> A lot of people listed examples of how players would indiscriminately betray everyone in sight, ending the game with over -20 K/D. This should not be a reason to turn off FF. I have played hundreds of LD matches, and have only seen this happen a couple of times. The vast majority of games I have played involved no team betrayals, and when there were it was two or three players betraying each other (with those betrayers going on average -3 K/D).
Though rampant betrayal-griefing may not have a particularly adverse effect on you, it has very clearly had an adverse effect on several others.
Moreover, if some feature causes more problems than it would solve, and its removal solves more problems than would be caused, then there is no justification (other than lack of resources, which doesn’t apply here) for keeping that feature. It doesn’t matter how few people that feature screws over (even though LD Friendly Fire screwed over more than just a few people); if it can be removed, it should be.
I’m sure you’re getting to that, though – that is, claiming that LD FF didn’t cause more problems than it solved. I reply as I read.
> So you might be thinking, “If the vast majority of games involved no betrayals, what’s your beef with the removal of friendly fire?” Simple: it takes out a core element of Living Dead, the uncertainty that the player next to you is not going to put a shotgun shell in your back.
That literally isn’t even close to being a core element of Infection.
> Friendly fire kept players on their toes, and like real survivers of a zombie outbreak, you never know if a member of your party will turn on you for supplies or personal gain.
Is friendly fire realistic? Yes. But in a video game, realism should always be secondary to good gameplay, and Friendly Fire does not promote good gameplay.
It weakens teamwork, promotes selfishness, interferes with a victim’s ability to move around the map, wastes a victim’s time, and can get a victim infected (if Human) or prevent them from infecting others (if Zombie). It does not promote caution of any kind. Most notably, it even leads to Infection-specific glitches.
> (Example: When Shane shoots Otis in the leg in the last season of AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’. How lame would that scene have been if the bullet just bounced off?)
Put that in spoiler tags, please, or you’ll be ruining that scene for anyone who reads this post and may be just getting into the series.
> Another thing is how players would have “all the fun ruined” by a betrayer. At most it is a round of annoyance, and also an opinion. When a player betrays me in Living Dead, I smile to myself as I say “so that’s how you want to play”, and re-spawn seeking vengeance. It is now a game within a game, I can duke it out shotty style with a rival, while also fending off zombies. Then the next round, if I spawn as a zombie and my rival a human, it makes the hunt that much more fun.
It is not a game within a game. It is the wrong game.
If I take a paintball gun into a chess club and start opening fire, I’m not turning it into a “game within a game”. If I drive a racecar through a football field and run over all of the players, I’m not turning it into a “game within a game”. And when you decide to ignore the game’s objective and purpose and kill people on your game, you’re not turning it into a “game within a game”.
People do not go to Living Dead to play FFA Slayer with their own teammates. They go to Living Dead to play Infection, a team game. When you and other people choose to start betraying teammates rampantly in Living Dead, you are forcing your preferences on other people when you could just as easily behave in the same manner without screwing people over, by going to Custom Games or Rumble Pit.
Bungie and 343i obviously wanted people to choose, to some extent, what they want to play, or else they would not have given us a set of playlists with a voting system. If someone enters Living Dead, they are exercising the choice that the developers intended them to have. You and others have no right to nullify that choice by turning the match into FFA Slayer.
> In conclusion, the removal of friendly fire is wrong because:
> 1. It took out the dynamic of keeping an eye on your team.
> 2. It did not occur enough to warrant it’s removal.
> 3. Betrayals are only a minor annoyance.
In conclusion, the removal of friendly fire is right because:
- It was only ever used to grief, without offering benefits to gameplay.
- It occurred. Frequency is debatable and irrelevant.
- It was used to nullify other players’ right to choose.
> P.S. There was a reason that sword base was voted for so heavily. “But people camp in the red lift!” some say. Then camp above the lift and wait for them to go up.
Yeah, that’s not a strategy that they’ll see coming a mile away. Sword Base was voted for so that people could pad stats, farm credits, and because they wanted PvP Firefight Arcade.
