Changes to LEO Discussion

[Lewis]

Hello,

This topic is going to be open for 48 hours.  

Remain respectful at ALL times. 

I don't want typical asset-focused comments, I want genuine, thought-through replies.  Part of the issue is, lots of our community are all naturally asset focused so please bare this in mind when responding, I don't want people to respond in the interest of assets only.

Do not attack each other, we all have a common goal.

I receive personally LOTS of complaints on a daily basis, typically about our LSPD faction. Some have no merit.

What changes should we be making to Law Enforcement for people to stop thinking/complaining that "PD are ruining the server" "PD Run the server"? What is the problem, what could we do to rectify the problem.

 

 

Thanks,

Lewis

 

 

[Spextrum]

Get rid of cops using tazers while they're in a vehicle. Cops should only use it when they're outside of a vehicle.

[Carl Vespucci]

I think the following things need to be reworked. 

Gunship - Removed and used for information only.

Detective roleplay  -  Should be only used for investigative purposes - not for fighting. 

Remove the pager -  LEO have the roster to handle this, maybe not back in the day, but given the current state of the criminal world, they have enough. 

Faction NLR - Say there is a search warrant/raid on a property and PD/SD conduct the raid, and a majority of them get wiped, and one officer gets in a Insurgent and leaves being the only survivor. That warrant still stays active. This is a problem that needs to be sorted as well because wiping PD/SD once is no easy feat, so having to do it multiple times and giving them multiple lives is just unfair. 
 

 

 

[Perez1025]

As someone who stopped playing due to cops I'm not entirely sure its the same but some big issues with cops before were

Unrealistic ramming to disable you

Using tasers from a car or shooting you with a tazer while your in a car while realistically tazer's wont go through windows 

Everyone knows a chop car when seeing it and cops used this to just get an easy arrest, they could be opposite side of highway than your driving and even though you do nothing wrong traffic wise they turn on you cause visually they know its a chop car 

Charge stacking 

these were some things that kinda made it seem like it was a cop server where only cops really thrive

 

[grak4629]

I find that there are situations where I would like to start a foot pursuit, just for a bit of fun RP, and some officers will tase once and then instantly get their baton and beat me until i’m knocked out, then they will just carry me to the vehicle. I feel this shortens RP opportunities and kind of just rushes situations rather than making them fun. I’m fully aware the end result will be an arrest but I just think there should be precautions put in place because I know for a fact, in real life someone is not getting beaten to that extent just for attempting to flee once.

I think cops should be more open to RP and a lot have a win mentality rather than remembering it’s just a game and we’re all here to have fun. 

Just adding this as it made me think - I think there should be more opportunity to resist also! For example a lot of cops hit the “/me grabs them by the cuffs” whereas i see others do “/me attempts to grab their cuffs” - which is better, I love the inclusion of dicerolls, and I think this should be used more to enhance arrest RP, with the crim and cop dicerolling to see if the criminal can break away and continue fleeing.

Edited 36 minutes ago by grak4629
adding a point

[arminass]

no pager no snipers no tazers in car no heli gunship 

[Kayden96]

Cops "patrolling" areas close to labs on purpose to find a reason to raid the lab is a massive reason why I personally stopped logging in as much. Also cops pulling out a heli in every single interaction. I think putting a number on how many crims and how many cops can be involved in each activity would fix most issues. Many times has it quickly turned from evading into basically the US military tracking 1 person down with thermals. Also the egos which many of us have but it really hurts the server when its the cops who have power try to stack as many charges as possible. Not fun logging on after working a 10 hour shift and getting jailed for 5 hours that could've easily been cut in half.

[astrx]

Whether or not these suggestions get taken on, these are my thoughts;

• Tazers should not be utilised within a vehicle. If an Officer is on foot, then you may use it. Fun should be the priority, if you're able to, have some fun with the chase / foot pursuit.
   
• Evaluated on a case-by-case basis, each situation should have a specific amount of Officers be able to respond. Once units arrive, the lead units are able to analyse the situation and call more units IF it's necessary.
   
• Charge times should be lowered. Three (3) hours is a lot of time. I understand that they have been lowered previously, I feel that VIP shouldn't affect jail times and the maximum a players should spend in SADOC is 90 mins.
   
• Having heavy weaponry (for LEO) should be restricted to SWAT, any other unit should not be able to carry a Class 2 weapon unless it's necessary for the situation. 
   
• Hitting a player with a baton should be absolute last resort, or if a player if blatantly ignoring roleplay. The knock-out script has made it so an Officer will taze, and if they have to a second time they immediately opt for knocking a player out with a baton, instead of roleplaying with the player to apprehend them.

IF I think of anything else, I will update this, the listed are issues I see on a daily basis.

 

[UseroneGaming]

I think the problem isn't just some law enforcement officers being complacent, but also a bunch of laws that are a bit overstepping government's authority:

• GC04 Face Concealment
  • Regulating one's appearance, when there isn't an objective safety threat, is technically a violation of the first amendment of the San Andreas Constitution: 1st Amendment
    The House shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, but the state may impose reasonable limits to this freedom for public safety; or abridging the freedom of speech
  • Some cops use this rule to randomly stop people who aren't doing anything and aren't otherwise suspected of actual crimes and force them to identify.
  • Instead, they could make it illegal to wear a mask while committing a crime. That would actually make sense, and not violate the constitution.
• WM04 - Possession of Illegal Body Armor
  • Same as above. Body armor is not a weapon, and doesn't directly pose a security threat.
  • There is no reason why any body armor would be considered "illegal," except maybe one that has law enforcement insignia if it's used to impersonate law enforcement.
  • That being said, wearing body armor while committing a crime could be a reasonable offense still.
• GM14 - Obstruction of Justice
  • I don't have any problems with the existence of this charge, but the way it's worded - it includes "deliberately conceals information from law enforcement officers" as part of the charge.
  • As per fifth amendment of the San Andreas Constitution: No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against themself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
  • The rest of the charge is okay, just get rid of the "concealing information from law enforcement" part, because that's explicitly a right that everyone has. The first sentence of the Miranda Rights is "You have the right to remain silent."
• GM10 - Failure to Comply / Identify
  • Again, no problems with the existence of this charge, just the wording of it: Failure to comply with a lawful command by a law enforcement officer, including when he requests you to identify who you are during the course of an investigation.
  • According to the 4th Amendment of the aforementioned San Andreas constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
  • Basically, all that needs to be specified, is that a law enforcement officer may only demand identification if they have reasonable articulable suspicion that the person in question may be had, or is currently involved in criminal activity.
  • Law enforcement officers in United States of America do not have the authority to randomly stop and identify people without reasonable articulable suspicion.

I think, as long as the court takes criminal and civil cases against law enforcement corruption, things can level off just fine between criminals and law enforcement.

[ReneBerg]

Make it so PD / SD get a 30second count down when changing vests. 

 

Make it so PD / SD lose money when they die. The criminal lose risk is high when PD/SD has none ( besides a radio and a laptop). 

 

Stop the Bullshit pullover just to stack paperwork.

 

Stop the 10man pursuits.

 

Remove the micro SMG'S  on cops. This shit is so weird.

 

Less win mentality, more RP.

Edited 21 minutes ago by ReneBerg

[Cougzy]

Traffic stops at the minute are really poor at times. Depending on the time of day and who pulls you over, sometimes you'll have to sit idle for 5-10 mins while they get backup, and its not just waiting for another officer, its waiting for multiple units. I could do 100 in the city and have 5-6 cops on me at a traffic stop. Whilst there will be arguments that this is realistic or justified in some scenarios (which it can be), the rate it happens right now just kills any fun. Unless there is a specific RP reason, there is no need for more than 2 units at a standard traffic stop.

The loadouts cops have for basic patrols is kind of unrealistic too. For example, if you're sitting on the highway doing speed traps, there is no realistic reason, regardless of rank, to be sitting there with multiple sets of body armour and assault rifles. Your loadout should match the activity that you are doing. Pump shotguns whilst pulling up to a bank robbery = fine, pump shotguns for handing out speeding tickets = overkill. This coupled with my first point, makes every interaction boring unless you're willing to drive around with 100k worth of gear that you are willing to lose everytime.

Also +1 to Userone above, was gonna mention it but they've summed it up pretty well.

[Harley]

Being a cop is just as boring as being a crim is right now. The server has had no new content for crims added for literally years. The majority of our criminal playerbase spend hours in a druglab, semi-afk, cooking drugs. This is barely gameplay. This also barely involves police, unless it turns into a shootout. Without stuff for crims to do, cops get nothing too. So those in PD/SD who can will hunt for things to do, so everyone isn't sat in silence in speed traps.

This causes people to be mad at cops for doing things such as patrolling closeby to labs, when really they're just looking for something to do.

The biggest thing ECRP can do is implement new things to do. Content that involves everyone, criminals, police, EVERYONE. The majority of criminals have been here for years. We've all done everything there is to do. So now we resort to cooking drugs semi-afk because thats the meta! That's how you make money, that's how you can afford heavies, 100AP, and drugs for fights. That's the criminal cycle nowadays.

It is up to the devs to implement new content. And if they don't have the time to develop it, BUY IT. We are moving to FiveM in less than 2 months. If we REALLY don't want to increase the size of our dev team to more than 2 people, utilise the immense amount of developers who have been making FiveM scripts for years. Buy the scripts. It's better than sticking to the content drought we have been in since 2022.

TL;DR: No single player is to blame. We are ALL bored. Crims and Cops alike. Bring new shit to do and things will get better. Leave us with the crumbs of half a decade ago and people will resort to PvP and hunting people for something to do.

[Kellie]

Hello there. As someone that has played as law enforcement, but mostly been a civ and also has nothing to do on the server anymore und  just randomly decided to read a thread, take my input with many grains of salt. 

As a LEO, there is a lot of RP you gotta do, a lot of paperwork, and you also have to deal with crims that dislike you. Which is to be expected. I want to be antagonized in that moment.

However, I believe that the faction itself should sometimes play to lose. To make your character fail. To create moments that people will remember and I enjoy. When I played as Hannah Koch, who was supposed to be a little bit of a nutjob officer, I had a plethora of great interactions with criminals. 
Because I allowed myself to fail. 

Crim players need days to get the ressources LEOs have, so when there is a chase happening between two factions. When a crim manages to get away, the character of the leo might lose some pride. When the crim loses, they lose hours of work. (Yes this goes back into materialism, but I think it is a great cause of frustration) 

Because a lot of LEO players don't allow themselves to lose, however, or engage in roleplay beyond 'chasing, catching, locking up', there are just way to many reasons for crims to not engage with them at all. 
That in itself is an issue. You need both parties to have fun RP. 

I think it would be cool to have some sort of mechanic that gives crims a reason to WANT to interact with cops. Be it corruption, an ability to take from them, or fun moments.

I remember trying to give someone a ticket, but then letting my character getting gaslit into being told the driver has a pregnant woman in the car. So I escorted the person to the hospital. That is fun roleplay. 

Also give officers a reason to engage with others. Yes. Serious roleplay is important. But I think playing for failure should be encouraged. Right now it only gets punished. 

 

[MemeDog]

1. Prison Time Will have to be lowered to compete with FiveM, New players from FiveM will not sit in prison for IRL hours upon hours for Simple crimes
2. Cops patrolling labs like criminals (that mindset is set in stone for Most cops Its gotta go)
3. Give Nikko Reggal Chief of SD (optimal)

[GregoV1]

I know I haven't been around in a few years, so some of my knowledge may be outdated. During that time, I've been primarily playing FiveM for the last 3+ years on a variety of servers, including larger communities like Prodigy WL, NoPixel, PurpleRP, and several smaller servers. Coming back with that experience, here are a few things I think could improve the overall RP experience.

DOC & Jail Time

Overall, I think the charging system and jail times are fine. However, I think there should be better incentives for people going into prison.

If someone chooses to plead guilty, they should receive a larger sentence reduction than the current 20%—something closer to 40%. By pleading guilty, they're accepting responsibility, not contesting the charges, and eliminating the need for potential court RP for LEOs. From both a realism and RP perspective, that makes sense.

DOC jobs could also be improved. The dirty laundry currently doesn't spawn frequently enough, leaving inmates standing around waiting. Instead, make the job continuous. For example, have inmates collect dirty laundry from baskets throughout the prison and bring it to the laundry room to wash. Small improvements like this would make serving longer sentences much less repetitive and more engaging.

Limit LEOs patrol areas

One thing I think helps criminal RP is allowing areas where criminals feel relatively safe to operate.

Back when I was in LSPD, LEOs could patrol essentially anywhere, and air units had very few restrictions. I don't know if that's changed since I left, but having designated patrol priorities or limitations would encourage more criminal activity naturally instead of making it feel like police have constant coverage everywhere.

Tasers From Vehicles

LEOs should not be using tasers from moving vehicles.

In my opinion, it's a mechanic that prioritizes "winning" over creating enjoyable, extended roleplay. It often ends interactions almost immediately instead of allowing pursuits or foot chases to develop.

The only exception I could reasonably see is when someone is clearly abusing GTA mechanics, such as using unlimited stamina through exploits when FiveM eventually becomes the platform. In situations where someone is exploiting to gain an unfair advantage, a vehicle tase could make sense. Outside of that, I think it creates poor RP and reinforces the perception that the server favors law enforcement.

Old Warrants & Cuffing

This one might be slightly biased since I was arrested last night on a warrant that was over two years old.

I think there should be some form of statute of limitations on warrants—maybe around two months, depending on the severity of the offense. It feels odd to be arrested years later for something that happened so long ago.

I also think officers should verbally announce they're placing someone into cuffs before immediately cuffing them. Last night I was instantly cuffed without a word being said. Even something as simple as "You're being detained, going in for cuffs" gives the other person an opportunity to roleplay the interaction instead of instantly forcing them into cuffs with no warning.

Gang Case Files

I'm not sure if gang case files are still used, but if they are, I don't think they're realistic.

In real life, simply being associated with a gang doesn't automatically give officers legal authority to stop, detain, remove someone from a vehicle, or search them. Detectives can absolutely conduct long-term gang investigations, build intelligence, and gather evidence, but blanket "case files" that effectively remove constitutional protections aren't realistic. There are much better ways to encourage detective RP without relying on mechanics that give unrealistic investigative powers.

Mask Laws

Face concealment laws, as they've been implemented in the past, also don't feel realistic.

In the real world, simply wearing a mask isn't generally a criminal offense due to First Amendment protections. There are exceptions, such as certain government facilities or secure locations where masks may not be permitted, but that typically results in being asked to leave or receiving a citation—not being charged solely for covering your face.

Private businesses and property owners also have the right to refuse service or trespass someone for refusing to comply with their policies, which is a much more realistic approach.

Matching Force

LEOs should match for with criminals most of the time, i.e. if a crim has a pistol, the officer 

Overall

At the end of the day, my biggest suggestion is to continue pushing the server toward realism wherever possible. Obviously it's still a video game, and there will always be gameplay compromises, but mechanics shouldn't exist simply to give law enforcement an advantage.

Not every interaction needs to be approached with the mindset of, "How quickly can we get this person in cuffs?" Some of the best roleplay comes from allowing situations to develop naturally, giving both sides meaningful opportunities to interact, and focusing on creating memorable RP rather than simply securing the arrest. When ECRP moves to FiveM, I promise there will be a lot of complainers and a lot of people would leave due to how ECRP is with crim RP. Also please make the fines less, thank you

If anything I said was outdated, please let me know, I'd be interested in what has changed since

[Harley]

Adding fleet to SD/PD was a great first start. Next, we need to add inventory management and banish /fl.

Regardless of how many rules and regulations we implement, people will and actively ARE using /fl to replenish ammo, armour, etc. Mid-fight.

Remove /fl. Use an armoury system. Wouldn't even take new development. Use the prison shop system. Make police have to plan their loadout before they leave the station. Make them buy their guns, their ammo, their armour reserves, lockpicks, all of it at the armoury. Then store those items in the cruiser if they want.

Not only does this prevent the bad eggs abusing /fl to their liking, it actually adds an element of gameplay that LEO just don't get to do. Inventory Management. I find it quite fun and interesting to actually have to plan what I want to take with me. Just the same as crims planning their kits before going to a lab for example

[AlexisKnight]

Remove the 4 BFs and two AIR1 for single BF400 evading from bank

[Jaxxon]

I don't believe there's a simple solution to such a complicated problem, but I'd like to offer a perspective that doesn't focus on balance between LEO factions and civilians/crims, even though balance changes might be needed too.

I will reference my comment on a similar thread: 

I believe one of the main reasons why civilian and crim RP feels the LEO factions are ruining their roleplay is due to the general demeanor/RP the LEO factions conduct throughout. There are definitely outliers, but for the most part the experience of people outside the LEO factions is that LEO's focus more on getting the result they want (often referenced as "win mentality", but in my experience it doesn't always mean an outright "win" for LEO's, but rather what they hope to achieve during the interaction).

As I have been a part the LSPD faction as well as a crim faction I feel like I have a good grasp on both sides, but I can not comment on the inner workings of the LSSD faction. From my experience as an LEO I got the sense that the LSPD faction had a leadership or middle management that was very focused on keeping the faction a serious Law Enforcement Experience to the extent they could within the parameters of the server and game.

The problem this created was that the people who joined the faction to get the LEO experience was put in a narrow framework due to the rules and regulations within the faction, which was more focused on this serious Law Enforcement Experience. There felt like little to no room for interpretations or leeway to be given to civs/crims because this would be treated as you being "OOCly corrupt" or just corrupt RP wise (which if you didn't have permission from the Chief meant you were breaking faction rules).

This made the civ/crim experience such that any mistake made from them would be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and every interaction with the LSPD faction was as serious as if it was real life, and due to civs/crims losing assets the tension grew high.

Then over time the feeling of contempt grew from people outside of the LSPD faction, leading to the LSPD faction feeling more and more isolated as from their perspective they were doing what the faction was meant to be doing, and being the inherent "party poopers" of the server. That is understandable not a great feeling as an LEO player to be branded as the people ruining the experience of others so in turn they became less and less tolerant, leading to more push back from civs/crims, leading to more isolation for the LSPD faction.

Then I believe a breaking point occurred, where the majority civs/crims who have had enough divided themselves into 3 groups: 

1. Leave the server
2. Join the LEO factions on a different character
3. Stay as a crim and become extremely toxic towards LEO's to the point of actively trying to ruin the LEO's experience before eventually going to point 1

I have already rambled on for a while so I'll give one example I was personally a part of before getting to my conclusion/solution

I created, with Tommy Makinen and Ceri Makinen, the faction "Off Grid" which for it's first 30 days while I was there, had a no-fucking with cops policy. Me and Tommy decided early on that this faction was going to be a strictly racing gang with some illegal side activites like bank robbery. Every time we robbed banks we only used cars (because fuck all them pussies on bikes frfr) because we wanted the cops to have a good time chasing us. Every interaction with cops was focused on making it a good experience for both parties, which very few times lead to good interactions for all, and mostly lead to something similar to this: 

I left not long after this incident and from what I heard the faction went steady on for a few months getting more and more toxic towards the police and eventually disbanding and most members leaving the server after countless talks with faction management trying to sort this problem out.

All this being said here's my conclusion:

Keep the LEO factions as is, providing a close-to-reality serious LEO faction. Which with the move to FiveM may or may not continue to see the numbers dwindle

or

Pivot and open up for more leeway and focus on a fun experience from LEOs, leading to more fun for all parties, Which may or may not help, but in my humble opinion has a better chance of seeing true positive change.
The extent of this leeway needs to be discussed among LEO faction leaders and admins/server owners as you might need to tighten or loosen the leeway dynamically until you find a good balance that LEOs and civs/crims alike find acceptable.

If the owners of the server are happy to keep the LEO factions as serious as is, then make the game less grindy, so that people who lose assets don't feel so hopeless and feels like their time is being respected.

Thanks for reading