Friendly Fire: A Discussion

Gidorick · September 2015

First and foremost, this is not a "should we or shouldn't we" thread. Please do not post simple "No" or "Yes" responses. This thread is to discuss the difficulties with friendly fire and the possible solutions, if there are any.

I tried having this discussion over on the "Friendly fire yes or no?" thread but the discussion just got buried.

The problem with friendly fire is simple to see: players would use it to grief their own alliance.

The quick response answer to this is to put controls and disincentives in place to dissuade players from killing their own alliance. Some possible ideas could be:

Respawn Timers that increase the more friendlies you kill
AP loss when friendlies are killed
Reflected damage from friendlies being killed

All of these could be systematically used against a faction by a BannerSpy (like a TurnCoat

) to hurt their own faction and help an opposing faction. Any disincentive I can think of has this negative effect. Players can use it to grief their faction.

Could there be a way to track this sort of behavior without unintentionally flagging players who are just getting killed a lot by their friends by accident. Lets say this behavior is tracked with some sort of friendly damaged received/enemy damage received ratio and if a player achieves a certain ratio (killed a LOT more by friendlies... so they must be griefing) certain action is taken. How do you prevent players who are legitimately and accidentally getting killed more by their friends from being flagged as a BannerSpy?

Do we show players what friendlies they kill and who killed them and give players the option to flag another player as a BannerSpy? How do you prevent a group of BannerSpies from systematically flagging their own faction as BannerSpies to "remove" them from the fight.

It seems like every single method of control could be used as an effective griefing tool. These are the difficulties with these controls. What are the solutions? What are your ideas?

Makkir · September 2015

Fire is never friendly.

Rayste · September 2015

It is not even worth a consideration. Friendly fire would overcomplicate things and would promote griefing.

AhPook_Is_Here · September 2015

I don't have any interest in this, but a FFA server where our characters are all remolded as pastel colored UNICORNS and fight to the DEATH sounds very interesting to me.

The fact is that this is never going to happen, so you may as well talk about the threat the people on the MOON pose to the USA and why we need better space-weapons to deal with them.

If you want to have a serious discussion about FF in this game, Chivalry already did it right, and you can just say emulate that and be done with it. There really isn't much else to discuss, you'd be better off just making an ESO mod for Chivalry.

LiquidZ · September 2015

Sounds awesome to me. I would love a game with full PVP.

LordSemaj · September 2015

PlanetSide 2 already has friendly fire with punishments. Let's see... yep, people still run over the allies or murder some guy who disagrees with them in chat.

Even if you assume the penalties are real (but never harsh or casuals will complain), you might be able to get away with one intentional teamkill per hour. Multiplied by the thousands who play PVP, you're looking at thousands of intentional deaths per day because when given the power to do something mean anonymously, the internet and THESE FORUMS prove that people WILL.

Fairly soon it becomes commonplace for DC to roll EP and AD alts for justified Revenge for the years of being the underdog and getting shafted by ZOS repeatedly.

nimander99 · September 2015

No

nimander99 · September 2015

Heh heh, couldn't help it

I think maybe having a trial of this in certain campaigns would be... interesting. Why not have wildly diverse rule set governing separate campaigns?

Gidorick · September 2015

nimander99 wrote: »

Heh heh, couldn't help it I think maybe having a trial of this in certain campaigns would be... interesting. Why not have wildly diverse rule set governing separate campaigns?

LOL. You totally got me with the previous post! I was like " @nimander99 WHY?!?!"

You get an awesome for that mate.

I think that a campaign with friendly fire "ON" would HAVE to be the way this gets started. ZOS would have to try it before implementing it for the full game.

As for the idea of Campaigns with varying rules as a regular thing... That might be kind of cool.

Gidorick · September 2015

I thought of one mechanic that could be used to identify BannerSpies.

What if when you kill a friendly you are given the choice of resurrection, regardless of distance from that player.

Kill a friendly

"You killed Kalin Gentry, resurrect?"
- Yes (Use Soul Gem )
- No

If you are killed by a friendly and they choose not to resurrect you, you are informed that the person that killed you was a friendly. When this happens you are given the option to flag that player as a BannerSpy... enough flags and there would be consequences.

To prevent players from running out of soul gems, when a player chooses "Yes" and they have no soul gems they could be offered a single soul gem that can be bought with AP. The ONLY time this ever happens is when resurrecting from friendly fire. This resurrection would bring the player back to life at full power.

This mechanic would deter greifing simply because a player who griefs but doesn't want to be flagged as a BannerSpy would resurrect their friendly and then their friendly would be back in battle in under 10 seconds at full power. Kind of counter productive for griefing, don't you think?

To prevent THIS from being exploited by factions (killing and rezzing teammates as a form of healing) the person who kills should have the normal consequences of killing friendlies, regardless of their resurrection choice.

Gidorick · September 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

I thought of one mechanic that could be used to identify BannerSpies.

What if when you kill a friendly you are given the choice of resurrection, regardless of distance from that player.

Kill a friendly
"You killed Kalin Gentry, resurrect?"
Yes (Use Soul Gem )

No

If you are killed by a friendly and they choose not to resurrect you, you are informed that the person that killed you was a friendly. When this happens you are given the option to flag that player as a BannerSpy... enough flags and there would be consequences.

To prevent players from running out of soul gems, when a player chooses "Yes" and they have no soul gems they could be offered a single soul gem that can be bought with AP. The ONLY time this ever happens is when resurrecting from friendly fire. This resurrection would bring the player back to life at full power.

This mechanic would deter greifing simply because a player who griefs but doesn't want to be flagged as a BannerSpy would resurrect their friendly and then their friendly would be back in battle in under 10 seconds at full power. Kind of counter productive for griefing, don't you think?

To prevent THIS from being exploited by factions (killing and rezzing teammates as a form of healing) the person who kills should have the normal consequences of killing friendlies, regardless of their resurrection choice.

Ok.. continued this thought. What if a player tries to grief their faction by getting killed and rezzed a bunch of times to consume AP. That would certainly be a problem. Simple! If a player is killed by friendlies X number of times within X minutes the player who killed them is given this option

Kill a friendly

"You killed Kalin Gentry, resurrect?"
- Yes (Use Soul Gem )
- No

Once you select YES and they are resurrected the player is given the following:

"Kalin Gentry has died from friendly fire 4 times in the past 10 minutes, flag as a BannerSpy?"

Yes (Use Soul Gem )
No

And then the flagging system comes into play. The control systems would have to be layered and multifaceted, protecting the killers and the killed but also punishing both as well.

Ffastyl · September 2015

Another good suggestion from @Gidorick !

But this still leaves the question of "What are the normal penalties for friendly fire kills?"
To take an example from popular FPSs, in hardcore modes where friendly fire is possible, a team kill results in -1 kills in the roster, even down into negative numbers. Excessive teamkilling (3 kills in a minute) results in the offender automatically dying. This last rule is server dependent and can be tweaked.

In ESO AP and Tel Var Stones are awarded on kill. Therefore the logical equivalent is to subtract AP from the offender's account and to award no Tel Var Stones. As this may or may not become a method of bloodporting, a 5% loss penalty should be applied to friendly fire deaths. Yes, to both the victim and offender (for a total of 10% loss).

Allowing players' AP and Tel Var accounts to dip into the negatives as a result of friendly fire is another debate.

Gidorick · September 2015

Well, @Ffastyl. I am actually working on a concept for friendly fire (FF) and I ran into these design questions and was hoping the community could help smooth out some of the issues. I really like your idea of deducting Telvar and AP from both the killer and the killed. I may steal that

The thing that people need to get past is that if FF were implemented it would change PVP. Current PVP tactics wouldn't work anymore. Players would have to be more careful, zergs would be less effective (but could still be used), and BannerSpies would be an added gameplay mechanic and not just an annoyance. This doesn't mean PVP would have to be redesigned but players would have to learn new tactics.

Ultimately my concept would open FF worldwide which would, you guessed it, make open world PVP possible. There's a lot that would go into this but I'm not going to go into it in this thread. If enough of the issues seem reasonably resolved I'll post a new thread with the full concept.

Anhedonie · September 2015

AOE abilities will *** up things. Or should I say ff combined with AOE skills will turn everything into a mess.
And there are a lot of AOE skills, so I don't see any point in discussing it any further.

Gidorick · September 2015

Anhedonie wrote: »

AOE abilities will *** up things. Or should I say ff combined with AOE skills will turn everything into a mess.
And there are a lot of AOE skills, so I don't see any point in discussing it any further.

Then player tactics would have to change. AOE abilities would have to be coordinated with members of the team. Kamikaze players would be a thing here. Running into a enemy zerg to AOE them. Knowing the range of your AOE so you don't kill your friends would be a must.

When I read posts like yours @Anhedonie I read them as people who don't like the idea of having to actually plan their attacks and think about what they are doing. PVP would have to become more deliberate and players would have to work synergistically to achieve success. Not just ball together in huge numbers to overwhelm other players. Long range would be more important. Stealth kills would be more important.

Like I said previously, this would change PVP and players would have to adapt, but it would be a more fair and even game for everyone. If you don't want to discuss these possibilities, that's cool. Don't. If you want to discuss the issues and possible solutions, please do that!

Just please don't just present problems and dismiss the concept... think creatively man!

dday3six · September 2015

In PVE, arenas are not big enough for this to work. Using the City of Ash boss fight for example, many aoes cover most, if not the whole safe zone. This is pretty much a 'no-go' for the bulk of PVE content as many encounters do not have enough room to fit enemy aoes, friendly aoes, and safe spots in managable distances to still actually complete the encounters.

With IC there is a lot more PVE and PVP cross-over, and just imagine the war of grinding spots. Just imagine being able to kill that player who set up siege in the spot you want. There is not work around for fiendly fire. The game is not set up for it.

What you are talking about would require the game to be fundimentally redesigned. It's not creative to want one game to morph into another.

Gidorick · September 2015

dday3six wrote: »

In PVE, arenas are not big enough for this to work. Using the City of Ash boss fight for example, many aoes cover most, if not the whole safe zone. This is pretty much a 'no-go' for the bulk of PVE content as many encounters do not have enough room to fit enemy aoes, friendly aoes, and safe spots in managable distances to still actually complete the encounters.

With IC there is a lot more PVE and PVP cross-over, and just imagine the war of grinding spots. Just imagine being able to kill that player who set up siege in the spot you want. There is not work around for fiendly fire. The game is not set up for it.

What you are talking about would require the game to be fundimentally redesigned. It's not creative to want one game to morph into another.

Sure... but that is what I'm asking. What would be a good deterrent to dissuade a player from doing this?

It is not the game that would need to be redesigned but player habits.

Thymos · September 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

First and foremost, this is not a "should we or shouldn't we" thread. Please do not post simple "No" or "Yes" responses. This thread is to discuss the difficulties with friendly fire and the possible solutions, if there are any.

I tried having this discussion over on the "Friendly fire yes or no?" thread but the discussion just got buried.

The problem with friendly fire is simple to see: players would use it to grief their own alliance.

The quick response answer to this is to put controls and disincentives in place to dissuade players from killing their own alliance. Some possible ideas could be:
Respawn Timers that increase the more friendlies you kill

AP loss when friendlies are killed

Reflected damage from friendlies being killed

All of these could be systematically used against a faction by a BannerSpy (like a TurnCoat ) to hurt their own faction and help an opposing faction. Any disincentive I can think of has this negative effect. Players can use it to grief their faction.

Could there be a way to track this sort of behavior without unintentionally flagging players who are just getting killed a lot by their friends by accident. Lets say this behavior is tracked with some sort of friendly damaged received/enemy damage received ratio and if a player achieves a certain ratio (killed a LOT more by friendlies... so they must be griefing) certain action is taken. How do you prevent players who are legitimately and accidentally getting killed more by their friends from being flagged as a BannerSpy?

Do we show players what friendlies they kill and who killed them and give players the option to flag another player as a BannerSpy? How do you prevent a group of BannerSpies from systematically flagging their own faction as BannerSpies to "remove" them from the fight.

It seems like every single method of control could be used as an effective griefing tool. These are the difficulties with these controls. What are the solutions? What are your ideas?

I'll just do it a lot, then hop on an alt character, do it some more, then hop on another alt character and do it some more again...

Then, I'd tap out to the next person to do it.

Gidorick · September 2015

Thymos wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

First and foremost, this is not a "should we or shouldn't we" thread. Please do not post simple "No" or "Yes" responses. This thread is to discuss the difficulties with friendly fire and the possible solutions, if there are any.

I tried having this discussion over on the "Friendly fire yes or no?" thread but the discussion just got buried.

The problem with friendly fire is simple to see: players would use it to grief their own alliance.

The quick response answer to this is to put controls and disincentives in place to dissuade players from killing their own alliance. Some possible ideas could be:
Respawn Timers that increase the more friendlies you kill

AP loss when friendlies are killed

Reflected damage from friendlies being killed

All of these could be systematically used against a faction by a BannerSpy (like a TurnCoat ) to hurt their own faction and help an opposing faction. Any disincentive I can think of has this negative effect. Players can use it to grief their faction.

Could there be a way to track this sort of behavior without unintentionally flagging players who are just getting killed a lot by their friends by accident. Lets say this behavior is tracked with some sort of friendly damaged received/enemy damage received ratio and if a player achieves a certain ratio (killed a LOT more by friendlies... so they must be griefing) certain action is taken. How do you prevent players who are legitimately and accidentally getting killed more by their friends from being flagged as a BannerSpy?

Do we show players what friendlies they kill and who killed them and give players the option to flag another player as a BannerSpy? How do you prevent a group of BannerSpies from systematically flagging their own faction as BannerSpies to "remove" them from the fight.

It seems like every single method of control could be used as an effective griefing tool. These are the difficulties with these controls. What are the solutions? What are your ideas?

I'll just do it a lot, then hop on an alt character, do it some more, then hop on another alt character and do it some more again...

Then, I'd tap out to the next person to do it.

Ok. Fair enough. So I'm asking you specifically @Thymos, what would prevent you specifically from doing this? What would be enough to dissuade you? What about getting kicked from the faction? Account ban from Cyrodiil? This is why I made this thread... to discuss these things. No matter how ridiculous it sounds, I'd genuinely like to know.

Thymos · September 2015

To be honest, I don't think there's anything that would dissuade me. So I get banned from playing in cyrodiil on the characters of the faction I really don't care about... even if it was permanent, I would've done the damage I needed to do. Just delete those characters, and move on.

Gidorick · September 2015

Thymos wrote: »

To be honest, I don't think there's anything that would dissuade me. So I get banned from playing in cyrodiil on the characters of the faction I really don't care about... even if it was permanent, I would've done the damage I needed to do. Just delete those characters, and move on.

Account ban?... none of your characters can join Cyrodiil?

1st ban = 1 day
2nd ban = 1 week
3rd ban = 1 month
4th ban = permanent

This way you couldn't play those characters you DO care about... not in Cyrodiil at least.

RizaHawkeye · September 2015

I admit disappointment.

So we have a @Gidorick thread on improving the game and not a single "looks like it was made in Illustrator" image.

That's really all I came to see.

LiquidZ wrote: »

Sounds awesome to me. I would love a game with full PVP.

And that's what friendly fire would end up as ... yeah.

Gidorick · September 2015

RizaHawkeye wrote: »

I admit disappointment.

So we have a @Gidorick thread on improving the game and not a single "looks like it was made in Illustrator" image.

That's really all I came to see.

LiquidZ wrote: »

Sounds awesome to me. I would love a game with full PVP.

And that's what friendly fire would end up as ... yeah.

lol. @RizaHawkeye. That's for the ACTUAL concept... this is just a discussion trying to iron out the details of the concept.

KhajiitiLizard · September 2015

xXx1337Tb@gsxXx betrayed YourMomsHouse
xXx1337Tb@gsxXx was booted
xRektasaurus343x left the game
xChocolateMilkx left the game
YourMomsHouse left the game
Gameover!

dday3six · September 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

In PVE, arenas are not big enough for this to work. Using the City of Ash boss fight for example, many aoes cover most, if not the whole safe zone. This is pretty much a 'no-go' for the bulk of PVE content as many encounters do not have enough room to fit enemy aoes, friendly aoes, and safe spots in managable distances to still actually complete the encounters.

With IC there is a lot more PVE and PVP cross-over, and just imagine the war of grinding spots. Just imagine being able to kill that player who set up siege in the spot you want. There is not work around for fiendly fire. The game is not set up for it.

What you are talking about would require the game to be fundimentally redesigned. It's not creative to want one game to morph into another.

Sure... but that is what I'm asking. What would be a good deterrent to dissuade a player from doing this?

It is not the game that would need to be redesigned but player habits.

Not having friendly fire is the best deterrent. If there needs to be such a complicated and creative dissuasion. Perhaps the solution is it shouldn't be implemented in the first place.

RizaHawkeye · September 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

RizaHawkeye wrote: »

I admit disappointment.

So we have a @Gidorick thread on improving the game and not a single "looks like it was made in Illustrator" image.

That's really all I came to see.

LiquidZ wrote: »

Sounds awesome to me. I would love a game with full PVP.

And that's what friendly fire would end up as ... yeah.

lol. @RizaHawkeye. That's for the ACTUAL concept... this is just a discussion trying to iron out the details of the concept.

Okay, I'll help you out.

gaming-gopher-meme-generator-friendly-fire-on-kill-teammates-937f44.jpg

Gidorick · September 2015

dday3six wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

In PVE, arenas are not big enough for this to work. Using the City of Ash boss fight for example, many aoes cover most, if not the whole safe zone. This is pretty much a 'no-go' for the bulk of PVE content as many encounters do not have enough room to fit enemy aoes, friendly aoes, and safe spots in managable distances to still actually complete the encounters.

With IC there is a lot more PVE and PVP cross-over, and just imagine the war of grinding spots. Just imagine being able to kill that player who set up siege in the spot you want. There is not work around for fiendly fire. The game is not set up for it.

What you are talking about would require the game to be fundimentally redesigned. It's not creative to want one game to morph into another.

Sure... but that is what I'm asking. What would be a good deterrent to dissuade a player from doing this?

It is not the game that would need to be redesigned but player habits.

Not having friendly fire is the best deterrent. If there needs to be such a complicated and creative dissuasion. Perhaps the solution is it shouldn't be implemented in the first place.

I hate the answer of not having features in a game because some dingleberries would abuse it. To me, not having it in the game is the ultimate grief. We can't have it because griefers = griefing win.

LordSemaj · September 2015

Friendly Fire invites players to kill their own team.

Why, you ask?

Why not? They're easier to kill than the enemy team and do you really care who dies at your hands so long as someone does?

Gidorick · September 2015

LordSemaj wrote: »

Friendly Fire invites players to kill their own team.

Why, you ask?

Why not? They're easier to kill than the enemy team and do you really care who dies at your hands so long as someone does?

@LordSemaj, because there could be repercussions of doing so. What repercussions would be sufficient? There should be zero benefit of friendly kills. Actually there should be NEGATIVE benefits of killing a friendly.

dday3six · September 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

In PVE, arenas are not big enough for this to work. Using the City of Ash boss fight for example, many aoes cover most, if not the whole safe zone. This is pretty much a 'no-go' for the bulk of PVE content as many encounters do not have enough room to fit enemy aoes, friendly aoes, and safe spots in managable distances to still actually complete the encounters.

With IC there is a lot more PVE and PVP cross-over, and just imagine the war of grinding spots. Just imagine being able to kill that player who set up siege in the spot you want. There is not work around for fiendly fire. The game is not set up for it.

What you are talking about would require the game to be fundimentally redesigned. It's not creative to want one game to morph into another.

Sure... but that is what I'm asking. What would be a good deterrent to dissuade a player from doing this?

It is not the game that would need to be redesigned but player habits.

Not having friendly fire is the best deterrent. If there needs to be such a complicated and creative dissuasion. Perhaps the solution is it shouldn't be implemented in the first place.

I hate the answer of not having features in a game because some dingleberries would abuse it. To me, not having it in the game is the ultimate grief. We can't have it because griefers = griefing win.

So what would this actually do to improve the game? It needs to have heavily regulation to stop it from being abused. It certainly comes off as being more trouble than it's worth.

LordSemaj · September 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

LordSemaj wrote: »

Friendly Fire invites players to kill their own team.

Why, you ask?

Why not? They're easier to kill than the enemy team and do you really care who dies at your hands so long as someone does?

@LordSemaj, because there could be repercussions of doing so. What repercussions would be sufficient?

None that wouldn't penalize the innocent albeit careless use of extreme force in the vicinity of one's own allies.

There's good reason that games like PlanetSide 2 that have friendly fire don't result in account bans. Even if you use an ascending offense system, some people are simply THAT BAD at video games. If the counts were permanent, people would fear the black mark on their account and eventual doom. If they were temporary, like say a month long, griefers and casuals would be safe through the use of multiple seldom used accounts while the most hardcore 24-7 no-lifers would be penalized for risking teamkills more often in the same span of time.

Too harsh of a penalty and half your playerbase is too afraid to attempt anything even remotely reckless.
Too lenient of a penalty and half your playerbase is using the timers as their Teamkill Allowance each day.
Either way, the griefers and hackers win because getting banned has never been an obstacle for them.

In short, you're only effectively punishing the innocents. I can think of no reasonable method that doesn't do so while still applying a firm enough hand to dissuade random acts of violence.