My Final Conclusion

[Dealman]

Having played on the servers for a while now, I've found that there really isn't a whole lot of variety in terms of roleplay. Every day I play it, it's always the same thing that happens over and over and it really just doesn't keep you motivated to keep playing the game. So I thought I'd go ahead and post some feedback of what I've experienced thus far - playing with a friend of mine. The list is in no particular order.

1. PowergamingLife

This is by far the biggest issue I have. Every day, it doesn't matter what you do, there's always those guys that hide somewhere using 3rd person and then run up and say "put your hands up". If you don't co-operate within 5 seconds they will just shoot you anyway and take what you have. There's simply NO RISKS for being a robber. None whatsoever.

You gain nothing, you lose everything. They lose nothing, they gain everything. Risk should be needed for reward.

And even if you do co-operate and try to roleplay, you'll lose all the stuff either way. And yes, I know, it's roleplaying, I should value my life more than my items/vehicles which I have done plenty of times. But this just happens far too often for it to be a fun and engaging experience.

2. Cop Behaviour

Some of the actual interactions I've had with some cops have been great(need grease). However, I have seen some rather odd and quite frankly just outright unfair behavior from the majority of cops. All the time we spot cops lurking around within 200 meters of illegal activity spots, quite commonly the Meth Lab.

This to me is just pure bullshit if they can just roll up to such locations and just hide and wait for people to roll up and then ambush them. Cops should in my honest opinion 'pretend' that they don't necessarily know the whereabouts of these locations and as such - should fall under breaking the metagaming rule.

3. Rule Clarification

Having read the rules I have to say that while it's nicely written and structured, it lacks any depth in terms of when you're actually allowed to engaged people. Of all the time I've played I've only actually killed 2 people by shooting them, both of which they claimed I was breaking the rules because I retaliated and killed them while they were robbing me.

If we're in illegal areas and spot cops moving up, are we allowed to engage since we're... Oh you know, doing illegal activities? Or should we just wait and bend over, because if we do anything it's RDM?

Seeing as how strict the punishment is(as it should be), I think this would be a needed update.

4. Scrapping Vehicles

Seeing as how there is lockpicking and skills for it, I find it rather odd how it's mostly cops that scrap vehicles. Even more so, why do the cops even have the ability to scrap them at all? It would make so much more sense if scrapping vehicles were actually used for car thieves and make it profitable so it's actually a viable profession.

Cops can already impound vehicles, and it makes so much more sense for them to actually impound your vehicle rather than to scrap it. There might be some technical background for this, I just find it to be rather odd.

Summary

All in all, it's a good experience the first few hours but it quickly gets repetitive and just frustrating above anything. The general setup of the server is great, everything is nicely spread about and for the most part nicely balanced in terms of rewards for spent time/distance driven. The developers have done a great work, that's for sure.

To me and my friend, it just boils down to a boring experience where people camp at certain locations to rob and/or arrest you - leaving you no time to retaliate and even if you do, you're somehow breaking the rules.

So really all we've done lately is to drive around, get pulled over by cops because then you actually have some fun and engaging roleplay - apart from that? It's pretty much non-existent.

Also, please don't take this as a rant. It's feedback, it's both good and bad. It's based upon me and my friend's opinion and your might differ and that's fine.

 

[Motoyo]

I agree with a bit of these, but also have some insight/feedback to some of them. 

1. PowergamingLife (robberies)

So true, when I was a civilian, It amazes me how many apathetic cold blooded no conscience serial killers live on this island. The majority of the population would kill you as soon as they would walk across a street. Roleplay for a robbery usually = "say enough so it isnt RMD, kill victim take money and car".

2. Cop Behaviour

We can only sit at one for 15 minutes, and cant return for 30. its more a roleplay of "we know activity goes on here (like a real crack house is) but we have to catch people doing it". But to make it harder on us, we cannot sit for more than 15 minutes before having to leave the area.
If you see anyone camping for longer than that, there is a place to report police in the police forum, feel free to use it

3. Rule Clarification (camping)
I see your problem, and I empathise with it. But we have obstacles too in these situations, just they are different ones.
Actually it's hard unless we have a LOT of cops to come out on the upperhand. You dont see the times where we get ran off, killed, or they get away because we cant chase 6 people going 4 directions. 

Think of it from our point of view. IF 10 cops pull up you know we are all together. If we pull up and see 10 people, we have no idea who is with who. We have to engage each one individually before firing unless we see them shooting at us. You only have to engage one cop before resorting to gunfire on them all.
Also rebels have the upper hand as if we dont give at least 3-4 chances to comply, we get drug into TS to explain why we only said "hands up once" before shooting them when they ran. While rebels can go "leave or we shoot!" and shoot 4-5 second later taking out at least one officer (usually me).

4. Scrapping Vehicles (cops)

We get no money for scrapping them. It's more of 'taking into police property' a car used in illegal activity..without us getting the car or anything out of it. Impounding it just returns it to the player's garage. So worst we would be doing is making them pull it back out to use it that way. I myself wont scrap unless the player is totally being uncooperative and fighting us tooth and nail. If they are working and roleplaying with me, I see an impound, taking the drugs, and a ticket enough punishment. They are losing all the work of making the drugs for nothing then, and having to pay a fee on top of it.

 

[Dealman]

2. Cheers for clarifying the part about cops waiting at illegal zones, wasn't aware of that. It does make sense and since we're usually fairly careful in scouting the area due to all the robbery we should be fine. The frequency of it seems a bit over the top, but at the same time the cops gotta have some fun too.

3. While I wholeheartedly understand your point of view, that's kind of true for a real life scenario as well. I guess, though, it mostly just comes down to us playing it very carefully and we don't want to break the rules - which is why I want more clarification on the rules of engagement. If we're 2 guys for example cooking meth and we see a cop car, I want to open fire if they get too close - because we know what we're doing is illegal. We know that if we don't do anything, we'll lose all our stuff and be fined. There's simply nothing we can do aside from trying to run away.

4. Money or not is irrelevant, you're a cop. I mean it's rather silly to imagine that if a car is found with illegal goods, they send it to the scrap yard? Normally, or well, at least where I live stuff confiscated by the cops are usually auctioned(implementing such a system would be a lot of work though).

Which is why I think it would be a far more logical option for the cops to impound it, maybe a system where we need to pay a certain fee to retrieve our car from the impound. Again, this would mean more work. Or maybe it can be impounded once, if you're caught a second time - it's scrapped.

The point here though is that I think car theft should be a viable profession. As it stands, it's not in any way. You get like what, $1,500 for a sport hatchback? It's just a waste of time for the thief, and costs the owner hundreds of thousands. So it just becomes a nice feature that has a purpose, it's just not quite there.

 

[Jedd Lii]

I agree with both of you lads in some points but I also have some feedback on those points:

1. Powergaming

It is true and it happens often but I can also see an improvement since I have encountered multiple rebels who wanted to rp and gave me clear reasons for their behaviour and also rebels who surrender which for me is a sign of regret so I won´t punish them extremely hard. Although there are also people who go crazy whilst robbing you giving you 3 seconds to comply or you´ll get shot sadly, from my point of view, there is not really much we can do about it.

2. Police behaviour

Well I know your feeling since I felt the exact same way when I played as a civ, it turned out to be bad luck since I always did the illegal stuff when police was in the area or had a helicopter/drone in the air. Just try to choose times when you feel the police is not there and you should be fine

3. Engagement (Rules)

First of all the police officers, seeing it from my point of view, should not engage straight away but investigate the situation by talking to you lads if you´re not pointing weapons at them. I personally always try to help the civ or criminal or whatever you wanna call yourself in that situation by rping. So either you go along with that rp or you buy yourself some weapons and defend yourself from the police by telling them "to p*** off" or they will be shot at. Just shooting at every cop in an "illegal" area would end in a bloodbath and would completely eliminate every chance of actually catching a criminal red handed.

4. Scrapping

We can only scrap vehicles after the owner has been confirmed and a big amount of illegal substances have been found in the vehicle. Also you have to reach a certain rank to "unlock" the scrapping option and you still need permission from a higher up after that. So it is ensured that most of the scraps are justified. If you feel your vehicle is wrongly scrapped you can always ask if you can talk to a police officer on Teamspeak who was involved.

 

[Lord Hank of Kavala]

I would like to see being a car thief a viable thing to do, we could have the ability to scrap them as civs and get the £1500  or we could sell them to a guy at a car dealership.

For example, you roll into Hank's Bangers, where the kind man (the owner i.e Hank) takes the vehicle and sells it on the black market, you would get for example £30,000 for a sporty, and when you go to Hank's Bangers you could purchase a vehicle to throwaway.

Here's a scenario,

3 car theives steal 3 Hemmt Boxes, and sell them at Hank's Bangers for £100k each as opposed to scrapping for £60k, Then a gang on their way to the HM Treasury shows up at Hank's Banger and buys 3 Hemmt Boxes for £200k each as opposed to £525k each, and drive to do their Treasury. As they buy these because they are stolen they Have fake plates, if a cop ANPRs the vehicle it will say "no registered owner" or "Number Plate not in database"

at the end of the heist they abandon the Hemmts and walk away richer. 

Or it could be a way of not so rich people getting hold of better vehicles to make money with before buying their own. 

Many uses for a vehicle with fake plates, Pop to Hank's Bangers.

 

[Ambassador Fung]

If we're in illegal areas and spot cops moving up, are we allowed to engage since we're... Oh you know, doing illegal activities? Or should we just wait and bend over, because if we do anything it's RDM?

Seeing as how strict the punishment is(as it should be), I think this would be a needed update.

By this logic, does that mean we could shoot you for doing said illegal activities with no compliance? 

 

[Esqy]

By this logic, does that mean we could shoot you for doing said illegal activities with no compliance? 

Therin lies the issue. The baddies could just snipe the police before they even got close. So a run would just be a driver and a sniper.

I was RDM'd by someone in a similar situation - i went to the truck shop, and saw a box truck outside it, and a guy nearby in full camo. My reasoning was: if he is wearing that, he would not have that truck, so i turned the car to flee and got shot. I was so far away that i couldnt hear him initiating -- I have no doubt that he did, but from where i was sitting, I heard nothing. 

In an ideal world, he could have shot my tyres and RP'd it properly, but hey - they are busy criminals! point is - i was 90% sure he was a baddie, but could literally do nothing to prevent myself from being shot and robbed. Including run away.

I think OPs first point is the most relevant one. There is more risk and less reward for staying legal. Wanna make money? Get a gun and hang out at the traders. You'll bank loads before getting caught, and will get a fine of a relatively small amount.

Being legal just means that the police wont arrest you - it still carries all the risk of the more risky runs, and a bit more if the cops are focusing on patrolling the illegal run routes

 

[gaz6464]

By this logic, does that mean we could shoot you for doing said illegal activities with no compliance? 

No, as a criminal in an illegal area we would know police are wanting us. As a cop you wouldnt know until you had done a search or were fired upon. Like real life cops, you would be extra cautious cos its fishy. Tail them out of the red zone, further the better.

 

[PC Harvey]

3 car theives steal 3 Hemmt Boxes, and sell them at Hank's Bangers for £100k each as opposed to scrapping for £60k, Then a gang on their way to the HM Treasury shows up at Hank's Banger and buys 3 Hemmt Boxes for £200k each as opposed to £525k each, and drive to do their Treasury. As they buy these because they are stolen they Have fake plates, if a cop ANPRs the vehicle it will say "no registered owner" or "Number Plate not in database"

i love this idea, but i think it should be a lot more expensive