Weapons Lock is Awful

Given the chaotic nature of battles, especially in close range Bio Labs, and given the fact you can run through friendlies (no collisions) weapons lock is hilariously restrictive and makes it impossible to play for more than a few hours at times.

Planetside used the grief system, which had many advatages over the system used in Planetside

• Grief system gave the player some idea of their current % of grief, not just vague messages at random times
• Grief system gave the player a visual response of 'how much' you were getting disciplined for each friendly fire action
• Grief system had an exponential increase, if you just hit friendlies multiple times indoors you got very little grief (3-4 points) and that cooled down quickly. As long as I didn't use a thumper I could easily keep grief <100 in a large battle and PS1 battles were FAR more chaotic.

Planetside 2 system has many downfalls and makes the game unplayable in certain situations

• Planetside 2 system DOES NOT give the player any idea of their grief status beyond vague messages, you never have any idea of how much grief you have or how much grief you are getting.
• Planetside 2 HAS NO visual response as to how much you are getting disciplined for your friendly fire. I've been on the final warning for just hitting friendlies with a couple of bullets multiple times. Other times it's taken 6-7 splatters with an MBT. The system feels schizophrenic at best
• Planetside 2 allows friendlies to run through other friendlies, when firing its entirely possible for a friendly to run through you (And they do) thus causing all your bullets to instantly go into them, generally killing them.
• Planetside 1 gave you a message telling you how long weapons lock would last for, in Planetside 2 you have no bleeding idea how long you are completely and utterly useless for, sometimes its a few minutes sometimes its 15-30.
• The lock system stops you healing (but not repairing for some reason), dropping ammo and doing other useful things. It shouldn't.

Among other reasons I've gotten weapons lock for a ATV running into the back of my prowler and exploding, perhaps putting 20-30 bullets into friendlies in a base (yet never killing one) and various other things. Basically, the grief system needs a lot of work, as it is and with the current mechanics ingame its overly restrictive.

The fact it can activate without a single team kill is ridiculous

I've never been weapon locked, you must be doing something wrong.

Be careful and aware of your surroundings.

I am usually annoyed by the people who just want to destroy Weapon Lock because they get screwed by it, but this is actually pretty well thought out.

I like the idea of being informed more about how close you are to being locked out, and I really would like it if people couldn't run through you, especially when firing. Someone implement this.

I would pay people to have these concepts ingame

Am I the only one who has never once ever in the entire time I've played this even since beta ever been weapon locked?

I've never been weapon locked.

46 hours in a tank and I've been locked 3x

A few of my friends and I started killing one another over the course of around 5-10 minutes one day and not a single one of us were weapon locked. No you are not the only one and this "problem" is likely caused because people don't like holding their fire when friendlies are in their line of fire.

When a room is insanely crowded and you have too many friendlies in the area either go somewhere else, or trust those friendlies in front to do their job. If you get your final warning it doesn't take long of not firing on allies to drop down a couple levels.

I do agree however that squadmates as well as your own equipment (such as your MANA turret or vehicles) should not count towards FF penalties.

I have never been weapon-locked, I never got weapon-locked while I was in Beta either, so I will admit I am of the opinion that if you are getting weapon-locked that you might be doing something less than well. No offence meant, I am hardly a good player I barely scrape by as average, so believe me I am the last person to criticize.

However I still think those three points you raise, that I have quoted above, are very valid observations and I think the problems at the root of them need to be rectified. The need to give some tangible idea of how long/how many more friendly fires till weapon lock is activated, and not just some vague message, is a very good suggestion. Also the friendly fire that results because of the fact that someone stands in your character model I think needs to be looked into immediately, because it is ridiculously frustrating.

I hope I haven't offended, this is all just my two cents (and I am usually wrong ).

A big reason why I get locked because people touch the sides of the tank I'm in and take damage from it (which gives me no warning but silent "grief points" and leaves me totally oblivious that they are even taking damage from being there). The only time I even know somebody somewhere around the tank needs to back off is when one of the vague 3-stage messages appear.

I've blown up, knifed and shot fellow outfit members, both accidental and on purpose. No weapons lock.

Nope - in fact I suspect it's the vast majority of us that's not been weapon locked.

Never been locked in Live, but i got many final warnings and thats when I try to take it easy and if possible avoid the zerg

Haven't been weapon locked since beta.

It means you deserved weaponlock. Don't shoot allies in your blood lust.

How to avoid weapon lock:

Lift your finger off the fire button.

YW, NP.

I've only hit a couple dozen teammates with HE splash in the 10,405 rounds I've fired. Nearly all of friendly damage from me has come from their contact with the tank hull.

Never got weapons locked either...I got the last warning a couple of times though. Imo this is the only time I actually agree with the rather flawed design concept of the game not explaining itself at all. it is appropriate not to tell players exactly how many "free teamkills they're allowed to do" before getting their weapons locked. I bet in PS1 there was people abusing the heck out of this "get x amount of tks before being punished" concept. then again I bet that in PS1 the majority of the playerbase was a lot more mature and tolerant by default compared to the amount of trolls/ scumbags in FPS nowadays.

however, being punished for accidentally tking/ friendly fire ain't no fun. though this is where the game's poor attempt of explaining itself comes into mind again. if people were actually told about the very basics of this game, there would be a lot less running around headlessly, thus less teamkilling/ friendly fire by accident

I hadn't consider this, you make a very good point.