Oblivious players will always be oblivious, simply because most don't care. If they get punished they will always blame the other guy and never see what they did wrong.
I was also around in WOTC for every FF attempt they did make, the trolling was rampant due to wargaming Chicago's lack of ability or desire to punish the trolls.
Friendly to new players? You mean friendly to players who can't think two moves ahead. Friendly fire is a learning tool, and a pretty good one to.
No FF in WoT mercenaries left bad players unpunished for a bad move. (blocking shots bc they diden't take the time to look) Also friendly fire increases the skill cap, (makes you think about possession to your team as well as the enemy team) Somthing WoT Merc is missing.
It stops players from tunnel visioning and punish players that do. You HAVE to be aware of your surroundings in this style of game play, FF is there to make sure you do. Take is out and oblivious players will thrive (example: WoT Merc high tier game play)
so no indicator when you are spotted, no torpedo warnings in the hud, no reload time indicator, no HP bars shown, no indicator on the reload time of your consumeables, no minimap, no team overview, no point indicator - sounds fun to me 😄