Changes to Crim Discussion

[Lewis]

Hello,

Again, I am opening this but this time we have a shorter time-frame, this topic will remain open for 24 hours. 

We have a Senior Meeting on Thursday and we're hoping to discuss points from both threads. 

Remain respectful at ALL times. Do not attack eachother.

I would like to open this thread to address certain behaviours that we do not like from a criminal perspective. I get complaints about constant  PVP, people being extremely toxic between groups who are usually ic'ly beefing/fighting, we address individual toxicity as staff within the rules perspective in the normal way e.g. forum/ig report, lots of people say but this is just a mentality thing, let's change that.

PVP in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is problematic when it is all people choose to do.

How do we become less asset focused and more focused on roleplay?

What are the problems? What changes should be made? Be specific

Thanks,

Lewis

 

 

[MrSilky]

I receive a lot of complaints, typically about our OTF faction...

 

On a serious note, I think my feedback is very simple - embrace the system set up by Risk and her team for criminal groups to focus on roleplay and lore. Assets and money should come secondary to roleplay enjoyment and value - I appreciate that is a big mentality change, but the system Risk developed allows for a healthy mix of both.

The only other thing I would suggest is simply to slow down and consider the impact of your actions/reactions on other players. We need others to RP with, so make them look back on the interaction with a smile on their face, not wishing they avoided ever bumping into you - even when it's a bad IC outcome.

[NotKempi]

If you want less asset focused roleplay there needs to be script support or staff support that encourages other types of roleplay. 

Currently, with how little players there are you have to rely on the script, which in and off itself only supports asset-based roleplay. The city doesn't feel alive enough for spontaneous RP to occur- so if you want player interaction you're drawn to look around at labs which encourages PvP

Meridian supports some AltRP but seem to be spread thin and seems limited with the staff team itself shooting themselves in the foot by limiting themselves on what they can to and who can do it due to some few select individuals complaining loudly enough.

Honestly people that whinge over others having fun should be ignored or removed from the staff team and respectfully for the senior members of staff who could take steps to fix these issues but instead put in the bare minimum of interacting with the community at all, just step down and let people who actually care take over. 

Something as simple as advertising the server to try and get more players around the city- or having more spontaneous and fun events that reward players for being online with unique opportunities would help liven things up and draw people away from relying on a script that is- entirely asset based. 

Gangs are also forced to rely on scripted activities to maintain their turfs or to beef with a different gang- everything falls back to the script of needing to rob these banks and get away or needing to go to labs to cook. 
I personally think there should be different ways of either obtaining packed cash, drugs or car parts that aren't as reliant on these PVP focused activities.

Say for example allowing criminals to passively launder some of their taxed income into packed cash by passively playing on the server.
Allowing criminals to passively cook drugs in their own homes at massively increased times ( Say 1-2 drugs per hour, limited to one table PER PLAYER. This cook would pause when the play is offline ) 
Allowing players to legally purchase scrap metal from mechanic shops which can be taken to the scrapyard where it will be passively sorted through for usable car parts while you're online. 

This would offer alternative ways to maintain turf without needing to rely as heavily on the extremes while encouraging players to be online- making them available for others to roleplay with. This would also make things like spending time in DOC less punishing if you know the time you spend online at least contributes to something positive. 

Edited 1 hour ago by NotKempi

[Harley]

I said it in the LEO thread and I'll say it here.

Crim content has been stagnant for years.

Crims are bored. There is nothing new to do, and there hasn't been anything new to do for a long long time. The crims who remain actively playing today spend 99% of their time in drug labs, cooking drugs semi-afk until a fight happens.

The most recent "criminal" activity that has been brought to ECRP is... Illegal Archeology 

Look at the active gangs in 2026. Look at their most active activity. It is holding a lab, cooking drugs, waiting for a fight.

If the server had more content, more things to do, and more often, people wouldn't resort to the crim alternative to salary farming waiting for PvP. You've witnessed this yourself Lewis. Your crim is level 685 in Chemistry. I can't imagine how many hours of holding a lab that must have taken, but I can tell you if I were in your shoes I'd be itching for a fight.

No amount of rules, faction management, or admin meetings can do anything about the fact that the server is bone dry for content.

It is up to the developers of ECRP to wake up and realise that without consistent content updates, people will always fall back down to what makes the most money, and what type of gameplay is the most engaging. And that is labs, drugs, and constant PvP.

[Cougzy]

People get bored tbh, there needs to be more petty crimes for crims and maybe a harder progression system so people have something to work towards. Right now, most of the activities are not worth doing (either because of boring mechanics such as the circle skill check or they simply don't pay enough). 

Most crims won't appreciate me saying this but labs pay out WAY too much money. If i go in at the right time of day, you can make a couple hundred thousand uncontested in a short amount of time. No other activity pays out anywhere near that. Banks, stores, and chopping are only really good when you do them solo, because when you add more people, the payout is minimal (at least when you compare it to what you make in labs). Its no surprise that when you check forum reports, a large portion of them come from lab activities because people get bored and just go there to PVP.

Petty crimes will allow people to complete quick tasks, make some money, and then switch up what they do next. Some examples would be robbing mail boxes, shoplifting (lifting stuff off shelves instead of sticking up the cashier), maybe when we get NPCs add pickpocketing for small cash sums or pawn items. 

[Eliza]

I think part of the problem is that FM has struggled to enforce healthy roleplay standards within criminal factions. When certain gangs turn into nothing but clapper gangs, it rarely feels like there are any meaningful consequences, whether that’s restricting imports, reviewing their faction status, or even demoting their tier if they’re consistently promoting low quality RP. It also used to feel like becoming an official faction was something to work toward and be proud of. Now it doesn’t have that same feeling, and I think that loss of standards has contributed to the current mentality.

Another big factor was the changes to weapon imports. Lower import prices made heavy weapons much more common, and reducing their weight so they can easily fit in gloveboxes means almost anyone can roll up with a shotgun or rifle at a moment’s notice. When weapons are that accessible and convenient, it naturally pushes people toward solving every conflict with gunfights instead of roleplay.

I also think part of the issue is that there just isn’t much for criminals to do outside of stores, banks, ATMs, chopping cars, or cooking drugs. Once you’ve done those activities over and over, people start creating their own content, and unfortunately that often ends up being gang wars and constant shootouts because there aren’t many other engaging criminal activities to encourage different kinds of roleplay.

Edited 2 hours ago by Eliza

[Carl Vespucci]

 - Ramming cars as players are getting out before a gunfight starts. This has become the meta and its horrible and someone guaranteed doesn't get to participate. 
Solution: Add it to the rules, people should only be hit by cars if they are in the path of escape.

- Fully automatic weapons being shot from vehicles - keeps fights in cars and no longer gives any reason to hop out, if you bring enough bullets, you can just follow someone and fire into them until their car explodes. 
Solution: Automatic weapons should not be fired from vehicles

- It should be encouraged to often have weekly wars ,sadly the war system is currently not working but I think this would end alot of beefs between gangs.
Solution: Rehaul the war system to make it a weekly thing people can look forward to all week to logging in, maybe something less strenuous then our current 3 day war system.
 

- Steroids are OP and I know we abuse that as criminals.
I've heard many things about the business/food update. Put in an equivalent to steroids in legal form such as an expresso shot or a coffee that has the same effect. 

 

How do we become less asset focused and more focused on roleplay?

The only way I see this happening is to make guns worthless. Fights usually occur over guns and drugs, and if they have no value then they no longer become an asset, but its also what makes the dopamine flow. 

[SneakySniper]

From my time in PD so far. I have noticed two things that I dislike. Mostly every night, something such as a simple pursuit on a speeding vehicle turns into a full blown ambush.

The reasons I dislike this sort of thing is due to the fact that its simply to PVP. There is no IC reason to ambush. You would have received a speeding ticket but instead its turned into a full blown fight, because people are bored. 

I love a fight every now and then, gets the excitement up. I simply want it to be for a reason. Baiting pursuits just to setup and kill cops is not healthy RP.

Now with this information I don't necessarily blame those who do this. I know why, and its due to the crim side being so stagnant that the only thing to do sometimes is fight cops to do anything, I've been in the same boat in the past, and I've since not played crim for a month or so plainly due to it being so boring.

Labs have been the main thing crims do and even that isn't fun. Sitting in labs just for the hope someone pushes you for something to do. The server has been far too dependant on labs. The majority of people have tons of money, cars, guns, that there is simply nothing else to do but fight, and this needs to change. People need stuff to do, regular, in depth updates for the server. 

I also agree on the subjects @Carl Vespucci made. All of these things need changing.

Overall, give crims more to do. 

Edited 1 hour ago by SneakySniper

[Clank]

Implement rule of 6.

Limiting criminal activities such as robberies, shootouts, evasions, etc to 6. Pretty much if its illegal, 6 people. This promotes more ongoing situations at once and each player gets more of a chance to actually do something as opposed to groups just zerging around.

 

 

Remove refunds from player reports.

You should be reporting players to better the server, NOT to get a refund. As it stands everyone just reports each other in order to grab a refund. You can shoot a million darts at a board and if just one sticks then you get your items back. There is currently no downsides to spam reporting. It just promotes a report mentality on the server.

 

 

Readdress weapon imports.

The lore of weapon imports is all over the place. You get access to LMGs before you get access to Mk2 weapons. You have street gangs importing special operation grade rifles. It makes no sense. Leave the heavy rifle to gangs with cartel/mafia lore. Leave the AKs for the street gangs. 

 

 

Rebalance the drug system. 

Steroids should not boost movement speed period. This is GTA where movement mechanics and desync runs rampant, steroids are a plague on the server. Steroids should boost carry capacity and thats it. Other drugs need to be looked at and see what is overperforming and fix those too.

Methadone needs to be changed and make it so methadone removes ALL drug effects, both negative AND positive.

 

 

Vehicle usage.

Vehicles need a whole rework, lower speed cap to 220. This would help promote a wider diversity of vehicles and allow players to buy a vehicle because they like it as opposed to because it performs well.

DISABLE HOOD DRIVEBY OPTIONS and FORCE EVERYONE IN THE CAR TO BE FIRST PERSON WHEN SHOOTING. Not just the driver.

 

 

Faction Management intervention.

FM needs to be more hands off during conflict. Let gangs be gangs against each other. FM should not be dictating who can drop on what turf and what gangs can capture what turfs. Let gangs be strong naturally as opposed to artificially.

On the other side though, FM needs to be more hands on with lore and roleplay. Gangs should have select vehicles based on lore and not just based off performance. They should also be pushed to "block bang" more, having a presence at your HQ promotes a healthier environment and different RP hubs.

 

 

Lab rotations.

Stop activating the meta labs with the best and most efficient cooking. Have an ACTUAL lab rotation that involves cycling through every lab possible. This is something the higher tier admins (looking at you lewis u mf) need to realize is BAD in the long run. The less efficient and "weaker" labs are great for promoting smaller gangs and even a solo player looking to get their first experience cooking. A bigger gang is less likely to hold down the less efficient labs due to their min-max mindset. You should not be manually activating labs that are the best of the best just because you can. Have a natural cycle that you stick with.

Stop making every single lab have every single cook option. Remember when LSD was called LSD because it was the ONLY spot to cook LSD?? Go back to that! Make labs different. Make it so you have to actually decide whats worth holding.

 

Will add more as the day goes on.

Edited 1 hour ago by Clank

[Dapph]

I feel like it's as simple as making a focus on actual roleplay opportunities, not just the current sit semi-afk at a lab and wait to get shot or sit semi-afk at a store grabbing cash. The task master was an amazing add, atleast for my group to have something to do, but some more little things to do or more opportunities for alt rp would be great. I believe I've said this before, but something as simple as shoplifting or being able to roll your own joints with a store bought rolling paper instead of battling with 10 person holds at a lab would make things so much better.

On top, I feel we should try to be harder on the whole "PVP Mentality" with many gangs currently only logging on to either hold or push labs or during down times, hunt down cops or just lead them into ambushes over an evading charge. And please god please can we stick to lore in illegal gangs, I'm so tired of seeing "street gang" members speeding down the street in a supercar.

Edited 1 hour ago by Dapph

[Jaxxon]

In my opinion, main problem put plainly is how grindy the server is.

If you want to earn good money on freelance jobs you have to try to level up first, which takes actual hundreds of hours, and most people who play on the server as a hobby they only spend a select few hours on every week wont want to put in that kind of time.

Especially when things you work hard on can so easily be taken away. An example: I spend 5 hours trucking, that nets me on average 8k an hour if I'm around level 20. So 5 hours = to 40k, enough to buy a heavy with some ammo. To buy that heavy I need to contact a gang unless I already have access to ordering things myself, and if I'm completely new or returning to the server I will have to spend time finding that too.

Then I have to wait for an hour or so for the order to come in unless I'm able to buy it outright, which most likely will be more than 40k, then retrieve the crates and get them safe.

All of this is actual hours of work, only for me to be pulled over by the police on my way back to my house and lose it all. 
Or first gunfight I get into I run into a 10-20 man gang at a druglab and die losing it.

Earning money through crime is very group-based, you pretty much need 2+ people for any activity outside of cooking drugs, which is the most risky thing to do. This in my opinion is good, because it forces you to interact with others and create partnerships. But it doesn't necessarily lead to good RP because the criminal actual act is solely focused on making money so that you can get assets and have the actual fun you want to have.

For most people robbing a bank is only means to an end, because it's too punishing if you get caught. People stop looking for ways to make the interactions between the crim faction and LEO factions fun, because they are too focused on getting the outcome they want. And they get extremely frustrated when they get punished because the cost is so high.

I also think prison time has to be looked at again, I think the server has made good strides towards a better experience with being able to server time offline, using the Guilty/Not Guilty/No contest system to reduce time as well as trying to make the time in prison more fun.

But as someone pointed out in the other thread, FiveM has servers that for the most part doesn't have prison times exceeding 1 hour, if even that. Which with FiveM having so many options, might lead to people jumping ship if they feel their time is being wasted on ECRP.

Conclusion is this:
Rework the money/economic system (which is hard if you intend to move all player-owned assets over to FiveM)
Look at prison time, ideally lower it.
Continue promoting more RP focused crim activities like races (which got added recently), heists (which can be expanded to be more of an actual activity than standing still waiting for the drill timer to complete), car jacking (I know a lot of the streamer servers have a car-boosting activity where you have to steal a car as two people, one driving, one trying to hack the GPS system while police gets a GPS ping every now and then similar to the current (timed) ATM system in ECRP)

[xMysticZx]

For many years on this server I've main'ed as a crim. And within that time I have been through the peak, and the dip. Crim has always remained the same, with very little changes through the years. You login, you do the same jobs over and over, then a fight or two. To keep players active, motivated, keeping new or bringing old players back, things MUST change.

1 - Cartel (Illegal Faction management)

I think there needs to be more input from the cartel. IN GAME. It would make things interesting and support more roleplay. This covers everything from generic meetings as you progress through Tiers - for good or bad reasons, gun orders - I have always disliked the way you order from the NPC's. It feels empty and lifeless, why not implement having to go through the cartel In game, and physically meet with them for a exchange? And more things like Cartel offering you exclusive jobs, with high reward and risk factors. The scenarios you could create are endless, provides more roleplay, more cartel integration and shifts focus away from generic things.

2 - Criminal Jobs

The jobs a criminal can do in ECRP has more or less stayed the exact same through the years. ATM's, stores, house robberies, banks, chopping, and cooking. In my opinion, there is SO much more that can be added, newer more interesting jobs that can remotivate players. Introduce boosting cars, jobs that require some form of hacking mini games, robbing money trucks that are rolling through the city hell the possibilities are endless and hope to see it once ECRP goes to FiveM.

Adding more criminal jobs also solves a cop issue with them not having much to do. When someone evades there's 10+ cruisers on the chase cause not much is happening. Add more jobs, people start doing different things, cops get spread and have more things to respond to.

3 - Cooking drugs. 

People ask "Why does crim mostly revolve around PVP?" In my opinion the answer is because it does. Most of the well paying jobs that people are more likely to do due to the reward, has some form of PVP involvement. Public labs almost always ends up in a shootout. Public chopping same deal. 

Once private labs was removed and public labs became a thing, I believe this is what mainly cooked crim roleplay. Criminals stopped roleplaying, and instead once they had a healthy number online its "lets spin labs" Everyone wants to cook because drugs makes the most, and in that happening a shootout always occurs. 

I'm not saying bring back private labs, because staying in your comfy property for 5 hours making millions a day with no risk is boring. But some change needs to come with this. 

4 - PVP Limitations.

I think in terms of PVP, there should be a limit to how many people can be involved in a fight. 5 max, 10 max, pick any number you think Is necessary but set a limit -
People will read this and think hell no but hear me out - Limiting a lets call it "demon time group" to 5, or 10 adds more positives then negatives. 

Firstly, if the max amount of numbers from your faction to shoot is on a limit, other members of the faction will be off doing other stuff rather than the entire faction coming on to "spin labs" 

Secondly, a limit will help newer factions with less members out In PVP. They wont find themself in a 20v8 shootout, get obliterated, then disband after being bullied around for a for weeks by the bigger factions, this means new factions will most likely remain. 

This would change alot of things. Such as how many people can hold a lab. If 2 factions are beefing, how many are aloud to go shoot. Setting a limit I think would even things out for everyone, including smaller groups and cops. - Yes, this limit would also involve the police. Nowadays if you get into a shootout and cops arrive, you can expect an army to appear, Id say if a gang limit of shooters was set to 5, or 10, then cops are only aloud that as well, maybe a few more because realistically there would be more police involved In a shootout than gang members.



 

Edited 1 hour ago by xMysticZx

[KongouPak]

Let crims actually do roleplay. Any crim that does anything besides focus on assets, and PVP is just not supported. You get made fun of for trying to RP and believe it or not people in other factions get bored of any RP that doesn't involve action from most of my experience at least. 90% of any RP that would be any kind of meaningful to a crim that isnt just focused on gaining assets or pvp requires alt RP. Very basic things that most anyone with common sense would do, we have to wait for hours to days to be told "no you cant do that simple thing cause then how does such and such combat it or it would negatively affect these people. People cant even dig into their characters lore half the time cause it doesn't fit in with server rules and what not. If were to believe a lot of what people put up here, most people don't care to win (despite actions showing different), but just want a chance to provide some kinda unique roleplay experience to people and let things play through. So my two cents is just to believe what the community is saying and let them roleplay things.

IC I think the way charges work need to change. Common things that hppen on the day to day basis get "realistic" punishments. It should work for the world we play in. I think charges past a certain amount of time shouldn't mean anything regardless of the charge. If that person wants it to mean something let them roleplay that. Someone whos been clean for 3 months IRL is still treated like a terrorist even though that crime happened 2 IRL years ago and keeps that character stuck into something they may not want to do anymore. Not saying start letting criminal characters become cops, but maybe give them an actual way to do anyhting else if they are clearly trying to make that character clean.

Stop putting such a focus on guns specifically. Guns are NOT that valuable in this server. People have war stashes and as a completely new player, you could buy a heavy weapon if you simply talk to the right person at parking with your starting money. I give out heavies like candy on my crim character cause they mean literally nothing. Fights shouldn't be happening over some guy with a .50 when you can look to your left and ask a stranger for a special carbine and probably get it. If you want to lessen PVP make the rules around it stricter and i think a big step in that is the value of guns.

As I said before, regardless of what you do, the server needs to decide if its an actual RP server or a cops and robbers server and move more towrads one side or the other so that as bala said theres a clear direction of how things work and flow. Way I see it most people do the things they do now cause thats what they like so despite all the RP talk, I think most people prefer the light RP cops and robbers focus.

[astrx]

Honestly, we just need content. Everything is so outdated and boring, there is a lack of genuine enjoyment in most activities. The reason people fight is because there is nothing else to do. It's not necessarily about roleplay, and a controversial topic, criminal 'roleplay' has, over the recent years, each update has taken away from proper roleplay and more about asset gain and content to gain assets. Below I want to share some info about some activities and some changes I propose;

• House Robberies are not worth it as they bug out more often than not. There needs to be fixes to this and an expanded loot pool to be able to find. Some people might not like this, there shouldn't be a UI for the House Robbery either.
  
  When buying a House Robbery, you should be able to add players to some form of 'Party', this would allow for players in the party and on-duty LEO to be able to see the entrance to a House Robbery; i.e It would simply come up saying 'Click E to enter the house' (LEO would be able to see it for response if a player fails the robbery and alerts).
  
  This would stop metagaming house robberies, and hopefully fixes can be put in place for it to bug a lot less, or preferably never.
   
• Once FiveM drops, Chopping should be made so you get given a list of vehicles from a dealer, then you must go and find these cars (with NPC's it makes it a lot more fun to actually go and find other than find a static car on an abandoned road). From here you need to take them to a pre-determined location and you can chop them. This allows for more interaction between criminals and takes away private chopping, so players who may get robbed lose less and the players robbing others still gain from it. 
  
  Additionally, another suggestion people may not like - take away the '(reported as stolen)' tag from LEO when they scan a chop vehicle. It's far too often that a cop sees a chop vehicle (and you can tell when you see a chop car), that they follow it until it says reported as stolen; approximately 3-5 minutes after being stolen. 
   
• Stores and banks are boring, you show up, grabs some money and leave before cops even show up. There is nothing to it. There needs to be some form of fun with the activity, add some hacking minigames to them, make it worth doing, minigames means skill, then doing them more often means you get better at it and it makes it fun to do.
   
• There needs to be some form of revamp to the faction tier system, turfs, and imports. As it stands, turfs mean nothing, they are used to annoy other faction and dropping on other factions turfs if you're beefing. A gang can throw up some tags and then it's basically held with minimal maintenance needed.
  
  Weapons have become far too common, mostly every crim has access to the high tier faction weapons if they want them, this just makes it so even the lowest solo crims can get heavy rifles, combat MG's, what ever they want. There needs to be a change to importing to make weapons an actual rarity where having them is useful instead of a player having 300 of them sat in an apartment in bags ready to go.
   
• Now, people are going to hate this. Rule of 6, or something similar. Having a specific amount of criminals be able to do something at once, with a specific number of LEO responding makes it so content can be more easily spread out around the map. For example; PD are deep and a gang has 18 people online, the gang can split into three groups of 6 or something similar, and all have some fun at the same time doing different things. 
  
  With a merge of the LEO factions, or maybe just the jurisdictions, having activities spread across the map would allow for cops and criminals to be evenly spread across the map. 
   
• Make more criminal levelling systems, but don't make them ridiculously grindy. All the level systems for the activities, take WAY too long to be able to grind. Give people something to grind towards that isn't going to take 10 years. 

A lot of this is pure yap from me, but it shows real issues within the criminal side of things. In general, there needs to be a change of mindset from every player. All I see these days is players trying to report their enemies instead of work out beef in-game. Nearly every fight turns to a reports, nearly every fight turns to a refund, it's a viscous, and unhealthy cycle. 

In terms of changing from an asset-driven mindset/server, we need development work. This is going to be a lot easier in FiveM, sure, but something needs to change in that department. Thanks for reading my Ted Talk.

[AnnoyingOne]

1. Disable crouch walking. it increases the movement speed of people at best and its desynced at worst. Still allow people to crouch to hide their ID and have lower profile, but the second they start moving, stop the crouch. Or only allow them to slowly walk while crouched, but not run.

 

2. Faster and actual enforcement of PVP meta vehicles.  We have had multiple situations on this server, that due to either a GTA V/Rockstar bug, or just the way the vehicle is designed, suddenly everyone started using said vehicle because it provided them benefit in shootouts. For example, the current Monstrocity. Before that vehicle (Schafter?) that had bulletproof windows due to a Rockstar update bug. Its fine if everyone wants to use same meta vehicle because its the fastest. Niobi for example, because if both I and someone else have a Niobi, we both have a advantage. But, if I am in Monstrocity and someone else is in Monstrocity and they are chasing me, I have an advantage due to the bulletproof back.

[Earl Mud]

My 3 big things

1: Content drought: We have limited things to do. Sure you make money fast doing them but we can lose it fast creating a money sink. We need more things that are interesting to do as far as crime goes. Doesn't need to pay out high just more things to do cause with low numbers creating content is hard when you're lucky to see a handful of people and everyone else is in labs.

2: RP over Assets/pvp: Unfortunately, the current loops are all about assets. I know it costs a lot to do crim shit but we need to promote healthier mindsets all around. Introducing new low risk low reward loops may help with this is figure out a way to make it rp based. We do have the occasional crim events but jesus I don't want to sit in Cayo for 4 hours to get a .50. Maybe let staff have more free control over doing random spur of the moment ped work that requires no long term planning besides putting basic limits like hey I see X amount of people hanging out here let me spawn a car and text them from an unknown source to steal it for a prize. Plenty of good suggestions in previous threads on crim based small scale events to keep shit interesting to pull from.

 

3: Actually Enforce RP and change up tier rewards: We are told we don't want this to be pvp server but your rp rewards is always guns or drugs. This is not conducive to helping people stay out of labs or just pvp in general. I know before I left HC of Lost there were talks about vehicle rewards with the new fleet system but we really need to get away from imports being the main rewards for gangs. Also if new rp based rewards, daily tasks, etc come and are pushed then it feel more fair to bring the hammer down on forcing groups to rp more and take their time with scenes instead of instakill in most scenes. 

We need to find ways to promote fun rp that feels rewarding for those involved and let shit play out more. I know we had the cop discussion already and the thing that is common is both sides end shit too early. Cops for their reasons and crims to prevent asset losses due to the time they put in for that asset. We need to allow scenes to develop to further rp instead of nlr asap. Not sure what side is the chicken or the egg but it doesn't matter everyone needs to step the fuck up before the fivem merge or we aren't gonna keep newbies. 

[Ash]

As a humble journalist roleplayer completely outside from crim and LEO, I know my input has little weight but I think the current state of gangs adhering to lore is abysmal. This doesn't apply to all gangs, or even all members of some gangs. But as a whole, most gangs are generic ass mafia/druglord/shooters and those gangs that started out with really cool theme now have members not doing right accents, not dressing lore-friendly, not driving lore friendly cars, and/or not doing activities that fit their gang.

We effectively have no real street-level block gangs as an example. Whether this is because gangs are forced to do xyz to maintain imports or whatever, I think it's an issue.

Edited 1 hour ago by Ash

[Kon]

At this point surely the direction we should be going is embracing the playstyle that most crims have naturally fallen into, instead of trying to remould everyone to enjoy heavy roleplaying and story drive gameplay.

The server naturally became an asset farming simulator where everyone just 'roleplays' as themselves (the majority at least) because of the fact we have no wipes (no one is encouraged to explore other stories and choices with their characters because everyone else is progressing and I guess people don't want to be left behind in terms of meta cars/guns/kevlar/connections for drops/climbing the gang hierarchy ladder ect.) No wipes coupled with very limited crim focused activities/dev updates leaves very few things for active crims to do that brings them excitement.

Though I would enjoy more story driven roleplay (those of you that actually know me, know I actually do enjoy roleplay, shocker I know) I just think the server lost direction a long time ago, people got bored, roleplay became second to enjoyment and farming assets and people started living out their lives on the server instead of playing a character (which happens with a lot of servers tbh, and If people want to do that all the power to them) As roleplay standards fell over the years, punishments for poor RP maybe weren't severe enough? everyone eventually becomes friends outside of the server and everyone becomes complacent and sloppy when it comes to staying IC. (I am very guilty of this)

All of these issues, along with the fact it's been like this for so long and the lack of new things to do, I don't see a world where our current player base are all able to just switch up their mentalities and change what brings them enjoyment, at the end of the day, MOST crims want to log in, use their cars and guns that they worked hard for and shoot each other and talk shit. 

In my opinion, surely it's better for everyone on the server if we facilitate the PVP for those who WANT to PVP. A good first step for this would be following what a few other suggestions on the last post spoke on, bring everyone back to the city, make up north more of a volatile zone, relax a few rules regarding prior escalation, robbery rules ect. (not so legals are getting robbed at gas stations, more between gang members/people with guns, or people engaging in criminal activity)

Lets facilitate and provide support for a way of playing that a lot of people enjoy, pvp events?/'for the next 2 hours x lab will double your drugs'?/I'm sure we could come up with some fun stuff.

(Just want to add, I know there are a number of people that don't just RP as themselves, have characters with depth, put effort into their characters decisions even when sometimes it won't benefit themselves, but the cold hard truth is, this server hasn't been a heavy RP server for a long time. I just feel as though it's easier going a little bit more forward with that we have, instead of trying to force everyone 10 steps back) xoxo

[Larintai]

As someone who has had a unique experience as criminal because I was not part of a gang for over a year and was able to be apart of any gangs activities on any given day. There are some things I've been able to witness that majorly contribute to the negative view of being a crim and how LEO view crims especially those who have never played or only played a few years ago. There is a lot of facets that have culminated into what we have now and the major issues. 

Yes, both sides are at fault. And any given day it swings one way more than the other. Both need to accept that the current views and attitudes need to change from the top levels down to the newest players. 

Crims are bored because there is no incentive for them to engage with leo or civs or even other criminal factions. When there is little to no conflict between gangs, then it's encouraged that they have beef. Then when the beef eventually squashes the morale of one, then fm steps in to stop the beef. If crims go to fight LEO, it's seen immediately as pvp mentality, and sometimes it absolutely is. But for certain gangs, such as OTF, it suits their lore as a street gang to fight LEO.  

 

Another major issue we have is being in a command position of a gang. Within a month or two, people get burnt out on being in command. There's no incentive for high or low command to teach new members how to maintain turfs, proper ordering, how drops work, how tags work, what gangs they have alliances or beefs with, what they should be doing to adhere to rp standards, etc. Then when high command gets burnt out, they stop coming around and the lower ranked members get mad and irritated that no one is around that should be their main source of support. 

 

Another complaint is the way that labs operate. Labs are the bane of most crims due to the variety of issues we run into with them. If you're new to the server, you're most likely to get shot, robbed, or killed. We're all hesitant of new people. The only way you can reasonably be in a lab cooking or chopping safely is if you're in a gang or a group of people who are willing to spend the time. Lewis adding in more tables helped immensely because now people are not waiting 4 or more hours for their gang cook. 

 

If you're chopping, you really only have Chiliad, Sealabs, or Dignity available to chop unless you have a private one, but with the current ways that LEO operate, no one wants to chance getting raided.  Or even raided by another gang.  There's places within the city that could easily be chop places but it's just too loud that pd immediately notices and sets up a raid. It'd be so much more likely that private chops would be used if chopping wasn't so loud and noticeable when taking down the parts, ie. Tool box, lift, etc.

 

A major problem is that there's no real repercussions for gangs that basically "go against" the orders of Meridian or don't adhere to their lore. And it's a bit unfair for an entire gang to be held accountable for one member having a report or crash out and getting themselves banned. They could have invited a newer player who doesn't fully understand all the various ways the rules can apply and they get a forum report and now the whole gang is held liable and possibly has tier promotions withheld or other things.  It seems like there is over punishment for small infractions while major infractions are swept under the rug. 

 

I would say the biggest complaint amongst gangs excluding our tier 8s, is the rewards for tiers. They are not clearly outlined, we're not consulted before being given a new weapon or other item. The high command of that gang getting promoted should be consulted and given options of what they would like for their new items. Ones that have lore backing. We should allow for other types of imports as well. BZ gas for gangs that are more terroristic/anarchist, special drug mats for the drug heavy gangs like LOCOS. 

 

Alt rp. My personal biggest gripe. We have the ability to submit for an idea for alt rp. But large scale usually gets turned down by LFM. Many gangs want to participate in large scale rp ops. Not just the simple "let's do a bank". Alt rp is so hard to get done that it becomes just a planned out event. It's not fun and spontaneous and getting different factions to interact with it naturally because they've known it was going to happen.  

Recently, Kudo Kai and Shadows planted MULTIPLE c4 bombs at Mission Row. Not just one simple one. But multiple around the building. After 15 minutes, no rp from LEO, an admin called "Gov" aka Denji to clean it up. And within half an hour of a full bombing, mission row was back to is pristine condition and we were given the excuse "They spent ages putting it back together".

 

This is a flat out blatant slap in the face for any alt rp. Why would we want to give rp and participate in altrp when we are going to basically be backhanded once it's done. No rp from LEO looking for the people behind it, no rp in rebuilding MR. Not like they don't have Vinewood and Vespucci that they can use just as easily that would have provided new rp alternatives. But they didn't.

 

Here is where my refusal to shoot pd gives me the advantage. I do not want to engage in a shoot out with pd. I do not see any point in it. They WILL win because even if they're all wiped, they treat it as XXX gang shot cops and now they're under suppression. NLR doesn't seem to apply evenly to LEO the way it does as a crim. The standards of rp are extremely imbalanced.  Because 70% of PD and SD know that I refuse to shoot cops, I get interaction with them. I can be hand cuffed and running around and have Nacho chasing me saying "why are we running? I just had lunch!". He doesn't immediately pull out a tazer or gun and shoot me "just to get the scene over with". 

 

I have no idea how to fix it. Both sides have become reactionary. Crims immediately assume pd is going for the carbine, not their tazer, cause they probably are. And LEO automatically assume they're going to get lit up so they call 900 back up units to a traffic stop. Both sides are reacting to what has been happening. I don't know of a good way to stop it. 

There's so much I could point out with examples and details but it would require some harsher views that some aren't ready to hear. 

 

We are not believed when we submit an IA or RP Feedback. It's just seen as "crims whining again". So the bad LEO stay and make people want to quit, such as Alistair in pd currently. Where if we act the same as a crim, we get banned AND our faction gets punished. There's major favoritism among the admins and friends, as is to be expected. We're human. But when 80-85% of staff are all LEO main.... it becomes a problem. 

 

I'm not sure there is a good way to fix crim other than giving more room for altrp to happen where it won't just blow right back. We implemented a prison break system, until you realize, what's the point. The next time you get arrested you get charged with it and that time added on. 

 

We've become over realistic in ways that shouldn't be. We have too many higher up demanding realism at all times where it allows for no fun to happen.

 

As a crim, we have two places we can work.  Benny's and DCC unless we go through a reformation program. If we get caught for anything, we are immediately fired and can apply back in 2 weeks. While we're working there, we're taunted by LEO for just being there working. 

 

It's the views and attitudes of the server need to change. LEO who give rp, even if it's not *fully* realistic shouldn't be punished for it. Crims that provide different rp scenes or think outside the boxes, should be given the opportunity to continue that. We've constrained ourselves so much to the point that no one cares, they just assume they're going to get a punishment anyways no matter what they do. 

 

 

[marblesquash]

Just the grind is hard as a crim making us focus on earning money all the time reduces our RP capabilities leading to metas and a need to win mentality otherwise your assets you grinded for are lost for example, if you got arrested at a lab your not focused on the situation  more of a "i need to win because i spent the other day getting all of this stuff otherwise its a waste" so metas start being used and it just devolves most interactions into risk vs reward rather than being actors in a story which is what RP is about.

all i can think of to fix this is to add low risk low reward criminal income such as bringing back house tables but nerfed to a limit of 1 table per garage slot and are limited to low and medium drugs to at least make money and lead to RP interactions and other small things like this reducing the worry of our assets and wealth to focus on the story of gangs rather than the PVP between them.

[Sibyrd]

All real ways of doing criminal activity privately were removed or heavily nerfed. Private labs completely gone and (not sure if this still exists) the last time I tried to private chop it was extremely loud resulting in regularly getting robbed for hundreds of k.

 

This means everyone does crim activities in public, which is great for creating RP - however nearly 100% of this RP is PvP instead of before when someone would get x amount of toluene or other material from a gang, produce it, then hand the product back to them - this type of RP is practically extinct due to the PvP risk of cooking.

 

I've only just come back to the server, so some of this knowledge may be outdated.

Edited 45 minutes ago by Sibyrd
forgot to add "privately"

[DoubleA]

I've recently basically quit crim due to just how boring it is. Before giving solutions you need to know the problem and be aware of them. The first thing I want to be clear about, and I feel like people are just looking away from it.. CRIMS MAKE THE SERVERS WORLD TURN. WITHOUT CRIMS COPS HAVE NOTHING TO DO, WITHOUT CRIMS, CIVS JUST STAND THERE AND DO NOTHING AT BENNYS. 

Problem 1. Holy content problems.

The last major criminal update we've had was... does anyone remember?? The racing script. (Other than small bug fixes) - and we all know how that is. We get some updates but they are untested and then left there to rot away. I know at this point the focus is on FiveM, which is fine, but something needs to change. Our "civilian updates" are great until you realize they get played with for a week then thrown away because you realize you need 40 hours of grinding to make a simple profit. This goes back to even archaeology. 

Solution: I hate to say it.. but if it aint broke dont fix it. There are thousands of servers on FiveM that do incredible roleplay, and the biggest thing is the amount of stuff for people to do. Theres a few servers that literally OFFER content that can be purchased and re-used. For example, Prodigy. They have a package that is I believe around $1,000 that has a bunch of shit that can be immediately added into Eclipse and make things amazing. (Would need to ask Bongo Haze, he knows more about that.) But purchasable content like that is SO EASY to obtain, the top 3 donators have bought that 10 times over the last month.

I'm not saying steal ideas, but realistically its very hard to make new things work. The game has been out for 14 years, everything has been done. Don't reinvent the wheel.

 

Problem 2. Mentality. 

Everyone wants to win, you don't play games to lose, we all understand that. But the constant min-maxxing is just horrid. Doing the rat strats, having to be the best person around, have the best shooters, etc.. even the people who hack to gain an advantage.. its just cringe as shit and both crim and leo are guilty of it. Then when you do win a fight or whatever, you have people from both sides standing over your body saying you're so shit youre ass get off the game like its a fucking Modern Warfare 2 lobby. Toxic and cringe to care that much.

Solution: This is going to be a hard pill to swallow, but hold gangs AND factions accountable for people who do that. If you got people constantly chatting shit ( let me put this straight... there is a right way to talk shit.. ) in a demoralizing way to make people leave the server, have the gangs be accountable. Just remember though, this is an 18+ server, so there will be shit talking. But the amount of times I've been killed and immediately told "You're so shit find something else to do retard" - that shit doesn't get to me, but I know multiple people who have quit because of shit said like that and worse. It's why Eclipse is so poorly known to some other servers. People need to learn to win with grace.

Note: FM has been doing small things to help this, I've seen it brought up, but it needs to extend to both sides. I wont specify names of people but I've had very high up people in PD sit there and down someone with their 150AP and Special Carbine Mk2 vs a pistol .50 and talk shit... like come on..

 

Problem 3: Consistency

I'll be blunt, there is none. You implement shit once, we give problems, it gets told "this will be done" and its immediately thrown aside for the next best thing! This also flows through to the staff team. And I think this is where people are scared to step up and speak, but the staff team, to be honest with you, is VERY mid. Currently you have VERY few staff in the criminal world. The main ones I see that play crim consistently, starting from the top, is LightningBolt9 (Vlad), Cup (Luna/Leif), CarlVespucci (do I need to name him..?) .. and I think thats all I can name off the top of my head... I guess Lewis does count now, but I'm talkin about people who have been with the crim community for years. That leaves the other 95% of the staff team as civilians and LEO mains. So when criminals have reports against LEOs, only those few people can take these reports, otherwise it is COI. Oh wait, they cant take it either because its most likely Rooks or OTF reporting since theyre one of the only two consistently active gangs.

That then brings you to be forced to do the IC time, sit in jail for multiple hours most likely writing the report, just for it to sit on forums for weeks where you just dont care anymore, for a mod/admin to take the report, the other side to belittle you in a forum report (this goes for all sides by the way this is not targeted at LEOs) for a conclusion that is dependent on the person taking the report. 

Solution: The Staff team needs a wipe of inactive people. People that are in there and not removed because "they've been here for a long time!" In the real world if you don't perform, you get fired. Now I know, its a game, but maybe create a rank for ex-admins who dont do things in game or forums, to be an "advisor" for staff. Help make decisions, give feedback on how people are doing, and be support for newer staff that might have questions. And while youre on that note, add more spots for criminal mains. Personally, I tried going back to staff. Every time the support staff is open, I toss in a reinstatement, cause surprisingly I still care about a server that doesn't give a shit about me as a person. I'm denied because I got banned for a stupid situation 2 years ago, and a bad history of crashing out, but have been clean since. That isnt enough. Sorry Collie but I'm using you as an example - you were banned multiple times if im not mistaken, and look! You changed, youre an admin, a civilian faction leader, they just dont want another one of you around it seems...

Last part of this before I inevitably add more later on, I love this idea of the thread, sadly this should have been made in 2023. I hope eclipse on FiveM works, because I dont know if I'll go to another server. The ONLY THING keeping me here, is the people. And cause I have grinded so much shit and just dont want to part with the time and effort i've put into playing here..

But realistically, please bring up one main thing. BEFORE we go to FiveM: For the love of god, market the server. Go to other rage servers that arent transferring and try to merge them in seamlessly. Go to FiveM servers and see what works the best, and try to replicate that here. We have Claude now, we should be having quarterly content drops like EchoRP has. I would rather a major update every 3 months to keep people engaged than a random update every 6 months that gets played with for 2 weeks then left for new players. 

[RedCrayonnn]

I think we need more script based tools, maybe improvements to cooking as an example and some other sorta scripts that enable people creating a hiden gambling lounge or things of that nature. In my endeavors to create a restaurant I had endless rp l, great encounters from top to bottom. From the moment the journey began at burgershot, to the restaurant thats going to be opening its doors very soon. Custom buildings for success business things like that. What i have seen crim and legal both sides crave new RP experiences and dive right in to something new some one starts up.