I LOVE friendly fire in games. None of my friends do, though, and it shows in their gameplay and positioning.
Most of the time in my experience, people who don’t like friendly fire are ignoring their teammates and only tunneling on the enemies. They forget to remember where their friends are, and pay no heed to the area of their own effects. They turn all those parts of their brain off and divert all power to weapons. This typically results in me devoting extra brain power to watching my teammates, and making sure they are never behind me.
Said friends would definitely complain about friendly fire, and turn it off if they could, but then I just feel less invested in the combat and smash my buttons thoughtlessly. There goes all the tactical fun. I even die more when friendly fire is off, since I’m paying so much less attention.
Despite the drawbacks, I still love friendly fire. It makes combat feel more meaningful, and makes the presence of your teammates more solid. If their weapons just phase through you, they are just ghosts. Like the summons in Dark Souls. In a game where your party members are tied to the realm as they are in Wicked, they need to feel more solid. More tangible.
If friendly fire were removed, or even toggleable, this game would lose a lot of what makes it feel like a real party of adventurers working together. Especially when friendly fire is one of maybe two features that actually makes it feel like your party members are part of the world. I mean, no npc’s notice the plurality of the Cerim. (I guess Cerim is both plural and singular, for the sake of convenience?)
If one party member starts a quest and another one finishes it, the dialogue is the same. If one party member meets an npc while the other is offline, and then the other party member talks to the same npc while the first player is offline, there’s no “oh, you must be the other Cerim!” The game doesn’t care about the difference between single player and multiplayer. Except with loot distribution, and friendly fire.
What can be done about friendly fire? Or more accurately, what can be done about the people “whining” about friendly fire? (Quoting the OP, not trying to insult!) In my opinion, nothing can be done. The game is better for having friendly fire, and removing it would weaken the setting. The only thing we can do is try to appreciate what we have, and remember that there will always be a few loud people complaining about every little thing, especially if they are enjoying the game overall.
I think some people like having something to complain about, and if friendly fire were removed some of those people who were complaining would stop playing since there’s nothing to complain about. Others might start playing more for a while, but they would probably get bored just as quickly and end up going back to their comfort games.
TLDR; I think friendly fire is good. Complaining about it might just be another kind of fun for people. Taking it out would be a mistake.