Thoughts About Friendly Fire On / Off

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Nighda Venesis, Apr 5, 2021.

  1. Nighda Venesis

    For context, the following is based on my many years of gameplay with friendly fire on, and my two play sessions on the first and last days while it was off, wherein I played for a few hours each, on Cobalt.

    Despite how annoying it always is to get dinked in the back of the head by a friendly on accident either due to incompetence, ping, or some measure of both, or have the occasional intentional team killing bad apple, I have always enjoyed the fact that friendly fire exists in this game; it's immersive, deepens the gameplay somewhat, especially around point holding objectives and choke corridors, and gives you the freedom (no NC intended (ok maybe a little)), to teamkill said bad apples, who probably would've just teamkilled with indirect damage instead.

    Now, with this experiment, I found that while it's nice not having to worry about being shot in the back of the head by accident or intentionally, it also makes the game feel much more cheesy, especially since you can just walk through anyone; you can run in front of your friendlies for a bit, blocking their fire, shoot for a bit, and then run back behind them, using them as meatshields after you may well have thrown off their aim and focus by the whole act, for instance. Overall for infantry battle flow I did perceive a much lesser amount of paranoia both in myself and in other players, since the threat of their friends was significantly reduced, and this likely also contributed to how battles seemed to flow much more in the sense that it was like two floods crashing into each other rather than tactical point holding (it wasn't completely so, but that was the direction in which it had shifted). I think it's possible that this could worsen overpopping a fight since you don't really have to worry about shooting your friends, which are everywhere, compared to enemies of lesser number, though I haven't been going out of my way to go to overpopped fights to see the difference as I normally don't play that way anyway since it's boring for me.

    My KD roughly doubled for the two sessions I had played, partly because of getting teamkilled less, also because of how much easier it is to use your friends as a meatshield as described above, and maybe how it seemed like people weren't as afraid to push. With friendly fire on I often find myself waiting my turn by a doorway or something equivalent, basically waiting for whoever's there to stop shooting and shift away to cover for someone else to take their spot. This also ties in to how I think it's an act of respect to not walk in front of someone who's claimed a position and is ready for or in an engagement, which is much less supported by the game itself when there's no friendly fire.

    Personally, I don't think something as fundamental as friendly fire should be turned off as a new baseline for the game with the sole reason in mind as to make the game easier for new players to learn, since that would take away a piece of how many people came to like this game for what it is: a continental scale sandbox warfare simulator. Removing friendly fire would be a restriction the game doesn't need, and it stays truer to itself with it on rather than off.

    I of course also saw the meme about NC being op without friendly fire, winning alert after alert, and though I did doubt it at first, when I logged in on my second session, all two closed continents were owned by NC, though VS did win the alert I was there for, so I again wasn't so sure. So, I don't have much to comment on this other than that the memes are funny. This is something for alert stats and context specialists to really determine.

    All of this being said, I do think it was a fun idea to have this experiment during April fool's day and a few days afterwards, and I would like to see it return next year (or maybe something else that's wacky, maybe both), since it does add some gameplay variety and gives a unique flavor to the event.

    I think I've said all I need to
    Thank you for reading and considering, see you on Auraxis
  2. JibbaJabba

    NSO hitreg being flakey and not counting against some..

    NC maxes walking down a stair just wailing on everyone, not worried about FF..

    Putting mines under a bus, not being able to blow them up..

    dumb a 5s just left and right blocking up fire lanes or stepping directly into your body when you're already firing..

    It's a great big super duper cluster !#$ and it's going to be a mess on the server when they flip FF back on. It was a mediocre "joke" idea for april fools as it is. But RPG executed it without proper testing or foresight which is just how they run everything. So in reality it's a big **** show.

    It was a bad idea and poorly executed. Thanks for 4 days of bugs, jerks.
    • Up x 1
  3. ZDarkShadowsZ

    It's pretty obvious to me this was more of an experiment under the guise of an April Fool's joke. People have wanted FF off time after time claiming it'd make the game better. This was an excellent opportunity for the development team to try and see how it went without stuffing it on PTS and going through 1-2 weeks of barely anybody taking part.

    It went about as well as expected.

    People would run in front of me while I'm in the midst of gunning down an enemy. Soak up a ton of my bullets, only to end up getting killed by said enemy because the bullets meant for them got eaten by a friendly passer by.

    The one and only time it was useful to me was when a friendly had a certain camo on and it was at night. I shotgunned them full force in the face because I didn't see their dorito. Obviously no TK.

    That one moment doesn't nearly outweigh the downsides of that event. Now we have to pick up the pieces for a few days. Players forgetting FF is back on and ending up getting gunned down. New players thinking that a lack of FF was the norm and not understanding why they were able to kill a friendly.

    I hope FF stays on.
    • Up x 2
  4. Twin Suns

    Unique flavor? With FF off??? Bullshevik!!!!!

    I sure as he// don't consider having FF off as "unique". Especially if 90% of the FPS market is flooded with those "no risk/all reward" bubblegum FF off shooters.
    • Up x 1
  5. TR5L4Y3R

    yes to FF turned off for proctile weapons, no to FF turned off for any splashweapon like C4 or rocketaunchertypeweapons .. mines still should be destroyable to set them off ..
  6. Nighda Venesis


    What I mean to say is that past April Fool's events have always seemed just sort of thrown in there for the sake of being there without anything too interesting, which made it hard to even call an event, and this at least gave it something that makes it stand out from the other yearly events like Halloween and Valentine's. It doesn't necessarily have to be friendly fire that gets changed for the event, but something to make April Fool's stand out is welcome in my books.
    I see your point about it not being unique since plenty of other games have it off by default, which is definitely valid. I was just talking within the confines of this game in and of itself. I don't really play other shooters these days anyway, so it didn't really occur to me like that, and for me it was interesting to see how things changed as a result.

    I don't think we have to worry about it becoming the new norm for PS2. I think that would be quite a big mistake.
    • Up x 1
  7. Twin Suns

    Why do the skill checks have to be the April fools target.

    Why not try something else that doesn't have anything to do with the skill checks? I know the community can come up with some creative ideas, but somehow these DEVS can't.
  8. AlcyoneSerene

    1. It's not "unique" in any way shape or form.
    2. It's not part of the game, and does not belong in this game.
    3. April fools is 1 day and does not count as an excuse. It's not funny, or fun.
    4. There is nothing to "experiment" with, see #2
    5. Go play something else as your own personal "April fools experiments" which very likely has no FF and leave PS2 out of this.
  9. RabidIBM

    I'm inclined to agree that this was a test under the guise of a joke. This game is not meant for no FF. I hope they never do it again.

    As a builder main, it sucked to have my buildings blocked by caltrops and ammo packs that I couldn't clear.
    • Up x 4
  10. JustGotSuspended


    What I fear is you might actually be right.
  11. Somentine

    It was nice not being chipped down by FF, having your shield recharge interrupted, or being killed by some 300 ivi 'friendly', but the game was built with FF in mind and it should stay on.

    Was a fun event imo, but only because most people weren't abusing/exploiting it and because it was a very limited time.
    • Up x 3
  12. JustGotSuspended

    it's true, not having to worry about getting locked by a friendly that decides the best spot for him to be is in front of your gun. Not to mention stalkers infiltrating groups to knife them would get wrecked.

    Downside is that those friendlies would now be able to shield my enemies indefinitely, whereas before I could just mow down friendly and enemy until lock.
  13. Nighda Venesis


    I recall watching an interview questioning Wrel at some point, might've been the one Deeg did, wherein Wrel said they wanted to experiment with friendly fire, so I'm quite certain that's what this was. I was wondering for a while when they were gonna do it, until I heard about this event.

    Sorry to hear construction sucked like that. I'm always grateful to be part of a new fight at a player base.
    • Up x 1
  14. Demigan

    We should increase the punishment for FF rather than remove it. An empathy system where the one doing it receives some damage as well.

    Although to reduce the problems with players jumping in front of you there needs to be a reverse FF system as well: if you repeatedly receive FF from a variety of players (that had an enemy on their screen to prevent griefing), then that player will receive penalties. For example he'll no longer accrue grief points if allies hit them and players who hit them will be notified they didnt receive griefpoints (lets say we add a blue FF hitmarker or something).
  15. JustGotSuspended

    I mean most of the time people revenge tk. I'm not against your system, however it relies on a really intricate balance I am confident the devs cannot deliver. But yeah in any case the grief point system needs a rework.
  16. TaliAndromeda

    And that, during packed shooutouts (in halls, around a door, ...) makes not hitting accidentally an ally when firing totally impossible. There will always be allies going through you, moving in front of you, running or jumping just in front of doors, just as you start firing or even if you are firing non-stop, at enemies. No matter if you're zooming or not, human's reaction time is 0,25 seconds. You can't release the firing button instantly whenether your line of fire is blocked, and you can't keep looking or staring at the minimap around you to make sure noone is about to take your bullets. Now that would be fine, were it not for the fact too many players have no sense of surrounding awareness... and keep running into friendly fire without a care, causing weapons locks.