Friendship Collar

A "compliance device" that can convert a Standard Enemy into a Joker to fight for you. To convert an enemy, get within melee range and hold the Deploy key while targeting them. Subdued enemies that have cuffed themselves will be converted instantly.

Jokers are immune to friendly fire and have 80% Damage Resistance. Any Jokers you have will follow you closely, fighting to protect you.

By default, you can only have one Joker at a time. Jokers do not count as Hostages.

Tips & Trivia

• The Friendship Collar has 6 charges by default ( this value can be increased via Skills).
• Interaction time to befriend a cop is 1 second.
• You can befriend a law enforcer within 1.5 meters.
• AI improvements will cause Jokers to follow the "befriending" player much more closely, generally attempting to stay within 3.
• The bomb embedded in the Friendship Collar is fake and cannot actually be detonated. Don't let your new friends know!
• The Friendship Collar occupies an inventory spot previously occupied by Suppressed Sentry Guns.

Design Notes

Jokers in the base game are a serious balance issue; they're a massive power boost for a fairly small player resource investment (both skill points and ingame risk/time). Requiring that a player use a deployable equipment slot to gain Jokers solves a lot of those problems. This major nerf also provides freedom to provide other tweaks to the class, including basic AI improvements and a number of interactions through the Chief skill tree, including:

• Melee knockdowns and Armor-piercing attacks.
• Even more damage resistance and health regeneration.
• AI prioritization on Special Enemies.
• A tackle behavior to intercept charging Cloakers or shocking Tasers.

Damage output and damage resistance are key balance levers for the Joker function; it is unlikely that Jokers in Total Crackdown will receive 99% damage resistance as in the base game.