Upgrading Neutral Jobs

[eradicati0n]

Introduction

This sort of suggestion has been made a few times in different places regarding some of the neutral jobs within the city, but I'd like to throw my  2 cents in with my suggestion of how to make these jobs both more enjoyable on the gameplay end, and also more rewarding in terms of making it a more viable and sustainable source of income for non-criminals and non-governmental workers.

 

Across both of my characters, I've spent plenty of time working the neutral jobs, from Trucking to Garbage and everything else inbetween. I think some jobs are fine, such as Farming, however others definitely need some sort of update to make them less arduous and a bit more interesting. I think that the Government/Corporate jobs should still remain the higher tier of paid employment on the legal side, and these changes I'm suggesting shouldn't devalue those Government/Corporate roles, but instead should be designed towards the betterment of these neutral jobs.

 

Courier

The Courier job is probably one of the most tedious neutral roles within the city, with the quality of the transport vehicle being its biggest downfall. This is probably the most stereotypical suggestion, as I've seen many make it, even within the latest Weazel News magazine. With such a high concentration of homes within the hills north of the city, the current GoPostal van is almost completely inadequate for climbing those steep hills, often making jobs last two or three times longer than they otherwise would if the home you're delivering to was down in Vespucci, or in the central city, even when the distance travelled is still the same. Ironically, the GoPostal vans struggle to climb the hill to the depot when approaching from the south. To double up on the frustration, the large GoPostal van can only carry 10 parcels, which often is only enough for a handful of trips before you have to resupply. The actual pricing of deliveries seems to be weighted on both distance and boxes delivered, which makes a lot of sense.

 

My suggestion for the Courier role would be an upgrade to the available vehicle, changing the current van to a better performing minivan that can not only handle the hills in the north far better, but also can carry more parcels. 20 seems like a decent amount to really make Courier one of the better neutral jobs, as it definitely has potential. I would also like to see these scripted work vehicles based around deliveries get a fuel increase across the board to 150% or 200%, as they run out of gas pretty quickly, which leads to people returning the vehicle to the depot and pulling out a new one, which kind of breaks the RP of that job.

Garbage

Garbage is probably one of the worst jobs available. It is completely untouched by most in what I've seen, and for good reason. Whilst the garbage truck isn't terrible and the actual process of the job makes sense, the system in which resources are collected to fill the van is arduous and doesn't work well.

 

A simple way to fix Garbage would be to change the collection system to something similar to the Trucking job in its current state, allowing for the van to park up and "load" garbage in specific areas, rather than requiring the driver to manually leave the vehicle, pick up the bag, place it inside the truck and resume driving. This would, in my opinion, make the Garbage role far more bearable and actually worth doing, with the truck maybe taking 5 collections until the garbage needs to be unloaded back at the HQ. It could also help to add a distance modifier in terms of the pay for how far the truck would have to travel to make picking up trash on the other side of the city worth it. However this would probably require some extra coding/engine work. Another option would be for Garbage to be a co-op job that allows for two people to work together and collect the paycheck together, just as garbage crews IRL work in units. However this would also require the aforementioned coding/engine work, I assume.

 

Trucking

Trucking is a weird one that seems like its harder to balance than it appears. In its current state, Trucking is a fairly inefficient money making method that many truckers seems to supplement with fishing between orders, due to the nature of how the orders come in. Trucking is a job that is essential to the in-game economy, and in my opinion, should be changed in accordance to make it a bit more consistent for those that can be bothered to work this role.

 

Currently, Truckers have to wait for the owners of the outlets around the city to place orders for supplies, which often pays $1000 - $1500 per job. At a glance that seems like a lot, but given the time taken, its probably on par or below Money Transportation, which is in my opinion one of the best neutral jobs outside Mining, Hunting and Farming. To make Trucking a more competitive job role, I think that store owners should have the option to automatically re-stock the store every IRL day or two through a simple toggle in the store settings, which then creates automated jobs within the Trucking occupation which can be undertaken within a regular cycle. Now, I don't claim to know anything about how restocking stores works, but I think that truck drivers should get $1500 per job worked regardless of what is supplied, with maybe an extra $500 on top of that for jobs that take them out of the city limits to Paleto, Wanted Refresh etc. 

 

Trucking doesn't need to be as consistently workable as something like Courier or Money Transportation, but automated ordering options could really improve this job.

 

Bus Driver

Bus driving is actually not too bad, hence why its towards the bottom of the list. The ratio of time taken to payment isn't terrible, and the different route options keep things feeling fresh. Outside of fixing the current glitch with stalled buses, I think one of the more viable ways to make Bus Driving a bit better is to change the current system slightly. My suggestion would be to limit buses to 70kmph, as all routes seem to be within the city limits, but allow drivers to pass by stops without stopping. This would stop the non-RP of buses flying down city roads at 100kmph, and would allow bus driving to be far more fluid. Buses aren't really a viable form of transportation around the city for most civilians, though it would be great if this were the case, so making this job far more fluid for those working it would improve the experience. However, not having to stop at any stops could also introduce some non-RP to the role, so take this suggestion as one of the more tentative ones. Unless you live in the UK like me, in which case you know those buses aren't stopping.

 

Money Transportation

Finally, Money Transportation. This is probably the best neutral job role in my opinion, and balances time taken to payment very well. The money truck is a solid vehicle with decent enough performance to carry out its role. My only suggested improvement would be to ensure that every delivery has to be to a different ATM, as double deliveries to the same ATM are quite common, and award no extra money. Also, as I mentioned in the Courier section, upgrading this vehicle to 150% or 200% fuel would greatly improve the gameplay loop of this job.

 

I'm very curious to hear how people who work some of these roles often feel about these suggestions, and what ideas they have to improve these roles.

 

[TreMetal]

My input:

Courier Job:

The biggest thing they could do for courier job is enforce a minimum payout (or enforce a minimum distance between deliveries).  Also, get rid of 4 package deliveries, 1-3 makes the average delivery 2 which is 5 deliveries per truckload where as 1-4 is an average of 4.  This may not seem like a big difference but the largest time sink of this job is traveling back to HQ for a refill which pays you nothing.   Also less 3rd+ story deliveries would be nice.

Trucking Job: 

Add NPC jobs in addition to the player ones. Clothing stores, tattoo shop and barber can all take in shipments (though primarily clothing shops).  It would also be possible to deliver goods to non operational gas stations, gun stores and convieniece stores (or things like the megamall by grovestreet, or 'you tool' on the east highway).  NPCs could then always give $1,000-$1,250 for their jobs and players could prioritize their deliveries by offering more cash for deliveries.