I think their approach to team killing is part of why the user base is so forgiving of team killing.
It is included in the training and baked into the game play by having generous respawn limits. There are jokes about it baked into the promotional materials. Everyone expects to be team killed on accident, so people tend to assume any team killing is accidental. People who might otherwise team kill on purpose will either get their fill through accidents or will not get immediate reactions that feed their trolling.
So by keeping the team killing in the game they have also defused a lot of possible trolling while also having people just accept it as part of the game, especially when non-player initiated features like turrets and backpacks are the worst offenders for team killing.
Finding it funny is a great approach, kudos to the devs.
If I accidentally carpetbomb my squad I am always quick to reinforce out of guilt 😬
The person who hasn't done this is a damn liar.
I say sorry for my blunder and reinforce my buds ASAP.
I 100% will team kill my friends if its funny in the situation and expect it in return.
The randos just can't avoid walking into my mines and I feel bad about that one, but they do glow red.
When I first started playing with my brother, I was shocked to learn that he was fuming for days when I called down an Eagle Airstrike on him. I thought it was hilarious at the time, but he was legit mad. Then after playing for a few weeks, he came to lighten up and realize that team killing is part of the fun.
But yeah, if you come from a game like PUBG where team killing is a mortal sin, it can be a bit of a shock to the system.
Tell that to the PS5 player who immediately booted me after he ran through my field of fire and died.
I immediately re-enforced him too.
Hard not to take it personally. feels bad man
Or getting booted for having a guard dog that kills ABC1, then instant boot. Good luck with the rest of your mission, dumbass.
Last night I was the last survivor of my squad with no reinforcements left. I was trying to run to the evac shuttle. 3 giant bugs killed me, ending the mission. One guy told me to kill myself all in caps and to delete the game and he hopes I get banned and then they kicked me from the party. Not a super experience.
The statement is in general, as in far fewer than any other game, not 100% true all the time.
I don't like to team kill on purpose, but I do think it's very funny to drop an orbital J U S T outside the range of my friends occasionally to keep them on their toes.
Sometimes their toes are the only thing left of them.
(It helps that I only play with IRL friends and only with VC so I can warn them. But you know how it goes, you don't always hear the warning even over VC.)
All my homies hate me picking up the 380 barrage.
I had a few matches when I first started where I was purposefully (no enemies around) killed right before extract. It hurt them as much as me, so I don't get it, but it was frustrating. Other than that, yeah I assume it's accidental. At higher difficulties no one is doing that as far as I've seen.
Isn't friendly fire one of the main selling points of the game? The satire of negligence and disregard for the lives of their forces from higher ups is/should be one of the themes of the game, imo
Most people are very bad at media literacy
The game is made by the people who made Magica. Helldivers 1 was also full of friendly fire. Of course they stick to what works. Being careful around teammates is 50% of the gameplay, with the other 50% being what happens when someone throws a jellied gatling on a flat terrain when you are surrounded.
Oh, for sure! I'm just saying I hope they won't listen to the few people who are complaining and don't get why friendly fire is a feature and not a bug/bad design
That's why I was so surprised when I got kicked last night after a single FF incident 25+ minutes into a mission
I was finishing calling in something that ended with ➡️, which happens to also be the grenade button, which is what I unintentionally threw at the dude's feet. He dies and I go back to orbit like that lol
No FF would mean we could just drop stratagems on ourselves with no consequence. It would kill the game.
Yeah, I don't want ff off. it's a challenge sometimes to not kill friendlies with a mortar or when they run in front of my line of fire. I think it fits the theme too well to not be part of the game.
You would expect a lot of FF incidents from the minimal training helldiver's get before being dropped.
I haven't played this game, but usually the issue with FF being on in multiplayer games is that there are a million little trolls out there that love to kill their teammates. That's not realism, it's just annoying.
Helldivers isn't a competitive team based shooter. It's a 4 player mission based co-op game. Friendly fire is core to the game design. Using a powerful weapon comes with a risk of killing yourself or team mates. And death, in that game, is also important. It's not much of a punishment, but it does give risk.
I play the game religiously and I have come across exactly one idiot who TKed on purpose. FF is 99.99% accidental.
Many cases they are somewhat justified as the team desperately tries to stay alive and drop stratagements (close air support) anywhere from "danger close" to "broken arrow" ("I pray this kills the towering insect trying to eat us"). Sometimes you also lose awareness and walk into a teammates stratagement, sometimes your call out falls short of where you intended (or bounces back straight to you). So hilarious accidents occur regularly.
Without this, the game wouldn't be the same at all. There is an odd military realism in a somewhat cartoony Starship Troopers-esque game that really gel very well together.
It works just fine in Mech Warrior Online. The trolls figured out they could build a "suicide" light mech that will one shot any assault mech, and take themselves out in the process. Admittedly, the game penalizes you by lowering your mercenary payout for friendly fire.
I haven't played Helldivers, but I feel like that would be like turning off friendly fire in Mech Warrior Online. There's a reason that you take penalties for shooting friendlies. That reason is rule #3, "always know what is behind your target." or frequently in this case, in front of your target.
The penalty in Helldivers is quite low and only an "uh no" once the mission timer expires, unless you die a lot.
It's pretty damn funny when it's accidental, unless constant.
Honestly it would be weird if you turned it off. Like a completely different game, and not as good. It's integral to the gameplay. You gotta check where everyone is before you drop the bombs. Or maybe the situation is beyond that point, and you just need to kill some bugs and cross your fingers for the next life. That's the game.
This is the same dev that made Magicka as their first game. Friendly fire is part of their company culture and it makes better multiplayer games.
I didn't realize that! Magicka is so funny due to the complex spell casting (like strategems) and the sometimes unintentional friendly fire. Makes a lot of sense knowing it's the same developers.
Oh wow, I had no idea! I may have to pick up Helldivers 2...
Get it, it's so much fun even if you're playing with randoms.
When I learned they were the Magicka devs it made a lot of sense.
They've made team killing an artform :D
TIL. Magicka and 2 were a hoot with my friends. The first game deserves a remaster with a better controller layout.
I was about to throw an air strike the other day. But before I threw it, I got disconnected. And it dropped right where I stood and killed my 2 mates. Fuck that shit was funny, we all laughed so much
I once got some sweet revenge on my friends because they wanted to prevent me from extracting for the laughs, so I ran at them with an airstrike ready in my hand. They melee'd me, knocking the stratagem out of my hands. And that eagle airstrike comes in fast
10/10 would commit treason again
That happens regularly when getting killed while preparing to throw a strategem :D
I wouldn't wanna play with anyone who thinks turning it off would be a good idea. Holy Helldiver, there are strange people out there!
There are always people wanting to optimize the fun out of a game.
It baffles me as well. The game isn't called "Helldivers" because they drop in, everything is a doozy and it goes according to plan and they calmly extract. The potentially chaotic mechanics are a bit part of the charm.
No friendly fire would be overpowered
And boring
best development team
By the way, for anyone who is sleeping on the increased hellpod steering upgrade - you are missing out. Nothing is more hilarious than getting team killed and taking a little light-hearted revenge by smashing into your teammate with your reinforcement hellpod.
Disagreed just because of the currently acknowledged bug that terrain steering restrictions are too strict, e.g. if you're anywhere near any objective or mountain you will not be able to steer at all, which is most of the time in my experience. Unfortunately this module is just about worthless at the moment.
I only play with friends so it is funny.
If you never dropped a 500kg because you were killed by a teammate, you didn't play the game.
If you never teamwiped your squad by getting hit with the backblast of a recoilless rifle/rocket sentry while readying an eagle stratagem, you didn't play the game
I’m all for it.
I also like Hell Let Loose (or at least used to) because the team killing and not being able to see shit, and general shitshow of it all was so damn fun.
Both games have that quality where you really have to work to accomplish something.
Honorable mention to Chivalry 2, where friendly fire can be funny too.
What changed your opinion about Hell Let Loose. I've been eyeing it for awhile but still on the fence.
I used to really enjoy it, then I didn’t have a place to play where I could use a microphone for a while so I stopped. When I went back it felt like the community changed and it was harder to find good lobbies (I.e. people using mic’s in squad, and good commanders, they call in all support and airdrops and coordinate the squads).
I haven’t tried it in many months now so I have no idea what the state of it is.
That was all on console, I know the PC community is quite different.
I don’t know if they still do free weekends to try it or not, but might be worth looking in to.
damn good reason honestly
Well it is kinda funny
I threw down a 500KG bomb and my buddy marched right into it. That's when I found out my mic had been muted for five minutes. I have never laughed and apologized so hard at the same time.
"The other day." Aka several weeks ago.
That's how you can tell someone is a Maritimer. "The other day" is anywhere between yesterday and 4 weeks ago. "A while back" is anything over 4 weeks ago.
Or from the American Midwest, we say the other day and it’s sometime between 2 days ago and our birth.
This is accurate
Crazy. For me it would be a few days at best, like less than a week.
Technically correct though.
The best kind of correct🤌
“Aka several weeks ago.” Aka exactly a couple (2)
"Aka exactly a couple (2)" Aka a fortnight ago
Good, they have a vision and they stick to it. The team damage is hilarious and painful at the same time..
I agree
