To those who hate Friendly Fire i have a suggestion!

I still stand my ground on having Friendly Fire as ive never been much of a hater to it, but with this approach it might be worth to atleast consider this as an alternative.

So Instead of Taking Damage by your mates attacking you they instead should take the Damage for attacking you.

Reverse Friendly Fire Damage to the attacker for attacking his teammate?

This will atleast keep trolls like me in check :wink:

It should be a consequence for the attacker not the attacked.

If its like this i believe mages/spellcasters and archers/rangers will atleast consider changing their positions if they are the ones who take their own Damage to the knee?

Also Consider checking out @Konrad’s Refined Idea!

Konrad:

This is an interesting idea mechanically!

I’ll try to argue against it, not because I think it’s a bad idea, but because I want to refine it. (And because I both consider current magic boring and have that one friend who doesn’t contribute outside of indiscriminate backline spell-spam.)

Friendly fire serves a few purposes:

FF helps verisimilitude. Reverse FF is less internally consistent: Enemies damage themselves and one another, which I love exploiting. Why are we Cerim different? How does hitting my friend hurt (or stagger) me? Are Cerim so mystical as to be forced into mutual non-violence by the Sayer?

FF balances against spammy attacks overwhelming enemies, which ranged attackers can still do. ā€˜Reverse’ FF fulfills this function too. Both encourage all-ranged parties.

FF generates friction (or chaos/humour, depending on the tone and the ease of reviving; cf. Magicka and Helldivers), which generates opportunities for interaction with friends. Wicked does not have randoms, so I consider this friction a plus, as with loot distribution. Reverse FF still does so, but in a more limited capacity: ā€˜You ran into my spell to kill me!’

FF forces ranged supporters to play more deliberately. Reverse FF only shifts consequences from friends to oneself. Does it make sense if I suggest that reverse FF would, therefore, reduce social interaction? Friction is good.

Reverse FF works better with self-only telegraphing at range. If allies can see predicted arrow trajectories or ground indicators for spell placement, there is more visual clutter. If one limits this visibility to the caster/archer, one might also limit responsibility. On the flip side, no telegraphing with regular FF necessitates communication (a plus in my book).

Reverse FF takes some of the ā€˜tanking’ onus from melees and puts it on ranged. This is good, but I feel that enemies with more ranged options or stronger rushdown patterns are a better solution. I want the Risen to geek the mage first.

I’d rather lean into the FF, reduce the mitigation, and design ā€˜coordination puzzles’ in order to increase communication and interaction points. Consider:

  • a ā€˜dive’ move so I can dodge horizontal swings (or cones of cold) in a knockdown state; or more limitedly, the same attacks failing to connect with knocked-down melee players

  • abilities that key off friendly hits; a plague sorcerer poisoning me if I’m a plaguebearer so I can inflict my AoEs, for example, or a fire sorcerer thawing me, or a plate guy acting as a lightning rod

  • more deliberate combos beyond the elemental status interactions, especially for melees; like a shield-bearer or greatsword fighter providing a ramp for a plunging attack (Dragon’s Dogma), or firing arrows through a fire wall

  • physics interactions like flinging a friend out of an AoE with a whirl of the Glorious Paddle, projectile redirection with a shield into a blocking enemy’s back, or launch-based ā€˜movement techs’ for attacks that scale with speed or distance moved

This could work since Wicked aims for precision over spam (or should), and because initial suffering can be learned and exploited later.

I considered some other ideas:

A shared ā€˜discipline meter’ to debuff the entire party if enough FF is dealt all around. Not sure what I think yet, feels like the disadvantages of both and not as immediate.

FF should also cancel current combos under the upcoming ā€˜callout’ system.

Since FF seems to especially hurt melees, maybe a system where multiple backline spellcasters have to avoid ā€˜crossing the streams’, or risk having unstable magic blow up in their faces.

2 Likes

Thats an interesting idea, I don’t think i have seen that done in any other game. Maybe they could have it as a setting option in the realm creation.

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Rainbow Six Siege has reverse friendly fire. I think one of its main uses is to punish griefers. Makes a lot of sense with randoms. I do like the idea of the punishment being applied to the attacker rather than the victim. It’s much better feedback than my buddy yelling at me for being killed. Not being able to play because I nuked my friend is a lot of incentive to stop nuking my friend.

TAKE MY MONEY!

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This is an interesting idea mechanically!

I’ll try to argue against it, not because I think it’s a bad idea, but because I want to refine it. (And because I both consider current magic boring and have that one friend who doesn’t contribute outside of indiscriminate backline spell-spam.)


Friendly fire serves a few purposes:

FF helps verisimilitude. Reverse FF is less internally consistent: Enemies damage themselves and one another, which I love exploiting. Why are we Cerim different? How does hitting my friend hurt (or stagger) me? Are Cerim so mystical as to be forced into mutual non-violence by the Sayer?[1]

FF balances against spammy attacks overwhelming enemies, which ranged attackers can still do. ā€˜Reverse’ FF fulfills this function too. Both encourage all-ranged parties.

FF generates friction (or chaos/humour, depending on the tone and the ease of reviving; cf. Magicka and Helldivers), which generates opportunities for interaction with friends. Wicked does not have randoms, so I consider this friction a plus, as with loot distribution. Reverse FF still does so, but in a more limited capacity: ā€˜You ran into my spell to kill me!’

FF forces ranged supporters to play more deliberately. Reverse FF only shifts consequences from friends to oneself. Does it make sense if I suggest that reverse FF would, therefore, reduce social interaction? Friction is good.

Reverse FF works better with self-only telegraphing at range. If allies can see predicted arrow trajectories or ground indicators for spell placement, there is more visual clutter. If one limits this visibility to the caster/archer, one might also limit responsibility. On the flip side, no telegraphing with regular FF necessitates communication (a plus in my book).

Reverse FF takes some of the ā€˜tanking’ onus from melees and puts it on ranged. This is good, but I feel that enemies with more ranged options or stronger rushdown patterns are a better solution. I want the Risen to geek the mage first.


I’d rather lean into the FF, reduce the mitigation, and design ā€˜coordination puzzles’ in order to increase communication and interaction points. Consider:

  • a ā€˜dive’ move so I can dodge horizontal swings (or cones of cold) in a knockdown state; or more limitedly, the same attacks failing to connect with knocked-down melee players
  • abilities that key off friendly hits; a plague sorcerer poisoning me if I’m a plaguebearer so I can inflict my AoEs, for example, or a fire sorcerer thawing me, or a plate guy acting as a lightning rod
  • more deliberate combos beyond the elemental status interactions, especially for melees; like a shield-bearer or greatsword fighter providing a ramp for a plunging attack (Dragon’s Dogma), or firing arrows through a fire wall
  • physics interactions like flinging a friend out of an AoE with a whirl of the Glorious Paddle, projectile redirection with a shield into a blocking enemy’s back, or launch-based ā€˜movement techs’ for attacks that scale with speed or distance moved

This could work since Wicked aims for precision over spam (or should), and because initial suffering can be learned and exploited later.


I considered some other ideas:

A shared ā€˜discipline meter’ to debuff the entire party if enough FF is dealt all around. Not sure what I think yet, feels like the disadvantages of both and not as immediate.

FF should also cancel current combos under the upcoming ā€˜callout’ system.

Since FF seems to especially hurt melees, maybe a system where multiple backline spellcasters have to avoid ā€˜crossing the streams’, or risk having unstable magic blow up in their faces.


  1. Could be a fun bit of world-building. Would it apply to the (fake?) Cerim in the crucible? I am thinking of ā€˜From the New World’ and death feedback. ā†©ļøŽ

3 Likes

Great ideas. I agree that it will probably not stop griefing unless you implement the ā€œdiscipline meterā€ as you have suggested. I think the ā€œdiscipline meterā€ is great idea and would give teams the opportunity to learn to work together without being punished to much. I would still like to see it as a setting for the realm so you can remove it if you want to increase you difficulty

After not hitting a team member for x amount of time it would start to decrease.

Wether, the whole team takes damage, is stunned or whatever negative effect happens when the discipline meter is filled im not sure.

1 Like