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.

hm, you know, the faction NPCs who might stand in the way never occurred to me. And of course, if the demoting system does not differentiate between guildmates and non-guildmates, the penalty for FF might indeed be too high...

That said, would it be possible for guild leaders to override the safety switch for their guild members? That way they could declare themselves FF-free or FF-fanatic according to their own playing philosophy. Or switch the safety on for staged massive battles, and off for all the skirmishes in between...

Glad this is being taken very seriously interested in all these juicy tidbits of combat information (aoe stuff) I could eat them all up and be stuff for weeks mmm....

Anyway I hope there'll be a way to implement some kind of anti zerg weapon / ability or something or other to discourage that style of play.

that's my only worry with no FF really...

:pew pew:
What?! I was shooting at Throwback, not Moll! Seriously though, I understand and appreciate where MH is coming from on this matter. However...


but but but... this sounds sooo delicious! aww...


to me, this smacks of "we have zergs planned." I no likey.


Um, I have NO problem with this. I'd call it.... war. We won't mention any names, but pilots that kill our allies from across the pond (by accident) don't exactly get medals or promotions. They're lucky to be flying the same pig'o'war instead of being demoted to "mail carrier" biplanes, or even worse... grounded.

I know, there's a "fun factor" involved - not to mention gear and insurance, or lack thereof. But I'll take tactical fighting over "safe zergs" any day of the week. I know they have to weigh the potential AOE abuse, but I'm sure it'll become crystal clear in beta. If something can be abused it WILL be... extensively.

I told you,Masthead listens to the community.
And as I said before.
FF is going to have many changes till launch.

I feel the same way. Whats wrong with having people think before they shoot?

Anyway, I'm glad to hear you guys are willing to test out different things. Let me know if you need a hand 

I like it.  Great suggestion.

We don't even know anything about the territorial system yet... how can we say zerging territories will even be available. Yes, say sandbox means "limited rules", but that doesn't make the software/hardware any more capable of handling 1000 players on a battlefield. We also don't know if there will be any kamakazi abilities that can let 1 player kill 10 by sacrificing himself.