkers will kill a match...probably the same here.

[SwordofLight]

SilentWolff, on 03 March 2012 - 02:32 PM, said:

You hit the nail on the head here. You make the penalties harsh like WoT does and FF will be a non issue.
FF must be enabled imo. Cant be sim like without it.

Or rather, it does happen, but its not "I'm shooting you because you're in my spot" sort of idiocy. Its the idiocy of "you pulled in front of me just as I fired" or "I really shouldnt have fired an arty shot into that melee". Grief and TK are such rarities - especially when they remove the penalty of killing a team member when that team member is a TKer - because there are strict penalties.

I also like what DoD does in some servers - you get TKed, and a little dialog box pops up 1. Forgive 2. Hell no! and if you hit 2 the offending player dies and has to respawn. Not sure how it would work in this game, but its a nice solution, none the less.

-Don