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Fivetimes Infinity
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Posted - 2013.02.02 13:10:00 -
[1] - Quote
People have made threads about friendly fire (FF) talking about how they look forward to team killing (TK'ing) snipers or people that "talk smack", and threads about how they hope FF doesn't get added to Instant Battles because they don't want to be TK'd for sniping. But what matters isn't how New Eden supposedly works, or non-gameplay stuff like that. What matters is making sure average Dust users get a good experience, with FF on, but don't get TK'd every game.
First, the reason why FF is, on principle, a good addition to games is that it adds depth by making you need to be more aware of what you're doing. Weapons become more nuanced, as you wouldn't be able to idly spam grenades or call down precision strikes without any thought. For a game like Dust, that doesn't shy away from depth and complexity, FF would be a good addition.
That said, being maliciously TK'd isn't a good experience for the vast majority of players. You can look at games, whether MMORPGs or FPS games, and see how the ones that allow TK'ing falter, while the ones that do not allow TK'ing become overwhelmingly popular. The issue of how to add FF, without enabling TK'ing to run rampant, is a pretty serious thing. Widespread TK'ing would be a huge problem for Dust, as it'd drive many more people from the game than allowing widespread TK'ing would attract. For a game that tries to get people playing for the long haul, that would be a serious problem.
So, what I'd propose is to have full FF, across Instant Battles, Drone Infestations, Corp Battles, and everything else. That said, TK'ing and FF in general should be automatically sanctioned in the following ways. The punishments would proceed down this list as the transgressions become more severe:
Stage 1) Damaging allies would automatically incur an ISK/SP penalty upon you relative to the damage you do. Killing them would incur the additional penalty of the cost of whatever the "ally" you killed was wearing and if applicable, driving. Your employer, as a merc, does not approve of you damaging your fellow mercs, and doing so violates your contractual obligations. This would be the penalty for your first few full TK's. This would be accompanied by an indication of how close you are to Stage 2 of the TK punishment system.
1a) Inflicting damage/kills against people in your corp, or who're in your pre-made squad, would not be punished whatsoever. If you don't like what your "friends" are doing, you can leave the corp/squad.
1b) The system should be intelligent enough to make penalties less for instances where your ally was near an enemy. Accidental shots hitting an ally shouldn't be such a big deal. A penalty, sure, but nothing too severe. However, each subsequent shot on an ally in a short period of time should inflict greater and greater penalties. Accidents happen, but careless spraying of shots should be discouraged. Similarly, one stray grenade shouldn't necessarily push you into the next level.
Stage 2) Once you've reached a certain threshold of team damage/kills you've inflicted in a single battle, your contract for that fight is terminated by your employer. You become a purple dot -- a grape, to use the vernacular -- and killable by anyone on the field, unable to interface with any structures, unable to call in any vehicles/etc. When you die, you will be removed from the match. You will get zero rewards, but the penalties you incurred due to your TK'ing will remain. You'll lose hundreds of thousands of ISK, lose SP, and have a temporary mark against your account. The marks will be erased over time (1 per week?).
Stage 3) If you get Stage 2 marks enough times (2 or 3?) within a certain period (24 hr?), you will be prohibited from being awarded new contracts for a period of time. At first, your merc license will be suspended for 1 day. Then 3 days, then 7 days, and then 30 days. You will not be allowed to use your particular PS3 or the PSN accounts tied to it to play Dust within that period of time. The only way TK'ing can be adequately discouraged is if it can't be circumvented with alt characters/PSN accounts. Your suspension level would decrease by one per year. No passive SP gain while suspended.
Stage 4) If you reach Stage 3 again at this point -- after a long history of egregious TK'ing -- your merc license will be permanently revoked, because you are clearly a defective clone and the empires all consider you a serious security risk. This will be a permanent ban from Dust on that PS3. Permanent hardware ban. Any accounts tied to it get deleted.
Just a slight spoiler, basically nobody would ever reach this point, because the game would make it very clear to them that continued TK'ing will result in not being able to play Dust on that machine/with those accounts again. And once again, it only works if it is tied to the machine, otherwise it's easily circumvented with alt characters/PSN accounts.
Note: All time periods/thresholds/other values would be subject to change, this is just off-the-cuff.
Ideally, this system allows FF and the deeper game it brings, but is intelligent enough to discourage FF without too heavily penalizing people who miss a shot and hit a friendly who is near an enemy. But it will result in a fairly sanctions should TK'ing start getting excessive. It totally jives with the "lore" and makes sense in the context of New Eden, and it threatens a severe enough punishment for repeated TK'ing that people would be very reluctant to go down that route and become permanently banned from Dust.
Again, without having a permanent hardware ban, they may as well just make TK'ing totally unrestricted, as otherwise people will simply make alt accounts to TK people with, using militia gear or LAVs which aren't bothered by losses of ISK or SP. The only penalty that would truly matter to the dedicated TK'er is one which goes across all accounts you own. |
Fivetimes Infinity
Immobile Infantry
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Posted - 2013.02.02 13:42:00 -
[2] - Quote
Oh, and Team Kills/Damage should be tracked stats for characters. There might also be a leaderboard which lists the best shooters, based on a ratio of enemy kills:friendly kills.
Talking of account suspensions/banning sounds serious, but to emphasize, that isn't something anyone who isn't a malicious TK'er would need to worry about. The system would obviously be designed such that it'd accommodate normal play, which would allow for a little bit of FF without it being a big deal. You'd take a small ISK/SP hit for it, but that'd just encourage most players to tighten up their shooting.
You could also avoid suspensions and thus moving closer to account banning by simply taking a voluntary break. If you've killed a handful of friendlies across multiple games within a day or two, you're being a huge F-up. At this point, the average player would either begin playing very cautiously, or they'd simply take a break until their marks are reset in a day or two. But again, to even get to this point we're talking about a bunch of friendlies having been gunned down without, apparently, any significant effort to play smarter. Most people will never get to this point, because after the first contract termination we'd realize that losing a ton of ISK and some SP isn't so great, and we'd start playing better as a result. |
Fivetimes Infinity
Immobile Infantry
1086
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Posted - 2013.02.06 03:11:00 -
[3] - Quote
Shijima Kuraimaru wrote:From what I've been hearing yes, FF isn't going to be in pub matches, but it still doesn't stop the carebears from whining. And if FF was implemented like 5x Inf is suggesting, there will be a lot of suicide griefing.
CCP has not mentioned FF being in public matches... which is why I made a thread suggesting a way it could be done without ruining Dust.
As for how much suicide griefing there'd be, I'm not sure. But I doubt there'd be "a lot", as even doing it on an alt to avoid the ISK/SP penalty, you'd still make it so that your main character would be walking a fine line during normal gameplay. If you TK a few people for a few games and land right on the borderline, and then go back to play your main character, if you're enough of a ****-up you could end up crossing the line with your main and being temporarily banned.
I don't really think anyone who plays Dust regularly would want to risk it. And I don't think non-Dust players would bother keeping Dust on their HD just to TK a few people a few times once every couple days.
Breakin Stuff wrote:No. try again.
edit: betrayal, backstabbing and screwovers are a longstanding part of the EVE universe, and the EULA reflects it.
And permaban for teamkilling is absolutely dumb. No making the game carebear even when there's no easy mode.
This isn't a thread about betrayal or backstabbing, it's a thread about making FF a regular part of the game without having it be abused. How EVE works doesn't factor into it.
Permaban for repeatedly and maliciously TK'ing people in Instant Battles would be the only way to keep people from doing it incessantly. Without people having their ability to play the game on the line, they'll just switch to an alt character or account and TK as much as they want on a throw-away character.
As I see it, your option is either to have no FF in Instant Battle matches at all, as it is currently, or to be "carebear", as you call it, and have FF in Instant Battles, but make it so that shooting your allies is punishable.
Personally, I prefer FF to no FF. But I guess I'm just a carebear.
Mode Torsen wrote:Decent proposal.
However, it would put additional strain on the servers
Well, every new gameplay feature puts additional strain on the servers. It's not my place to say whether such things are technically feasible, however.
mollerz wrote:All monies are paid to the victim of the TK.
Oops, I left this out. A percentage of the fitting cost should be reimbursed from the TK'er to their victim. Like 50% or so, even though 100% of the cost would be levied as a fine in additional to the regular penalties for simply damaging friendlies.
However, people should not be able to make money off of being TK'd, and in general FF should result in money simply being lost to the ether. |
Fivetimes Infinity
Immobile Infantry
1086
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Posted - 2013.02.06 08:05:00 -
[4] - Quote
Shijima Kuraimaru wrote:Penalty to mission payout fine. Forfeiture of salvage fine. Flag to neutral target fine. Penalty to wallet no. Banning shouldn't even be a passing thought. And how Eve works may not factor into Dust very much now, but it's still a factor, and will be more and more as time passes.
How EVE works doesn't matter because it's a totally different kind of game, was my point.
Without serious consequences that work across accounts, and threaten those accounts, they should leave FF off in Instant Battle matches. Unless CCP is willing to ban people from the game for persistent, clearly malicious TK'ing, then they should only have FF on in corp battles. It'll be weird and kind of dumb, but unless CCP is willing to be serious about punishing TK'ing, then TK'ing would ruin the game.
So penalties to X and Y may as well not even exist if FF were on in Instant Battles but you wouldn't be banned for repeated TK'ing, because as I said my my OP, with bolding and underlining, without penalties that span accounts people will simply make alt characters or alt PSN accounts to TK with, and then Dust will be done. |
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