Bank & Store Robberies

[NotOnlyAce]

Unpopular Opinion Inbound.

I believe that current state of all robberies and especially Bank Robberies is in a really bad state.

We want this server to be realistic? Not a cops v. robbers experience? How does 15 BF400 bikes robbing a bank and immediately running up the hill help with that?

Currently 95% of all bank robberies and most of store robberies present LOW to NONE RP at all. How healthy is this for the community? Criminal organizations just rob the banks for personal gain and quick money with no RP attached to it, as if we were not playing an RP server at all and this needs to be fixed.

My suggestion is to make it a mandatory requirement to have moderator+ approve a bank robbery after he's given insight into the plan. The moderator should then spectate the robbery thoroughly.

This forces players to focus more on RP and less on running on their bikes up the hill soo dumbly unrealistic.

If no staff members are available, do the robbery another time.

I've been apart of communities that don't have Bank Robberies at all, and honestly that is much better than what I am experiencing right now here. That forces players to focus on criminal roleplay on the street with other players and gangs, instead of their sole purpose being getting a BF400, quickly and unrealistically robbing a bank and running up the hill.

I don't mind all the -1s I am going to get. This is my honest opinion and I hope I am not the only one who sees the current terrible state of this kinds of roleplay.

[HobGoblin]

Something needs to change but having to get admins for each bank is not the way.

[NotOnlyAce]

5 minutes ago, HobGoblin said:

Something needs to change but having to get admins for each bank is not the way.

I'd say it's the best solution. They would at first be a little preoccupied, but I think they could handle it. I don't think I saw more than 5 bank robberies a day. We don't need to include fake robberies into the rule, just the ones where intention is to do the full robbery, aka steal the money.

Edited July 27, 2022 by NotOnlyAce

[Cyrus Raven]

-1, while the current bank meta is a bunch of borderline non-RP mess of 20 bikes leaving 2-4 mins into the robbery while everyone does /grabcash, the solution isn't to restrict bank robberies via mod+ request, this is a sure fire way to further alienate the criminal playerbase. 

 

If anything the script should be changed:

 

• add separate tasks during a bank robbery that each person has to be doing that would naturally extend the duration of the heist. (Hacking mini-game, drilling mini-game, controlling bank teller mini-game, cutting CCTV/Silent Alarm mini-game, loading money into bags mini-game, etc...
• add an option to fully stealth the bank (in order to do this a group of people would essentially have to perfectly complete all their tasks, which should be very hard/almost impossible unless it's a crew with vast experience.)
• Make it easier for people to take a hostage an use that as a negotiating tool with PD/SD, making the focus actually trying to evade.

 

Even if you disagree with all the points above, surely there are better ways to solve the bank meta instead of hiding it behind staff permission.

[Ash]

11 minutes ago, NotOnlyAce said:

My suggestion is to make it a mandatory requirement to have moderator+ approve a bank robbery after he's given insight into the plan. The moderator should then spectate the robbery thoroughly.

This already barely works for prison breaks and would be quite a waste of mod+ time. I know that I personally have no interest in spectating a generic boring bank job. 

A change in rp quality level should come from you guys on both sides than to need our approval. 

[alexalex303]

I will be the first one to agree that bank robberies are not in a good state, however, they are not being done purely for profit. Official factions require packed cash to maintain their turfs. It is upkeep, effectively forced and not a choice (inb4 don't hold turfs).

The idea of having a staff member present for every single bank robbery would be great, if packed cash was no longer required to maintain turfs. Until such time that the system changes and provides official factions other means of obtaining packed cash, that suggestion is untenable.

 

[Cyrus Raven]

2 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

I will be the first one to agree that bank robberies are not in a good state, however, they are not being done purely for profit. Official factions require packed cash to maintain their turfs. It is upkeep, effectively forced and not a choice (inb4 don't hold turfs).

The idea of having a staff member present for every single bank robbery would be great, if packed cash was no longer required to maintain turfs. Until such time that the system changes and provides official factions other means of obtaining packed cash, that suggestion is untenable.

 

Is there a big difference in packed cash in terms of maintaining turf when it comes to packed money from chopping, 24/7s, ATMs vs Bank Robbery ? Could this be offset by increasing payouts in these other areas?

[alexalex303]

1 minute ago, Cyrus Raven said:

Is there a big difference in packed cash in terms of maintaining turf when it comes to packed money from chopping, 24/7s, ATMs vs Bank Robbery ? Could this be offset by increasing payouts in these other areas?

Chopping provides you with cash not packed cash. ATMs are not scaleable therefore are not farmed for this purpose.

24/7s are annoying since they will give you 1000 different denonimations ($209, $230, $405, $450 etc) and they all need to be sold separately.

In addition, bank robbery packs seem to provide a lot more influence compared to 24/7 packed cash. It is unclear if this is simply because of the amount (2k cap vs 3.5k avg), but all in all, it does mean that bank robberies the least inconvenient way to maintain your turfs.

[Shining0103]

While I can agree to a certain extent that the current bank robbery system does need a rework, whether it can be through minigames as @Cyrus Raven suggested or any other means, it always baffles me how this kind of suggestion comes without taking in mind, in any way shape or form, the current state of criminal RP and with a purely LEO main character experience.

Bank Robberies are NOT for personal profit, with the pot depending entirely on the number of LEOs online at the moment you can reach a maximum of 35-40k per person involved, the higher the number the smaller, making the risk vs reward quite unworthy. They are, however, a necessity based on how the turf system works, the over-time decay and power, as much as it was improved since 2020 (where, for the record, two or three bank robberies were the standard). You get packed money from store robberies and ATMs, with a lower influence per pack, and with a much higher and more meaningful influence, from the banks. Chopping does not provide any sort of packed cash.

Taking this into account, I’m sorry, but I am not willing to wait a mod+ approval when I already have to consider the bank cooldown, rushing there before another gang does, not fucking up my role and ultimately the bank. Ending up in prison for 3 hours of my life, with an already limited playtime, it’s not at the top of my priorities either for the sake of providing LEOs a 20 minutes chase, in which personally, I’ve never seen generally a top-notch standard from every single member involved in the scene.

[Requiem]

I absolutely agree that the robberies are very poor RP sources currently. There is no interaction between crims and LEOs with these robberies unless someone is caught, and thats just the standard slap them in cuffs and haul them away. No good investigation stuff or RP for crims side. The answer is certainly not to require staff involvement. This would create headaches for everyone involved. 

I agree with Cyrus Raven's suggestions of adding more script things to do within a bank for BOTH crims and LEOs. Make minigames crims have to complete to be more involved and the better they do at them, the more it holds off the alarms to avoid alerting law enforcement of the robbery. Add more things that LEO's can interact with for evidence for investigation RP and evidence handling such as script CCTV cameras to work with, more things to fingerprint, allow talking with the tellers somehow, etc. 

I don't think the solution is to give more payout from other areas, as that will just change the "meta" and make robberies more dead content. Why would anyone perform a robbery if there are other easier actions to get the packed cash. I suggest making the bank robberies more involved that require more actions and risk, but bigger payout. Maybe changes the packed money system so its not required for gang turfs and give straight cash but in larger payouts to make the bigger risk factor more rewarding while also solving the "grinding" issue that crims face for money. 

Not sure what the perfect solution is here, but a change is certainly needed since there is no good RP that comes from robberies as it stands. I am sure that there are a good share of rule break punishments handed out due to store/bank robberies as well on both sides further proving the point this is a lot of poor RP. 

[LucasMadrazo]

I can totally agree that the Bank and Store robbery situations are very Non-RP, although I can also say that the cops on the server are also very very Non-RP.

No real life officer is walking around with a basically army armory in their trunk, it's very unrealistic. Also, there aren't cops watching all the store cameras in the US, or wherever in the world, there are way too many cameras. Just for the Police to watch the cameras, they would probably have no one on the field. 

For that reason, I think that the police and the criminals both cancel each other out. Both are very Non-RP in these situations and if both were fixed then I think there would be no issues.

But you can not fix 1 and keep the other OP

-1

[sNo0BbZz]

Big -1.

I have done multiple well thought out and well RPed banks but the cruel reality of that is that the risk is much higher with the same reward for rushing the bank with 15 bikes.
The reason why crims dont wanna do diffrent banks is because its not within their best interest.

Hostage banks can be very fun, however there are multiple big obstacles that heavily slow down anyone that wants to do them.
-getting a hostage is a hassle in its self, restricting crims to taking hostages only  when they have escalation with the specific person. Which doesnt make sense at all.
- PD/SD are known to not be cooperative in most hostage negotiations, on so many occasions officers can be seen shooting hostage takers and not allowing the RP to playout, cutting the RP short and ruining the experience for the crim involved.
- on multiple occasions people have been raided for being suspect in a Hostage bank, pretty much you provide good RP and something different and then lose 8 months of effort and progress in a PD house raid. It discourages people from attempting different style banks.

If you want criminals to do more creative banks, incentivize them to do so. 

[XeV]

25 minutes ago, sNo0BbZz said:

Big -1.

I have done multiple well thought out and well RPed banks but the cruel reality of that is that the risk is much higher with the same reward for rushing the bank with 15 bikes.
The reason why crims dont wanna do diffrent banks is because its not within their best interest.

Hostage banks can be very fun, however there are multiple big obstacles that heavily slow down anyone that wants to do them.
-getting a hostage is a hassle in its self, restricting crims to taking hostages only  when they have escalation with the specific person. Which doesnt make sense at all.
- PD/SD are known to not be cooperative in most hostage negotiations, on so many occasions officers can be seen shooting hostage takers and not allowing the RP to playout, cutting the RP short and ruining the experience for the crim involved.
- on multiple occasions people have been raided for being suspect in a Hostage bank, pretty much you provide good RP and something different and then lose 8 months of effort and progress in a PD house raid. It discourages people from attempting different style banks.

If you want criminals to do more creative banks, incentivize them to do so. 

THIS ^

Hostage banks got less and less because Leo's got tired and bored of the same shit every single time and became less and less cared about. Nothing discouraged me more then when I was in royals and did a hostage bank and the cops that showed up said "Not this shit again ugh". That right there discouraged us greatly into doing them for the sake of RP

Also as @sNo0BbZz  said too many times LEO is just not cooperative to the fullest extent, I have been apart of PERFECT bank robberies that just led to a loss because of not being able to lose police in the chase, but I have also been apart of banks where I was shot AS SOON as the hostage was even out of line of sight.

Plus once again into the echo chamber of complaints, PRISON TIME IS TOO LONG, why risk 3+ hours in jail for "the sake of RP" we all know the state of DOC with its lack of script support is quite just not fun and avoiding at all costs is the goal. I made a suggestion awhile back about adjusting jail time SPECIFICALLY for hostage banks to make them more sought after and for people to WANT to do hostage banks more cause you get less time then getting caught doing the 15+ bf setup

[Requiem]

17 hours ago, LucasMadrazo said:

I can totally agree that the Bank and Store robbery situations are very Non-RP, although I can also say that the cops on the server are also very very Non-RP.

No real life officer is walking around with a basically army armory in their trunk, it's very unrealistic. Also, there aren't cops watching all the store cameras in the US, or wherever in the world, there are way too many cameras. Just for the Police to watch the cameras, they would probably have no one on the field. 

For that reason, I think that the police and the criminals both cancel each other out. Both are very Non-RP in these situations and if both were fixed then I think there would be no issues.

But you can not fix 1 and keep the other OP

-1

First off, the OP was regarding non-RP bank robberies, not "how op LEOs are". Its not productive to turn every thread into cops vs crims. 

Second, to address your points, there are no script cameras for the banks, so there are no cops watching bank cameras. Not sure what you are on about there. 

Third, you say cops have "an armory in their trunk." I would love for you to find an instance of ANY bank robbery occurring in real life where heavy weaponry and full geared up SWAT teams are not sent to a bank robbery situation in real life. I don't see how you think it would be unrealistic for law enforcement to bring all that gear to a bank robbery situation. 

The point here is not balance, its quality RP. Is it fun for EITHER side to participate in bank robbery RP where its copy paste every situation of rob the bank in 30-45 seconds with 12 motorcycles and then run out of the bank and drive off with a bunch of fear RP breaches and non-RP when the scout tells everyone cops are almost there? I don't think its fun from a LEO perspective to participate in, and I think most on the crim side would agree that just copy past rob banks with bikes and run just for "the grind" for the packed cash is not good RP either. 

11 hours ago, sNo0BbZz said:

Big -1.

I have done multiple well thought out and well RPed banks but the cruel reality of that is that the risk is much higher with the same reward for rushing the bank with 15 bikes.
The reason why crims dont wanna do diffrent banks is because its not within their best interest.

Hostage banks can be very fun, however there are multiple big obstacles that heavily slow down anyone that wants to do them.
-getting a hostage is a hassle in its self, restricting crims to taking hostages only  when they have escalation with the specific person. Which doesnt make sense at all.
- PD/SD are known to not be cooperative in most hostage negotiations, on so many occasions officers can be seen shooting hostage takers and not allowing the RP to playout, cutting the RP short and ruining the experience for the crim involved.
- on multiple occasions people have been raided for being suspect in a Hostage bank, pretty much you provide good RP and something different and then lose 8 months of effort and progress in a PD house raid. It discourages people from attempting different style banks.

If you want criminals to do more creative banks, incentivize them to do so. 

Instead of just saying -1 and continuing with the poor RP quality and the tedious grind, why not suggest something better to help with the problems you are stating, or at least support the idea of better RP quality? 

Hostage banks don't have to be the only way it gets done. Why not look at some of the suggestions above regarding adding other elements to the bank robberies to make it more involved and interesting for both sides?

And to respond to your point about hostages, I agree with you about getting the hostage, it doesn't make much sense, however, its also not fair for a player that doesn't want to be involved in that kind of stuff to have someone randomly pull up to them while they walk down the street, point a gun at their face and use them as a hostage for the next 2 hours. Gotta think about both sides.

As for PD cooperation in hostages, PD is willing to cooperate to some degree with reasonable demands. When you say that you want PD to sit and watch while your guys roll up to the bank in their drag or issi sport and pick up the cash like a pizza delivery guy and drive away for free or you will kill the hostage, that doesn't fly. It obviously depends on who is negotiating with you, but I can say personally, I have done many negotiations, and if the other side asks to let the hostage go and get into a vehicle and leave, I will most often allow it and I will make sure no one shoots at the crims the moment they get in, both for fairness and ICly its against PD policy to shoot at someone that's not posing an active threat. If PD is shooting someone and "cutting the RP short", its not because they don't want to deal with the situation. PD is reactive, not proactive. If the hostage takers are threatening the hostage and escalating the situation, or refusing to reasonably negotiate, then it forces PDs hand to react and take the hostage takers out to save the hostage. This is always saved as a last resort though. 

To your last point regarding raiding, you likely didn't do a good enough job of covering your tracks to prevent PD from figuring out your involvement in the robbery if this is happening. I very rarely see anyone get raided after a bank robbery situation honestly. Normally, if someone is found to be involved, its just a warrant hunt for the person usually, not raiding their house. Secondly, if you commit serious felonies like bank robbery, you can't expect there to not be any risk or repercussions for your actions. Maybe don't keep all your valuable stuff in one house, or if you have committed a serious crime and have a chance of being raided, then move you stuff and be smarter about it. 

11 hours ago, XeV said:

THIS ^

Hostage banks got less and less because Leo's got tired and bored of the same shit every single time and became less and less cared about. Nothing discouraged me more then when I was in royals and did a hostage bank and the cops that showed up said "Not this shit again ugh". That right there discouraged us greatly into doing them for the sake of RP

Also as @sNo0BbZz  said too many times LEO is just not cooperative to the fullest extent, I have been apart of PERFECT bank robberies that just led to a loss because of not being able to lose police in the chase, but I have also been apart of banks where I was shot AS SOON as the hostage was even out of line of sight.

Plus once again into the echo chamber of complaints, PRISON TIME IS TOO LONG, why risk 3+ hours in jail for "the sake of RP" we all know the state of DOC with its lack of script support is quite just not fun and avoiding at all costs is the goal. I made a suggestion awhile back about adjusting jail time SPECIFICALLY for hostage banks to make them more sought after and for people to WANT to do hostage banks more cause you get less time then getting caught doing the 15+ bf setup

Some LEOs don't care for hostage situations because it sometimes involve sitting around for 2 hours doing nothing because the only ones RPing at the time are the negotiator and the hostage taker(s). It can get boring for some. Also, there was a time several months back before the rules for hostages were changed that LEOs were dealing with literally 2-3 hostage situations a day, sometimes back to back, and the same RP over and over and over got really worn out. 

To your second point...not being able to lose police in a chase - gotta say skill issue man, sorry. I addressed the shooting from LEOs in my points above. 

You cannot expect LEOs to give you everything you want and be invulnerable to anything just cuz you have a hostage. You need to be willing to compromise and negotiate, and if you can't, then its not gonna go your way. You say "perfect bank robbery", but that may be one sided...might only be perfect from your perspective. 

As for the prison thing, I agree some changes are needed. I don't think just simply reducing prison time is the answer, but I think additional RP capability in DOC is needed so its not as bad to go to DOC. 

As I mentioned already, lets try and come up with solutions to improve RP at bank robberies that don't always have to involve hostages or 15+ bf400s. 

[sNo0BbZz]

14 minutes ago, Bill Breacher said:

Instead of just saying -1 and continuing with the poor RP quality and the tedious grind, why not suggest something better to help with the problems you are stating, or at least support the idea of better RP quality? 

Because I have already done multiple different RP banks including hostage banks, Hacking Rp banks and explosive RP banks. What exactly have you done to ensure that the Bank robbery RP is fresh and different from your side?


In general banks are NOT worth investing alot of time planning for them. A 35k cut isnt worth me spending hours planning for a bank that is extremely high risk. Its really as simple as that.

[Requiem]

40 minutes ago, sNo0BbZz said:

Because I have already done multiple different RP banks including hostage banks, Hacking Rp banks and explosive RP banks. What exactly have you done to ensure that the Bank robbery RP is fresh and different from your side?


In general banks are NOT worth investing alot of time planning for them. A 35k cut isnt worth me spending hours planning for a bank that is extremely high risk. Its really as simple as that.

I am agreeing with your 2nd point though. Currently, with the system the way it is, the risk is not worth while for criminals. I am suggesting that bank robberies and changed from a server side to make it more interesting RP for both sides.