Hi everybody!

Welcome to another week. This week we're going to talk a bit more about our thoughts behind friendly fire, which we started last week in this thread.

There have been a lot of comments written on our forums since our Question of the Week mentioned we will be implementing a form of friendly fire protection in Earthrise. We understand that it is a subject near and dear to the hearts of many, and can also see a lot of strategies where we believe it would open up an unfair advantage for a group of players who fear nothing from napalming the whole battlefield with certain Area of Effect attacks. Please be aware we are currently testing various scenarios that cover similar situations - we know there are many pros and cons to each side of the argument! At present, so far the prevention of confusion and unwanted side effects in a real dynamic combat where one wrong action could lead to a full party wipe greatly takes priority over certain types of potential AoE abuse. We look forwarding to sharing more details about these different AoE attacks that we are implementing at a future date, but it is something we are keeping very strongly in mind as we test things now.

As you all know Earthrise features close combat skills. Imagine what would happen if there is no friendly fire protection? All close combat skills in the party will be rendered useless in massive PvP battles or nobody will use the type of AOEs attacks we have planned. Taking away these options limits the usage of skills in the game, and we don't want that to happen. Adding the possibility to lose your gear or to waste money for insurance due to friendly fire makes the friendly fire by default an even less desired option.

We're also keeping factions in mind as we test. As we all know, you can attack people from your faction. What will happen if you use AOE or accidentally kill someone from your faction? How can we prevent accidental and possibly disastrous shifts in your faction standing? How many accidental criminals will be created from a free for all friendly fire system?

Keeping a balanced and fun game is something we are striving to achieve, and we look forward to having many of you test the various combat systems, including close up and area of effect attacks!

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic, and hope that we can keep our discussion civil and productive. We'll see you next Monday with another Question of the Week (which probably won't be about Friendly Fire, sorry!)

~ m.

Even with friendly fire I'm sure melee aficionados would find a place in smaller sized conficts and 1 on 1 gankilicous encounters. However I think that limiting options for players in certain situations is what I like least in World of Warcraft, so I am OK with a certain level of friendly-fire protection. I would like to suggest that melee fighters have access to a stronger level of shield for attacks originating from the rear. I believe a certain level of realism would help immersion and add more tension to the combat.

Hmmm... *puts on design justification goggles*
Anti zerg weapon... how about some sort of Shield Ionizing Particle Cascade gun, that delivers damage over time in relation to the amount of same-frequency shields (thus, same-squad targets) in a radius of about ten yards? THAT would teach them to scatter...
Balance tests would be a nightmare, but hey, those lucky betatesters sure need some action.

@ Moll: Why? I thougt this should be a game what is near to a real world situation. Area weapons are a strategic weapon who make no diffrents between friends and enemies.  Same as a stupid bullet or laser does.


And with your solution, you reduce extrem the needed skill level. The oversimplify of the fight system of Age of Conan was one of the reassons why so many people left so fast the game and return to WoW.

If you wanna create a independent community with a working PvP system it's not possible.

Don't make the mistake to create a game like all the others. Only the diffrent location, the furture, can not be the reasson to play the game.

Form follows function. And MMO form, alas, follows exploitability. And a healthy pessimism when it comes to the number of posterior ring muscles out there.

It seems that, if all MMOs today play the same, humanity as a whole is not yet ready for a worthwhile MMO. Log off and work on it.

For AoE, how about other status effects other than damage if you catch friendlies in your blast radius.

For example, if I throw a grenade at Moll, and I happen to catch two of my squadmates in the blast perhaps they could be knocked down, disoriented or suffer some sort of penalty from my actions but not take any actual damage.

If I'm hosing Moll with a flamethrower, and my two squadmates get in my way again, perhaps it could destabilize their shields and slow their regeneration rates temporairily.

This way, accidental FF isn't going to cause a team wipe, but it could if there is a zerg mentality amongst the entire group.

Just a thought.

Ok, ok ...now what happens to the small melee group of my team that tries to devastate the enemy with teir close combat skills while my team and I bomb right in the enemy's troops? Imaginge there's no friendy fire so no harm for my melees. But what about my enemy and his AoE? I think there might be a chance that my enemy just bombs the melee zerg away, laughing at them since they thought they were safe in our AoE zergfest. So close combat as an argument against FF isn't the best choice you guys made. Rethink it again please No offense, just wanted to mention it.

Taken from the German forum:
"The argument of melee being not useful in bigger battles if friendly fire would exist is a contradiction in itself. Actually it could be a kind of strategy to send some mates in meleecombat to force the enemy not to use AoE-Effects."

I think this has a valid point.