334 replies to this topic

[Red1769]

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NGNC podcast for GDC made a passing referance to a spectator mode that could put a bounty upon targets aswell as a place to bet c-bills on matches while this is unconfermed i may well work against TK players especially if own team can get the bounty.

This could also work with what CoyoteBlue is somewhat fearing. Those that intentionally get FF or TKed, which I never thought about. Though I would think that would be easy to spot as well. The account thing, you can't really help, but I would think that they would get sick of it eventually. Otherwise they'll just have to suffer going through with it everytime.

I would think it would be easy to spot. Team communication is also key. You better be yelling at your supporting light or medium to back off and aim from the side. If it's also on an entire Lance com., boom, witnesses against that intentional victim. Or attacking from two sides in such a way where FF can't be an issue. Like if the three are in a triangle like formation.As far as Atlases getting in front of Catapults...I find it unlikely as a Catapult is faster and can mount jumpjets to hop over them. Which does bring about accidental death from above tactics upon teammates...I'm not a jumper myself, but I'm not really sure if that should count.

Though an in-game bounty system from spectators can easily be abused. "Hey, I remember that guy, he capped me in his Dragon as I was busy pummeling his partner to smitherians, I'm gonna put a bounty on him." Likewise, a vote to get someone turn enemy on both teams can be abused by the team to get rid of someone that's new or someone they don't know, yet nothing really shows. Paying just for the percent of damage you've inflicted sounds fair, I like that. The interlock in case your crosshairs stumble on an ally most certainly helps, and again alleviates some of CoyoteBlue's concerns. In the case that doesn't happen:

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What worked pretty well in MW4:M was this system:

1st TK = server warning message
2nd Tk = disconnect

Sounds good in theory, but keep in mind one of the two game modes at launch, you only get one chance. You get killed by a TKer, you come back with the same amount of damage you had before your "teammate" killed you? And again, what about accidents? Or are you still done for the match?

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In the end its a question of methodology and execution I think..Some have mentioned the repair bill, or the bill for a new mech (personally I'm still hoping that mechs can be permanently destroy to where you have to go shop for a new one..but thats me) which is a system that has potential..the problem is execution. Time will tell I guess

I would have to agree here. In the end, it's up to the Devs how they want to handle it, and up to us as the player base to voice what we like/don't like. Communication goes both ways. Don't suppose we can leave it at this?

[JP Josh]

what if team blue has a tking person can we just agree to avoid him and have his position shown constantly to the enimy after a vote count wether or not to punish him?

if vote suceeds then there will be bounty on his head that will go to the first (red team members) that kills him and there is no way he can hide from red team members because he will constantly be on their radar no matter what.

if vote fails then the TK has been forgiven. and every one forgets about it.

[Red1769]

A vote is liable to be abused.

You don't know a person that's on your team, the team as a whole has gone through a bit of a losing streak, so tensions are hot. By complete accident, they shoot a teammate. Vote, pass, public enemy number 1. Or vote just because you don't know that person, no benefit of the doubt, and it passes.

And then what does Team Blue do after initiating the bounty? Can they still fire on Team Red and vice versa as one or two of Team Red goes after that bounty? Or are they suddenly untouchable until that TKer is dead? And then the person that was TKed comes back with the same amount of damage before their "Teammate" started shooting at him to kill him?

Sorry for keeping it rolling...I think I'll stop here and quote my last post....and not post here again...

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In the end, it's up to the Devs how they want to handle it, and up to us as the player base to voice what we like/don't like. Communication goes both ways. Don't suppose we can leave it at this?

[Insidious Johnson]

Point of order! We need clarification on some terms! TK = team killing. Team = group of individual players. To TK you need to kill more than ONE person on a team, you need to kill the whole team. Unless you eject at the end after killing off the rest, you fail it is not TK. Other than that, we are talking about UPK= unauthorized player killing. We already know it is ok to kill the enemy, if for no other reason than not doing so negates the purpose of bothering to play the game. Since it is already accepted that, for the sake of intellectual integrity of the genre the taking of human life is part of the day's paying opportunities. What is the problem with one teamate wanting to take the life of his teamate? So killing is authorized only if the person you want to kill is on the arbitrary side you are fighting? Lets be honest, we are basically glorifying violence for the sake of entertainment or profit here. Everyone is dirty, no one is qualified to judge the reasons player A cores player B during a match, only the means by which he does so. I have friends and enemies, what mechwarrior with over a decade of multiplayer doesn't? I don't want my options limited. If I unload on the guy standing next to me, I have a reason. He might be part of the enemy unit, or he could be the jackass I work with who "no called/no showed" on a shift he agreed to cover for me. You don't know, and it isn't your business, teamate or not. What everyone is worried about is consistent abuse, not the sporadic, the occasional, or even the last straw. It was a non issue in previous iterations of MW, I don't see it as one here either, unless you have NO say of with whom you play.

EDIT: And if you have NO say in who you play, UPK is the SOLUTION.

Edited by Insidious Johnson, 18 March 2012 - 04:05 PM.

[Psydotek]

Another thing that may work would be a post match rep system. After each match you get to rate your lancemates with either 1 positive or 1 negative reputation point. Positive point for playing your role properly, being a good sport, good communication, etc... Negative point for teamkilling or being a d-bag. Maybe even leave a spot for a mandatory small comment only for negative reputation points

Of course this could be open to abuse for those people who will always negatively rep their teammates if they lose...

However over the long term people would be able to see how much your good rep compares to your bad rep, and people would be able to see where your bad rep was earned (if it's filled with nothing but "OH GOD THIS TEAMMATE SUXORS SO BAD" or "FUUUUUUU" comments then i'm pretty sure most people will be able to tell that these were bogus negative rep points).

[Rockhound085]

I remember a Tker back in MW4 mercs, the only thing we could do was kill the surrat, when we told him to stop all he said was that whenever people get in his way they die.

[Mason Ventris]

Have a reporting system. Dock points for TKs. Ban TKers and increase ban time with every violation. End discussion.

[cinco]

the more rules in place, the more tempted people are to break them until you are left with nothing but a dictatorship, like the one described above. "end discussion" indeed, mein fuhrer.

as i said, study what happened in world of tanks. use minimal anti-griefing systems and most importantly, keep the game interesting so people have a vested attachment and interest to it.

Edited by cinco, 18 March 2012 - 04:30 PM.

[HeIIequin]

As a minimum, I'd take no friendly fire. No muss, no fuss. That said, I would miss the realism and awareness friendly fire brings, but in the end, no FF solves more problems.
It'd be fairly safe to assume most (canon wise) mechwarriors are adequately trained not to shoot at their teammates. This is not the case in MWO, as video games are fake, have respawns, and don't require basic training requirements to be fullfilled anywhere near what canon training would. This would end with jerks or griefers everywhere shooting at their teammates for 'fun', or unskilled player firing off weapons willy-nilly. I don't even care if you're shooting at a friend or co-worker you actually know. The last thing I want is to be down 3 lancemates cause they'd rather be shooting at each other than the enemy. GL winning the match now. If TK'ing is allowed, you'd need adequate solutions to those problems.
C-bill fines are a start I suppose, though it does penalize legitimate players (as many others in this long thread have said) when some teammate stand in front of you right when you fire ("Hey down in front!"). That would lead towards progressive penalties the more damage is done, maybe combined with a 'forgive player' option, thus negating the penalty if it was viewed as an accident. Still doesn't solve the issue with an unlucky shot to a weakened or lighter mech, which can severly wound or kill them. That could be a larger cbill penalty than is warranted.

In the end, ANY FF system would have to guarantee that legitimate players who don't intentionally attack teammates, and who watch their fire near friendlies are NOT penalized. With the penalty systems I've seen proposed in this thread, you'd probably need a large combination of them to come close to fullfilling that requirement. That's why I suspect a no FF ruling. Easier to develop and maintain, and it's drama free.

[Helmer]

As stated, several times alreay, I'd want to opt for something that effects people financially, escalating rapidly for Friendly Fire incidents.

Any system you have where individuals are able to target out an others and the effects are automatically applied , without either review ( Just aobut impossible ) or a balance, it leaves a large window for abuse.

For instance. I join a random battle. We all Drop... turns out the the other 11 guys on my side are in a gaming group together. One of them takes a dislike to me (Maybe his Mom took away his allowance that day or something) and starts in being disrespectful. Suddenly I have 11 people clicking the "Bad Merc" button.
Now granted, this is probably an extreme case, however, unless you set the bar very high and allow for such abuses, good players will gain a "Bad rep" for no other reason than dislike, internet bullying, or miunderstandings. And if you are setting it very high, then it becomes less and less a deterrant.

Take internet trolling and abuse out of the hands of the individuals and make it an system and applied game mechanic. Couple that with a secondary option of flagging someone you personally would rather not drop with again, and you'll weed out most people who are griefing for griefing sake, or people you generally will not get along with for whatever age/playstyle/personal reason.

Cheers.

Edited by Helmer, 18 March 2012 - 06:11 PM.

[Sir Crazy]

I do like the Saint/sinner system a lot. Keeping public stats for each player will allow everyone to see who we are grouping up with. The stats should include the following:

Friendly Fire Rating (saint/sinner system): Score between 0 and 100 all players start at 50. 100 –means little to no friendly fire and 0 means lots of friendly fire.
Number of Missions Played: Just a number.
Number of Wins: Just a number.
Number of Losses: Just a number.
Allegiance: Faction Name, Merc, Lone Wolf, ect.

I would think that a dedicated greifer would have a very low win record and perhaps a very high friendly fire rating.

I would also like to point out that team killing is not the only form of greifing. A greifer could simply be someone who runs into friendly fire with the goal of destroying the stats of other players. A greifer could also do nothing at all and stay shutdown most of the match in the hopes of getting carried to a win. A greifer could attack the target they are suppose to be defending. If the greifer is in the commander role they could end up feeding bad information to the rest of the team to cause a loss.

The only way to spot a greifer would be to see a high number of games played and a very low number of wins but this may also show a newish player who has simply not got a hang of the game yet.

I think that having public stats and an ignore list would solve the problem nicely. If I join a match with a person with bad stats I can keep an eye on them. If they are actively greifing people then I can ignore the greifer. But if the player is just inexperienced then maybe I or others can give them some advice to help them play better.

If Devs/GMs want to look into players that have been ignored by an excessive number of others then so be it.

Edited by Sir Crazy, 18 March 2012 - 06:22 PM.

[Umbra Observato]

I don't think I'm a big fan of paying for your damage to others. I think it is fair when everyon is playing properly, but griefers will quickly begin to intentionally jump in front of friendly fire just to try to drain other players coffers.

Personally I think the trigger lock when targeting a friendly is the best solution. Add to that a reporting system and it might be enough, but I think the Reputation system is well worth the effort. It can give all kinds of data besides just helping to reveal griefers.

[Hawkeye 72]

I feel the problem with a pre-match vote is a lot of new players will be thrown under the bus by some veterans. We want to keep this universe as open as possible.

If we start placing bounties on players who TK/glitch/other forms of unwanted play is that some individuals will be encouraged by this and make it a personal goal. If a bounty on players exist, I want it to exist because that player is one bad MF and one of the top pilots in the game.

I suggested a computer rating system earlier that will be unbiased. Take into account these factors:
- Amount of damage dealt (minor or major)
-LOS between FF victim and an enemy (helps determine if someone accidentally ran in front of you or behind the target)
-Proximity to enemy units (covers splash damage, errant shots in close quarters)
-If friendly fire occured within the opening minutes of the game
-No. of team kills if any

This value doesn't even have to be publicly displayed unless it dips below a certain level and throw up some red flags. If engineering has taught me anything, you can design a program to calculate almost anything.

[metro]

It is inevitable, that friendly fire will happen.

I know in past MW / MPBT titles...even the Best players would hit a teammate every now and then.

Experienced team players will apologize immediately, because they know what happened. The inexperienced or those that do things like this on purpose, find themselves alone eventually.

I do know the friendly fire that hit caused damage, but the guilty party also lost points. Sometimes it was just enough to cost your team the match.

It happens.

So....MW:O Devs will have to work on a balancing act here, so that penalties occur which the game controls.

Only exception would be ingame mods that can witness and assess penalties to repeat offenders.

DarkMinstrel, on 18 March 2012 - 06:48 AM, said:

What about a voting system where the offended party can only instigate the vote, but not cast? That would allow for the unit to be open minded about the situation without the offender already having one neg vote, even in the case of an accident.

something along these lines is a start

[Gunslinger2]

Friendly fire should always be on period, everyone knows that **** happens and there will always be some moron that gets his jollies by being the biggest annoyance they can simply because they love the attention, deal with it as a team and it will go away quickly (i.e. ******** em like we did in MW4) When we had someone pull that crap in veng or BK both teams would rape his *** till he left, simple and quite effective.

Also FF will keep the "gotta get the kill" types from jumping in front of every crit enemy out there to steal the kill, charging me because some over anxious noob decides to leg hump the guy im working on and gets hit in the process is a bit of a stretch.

If you recall your first mission in MW2 mercs your trainer made it very clear that if you shot him he would turn and take it out of your hide, and he did.

Common sense is all it takes, not overcompensation.

Guns

[LordDeathStrike]

=Gunslinger=, on 19 March 2012 - 12:52 AM, said:

Friendly fire should always be on period, everyone knows that **** happens and there will always be some moron that gets his jollies by being the biggest annoyance they can simply because they love the attention, deal with it as a team and it will go away quickly (i.e. ******** em like we did in MW4) When we had someone pull that crap in veng or BK both teams would rape his *** till he left, simple and quite effective.

Also FF will keep the "gotta get the kill" types from jumping in front of every crit enemy out there to steal the kill, charging me because some over anxious noob decides to leg hump the guy im working on and gets hit in the process is a bit of a stretch.

If you recall your first mission in MW2 mercs your trainer made it very clear that if you shot him he would turn and take it out of your hide, and he did.

Common sense is all it takes, not overcompensation.

Guns

this is a no respawn game, you dont get infinite lives, you get one, he needs to have the cost of reparing every point of dmg he does auto deducted from him, even if he goes into the hole (you wont tk constantly when you cant afford to repair your mech and play again). it wouldnt hurt to limit how many accounts the internal address of your computers hardware can create either. aka cant tk, reroll, tk some more.

[Sheewa]

The best way to prevent player from doing something is to fine him. Either with menoey or with XP, loyality. Put some -z% gains debuff for day or two will work fine too. If you do x damage during y time you receive some kind of desertier and cant join matches during some time or something. Damage can vary so several hits during a day will not do nothing awfull.
Afkers... There will be. a lot. Passive AFKers or Active (which can spam some buttons but not actually doing something) - fines will work fine too. One easy thing to prevent from it - lower the shared XP/money. The greater effort you do the biggest rewards you get.
Annoyers. It's pretty hard to handle them. Griefers are damn creative. just form a lances of trusted people and have fun.
Personal stats would be fine too.

[Hammer Strike]

usually this type of thing sorts itself out, especially when there is a server/faction/ whatever forum where players can go public with their knowledge (read screen shots) of others being tools. Personally I am in favor of keeping FF because it adds another level of immersion and strategy.

HS

[Dlardrageth]

Personally for me it's rather straightforward. I could care less about someone teamkilling right and left, being an **** or whatever, as long as I need not play with him. Just like in real life. Be an obnoxious nuisance and my door will be closed, find someone else you practice your antics on. A simple option to blacklist people so you don't get ever teamed up with them in the future would do fine. Thus all you would have to endure will be one single match with them.

You could stack a reporting feature on top of that as well. That way, people making TK'ing their personal "playstyle" would find themselves very soon in the position where they have a hard time finding anyone to play with. Without the necessity for too much administrative hassle. And they wouldn't even be able to complain about it, as you can hardly force other players to cope with someone who they don't want to associate with.

[mockingfox]

this thread needs a recap of the ideas at play, or at least a status update.

Discussion started a number of pages in over weather or not penalizing players should even be considered due to the fact that it would drive away paying customers.

I would like to ask those who think this, have you ever played online games? especially free to play ones? Greifers and underskilled players are a commonplace in these games and it can be a true detriment to competitive players.

since MW:O and the entire MW franchise has been a hardcore game-space since before time I have no doubts that Greifers will certainly show up in hordes to ruin the day. Therefore we WILL NEED a way of discouraging/incentivising fair and fun play without outright banning/shutting down someones mech.

A reputation level/bar is a great idea and as i said before it should be a complex equation looking something like this

(negative actions + (bad gamesX4)/good games X base crime value = final penalty

this would mean that as you comit more and more transgressions the punishments would get worse and worse, here is an example

ex1) FF
your salvo of LRM's flies across the battlefield and much to your dismay a friendly atlas unwittingly steps into the line of fire, taking the full hit and coming out much worse than before.
this would be a base crime value (based on damage X times occured in match) since it has occured 1 times in the match it is multiplied by 1

this would also increase your total negative actions (or decrease your reutation what have you)
now lets assume this is your second offense out of 10 matches (lets also go right ahead and say their would be a minimum damage threshold so that every little lazer that goes astray does not compile into your negative actions until the threshold for that match is reached)

since every bad game is worth 4 good games (one out of every five games you can slip and still be ok'ish)
you now have something that looks like this (assuming the missle delt 100 damage to the atlas)


(negative actions + (bad gamesX4)/good games X base crime value = final penalty
(2 + (2x4)) /10 X 100 = final penalty
10/10 =1 X100 = 100 c-bills

as you can see this means that your ok and only have to pay the base cost on your minimal transgression.
however what if this happens again next game?

EX2)
(negative actions X (bad gamesX4)/good games X base crime value = final penalty
(3 + (3x4)) /11 X100 =final
15/11 X100 = 136c-bills

its getting worse now lets assume that a full TK is worth 5 negative actions!
and that on this third game you got pissed at this annoying scout mech for being stuipid and railed him in the chest.. TKing him (and lets assume that you have to pay for all of the reapirs to his mech which is ALOT for a totalled mech considering ammo and everything, lets put it at 1560 because i want to

EX3)
(8 + (4x4)) /12 X 1560 =final
24/12 X1560 = 3120c-bills

Woops shouldnt do that again for a long time (these are made up c-bill numbers but scale them to game) suddenly killing your teamates at spawn could get VERY costly VERY FAST. meaning that the griefers probably wont be able to afford to repair or even reload their heavy assult mechs due to the funds wasted.

this would be true justice, this should be how it is.
also making this displayable to all players so that getting into a merc corp would be even harder!
I approve of someone's idea of selling off their biggest mech if they hit negative HOWEVER!

it shouldnt be automatic how it should work it like this:
they come back from a match negative, a screen would pop up that says you cannot enter a match until you proceed to either pay off all your debt or have only 1 mech left(and its weapons)
you would then have to drag and drop items into this screen until the negative balance is cleared(as it already consumed all of your spending money)

if you cannot meet these requirments you are not allowed to buy anything (as everything you make instantly goes twards your debt, and since u have no money repairing is impossible)
with almost nothing left, except for 1 mech and its weapon systems and all money you make going straight to debt payment you are in a tight place. making battling very difficult and pulling yourself out very hard. this would discourage people from greifing on a regular basis!

(side notes:)
1.people who were harmed would automatically be paid their dues weather or not the griefer has actually paid them off or not.
2.greifers who cannot pay to repair their only mech and cannot refill their ammo will be half repaired and given half base ammo.
3.you cannot sell your last mech (unless it is the same transaction of buying another mech.. if this is how buying and selling works)

Dlardrageth, on 19 March 2012 - 11:02 AM, said:

Personally for me it's rather straightforward. I could care less about someone teamkilling right and left, being an **** or whatever, as long as I need not play with him. Just like in real life. Be an obnoxious nuisance and my door will be closed, find someone else you practice your antics on. A simple option to blacklist people so you don't get ever teamed up with them in the future would do fine. Thus all you would have to endure will be one single match with them.

You could stack a reporting feature on top of that as well. That way, people making TK'ing their personal "playstyle" would find themselves very soon in the position where they have a hard time finding anyone to play with. Without the necessity for too much administrative hassle. And they wouldn't even be able to complain about it, as you can hardly force other players to cope with someone who they don't want to associate with.

that one game with a griefer IS FORING SOMEONE TO PLAY WITH A GRIEFER!
you contradict yourself in the same post

Edited by mockingfox, 19 March 2012 - 11:57 AM.