Jermaphobe

Moderator
Contributor
Legendary Mapper
This suggestion primarily applies for the 24/7 2Fort/Turbine/Hightower servers as so many players go on Skial's 24/7 servers to goof off and have fun without an objective in mind.

Some things to consider

  • We already ignore the friendlying rule on servers like Idle, Trade, Surf, Orange, and Deathrun
  • Our more objective orientated servers have a map pool, such as VSH, FF2, Payload, and ZE. So friendlying rule makes sense
  • We already ignore the friendlying rule when the majority of the server is friendly, as it is clear the objective of the server goers at that time are to friendly.
  • 2Fort, Turbine, and Hightower are considered the non-official sandbox maps of TF2, not many players play for the objective on these maps, instead play for TDM or other shenanigans, such as trolldier, 1v1s, or friendly.
For as long as I remember, we've told players that wanted to friendly to go to our trade or idle server if they wanted to avoid being punished. Instead, I suggest we allow it on the 24/7 servers we have available, as many players look for these kind of servers to goof around in. I'm aware this idea will piss off serious TF2 players, but I thought it'd be worth a shot to be a little more fair to the players, and improve Skial's image.
 

Trillium

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
+1 I'm not sure about the turbine and Hightower servers as I don't frequent those servers as much, but on the 2fort servers, I would welcome it, as 2fort is always varied in the types of players that it houses, and it would be nice to not have so many reports from someone complaining about friendlies, or then that friendly complaining because they got banned because they didn't know the rule, which they should, only problem is that so many people have html motds turned off, so many people don't know about the rules in their entirety.
 

Trillium

Legendary Skial King
Contributor
+1 for this.

Being a temporary friendly for a minute or two to have a moment with a few players in 24/7 2fort/Turbine and then going back to business as usual shouldn't be punished the same way we punish people spending 10, 20, 30 or more minutes persistently friendlying/stalling, especially on an objective-focused server like VSH or Payload.
I think this is the best compromise to this type of situation, as the permanent friendly people are annoying, but most people do have a couple moments of friendlying, even when they are playing normally
 

herp 105.4

Rage-Inducing Forum Troll
Contributor
FF2 Balancer
or we just have 1 specific skial friendly server and herd them there so we can mass cull them and watch them spam reports
 

smagz

Scarcely Lethal Noob
-1 I really dislike how the servers turn into a friendly zone when 2 people start to do it.
 

Anub?

Spectacularly Lethal Soldier
Let's break down the two sides;

On one hand, allowing friendlying would decrease workload from having to deal with reports, of which through casual observation one can see there are many. This, in turn, would most likely allow staff to focus more on things people want implemented/fixes and allow for less headaches overall, (or so I assume, I can't say I've ever been a part of something as big as Skial's operation). This is probably a minimal change and won't affect much in reality, but its worth taking the minor amount of change into account regardless. Some of the player base would also be happy with this change as it allows for slightly more lax with this one specific rule being a bannable offense.

On the other hand, there are a lot of cons. One such issue that comes to mind immediately is what happens to all the players who have previously been banned for this offense? If they are to be unbanned, it may lead to an influx of appeals to deal with. This is only a temporary problem, if one at all however, and is more of a minor reason. Another reason is that servers already exist for this purpose, so what becomes the point of these servers should friendlying become allowed on others? I understand they can still be used for other things, but if there's already a place to be friendly, I don't see why it should need to be allowed everywhere. Lastly and probably the biggest reason to not allow friendlying is for the fact of the current times. Bots are plaguing casual, so smart players will choose to go to community servers to play the game normally, and if someone is looking to experience the game as it is, friendlies can be quite counter-intuitive to that. Some may argue that friendlies are also a part of the game, but usually the attitude of someone who leaves a game due to bots is going to be because they wish to experience the game as it was meant to be experienced, as most who queue for casual are looking for an experience different from that of trade or idle servers, as if this were not the case, they would already be on said servers. While these are three main reasons, there exist far more, but I don't feel I need to stress them as they are either known or have been previously stressed in this thread.

All in all, I'd personally say the cons outweigh the pros for this situation
-1
 

herrshaun

Wicked Nasty Engineer
Contributor
Sorry but I have to disagree. There's nothing I hate more than having to wait to get into a 2fort server, then getting in and finding a bunch of friendlies using up all the slots.