Friendly fire switch: a simple way to solve spawn camping, satisfy TDM'ers and give everyone a chance to have fun with their friends!

A classic, novel idea that's been suggested several times.

Though, quite bold you propose it would fix the spawn camping issue. It isn't because people are evil yes, but most of the time, it's necessary to sink an enemy player as you can't let them repair holes or bail water out of the boat. This is a self-admitted flaw to the ship maintenance system the developers consistently mention when the topic of spawncamping comes in place.

However, spawncamping will still happen "heinously" for many reasons. Trash talking, slur slinging, and several other reasons for players to lock down a boat and prevent the crew from taking control of their vessel is still going to occur regardless, need to steal a boat and the crew won't join you? Well that boat is becoming yours whether they like it or not! Someone shouting slurs and need to be taught a lesson? Well, while it's never suggested or recommended (as you can still be punished by someone slinging slurs if they report you with some recorded proof), crews with a higher skill caliber than the other will take control of someone's vessel out of ego, domination, and in some cases, righteousness.

Friendly Fire seems like a fix to many issues, but might also lead to unwanted frustration in the middle of combat, as several weapons are going to have bullets flying everywhere, you don't want to get unfairly shot down by your team mate in a sudden PvP encounter. Especially if you manage to have friendly fire in open crew, which is already known to be a mess for many players. Additionally, it's very clear that this suggestion derives from someone that only enjoys the gun play regardless of playstyles, and as expected, there are gaps in logic and a lack of understanding why it doesn't seem like the developers want to encourage using multiple guns against players at the same time.

Probably because-

In areas of intense action, players may find themselves firing shots or landing strikes that do not cause damage to their targets. While small improvements continue to be delivered during our regular updates, we are continuing to investigate and identify further improvements to the player combat experience.

Yeah, that. As fun as it would be to shoot your friends, I don't think the devs are looking for 200% more complaints about hit registration issues as they're actively working on it, as whatever data they can grab from retail isn't going to be enough to investigate the central cause to hit registration and improve on it, especially with other content (hopefully it's content) updates on the horizon and in need of work and polish before their release.

I'm not against this idea, I just don't think it's very necessary, or this being a graceful implementation for that matter.

Devs stated on wiki in early development that crews fighting each other became “horrible” and was not a good experience. Doubt it’ll come in if this was their reaction in testing.