A Personal Review: Freelance Jobs of Eclipse Roleplay

[Commander783]

Let me give you a complete run down, how fun all the jobs really are, after seeing them with 5 years of experience:
 

1#: Coroner

Sadly, not a fulfilling job. You are supposed to pick up deceased bodies from the ground. No one knows or remembers the phone number of said job and no one wants to remain in said area, to wait for a coroner to pick up the body, because, why should they?

Score: 0 out of 10

 

2#: Farmer

Can be quite relaxing, consistent pay and you might meet other farmers as well.
You plow a field with a tractor, then you plant wheat seeds, then wait, remove weed and then wait more for it to grow and when it’s fully grown, you harvest it and deliver it in wheat bags with a van to the warehouse. It's repetitive, the pay is mediocre, but consistent, you only see the same place, but the script is diverse, but doesn’t feel fulfilling, like it used to be.

Score: 5 out of 10
(8 out of 10, when you had freedom of seed planting and when it was the best paying freelance job)

 

3#: Garbage

You drive around, collect about 10 dirt bags and place them inside your trash truck and then drive back to empty them on the trash field. You might have other trash job workers, which creates competition and sometimes there might be funny moments, where people fight over trash, because trash bags are limited. Pays absurdly well and the job doesn’t feel too annoying, but it feels repetitive and lonely nevertheless.

Score: 4 out of 10

 

4#: Tollbooth

Very lonely job. You will meet people and communicate with them at times, but there’s inconsistent pay, since there is no hourly pay, for being there. Only pays good, when there are events going on in Paleto Bay or during the busy hours.

Score: 1 out of 10 (Score is higher, when the city is busier)

 

 

5#: Trucker

Used to be great, you had constant pay, because you had constant deliveries. Now? Only when needed, there are deliveries and when they are there, every delivery pay sucks, except for the $ 3500 Burgershot delivery. You have the /cb radio, but without truckers anymore, there's no point for it much anymore. You can buy an own truck and go trucking, but you have to pay fuel and repairs for it, so what’s the point in owning a truck, besides being able to get to the locations faster?

Score: 2 out of 10
(9 out of 10, when there were attachable trailers/constant deliveries/good pay)

 

6#: Money Transporter

You have 10 money bags in your truck. You got to drive around and fill up ATM’s with one bag. When your truck runs empty of money bags, you have to run back to HQ garage, to fill it up.
Almost no player interaction, at least the truck is fast, but pay is mediocre or more like below that.

Score: 2 out of 10

 

7#: Courier

Pretty much the same as 6# Money Transporter, except that you have to deliver multiple packages to door steps of apartments / houses, so your courier truck will run empty of packages really quickly and some of these doors are hard to access or to understand, how to get to.
And at the same time, courier truck is way much slower than the truck from money transport.

Score: 1 out of 10

 

8#: Post OP

Players are able to write mails to houses and you deliver that mail to said houses. Barely utilized by the community and basicly just another courier job and it needs player made orders like the trucker job.

Score: 0 out of 10

 

 

9#: Bus Driver

You are taking out a bus from the bus depot and you are supposed to drive people around, but you usually don’t.
Everyone got a car and there’s no bus route map you could buy or bus stations on the gps and people have no idea, if there is someone bus driving or not and when there might be a bus arriving. There’s no bus route leading from Los Santos to Paleto Bay or the other way around as well. Could be a good alternative to taking a taxi, but it’s not, for the reasons mentioned above. The pay is quite good, but how senseless this job always felt, with no purpose, is still astonishing and just drives people off. At least there are bus station signs/cabins now, but that’s about it?

Score: 2 out of 10

 

10#: Burgershot

Okay, this job is amazing. You have to cook food with ingredients, you have to make sure that you have everything in stock. You have to talk to customers, what type of food or drink they would like to have.
You get paid 40% and 40% (total of 80%) for everything you accept and bring to the customer.
When you have coworkers, you have to communicate with each other and it creates quite a good atmosphere. You get paid by the phone hour, so $ 500 when you stay inside Burgershot at full o’clock (or $ 3000 in an OOC hour), but you can actually leave the Burgershot interior, go around for a bit, return and still get paid, when you make it back in time. This job can feel quite lonely, when there are no customers, similar to the mechanic jobs, but there’s always a way to advertise now, especially with placing posters around the city with /fdo’s. You are basically doing a faction job here, without the need for having to apply for it. I would give it a full score, but in how lonely it can be, I can’t.

Score: 9 out of 10

 

11#: Fishing

Okay, this is going to be a difficult one. I am going to be real first, before we come to the Fishing Pier.

You buy a fishing rod, go wherever water is (except for unnatural sources of water like swimming pools), open your inventory, hit the “use” button and wait about 1.5 to 2 minutes or more for a fish to catch, but you might miss the fish, when you are not reacting fast enough. There used to be variety of fish, with different payouts. They scrapped that all, to my disappointment and now it’s just $ 171 for every fish you catch in about 1.5 minutes, which is horrible pay, for how stale the work is and for being alone.

Now, with other people, fishing can be quite relaxing, enjoyable and entertaining. The fishing pier (also called “Pleasure Pier” according to GTA Wiki) in Del Perro, used to be amazing, with all the stuff going down there all the time. The LSPD and the Government effectively killed the place off for the following reasons (in my opinion): 50 KPH Speed Camera, Parking Tickets, Restricted Parking Areas and cutting the payout for fish in half. But that’s just my opinion, maybe it just slowly died out, because of real life reasons or a slow creep, of how boring it actually is.

Score: 2 out of 10 for fishing alone
(up to 8 out of 10 fishing with other people, e.g. fishing pier)

 

12#: Lumberjack

This job requires a personal vehicle, to be effective in pay, but you could also do it just with a hatchet and probably a bag. It can be quite fun driving around offroad, chopping trees, taking logs and branches and selling them. Someone might rob you, for your delicious wood though, but at least you will always be in beautiful nature.

Score: 7 out of 10

 

13#: Miner

You are supposed to mine ores with a pickaxe in a mine and take it to the Los Santos or Paleto Bay drop off point.
Used to be the best paying job, with so many people going into the mines. The ores were none depletable, so there was enough space for a lot of people to mine, even for the mine being small.
Then they changed one piece of mineral to 15 kg and the ores being depletable, the pay becoming quite bad, so you really needed a truck, in order to make good money, in comparison to the other jobs. But only about 2-3 people can effectively mine now with a truck and make a good pay from it, in my opinion. The job doesn’t feel too boring, although not too rewarding, feels quite like a hassle (because you will need a bag or crate) and perhaps a bit scary, for going into the mines and being a target for robberies, but I don’t think criminals even go there anymore, so it’s safe, I guess?

Score: 3 out of 10 (8 out of 10 back then)

 

14#: Oil Driller

You need a truck or at least a vehicle with lots of space and a pickaxe. Not as much as a hassle like the Miner job, although quite a dangerous one, with criminals circling around in the desert. It can be quite boring, to mine always on the same spot and especially alone, doing this type of repetitive work. It’s one of the best paying jobs, when having your own truck and it is less annoying than the Miner job.

Score: 5 out of 10

 

 

15#: Hunting

You need a knife, perhaps a bag and an offroad bike/car, if you wish to become “The Hunter”. No, you don’t need a firearms license to hunt animals, they don’t even die from your shots apparently…
But what’s the catch?

It can pay absurdly well per hour, but only when you find animals of course, but you won’t be alone, hunting animals. No idea, in what time frames animals spawn in, but it seems to be random? You can even cook the meat on a fireplace and then eat it, without poisoning yourself… so free food, in a sense. You deliver and sell the meat to Paleto Bay or Los Santos, but you could also sell the meat to people, to get much higher pay, isn’t that amazing?

But yeah, the consistency in pay is bad, so it’s more like a hobby, than a real freelance job, at least that’s how it usually feels like, but certainly better than drilling oil all day. I recommend being a lumberjack and a hunter at the same time, to make some bang for the buck.

Score: 6 out of 10

 

16#: Road Worker

Welcome to the end, de crème de la crème.
Why is this so fun?

You basically roll around with a truck with people sitting in it, placing down barriers for whatever blocks the road, then removing whatever blocks the road and then you remove the barriers again.
When there’s a fire / dead body, LSEMS / Firefighters show up as well.

It socializes people a lot. People shit talk, try to kill each other for silly barriers, listen to great truck music, dance all over, be their own DJ, drive recklessly/race/flip the trucks, fight the cops, protest for more money and just the general feel, in being such a large freelance group is amazing and you never feel lonely, even when people don’t talk a lot.

Amazing crafted scenes. You will see a plane crashed on the highway, a crane crashed onto the freeway, a police chase going up in flames, a prison transport going boom boom, stones and rubble coming down the highway and much more.

The pay is inconsistent and limiting with too many people, yet amazing at times, with the right amount. But people don’t care too much even then, they love the overall experience.

Score: 10 out of 10

 

17#: Taco Job

You are able to take out a Taco Truck from West Los Santos and your whole purpose is to sell... well... Tacos of course!
The base cost for the taco is $ 400 and another $ 100 will be yours and the customer will have to pay $ 500.
You can increase the extra pay for you of course, making tacos more expensive, but you might find less customers that way.
There's no hourly pay, so this is more like an opportunistic job, a bit similar to hunting.
It can be fun, but only for a certain amount of time and LSC will push you away for selling Tacos on their property.

Score: 2 out of 10

 

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You are free to discuss and post your own scores / reviews, if you so like here.

Cheers!

~ Stef

Edited November 10, 2022 by Commander783
Added Taco Job

[Tom Solar]

Damn, really good review, thank you!

I would like to add:

 

#1 Coroner:

people die all the time, why isn't this a job with an hourly pay and a bonus per body dropped?

When you call about a dead body, why do you need to stay present? who's gonna call about a dead body and then stay there for such a long time.

also as Commander 786 said nobody knows the number, why isn't this an app?

 

#5 Trucker:

this job is actually needed for the running of the server, without truckers, burgershot doesn't get their food, other stores don't get their stuff, gas stations, ...

this jobs should have jobs all the time even if there aren't enough requests from the stores, create some, why not?

or give them like a low salary like burger shot along with bonuses for jobs.

 

#6 money transporter

also a job needed for the running of the server, no money transporters no money in the atm's, right?

or do they fill up automatically over time? i could be mistaken.

 

#10 Burger shot

suuuper important job for the running of the server, i hope the recent changes make it so people gravitate to this job more than before the update.

 

#11 Fishing

Damn, i miss when fishing was good and now i read we used to have different fish? bring that back lol so we dont have to dice to roleplay getting bigger/smaller fish.

bring in deep sea fishing so people have a use for their boats.

 

#13 and #14

the miner jobs are ok, just the mini-game is ... a hassle, it was better before that update.

 

#15 hunting

So every time any of my characters tried this the whole group was unable to find any animals, maybe the single one after like 30 mins of senselessly driving around those mountains.

Seriously i find more animals just cruising around the roads below, like in the middle of the road. and even sometimes when you find an animal, it will disappear for no reason.

and its not that there were any other people hunting or anything, just isn't really sustainable. 

 

#16 roadworkers

really fun, you had a great review above, nothing to add but..

nerf roadworkers, seriously, 10-14k/ hour? how can any other freelance job/ faction job keep up with that?

and i know a lot of people like this but other people just go sit in a truck afk, until they arrive at the job and then its just run, afk for whatever the timer said, run, afk again, run, ....

even all the crims are like "farming" money there to go buy guns after, its crazy.

 

And finally i want to add one forgotten freelance job.

#17 Tacotruck

I don't like the use of the word but this job has been dead for as long as i've known, these trucks need to buy their tacos at retail price and then try to sell it at a markup.

there is also no way for the customer to see the price so its basically a scamtruck, they put the price at 1000$ say its 500 and drive off when you buy it...

 

With that being said I agree with all the other points made previously, really happy the recent update sparked this discussion.

thank you Commander783

 

 

[Commander783]

14 minutes ago, Tom Solar said:

Damn, really good review, thank you!

I would like to add:

#16 roadworkers

really fun, you had a great review above, nothing to add but..

nerf roadworkers, seriously, 10-14k/ hour? how can any other freelance job/ faction job keep up with that?

and i know a lot of people like this but other people just go sit in a truck afk, until they arrive at the job and then its just run, afk for whatever the timer said, run, afk again, run, ....

even all the crims are like "farming" money there to go buy guns after, its crazy.

Thank you too!

It's not 10-14k an hour, but more like 7.5k per hour on average. Sometimes you get really shitty jobs, have a lot of people (then the time increases, but the pay does not) or you have to drive far out.

Cheers, Stef

[MrDisciple]

There is a huge variety of freelance jobs and they're all very simple. Grinding money isn't fun, same with cooking drugs or being a DOC guard with 0 prisoners. But you do it for the reward. Freelance jobs pay higher than gov jobs who start on 4k or 5k per hour.

Fishing at $171 per 1.5 minutes is $6.8k an hour and you have freedom of doing it with friends. Yes, pier was ruined ICly by law enforcement and speed cams but now there's roadworker job which is insane!

[AbsoluteBadonkers]

Some pretty good points are made here

Money Transporter isn’t even worth it. I’ve been paid as low as $70 for ATMs. It seems you get paid for the distance you drive to each ATM, so one that takes you from the city to Sandy Shores will give you more than going from one side of the city to another, and I don’t think I’ve been paid more than $400-$500.

Trucking is only good when there’s burgershot orders. There are orders that give you like $7,000+, but those have you getting like 130,000 units so it takes longer than it’s worth.

As you said, Coroner, Taco Truck, Post Op, and Courier are basically dead. I’ve tried all of those jobs and didn’t get a single penny after waiting 20 full minutes, not worth it for either.

Fishing can actually be pretty decent. With the new salary balancing addition, you can fish for an hour and get like $4,000+. All you do is right click on the pole, click “Use” and wait until you hear the chime and hit K, then repeat. You can basically just watch YouTube or something else if no one else is around

Lumberjacking can get you a good pay if you know where all the good spots are. With a car of 50 units in the back, a back of 100 units, and 50 units in my main inventory I can get up to $8,000 per run if I fill up my bag and inventory, then run to the drop off point and run back

I haven’t tried mining but I have tried drilling and it wasn’t really great. You aren’t told exactly where you can drill as not all of the oil drilling machines have drillable spots next to them. You basically need a van to be able to really make much

And last but not least, Roadwork. This job pays really well unless there’s like 10+ people on the job. You can easily get 10k+ per hour if there’s the right amount of people, but I feel with the salary balancing addition it may have ruined the pay. Multiple times yesterday did I look at the job board and none of the times was it not below 0%, even getting down to -10% a few of the times. A lot of social interaction and I’ve actually made a few ic friends from it, Roadwork even being where I met and joined my first gang (Now disbanded, rip Madrazos)

All in all, a lot of the jobs still aren’t very worth it due to the payouts, even with the balancing addition. If pats were adjusted better it may be worth it, but I usually stick to fishing and lumberjacking now

[Osborn]

This is a very good post! We have recognized the need to overhaul most legal jobs, it is just an extensive project and the developers have quite a few in the works at the moment. 

As a start, I will bring the following up with the developers but cannot provide any guarantees that they will/can be implemented:

• For the Coroner Job, add the ability for admin staff to create incident sites similar to the road worker job, so that the job isn't entirely reliant on players dying and other players actually calling them, while still keeping the option to call a coroner. I'm also going to ask for a coroner application on the phone to make it friendlier for newer players who don't know the number, and for a coroner drop-off to be added at the coroner HQ by Central MD. 
• For the Trucker Job, I'm going to ask for orders to be generated when there are none, orders that won't actually stock businesses but still allow players to engage with the trucker job. 
• For the Tollbooth Worker Job, I'm going to ask for a passive salary similar to that of a burger-shot employee. While it may not solve the aspect of it being lonely, it is unfortunately a job by nature that relies on players actually driving through the toll booths, which isn't a necessity. 

I'm also going to ask about the possibility to give players the ability to form "job groups" in order to perform jobs together that make sense, e.g. garbage, and coroner. 

[Roderick]

51 minutes ago, FatherOsborn said:

This is a very good post! We have recognized the need to overhaul most legal jobs, it is just an extensive project and the developers have quite a few in the works at the moment. 

As a start, I will bring the following up with the developers but cannot provide any guarantees that they will/can be implemented:

• For the Coroner Job, add the ability for admin staff to create incident sites similar to the road worker job, so that the job isn't entirely reliant on players dying and other players actually calling them, while still keeping the option to call a coroner. I'm also going to ask for a coroner application on the phone to make it friendlier for newer players who don't know the number, and for a coroner drop-off to be added at the coroner HQ by Central MD. 
• For the Trucker Job, I'm going to ask for orders to be generated when there are none, orders that won't actually stock businesses but still allow players to engage with the trucker job. 
• For the Tollbooth Worker Job, I'm going to ask for a passive salary similar to that of a burger-shot employee. While it may not solve the aspect of it being lonely, it is unfortunately a job by nature that relies on players actually driving through the toll booths, which isn't a necessity. 

I'm also going to ask about the possibility to give players the ability to form "job groups" in order to perform jobs together that make sense, e.g. garbage, and coroner. 

Even as someone who has not utilized these freelance jobs in quite some time, this positive response is great to see! Especially the idea of "job groups" is amazing. I remember when I first joined this server and started out with some freelance jobs, the lonely trucking/driving a postal van is something I did not find enjoyable. To be able to do this with another worker while sharing the same reward is a great way of boosting player interaction, especially for new(er) players.

Perhaps it would also be an addition to have generated orders for the Post OP (#8 in OP's list), as this suffers from the same problem as the Trucker job does.

Also, it could be worthwhile to balance the system out. As OP's post indicates, some jobs simply pay more than others on a $/hour average basis due to the nature of the job vs. the reward. In my opinion, it would be great to see more variety in this.

[Requiem]

2 hours ago, FatherOsborn said:

This is a very good post! We have recognized the need to overhaul most legal jobs, it is just an extensive project and the developers have quite a few in the works at the moment. 

As a start, I will bring the following up with the developers but cannot provide any guarantees that they will/can be implemented:

• For the Coroner Job, add the ability for admin staff to create incident sites similar to the road worker job, so that the job isn't entirely reliant on players dying and other players actually calling them, while still keeping the option to call a coroner. I'm also going to ask for a coroner application on the phone to make it friendlier for newer players who don't know the number, and for a coroner drop-off to be added at the coroner HQ by Central MD. 
• For the Trucker Job, I'm going to ask for orders to be generated when there are none, orders that won't actually stock businesses but still allow players to engage with the trucker job. 
• For the Tollbooth Worker Job, I'm going to ask for a passive salary similar to that of a burger-shot employee. While it may not solve the aspect of it being lonely, it is unfortunately a job by nature that relies on players actually driving through the toll booths, which isn't a necessity. 

I'm also going to ask about the possibility to give players the ability to form "job groups" in order to perform jobs together that make sense, e.g. garbage, and coroner. 

Thanks for the feedback Osborn. What I think would be great is seeing the jobs working together! For example, the roadworker job has a spawned incident where there is a plane crash and the pilot and some passenger dies, so the coroners get a notification for the same incident to come cleanup the deceased while the road workers place blockades and FD puts out the fires. 

Alternatively, the people that supply wood at the lumbermill could generate trucking jobs to have truckers pick up lumber and take it to the furniture store. Or the meat or fishing market goods have their products taken to restaurants/burgershot for the food supply.

[Curtins]

toll booth used to be poppin

[Hector2Fingers]

@FatherOsbornthese would be fantastic additions.  I do a fair amount of trucking, and unless you're getting lucky with dealership orders, you can easily be sitting and waiting for any orders to come in.

Potentially there could be orders added for deliveries to clothing stores, Fort Zancudo (military supplies), and various bars/restaurants around the map.

[AbsoluteBadonkers]

@FatherOsbornMuch appreciated. The Salary Balancing addition didn’t do much for the jobs that are either unused by the community or the ones that pay very little, such as Money Transport. Having automatically generated scenes for jobs such as Coroner and Trucking when the days are slow would improve them a lot and may revive them.

[equ1nox_]

What about criminal freelance activities. They arent marked on the map so u gotta find them icly. u can do simple jobs like selling drugs on the street, transporting illegal weapons / other things from point A to point B and then getting a cut, burning down a building for pay, vandalism, illegal graffiti, etc? imo freelance jobs shouldnt just be legal, there can be many cool things to be done with illegal freelance jobs for newer players trying to get into the criminal life and make some money illegally (which can be encouraging for them to keep going down this road) and also make it so that LEOs have more to do. The penal code has so many felonies/misdemeanors that are unused because no one commits these crimes (like arson) but with illegal freelance jobs, these crimes can be encouraged and will make a more fun environment. 

[Bala]

With all respect to those people that are taking part in these jobs, this is absolutely not a priority area for the server to build upon at this time and is something for down the road. The criminal side of the server is been in decline for the best part of two years and we're discussing updates here that don't have anything to do with the criminal side of the server.

Any and all developmental resources need to be diverted towards the creation and implementation of the correct criminal updates as a matter of some urgency.

These are, but are not limited to;

• The re-implementation of the public drug labs, as they were in 2019.
• The re-implementation of the public chop shops, as they were in 2019 with a cap on the payout so to not cuck the player owned chop shops.
• A reduction of cost for the player owned chop shops by 50%.
• A reduction of cost for heavy imported weapons by 50%.
• A reduction on the amount of repetitions the lockpick mechanism asks for and the amount of time you have to complete a repetition.
• A reduction of cost in the prison fines by 25%.

Those changes above are changes that the more reputable or significant criminals on the server requested as matters of urgency. They were put forward to Osvaldon and all bar the prison fine change was approved by him, however, in his absence over the past two weeks, we have gone down a different route. 

With the exception of the alright underway updates for the clothing and the guns, the criminal changes are the most significant update possible for ECRP.

Those changes above stabilise the criminal side of the server and will allow us for some breathing room. Current factions will experience a resurgence and energy in being able to do criminal shit. There will be a reason for players to make criminal factions again and in turn, there will be a spike in the server's population as well as the amount of profit that will come into the credit store.

Following those above changes, the Prison needs to be completely reworked. We have an entire faction that is solely based there and it has been a miserable and punishing experience for players on Eclipse in the 3 and a half years that I've been here. Not just on an in-character level which one expects, but also and more corrosively, an out of character experience.

Part of the reason criminal roleplayers on Eclipse hate law enforcement so much is not that we have the advantage. It's not even necessarily that they lose. They are just charged an obscene amount of money which in 2022 you have to mind-numbingly grind out AND then they're stick in a location with things like playing poker for stamps and digging on a concrete yard to occupy them for 2-3 hours.

I know now that no one is going to listen, either to me or any one else saying these things. But whoever is making the decisions and captaining this, how can you not see it? It's so bloody obvious and they are such simple fixes.

We lack attention-to-detail. It's why we put Halloween decorations up in early October or release the Mall with no shops in it, killing it's hype. It's why we add static drug labs with no materials spawning in them. It's why you have to press your spacebar 50 times but also account for client side latency to be able to steal a high end vehicle. It's why you had to rob a store in increments of $2000 for however long it was. It's why there is only one hospital in the server you can change your character and why you can't drop a body off properly without admin intervention.

You guys know I'm not saying these things to be be toxic right? I'm just pointing out that we've got our priorities scuffed and there is clear, definitive reasons why things are the way they are.

If you seriously want to make freelance jobs better, you just need to pay attention to the small details.

• Get rid of the lockpick type mechanism for jobs like the oil worker. Absolutely no need for it, it was fine as a loading bar.
  Eclipse systems work best when you don't have to overthink.
   
• Reward players for repetition of the same job. 
  If you fish one time, you get the same payout and experience as if you fish for the 100th time.
  You cannot catch different fish, there is no reason to go to a specific place to fish for a specific fish.
  You cannot do anything to make your fish catching different.
  Fishing is an experience you can do alone.
   
• Remove the weight impact on the Journeys for the Mining.
  You guys killed the job off when you did that. No one wants to be driving 15 minutes to the mining drop off in a Journey going 20 km.
  The Journey storage wasn't intended but it was a case of players being geniuses.
   
• Move the animals for hunting where it makes sense for them to be.
  Cow on farm. Rat near dumpster. Pig on farm. Deer in woods. Fluctuate the fuckin prices for them to drive people to go different places.
  They spawn in the roads and it's the same locations every single time.
   
• Connect the bus routes.
  I did a big suggestion thread a while ago where you could basically service the entire LS/Blaine County with six different maps.
  You get variation with the jobs but on the off chance someone actually needs a bus, they can go wherever.
   
• Get rid of the freelance jobs that don't have a purpose or they're not exciting to do.
  Less is sometimes more. It is easier to balance a smaller amount of jobs than a larger amount. Job sites also create interaction between players, less job sites = more players in one spot.
  Tollboothes, are they needed in ECRP 2022? We don't have 20 buses waiting outside them anymore.
  Courier, when was the last time someone sent a package to someone in game?
   
• Job Uniforms
  I've been making uniforms for a lot of the jobs on the server, because you should be able to tell what someone is at a distance like you would in real life.
  If you look the part, it's easier to RP the part. If you can RP the part, then you're a part of the world.

Eclipse from 2019 to 2020 grew exponentially, we went from being a server that had 150-200 players with a balance between crim/cop, mostly located in Los Santos to spreading out into the county as the player base went to 300.. 400.. 500. We do not have that player-base anymore and we're not going to get that again if we don't change it up. Even our efforts to downscale the server lacked detail. We removed hospitals and PD/SD spawn locations but we are still spread out all over the map.

There is no clear vision and plan for how the server should go from here but for me, it's really simple, go back to basics. Figure out the ingredients of what made Eclipse successful in the first place and pour that formula into every single thing we do from now on. The reason why the clothing update is going to fucking slap is all the attention to detail that's being poured into it.

[Commander783]

5 hours ago, Bala said:

 The reason why the clothing update is going to fucking slap is all the attention to detail that's being poured into it.

But in the end, they are just cosmetics and nothing extremely gameplay relevant.

Thank you for your input though, appreciate it.

[Kommand]

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Any and all developmental resources need to be diverted towards the creation and implementation of the correct criminal updates as a matter of some urgency.

These are, but are not limited to;

• The re-implementation of the public drug labs, as they were in 2019.

More people at labs just means more opportunities for roving gangs to rob/loot newer players who are brand new to criminal RP. The idea of more activity at the labs sounds good on paper, but established factions are always going to exploit solo rookies instead of recruiting them. Couple that with how broken Fear RP is, and you've got a recipe for a reporting uptick. Really makes no sense why players can only plant in these designated plantation zones. Pretty sure there's lots of soil in San Andreas. Maybe planting is isolated for developmental reasons, but realistically it should be possible essentially anywhere granted the topography makes sense. More people = more problems.

8 hours ago, Bala said:

The re-implementation of the public chop shops, as they were in 2019 with a cap on the payout so to not cuck the player owned chop shops.

I agree with this for the most part. The old meta of pick-locking vehicles and immediately driving off is obviously over, so I wonder how this translates with the new hotwiring system. Is there even any incentive or reason to try and steal a player owned vehicle anymore? It was much more fun to chop cars owned by other players who would chase after you or try and track you down. The fun of that is nonexistent with the NPC cars, in addition to cops metagaming the knowledge of what is, or isn't a NPC car. Not all of course, but the fact that's possible is a problem. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

A reduction of cost for the player owned chop shops by 50%.

+1. 250k for equipment that is so easily comped is ridiculous. There's way more money in robbing chop shops than ACTUALLY running one. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

A reduction of cost for heavy imported weapons by 50%.

All this will do is create higher profit margins for official factions. Sure, maybe Lost MC or others will decrease prices for competitive purposes, but a large portion of criminals can't import these weapons and have no other option but to pay the markup. It's not the prices, it's the accessibility of them. There should be an option to acquire them without the middlemen. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

A reduction on the amount of repetitions the lockpick mechanism asks for and the amount of time you have to complete a repetition.

+1. Failing a lockpick due to desync has IC consequences, and the cops don't care that it was OOCly caused. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

A reduction of cost in the prison fines by 25%.

+1. I find it funny that the most glaring and obvious issue needing to be addressed is the one with the most contention from developers. I just don't see how anyone could objectively look at prison fines/time and deny that it's a problem. It's bad enough that time spent at DOC is mind numbingly boring. It's even more egregious when you now have 10-30k in fines that takes basically all of your legal salary until it's paid. The whole ''be smarter bro'' sentiment is getting old considering that it reinforces the play to win mindset. Moreover, sometimes no matter how smart you RP, shit doesn't go your way. It happens. Losing up to 5 hours of your time, and another 5-8 hours of money for it is excessive.

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Following those above changes, the Prison needs to be completely reworked. We have an entire faction that is solely based there and it has been a miserable and punishing experience for players on Eclipse in the 3 and a half years that I've been here. Not just on an in-character level which one expects, but also and more corrosively, an out of character experience.

Part of the reason criminal roleplayers on Eclipse hate law enforcement so much is not that we have the advantage. It's not even necessarily that they lose. They are just charged an obscene amount of money which in 2022 you have to mind-numbingly grind out AND then they're stick in a location with things like playing poker for stamps and digging on a concrete yard to occupy them for 2-3 hours.

I know now that no one is going to listen, either to me or any one else saying these things. But whoever is making the decisions and captaining this, how can you not see it? It's so bloody obvious and they are such simple fixes.

+++1! The lack of developmental investment into DOC is very frustrating. There's a lot of IC investment that goes into DOC, but when all RP outside the script is considered alt RP, how can you expect the situation to improve? DOC RP should be so fun that people actually enjoy or look forward to prison, because of the unique and diverse roleplay that can occur. Right now it's essentially the opposite, and DOC employees unfortunately are affected by that. And yes, you're completely correct about why criminals hate roleplaying with cops--it's the dread of knowing the next 8-10 hours of our game experience is about to be fucked. On the other hand, the cops are having a blast and getting to enjoy the RP without any of the fallout. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

We lack attention-to-detail. It's why we put Halloween decorations up in early October or release the Mall with no shops in it, killing it's hype. It's why we add static drug labs with no materials spawning in them. It's why you have to press your spacebar 50 times but also account for client side latency to be able to steal a high end vehicle. It's why you had to rob a store in increments of $2000 for however long it was. It's why there is only one hospital in the server you can change your character and why you can't drop a body off properly without admin intervention.

You guys know I'm not saying these things to be be toxic right? I'm just pointing out that we've got our priorities scuffed and there is clear, definitive reasons why things are the way they are.

Sadly a certain demographic will always equate constructive criticism with toxicity. Those people probably benefit from the current server's state. I think that's the largest misconception from the side speaking up for change, the misconception that the priorities currently are bad for everyone. They are clearly benefiting someone or else they would have been addressed by now. But that's a discussion for another day.

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Get rid of the lockpick type mechanism for jobs like the oil worker. Absolutely no need for it, it was fine as a loading bar.
Eclipse systems work best when you don't have to overthink.

+/-1. There should be some sort of engagement with the job that prevents click farming, which is basically what it was prior to the minigame. The minigame isn't annoying because it forces you to be attentive, it's annoying because the engagement has no depth or realistic use.

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Reward players for repetition of the same job. 
If you fish one time, you get the same payout and experience as if you fish for the 100th time.
You cannot catch different fish, there is no reason to go to a specific place to fish for a specific fish.
You cannot do anything to make your fish catching different.
Fishing is an experience you can do alone.

-1. So much potential for fishing to be an amazing industry and job. Diversifying the types of fish, incorporating bait, geographically specific fish, and of course deep sea fishing for boats, as they currently have no financial incentive outside of leisure. You could even create a Fishing License that would provide potential opportunities for Game Warden esque divisions at SD. I realize all of that is probably unattainable, but some of it should be realistically possible. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Remove the weight impact on the Journeys for the Mining.
You guys killed the job off when you did that. No one wants to be driving 15 minutes to the mining drop off in a Journey going 20 km.
The Journey storage wasn't intended but it was a case of players being geniuses.

+1. I always thought the way that nerf was handled was funny, because in their attempt to dissuade the mining meta, they created a new meta of criminals obviously knowing a slow speed RV has 25k worth of ore in it. If someone has put the time in mining enough ore to fill 20 safes I don't see why they should be put at such a disadvantage in transporting it. Either limit the number of safes that can scriptly be placed in a Journey, or remove the speed nerf.

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Move the animals for hunting where it makes sense for them to be.
Cow on farm. Rat near dumpster. Pig on farm. Deer in woods. Fluctuate the fuckin prices for them to drive people to go different places.
They spawn in the roads and it's the same locations every single time.

+1. Currently it's pretty easy to exploit the meta when it comes to hunting. One person can basically wipe all the livestock before others have an opportunity to find them. Also, nearly everyone traveling on roads through those zones will stop and kill a chicken or cow even if they're not actively hunting. Why wouldn't they? It's free money. Like fishing, there is so much potential to make hunting more in depth and enjoyable.

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Connect the bus routes.
I did a big suggestion thread a while ago where you could basically service the entire LS/Blaine County with six different maps.
You get variation with the jobs but on the off chance someone actually needs a bus, they can go wherever.

+/-1. Not sure this would improve the lack of use the bus system currently has. Most bus drivers even when there is an opportunity, do not pick up other players. They only stop because they're forced to, and they have no interest in the RP side of the job. It's just a means to an end for money.

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Get rid of the freelance jobs that don't have a purpose or they're not exciting to do.
Less is sometimes more. It is easier to balance a smaller amount of jobs than a larger amount. Job sites also create interaction between players, less job sites = more players in one spot.
Tollboothes, are they needed in ECRP 2022? We don't have 20 buses waiting outside them anymore.
Courier, when was the last time someone sent a package to someone in game?

+1. It can also be very confusing and time wasting for new players to learn how useless or terrible some of these jobs are through experience. Imagine your first day in the server you decide to work a tollbooth. The majority of traffic gets through for free, the other half either jumps the barrier or waits for a bus so they can pass for free. To me, that would leave a bad impression on first timers. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Job Uniforms
I've been making uniforms for a lot of the jobs on the server, because you should be able to tell what someone is at a distance like you would in real life.
If you look the part, it's easier to RP the part. If you can RP the part, then you're a part of the world.

+/-1. So what if someone wanted to impersonate the police, would you support players having access to those EXACT uniforms? Right now the only people suffering from ''job'' clothing is criminals. 

8 hours ago, Bala said:

Eclipse from 2019 to 2020 grew exponentially, we went from being a server that had 150-200 players with a balance between crim/cop, mostly located in Los Santos to spreading out into the county as the player base went to 300.. 400.. 500. We do not have that player-base anymore and we're not going to get that again if we don't change it up. Even our efforts to downscale the server lacked detail. We removed hospitals and PD/SD spawn locations but we are still spread out all over the map.

There is no clear vision and plan for how the server should go from here but for me, it's really simple, go back to basics. Figure out the ingredients of what made Eclipse successful in the first place and pour that formula into every single thing we do from now on. The reason why the clothing update is going to fucking slap is all the attention to detail that's being poured into it.

-1. The rules won't allow for a successful ''back to the basics.'' Many rule changes are in place because of the problems those basics caused. Whether you agree or disagree with those changes, you can't expect to extract the good of 2020 while avoiding the bad entirely. The truth is that Eclipse RP has a huge attrition rate by design. New players don't typically break the rules on purpose, or DM for the hell of it. Does it happen? Of course. But it's the minority.

The majority of them are unfortunately inexperienced at RP and end up making mistakes in the nuances of complex role play. Couple that with each Moderator essentially interpreting those rules with carte blanche and you've set them up for failure. By the time they have reached competency in RP, they are either A. already banned, or B. Limiting their RP due to fear of a DM #2, ala permanent ban. 

Eclipse staff aren't interested in educating or empowering newer players--they are interested in enforcing a standard of RP that many can not meet. And that's fine! There's nothing wrong with that. But you won't reach the numbers of 2020 if that's the vision for the server. It's just the hard truth. More and more it becomes clear that the vision for Eclipse is to be a heavy RP server with a staggering learning curve. That's easy to transition into for the players who have been here for years, but very difficult when it comes to attracting new players. 

I've seen several suggestions sort of addressing this, such as a second 2.0 server, changes to Ban Evading policy, or unbanning players for less severe rule breaks. Not really sure what the solution is, but it'd be nice if we could at least all agree that we have an identity problem. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Kommand

[Buggs]

9 hours ago, Bala said:

Following those above changes, the Prison needs to be completely reworked. We have an entire faction that is solely based there and it has been a miserable and punishing experience for players on Eclipse in the 3 and a half years that I've been here. Not just on an in-character level which one expects, but also and more corrosively, an out of character experience.

Part of the reason criminal roleplayers on Eclipse hate law enforcement so much is not that we have the advantage. It's not even necessarily that they lose. They are just charged an obscene amount of money which in 2022 you have to mind-numbingly grind out AND then they're stick in a location with things like playing poker for stamps and digging on a concrete yard to occupy them for 2-3 hours.

I agree with 99% of what you've said. However as someone who plays on a DOC character and loves it... I would argue that half the time I have a problem with getting people in prison to interact with me... or follow server rules. I try to play music or do charades or play movies or whatever it is at the time, but half the people are tabbed out and/or afk and won't even speak when spoken to. Not only that... but people feel that FRP just doesn't exist in prison, which I get that they're going to be there regardless of whether or not I taze them... but it should still hurt and they should still not want to feel it... unless their character is weirdly into that sort of thing... and hey... no kink shaming here... just saying...

I've sat there with someone during their entire prison sentence and they mentioned how they actually enjoyed prison. I think the problem with prison right now is the assumption that it will be boring so you just have to sit there AFK and get it over with.

I agree the fines are way too much and should be halfed AT LEAST, if not even more. Fines don't take into account that most people have to pay for their car to be unimpounded as well... It's just more money after more money and more of a senseless grind. I agree with everything else you said pretty much. I just wanted to comment on this one thing.

Overall @Commander783 this is a beautiful post with great commentary on freelance jobs as I feel you basically hit the nail on the head with your assessments.

I'd also like to mention the suggestions made by @FatherOsborn.

When it comes to the trucking job, not only would getting random orders be nice, but also bonus pay for those with their own trucks vs. renting. There should be a fee to rent the truck as people who own their own trucks have to service them and fill them with petroleum. Also, it should not take so long to do petroleum jobs. The money vs time spent does not add up. I quit trucking on my character when I spent almost 30+ minutes waiting for my tank to fill only to c0 from the server and come back to nothing.

When it comes to the coroner job: there's already bodies that show up at roadworker sites, why not just put an auto call to coroners when something happens so they can clean up the bodies? More RP for all!

[AbsoluteBadonkers]

@Olivia CanSome people just AFK and walk away as aside from the occasional conversation and games made by the guards, there isn’t shit to do scriptly, especially since you’re given a choice of buying food or a pickaxe when you get in, not both. I was in prison many times on my crim character and not once was there a guard that tried to make it fun. They normally just sat on the top section and watched, occasionally coming down to break up a fight or to go off duty, rarely did they actually come down to speak. I had 1 guard that actually wanted to make conversation, but everyone was making fights and eventually a lockdown was put in place and I couldn’t leave my cell despite not even being involved. It’s always the others that ruin it for everyone, so people usually just tab out and work on something or go away until their time is up. They already had to pay 20k+ in fines that put them heavily into debt that’ll take hours and hours to pay off, why should they sit for 3-4 hours while people fight and guards come and go?

 

I think sentences need to be reduced. DOC in it’s current state is not fun. When there isn’t the rare run guard that makes games or conversations, all you can really do is walk around and go outside. I’m sure prison would be a lot more fun and active if there were things you could do, like script games or other things to do, as of right now it kind of discourages people to not run from the police. You get sent to prison for the smallest possible charge and it’s 2 hours minimum.

[Buggs]

Oh trust me @AbsoluteBadonkers I have seen the flip side, meaning yes I have seen where guards just ignore prisoners. My character specifically goes out of her way to bring food and water to prisoners as well as pickaxes because I know how hard it is for crims in there. I understand not all guards are like this and my character may be an anomaly, but I am hoping to change things by being the change I want to see in DOC.

I think this can go both ways. Meaning... prisoners spend less time afk in DOC and more time trying to interact with guards, as well as guards doing the same.

[Bala]

The argument around public labs and people going there to rob is somewhat simple because one, big groups of crims don't exist anymore and two, if you are there, you are there to make money illegally so you kind of have to take your chances. It's like being a cop on the server, you kind of expect people to run from you and resist arrest. The difference between 2019 and 2022 is that you do still have the option for cooking privately which did not exist in 2019.

Labs and Chopshops were as much a positive meeting point for crims as a negative one, it depends on your relationship with the another criminal and what criminal you encounter. Criminals being able to lock themselves away and cook in apartments was a lack of attention to detail. You need your legal player meeting points and your illegal. You're not going to get innocent people or civvies at drug labs are you?

When it comes to DOC, the only difference between a 60 minute jail sentence and a 6 hour sentence is that a negative gameplay experience doesn't last as long.
Overhaul the prison, @Chunder made a beautiful suggestion thread which a lot of people have shared ideas on and lower the fines, then people won't care as much about the time because they can get an interesting experience in DOC like they could on the street. You shouldn't RPly WANT to go to prison but you shouldn't OOCly have to hate it.

If we overhauled the prison, Netflix usage would take a hit from ECRP members 

The process is simple in it's execution. You sort the biggest issues first, go back to the fundamentals of Eclipse, keep things simple so everyone gets them and then you rebuild the community. Not just in terms of development, but eventually the rules and if necessary, the staff team.

Don't worry about retaining new players who may or may not stay regardless of what you do, worry about keeping the good players that got you to this point and remained loyal even when we perhaps didn't deserve it. It's the good players that you build around.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Bala

[Buggs]

4 minutes ago, Bala said:

Don't worry about retaining new players who may or may not stay regardless of what you do, worry about keeping the good players that got you to this point and remained loyal even when we perhaps didn't deserve it. It's the good players that you build around.

I think this is essentially the problem with ECRP at times. You literally hit the nail on the head. Build around the good players and people will stay because they enjoy the RP brought about by those players. Just... this on so many levels hits home and is a mood.

[Mikazuki Ueno]

6 minutes ago, Bala said:

Don't worry about retaining new players who may or may not stay regardless of what you do, worry about keeping the good players that got you to this point and remained loyal even when we perhaps didn't deserve it. It's the good players that you build around.

+100

[Osborn]

Overhauling DOC to make the stay more enjoyable from an OOC perspective (although irrelevant to the current topic which is about freelance jobs) is on the agenda! I hope to be able to create a direct communication line created between DOC leaders and relevant staff to expedite improvements to DOC, as Chunder has been extremely enthusiastic about DOC and has had many great ideas! 


 

[Bala]

1 hour ago, FatherOsborn said:

Overhauling DOC to make the stay more enjoyable from an OOC perspective (although irrelevant to the current topic which is about freelance jobs) is on the agenda! I hope to be able to create a direct communication line created between DOC leaders and relevant staff to expedite improvements to DOC, as Chunder has been extremely enthusiastic about DOC and has had many great ideas! 

Doesn't have to be off topic, since adding specific freelance jobs within the corrections environment would be a positive step towards improving that environment. You'd unfortunately have to be a prisoner to do them but still. Adding mining in the middle of a concrete yard was is kind of just, "bleh, give them something".

Point why I brought up the other stuff is that there are very specific things in the server that need urgent attention and going down this route doesn't really achieve that, despite there being some good suggestions.

[Skengprostie]

1 hour ago, Olivia Can said:

I think this is essentially the problem with ECRP at times. You literally hit the nail on the head. Build around the good players and people will stay because they enjoy the RP brought about by those players. Just... this on so many levels hits home and is a mood.

In my opinion the thing that helped ECRP the most was the pier. A lot of the people that are still playing today kept playing the server because of the pier. It was great for new players to meet everyone meaning always had something to do. I feel like it also helped new players find in which direction they wanted to go in (legal/crim). Since the pier was murdered the player count has gone down and I find new players lost in where to go to find interactions which eventually leads them to leaving the server due to being bored. As soon as a new player joined they where told to go to the pier and to start fishing as it was ok money and they would meet a lot of people, if something similar to that can be brought back to the server I feel like there will be a lot more success.

However the construction job acts similar to the way that the pier did (on a lower scale) in that new players can meet new people there and are almost guaranteed interactions with other players, I see a lot more new players now and I feel this is because of the construction job. Because of this they will start to apply for jobs or try to get into gangs, which is exactly what the server needs more of and hopefully will lead to more gangs and more activity within legal jobs.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Skengprostie

[Mikazuki Ueno]

1 hour ago, Skengprostie said:

In my opinion the thing that helped ECRP the most was the pier. A lot of the people that are still playing today kept playing the server because of the pier.

My faction, while smaller today than a couple of months ago (like most factions) will be on the pier in between operations, events and other roleplay. We will introduce ourselves like before, help people, show them the ropes and give them a hand. And we will do it, myself personally as well, regardless if it ‘picks up’ again or not. This is where we made friends, did deals, listened to music, people watched and had fun. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Mikazuki Ueno