The Ruined State of Criminal RP

[bunko]

Huge +1 current crim rp opportunities are suffering and has killed my interest in returning to the server.

46 minutes ago, HighTV said:

The new Criminal Faction Member Cap will hopefully spread out some of the veteran RPers and allow for more official factions than we currently have. It will also give smaller criminal organizations a chance against the will of a 120 man alliance with script support.  

If the purpose of the member cap really is to let smaller gangs compete in the crim world and for new gangs to emerge, this makes little sense realistically. Most major cities with a major criminal population are home to 1-3 major gangs that play a large part in the criminal activity within the city (think Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings, MS-13, etc.) so why should ecrp cap its major criminal influences in size? Realistically if a small street gang were to give rise in somewhere like LA, which Los Santos is based on, they would most likely have ties with a major organization like Bloods or Crips, or they would be pushed out of the city by one of these organizations. In the current state of things, The Triads and Zetas have built their numbers entirely off of IC decisions and becoming appealing options for someone looking to rp as a crim, so why should their IC achievements be restricted OOCly? As of right now there are around 15 active crim factions in ecrp which present each person with different rp opportunities. I think that the current faction population is diverse enough and implementing OOC restrictions to increase the number of crim groups will just spread the crim population thinner.

[Itzsonzy]

I'm in a very love hate with the changes, i think for the most part they are a good stepping stone in the right direction. But, and a big but, i do think there needs to be more scripted support for low level criminals. As someone who has been on all sides, i can say that as a fully legal character you have sooo much more script oppertunities and RP oppertunities that are not really restricted by OOC rules. Meanwhile on the criminal side, when starting out poor & uninformed as we all did at one point, i feel like hitting a tree for 6 hours in rust would be more interesting than afk fishing.

 

TL:DR; script more low level crim activities and actually encourage them, don't want to seem a downer but i think the chances of this happening are slim to none.

[Rekamon]

I could not agree with this post more.

+1

I feel that the majority of the criminal RP is restricted due to OOC rules at this point. A big issue with ECRP's current standing is ruleplay and the new rule about robbery is very vague and doesn't provide specific details to what is allowed and isn't, it's very subjective. Personally, 9/10 of the robberies I commit I am always worried that I'm going to get reported and almost always accused of breaking some various rule. I have had numerous amounts of people say "You can't rob me here" or something along the lines of this, the ruleplay ruins any sort of RP and makes the whole map feel like an NCZ. I don't really understand the logic behind making a cap on the players in a gang, when in my opinion criminals are already at severe disadvantages when it comes to fighting PD and a limited amount of numbers would make this even more significant. A big issue I currently have is the issue of house raiding. I've had multiple house raids voided by admins because of the fact that my RP reason isn't sufficient. I find this ridiculous because a house is where most people keep their stashes which has a high chance to have some sort of weaponry, that in of itself in my eyes is a well enough RP reason to house rob someone. For someone to just feel safe going into their house because I haven't interacted with them rp'ly prior is just a joke. I however do agree that robberies were getting excessive, just the turn that this rule has taken it has gotten to a point where I can't rob really anyone.

This is a quote I managed to find from an Administrator, which I feel should have more light shed on it and should be a changing factor when making new rules, gang relationships should not be dictated by the rules. Again, I feel a lot of the current issues would be fixed if there was more RP things for criminals to do such as robbing banks and other activities. The current criminal activities are very stale and don't provide much variety.

[Itzsonzy]

35 minutes ago, Goaldan said:

Yes, but at the same time. Faction leaders can give input on how limitations will impact for one their faction, and for two the server as a whole. As for the limitations being set to 40 does nothing except hurt the smaller factions. I know for a fact that we aren't going to be kicking twenty people just to recruit more people. It genuinely makes no sense. This limitation does nothing except hurt incoming Official factions. 

So it hurts both? I'm hella confused. I ran a small organization for a while and i can say that a member cap would not have effected much whatsoever, if anything it would make for higher standards to be met for recruits as you cannot have so many while also encouraging others to create groups knowing that they would not in the first week get pulled up by 100 people. 

Official factions could use some hurt and love same as us all, but i have to agree with @HighTV on the point that limiting the amount of members a faction can have is a step in the right direction. Think of it not as a punishment where you have to kick 20 members, think of it more like you have to look through your organization and evaluate who you actually need in it. 

[Rekamon]

2 minutes ago, Itzsonzy said:

Think of it not as a punishment where you have to kick 20 members, think of it more like you have to look through your organization and evaluate who you actually need in it. 

Who are "you" to judge and limit who a gang actually needs in it? If a gang leader wants to have 60 members let him, there should be no OOC restrictions preventing him in my opinion.

[Goaldan]

4 minutes ago, Itzsonzy said:

So it hurts both? I'm hella confused. I ran a small organization for a while and i can say that a member cap would not have effected much whatsoever, if anything it would make for higher standards to be met for recruits as you cannot have so many while also encouraging others to create groups knowing that they would not in the first week get pulled up by 100 people. 

Official factions could use some hurt and love same as us all, but i have to agree with @HighTV on the point that limiting the amount of members a faction can have is a step in the right direction. Think of it not as a punishment where you have to kick 20 members, think of it more like you have to look through your organization and evaluate who you actually need in it. 

ye you right so what they've all worked hard to get into our organization, and so what they're all active. Looks like we're gonna have to cut 20 quality people. We evaluate loads of people and only take in those we feel will be extremely active, and those that show good quality roleplay. But hey, time to kick 20 people that worked hard for their spot in our organization  

[bunko]

1 minute ago, Rekamon said:

Who are "you" to judge and limit who a gang actually needs in it? If a gang leader wants to have 60 members let him, there should be no OOC restrictions preventing him in my opinion.

Agreed. In what IRL scenario would a gang leader/higherup reject someone who could be a helpful asset to the organization because they don't need any more members. Gang rp should have the same sense of working towards a position of power that real gangs work towards.

[HitmanCypress]

I could not agree more with this post either

+1

[Vyse Legend]

I can't believe the limit was further reduced.  60 in my eyes was bad enough as it's an OOC restriction that I find to be extremely goofy.

Both PD departments have a combined 207 members, PD will be having MORE cops coming in due to an academy, and SD is currently still recruiting.

I find this to be absolutely nuts, on a community that is trying to stop OOC things, IE: Car Dealerships (bad change), "Emailing" in the IC character section, and etc.  I said in Flint's thread previously, I don't quite understand who are making these rules and why.  

 

The general cucking of criminal RP again makes no sense.  Lots of us thought a "criminal update" was coming, but that only further crippled crims and just forced them to make drugs and do nothing else really.  Not much script support, obviously a lack of OOC support what are crims supposed to do in this server?  I'm not a crim any longer, I'm a cop, but I'm not blind to the problem.  All of this is rather unfair and crims are literally being pushed against a wall with little choice to do anything...

[KariOne]

+1 to all of this

The member cap really shocked me personally as I can't think of a good enough reason for this to even be a thing. It heavily damages future and current gang growth and RP possibilities for ALL types of characters, not just crims. Stuff really needs to be reviewed...

[JayGamble]

3 hours ago, CallumMontie said:

To wrap it up:
Unfortunately it's slowly getting to the point where these OOC limitations are driving myself, my gang members and other criminals away from investing as much time into criminal roleplay. Even those who have been long term members of the community feel like they're being essentially shoved out with the new changes. Something needs to change for a positive instead of a constant negative towards criminals. Yes it may seem like we always play the victim card, but this is due to the new limitations and introductions we are forced to deal with, often with minimal to no input requested from the members it will effect. I know personally, there are many criminals who are afraid to voice their opinions on this, but unfortunately that time has come.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I really hope others take their time and constructively submit their opinions.

 

I agree with essentially everything you have said. Your ending summary fits the thoughts of so many long term players who feel nothing more than punished at this point for creating a productive and long standing environment. For us personally, we've already dealt with cap implementations and have had to trim down; To have another implemented out of the blue is just confusing. This isn't going to fix the type of issues you're speaking about @HighTV, these people will still continue to hang with their long term friends, and create relationships around that more likely than join what's available now, as the reputations still exist. You also make a direct correlation to "newer gangs having an easier time fighting 120 people", but why should that even be a concern? What would motivate you to fight us? Your points seem very biased. I've been here an incredibly long time, and I don't feel crim has been in a more rough state than it is now and that makes me incredibly sad to say as my group has put a ton of time and effort into what we've created as well as the ecosystem of the server, ICly. We've been hoping for positive change for so long, but it feels like we just continue to get hit with OOC limitation after limitation, each time we get used to one thing, we get hit with another and it becomes incredibly demotivating after a certain point. It's not like there was ever anywhere near 60 people on in any of the large groups, there are various time zones, etc to cover which help give presence and identity to these gangs.

 

20 minutes ago, Itzsonzy said:

Think of it not as a punishment where you have to kick 20 members, think of it more like you have to look through your organization and evaluate who you actually need in it. 

To think gangs haven't over the period of a year managed to "evaluate" who should and should not be in their groups is just confusing to say the least.

Edited May 28, 2020 by JayGamble

[Aldarine]

Due to positioning, let me preface this by stating that I am simply reading through this thread out of interest for all commentary and am not here to take a side or explain. While reading through this I did have a question that continued to come up in my head, in particular regarding the new member cap and some of the comments regarding gang recruitment and cutting players.

With a newly implemented cap and knowing that a gang cannot recruit into an official faction, what is to limit a gang from technically expanding? Created gangs tend to be off branches of much larger organizations so could this be done on a seemingly small scale of sub branches of larger powerful factions?

Please note that this is simply a question that just came up in my head while reading it so I felt it okay to simply pose it here. 

[nikoh]

3 minutes ago, Aldarine said:

Due to positioning, let me preface this by stating that I am simply reading through this thread out of interest for all commentary and am not here to take a side or explain. While reading through this I did have a question that continued to come up in my head, in particular regarding the new member cap and some of the comments regarding gang recruitment and cutting players.

With a newly implemented cap and knowing that a gang cannot recruit into an official faction, what is to limit a gang from technically expanding? Created gangs tend to be off branches of much large organizations so could this be done on a seemingly small scale of sub branches of larger powerful factions?

Please note that this is simply a question that just came up in my head while reading it so I felt it okay to simply pose it here. 

OOC limitation on IC roleplay

[Msato]

3 minutes ago, Aldarine said:

Due to positioning, let me preface this by stating that I am simply reading through this thread out of interest for all commentary and am not here to take a side or explain. While reading through this I did have a question that continued to come up in my head, in particular regarding the new member cap and some of the comments regarding gang recruitment and cutting players.

With a newly implemented cap and knowing that a gang cannot recruit into an official faction, what is to limit a gang from technically expanding? Created gangs tend to be off branches of much large organizations so could this be done on a seemingly small scale of sub branches of larger powerful factions?

Please note that this is simply a question that just came up in my head while reading it so I felt it okay to simply pose it here. 

There is already a larger organisation at play formed of seperate factions, but all that has always been kept IC, and I personally dont like even mentioning it OOC. 

As for existing factions breaking off, I don't see how it makes any sense that after a 15+ months a faction be OOCly forced to essentially branch off, where one branch becomes the "B Team". 

[Jae]

I think in order to look at the current state of criminal RP, we should be looking at something bigger.

• Communication
  • The current communication between staff and player base exists, but we wish there was more. We went a long time without any significant updates, but NBDY began to communicate with the player base what he was working on and it got us excited, kept us around, and made us want to play the video game we play for fun. We didn't feel like we were being left in the dust anymore.
  • Communication needs to be increased between members of staff and the server. Something as significant as a player cap for factions shouldn't get randomly dropped from nowhere. Opinions should be taken into consideration from both criminal faction leaders, and even legal faction leaders (PD and SD) before coming to an educated decision and realizing what impact a change could have on the entirety of the server.
  • We want to be kept in the loop as to what is going on behind the scenes. At the end of the day, without the player base, ECRP wouldn't be anything. We want to see transparency, communication, and we want to work together to make the server better.
• Updates
  • The current updates being worked on by NBDY is something highly appreciated by the community. The biggest thing is that NBDY listens to what people want, and updates people on his progress as he goes, continuously taking feedback and working through things with the community.
  • He doesn't want to burn himself out, lose motivation, or give up on something he's invested so much time and effort into. The same goes for us, we also do not want to burn out, lose motivation, or give up on something we have all put lots of time and effort into.
  • The same principle should be adapted by the rest of the staff team. Think through a decision, understand the consequences of that decision, gather all possible perspectives on the new change, and make a formal decision based off that.
• Script Support to provide RP opportunity
  • As someone who has played for almost a year now, and played on both sides of the legal/illegal side, script support is something that needs to be implemented. While working at Bayview, there was always something to do. If you weren't working on cars, you could take out a tow vehicle. While working at DOC, you could do training or interact with the inmates, or even paperwork if deemed necessary. PD will always have things to do, because of the natural state of their job.
  • Script support should not be seen as a way to remove RP opportunity. Instead, we should look at it as a way to provide new chances for people to interact with each other. It seems over the last few months, we have been stripped of RP opportunity but it has not been replaced with anything.
  • The removal of turfs was not supplemented by something new for people to do. The addition of turfs has been advocated for ever since it got removed, and is now on the roadmap for development.
  • The removal of the Hakuchou Drag was not supplemented by anything new. (Not to mention people learning about this change before it was implemented and abusing it for their own profits)
  • People quickly switched to the Rapid GT which was also recently limited in the most recent updated (along with Comet Retros) to only go 240. You may ask, why only 240 km/h? This is the max speed of the Police helicopter, placing both on an even playing field. Even this change has been heavily debated in the past. IRL, plenty of vehicles can outrun police helicopters and it should still be a possibility.
  • The laptop was scriptly broken preventing us from getting weapons for the longest time. (This prevents gun sale RP, more forms of criminal RP, and even RP for PD/SD). "The Cartel" was supposed to fill in this void, but with the sheer amount of people in criminal RP, it's impossible to do it perfectly.
  • These are just a few things that have not been supplemented with something else for us to do. Labs switching away from static to mobile also lost us an RP opportunity (an unforeseen consequence).
• Faction Management (FM)
  • Faction Management works their ass off to better the overall RP of the server. They have the right intentions for the most part, but sometimes they make mistakes as well. I don't interact with FM myself, but they still have made decisions that impact me directly.
  • During the war with WCA, it was paused for 3-4 days by FM for seemingly no reason at the time (a reason came soon after the pause, not before). New war rules ensued, and the war shortly began thereafter.
  • It could have been communicated between the illegal factions involved as well as the legal factions their opinions on the current war. IF changes were deemed necessary, it should have been done after the war was over and not in the midst of a one-sided bloodbath.
  • This felt like pausing the NBA finals because Lebron James was putting up 50 point triple-doubles every night, and telling them they needed to limit Lebron James' minutes because he was slaughtering the other team. (spoiler: it made no difference)
  • With the recent player cap, it seems like a slap in the face. This is an OOC limit to something that has been built ICly. I fail to see the reason behind this, as well as many others. This seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back for most people. This all loops back around to communication or the lack thereof. If the reasoning behind the change was communicated with faction leaders and even discussed with them, this discussion could've been avoided.
• Rule Updates
  • For the most part, the robbery rule changes were a step in the right direction when first introduced. However, as others have said, the robbery rule change has affected criminals more than it has civilians. People are scared to rob someone due to getting reported. People don't know what's "safe" and what's not. Criminals who were already abusing NCZs now have a seemingly global NCZ as long as it's daylight.

In conclusion, we just want to help build a better community on ECRP. If we didn't care, we wouldn't be sitting here making these posts on this thread.

I hope something I said here sparks some ideas or discussion for others. I have more to say, but out of fear of being banned, I will refrain from saying anything else.

Edit: This is on behalf of someone in a big official faction, I can't imagine what solo players or small groups do to get by.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Jason_Shen

[Knoxi]

I've been apart of the LSPD for just over 3 years now. I've also always had a criminal character to play as well. I have to agree most of the points made, I've been discouraged as of late to play both sides. The new robbery rule makes sense to some degree, though I believe it needs some ironing out, as stated it can be very easily abused.

Reducing the cap on gangs, already makes for more boring RP from a PD side, think IB as @LeftSharkie pointed out. As well there goes my chance for a long time until I'd be able to try and join with the gang that I have been hanging out with on my crim (for no reason IC, other than some OOC rule somewhere).
I'm not sure how a gang can cover multiple time zones with 40 members let alone 60. Especially when PD and SD have no cap, PD sitting at 150+ members, and PD still can't cover NA/OCE timezone properly.

I understand why there could be a cap on criminal factions in place, however I feel if all 'official factions' are actually receiving the same treatment OOCly for all aspects, then there should be no reason that there is a cap at all.

Stuff like this makes it really frustrating to play, both sides of the table here.

[Hootless]

56 minutes ago, Itzsonzy said:

I'm in a very love hate with the changes, i think for the most part they are a good stepping stone in the right direction. But, and a big but, i do think there needs to be more scripted support for low level criminals. As someone who has been on all sides, i can say that as a fully legal character you have sooo much more script oppertunities and RP oppertunities that are not really restricted by OOC rules. Meanwhile on the criminal side, when starting out poor & uninformed as we all did at one point, i feel like hitting a tree for 6 hours in rust would be more interesting than afk fishing.

 

TL:DR; script more low level crim activities and actually encourage them, don't want to seem a downer but i think the chances of this happening are slim to none.

Script opportunities are limited for ALL crims. If you are saying you think that there should be a feathery bed for new crim faction to sleep on I disagree with that.

[Gyromite]

Few suggestions to help low level crim rp
1. Make it so we can rob stores with knives.
2. Make it so the new robbery rules don't apply during nighttime

Also, official factions don't need to cut people, so we can chill on that. I would also like to point out that the f4 cap is an ooc limitation, what's to stop official gangs from having more members, just not all of them in the f4? 

Edited May 28, 2020 by Johhnie_Everdeen

[Ultra3D]

Huge +1, The criminal side of things is getting neglected.

[Msato]

4 minutes ago, Johhnie_Everdeen said:

I would also like to point out that the f4 cap is an ooc limitation, what's to stop official gangs from having more members, just not all of them in the f4? 

That is exactly what official factions don't want to do? I'm sure we have earned enough trust by now to manage our numbers reasonable or fm would have intervened. 

People should be allowed to have pride in their faction and share the official status it has earned, not have Team A with official and F4 then Team B & C left as stragglers. It goes against every aspect of aspiring to move forwards to offficial. 

[Pelle]

big +1 . I really miss  having the sense of action at the farm, even as a worker actually. It was not even that bad really in those areas.

[Rekamon]

1 minute ago, Pelle said:

big +1 . I really miss  having the sense of action at the farm, even as a worker actually. It was not even that bad really in those areas.

That's saying something too.

[Serthon]

Moving forward, I would like for this thread to remain respectful towards each other. Overall, this is a good thread with valid arguments in the main post and replies, but attacking players that do not have the same opinion as you has to stop.

[Dim]

I really do agree with this, i have stopped playing my main criminal character for all the things above, and i'm not the only one.

 

About 7-8 of my friends who used to play main crims with me also completely stopped, so not only is this bad for us, its also affecting the server.

 

 

Quote

big +1 . I really miss  having the sense of action at the farm, even as a worker actually. It was not even that bad really in those areas.

 

 

Nowadays there is more crime and shootouts being commited at the farm than criminal hotspots.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Dim
Added quote

[WindEZ]

1 hour ago, CallumMontie said:

There is already a larger organisation at play formed of seperate factions, but all that has always been kept IC, and I personally dont like even mentioning it OOC. 

As for existing factions breaking off, I don't see how it makes any sense that after a 15+ months a faction be OOCly forced to essentially branch off, where one branch becomes the "B Team". 

Also @Aldarine not to mention the hours days and nights we put into recruitment process . Ic work , ooc work .

Why should we embrace this just for an ooc rule with 0 explinations ? I understand people are asking for the smoke icly lose then complain oocly 

But that is on them , dont ask for a war or a fight for 0 reasons then cry cause you lost it lol

 

As you are familiar with the talk we had 1 month ago for weeks and weeks about crime and the curent status of the life crime .

Here we are with another strike member cap , what we had before ? Theft rules + the pistol script change .

So my question is how long can people do it ? You should ask yourself when you see PD and legal people mentioning the fact that “ we have nothing to do “ PD dosent work without the crime they legit have nothing to do , grind trough the ranks for what ? Doing finger printa rp on a new player that talks oocly via voicp ? 

Edited May 28, 2020 by WindEZ