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 3 hours 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.

PS. Some law enforcement agencies have policies that forbid law enforcement officers from at all casual communicating with criminals, even off-duty. While that seems reasonable at first glance - the city is mosty cops or criminals. Furthermore, the government authority is again being overstepped - because now cops are being told what to do off-duty, when they're not being paid.

Allow cops to mingle with criminals off-duty. It doesn't mean that they'll engage in criminal activity together. Afterall, cops need OOC permission from their higher-up to do any form of intentional corruption.

Edited 2 hours ago by UseroneGaming

[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 3 hours 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

[MissWinterWolf]

I often have  experiance bad roleplay coming from PD side compare to other factions and main issue is that it always seems like they want to win all the time its not about having fun our roleplaying by making it fun and having a laugh its always serious around most of them and they often start to ram tazser from vehicles and are often just making fun of you our acting like bullies its not really fun starting any roleplays regarding them on criminal alts anymore as they seem to only be after getting the win and stopping the roleplay asp.

I all so feel often that with certen people withine the PD faction are more about shoting rathere then the whole RP around being a cop as they often just drive off  when u attampt to start our do a rp they dont like our they try and push our force you into a roleplay they want such as pursuits but even then i feel like they just wanthing to end it stright up by using ramming our taking out fast vehicles our helicopters the moment it starts i feel like its very unfair as it really runies a lot of rp and that feels like they have to win every single time wish i dont feel is what there RP shold be based around they all so need to be able to lose somtimes without having to go stright into best tactics.

this is just what i am feeling around the faction at this time from  experiancses i have had the past weeks. 

-What i really wish and hope to see is a huge change in the way PD is doing there rp and that they are way more focused on creating rp around the city rathere then feeling like a gang that is all in for  winning every single rp scnario  i understand that it can often be annjoying being a cop and dealing with criminal players but i all so feel like it as to be a balance of 50/50 and right now it dosen't feel balance at all it feels like every single scene i have been at with PD is all about winning rathere then giving people rp  this is just my thoughts and feelings everyone as there views and ideas around it but i think that main issue right now with PD is poor Rp and very focused on personal stats.

-sorry for bad grammer i am working on improving 

[Kon]

Some of the most fun I’ve ever had on the server involves cops almost always, being chased, hiding from them, being in shoot-outs with them. The reason being that there is consequence, the fear of spending time in jail/prison is what makes these interactions intense and exciting. Crims and cops need each other to exist to function, this is why when either one is heavily outnumbered (daytime cop heavy, night time crim heavy) shit doesn't work and it's way less fun to play, alot of crims won't do shit or log on in the day because too many cops, and A LOT of cops complain at night because the safety of numbers is gone and they don't like getting shot at most nights when they feel they don't stand a chance. 

I think the biggest problem is just that everyone wants to win, or at least the majority of the server has that mindset, myself included most of the time. Harley touched on something important too, the player count itself effects things much more than you think. People log on to have fun, not sit in a speed trap hoping there will be no crime for hours, or sat in doc for 3 hours because you dared leave a drug lab in the day time. Another issue is the fact we don't have NPC's, If a cop is bored and they see the first car they've seen in 5/10 mins they are going to pull a u turn or whatever they need to do to go check your plate, check if they can see a .50 clipping through the driver seat or find any reason they can to interact with you, and you can't blame them, there is barely anything else for them to do, no one else to interact with sometimes, and they logged on to play the game not watch youtube shorts sat in a speed trap. If there was another 200 people driving around the server then the people that log on every day would fall into the background, but 1 gang is often 20% of the server pop so you're going to get alot more attention from LEOs than you used to.

Over recent years I’ve stopped giving grief to LEOs as I started realising the above, as well as playing some LEO myself. Both sides are just bored. That's it. Cops need to chillax a little, some care way too much, and crims need to stop crying and start being a little smarter.

PD shouldn't HAVE to charge stack, let the arresting officer drop some smaller charges if they RP well/don't stall/did something that made the interaction fun. there is ZERO incentive for a crim to go above and beyond the bare minimum in terms of RP standards especially when they're already frustrated. 

There are way too many problems to discuss on a forum post, and allowing anyone and everyone to come complain about their very specific issues is not going to help. If you want to actually make change, you need a discussion with devs + a few high up LEOs that are staff + a couple notable crims who have been on the server for many years. maybe do that discord space thing where everyone can listen i can't remember what it's called. Because the lack of communication and mistrust between staff/devs and criminal players is crazy. 

mb for the spam, I’m no good at conveying my thoughts over text.

Edited 2 hours ago by Kon
i can't spell

[Clank]

9 minutes ago, Kon said:

Some of the most fun I’ve ever had on the server involves cops almost always, being chased, hiding from them, being in shoot-outs with them. The reason being that there is consequence, the fear of spending time in jail/prison is what makes these interactions intense and exciting. Crims and cops need each other to exist to function, this is why when either one is heavily outnumbered (daytime cop heavy, night time crim heavy) shit doesn't work and it's way less fun to play, alot of crims won't do this or log on in the day because too many cops, and A LOT of cops complain at night because the safety of numbers is gone and they don't like getting shot at most nights when they feel they don't stand a chance. 

I think the biggest problem is just that everyone wants to win, or at least the majority of the server has that mindset, myself included most of the time. Harley touched on something important too, the player count itself effects things much more than you think. People log on to have fun, not sit in a speed trap hoping there will be no crime for hours, or sat in doc for 3 hours because you dared leave a drug lab in the day time. Another issue is the fact we don't have NPC's, If a cop is bored and they see the first car they've seen in 5/10 mins they are going to pull a u turn or whatever they need to do to go check your plate, check if they can see a .50 clipping through the driver seat or find any reason they can to interact with you, and you can't blame them, there is barely anything else for them to do, no one else to interact with sometimes, and they logged on to play the game not watch youtube shorts sat in a speed trap. If there was another 200 people driving around the server then the people that log on every day would fall into the background, but 1 gang is often 20% of the server pop so you're going to get alot more attention from LEOs than you used to.

Over recent years I’ve stopped giving grief to LEOs as I started realising the above, as well as playing some LEO myself. Both sides are just bored. That's it. Cops need to chillax a little, some care way too much, and crims need to stop crying and start being a little smarter.

PD shouldn't HAVE to charge stack, let the arresting officer drop some smaller charges if they RP well/don't stall/did something that made the interaction fun. there is ZERO incentive for a crim to go above and beyond the bare minimum in terms of RP standards especially when they're already frustrated. 

There are way too many problems to discuss on a forum post, and allowing anyone and everyone to come complain about their very specific issues is not going to help. If you want to actually make change, you need a discussion with devs + a few high up LEOs that are staff + a couple notable crims who have been on the server for many years. maybe do that discord space thing where everyone can listen i can't remember what it's called. Because the lack of communication and mistrust between staff/devs and criminal players is crazy. 

mb for the spam, I’m no good at conveying my thoughts over text.

Probably the most reasonable post here.

[Coolxghf]

I have been in this community for a very long time and what really needs to change is not assets or script changes but mentality in PD. When they are trained they are told to do everything by the book and if there is loss of life to use everything in their arsenal in order to prevent it (aka win). This mentality makes it a very boring department RP wise because you don't get those unique interactions at stops and such, as criminals we see SD and we debate pulling over in a kamacho with heavies on us because they have the ability to separate the intrusive thoughts that tell them "its up north in a kamacho next to where the labs are and they are stacked they probably have guns" and the thought of "if they say the right things and don't do anything suspicious then they are just getting a ticket". PD has always been known to pull out all the stops if they are pulling over a vehicle that are registered to certain people, that is why they end up in so many shootouts because the chances that they pull you over and you RPly find a way to at least not get your car searched during a stop is almost 0 when dealing with PD.

Another thing thing that would greatly help the community as far as RP within and involving PD is IA's IC and OOC. This is a pretty simple fix, the majority of those i have talked to within PD regarding IA's have told me that it is always full of stuff that "Doesn't matter" because someone is IAing over a situation that the cop was within their juro to do what they did, so those IA's junk up the inbox with stuff that does not warrant an IA. This would be fixed with a public list of SOP's that are used by the LSPD & LSSD. This would allow people to actually do the research ICly to find out if what they experienced was IA worthy IC as well as OOC.

Furthermore having more IC punishments for PD as well as SD would help this "win" mentality, examples of some potential IC punishments could be allowing civil disputes with a PD officer who had blatantly ignored SOP and allowing someone to sue them for (wrongful imprisonment, discrimination, overuse of force ect.) this is needed as PD/SD/GOV do not really use their money many PD/SD/GOV have told me in game that they actually have no use for their money and they just buy houses and that leads to an economy run by people in those factions as they own and hold the most amount of properties and businesses that newer players (crim or civ) cannot utilize. These civil cases will also cut down on the poor RP of PD commonly arresting someone on a basis that they know will not hold up in court and not actually effecting the arresting officers or supervisors when the defendant actually wins the case. The defendant in a court case wins basically nothing other than an ego boost when they win a court case against PD/SD, this leads to people overall not utilizing the court system as its just not worth the several months of paperwork and the lost time in prison from the defendant.

Some more examples would be community service and they would have to be suspended and they have to work at a civilian job or work with gov a certain amount of hours in order to come back to service. This punishment would allow officers who have been involved with a civil dispute to learn/interact with more than just their own faction and provide RP to the entire server while still being punished aside from essentially not logging in, and imo if those community members don't want to do anything but be a police officer I think that is a sign that they were not in PD/SD for the correct reasons which should be providing/upholding high RP standards.

Some other fixes I think come down to penal code adjustments, for example the penal code for face concealment has given PD/SD a reason to ID basically everyone who is not in a car, even when that player could have been just running on a sidewalk to get to mors. This penal code is overall very bad for RP interactions as it allows cops to not be creative when they want to ID someone and overall is very low quality RP imo as a cop faction, in the real world the police have to find a reason for probable cause to ID someone. One of the biggest things that is not so much a PD/SD problem but more of a server issue as a whole is Jail Times, jail times going into FIVEm is not going to allow the server to succeed. Our jail times on ecrp are way to large, which is why crims try not to interact with LEO's.

I'll give an example, you go to a lab and cook bringing a heavy(w/attachments), AP, and drugs obviously, on the way to depot your stuff you get pulled over by PD and they pull you out, search you, and you comply the whole way through. You go to DOC and get a sentence for 2 hours and 5 minutes. This is why no one RP's the stops and just chooses to run and not interact. Fines i think is the perfect amounts atm but the time you lose is not fun and there is very little to no RP within DOC so you are essentially afk for 2 hours not RPing or interacting with most of the server.
 

[Smoke1]

On 5M there are a ton of servers to choose from an if we want to attract and keep new players Some things have to change!!!! In my opinion if we stay the same way we are with the same attitude the same rules then it's going to be the exact same thing as now the cycle continues. I am going to be very blunt like it or don't.  This is our one chance to get it right because if we don't it's not gonna get that much better.

Remove the ability to use team-speak, it is the biggest meta tool ever, i played leo for 2+ years im well aware of what people say in them including staff members...  you don't need j-tacs anymore use a joint in game radio channel... OR open team speak channels for all crims to sit in a talk to each-other like everyone in leo does unregulated like they do... 

Remove GSB's free roam ability/ lawful order outside of events an city hall where no gov personal is being protected. I understand this faction was created to provide security for government players and it is kind of stale, but they know what they signed up for... not only do we deal with PD/SD but now GSB?????? If there's no event or no government person that they are protecting, why are they flying around in buzzards 2 stacked tazing people out the front windshield for failing to identify near trucker hq........ they are not cops an shouldn't be allowed to act like them. Unless on city hall property OR actively protecting a gov person. 

Which leads me to my next thing Why does GSB and DOC respond to massive shootouts; I don't know if they have in a while??but previous they would call everybody in to help to fight It's OK for criminals to win we don't need to fight the whole leo world.. There have been times where I have fought PD-SD GSB doc and medics, Probably some of the most fun I've had i'm not even complaining but come on a bit much eh?

Gang squad; pulling people over cuz they are a known crim an jason/others baiting people to step out for not yielding through an intersection or whatever bs they make up while doing the speed limit is fucked. loosing 150k+ kits to the Baiting for pursuit or shoot out. told to cry and /stabilized instantly cool......then proceed to take you to mission row for 30+ min in a holding cell.. lets be real this is a RP server but its a game no one wants to sit in a holding cell before max time at doc!! This should be eliminated.. OR start jtime then take them back for whatever rp needs to be "done" after the timer has started so the player can actually RP an kill time off the sentence.

 If you want new players to stay on the server, on 5m you have to make it easy and fun!!. I don't care how many activities you have in jail sitting in there for that amount of time is not fun and there is no argument It's plain shit!. max 1 hour with change to reduce, I understand they want the law review committee to go over it change laws an times for jail but..  straight up that committee and game loop is a joke, it's detrimental to server health. This needs to change from an ooc pov... There is zero 5m servers that have this length in jail.

license suspensions: A 12 hour license suspension for evading is absurd 12 hours in real life that you will be instantly pulled out of your car If it is seen driving because your license is suspended, MAX 2 hrs again this is a game an new players will move onto other server with less harsh penalties.. We are barely holding on to the population we have we will only survive and strive if we attract new people and change some things so for some old people to come back.

Police have a very OP advantage. We have all watched cops /fl new ammo an armor with 0 rp get new choppers when they smokin.  " Well provide proof and we will deal with it make a form report" Unfortunately most players feel this doesn't do anything an is a waste of time, we make in game reports an no one wants to take it cuz they are in RP or its to big of a report to handle in game... Let's all stop pretending here and just be straight up, like straight up this shit happens all the time you guys know it We all know it we all see it remove /fl anything and figure out a way staff leo's can't abuse /vehr on their cruiser instead of changing it, like some just go around a corner.. IT HAPPENS ALOT 

 The other night 4 choppers all with gunners. Someone has pov post it!!! . They fly at a height we cant do anything about an just 0 recoil shoot as a chopper gunner. There is zero argument how to this is fair!!! Cops are meant to be more powerful than criminals but there has to be a balance. Then a bullet proof veh comes an runs people over someone had pov of that also! 

This leads me to my next thing, The people that volunteer their time to help this server as staff members are greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, there's quite a few that hold positions high in leo/staff that do not have an active grasp on the day to day life of the server anymore!!! They do not play. but have leo characters and jump on from time to time an or involve themselves in conversations in the community, hold weight to there words give opinions how to change things but are so outdated from what's going on!!!  We should Thank them for their time and move them along In a very timely matter! As someone who hasn't played for months or logs in for an hour or two once a week or does forum paperwork shouldn't have the weight they do. Again life happens nobody's upset that you're logging in Enjoy it enjoy life but don't also hold your position of power within the community and have weight to suggestions you have no idea about. 

I enjoy this server but the shit has gota change if we are going to progress an remain a active community in a new world of 5M.  if you've not played Other popular servers, You would have no idea what it's actually like on 5m. Well I hate to break it to you but now we're all going to be on the same platform and unless we have something that makes us equal to these other popular servers fun an less like "its supposed to be like real life" were just going to be another low pop high grind/ sit in jail forever lol. Streamers dont play ecrp much anymore because of the insane meta's Leo's or crims.

The economy of this server the cost of living for a non LEO character is wild. Leo's print money They don't pay for anything except gloves and radios when they die while a criminal could easily lose 150k to some bullshit an then sit in jail for 3 hours.... how's that fun for anyone lol. make cops pay for kits an other things.. on average a leo will have 3+ million easy unless the gamble it all away but a 4g or some other house or have a collection of cars.. make them spend money in the economy,  Food and water is free if you're a police officer again it's a nice little thing but like for a faction that just prints money what is it a big deal to charge them for some food and water...

[Doctor_Diddler]

You want the real answer? The ultimate root of all the problems? It's a big, gaping wound that has been papered over with decaying gauze and bandage for years; there is absolutely no coherent direction for the server from the top down on how, philosophically, interactions are meant to go. 

Do you want this to be a crim-focused server where most of your interactions involve overcoming the police and getting away with constant crime? Great. You have babied-down GTAO with slightly less PVP. You may as well delete GOV, SD, and PD and just re-institute the stupid NPC cop system so people only rarely lose their things in the face of an unending but predictable force that will lose them immediately if they drive into a car mod shop. You can play Rockstar and spawn in FIB agents or whatever.

Do you want this to be the cops and robbers server it's been occasionally trying to be? Well buckle up, I've got some ideas:

• Server should be focused on trying to make gang warfare the ultimate focus of crim gameplay outside of isolated crime. Sooo much dev time has been wasted on the faction war system that was shuttered when it was realized it was horrifically implemented (see: Pulling and then leaving ATM's, robbing your own bank so the other faction can't) and short-sighted. Wars become extremely lopsided affairs and turn into absolute jokes where one side is getting butchered by the other helplessly because the server has congregated around a small number of gangs that dominate everything. Nobody wants to start a small street gang on their own - why bother? You can't do jack shit. So any newcomer just ends up in the same factions inorganically, of which a select few have a massive advantage that makes inter-gang fighting trivial. This, is turn, means that gangs start fighting the police instead.
• Which brings me to my next point; there shouldn't be giant, city-spanning wars with law enforcement. So many rules are put into place from a faction-side because it's untenable without them. In a balanced system, cops should be something everyone wants to avoid altogether because they serve as the endpoint for supplies like drugs, guns, armor, etc. Police do not want your drug lab to make drugs, they want to shut it down. Fighting for a drug lab is a driver of crim rp and warfare. fighting with police is a one-time affair that ends in complete wipeout for one side or the other. You can't build a functioning system on one faction getting repeatedly wiped out entirely in the span of 30 minutes - who wants to keep RPing after they got slaughtered and now can't go anywhere in the city without getting hounded? Other gangs SHOULD be the primary conflict driver between gangs. Not police. If the server had more people, this would likely be less of a problem, but we can't fix the past.
• Enough one-sided threads like this one. I noticed despite being, in the consensus approximation, a cops-and-robbers server with a sprinkle of civ RP, there's never any asking LEO players what they would like to see. As I mentioned above, LEO's act as the server's impartial asset-deleters. You will have a guaranteed negative experience getting caught and having your assets seized - that is the nature of their role. In turn, this causes people to take their frustration out by repeatedly suggesting that whatever they THINK caused them to get caught is at fault, even if it wasn't to play at all.
  
  Gunships have been made a worthless triviality but there are still complaints about it on this thread. Does that tell you that it's still a problem, or that maybe the intiial estimation was wrong and that maybe the complaints were unjustified? Of course the inclination is to rule on the former, as it always seems to be. Police cars have gone from infinitely-spawning to fleet vehicles with their own consistent fuel and inventory tracking and yet no impact has been felt whatsoever. Attempts to make police cars even more worthless by giving each officer their own personal car have been repeatedly denied by LFM, even when people are spinning it faction-side as a good thing. So nobody is happy with the result, and everyone just has to live with it. Are we going to review the complaint and see if it was ultimately justified given that nothing has changed? No, never. There could be an equal thread asking LEO players within the next 5 minutes but I have no reason to expect that considering it has never happened before.
  
  Rather than try to see the issue in totality, we instead get suggestions for how to fuck the LEO experience because more complaints are lobbed towards them than vice versa. On top of that, suggestions for how to nerf LEO is a direct democracy while any pushback is an aristocracy - we ask everyone how they want to see LEO's changed and ask 5-10 people of faction leadership if they can offer enough pushback to prevent another scalp in the LEO arsenal from being taken. This is a kangaroo court, not an impartial investigation. Why are you asking a mob of people who are inherently inclined one way their opinion and then asking the smaller group of LEO players how they'd best like to be bent over a barrel? You're not going to get balance that way, you're just going to make everyone unhappy.   

• Quote

    

  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: 

  You have here a bunch of guys encircling a police car of some lowly PD peon. Taken at its word, these fellows may very well have just wanted to fuck around, but from PD's perspective, what are you meant to do here? Is it not legitimate concern for your life when a group of gang members trap you in place with their cars that warrants a massive response? Are you supposed to just do nothing and hope they spare you? There are numerous examples of criminals hunting down police for fun (more on that later), so how can you take that chance? The only way an LEO player could know he was in no danger here was to have admin powers and know every character here as well as their mental state, the gang's general demeanor, and the entire stakes of the situation (i.e. are you chasing someone with guns in the car?). This is obviously impossible, so from the criminal perspective it will look like "win mentality" every time. I've been in chases that were 2 and a half hours long, featured upwards of 6 meta-car swaps, and as soon as the person stalled their car, they jumped out and ran and then complained that being tazed was "W cop mentality". I have literally no way of knowing whether the next chase will be 5 minutes or 50, and putting the emphasis on me to do so is completely unjustifiable. That's why you can expect people to react a certain way - they've been conditioned to do so and have no way of knowing whether or not the response is appropriate.
  
  I have a personal rule about not deploying spikes or authorizing them before 5 minutes into a chase, but you wouldn't know about that, because you didn't ask, and never have. I'm going off-topic in this thread to provide that information, because otherwise it would just be accepted that no such provisions exist for anyone (and some are codified into rule in these factions). So it will always seem like a win mentality. 

• If there are winners and losers, there will be competitors. Even if, in every situation, all parties "win" (such as a consolation prize), people will inevitably compete to receive the best reward. This is human nature. You can't beat it out of people, or legislate it away. It will always be there, and it is what keeps people coming back to the server. I am so tired of the server-side criminalization of being frankly more clever than the people you're trying to go up against, and it goes both ways. I saw this report a few months ago and frankly, it made my blood boil a little. You have a guy try to end a pursuit by taking advantage of a bottleneck and getting an admin punishment for "forcing a pursuit to end like this, with no other way out other than to ram into and stall their own vehicle whilst putting your own life in danger, is not realistic or acceptable". Anyways, here's an unrealistic response. If people are going to do stupid things, there needs to be alignment in staff that they will win stupid prizes. Rather than try to punish LEO's  for trying to use a helicopter to end massive gang fights (that crash everyone in the vicinity anyways, so why are we even encouraging them to continue???), why is the onus not on the people trying to engage with the state in a war between heavily-armored police and what should theoretically be street roughs? Why is it just accepted that having a helicopter over a bank heist is unfair when the occupants of said bank opted to sit and parley with the police because they want to try having a hostage, giving police time to spin up a helicopter? Hello, consequences of my actions, I don't believe we've met. Seems to me that the server's primary RP export is PVP but it's not curated so we're stuck in a middle ground of forcing everyone to hold back rather than engage in the kind of "roleplay" that the server is apparently trying to create. 

• While I'm at it, gangs shouldn't be able to team up to fight the police realistically ever unless they were already allied beforehand. Bloods and crips would flee the sight of police cars, not try to team up with their blood-feud enemies in hopes of killing an entire department. It's stupid and feeds into the problem by forcing LEO's to need more heavy weaponry in case the situation comes up (which it was - almost daily at points with the ambushes) because our current ruleset allows criminals to blindly kill anyone on duty, even if they're NLR'd or uninvolved. Obviously, this goes for gangs and people that just so happen to be wearing some gang's colors, too. 
  
  You know what happens when gangs get out of hand in real life? The national guard is called in and APC's, heavy armor, gunships, etc. show up and end the thread by any means necessary. That's not a thing on this server, so there's no incentive to not just gang up with 8 people and try to gank LEO's. There's a lot of fixes for this, but if you want to be simple you could just enable NLR'd players to come back as national guardsmen and wipe the floor with gang members until they give up. Naturally, that would bring out a lot of "win mentality" out of gang members (also known as "not wanting to lose for no reason"), so it won't happen. Perhaps it won't happen for good reason, but leaving the problem unsolved isn't helping, either. 

• RP in this server is focused on interpersonal interactions with minimal script support and little admin supervision, but there's almost no reason to interact with other people. LEO's have it built in because they stop crimes and so have to respond to any calls, but crims primarily interact by fighting over the same resource or chance meetings on the street. Why is there no focus on trying to funnel people into interacting with anyone but police? 

• Why are so many efforts devoted to keeping the small and obviously-dwindling community already present together? It's clear that powercreep has infested the server with supercars and gangs with arms enough for a small country but any talk of an asset wipe is entirely off the table. Why? What good is your decked-out S95 when you'll only ever see 7 people total in public because the server population is extremely low? This isn't COVID season. You have to work to attract people, now. If the new player experience sucks (and it does - with no guides and everything reliant on other people telling you how to do something entirely in-game, you'll have no idea where to go or how to make money), you won't attract or keep people. I've been on the server since 2023. Made a new crim character a few months ago. Had no fucking clue how to gain experience in "criminal". Still don't know where to find the guy to break into houses since I haven't seen him since that update launched and can't remember where he is. Had to ask around for the back-alley doctor that heals you and despite 3 people genuinely trying to help me, 2 of them gave me locations they sincerely thought were accurate but were wrong. Of course, I only knew he existed because I have an LEO character and thousands of hours. Is this an LEO-relevant complaint? Not really, but I've been writing this shit for the better part of an hour and I needed to get off my chest how directionless the vanilla, no-friends-on-the-server experience is. Most of the wiki isn't even written and what is is largely outdated.

Edited 2 minutes ago by Doctor_Diddler

[SneakySniper]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

Some of the most fun I’ve ever had on the server involves cops almost always, being chased, hiding from them, being in shoot-outs with them. The reason being that there is consequence, the fear of spending time in jail/prison is what makes these interactions intense and exciting. Crims and cops need each other to exist to function, this is why when either one is heavily outnumbered (daytime cop heavy, night time crim heavy) shit doesn't work and it's way less fun to play, alot of crims won't do shit or log on in the day because too many cops, and A LOT of cops complain at night because the safety of numbers is gone and they don't like getting shot at most nights when they feel they don't stand a chance. 

I think the biggest problem is just that everyone wants to win, or at least the majority of the server has that mindset, myself included most of the time. Harley touched on something important too, the player count itself effects things much more than you think. People log on to have fun, not sit in a speed trap hoping there will be no crime for hours, or sat in doc for 3 hours because you dared leave a drug lab in the day time. Another issue is the fact we don't have NPC's, If a cop is bored and they see the first car they've seen in 5/10 mins they are going to pull a u turn or whatever they need to do to go check your plate, check if they can see a .50 clipping through the driver seat or find any reason they can to interact with you, and you can't blame them, there is barely anything else for them to do, no one else to interact with sometimes, and they logged on to play the game not watch youtube shorts sat in a speed trap. If there was another 200 people driving around the server then the people that log on every day would fall into the background, but 1 gang is often 20% of the server pop so you're going to get alot more attention from LEOs than you used to.

Over recent years I’ve stopped giving grief to LEOs as I started realising the above, as well as playing some LEO myself. Both sides are just bored. That's it. Cops need to chillax a little, some care way too much, and crims need to stop crying and start being a little smarter.

PD shouldn't HAVE to charge stack, let the arresting officer drop some smaller charges if they RP well/don't stall/did something that made the interaction fun. there is ZERO incentive for a crim to go above and beyond the bare minimum in terms of RP standards especially when they're already frustrated. 

There are way too many problems to discuss on a forum post, and allowing anyone and everyone to come complain about their very specific issues is not going to help. If you want to actually make change, you need a discussion with devs + a few high up LEOs that are staff + a couple notable crims who have been on the server for many years. maybe do that discord space thing where everyone can listen i can't remember what it's called. Because the lack of communication and mistrust between staff/devs and criminal players is crazy. 

mb for the spam, I’m no good at conveying my thoughts over text.

Very well said