A veritable lose-lose situation
Some Friday the 13th players have a penchant for killing their fellow camp counselors. It’s gotten to the point where Gun Media describes the team-killing problem as “rampant,” like something out of Battle Royale. With the next update, the developers hope to address the issue. That has a lot of folks worried.
“Our team believes that the ability to hurt other counselors is something that this game should have as it adds tension and requires players to make tough calls,” wrote Gun Media. “However, we do not believe this should be a mechanic that is abused by players to the point where the vast majority of our current communications from fans are complaints of rampant/unwarranted team-killing/griefing/trolling.”
As of the next patch, team killing will no longer be possible in public matches, except for with cars and bear traps (which will no longer result in an XP penalty for the trap-placer). Simply put, Friday the 13th players won’t be able to gun down or slice up their teammates. But team killing will still be a possibility in private matches, at least for the time being. “We will include this mechanic in private matches for now,” said Gun Media, “with the hope of better options in the future.”
I’ve seen a whole range of reactions to this development. Some people are understandably worried about the new and potentially far worse opportunities for griefing that might arise when, say, unkillable people purposefully block doors or hold onto key items with no intention of ever using them. Others don’t want to lose the ability to team kill because it’s their only real recourse against trolls.
And then there are those who would rather have the developers prioritize other issues, like bugs and exploits, before even attempting to do something about team killing. I definitely see their point.
To make a long story short, there isn’t going to be an easy fix here, and if the developers rush into this without thinking things all the way through, Friday the 13th could get worse before it gets better.
