Difficulty idea: Friendly fire?

[Black Zot]

/jranger

[Blackfeather]

Building on my previous post, the kind of friendly fire that ends up happening might be a bit of a concern for characters with both a 'patch' power and an 'aura' power. I'll use Fire Control as an example.

 

Two of Fire Control's powers work very nicely together at the moment: Bonfire and Hot Feet. With Sudden Acceleration slotted into the former, you have a knockdown damage patch that keeps enemies falling flat onto the ground. Hot Feet acts as a damage aura, as well as a means of keeping enemies from running too far by slowing their movement speed.

 

Combined, I've found it very potent to land a patch of Bonfire into the enemy ranks, before charging in with Hot Feet active, rendering mobs not only knocked down the majority of the time, but also slowed and damaged a good amount.

 

Such a strategy would be rendered fairly ineffective, or at least undesirable by the introduction of friendly fire (at least with Bonfire - I figure that damage aura powers would be exempt, per my previous post's reasoning), at least by default - you'd be damaging yourself in the process due to charging into the Bonfire, as well as being constantly knocked down without the right protection.

 

This example can be expanded out to apply to most patch powers, come to think of it...on the one hand, the whole considering where to put your patch powers thing is interesting, and might lend to a bit of a shift in playstyle if enabled as an option. On the other, it does render characters that have both a toggle player-based AoE power and such powers as less effective than before.

 

Needless to say, any implementation of friendly fire would require a lot of thought about how it'd be done: there'd definitely be powers that'd be exempt for example. Additionally, it'd probably be best used in map instances only - I don't think people want to visit a trainer just to be swamped with damaging effects, etc.

[Naraka]

5 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Two of Fire Control's powers work very nicely together at the moment: Bonfire and Hot Feet. With Sudden Acceleration slotted into the former, you have a knockdown damage patch that keeps enemies falling flat onto the ground. Hot Feet acts as a damage aura, as well as a means of keeping enemies from running too far by slowing their movement speed.

 

Combined, I've found it very potent to land a patch of Bonfire into the enemy ranks, before charging in with Hot Feet active, rendering mobs not only knocked down the majority of the time, but also slowed and damaged a good amount.

 

Such a strategy would be rendered fairly ineffective, or at least undesirable by the introduction of friendly fire (at least with Bonfire - I figure that damage aura powers would be exempt, per my previous post's reasoning), at least by default - you'd be damaging yourself in the process due to charging into the Bonfire, as well as being constantly knocked down without the right protection.

I disagree.  I think such a strategy would be very effective, particularly on a team consisting of ranged support/attack users, you'd just need to coordinate  with your team.  Any kind of patch control that can be seen, avoided or have enemies be drawn into would make for relatively safe engagements.  On the side of non-raged teams, the damage isn't that high so as long as that melee has KB protection, they can swoop in and melee the helpless foes while taking just a bit of fire DoT and then move out of it when the foes are done or you take too much damage.  Kind of stinks for Fiery Aura who would wholly resist the damage but not be able to melee inside the patch as safely because of the KB.

 

Overall, I think posters are viewing things through the lens of what can be accomplished now rather than from a more unbiased perspective.  You have to consider what tactics would *work* rather than which tactics are *perfect*.  Tactics that work will overall neutralize some of the danger but not all of it but that will look unworkable from the perspective of players wanting their tactics to neutralize danger with no downsize.  Like having a Plant or Mind controller abusing confuse would still be a tactic but mainly only with melees that have inherent confuse protection which is going to be your Shield, Stone, SR, WP and Nin melee characters or if you run Tactics to give you some stacking protection to Confuse.  

 

On the side of this suggestion, it would be more useful to have teammates who have more knowledge about powers in general to help coordinate a team (like, I had to look up which armor sets had confuse protection which would help if your team wants to utilize confuse powers).  This side of the suggestion, it's mainly a spam-fest.  Just use what you got and it all stacks additively.  

 

5 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

This example can be expanded out to apply to most patch powers, come to think of it...on the one hand, the whole considering where to put your patch powers thing is interesting, and might lend to a bit of a shift in playstyle if enabled as an option. On the other, it does render characters that have both a toggle player-based AoE power and such powers as less effective than before.

 

Needless to say, any implementation of friendly fire would require a lot of thought about how it'd be done: there'd definitely be powers that'd be exempt for example. Additionally, it'd probably be best used in map instances only - I don't think people want to visit a trainer just to be swamped with damaging effects, etc.

I do feel certain concessions can be made with the affecting self.  Damage auras shouldn't affect their user but they should affect allies.  I think control auras in control sets could also have a stipulation to only affect foes with their control effects if you think about it in the context that powers within a closer range to the user, the user has more control over who they hit.  This would affect powers like Arctic Air, Conductive Aura and Hot Feet.

 

And expanding on that, having some kind of enhancement or power that lessens some of the friendly fire effects could be an option for those aiming for more team friendly builds.  It wouldn't eliminate the danger but lessening it in some powers, going by the above stipulation that powers emanating from the user have higher control over who they affect.  This would namely be aimed at PBAoE effects like Heart of Darkness, Cinders, Glacier, Flash, etc, having some kind of enhanceable chance of not affecting allies.

 

If you think more on it, this would require planning every time you join up on a team.  Basically chatting about your powers, who has what effects and different ways to maximize their use.  Maybe you decide to use the confuse route and everyone who has Tactics run it for the protection...so long as the confusers aren't Dominators using domination, you should be fine and perfectly safe.  Maybe you're rocking a Fire and Ice controller, combined they have controls that are easier to manage the friendly fire aspect since their controls are close-quarters (that's an aspect I don't ever hear people discussing, that some sets get roped in with PBAoE controls while others get safer options...well now a distinction between their utility can be made vs the ranged option being safer than the close option).  Or focusing on just CCing trouble targets when team tactics are unsure.

 

This post is mainly on the perspective of control sets on a friendly fire team.  I think it makes teaming a lot more complex and involved considering your controls can have negative effects if not utilized carefully.  You can still make standard teaming very safe and it might introduce tactics and power usage that emphasizes defense vs offense...like having Personal Force Field on your blasters to stay in the danger zones or coordinating Phase Shift so your debuffers, controllers and/or nukers bypass hitting teammates.  It all sounds pretty interesting, actually and makes me think having some other new powers, like a short duration (like 8sec) short rech (like 35sec) phase shift power would be something more sought after.  Such a power in the current game is pretty useless.  More PFF type powers (Afterburner kind of acts like this now but I doubt people take and slot it for defense) would also be nice.  This opens up a lot of options for desired effects.

Edited May 30, 2020 by Naraka

[Grouchybeast]

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

And expanding on that, having some kind of enhancement or power that lessens some of the friendly fire effects could be an option for those aiming for more team friendly builds.  It wouldn't eliminate the danger but lessening it in some powers, going by the above stipulation that powers emanating from the user have higher control over who they affect.  This would namely be aimed at PBAoE effects like Heart of Darkness, Cinders, Glacier, Flash, etc, having some kind of enhanceable chance of not affecting allies.

 

If you think more on it, this would require planning every time you join up on a team.  Basically chatting about your powers, who has what effects and different ways to maximize their use.  Maybe you decide to use the confuse route and everyone who has Tactics run it for the protection...so long as the confusers aren't Dominators using domination, you should be fine and perfectly safe.  Maybe you're rocking a Fire and Ice controller, combined they have controls that are easier to manage the friendly fire aspect since their controls are close-quarters (that's an aspect I don't ever hear people discussing, that some sets get roped in with PBAoE controls while others get safer options...well now a distinction between their utility can be made vs the ranged option being safer than the close option).  Or focusing on just CCing trouble targets when team tactics are unsure.

The thing is, we already know what happens when someone takes a control power that has a very minor negative effect on their team mates' playing experience: knockback.

 

It doesn't, by and large, lead to any interesting tactical discussions or people considering how best to maximize utility, it just leads to people not wanting to team with characters that have knockback, or complaining that everyone doesn't 'do the right thing' and change all their kb to kd.  I'm skeptical that exponentially increasing the chance of negative effects from other team members' powers will suddenly have the opposite effect and make everyone embrace complexity.  I think that past performance will be very much indicative of future results, and people will have little interest in 'requiring planning every time you join up on a team', when they can simply switch to preferring single target powersets and suggesting that characters with AOE powersets would be better off playing solo.

 

This concept could be great in a game build from the ground up for friendly fire.  But this is a game very much not built for that, with a large number of existing powersets that would require substantial revision (ending up with a mess of exceptions and special cases) and with a playerbase that is already proveably unenthusiastic about even minor negative effects on team play. 

[Blackfeather]

3 hours ago, Naraka said:

I disagree.  I think such a strategy would be very effective, particularly on a team consisting of ranged support/attack users, you'd just need to coordinate  with your team.  Any kind of patch control that can be seen, avoided or have enemies be drawn into would make for relatively safe engagements.  On the side of non-raged teams, the damage isn't that high so as long as that melee has KB protection, they can swoop in and melee the helpless foes while taking just a bit of fire DoT and then move out of it when the foes are done or you take too much damage.  Kind of stinks for Fiery Aura who would wholly resist the damage but not be able to melee inside the patch as safely because of the KB.

 

Overall, I think posters are viewing things through the lens of what can be accomplished now rather than from a more unbiased perspective.  You have to consider what tactics would *work* rather than which tactics are *perfect*.  Tactics that work will overall neutralize some of the danger but not all of it but that will look unworkable from the perspective of players wanting their tactics to neutralize danger with no downsize.  Like having a Plant or Mind controller abusing confuse would still be a tactic but mainly only with melees that have inherent confuse protection which is going to be your Shield, Stone, SR, WP and Nin melee characters or if you run Tactics to give you some stacking protection to Confuse.  

 

On the side of this suggestion, it would be more useful to have teammates who have more knowledge about powers in general to help coordinate a team (like, I had to look up which armor sets had confuse protection which would help if your team wants to utilize confuse powers).  This side of the suggestion, it's mainly a spam-fest.  Just use what you got and it all stacks additively.

As in, a Fire Controller wouldn't be able to stand in their own Bonfire with Hot Feet active, which is something I currently do - they work well together because the latter slows enemies down, keeping them inside the former for a longer duration, constantly being knocked down. With 'friendly fire' on, I'm assuming characters would also be affected by their own powers.

[AerialAssault]

Make it so that the enemies can friendly fire as well and you have a gimmicky game mode that you could have a laugh with.

 

As an actual, serious part of the game? No thanks.

[Blackfeather]

6 hours ago, AerialAssault said:

Make it so that the enemies can friendly fire as well and you have a gimmicky game mode that you could have a laugh with.

 

As an actual, serious part of the game? No thanks.

That's actually how I imagined something like friendly fire would work - having CoT mages cast Earthquake and end up tripping as well sounds very funny.

 

Alternatively, enemies that decided against AoE-ing players that were up close...that might be interesting, actually. I kind of imagined this suggestion as less of a 'difficulty setting' and more of a 'change in play dynamics setting', which might be fun for some people, so long as it were an option restricted to instanced maps or something like that.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Blackfeather