If you play Modern Warfare 3 you might have noticed that all the "Hardcore" modes were replaced with "Hardcore Ricochet," meaning that any damage done to a friendly player is done to the offending shooter, usually resulting in the shooter's death rather than a teamkill like in the previous iterations of these games. As a Hardcore TDM player myself, I preferred the hardcore modes for the different pace and the greater feel of realism with the gun damage (insert "lol realism in a MW game" here). Friendly fire to me and my brothers seemed like a necessary evil and one that was punished best in the original MW game where a teamkill didn't impact the K/D ratio of the teamkilled and only gave deaths and the usual point deduction to the teamkiller.
The big problem with ricochet isn't "OMG y cant i kill my teammates itz so funny!" or "in real life team damage kills friendlyz and i demand this game be realiztik!" but that it interferes with many of the killstreak rewards and can punish legitimate player actions because of idiots. For example if a teammate runs into your predator missile and dies along with the enemy player you were originally shooting at you are penalized with a death. If a teammate stands up or runs into your stream of fire because he's not paying attention you are penalized. If you are in a corner for any reason (camping, calling in killstreaks, spawned there, etc.) and a teammate body blocks you the only options to get out of that corner are to either commit suicide by attempting to "kill" the blocker or leave the game, penalizing you and not the troll. If an enemy trips your claymore/bouncing betty/airdrop trap and it hits a teammate because he was sitting on it hoping to steal the kill, didn't see it, or runs in after the Stalker Pro delay runs out you are penalized. In all these instances the player being penalized is either attempting to play the game as intended or is defending himself from a troll.
Ricochet also doesn't get rid of the mass-teamkilling trolls as it still gives them ample opportunity to cause harm to the player's K/D ratio. As I stated above the disruptives of the game can still intentionally run into friendly fire or killstreak rewards that results in the player's death rather than the troll's death, and now it adds the body blocking that can happen in the non-Hardcore playlists because there is no way to retaliate against the blocker other than to eat a loss and leave.
If teamkilling is such an issue that IW/Sledgehammer has to mod all of the hardcore modes to get rid of it then how about make teamkill deaths not count as a death? They didn't in MW1 and the game already tracked whether you were teamkilled or not so it shouldn't be that big of an issue. If the interrupting of Assault and Specialist killstreak rewards is the big issue then make teamkilling not interrupt the streak? Or how about just leave hardcore the way it is and remove friendly fire, eliminating everything but the rare body blockers? Intentional mass-teamkillers are so rare in the hardcore playlist that 9 times out of 10 the game is punishing players who are either using killstreaks that have a large kill radius or are playing legitimately but are the victims of either clever trolls who realize that you can get people to kill themselves without being penalized or inattentive teammates.
TL;DR Version: Hardcore Ricochet in MW3 has unintended consequences that punish legitimate players for accidental teamkilling and give trolls a way to attack players with no threat of retaliation by body blocking and running deliberately into friendly fire to kill the shooter.
The big problem with ricochet isn't "OMG y cant i kill my teammates itz so funny!" or "in real life team damage kills friendlyz and i demand this game be realiztik!" but that it interferes with many of the killstreak rewards and can punish legitimate player actions because of idiots. For example if a teammate runs into your predator missile and dies along with the enemy player you were originally shooting at you are penalized with a death. If a teammate stands up or runs into your stream of fire because he's not paying attention you are penalized. If you are in a corner for any reason (camping, calling in killstreaks, spawned there, etc.) and a teammate body blocks you the only options to get out of that corner are to either commit suicide by attempting to "kill" the blocker or leave the game, penalizing you and not the troll. If an enemy trips your claymore/bouncing betty/airdrop trap and it hits a teammate because he was sitting on it hoping to steal the kill, didn't see it, or runs in after the Stalker Pro delay runs out you are penalized. In all these instances the player being penalized is either attempting to play the game as intended or is defending himself from a troll.
Ricochet also doesn't get rid of the mass-teamkilling trolls as it still gives them ample opportunity to cause harm to the player's K/D ratio. As I stated above the disruptives of the game can still intentionally run into friendly fire or killstreak rewards that results in the player's death rather than the troll's death, and now it adds the body blocking that can happen in the non-Hardcore playlists because there is no way to retaliate against the blocker other than to eat a loss and leave.
If teamkilling is such an issue that IW/Sledgehammer has to mod all of the hardcore modes to get rid of it then how about make teamkill deaths not count as a death? They didn't in MW1 and the game already tracked whether you were teamkilled or not so it shouldn't be that big of an issue. If the interrupting of Assault and Specialist killstreak rewards is the big issue then make teamkilling not interrupt the streak? Or how about just leave hardcore the way it is and remove friendly fire, eliminating everything but the rare body blockers? Intentional mass-teamkillers are so rare in the hardcore playlist that 9 times out of 10 the game is punishing players who are either using killstreaks that have a large kill radius or are playing legitimately but are the victims of either clever trolls who realize that you can get people to kill themselves without being penalized or inattentive teammates.
TL;DR Version: Hardcore Ricochet in MW3 has unintended consequences that punish legitimate players for accidental teamkilling and give trolls a way to attack players with no threat of retaliation by body blocking and running deliberately into friendly fire to kill the shooter.