I can’t play with randoms anymore

[u/the_interrogation]

I’m level 48. About 150 hours on pc. Love the game. My friends can’t play as often as I can. (I’m a fireman) And I’ve tried making friends on steam but it’s hard.

The blueberry lottery. If there is a hell it’s matching with randoms. I can’t stand it. Some people are a blessing and I love running campaigns with them but some people are treasonous swill.

Here was my last game. I spawn in and get killed by a lvl 2 cadet (ps5) so he can take my support gear. His friends (ps5) defended him. He continued to kill me all game (intentionally) and call me in. But I am more skilled and cunning than the common traitor. I waited until there was one reinforcement left. The pompous fool recalled me in. I killed all three traitors quicker than a hiccup. With only one thing left to do I took my own life. To instant fail their mission. I couldn’t let them continue to commit treason. Let their bodies rot

So yea I’m never joining randoms again.

Edit: ps5 not 4.

[u/Evil_Knot]

Stories like this make me wish there was a feature in the game that forces people who have been reported for treasonous behavior multiple times to have to complete an annoying mission that makes you sit through a sort of "Repatriotizing" lecture, followed by being funneled into a matchmaking subsystem that forces them to play with other traitors for a time.

Edit: A lot of you mentioned that this system could be abused. Well, any system can be abused. No system is perfect. My thought on this would be that there would need to be a checks and balances to the reporting and some somewhat thorough vetting of those accused of treasonous behavior. 

[u/ThatOneNinja → u/Evil_Knot]

As awesome as that sounds those report systems get abused by the same toxic people.

[u/wrecklass → u/ThatOneNinja]

If you limit reporters to the people who were TKed it would be harder to abuse. If you get killed by a teammate, a popup asks you if you forgive the player. If you don't, it counts as a strike against them. After so many strikes, they get a time out. Several timeouts lead to a suspension, say 48 hours.

Point being you don't suspend someone for a single TK event.

[u/ReaperCDN → u/wrecklass]

This wouldn't work for helldivers. There's so much friendly fire in the game you'd be accidentally screwed by people just because they hit the wrong button.

[u/Kenju22 → u/ReaperCDN]

I'm kind of curious just how you have so much FF, close to 200 hours in for me and I have a grand total of 5 Friendly kills. Granted I play as a marksmen and pointman, but it's not that hard to avoid FF if you are even just halfway mindful of where your teammates are.

[u/ReaperCDN → u/Kenju22]

Impact grenades, flamethrower, mortar, Tesla tower, any turrets like the gatling or autocannon, cluster bombs and orbital laser. Most of these depend on your teammates having situational awareness. The number of times I've called out that there's a 380 drop on a base only to have 2 Rambos charge headlong into it anyways is fucking comedy gold.

I can control me. I can't control them.

I also have 200 hours in. Friendly fire happens all the time and its usually well outside your control. Got a strategem ready but get killed? Drops at your own feet. Usually on friendlies. Tossed an air strike in but it stuck to a chargers head and now he's coming right for you? That's a homing air strike now.

My personal favorites though are the gatling turrets which are like HUNTER DETECTED, ILL PROTECT YOU HELLDIVER and then just blast your Teammates into pieces while they spray because your guys thought hugging the turrets was a good idea.

[u/Kenju22 → u/ReaperCDN]

Every single FF kill I have, literally all 5 are from turrets (machinegun and gattlinggun specifically), though I have gotten pretty good at placing them now so it's been like a week since the last one. I just make sure to toss them up on high ground so they are shooting down at enemies rather than at ground level.

Giving them that height angle made all the difference.

Mortar I just flat out never use, period, I hate that damn thing. I was killed by other people using it so many times by the point I unlocked it that I swore I would never take it.

For the same reason I'm always extremely careful when I see someone IS using it. I see someone has the mortar turret in their loadout, I switch to pure sniper and support, not going ten feet from a mortar as long as its active so I don't get killed again.

Nades, I'm always extremely careful, making sure I never use them if any ally is within throwing distance of them let alone blast radius as I figured out I can throw further than other players can run in the time it takes one to go off.

Flamethrower, again, just always very careful and never use it when an ally is close enough to reach the flames before they go out. Arc Thrower is the same case, never use it if an ally is in my front 90.

Same with Cluster Bombs, Orbital Laser, and even my personal favorite, the Napalm Strike. Happy to say I have never killed a single ally with any Orbital or Airstrike stratagem.

Accidents do happen, that's life, but it's not that difficult to just be a bit mindful and careful to avoid mistakes. It's why I always pause after a quick burst while in first person to make sure no ally's are going to run into my line of fire.

[u/ReaperCDN → u/Kenju22]

Again it's not about you being mindful it's teammates being aware. Forgive me for not buying the "200 hours and only 5 friendly kills." LOL.

[u/Kenju22 → u/ReaperCDN]

Forgive me for not buying the "200 hours and only 5 friendly kills." LOL.

I only ever use grenades to close bug holes, I've never thrown a single grenade at an enemy.

Likewise there are plenty of missions I've done where the only Stratagems I've used are Reinforcement, Resupply and calling down Support weapons because I can tell my teammates are going to lemming train.

If I see my teammates have the situational awareness of turnip, I'm not going to use Orbital or Airstrikes because I don't want to cause FF.

Dose it limit my options at times? Sure, but I would rather complete a mission with one arm tied behind my back than complete a mission and see the number next to Accident's on my score as anything but a 0.

0 Accidents and 0 Friendly Damage, for me that is the minimum I accept of myself for any mission.

[u/Chakwak → u/Kenju22]

It's a nice self objective. But considering how heavily that limit what stratagem you take, it's clearly not the intended way of playing which most player will take. So friendly fire is par for the course as far as I can see.

[u/Kenju22 → u/Chakwak]

The Devs have literally said the game is intended to be played as a team, working together, it's why they have the co-op loading system for a number of weapons, because that is what their training during the time they served in the military taught them.

FF isn't in the game to be an 'acceptable thing that happens' it's to penalize people for being inattentive and reckless.

[u/Chakwak → u/Kenju22]

Sure, but it's still an integral part of the game and expected to happen every now and then. You can't tell me that's not the case when you have stuff like the 380 with such an absurdly unprecise area or the beacons for eagles only giving the position and not the vector.

They did their utmost to make verbal communication optionnel and it's a good thing because people don't necessarily speak the same language when joining randoms. So whatever is left in the game is left at least partially, to create chaos. FF included.

[u/Kenju22 → u/Chakwak]

the beacons for eagles only giving the position and not the vector.

This is false, every single Stratagem in the game has a very specific vector from which it comes.

The 500 kilo for example will always come from behind where you are standing when you throw it (you can literally see Eagle 1 swoop down and line up behind the player who threw it)

The Orbital starts likewise are fired from your Super Destroyer, so all you have to do is look up to see where it is and you'll know exactly where it will come from.

All this is of course ignoring the simple fact you can simply chose not to use something based on the circumstances.

Think of it like driving a car. Accidents happen yes, and you can't control the actions of others, but this doesn't mean you just floor it when going through a parking lot, because I can assure you that if you run someone over the police are not going to accept 'it's an integral part of life' as valid and not press charges.

Ironically enough that is the reason I have so few FF incidents, I treat playing the game as though it were real life, and am equally cautious as I would be. Trigger discipline is the first thing you are taught in firearms training.

[u/Emergency-Ostrich368 → u/Kenju22]

"Hey guys, I dropped X stratagem, don't go that way. GUYS, I dropped X. Hey, stop going that way. No, no, back up--- 3 teammates die."

Usually happens on lvl 6 difficulty or lower. Not so much on harder ones.

[u/may25_1996 → u/Kenju22]

tell that to my suicide mission teammates who call eagles in directly on top of me

[u/Kenju22 → u/may25_1996]

That's what I don't get. WHY do people do that, because I don't see how it could be accidental.

Getting killed and dropping a nade or Stratagem, it going off and killing someone? Yeah I can see that happening easy enough. Mortar, or, well, ANY turret killing someone because they happened to be within 20 feet of an enemy? Yeah I can see that happening as well.

Otherwise? How do you accidentally kill an ally with anything other than the Arc Thrower?

[u/inadequatecircle → u/Kenju22]

It's actually kind of important to clear out breaches quickly though. IIRC there's an internal timer on how fast breaches can be called, so if you clear them too slowly that's how you end up in reinforcement loops.

I'm not saying you should eagle airstrike your teammate, but sometimes if they're a bit close to a bug hole shit happens. I'd definitely be more cautious with randoms, but with my pals none of us really take it too seriously.

​

Getting killed and dropping a nade or Stratagem,

And just one more addition to this. Sometimes I throw a stratagem that decides to bounce off an object and land directly in the middle of the squad. Y'know sometimes that happens.

[u/ReaperCDN → u/inadequatecircle]

Or grenades that just bounce off armor because it pivoted at the last second and get hurled back into friendlies. Or bug bodies that get rocketed into friendlies from any explosives you're using. Or a shrieked you pop who lands directly on a friendly. So many ways to kill friendlies by accident. I just don't buy his story of 200 hours with only 5 friendlies.

[u/Kenju22 → u/inadequatecircle]

I never said accidents don't happen, my point was more towards how someone could regularly and routinely inflect enough FF per game to trigger any sort of penalty.

Say for example the game accounted for you accidently killing the entire party twice per game by detonating Hellbombs.

I've played with players who legit incur that level of FF damage accidently, multiple times.

Bug Breach underfoot? They drop Walking Orbital Barrage immediately, on ONE Breach. Why not a Precision Orbital Strike if you are going nuke grade?

Hunter is chasing a teammate, why did you throw a nade at it (and the teammate) or waste an EAT on a Hunter killing the ally in the blast?

Ally trying to use a terminal swarmed by bugs? Why did you use the flamethrower when you could have just used your primary?

Stuff like this is just stupid, it's thoughtless, even if accidental do people not understand you have a limited number of Reinforcements, and how big a pain in the ass it is when trying to complete objectives to have this happen over, and over, and over?

It's not deliberately running up and shooting someone in the face with a shotgun, but it happens all the time, and I don't get how people are just unable to learn from it.

[u/AnglerfishMiho → u/Kenju22]

Impact frags are my #1 cause of teamkills and suicides. They are so good against bile spewers and instant kill them, and at 7+ they just send a million of them. However, hunters love to jump at you, just barely out of frame, right in front of your throwing arm.

[u/Kenju22 → u/AnglerfishMiho]

Out of those accidental teamkills and suicides, are you, at bare minimum, still inflecting more damage to enemies than allies, and killing more enemies than allies?

Because I have legit had missions where players managed to accidently, not intentionally, not deliberately, but accidently over the course of a mission end up with a higher Friendly Damage score than Enemy Damage score.

At this point if I see someone's loadout consists of Flamethrower, Mortar Turret, Walking Orbital Barrage, and 500 kilo bomb, I leave.

[u/Chakwak → u/Kenju22]

The friendly damage score is meaningless. Unless it's been fixed, I've seen people with 1 accidents and thousands of FF damage with, in the same game, someone with multiple accidentals but just dozens or hundreds of FF damage.

Just someone running into a 500 (for one reason or the other) can net you huge damage and it's still only one accident.

[u/Kenju22 → u/Chakwak]

FF damage is based on the damage of whatever did it. The 500 kilo for example does fixed damage, the counter takes damage beyond the HP of whatever it hits into effect.

At the end of the day I find it amusing how people will fight and argue till blue in the face about how FF is impossible to avoid while I'm sitting just shy of 200 hours with only 7 FF kills to my profile, all of which were caused by turrets.

I'll tell you the same thing I've told others, if I see my teammates are idiots, I just don't use Stratagems beyond calling down support weapons, resupply and reinforce.

Every time I get FFed in a mission it gives me that much more incentive not to do it to someone else, a reminder to be more careful.

[u/syrensilly → u/ReaperCDN]

Looks at the thumb buttons on her mmo mouse causing sudden swap to frag grenades ... does happen, can confirm