Removal of Pagers/Allow for Balance

[Purely]

Background

I am currently only apart of Weazel News faction and this suggestion does not effect me entirely, however it is something that I think would allow the server to be more balanced as oppose to 'Nerf PD' or whatever else.

During my time in the LSEMS faction, I was told about a particular rule, "You cannot use a panic while injured, due to criminals not being able to." This meant that as a legal faction member you were not allowed to CTRL+E or type /em while your character was injured this is due to causing a call number and a blip to appear on the map, allowing other members of the legal factions (LSEMS/PD/SD) to know exactly where you are to come and help you. Obviously criminals on the server do not have something as powerful as this, and the rule was made to create a balance in the server between legal and criminal, relying on a call to 911 or texting your location. This led me to think about what areas could be improved by balancing the Crim Vs Cop aspect of the server.

Issue

Currently LSEMS, PD, SD and DOC all have an incredible advantage over illegal factions due to the use of 'Pagers', for those who don't know, ICly players can receive an RP 'pager', this allows them to respond to an OOC ping on Discord that there is something happening so they can log on and help in the situation. This reaction is often so quick due to faction members often not 'going home' after a shift and instead log off in a locker room. This means that as soon as the Pager is pinged, it can take a player less than 5 minutes to log on, instantly go on faction duty, get their loadout, and respond to the on-going situation. 

Criminals don't have this luxury and a ping in discord regardless of what it says, is classed as Metagaming, enough said. 

Solutions

There are two main solutions I'd like to put forward to balance this for criminals.

1. Remove the Discord ping entirely, keep it in game. Use an alternative method or something, perhaps even script support for ACTUAL Pagers, that send a notification to the wearer. (Right clicking the item and selecting 'Use' attaches it to your character.)

2. Allow criminal factions to have their own 'Pager' system, either being a Pager too, or perhaps a ping "@Gang Text" Or something similar. Just something to allow Criminals to be able to enter into situations after being notified OOC through discord when they aren't in game. 

If you think it sounds overpowered for Criminal Factions to use this, take it away from Legal Factions too. Having a ping on Discord which permits players who aren't even online to be able to log on and join into an active roleplay is a crazy advantage.

 

Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions on this matter. I'd like this thread to maintain the core theme of Pager/Discord Ping for an IC advantage. 

Thank you.

[Osborn]

Hey, the pagers exist so that a somewhat realistic presence of tactical elements for PD/SD can exist and deal with situations. These pagers go out to SWAT/SED and normally, due to timezone and availability, it only results in 2-3 people logging in-game. There are no pagers for anyone else in PD/SD. 

Take a situation, for example, a group takes people hostage inside of a property with heavy weapons. There's no SWAT or SED online, there's no one trained to negotiate or even equipped to deal with the situation, if there were no pagers, it's a roleplay situation that ultimately would be ignored as there'd be no point in sending officers to their deaths, they are just realistically and actually not trained for these situations.

Now a solution to this would be to allow more officers/deputies to join tactical divisions and get access to a wide variety of equipment, which would backfire as there could now be too much tactical presence overpowering criminals. 

The pagers exist for literally, as you call it, balance purposes, so that each situation can be roleplayed out properly. There are no pagers that call an entire faction in-game. 

[MrSilky]

Hey there!

There is no advantage here whatsoever as we allow all players to ping others OOCly for “RP opps” and it is not restricted to just the Gov factions as you have mentioned. The gov factions simply roleplay it as a pager to make RP sense, other factions be that criminal or legal don’t even need to roleplay a pager!

There is no issue with notifying friends/faction members OOCly about roleplay opportunities in game, as long as the OOC ping does not contain any IC information - which the Gov factions don’t as they simply say “You would receive a page” or something along those lines. Not only that, but these pagers are restricted to SED/SWAT meaning that less than 25% of the faction even gets them.

Hope that clears up the confusion!

MrSilky

[Purely]

@FatherOsborn Thank you for replying! As I've said already, I don't have a character who is in a Criminal Faction nor in a Government Factions that utilises a pager, the purpose is for discussion, so points like this are perfect!

17 minutes ago, FatherOsborn said:

Take a situation, for example, a group takes people hostage inside of a property with heavy weapons. There's no SWAT or SED online, there's no one trained to negotiate or even equipped to deal with the situation, if there were no pagers, it's a roleplay situation that ultimately would be ignored as there'd be no point in sending officers to their deaths, they are just realistically and actually not trained for these situations.

In the situation described, you mention a group of people with heavy weapons taking people hostage. We realistically can assume that this group in the scenario are experienced players due to co-ordination plus their equipment, and the group would have enough time on the server to understand how the server works. If they were attempting to create a hostage RP for PD to attend they would do so when there is adequate police presence on the streets. How would they know this? They'd simply looks outside, perhaps scout around, seeing 1 cruiser in 20 minutes in high traffic areas would clearly indicate that there is not a high police presence and an attempt to RP heavily with police wouldn't be beneficial. 

If this was to happen, the hostages would not be for PD to deal with, but would be apart of something else, potentially gang affiliated. This would be a potentially exciting RP scenario that would not even require police to attend. If it was witnessed by on officer and an interaction began, it wouldn't be in the Officer's favour, as it's not designed to be fair for them. It would simply be a loss.

The time chosen with limited police would have been done so on purpose, and using an OOC ping to awaken people to overwhelm the situation would potentially take away from a deeper RP planned.

Promoting fun and deeper RP should be considered before stomping it out with overwhelming force!

 

@MrSilky Thank you for your addition to the thread also! As mentioned this is for a discussion on both sides, I'll just be balancing the statements as best I can!

32 minutes ago, MrSilky said:

There is no advantage here whatsoever as we allow all players to ping others OOCly for “RP opps” and it is not restricted to just the Gov factions as you have mentioned. The gov factions simply roleplay it as a pager to make RP sense, other factions be that criminal or legal don’t even need to roleplay a pager!

There is no issue with notifying friends/faction members OOCly about roleplay opportunities in game, as long as the OOC ping does not contain any IC information - which the Gov factions don’t as they simply say “You would receive a page” or something along those lines. Not only that, but these pagers are restricted to SED/SWAT meaning that less than 25% of the faction even gets them.

Factions are able to OOCly remind people of RP Ops. Normally in the form of "Reminder, RP 1 Ops in 1 hour!" And repeated, until "RP ops now!". There is a difference between this and what happens with the pager system.

Here is a difference in the pings. 

Situation - A gang has attempted to take a drop, PD have discovered this and a shoot out has started. Both sides use their 'Pager'.

Upon receiving a Discord ping attached to the 'Metro SWAT' pager saying "Your pager would go off", a member can look at his/her/their Discord, stop what they are doing, load up and log on to ECRP, jump on their character, grab their equipment and be out of the door at Mission Row and have hopped in their cruiser before they even know what the situation is. 

Upon receiving a Discord ping in the faction notice area saying "Rp Ops Now", checking their discord, a member might consider missing this 'meeting' to carry on playing Minecraft, they then decide "actually, sure I'll log on", load up ECRP, jump on their character, attempt to radio their faction by finding the right frequency from text messages, ask what's happening, run around collecting their equipment from their houses, getting a car ready, and then begin to head in the direction of the vague location.

The amount of information you'd think is being restricted by not including IC information in the Discord ping is not equal. Legal factions have a much greater understanding by using their pager and the type of pager about what the situation is, "Rp Ops" gives no sense of direction due to it being so vague. How would you balance this?

Additionally

I'd also like to add to this my personal view on Pagers. As I mentioned in the original post, I support Pagers, and I support them 100%, but only if there is a counter balance for crims, making them something in game too promotes realism, perhaps even alternate in game recruiting tactics for factions, legal and illegal, getting members in all time zones perhaps!

I'd like to ask in this thread these questions;

"Should a gang vs gang fight where a ping has been used to bring members online for the fight be penalised?" 

And, "Should it be considered to NonRP to log out while inside a Legal Faction HQ?"

[Chris_]

55 minutes ago, MrSilky said:

There is no advantage here whatsoever as we allow all players to ping others OOCly for “RP opps” and it is not restricted to just the Gov factions as you have mentioned. The gov factions simply roleplay it as a pager to make RP sense, other factions be that criminal or legal don’t even need to roleplay a pager!

There is no issue with notifying friends/faction members OOCly about roleplay opportunities in game, as long as the OOC ping does not contain any IC information - which the Gov factions don’t as they simply say “You would receive a page” or something along those lines. Not only that, but these pagers are restricted to SED/SWAT meaning that less than 25% of the faction even gets them.

So, as a criminal faction. Are you allowed to use these RP opps pings even when the RP opportunity relates to potential conflict or may result in combat with another group or LEO faction? Over my years of playing I always assumed RP opps was strictly used for faction planned events only. But if it can be utilized as situations occur randomly I think that is definitely useful and helpful balancing overall.
 

[MrSilky]

1 hour ago, Chris_ said:

So, as a criminal faction. Are you allowed to use these RP opps pings even when the RP opportunity relates to potential conflict or may result in combat with another group or LEO faction? Over my years of playing I always assumed RP opps was strictly used for faction planned events only. But if it can be utilized as situations occur randomly I think that is definitely useful and helpful balancing overall.
 

As long as not excessively done and not used to summon numbers for “clapping” have at it. Don’t twist my response though to justify clapping pings though please!

For example, here is the PD pager channel, averages at 1 ping a day, if that:

[SkyeFuryy]

7 minutes ago, MrSilky said:

As long as not excessively done and not used to summon numbers for “clapping” have at it. Don’t twist my response though to justify clapping pings though please!

For example, here is the PD pager channel, averages at 1 ping a day, if that:

 

Additionally, not everybody can page SWAT or SED. I actually don't know at what rank we get given the pager, but it certainly isn't DS 1 or 2, and that's the rank of the majority of deputies (per ranks).

[alexalex303]

1 hour ago, Chris_ said:

So, as a criminal faction. Are you allowed to use these RP opps pings even when the RP opportunity relates to potential conflict or may result in combat with another group or LEO faction? Over my years of playing I always assumed RP opps was strictly used for faction planned events only. But if it can be utilized as situations occur randomly I think that is definitely useful and helpful balancing overall.

This is something that is managed heavily by faction services and you should refer to them once you receive your handlers. In general if they are truly RP opps (meetings), the pings are fine. Pings for "potential conflict" are not.

[Harley]

I have always been under the impression that pinging RP Opps for anything combat related or reactive is against the rules, pretty sure I've even been told this in Faction Services Meetings. Seems though from the responses above my impression is incorrect, and factions can indeed ping RP Opps for the threat of a fight?

Edit: Seems we've got a conflict in what staff are saying. @MrSilky is saying aslong as it's not excessive, then have at it, yet @alexalex303 is saying what I was under the impression of that anything combat related or reactive is off the table and should be exclusively used for events/meetings

Edited August 13, 2022 by Harley

[alexalex303]

2 minutes ago, Harley said:

Edit: Seems we've got a conflict in what staff are saying. @MrSilky is saying aslong as it's not excessive, then have at it, yet @alexalex303 is saying what I was under the impression of that anything combat related or reactive is off the table and should be exclusively used for events/meetings

I don't see any conflict. Silky specifically said to not twist his words to justify clapping pings. Clapping meaning combat/shooting/pvp. If you think you're about to fight someone, and you ping, that's a ping for clapping not "for the RP of being ready".

[MrSilky]

You’ve gotta stop twisting my responses - that’s wild.

See @alexalex303’s clarifications.

 

[Harley]

2 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

I don't see any conflict. Silky specifically said to not twist his words to justify clapping pings. Clapping meaning combat/shooting/pvp. If you think you're about to fight someone, and you ping, that's a ping for clapping not "for the RP of being ready".

Okay very epic! I'm curious if reactive pings are allowed? Like if a faction decides "Fuck it lets hit a bank, Chumach is open" is a faction then allowed to ping, or should it exclusively be used for pre-planned RP?

[MrSilky]

19 minutes ago, MrSilky said:

As long as not excessively done and not used to summon numbers for “clapping” have at it.

@Harley - if faction services deem your pings to be excessive, they will direct you to adjust.

 

[Harley]

So I guess this brings this suggestion thread back to the OP's point. PD and SD have the #pager channel for combat related pings. OP's point is to either remove this from PD/SD or allow criminals to do the same. My opinion is to keep it how it is. I agree criminal clapping pings sounds like a terrible idea.

[apologisemeow]

55 minutes ago, MrSilky said:

As long as not excessively done and not used to summon numbers for “clapping” have at it. Don’t twist my response though to justify clapping pings though please!

For example, here is the PD pager channel, averages at 1 ping a day, if that:

 

So what about say if your criminal faction comps a rival gangs drop, just like swat are paged for bank robberies criminals can be paged to get muscle to take said drop?

[MrSilky]

33 minutes ago, apologisemeow said:

So what about say if your criminal faction comps a rival gangs drop, just like swat are paged for bank robberies criminals can be paged to get muscle to take said drop?

Interpret what I said however you want to. I won’t be saying yes or no to individual circumstances. Faction Management can raise concerns with your faction leadership if they see the pings are excessive or promote pvp RP. 

[Purely]

@alexalex303 @MrSilky Thank you both for inputting to this discussion! As I'll continue to remind all readers of this, I am not in a Legal Faction with Pagers, nor in a Criminal Faction, I am simply looking to discuss the possibility of balancing this as it uses a 3rd Party tool to increase one sides advantage, from a neutral stand point.

1 hour ago, alexalex303 said:

If you think you're about to fight someone, and you ping, that's a ping for clapping not "for the RP of being ready".

This is loosely the example of the original post. Something to either allow criminals to be able to utilise 3rd party (Discord) to ping in a reactive way as Legal Factions are permitted to do via role-playing pagers, or disqualify both sides for doing it. As permitting one side and not the other is unbalanced. 

Would you agree perhaps that if a gang was to also utilise pagers themselves, RPly giving themselves them, and creating a channel such as "#call-to-arms" or something in their discord that a reactive ping, like that of SWAT, SED, CERT, etc. would be acceptable in your view? 

 

[moment]

Hi all,

I would like to put my input into this matter as I've been into multiple official factions and a criminal over the years. As it stands out currently it is balanced just fine as @FatherOsborn and @MrSilky only few selected people in the SWAT department contain this pager/phone and this is activated when serious situations happens such as hostage takings, raiding a property, big gang conflicts, ALT+RP situation etc...

From a criminal perspective I can tell you right now PD with pagers is fine as it is, I don't see any issue except giving us the roleplay that is to be expected instead of getting ignored as the staff team instructed.

Regarding RP opps from criminal official factions they are only used for certain events, big situation evolving such as meetings, raiding a property that is planned out, etc. It is not definetly not used to go "Scout labs to PVP" or "backup solution".

Hope this clarifies things more, have a good one!

Edited August 13, 2022 by PhenomenalX

[alexalex303]

As an official criminal faction leader I am against factions using a pager system for pvp/combat and against removing this ability from PD; with all due respect to OP, this seems incredibly naïve, these factions are wildly different and balancing can be had, but not by making everything identical.

A very good example is, PD weapons that are spawned can not be looted. Criminals can be looted. Should we allow cops to be lootable or disallow looting of gang members? Of course not. 

There are a number of issues that criminal roleplayers would like addressed and these were communicated to community leadership, but pagers are not one of them.