Rainbow Six Siege has a new update lined up that shall deal with Toxicity in the game as the devs have written in their blog post. The devs are specifically referring to team killing and griefing in the game when they talk about Toxicity in this new feature. Their solution to this problem is a borderline genius and very creative idea.
Rainbow Six Siege has come a long way since it’s initial release way back in Late 2015. The game received a healthy supply of content and updates ever since. It even got a competitively ranked update soon after it’s release and a decently growing esports scene with its tactical gameplay. Going into its 4th year, the developers have decided to do something about a problem that has been in the game ever since it’s launch, Toxicity.
The devs solution to this problem, Reverse Friendly Fire. By turning the toxic players’ damage upon themselves, they cleverly make quick work of the team killer. When a player would shoot an ally or the hostage, either directly or with their operator’s unique gadget, a warning message appears on the shooter’s screen.
If the player kills a teammate, a message will pop up for the offending player notifying him that Reverse Friendly Fire has been activated. If the player still proceeds to do harm to his teammates or the hostages, he shall only proceed to do damage to himself. All players in the math will also be notified of this change to the offending player’s new status and a teamkiller via the kill feed.
Now, while this new addition will be great for dealing with some of the Toxicity, it will kill the fun for some friends hanging out on the weekend playing Siege and having fun. Fortunately, the developers have thought of that as well.
Whenever the offending player kills his teammate, the teammate shall get a message with the kill cam to validate if the teamkill was intentional or not. If confirmed to be intentional, Reverse Friendly Fire will stay active throughout the rest of the match. If the player confirms it as an unintentional kill, Reverse Friendly Fire will be immediately deactivated. If no decision is made within the given time, Reverse Friend Fire will stay activated.
Penalties will be given out to offending players. The game will track the amount of team kills until the end of the match and shall issue appropriate penalties after multiple offenses have been recorded. However, this will only happen if an intentional team kill is validated, meaning, if the player who was teamkilled did not confirm the kill to be intentional, no penalties will be given out.
Not only Rainbow Six Siege but many other games also suffer from toxicity in their games. Games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and pretty much every other competitive online game with an esports scene. They could definitely take a page from Ubisoft’s page in dealing with teamkillers and griefers.
This update is still under testing and is planned to go live on Test Server’s first. The devs will collect data and feedback from players in both casual and ranked playlists on the Test Server. Changes and improvements will be made according to this data before pushing this update to the main branch of the game.
