Friendly fire.

Firstly. If there is a "fire field" or similar spell, I cast it, and another player walks over it and takes no damage then the game is 100% broken and not worth playing.

@rschultzy80 - Well I would think the ?griefing? would come more from ?oops, to bad for you, you just cast that too close to me? cause now you?re flagged as an attacker. Generally speaking, a direct damage spell would be much more useful if I intend to grief/PK you. I hope I explained that well enough.

Totally. If I can, I will be doing this sort of thing non-stop for pure enjoyment. Crafter trying to kill a wolf gets low on HP? /firefield and lawlz-o-plenty fo me.

 

@InsaneMembrane, I like having you around to give honest examples of how many players will be acting in the game. Not many posters speak up about the seedy underbelly of the PK game, the worst of the worst if you will. I mean this as a compliment, it is a valuable point of view to have.

Your playstyle, valid as it is, is what devs need to consider most when including/balancing FF. You're the guy who is going to find all the tricks possible to get somebody killed and don't even need to turn a profit, it's just the most fun way to play.

That said, I really hope if FF is included that there is no type of Flagging system like UO had. Too many times exploiting flags have been used in the name of blue PKs. If you are going to be a murderous monster in the game, you should be red. The game system should not allow you to be blue, walk into a fire field, and kill whoever cast it. Same goes for getting players killed by mobs while you do FF damage to them yourself as well. That's not a true representation of RG's virtue system and a character acting like this should not be a shining beacon of justice exploiting the system to get his kills.

I think friendly fire and the game's criminal system would be closely related, so however it works itself out really should not allow good characters to trick other good characters into their deaths. If both players are signed up for PvP, that is another matter and should be completely legal, but the attacking player should lose karma and eventually go red, not be a blue PK in the game's eyes.

 

@LordSlack - I see where you're coming from to stop the people causing trouble just for fun but would you be ok with the FF doing damage to a blue if they were dumb enough to step into the fire? I'm more against the mindless use of AoE spells than the ability to get someone flagged but then question of how do you balance it so that groups of blue PKs don't emerge that just cast tons of AoE spells on people?

 

@Illesac "how do you balance it so that groups of blue PKs don?t emerge that just cast tons of AoE spells on people?"

You can't that's why AoE is so broken in most games.

 

@rschultzy80 - which do you choose open attack world or no AoE spells? For the reasons above I'm all for open world and let the player's handle it because anything else is too far fetched. Having AoE spells that don't impact people is wrong but so is griefing blues so the only answer I see is to leave it open world.

Anyone else have ideas on how to fix this dilemma?

 

It works with a group of people in a guild. Possibly in a guild vs guild combat situation where there's no flagging and no PUGs. There's just far too many wants to exploit it otherwise. One way or another you can either cause harm (or heal) without flagging or you can trick someone into flagging.

 

@illesac "Anyone else have ideas on how to fix this dilemma?"

no restrictions, make the caster use common sense. When did it become a programmer's job to write code to replace common sense?

 

I agree with @rshultzy80. If the game allows you to cast an AOE spell that can affect players, there there have to be consequences if you cast it negligently and injure a player you do not intend to attack.

Perhaps the best way to resolve the grief aspect of an AOE spell is that if you cast the spell, and another player is within the damage area of effect, you are flagged as an attacker. If another player is NOT in the initial area of damage, but runs into it after it has been cast, the person takes damage for their foolishness, but the caster is not flagged.

That will have to be balanced so that if you see someone running, you can't 'lead' them with the spell by casting it in their path, but that shouldn't be too difficult.

 

@Owain " If another player is NOT in the initial area of damage, but runs into it after it has been cast, the person takes damage for their foolishness, but the caster is not flagged."

It's a solid idea but I can already see where it restricts gameplay, if you want to "lead" a target with a spell or maybe cast an aoe field behind a person so if they choose to run it'll be through damage or towards the caster.

If making that concession was required to have FF I think most people that don't want game restrictions would deem it fair.

 

@rshultzy80,

It's tricky, because I can see why a caster would want to cast something like firefield between them and another player, because it is in the caster's interest to keep the other player the heck away from him. You'd have to have a timer, so that you can't cast the spell, and BAM, the player runs through it, and you escape being flagged. Depending on the duration of the effect, if it's a long duration effect like a fire field, if someone runs into it 5 seconds after you've cast it, that should give a player time to see the field and stop or avoid it. If you run into it after that, it's because you wanted to run into it, so that should be on you, not upon the caster.

Each spell would have to be considered separately, but hey. No one ever said balancing for PvP would be easy.

 

@Owain I totally agree with you. In fact I think it should have no timer. For example with a fire field or any field (poision etc) if it is cast on that person you should be flagged, but if the person runs into it that is always that person's fault.

 

@Isaiah, it would still be simple to see a running player, cast the field spell in front of them, and have them be unable to stop in time to avoid it. I think a short timer would be helpful.

 

@Antalicus - Magic in MMO games havent improved since UO, well the graphics have improved but thats all. Take any first person shooter magic system and they still isnt as skillful, fun or strategic as UO autotarget system was.

Friendly fire should be in on AoE spells but thats all.

 

I can certainly accept a short timer as a compromise

 

i think it should vary from spell to spell. for example earthquake should have friendly fire, and maybe meteor swarm should but chain lightning shouldnt? perhaps a mass curse spell shouldnt? maybe the strongest area effect spells should be different than weaker ones? we should be able to have some of each...

either way for pvp purposes as long as everyone has the same rules it doesn't make a difference most of the time. if you were a mage in real life (if that were possible) there should be some spells that you could control after they were cast to effect your enemies and not your friends. I have also never seen a game where the misfire of an arrow can hurt a friend.

my personal preference is to not complicate something that is already as complicated as rpg combat with friendly fire, or to at least not go overboard with it. there are a lot of cool spells that will become less cool/useful because most of the time in a multiplayer game your friends are around.

 

AOE Friendly fire is fine, as long as you have a means to control if the FF causes PVP kills or FF kills.

The simplest way would be people in your party/guild can cause a FF kill, but that it doesn't trigger them as a PK (or if there is some sort of PKing scale, they get "less" of the PKing points for someone in their party - backstabbing a friend is easier than backstabbing someone who doesn't necessarily trust you!).

You could also add that people in your "friend list" (or perhaps a seperate "neutral list") don't cause PVP death. I'm sure the PK fans would appreciate this as they could practice on each other without getting "red flagged".

It would add a nice teamwork feel if the melee character up the front has to prepare for the friendly AOE from the magicians to reduce the damage he takes from it. "Don't throw the fireball until I've crouched behind those rocks!"

 

Friendly fire sounds like a soft version on the game. I'm voting no on friendly fire.

 

So what you guys are saying is, I should find someone who's temporarily AFK and cast a bunch of long-lasting fire fields around them. Completely surround them. When they come back, if they want to move they have to move through the fire fields, but since it's been longer than whatever the timer is, I'm not flagged as attacking them? It's their own dumb luck? So basically, every town would become a sea of fire fields just to prevent casual players from doing things like getting to their own house or selling equipment at a vendor? Seems pretty silly to me.

If you're going to allow FF, then if anything you do hurts/harms another player, then you are flagged. If you cast any AoE spell in certain areas (like towns) (like putting up flame walls to prevent people from entering or leaving a building), then you are flagged, even if you don't hurt anyone.

Personally, I think the solution is more simple: FF & PK are the same thing. You opt in or you don't (there's no reason to opt into FF but out of PK, is there?). If you opt in, it's fair game. If you opt out, you don't have to worry about it - anywhere.

I personally have no interest in PK or FF in this game. Please don't make me have to deal with it.

 

If there is FF, then those who are the *most* skilled in whatever produces the FF should reduce or eliminate it. Someone new to harnessing some AOE spell would likely have less "control" over who is hit than someone who has thoroughly mastered the skill.

To use a UO analogy, if the minimum skill needed to fire off an AOE damage spell is 50, someone who casts it with 53% skill would hit all targets, friendly and enemy, almost equally; they aren't skilled enough to control it and harness the power to where they want it to go -- whereas someone whose skill is 120% would be good enough that the AOE spell barely hits friendly targets, if at all.

 

And what about the opposite of friendly fire? If there are going to be AOE healing spells, wouldn't they also heal the mobs or PKs you're engaged with just as AOE damage spells would hit your friends?