Friendly Fire

I am putting this forward as a debate, to dicuss whether 'friendly fire' should implemented for all weapons, left as it is, or removed entirely. Or perhaps just changed a bit

Here are a few pros and cons about certain degrees of friendly fire:

Total Friendly Fire:

Pros
Battles with more than 2 units would be more tactical.

The game would be more realisic, if that counts for anything.

Laser would be more useful - bouncing off the wall would be more useful.

Minigun, as a mid range weapon with low need for accurancy, would be harder to use, as the spray aoe would easily hit allies.

Cons
Team killing, both intentional and unintentional, would increase - possibly making the game very frustrating (mainly at lower level play)

Current:

Pros
Grenades + c4 which are additional, strong items effect allies, but most guns don't. (they are balanced to effect allies)

Shrapnel gun, which can hit most places (behind cover) affects allies.

Cons
Perhaps shrapnel gun should not be the only weapon with friendly fire - other guns have larger aoes, can kill faster, and/or have longer ranges.

Makes battles in which one team outnumbers the other.. predictable.

No Friendly Fire:

Pros
You can't intentionally teamkill (applies mainly to lower level play - public games)

Cons
Would make c4/grenades imbalanced in their current state - would need a rework.

Can reduce tactics, as you are free just to spam everything you have at the enemy.



I would personally opt for total friendly fire, for the reasons above.

Yep I too would love the ability to choose friendly fire (trigger wise its actually a very simple thing to edit in-game) since you could totally own 6-1 since your enemies could accidently hit eachother when trying to hit you.

Friendly Fire would be cool if implemented as a chooseable mode by the host or by vote in the beginning of the game.

Perhaps for later version it will be discussable, not for this one.

The intentional teamkilling is fixed next version (using a debt system).

Sounds exciting! Any idea on the date of the release?

Infrane, why not add friendly fire to this version? It could simply be a button in the beginning when you choose arena (like the "next arena" button, there could be a "Friend Fire: On / Off" button that you can press to activate / deactive friendly fire). Simple and doesn't change the gameplay for noobs since you actually have to press the button.

The only downside is that it would be a problem playing with friendly fire on in public, since noobs and teamkillers would kill eachother.

Yeah, me for an example, I love team killing people just to piss them off and go emo on me.

Note to self: never play ET with ragingspeedhorn.

I don't think full ff such a good idea, though. First of all, there would be the occasional public game where the host would for some reason enable friendly fire that would have a high probability of being ruined by teamkillers. Second, I think it would change the game too much. FF on and FF off would be two entirely different games, assuming that serious players like those in clans played with ff on, it would be difficult for good pub players to join the clans because they would have to re-learn to play the game. Also, there's the problem of balancing weapons for both game types.

Anitarf we already played together many times :P

Agreed, that some hosts may see the option "friendly fire on" and press it without thinking how much it will ruin the game. Although chat commands are not a very good method of selection, putting in a command for ff would at least mean you could only turn it on if you knew it was there; so good players could use it without ruining lower level games. This is not perfect, but could be a short term solution.

I don't think "not shooting allies" is too hard a concept to understand - especially as in most shooters there is friendly fire present. Even in non-clan games, as long as everyone is focused, friendly fire could be used. Increasing the number of "game modes" increases the possibilities availiable to players, and although there is more to learn, there is also more to enjoy!

some problems:
- The dept system would not stop people tk'ing, as you have your gun not matter what. (but you can still use shrapnel gun now)
- In clan games, you could easily kill your 5 hp ally - which is arguably better than him using health pots.

I either think shrapnel gun should not hurt allies, and be rebalanced accordingly, or all guns should hurt allies, preferably the later.


On a similar note, will there ever be game modes other than CTF implemented; even simple ones like a deathmatch. Because game modes would face similar issue to this, it may be a good time to bring them up. (as a concept, not for implementation.)

I didn't know shrapnal hurt allies!!!

Oh well, I think that is probably fine, I have always thought it was a balanced gun, even in 1.2. I wouldn't argue it either way.

it hurts allies, but it cannot hit allies, if that makes any sense. the shrap goes trough you, but the explosion hurts you.
Thats just the way the system was designed. Could be fixed, but didnt really bother.

An easy way to stop TKing, is to make all the damage an ally would take, to be deducted from the TKer's hp. Although I don't know how this would work with an suicidal C4er, but it would stop grenade tking and shaperal tking.

I'm thinking Friendly Fire shouldn't be implemented, Smart hosts wouldn't turn it on, and TKing would become a drag and happen all the time.

Assault for Example, I always use laser there, I would become a Killing and TKing machine.
While I'm on the thought, on the BIG end game board, you should add the total amount of TKs and the total amount of Damage you have done to enemy units. Its fun to brag bout' that stuff )

It would be cool as an option to choose at the start. Pub hosts wouldn't turn it on. But in more advanced games & inhouses they could activate it, as it would greatly increase the depth of strategy. I say its a good idea, but only as an optional thing to choose at the start.