Prison Sentences and other tweaking

[Msato]

I'm prepared to be shot down by every Civ/PD in the city for this post but here it goes.

This update has been passively targeted at "improving civilian RP" by literally handicapping criminal RP.

There are some great features in this update that improved realism, such as adding Debt, Wire Transfer, GPS, getting out to access trunks, and reweighing weapons and adding recoil. However as always some stuff needs some fine tuning.

I'm going to address the elephant in the room first:

1. Prison Time limit removed - This is a good practice in theory but when put into action provides terrible results. From my perspective I rarely get arrested by PD but rack up hundreds of charges over the months (Fairly reasonable). By the time I next go to prison my sentence is going to be 50+ hours on top of 80k+ in fines. Now here comes the white knights "you do the crime, you do the time" - I have 10 days played of PD RP and around 35 of Criminal, there is a reason for this and that is personal preference. At the end of the day this turns into being punished for my preference of RP. I don't feel that it is a good RP experience in the slightest having to spend 2 full days IRL in prison as the AFK timer was removed.

Potential Solution - Add a cap back onto the time and perhaps make it 8 hours tops. Whilst doing so I believe prison sentences should tick down whilst OFFLINE due to the obscene time you're expected to serve and allow AFK in prison. This essentially still removes that criminal from the city for the same amount of time but provides at more satisfy OOC experience. 

Reasoning - I work a 40 hour week and still manage to dedicate plenty of time to ECRP, say I get arrested on a sunday night, I would have to spend 5 hours after work every night standing in the prison to be released in time for the weekend. Yes this is a RP server and realism should be added, but not to the severity that it puts "criminals" out the city for a whole IRL week.

 

2. Weapon Weights - This was a good improvement in my opinion, however some of the weights need to be adjusted to be a little more realistic.

Solution - Reduce "Heavy" weapon weights from 20 to 10 (still 10x increase of their old weight) and reduce pistol weights to 5 (Still 5x their original weight).

Reasoning - Due to the inventory split in the new update (glovebox and boot) you can no longer even fit a pistol in the glove compartment of all cars, this makes 0 realistic sense. On top of this with the split inventory of many vehicles you can no longer fit a heavy or a pistol in the trunk, adjusting the weights would allow for an easy solution instead of a whole storage overhaul.

 

3. Increase Stash Size - So prior to the update my stash was at around 300/500, a fairly reasonable about for what was stored, Now that the weights have been massively increased (200% per weapon) my stash now sits at 1100/500. I understand having a stash limit is needed but this seems too small and should scale with the "float of weapon weights"

Solution - Perhaps increase default stash to 750~1000 and allow for "Stash expansions" to either be bought via the furniture/credit store.

Reasoning - As the stash is currently the only secure way to store items anywhere in a house it contains a very limited space for doing so. IRL you could have anything stashed away in locked drawers, cupboards, safes in walls etc. If we're pushing for realism I feel that house storage should be realistically expanded.

 

4. Fine Tuning - Here I'll just add a few things that I and some others feel need some fine tuning to provide a better experience.

GPS, this is a great addition in my opinion but it would be nice to fit it directly to cars with a "use" function instead of leaving in the inventory (created more reason to rob etc) similar to how chargers function. 

Action Bar, I like the implementation of this in practice, perhaps have the position changed to the bottom of the screen and reduce the UI scale for it.

Unlocking Cars - I'm all for there being a delay on opening cars, currently delay feels far too long and unrealistic, takes one click of a key to open any modern car. Would be nice to see this reduced at least a little.

Recoil - This is also a really good addition but I feel the current recoil is pretty insane, even with a grip attached after 5 shots you're shooting into the sky. Perhaps reduce the scale of recoil by 50% or so.

 

I Hope this is useful and provides some decent detail, I'd hope to see some aspects improve from what they currently are.

Please keep this as a suggestions thread and avoid any arguments.

[JakeInnit_]

I support everything you have written. Nice suggestion.

[Pistol Pete]

+1. Nicely done, I agree with all points!

[Yputi]

How about that jailtime will still go down offline, but just 10 times slower? Being offline is mostly RP'ed as sleeping or being out of town and I believe you can sleep in prison.

[clickclack]

+1 need some small tweaks!

[WeeMeme]

+1 Very well explained points have to agree with you on all your points also may i add reduced time to access the inventory of your car boot when i was selling fish took me so long with the new timer to open the inventory each time to sell them. 

[Alverin]

1 hour ago, CallumMontie said:

1. Prison Time limit removed - This is a good practice in theory but when put into action provides terrible results. From my perspective I rarely get arrested by PD but rack up hundreds of charges over the months (Fairly reasonable). By the time I next go to prison my sentence is going to be 50+ hours on top of 80k+ in fines. Now here comes the white knights "you do the crime, you do the time" - I have 10 days played of PD RP and around 35 of Criminal, there is a reason for this and that is personal preference. At the end of the day this turns into being punished for my preference of RP. I don't feel that it is a good RP experience in the slightest having to spend 2 full days IRL in prison as the AFK timer was removed.

Do you consider someone getting banned for rping as a mass murderer them getting "punished for my preference"?

1 hour ago, CallumMontie said:

Potential Solution - Add a cap back onto the time and perhaps make it 8 hours tops. Whilst doing so I believe prison sentences should tick down whilst OFFLINE due to the obscene time you're expected to serve and allow AFK in prison. This essentially still removes that criminal from the city for the same amount of time but provides at more satisfy OOC experience. 

I say no to the 8 hour cap and I would say yes to the offline tick if it weren't possible for you to just hop on another character and play them instead. Perhaps I'm somewhat receptive of this idea however. I don't think you should be forced to RP in the prison as the prison isn't completely ready for that yet. However the sentencing time is very crucial to the change that the developers are trying to make in the server, which is changing the META of criminality.

[KeistuoliZ]

+1

Stash should be decided by garage space, for example 4g 1k 3g 750 2g 500 1g 250vol

[KeistuoliZ]

1 hour ago, Yputi said:

How about that jailtime will still go down offline, but just 10 times slower? Being offline is mostly RP'ed as sleeping or being out of town and I believe you can sleep in prison.

+1

[gohena]

+1 the bigger house you have the more stash spots/weight you get it makes no sesnse a 4g mansion has the same stash size as a 1g

[Aldarine]

4 hours ago, Yputi said:

How about that jailtime will still go down offline, but just 10 times slower? Being offline is mostly RP'ed as sleeping or being out of town and I believe you can sleep in prison.

I completely agree and support this. I think jailtime going down while offline at a really slow pace would be something valid to consider. As far as AFKing in prison or even capping it, I would say no. Criminal RP isn't just being in the streets, it's also serving time in prison. Find new and interesting ways to RP, this is a RP server after all.

As for weights and stashes, I think that system needs to be completely redone. Weights and inventory sizes don't make the most sense and larger houses should 100% have bigger stash spots. I would like to see massive improvements in this eventually.

[alexalex303]

There is no reason to put a cap on it, you, yourself admitted that you go on for MONTHS without punishment, and when you finally get caught MONTHS of you taking away people's play time in the form of robberies, killings and so on, just gets forgiven because of what? Their time doesn't matter because they aren't in a gang? 

Turn yourself in every day if you don't want to serve a large sentence, or don't do the crime.

[Msato]

6 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

There is no reason to put a cap on it, you, yourself admitted that you go on for MONTHS without punishment, and when you finally get caught MONTHS of you taking away people's play time in the form of robberies, killings and so on, just gets forgiven because of what? Their time doesn't matter because they aren't in a gang? 

Turn yourself in every day if you don't want to serve a large sentence, or don't do the crime.

Thank you for the positive input to this discussion

[dhardie1]

+1 agree with everything you have said, people forgetting at the end of the day its a game, who wants to play a game after there work trying to grind to spend 36 hours in prison 

[Touchsky]

1 hour ago, alexalex303 said:

There is no reason to put a cap on it, you, yourself admitted that you go on for MONTHS without punishment, and when you finally get caught MONTHS of you taking away people's play time in the form of robberies, killings and so on, just gets forgiven because of what? Their time doesn't matter because they aren't in a gang? 

Turn yourself in every day if you don't want to serve a large sentence, or don't do the crime.

Turn yourself in every day, That's a great idea! Give this man a Medaille! 

Hell na, you think we want to Roleplay 4 hours and sit in jail for 6 hours? 

It's easy to say such things as a police officer who gets everything and a ridiculous salary.

 

[Malcolm Carter]

 Great post, I particularly agree with your comments on how players who choose to RP as criminals are being essentially punished OOCly with these huge sentences. Just because you roleplay as a law-abiding civilian does not make you a better/more righteous member of the community.

[alexalex303]

5 hours ago, Malcolm Carter said:

 Great post, I particularly agree with your comments on how players who choose to RP as criminals are being essentially punished OOCly with these huge sentences. Just because you roleplay as a law-abiding civilian does not make you a better/more righteous member of the community.

The problem is that you RPing as a criminal makes other people victims. Either civillians getting robbed or shot, or cops getting robbed (yes) and shot. Why should you be able to do this without any repercussions?

[Malcolm Carter]

52 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

The problem is that you RPing as a criminal makes other people victims. Either civillians getting robbed or shot, or cops getting robbed (yes) and shot. Why should you be able to do this without any repercussions?

Not necessarily, in fact most of the criminal money-making activities are essentially victimless. Drug labs and robbing stores don't impact anybody else's experience.

[Xoza]

+1

Phone = GPS, maybe you have to 'download the app' for half the cost. But if you're phone is on and you've got the software, you should be able to use it.

[Riderz]

+1 agreed with all of it

[kennyGribbins]

16 hours ago, alexalex303 said:

There is no reason to put a cap on it, you, yourself admitted that you go on for MONTHS without punishment, and when you finally get caught MONTHS of you taking away people's play time in the form of robberies, killings and so on, just gets forgiven because of what? Their time doesn't matter because they aren't in a gang? 

Turn yourself in every day if you don't want to serve a large sentence, or don't do the crime.

"don't do the crime". It is criminal roleplay and if the criminals didn't do crime you guys would have nothing to do. 

[heartgg]

6 minutes ago, kennyGribbins said:

"don't do the crime". It is criminal roleplay and if the criminals didn't do crime you guys would have nothing to do. 

Not every cop wants to respond to shootouts, pursuits, or robberies every 5 minutes. With the new system, Los Santos would not be cartel infested Colombia anymore and officers would actually have time to respond and investigate petty crimes instead of constantly going to officers being shot at.

Edited July 3, 2019 by heartgg

[kennyGribbins]

4 minutes ago, heartgg said:

Not every cop wants to respond to shootouts, pursuits, or robberies every 5 minutes. With the new system, Los Santos would not be cartel infested Colombia anymore and officers would actually have time to respond and investigate petty crimes instead of constantly going to officers being shot at.

not every crime a criminal does is that bro and if you don't want to get shot at don't shoot at them 

[Daniel_Underwood]

+1 great suggestions I agree. 8 hours cap would be perfect in my opinion, it's a big punishment and not too long so it wouldn't make people ck or quit ECRP

[heartgg]

3 minutes ago, kennyGribbins said:

not every crime a criminal does is that bro and if you don't want to get shot at don't shoot at them 

Obviously not every crime a criminal does is that “bro”. But there are a lot of criminals and even a fraction of them starting something between other players leads to shootouts, pursuits, and robberies every 5 minutes. And police almost never shoot first (There is something called force continuum, you could read up about it)

long prison times will make criminals think twice about committing serious violently crimes such as murder or assault at gov. employees. And they also allow for more equal consequences as people getting robbed and shot at lose game time too.