We have recent spike in discussions about FF mechanic, so I want to impartially dump all things known and seeable for me from my ~10 year experience with this piece of product.
acc creation date
I did play Star Conflict like for 2 years before punching the thunder.
What do we have (TK = team kill, FF = friendly fire):
- FF is possible mostly with and towards aircrafts, fully enabled in Sim, disabled in Air/PvE Arcade, disabled for Ground/Naval vehicles in Arcade/Realistic
- FF was always forbidden by WT TOS - section 3
- FF was poorly handled all the time manually (if it even was)
- FF was poorly handled all the time automatically - only an SL fine + kick from battle after 2+ TKs (1 if frequent TK-ing), but sometimes it was possible to score multiple TKs (even before apology system addition)
- FF is not the only way to TK, also possible through ramming - was severe before, now system tries to distinguish who ramms whom (not perfectly), still misses cases of WWE takedowns (and broken propeller?)
- FF was surprisingly (with no warning) addressed only on Fair Play: November 2024 (10+ years after Open Beta start)
- FF being “addressed” does not mean that everything: resolved/fixed/clarified/easy to understand
- TK fine can be increased by using SL boosters (no comments…)
- being TKd always has negative effect on you - no compensation for:
- earlier match end in a vehicle that causes less RP from time alive duration
- missing potential farm
- used boosters
- only positive - a repair write-off (feature was added with apology system, was not even present before for a loong time)
- FF is not always avoidable:
- friendly plane can fly itself into your ground/naval target after the shot already being made and friendly appeared in field of view after (no way to react) (happened to me in a Naval with a kicking from battle)
- artillery (orbital ground strike ability) can shoot planes - no way to avoid this scenario form either sides
- SARH missile can switch targets last second with no enough time to react by disabling the radar
List of what causes the TK situations and if the player always wrong?
- UI (user interface) can block the view :
- friendly plane marker can be hard to see behind enemy’s marker
- there also a rare bug with “hit” message appearing right on the aimpoint:
Spoiler
- also no marker for friendly guided munitions that makes it hard to avoid unintentional FF on you
- Gameplay design (oh here we go…):
- *the possibility of FF itself
- *the one way gameplay discomfort for the one being shooted, not the shooter (no reverse damage)
- *allowance to bring players with lowtier vehicles (dog tags) into high tier matches via battle squads
- *inflexible punishment for TK-ing that prohibits players from defending themselves
- (* - marks the issues that were resolved long ago in non-gaijin game, but I don’t name that game to not to give more reasons to mute myself)
- Provokes TK behaviour:
- few base bombing targets with long respawn timer:
- fast interceptors/fighters (that supposed to do dogfighting, not the base bombing) reaches ground targets before the slow attackers
- no promised attackers spawn on 2nd airfield
- frag scoring system:
- even with severe damage mechanic you can set enemy on fire but get only an “assist”
- no marking of severe damaged planes that gives no clues if you going to steal the frag or not
- few base bombing targets with long respawn timer:
- Skill and Knowledge issue:
- no clear explanations of how game mechanics (like: IR/SARH missile seeker) works, community have to track/datamine and create educational videos by themself, result:
- lvl 33 F-4S player watches for 10+sec how his AIM-7F tracks into you and after you tells him to disable the radar in such situations - he just blames the missile and tells something about your mama
- IR missiles being launched while allies in field of view and can switch to the hotter closer (friendly) target
- without understanding the game logic and with no pointing towards the issue - this will never stop
- no clear explanations of how game mechanics (like: IR/SARH missile seeker) works, community have to track/datamine and create educational videos by themself, result:
Conclusion
I cannot say that Team Kills happens only due to a player mistake and the game itself is super prone to such situations and does little to nothing to fix them once and for all.
About justise jumpscare - if there was an aim to truly address/end the FF/TK behaviour - devs would announce the addition of the automated system week or two before persecuting for broken rules that were never maintained before, but we have what we have.
Also I am totally sure that eventually FF will be disabled in every scenarios - it logical and obvious, we already heading towards this with already disabled FF in certain game modes/cases. Simply because the game marked with * already came to this conclusion years ago. And the snail will.
Skipped whole sim battles thing, coz I am not into them very much, only can say not a good thing to create lowtier ground sim battles since novice players always TK no matter what, they should be prevented from entering the sim due to lack of knowledge.
P.S. dunno how but I did not received any ban nor warning, so this post is not a rant.
- no
- yes