In an attempt to curb toxicity found in the game, Rainbow Six Siege will be adding a new system to punish players who intentionally kill their own teammates. The new addition, called Reverse Friendly Fire, is set to activate on the test servers soon, according to the dev blog. If the test goes well, it will be made available on the live servers, though no set time-frame has been released.
It has inevitably happened to us all in Siege. Maybe a teammate was unhappy with a barricade placement, something said over the mic, or they were just griefing, but we’ve all fallen victim to a trigger-happy teammate at one time or another. According to the blog, the Reverse Friendly Fire system “is the latest feature we are working on in our efforts to address toxicity.”
The system kicks in when a player shoots or uses a gadget to harm either a teammate or the hostage, first displaying a warning message. “After a player’s first validated team kill, all further damage inflicted upon teammates or the hostage is reflected back to the player. When a player uses a unique operator gadget to deal this damage, reflected damage will impact the gadget itself.” The offending player, as well as all teammates, will be notified that Reverse Friendly Fire is active for the specific player.
The player that was killed by their teammate will also get a validation question during the kill-cam, asking if it was an intentional team kill or not. Should the downed player feel that the kill was unintentional, Reverse Friendly Fire will be deactivated from the offending player. This will prevent players from being penalized for accidentally downing a teammate just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, if the validation goes unanswered, the offending player will be subject to Reverse Friendly Fire by default.
Once the system is activated on a player, it will remain active for the rest of the match, instead of just kicking them, further discouraging them from damaging their own squad. The blog states that they will continue to monitor team kills, and will issue sanctions on repeat offenders as needed. Kudos to Rainbow Six Siege and the folks at Ubisoft for cracking down on the players that ruin the fun for everyone.