If you're hitting with all your strength, pads will barely soften a blow. If your shins aren't used to a lot of punishment, shin guards may be very helpful, but things like footguards are just plain stupid. All they did was make me trip over myself and lose my balance. If you are worried about hitting each other though, you have 2 options, although it's really more of a process:
1) Get shinguards (best pad by far - I've definitely had to stop a lot of spars cold because shins connected and someone's shins were much stronger than the other's....it actually doesn't hurt that much, but you can't fight anymore), and get fist pads or hand pads or whatever they're called. Perhaps invest in a cup if you don't already have one. Boxing gloves are actually created with the intention of dealing a lot of hurt to your opponent, so it might make little sense for you to be using them for playfighting.
2) Eventually, when the two (or however many of you there are in your local fighting arena) of you get good, you will outgrow pads. They slow you down, screw you up, and most importantly they just don't do that much to make things hurt less. The best way to spar for higher-level friendly fighting is to throw out punches/kick and stop them right before they connect. This obviously requires some control and practice, and it messes up, and some things get counted as having hit when they didn't and vice versa, but inside you know what you have to do to improve. Obviously not recommended for any kind of competition but it's pretty great for learning. Plus you can actually mean your apologies when you hit someone hard, because you actually messed up
Maybe this helps a bit? Real-life fighting probably has more theorycrafting than just about anything, so I imagine others would advise something completely opposite, but this was just my experience. I only did martial arts for like 2-3 years, but I was really into it and went from a lazy gamer to hitting the gym 3-4 times a week and holding an informal sparring club just to be a better fighter, so I just imagined you are coming into where I was a couple years back.
P.S. Just like video games, watching the pros helps a LOT. If you guys are striking fans, I highly recommend watching some K-1 matches (personal Buakaw fan), and if you like grappling....maybe some BJJ? I actually have almost no experience there, so....Smashboards, go!
