Friendly fire clarification???

[EmptyPepsiCan]

A week ago I was playing a St. Louis. I was looking down the gun sights and wound up with an equally distracted friendly right next to me. The gun sights didn't show the friendly, and he ate a couple of broadsides of HE before I observed that my outgoing rounds weren't going anywhere. I veered away, and that was that. Except that I ended up pink the next game, and I have been ever since.

 

This is [edited]. I'm pretty sure I didn't even kill the guy. Now every game I go into it's "team-killer" this and "f*&k you, tker" that. To the best of my recollection I've killed 3 teammates in 50+ games. All 3 were accidental torpedo kills. I've never deliberately rammed or shelled anybody.

 

Anyway, how about injecting a little sanity into this process?

 

First off, there should be plenty of data to tell you who's a griefer and who's just trying to figure out torpedoes, so it should be made clear to everyone who is who.

 

Second, my records don't show anything about friendly fire, so I don't know for sure how many TKs I have, or what precisely turned me pink, or how long it's going to last, or what impact it's having on my game play.

 

Long story short, I'm a clean player, I've never deliberately killed a team mate, and suddenly I'm a freaking pariah in-game because you've given me the same tag you'd put on some scumbag griefer.

 

BTW, I played 2 games tonight. Both times I had to explain the stupid pink icon. Unfortunately the first time it was immediately after some clown TK'ed me. This is [edited].

 

[Argon3]

Best guess is you where in a Cap circle

I have shot several but never turned "Pink"

[RogueFlameHaze]

Your guns didn't have the elevation to fire over top of the friendly, so you probably did quite a bit of repetitive damage to that player. Just continue to play games and ignore people who complain to you in chat about you being pink, tell them you are working it off. As long as you don't cause more team damage, soon it will be gone.

[rolex575]

Murphy's law: Friendly fire, isn't

 

 It happens to everyone, I've already sunk some people with torps. Though not to the point of turning pink. One tip: always look before firing. If there's any ally nearby in your line of fire, just forget about it and wait... You'll have another chance, quite probably

 

[kjarri]

Surprised it took you several salvos to figure out your shells were hitting an ally. Just play some matches and it will go away.

[Taussig1917]

 

The second game I played was in Coop Mode.  A team mate had a ship I had not seen before and I zoomed into to get a better look at it.  I thought pressing the mouse wheel would return me to normal zoom.  It fired my guns.  Fortunately my little Erie did very little damage, but the other player was (understandably) upset.  I explained that I was new and had accidentally fired the gun while looking over the ship.  They calmed down after I explained.  I've since seen others do the same thing.  I myself have been shot and torped by team mates.  None of it intentional as far as I can tell, but it does happen.  I don't get too worried about it.  Happened historically too.

 

A suggestion for WG:  I think it would be good for newbies if the game had a training arena that was totally bot populated.  Newcomers could practice and at least learn their way around the keyboard and gun sights.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

I think there are 3 problems with the system -

 

1) It doesn't differentiate between a career griefer with dozens of team-kills and a clean player who made a mistake.

 

2) There's no information about how, when, and why you got tagged, or how long it will last, or what you need to get back to normal. All of that should be in the player profile. 

 

3) Apparently you do less damage to the enemy while you're pink...? If that's true then it's just stupid. First you brand me, then you gimp me so I'm a liability to my team? What's my incentive to keep playing?

[EmptyPepsiCan]

Yippee! Suddenly I'm no longer pink, but I have no idea why!

 

Seriously, how about some transparency for the friendly fire thing...?

[dahdah325]

OP, gonna call provisional [edited]here. It takes alot more than 'a couple' hits, or even broadsides, to turn pink. I have fail-torped friendlies on accident, and done a similar thing to what you are describing, only with a full broadside of a New Mexico, and not turned pink. To turn pink you either have to be doing regular, repeated team damage, or take a friendly from full to dead in a non-combat area. We tested this back in CBT, and doing even ~75% of a ship's HP wasn't enough to pink out. 

 

To get back to un-pink, you need to do somewhere around 2-3x the damage you did to get pink, and not do any more team damage in the meantime. Also, in CBT, you needed to do your 'community service' damage in the same ship you pink-ed in. Pinking in a BB, then trying to un-pink in a high dmg/game ship (i.e. Cleve) didn't work. 

[TetraethylLead]

OP, gonna call provisional [edited]here. It takes alot more than 'a couple' hits, or even broadsides, to turn pink. I have fail-torped friendlies on accident, and done a similar thing to what you are describing, only with a full broadside of a New Mexico, and not turned pink. To turn pink you either have to be doing regular, repeated team damage, or take a friendly from full to dead in a non-combat area. We tested this back in CBT, and doing even ~75% of a ship's HP wasn't enough to pink out. 

 

To get back to un-pink, you need to do somewhere around 2-3x the damage you did to get pink, and not do any more team damage in the meantime. Also, in CBT, you needed to do your 'community service' damage in the same ship you pink-ed in. Pinking in a BB, then trying to un-pink in a high dmg/game ship (i.e. Cleve) didn't work. 

I concur. Sounds really fishy to me. To turn pink you basically have to try to do so.

[EmptyPepsiCan]

Fishy or not, it's what happened. I'd prove it, but there's no friendly fire data available to me. That's part of the reason I'm irritated. Anyway, here's my total TK history, as best I recall:

 

Mid-July I unlocked a Tenryu. That's the first time I got access to torpedoes. I think I killed 3 friendly destroyers and/or cruisers while I was figuring out how best to use torps.

 

Early August I shelled whatever it was that got in front of my St. Louis. It was pretty much click-click-click... what the Hell...? zoom out, see what happened, veer away. My guess is that the friendly ate 2 broadsides, which IIRC would be 9 guns times 2, all of which probably hit. So 18 HE hits, give or take a couple. At the start of the next map I was pink.

 

A couple days ago a friendly cruiser got between me and an enemy battleship and ate a full spread of torpedoes. It was probably full health and I killed it. I was still pink a the time.

 

Night before last I played 2 games. At the start of the first game a friendly CV called me a TKing [edited]and deliberately torpedoed me. The second game was terrible - I went out too fast and got killed without accomplishing a thing.

 

Last night I played a few games, got a couple of kills, and suddenly was no longer pink. The entire time I was pink I used  my Wakatake and Minkaze exclusively. I haven't used the St. Louis since that broadside incident.

 

And there you go.

 

My point with all that is that the mechanics behind turning pink are as clear as mud, and they shouldn't be. We should have access to the following information:

 

- Precisely how much FF damage it takes to turn pink

- Whether there are special circumstances that will make the penalty more or less harsh - i.e. Does the game see a difference between a gun TK and a torpedo TK? Does location matter? Does it matter how far into a match you are when the TK occurs?

- How do you get rid of the pink? Do you work it off, as some people have claimed, or is it just a counter?

 

Additionally, our profiles should show how much friendly fire damage we've done and how many TKs we've amassed, and it should be publicly viewable. And finally, there should be some visual cue to differentiate between a player that accidentally got pinked and one that's a career griefer.

 

Anyway, whether or not you believe my explanation, it's hard to argue that transparency in the mechanic isn't needed.

[anonym_E4frrPsISLY2]

OP, gonna call provisional [edited]here. It takes alot more than 'a couple' hits, or even broadsides, to turn pink. I have fail-torped friendlies on accident, and done a similar thing to what you are describing, only with a full broadside of a New Mexico, and not turned pink. To turn pink you either have to be doing regular, repeated team damage, or take a friendly from full to dead in a non-combat area. We tested this back in CBT, and doing even ~75% of a ship's HP wasn't enough to pink out. 

 

To get back to un-pink, you need to do somewhere around 2-3x the damage you did to get pink, and not do any more team damage in the meantime. Also, in CBT, you needed to do your 'community service' damage in the same ship you pink-ed in. Pinking in a BB, then trying to un-pink in a high dmg/game ship (i.e. Cleve) didn't work. 

This is true. I believe you really have to work at it to turn pink right now. I was TK'd last night, reported it and have to just hope WG does something with it. If your pink you probably worked at it.

[dahdah325]

Fishy or not, it's what happened. I'd prove it, but there's no friendly fire data available to me. That's part of the reason I'm irritated. Anyway, here's my total TK history, as best I recall:

 

Mid-July I unlocked a Tenryu. That's the first time I got access to torpedoes. I think I killed 3 friendly destroyers and/or cruisers while I was figuring out how best to use torps.

 

Early August I shelled whatever it was that got in front of my St. Louis. It was pretty much click-click-click... what the Hell...? zoom out, see what happened, veer away. My guess is that the friendly ate 2 broadsides, which IIRC would be 9 guns times 2, all of which probably hit. So 18 HE hits, give or take a couple. At the start of the next map I was pink.

 

A couple days ago a friendly cruiser got between me and an enemy battleship and ate a full spread of torpedoes. It was probably full health and I killed it. I was still pink a the time.

 

Night before last I played 2 games. At the start of the first game a friendly CV called me a TKing [edited]and deliberately torpedoed me. The second game was terrible - I went out too fast and got killed without accomplishing a thing.

 

Last night I played a few games, got a couple of kills, and suddenly was no longer pink. The entire time I was pink I used  my Wakatake and Minkaze exclusively. I haven't used the St. Louis since that broadside incident.

 

And there you go.

 

My point with all that is that the mechanics behind turning pink are as clear as mud, and they shouldn't be. We should have access to the following information:

 

- Precisely how much FF damage it takes to turn pink

- Whether there are special circumstances that will make the penalty more or less harsh - i.e. Does the game see a difference between a gun TK and a torpedo TK? Does location matter? Does it matter how far into a match you are when the TK occurs?

- How do you get rid of the pink? Do you work it off, as some people have claimed, or is it just a counter?

 

Additionally, our profiles should show how much friendly fire damage we've done and how many TKs we've amassed, and it should be publicly viewable. And finally, there should be some visual cue to differentiate between a player that accidentally got pinked and one that's a career griefer.

 

Anyway, whether or not you believe my explanation, it's hard to argue that transparency in the mechanic isn't needed.

 

Either you are lying or your memory is incorrect. ~18 hits is NOT enough to pink out. Double that is not enough to pink out. You have to TK, and often TK multiple times in concurrent games to pink out. More and more, I am suspecting you are a just a troll and/or griefer. Stay pink, noob. 

[TetraethylLead]

 

My point with all that is that the mechanics behind turning pink are as clear as mud, and they shouldn't be. We should have access to the following information:

 

- Precisely how much FF damage it takes to turn pink

- Whether there are special circumstances that will make the penalty more or less harsh - i.e. Does the game see a difference between a gun TK and a torpedo TK? Does location matter? Does it matter how far into a match you are when the TK occurs?

- How do you get rid of the pink? Do you work it off, as some people have claimed, or is it just a counter?

 

Additionally, our profiles should show how much friendly fire damage we've done and how many TKs we've amassed, and it should be publicly viewable. And finally, there should be some visual cue to differentiate between a player that accidentally got pinked and one that's a career griefer.

 

Anyway, whether or not you believe my explanation, it's hard to argue that transparency in the mechanic isn't needed.

I can easily disagree with that. With access to how pink occurs I could work out how much damage to do while not being flagged to the public. I could maximize my teamkilling and ruin the most games while still flying under the radar and not giving any warning to other players. The black box prevents everyone but the most dedicated of trolls from optimizing their team killing. In this instance, greater transparency is detrimental. Greater transparency just makes it easier to troll others.

 

I have an easy way to avoid being pink. Be aware of your target and what's beyond it. Furthermore, the game says really loudly when you shoot friendlies "don't fire at your allies." You should have listened.

You failed to pay attention, played stupidly and won a stupid prize.

[Hjamnr]

There's an audio message whenever you shoot a friendly: "Don't shoot your allies".... it took you several salvos of that message before you noticed?

 

Don't buy it.

[EmptyPepsiCan]

 

Either you are lying or your memory is incorrect. ~18 hits is NOT enough to pink out. Double that is not enough to pink out. You have to TK, and often TK multiple times in concurrent games to pink out. More and more, I am suspecting you are a just a troll and/or griefer. Stay pink, noob. 

 

There's another possibility there - maybe you don't understand the mechanic any better than I do.

 

It's completely possible that my memory is off and that I have 2-3 more TKs than I recall, but that's about it. I have never had a multi-TK game, and I doubt I've ever had back-to-back single TK games. If I did then it was at least 3 weeks before I got pinked.

 

Also, as of yesterday I'm no longer pink. Pretty sure I mentioned that...

 

I can easily disagree with that. With access to how pink occurs I could work out how much damage to do while not being flagged to the public. I could maximize my teamkilling and ruin the most games while still flying under the radar and not giving any warning to other players. The black box prevents everyone but the most dedicated of trolls from optimizing their team killing. In this instance, greater transparency is detrimental. Greater transparency just makes it easier to troll others.

 

I have an easy way to avoid being pink. Be aware of your target and what's beyond it. Furthermore, the game says really loudly when you shoot friendlies "don't fire at your allies." You should have listened.

You failed to pay attention, played stupidly and won a stupid prize.

 

I figured I'd give the devs credit for having the brains to release enough information to make it clear what's happening, but not so much that it's easy to exploit. Seems reasonable.

 

As far as pink being easily avoidable, I beg to differ. I've never deliberately killed a friendly, and I haven't been a loose cannon with my torpedoes since I figured out how to use them properly. Even then, it was only a few games. Besides that, I don't object to getting penalized, but getting slapped with a scarlet letter with no clear explanation why and no explanation of how to get rid of it is a bit much. I already got billed for repairs and penalized XP.

 

There's an audio message whenever you shoot a friendly: "Don't shoot your allies".... it took you several salvos of that message before you noticed?

 

Don't buy it.

 

I generally play on my laptop in my living room, and I leave the sound off so as not to irritate my wife.

 

Also, it wasn't several salvos. It was maybe two. I was doing the standard rapid click thing trying to bury some Chester or something in a hail of HE. We're talking a couple of seconds here.

 

[QuicksilverJPR]

Fishy or not, it's what happened. I'd prove it, but there's no friendly fire data available to me. That's part of the reason I'm irritated. Anyway, here's my total TK history, as best I recall:

 

Mid-July I unlocked a Tenryu. That's the first time I got access to torpedoes. I think I killed 3 friendly destroyers and/or cruisers while I was figuring out how best to use torps.

 

Early August I shelled whatever it was that got in front of my St. Louis. It was pretty much click-click-click... what the Hell...? zoom out, see what happened, veer away. My guess is that the friendly ate 2 broadsides, which IIRC would be 9 guns times 2, all of which probably hit. So 18 HE hits, give or take a couple. At the start of the next map I was pink.

 

A couple days ago a friendly cruiser got between me and an enemy battleship and ate a full spread of torpedoes. It was probably full health and I killed it. I was still pink a the time.

 

Night before last I played 2 games. At the start of the first game a friendly CV called me a TKing [edited]and deliberately torpedoed me. The second game was terrible - I went out too fast and got killed without accomplishing a thing.

 

Last night I played a few games, got a couple of kills, and suddenly was no longer pink. The entire time I was pink I used  my Wakatake and Minkaze exclusively. I haven't used the St. Louis since that broadside incident.

 

And there you go.

 

My point with all that is that the mechanics behind turning pink are as clear as mud, and they shouldn't be. We should have access to the following information:

 

- Precisely how much FF damage it takes to turn pink

- Whether there are special circumstances that will make the penalty more or less harsh - i.e. Does the game see a difference between a gun TK and a torpedo TK? Does location matter? Does it matter how far into a match you are when the TK occurs?

- How do you get rid of the pink? Do you work it off, as some people have claimed, or is it just a counter?

 

Additionally, our profiles should show how much friendly fire damage we've done and how many TKs we've amassed, and it should be publicly viewable. And finally, there should be some visual cue to differentiate between a player that accidentally got pinked and one that's a career griefer.

 

Anyway, whether or not you believe my explanation, it's hard to argue that transparency in the mechanic isn't needed.

 

It's the frequency of your team damage that kept you pink for so long.

 

You need to pay a hell of a lot more attention to your surroundings and locate where the friendly ships are headed.  Never shoot torps with friendlies anywhere near/between you and your enemy target.

[Ron4ja]

Why do guns fire when you use the wheel on a mouse can you disable it.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

 

It's the frequency of your team damage that kept you pink for so long.

 

You need to pay a hell of a lot more attention to your surroundings and locate where the friendly ships are headed.  Never shoot torps with friendlies anywhere near/between you and your enemy target.

 

I don't think so. I had a cluster of TKs immediately after I got my Tenryu, but then it was over a month before I accidentally torped another friendly. I accidentally shelled a friendly once in between there, but that's it.

 

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that there's a long-term damage threshold and once you hit it you go pink for a set period of time, a set number of games, or a certain amount of damage dealt to the enemy. But that still doesn't explain the fact that I accidentally killed a friendly while I was pink, but went back to the normal color the next day.

 

So Devs, feel free to post my numbers if you have them. That might help clarify some stuff. If I'm wrong about something I'd like to know. Or you could just post a bit more information about how the whole thing works.

[MortarrKang]

 

You need to pay a hell of a lot more attention to your surroundings and locate where the friendly ships are headed.  Never shoot torps with friendlies anywhere near/between you and your enemy target.

 

And yet some douchecanoes will argue with you until they're blue in the face that they are in no way responsible what happens with their torpedoes once they're launched.

[QuicksilverJPR]

 

And yet some douchecanoes will argue with you until they're blue in the face that they are in no way responsible what happens with their torpedoes once they're launched.

 

Yeah, well they have a right to their opinion, even if the facts prove them wrong.  

[EmptyPepsiCan]

 

And yet some douchecanoes will argue with you until they're blue in the face that they are in no way responsible what happens with their torpedoes once they're launched.

 

Sure, some will. I'm not. When I was new to torps I killed some friendlies. Then I figured out what I was doing and didn't kill a friendly again for A MONTH, while playing light cruisers and destroyers almost exclusively. I'm not perfect, but one screw-up in a month doesn't rate a [edited]lecture like "you need to pay a hell of a lot more attention to your surroundings..."

[MortarrKang]

 

Sure, some will. I'm not. When I was new to torps I killed some friendlies. Then I figured out what I was doing and didn't kill a friendly again for A MONTH, while playing light cruisers and destroyers almost exclusively. I'm not perfect, but one screw-up in a month doesn't rate a [edited]lecture like "you need to pay a hell of a lot more attention to your surroundings..."

 

Didn't say you were.