I think they should do it how Monster Hunter does it where if you hit an ally you knock them over but don't actually damage them. In Dark Souls that second of being knocked over would be punishment enough.

I believe they are taking away invulnerable frames and (I think) back stabs.

I don't really see how friendly fire could even work considering you don't have friends. Summoning people in isn't really the same so adding the element of you killing you're own summons seems weird.

So, sure why not.

Sure, why not. Summoning phantoms is way too beneficial as is. Making sure you had to actually properly work together would balance it out at least a bit.

I'd love to hear people's reasons for saying no

i think if you accidentally damage your team mate you should go to hell when you die and the game is over

edit- same thing if you break a holy statue or vase

PvE for sure, it seems like the one 'unfair' aspect of gameplay, otherwise you would basically be on equal footing with the enemies

I never summon anyone...so sure, why not?

@zacagawea said:

There are plenty of reasons for saying no.

Dark Souls is about learning environments, patterns, and generally paying attention. Introducing friendly fire introduces a random element that you, the player, has no control over. If you're playing with a random (and let's be honest, few people know how to game summons to play with people they know), what's to stop him or her from being a dick and just fireballing everyone to death, you included? You could say well, don't play with randoms then, but that doesn't work since limited player interaction doesn't make sense.

Friendly Fire introduces the concept of co-operative strategy. Something hard enough to do without voice communication. You can't have both. Either you get a better balance of punishment and reward based around Friendly Fire or you keep the lack of voice chat. You can't expect people to plan boss strategies around PMs on Xbox Live or PSN while you can't even pause the freaking game.

Dark Souls as is already gives enemies an unfair advantage (wall-clipping attacks, for instance), burdening the player with Friendly Fire would only encourage that advantage. Dark Souls 2 is already removing invincible frames of parries/ripostes/backstabs, why the hell should we also turn on Friendly Fire?

I like Dark Souls. I like it the way it is. It's a puzzle box you can conquer through wit and critical thinking. Introducing randomized elements like Friendly Fire, expecting co-operative strategies from players, all while crippling their ability to communicate does nothing but hinder the game and its summon system. Unless your goal is to make sure nobody plays together online ever ever ever, I cannot see how any Souls player would be all for this idea.

Yep, I did not think of that but you are absolutely right...you have a strong point.

some way to counter it could be:

1) to make the black crystal work immediately, not take seconds to activate like a t the moment...you should then have it accessible to send home any dick head

2) a "morality report" system where the summoning signs show the amount a times a player killed friendly players in red so you know straight up if someone tends to kill on purpose (or is just plain bad)

3) a summon ban for something like 10 mins when you do that: Guild Wars did that in the arenas for people leaving the match early, leaving their teammates in a disadvantage. So basically you could leave once with no problem but the second time you are banned for 15 min or so. worked also on player reports.

but indeed this could be a massive problem regardless. I tend to underestimate the amount of assholes I guess.