I cannot for the life of me belive this was even considered much less asking us then to actually impliment it. Ok now if this was an April fools joke then great but wrong time of year. The game would have been unplayable in a F2P environment. Bad enough still even when people were playing. The amount of griefing would have made me shudder. It would be like giving a monkey a loaded gun in a crowd how could you not expect it to go wrong.
It had some potential but as with anything unrelated to the c-store it was poorly thought out, feedback was ignored, and it was half assed. You can't release something like this without taking the extra steps to avoid abuse in noncombat areas. You have to have a means to deal with abuse just like allowing emblem farmers sit idle in PvP. You can't have some AoE be effected while other AoE (that was far more problematic and complained about regularly) doesn't follow these rules. That's not intuitive. And you can't ruin a legitimate part of good game play in the process.
This kind of thing takes too much time and clearly too many more resources than Cryptic was willing to invest. They really need to do something all the way (including testing, listening to user feedback, retweaking, and considering the effects on all aspects of the game). There needs to be better follow through:(.
You can release something like this without taking the extra steps to avoid abuse in noncombat areas.
Oh it wasn't just noncombat areas. I can't tell you how many times on tribble there were one or more people sitting at the respawn point in Borg DSEs doing nothing but dropping mines. So not only are you one or more people short, you have to deal with mines at respawn as well.
If there aren't any other instances open right at that moment you may as well just skip that red alert, because people absolutely 100% are not mature enough to handle friendly fire in MMOs. Its like leaving a bag of hammers alone with a room full of five year olds and being surprised when something bad happens.
If any company is to always expect the Assinine from thier playerbase when designing any game and then not implement changes to said game due to the same assinine inclinations of thier target playerbase it may be time to roll-up shop and quit designing games.
FF didn't work becuase of idiots, not becuase the Devs did not think.
If I'm driving down the road and an idiot almost cuases an accident becuase they are doing thier hair, reading a book or even trying to catch some sleep at the wheel, I don't blame GM for that situation but the moron behind the wheel.
You pay attention going down the road because you know there are potential problems stemming from the environment and other people. If you don't take precautions and aren't using defensive driving you put yourself at considerable risk.
Similarly, every game is full of the same element that will take advantage and exploit something to their benefit (whether it's double shields or just to harass someone else). This isn't new and that the Devs didn't plan for these things is very short sited. This is all separate of the fact that they didn't consider the effect across all aspects of the game.
If any company is to always expect the Assinine from thier playerbase when designing any game and then not implement changes to said game due to the same assinine inclinations of thier target playerbase it may be time to roll-up shop and quit designing games.
FF didn't work becuase of idiots, not becuase the Devs did not think.
If I'm driving down the road and an idiot almost cuases an accident becuase they are doing thier hair, reading a book or even trying to catch some sleep at the wheel, I don't blame GM for that situation but the moron behind the wheel.
It is the job of the Devs to prevent the idiots behind the wheel CAUSING that situation as much as possible wether it be taking away the license, making it harder to drive or ensuring drivers dont have access to the means to cause problems.
Are you gonna ban someone from the game for TKing - Yeah, good luck with that since you have to prove it and get Cryptic to care enough to lose that money
Are you going to make it harder to get in a ship - Uhh, nope cant do that
Remove the means to cause problems - I.E Take Friendly Fire Off, yes they can do that AND its the simplest cost effective solution
TADA Friendly Fire has no place in STO and bringing it in causes more problems than anything it provides.
If this game is supposed to be like EVE Online where brutal reality is accepted as gameplay then fine. I support making EVERYTHING have friendly fire wether it be the minigun killing everyone in the arc or AOEs hitting everyone.
I'm gonna find it hilarious picking up a minigun in the Deferri Invasion Zone and applying Suppression Fire to hit every Klingon and Fed in front of me
OR
Dropping grenades on top of people so they get stunned, exposed, perception dropped or just nuked
Suddenly BOFFS became the deadliest enemy to every Captain. :rolleyes:
FF didn't work becuase of idiots, not becuase the Devs did not think.
If I'm driving down the road and an idiot almost cuases an accident becuase they are doing thier hair, reading a book or even trying to catch some sleep at the wheel, I don't blame GM for that situation but the moron behind the wheel.
I disagree. It is because devs didn't think. GM puts safety features into their cars because someone, somewhere is going to have an accident. Similarly, on the internet there's a certain rule that goes Normal person + anonymity + audience = well, you know. Its a hard and fast rule, virtually a law on the internet. That people are going to grief is such an obvious given I'm utterly shocked they missed it.
Not only that, it was pointed out to them time and time again in feedback, demonstrated on tribble, bug reported, you name it. They had every chance in the world along the way to realize it would be a bad idea, and they failed to take action until after it was on live and the GMs in game had to get involved.
So yes, I do place this particular incident as a fault squarely on the devs.
To be fair, I'm not saying that the fault is entirely on the Devs. There is such a think as personal responsibility which is pretty rare anymore. However, there are things that could have been done to prevent the degree of problems (many of which were suggested well before this was implemented).
You don't hand a crazy person a gun. Similarly, you don't release mechanics that are easily abused into an MMO, much less one that had such a devastating content drought. Bored people and "dangerous" new toys don't go well together.
If any company is to always expect the Assinine from thier playerbase when designing any game and then not implement changes to said game due to the same assinine inclinations of thier target playerbase it may be time to roll-up shop and quit designing games.
FF didn't work becuase of idiots, not becuase the Devs did not think.
If I'm driving down the road and an idiot almost cuases an accident becuase they are doing thier hair, reading a book or even trying to catch some sleep at the wheel, I don't blame GM for that situation but the moron behind the wheel.
An idiot causing an accident is a rarity. Because you really need to have an idiot - a malicious individual alone won't deal with it, because there is considerable risk for him.
Maybe Cryptic's griefing policies are too weak as well, though I've heard people got suspended when reported for FF griefing. But the problem even then is - it's too easy to do, and to easy to not be caught.
We have to face the reality that some people only act "in line" because they fear the consequences of not doing so.
But even then - it seemed a very... half-hearted way to introduce friendly fire. Why just mines and torpedoes? I agree with others - if friendly fire, because it's "realistic", then it has to apply to all powers. But the game isn't really balanced around this idea. Heck, the engine itself already fails on a basic level at it - there is no collision detection betweeh ships (or beams with ships). And it is thus probably overall unsuited for an MMO mechanic.
An idiot causing an accident is a rarity. Because you really need to have an idiot - a malicious individual alone won't deal with it, because there is considerable risk for him.
Maybe Cryptic's griefing policies are too weak as well, though I've heard people got suspended when reported for FF griefing. But the problem even then is - it's too easy to do, and to easy to not be caught.
We have to face the reality that some people only act "in line" because they fear the consequences of not doing so.
But even then - it seemed a very... half-hearted way to introduce friendly fire. Why just mines and torpedoes? I agree with others - if friendly fire, because it's "realistic", then it has to apply to all powers. But the game isn't really balanced around this idea. Heck, the engine itself already fails on a basic level at it - there is no collision detection betweeh ships (or beams with ships). And it is thus probably overall unsuited for an MMO mechanic.
I know. I just had high hopes and feel let down that it did not work out becuase of a few bad apples in the barrel.
I saw FF as solving many issues that have led to cries of OP in the past and adding a since of realism to a part of teh game becuase as it is STO has no sense of challenge or threat to give the illusion of challenge.
STO does not make on think very far into one's actions or the consequences of those actions.
We are considering a change in the way we handle most explosions in space and would like to invite comment from the community:
Specifically, we are thinking of handling things like mines, plasma balls and tricobalt torpedoes the same way that we handle warp core breaches - that is, they affect friend and foe alike.
Note, mines would still only track hostile targets, but if a friendly target was nearby a hostile target when the mine went off, the friendly target would also take damage.
Obviously, this would have to be attendant to changes and tweaks in certain powers to ensure that there is still a usefulness in the game for all powers. This would, in fact, free us up a bit to buff some things that otherwise would be too risky to buff.
Why not just change back the way it was a week ago with the Griefing business.
BUT just change the way mines work in Social zones. You keep your changes, we stay safe from griefing in Social places (SOL for instance)
Why not just change back the way it was a week ago with the Griefing business.
BUT just change the way mines work in Social zones. You keep your changes, we stay safe from griefing in Social places (SOL for instance)
Problem solved mesa thinks.
So folks will just grief everywhere else.
Warp into a DSE
Warp into a Fleet Action
Warp into every zone that dosent have a restriction
Inorder to accomodate Friendly Fire, Cryptic literally have to change the mechanics of the game in social zones like they have had to do REPEATEDLY with these types of things.
Wether it be people laying down covershields so noone could get past a corridor in Sol Base or preventing Auto-destruct because people were mass-suiciding at warp-in points.
It would be far more cost effective to remove Friendly Fire entirely than go about fixing every social zone, area and warp-in point so these issues cannot be abused by folks looking to cause issues.
Warp into a DSE
Warp into a Fleet Action
Warp into every zone that dosent have a restriction
Inorder to accomodate Friendly Fire, Cryptic literally have to change the mechanics of the game in social zones like they have had to do REPEATEDLY with these types of things.
Wether it be people laying down covershields so noone could get past a corridor in Sol Base or preventing Auto-destruct because people were mass-suiciding at warp-in points.
It would be far more cost effective to remove Friendly Fire entirely than go about fixing every social zone, area and warp-in point so these issues cannot be abused by folks looking to cause issues.
We are considering a change in the way we handle most explosions in space and would like to invite comment from the community:
Specifically, we are thinking of handling things like mines, plasma balls and tricobalt torpedoes the same way that we handle warp core breaches - that is, they affect friend and foe alike.
Note, mines would still only track hostile targets, but if a friendly target was nearby a hostile target when the mine went off, the friendly target would also take damage.
Obviously, this would have to be attendant to changes and tweaks in certain powers to ensure that there is still a usefulness in the game for all powers. This would, in fact, free us up a bit to buff some things that otherwise would be too risky to buff.
I would love to see some Freindly fire/ done by mass AOE or mines, gives those klinks something to risk when they point blank shot u with a tricobolt or something,,
2 klicks away from enemy ship, will u chance taking him out with some dmg or destruction of your own ship or not,, gamble?, mmm more fun
They need to update transphasics where they become something other than useless. Those breen things with a faster recharge do not add up to a hill of beans.
Any realism that makes me plan and pay attention to what I'm doing is a step forward. I like this idea. Also consider a similar move with self destruct. When I activate it, I usually explode from hostile fire before I can use it as a weapon anyway, which makes it useless. Same with ramming speed--I never make it to the target before I go up in flames.
I like the idea of making those bloody spammer PvPer's thinking twice about spamming mines and all, which is why I played more STF's with my fleet buds more the second year, so the idea of explosions from mines and torpedo in PvP matches are good.
Am more concern about the effects of such in STF's when you know those sphere's and cubes gonna lay some tractor beams on you - and u know u can bank on that for sure. Would I then want my buddies' mines/torps or even those launched from me to aid the borgs? No, ofcourse not. Explosions( especially from kinetic damage ) from these things should realistically affect ANY ship within that explosive radius.
There's currently in the major powers of the world superweaps( bombs/missiles/torps ) that are made with A. intelligent and designed to do a specific job with minimal casualty risks and property damage in mind. For example, a smart bunker bomb striking right through many feets of concrete bridge to penetrate through armor thick tank hidden beneath that bridge and destroys the tank only. And the small bridge is left intact with just an easy hole to patch up. Saw it in Disc channel. And that stuffs going on now in our century.
Now in this suppose advance timeline wouldn't you think such 'smart weaps' designed by Starfleet would heavily been considered how best to mninimize friendly fires/casualties? And the theme is always 'what's best to maximize the damage/destruction to the enemy while pushing for very minimal damage/losses to the ourselves and our allies.
And with that in mind you really have to weigh through this 'torps/mines/etc' how best not to overly exploit certain weaker class weaknesses; like for escorts, this sounds bad 'cause our hull and shield is weaker than for the other two classes. That's what am concern about it. You gotta keep it fair or it's going to cause a lot of discontent amongst players in the game. If you're going to leave the escort shields and hull the way it is, then to be fair to the escorts you gotta give them a little more dps to compensate for the risks involved for them with such changes to mines/torps. For example, you HAVE to be close to your target within 3kilometer range to optimize the effectiveness of your cannons, so while the escort risking itself to be in close range of that enemy to do its job for the team; make it so the escorts' cannons do a bit more damage so we can get outta there faster before our allies' torps/mines do their damage.
If that's worked out to make it fair to the escorts, then I'd say go for it.
eject warp plasma should cause ff. and players getting in the way of friendly beams and cannons should get hit as well. turn on ff for everything. its stupid when in pvp a team mate ejects plasma and i can drive in it and not get hurt but a klink will.rts had ff fps has ff. this game.................needs ff. in today's military you dont see inf running up to the enemy while a black hawk just shot off a rocket. you do see danger close tho. also you dont see cross fire because it could possibly hurt friendly's. i would like to see examples of this in sto.
yes they did. it's everyone else that keeps posting about it that is missing something.
Would help if they pull the thread completely if it's outdated and was kept alive by those reading it, thinking it's new. Guess we all have to first check the dev's OP's date.
I liked the friendly fire, brought the game towards realism. I can't believe it took them a week/10 days to abandon the ff mechanic, they never change things that fast. The game needs this, it makes people situationaly aware instead of the furball battles turn into. I would say some people were really critical of an accidental ff splash as I tried to learn the new mechanic, I even got called incompetent once, though I don't know why that cruiser was battling at point blank range (he was not there when I fired it). Cryptic is making a game that any lonestar idiot can play...... I would love a more cerebral experience.... friendly fire for everything.
Unless I'm mistaken (I don't believe I am) they turned off ff for "targetadle projectiles" its in one of the updates. Mines and targetable projectiles will no longer harm you or your allies. http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=240417 the way I read it is non targetadle projectiles like regular torpedoes still do friendly damage. I would think this is to keep people from worrying about those costly highyeald torpedoes with such a long cool down they were probably thinking ahead on this.
Comments
It was mostly aimed in that general direction and the few that did support the idea. But thanks for pointing that out.
This kind of thing takes too much time and clearly too many more resources than Cryptic was willing to invest. They really need to do something all the way (including testing, listening to user feedback, retweaking, and considering the effects on all aspects of the game). There needs to be better follow through:(.
Oh it wasn't just noncombat areas. I can't tell you how many times on tribble there were one or more people sitting at the respawn point in Borg DSEs doing nothing but dropping mines. So not only are you one or more people short, you have to deal with mines at respawn as well.
If there aren't any other instances open right at that moment you may as well just skip that red alert, because people absolutely 100% are not mature enough to handle friendly fire in MMOs. Its like leaving a bag of hammers alone with a room full of five year olds and being surprised when something bad happens.
FF didn't work becuase of idiots, not becuase the Devs did not think.
If I'm driving down the road and an idiot almost cuases an accident becuase they are doing thier hair, reading a book or even trying to catch some sleep at the wheel, I don't blame GM for that situation but the moron behind the wheel.
Similarly, every game is full of the same element that will take advantage and exploit something to their benefit (whether it's double shields or just to harass someone else). This isn't new and that the Devs didn't plan for these things is very short sited. This is all separate of the fact that they didn't consider the effect across all aspects of the game.
It is the job of the Devs to prevent the idiots behind the wheel CAUSING that situation as much as possible wether it be taking away the license, making it harder to drive or ensuring drivers dont have access to the means to cause problems.
Are you gonna ban someone from the game for TKing - Yeah, good luck with that since you have to prove it and get Cryptic to care enough to lose that money
Are you going to make it harder to get in a ship - Uhh, nope cant do that
Remove the means to cause problems - I.E Take Friendly Fire Off, yes they can do that AND its the simplest cost effective solution
TADA Friendly Fire has no place in STO and bringing it in causes more problems than anything it provides.
If this game is supposed to be like EVE Online where brutal reality is accepted as gameplay then fine. I support making EVERYTHING have friendly fire wether it be the minigun killing everyone in the arc or AOEs hitting everyone.
I'm gonna find it hilarious picking up a minigun in the Deferri Invasion Zone and applying Suppression Fire to hit every Klingon and Fed in front of me
OR
Dropping grenades on top of people so they get stunned, exposed, perception dropped or just nuked
Suddenly BOFFS became the deadliest enemy to every Captain. :rolleyes:
I disagree. It is because devs didn't think. GM puts safety features into their cars because someone, somewhere is going to have an accident. Similarly, on the internet there's a certain rule that goes Normal person + anonymity + audience = well, you know. Its a hard and fast rule, virtually a law on the internet. That people are going to grief is such an obvious given I'm utterly shocked they missed it.
Not only that, it was pointed out to them time and time again in feedback, demonstrated on tribble, bug reported, you name it. They had every chance in the world along the way to realize it would be a bad idea, and they failed to take action until after it was on live and the GMs in game had to get involved.
So yes, I do place this particular incident as a fault squarely on the devs.
You don't hand a crazy person a gun. Similarly, you don't release mechanics that are easily abused into an MMO, much less one that had such a devastating content drought. Bored people and "dangerous" new toys don't go well together.
An idiot causing an accident is a rarity. Because you really need to have an idiot - a malicious individual alone won't deal with it, because there is considerable risk for him.
Maybe Cryptic's griefing policies are too weak as well, though I've heard people got suspended when reported for FF griefing. But the problem even then is - it's too easy to do, and to easy to not be caught.
We have to face the reality that some people only act "in line" because they fear the consequences of not doing so.
But even then - it seemed a very... half-hearted way to introduce friendly fire. Why just mines and torpedoes? I agree with others - if friendly fire, because it's "realistic", then it has to apply to all powers. But the game isn't really balanced around this idea. Heck, the engine itself already fails on a basic level at it - there is no collision detection betweeh ships (or beams with ships). And it is thus probably overall unsuited for an MMO mechanic.
I know. I just had high hopes and feel let down that it did not work out becuase of a few bad apples in the barrel.
I saw FF as solving many issues that have led to cries of OP in the past and adding a since of realism to a part of teh game becuase as it is STO has no sense of challenge or threat to give the illusion of challenge.
STO does not make on think very far into one's actions or the consequences of those actions.
Why not just change back the way it was a week ago with the Griefing business.
BUT just change the way mines work in Social zones. You keep your changes, we stay safe from griefing in Social places (SOL for instance)
Problem solved mesa thinks.
So folks will just grief everywhere else.
Warp into a DSE
Warp into a Fleet Action
Warp into every zone that dosent have a restriction
Inorder to accomodate Friendly Fire, Cryptic literally have to change the mechanics of the game in social zones like they have had to do REPEATEDLY with these types of things.
Wether it be people laying down covershields so noone could get past a corridor in Sol Base or preventing Auto-destruct because people were mass-suiciding at warp-in points.
It would be far more cost effective to remove Friendly Fire entirely than go about fixing every social zone, area and warp-in point so these issues cannot be abused by folks looking to cause issues.
This please Cryptic....
I would love to see some Freindly fire/ done by mass AOE or mines, gives those klinks something to risk when they point blank shot u with a tricobolt or something,,
2 klicks away from enemy ship, will u chance taking him out with some dmg or destruction of your own ship or not,, gamble?, mmm more fun
Am more concern about the effects of such in STF's when you know those sphere's and cubes gonna lay some tractor beams on you - and u know u can bank on that for sure. Would I then want my buddies' mines/torps or even those launched from me to aid the borgs? No, ofcourse not. Explosions( especially from kinetic damage ) from these things should realistically affect ANY ship within that explosive radius.
There's currently in the major powers of the world superweaps( bombs/missiles/torps ) that are made with A. intelligent and designed to do a specific job with minimal casualty risks and property damage in mind. For example, a smart bunker bomb striking right through many feets of concrete bridge to penetrate through armor thick tank hidden beneath that bridge and destroys the tank only. And the small bridge is left intact with just an easy hole to patch up. Saw it in Disc channel. And that stuffs going on now in our century.
Now in this suppose advance timeline wouldn't you think such 'smart weaps' designed by Starfleet would heavily been considered how best to mninimize friendly fires/casualties? And the theme is always 'what's best to maximize the damage/destruction to the enemy while pushing for very minimal damage/losses to the ourselves and our allies.
And with that in mind you really have to weigh through this 'torps/mines/etc' how best not to overly exploit certain weaker class weaknesses; like for escorts, this sounds bad 'cause our hull and shield is weaker than for the other two classes. That's what am concern about it. You gotta keep it fair or it's going to cause a lot of discontent amongst players in the game. If you're going to leave the escort shields and hull the way it is, then to be fair to the escorts you gotta give them a little more dps to compensate for the risks involved for them with such changes to mines/torps. For example, you HAVE to be close to your target within 3kilometer range to optimize the effectiveness of your cannons, so while the escort risking itself to be in close range of that enemy to do its job for the team; make it so the escorts' cannons do a bit more damage so we can get outta there faster before our allies' torps/mines do their damage.
If that's worked out to make it fair to the escorts, then I'd say go for it.
Not in a F2P game. Watch the unintentionally damgaged nerdrage in World of Tanks, and reconsider.
yes they did. it's everyone else that keeps posting about it that is missing something.
Would help if they pull the thread completely if it's outdated and was kept alive by those reading it, thinking it's new. Guess we all have to first check the dev's OP's date.