[Suggestion] A REAL Solution To Friendly Fire

Friendly Fire has become a massive issue as of late, players hopping factions to destroy key objectives, people mowing down entire friendly squads, and of course those who do it just to get an easy revenge. I've devised a system that does not affect the honest players, the cautious players, or the multi-faction players. Locking out of a faction will NEVER work, it only makes people less interested in logging in, and increasing how easy it is to earn grief points affect those who damage friendlies accidentally... so, I present to you the Suspicion Status!

Suspicion Status is given to ALL characters upon login; this Suspicion Status lasts for 30 minutes and it's effect is simple: Players start with a higher base grief point count. Making it far easier for players logging in to get weapon's locked, if shooting allies you will be locked before most weapons can even kill the target. IF a player kills an ally during their Suspicion Status, the status itself is extended by X amount of minutes, meaning for a longer period of time they will be weapon's locked sooner. It is only extended upon kills, not friendly fire damage... meaning accidentally damaging friendlies will have a negative impact on you but not severely punish you unless you are being reckless.

How does this help the game? Faction hoppers will be locked far sooner for doing disruptive actions to their "team", but the cautious and legitimate players will be unaffected if they already do not engage in friendly fire activities. It also makes players more careful as to avoid being weapon's locked immediately or extending their Suspicion Status. It's not 100% foolproof of course, but only the most dedicated team killers will likely wait out the 30 minute period.

You can check your remaining time with the Suspicion Status via the TAB menu, it will clearly state how long the effect lasts on you, which will increase upon team kills. When Suspicion Status ends, the system reverts to the current method of friendly fire deterrence as to make longer gaming sessions less annoying, since if you're playing over 30 minutes with minimal friendly fire incidents, you're likely an honest player and should not be so heavily punished for accidents.

Will this system work, or does it need some tweaks? I feel one complaint would be the duration, some of you might be opposed to a 30 minute Suspicion Status... if so it could be lowered to 15 minutes, I feel that is still long enough to deter faction hoppers. Regardless, let me know what you think... will it fix the friendly fire problem, will it dampen it... or maybe it will increase it? Thank you for reading, and have a nice day.

I know devs have all but abandoned forumside but I hope one of them sees this thread. By far the best suggestion of how to deal with faction switching team killers I've read both here and reddit.

But a more important question, what about blowing up sundies. I had to kill a guy multiple times to keep up the flow of battle, since he kept sticking c4. Maby a system where c4 cannot be detonated within 2 meters of a DEPLOYED sunderer. That way, a teamkiller looking to blow up a sunderer, would onky wast nanites instead of stopping a battle.

*throws a grenade in a crowded spawnroom*

Might want to rephrase that, saying it cannot detonate within a range of a deployed sunderer makes it seem like a nerf to C4 all around. But, unfortunately there is no good way to prevent explosives from being set off... a Sunderer could emit some sort of field where friendly C4 cannot detonate, but then players would just use Tank Mines. I personally feel that Tank Mines should not take friendly fire damage at all, to remove their abusive nature entirely.

And then you're locked for roughly a full week of playtime, not a wise choice. There will never be a good way to stop explosive friendly fire.

Yeah, i meant friendly c4. Theres barely any reason for a c4 to be detonated that close. Anyway, i like the tank mine method. Much more reliable than trying to stick c4 to a sunderer as an engineer. Plus, sticky grenade acts as a fuse. Yeah i know its a cheap alternative, but it works wonders.

I primarily use C4 with my Engineer coupled with the Demolition Pouch, it's really not hard at all to use it to destroy targets. The issue is that Tank Mines have three advantages... 1) They can be thrown faster. 2) They deal more damage. 3) You can carry five of them.

The reason I want them changed is because yes... they do take out stationary targets easily, but no this isn't their intended role. That is what we are given C4 to do. Tank Mines are meant to destroy moving vehicles and MAX suits. C4 is best used for stationary vehicles... it's the versatile option however, and because of that people argue Tank Mines should be versatile as well. I main Engineer and have for 4 years, we don't need that versatility that Tank Mines offer currently... make them restrictive to their purpose.

Not going to lie to you.. I saw you referencing this thread in a post in another thread and was like "Oh RLY.. you have a solution to this?" And I proceeded here to post my usual mantra about how such solutions never would work.

But you surprised me. This isn't a half bad idea at all. And does NOTHING to hurt Legit, Good players. This is an outside the box thinking and I've got to give you props for that.

With that out of the way..

You asked for tweaks, and durations and times are what I'd work on.

First thing, I'd have this be invisible. TKers don't need to know when they'll be weaponlocked until it happens. Second I'd be ambiguous about the time. This isn't information that the normal player would need to know. Just know that if you TK you get weaponlocked. Just like we do now. The difference is, if you've just logged in, it can happen quicker than normal.


As for accidental weapon locks and those skeptical about this one's suggestion... I think this system would help combat incidental TK's too. I dunno about you all but I've only been weaponlocked twice in 4 years. Once was because I was a noob in 2012 and found a HE Tank abandoned. Was a bit reckless with the 4 or 6 meter splash they had back then. The second time was on purpose to prevent a TKer from ganking my squad's Gal.

I've only had a final warning like twice that wasn't one of the two times above. The aggravated warning (medium) maybe about a dozen times, usually from sticky grenade shenanigans.

I'm not the best shot in the world, nor do I ID friend from foe very quickly and shoot first and ask questions later.. so if you're getting more grief points than I do.. you need to work on that.

Thank you for the support. But I'll clear something up here, the status wouldn't show you how long you are weapon's locked... it shows you how long you have the Suspicion Status for, this is the effect that makes it easier for you to gain a lock, it lasts 30 minutes upon login but is extended when you team kill. The effect itself makes it so maybe 1 or 2 instances where you damage a friendly will instantly lock you... no slew of warnings or possibility to kill entire squads. Once you lose the Suspicion Status you don't get it again until you log back in, but that's a long ways off so not many players will show the dedication to wait 30 minutes before team killing everyone they see.

Personally, I've never been weapon's locked in this game, I don't see how people do it so often. If I accidentally kill someone I make sure to back off and stop hurting people, when someone walks in front and I damage them, I stop shooting... not going to kill my team mate even though they decided they want my kill. Only times I intentionally kill my team is either A) Playing with a friend and we're goofing around, or B) I'm stopping an actual team killer.

Nothing can be done as long someone can use 2 computers and play 2 sides at the same time

Not true, because with this solution it doesn't matter who is logging in... every single character, upon login, gets this effect. If you're a good player that doesn't team kill and is cautious enough not to damage your allies, this doesn't affect you. If you're a bad player swapping factions to team kill or exercising poor trigger discipline then you will be punished almost immediately under this effect. As to not make it annoying for longer sessions, the effect only lasts for 30 minutes, unless you kill an ally... in which case the duration of the effect increases.

However if you lose the status in your session it is impossible to gain it again until you log back in. Though maybe that could change? If a player is excessively killing team mates the effect could return, and have a devastating punishment this time. Either way, I doubt most players would wait 30+ minutes before they enact revenge on a player and/or go on a massive killing spree.

That is actually quite ingenuous, well done on coming up with such an idea! Hope it gets implemented one day

i admit, it's the best solution i have seen to stop team killers and it will stop most of them
only some of them will stop for nothing
they will take there time or just make more throwaway accounts
as soon one gets locked, open a new account
but he, i am all for you're idea, let the dev's implement it
every little bit helps

You were clear the first time. I'm just saying this little 'debuff' doesn't need to be shown or measured in a form visible to the player. They should know it exists. But not the when and where. Players should just know they will get weaponlocked quicker the moment they login and do something stupid. And then over the time of their session, the restriction lessens.

For the average player they wouldn't be affected. They don't need to change their playstyle. So why would they need to know when the suspicion wears off? This info is only useful for those this system is targeting.

Great idea and I hope it takes.

As for friendly vehicles being destoyed by C4, I dont understand why this cant be coded out. I understand why there needs to be friendly small arm, rocket, and grenade fire, but there is no need for the mechanic in relation to vehicles and mines. You dont blow up running over friendly mine, so why do you blow up to friendly C4? As a former Programmer this is easy enough to code. Simply takes a default check: -check / is c4 from same faction as vehicle / if yes do not detonate / if no detonate....

That is fair enough, though in reality most players will know the status lasts for 30 minutes, it's very easy to tell when it wears off. More-or-less, showing it would help newbie players better understand why they are being locked so quickly.

I feel as though this would be a little harder to fix than you believe... there are no restrictions on how and when you can detonate C4 and therefore they'd have to go through the process of adding it. I think Sunderer's should simply get a Deployment code where friendly C4 and Tank Mines cannot be detonated near the vehicle. I wouldn't know the first thing to prevent this but it must be possible somehow. The problem is, that would only work for the trigger mechanism... both explosives could still be shot and destroyed intentionally. I think a solution to that would be: Make C4 disappear if shot, it is C4... and should not explode if not given the correct electrical signal. And Tank Mines should not receive any Friendly Fire damage, anywhere... this reduces their overall abuse as a side effect.

someone should link this to the devs on reddit so they actually read it

Potential solutions -
Progressive weapons Locking.
For each weapon's lock you manage - you're given a debuff Reduces FF damage you do, but also the XP you gain.
each 'strike' against you the larger your debuff reduction - until eventually you do no damage to friendlies - but also gain next to no XP. The debuff would decay over time (say 15-30 days per active strike) but the rate at which it decays Triples while the player character is active.

Mirror Mirror.
After logging in, for the first 30-45 Minutes of play - All FF Damage is mirrored. As in the damage you deal to them is instead dealt to you. So jumping sides to kill a sniper only ends up killing the guy that hopped sides.