Capping Legal Faction Duty Hours

[Purely]

Hello!

I am a huge fan of the genre of RP, it is been really fun to immersive myself into all sorts of situations in my time on the server, however something has bugged me for a very long time now, and it's uncapped hours for legal jobs. Now this may lead to IC effects, however from an OOC perspective I'd like to see how people would view this suggestion.

If you aren't aware, most legal jobs require people to be on faction duty for over a certain period of time. But there is no cap. In the real world, employers won't allow people to work over time due to local laws, and other things like budget. So why do we here? I would propose a maximum cap be flexible from department to department, perhaps maximum of 50 hours per week, for example. 

This idea is to make it so that there is a limit for the amount of time people will be allowed to be on duty for, or at least paid for, hear are the benefits and drawbacks;

Pros;

- Less grinding mindset from Legal players. (People complain about criminals grinding for money, why should legals be treated differently.)

- Encourage players to play their characters off duty, actually bringing their character to life, as oppose to sleeping in the PD locker room. 

- OOC health benefits, spending 10+ hours a day behind a computer screen isn't too great for health, I'm not your mother but I wouldn't say it was a con. 

- Prioritise RP over Time. Players who are on duty for 100 hours in a week, how much of that is interacting with others, developing your character. Less is more.

Cons;

- People will take longer to save up money for homes, vehicles and other assests.

- People who really don't want to roleplay outside of their job, and don't want to develop their character outside of their faction will lose the chance to earn more money from their hours.

 

I'd love to hear feedback on this! 

 

[MrSilky]

Most people in legal jobs join the server for that legal job only. I see zero value in limiting what a player can do with their time. It is not appropriate for us to police how much a player plays - we are not their parents.

Most legal players aren’t in it for the salary, it’s the immersion of the job. For these players, this suggestion would be comparable to telling a civilian that they can’t hang out with their friends for more than X amount of time per week.

[Pazz]

If I can be a bus driver, fish, or deliver parcels for 16 hours a day, I should be able to be a mechanic or police officer or news reporter for 16 hours a day, if the time I have permits me to do that.

With how many robberies and crimes against other persons occur on the server, "in the real world" the emergency services would authorize overtime for its employees, so that would make this null and void from the aforementioned realism perspective to begin with. When you start capping emergency services, you start reducing availability, when you reduce availability, emergency services are at risk of being overwhelmed, and when emergency services are at risk of being overwhelmed, a state of emergency is declared which futher permits overtime.

The real world is used as an example of limiting work hours, but now you're drawing a comparison of real-life employment to video game faction membership, the latter being something that is used by many people to get an escape from the former. People should be able to play as long as they want to play, and in doing so, they should be able to do what they want, so let them. This applies to ALL players in all circumstances, not just "legal factions" or "criminal grinding".

If someone has fun as a mechanic or officer for 10 hours a day, good on them! If someone has fun stealing cars or whatever for 10 hours a day, more power to them! Let them.

[Kris]

What does the PD locker room have to do with capped legal faction hours?

[aitorgn]

-1 I don't see the point. People should play however and whenever they want, limiting someone's experience is not the way.

[Beet]

My my, I am sure a HR department or occupational health department would have you in their ranks somewhere. 

If you think the hours in a real life setting within law enforcement or criminal justice are capped in the real world, you are very much mistaken. I’ll log just the last few weeks of my work life: 

-W/C 6th March: 82 hours worked
-W/C 13th March: 86 hours worked
-W/C 20th March: 74 hours worked

Should I tell my employer I need to have my pay cut or I should get more time off for my health? Of course not, because in the real world we all work until the job is done. 
 

This is a ridiculous suggestion OOC and IC. I suppose retiring my character at age 42 and being unemployed is unrealistic, mind you, that speaks for a wide range of the player base…perhaps you could address this on your next suggestion. I do wonder how we make their years of unemployment and benefit claiming more realistic… 

 

[Kazjii]

Just two major issues here that I see are not fully understood so I would like to be transparent and share that. For one, we do not facilitate nor limit their time on the server by physically limiting them by hours so they can go outside and touch grass. Not only is that none of our business, but I see no reason to intervene is someones time in a game that they enjoy. Some people genuinely seek out their time on ECRP as their social network and escape their harsh reality - there is nothing wrong with that. My point is that it would actually be quite dehumanizing to instill a cap for someones play time - what if they have the time off work and nothing else to do? 50 hours may not be enough for them, and if they don't have a crim or don't care to play crim, the server is down a player until he faction pays out said player so they redo their dystopian limit.

Secondly, contrary to popular belief, players who hold legal jobs such as PD/SD/DOC/JB do not hold the same asset grind that criminal players hold. I want to reiterate that this is *NOT* a negative comment or suppose to be harsh in any way, but criminals have more assorted items they need to pay for which requires more startup money. Legal characters typically do nothing outside of their faction job, so they do not care so much for the money. It is the job itself, the duties and roles they are taking on that they have enjoyment in. 

If we were to allow this, then I would suggest only allow interaction with the criminal NPCs for 6 hours out of the day since realistically they would have day jobs or be somewhere with their families and have banks/gas stations have normal business hours that can't be robbed at night.

TLDR; we don't need to handhold people's personal time for them to go outside and legal characters like the job and duty of their faction so there is no need to impose a limit on how much they can enjoy their faction.

[Osborn]

Hello, I am going to go ahead and close this as it's not really a discussion to be had. As Kazji said, it's not our business what people do with their time or with their lives in general, if someone wants to play for an entire day, that's their right. Whether or not that's good for their health, that is something that they have to consider and work with themselves, our server is simply available to them, just as much as any other game is available at any time of the day. You could for example play GTA Online for 24 hours straight if you wanted to. 

As for the other points; anyone on our server can grind something out if they choose to; which has been highlighted quite well by Pazz! 

Nonetheless, I appreciate showing care for other players' well-being!