The state of the server when it comes to police and gangs has gone to shit MASSIVELY since I started playing almost 3 years ago.
There have been points in that time however that things were balanced, RP was provided on both sides. Situations played out and fuckin Apaches, MRAPs, Blackhawks and all that bollocks were insanely rare to see. These were times before head armour and the massive win hungry mentality came into play. Taking the Triads V Ballas war as one example here, when feds would turn up, they would just use measures to try and disperse the criminals, 5-10 annoying ass sirens on loop n getting in the way of Jesters etc, not hopping out and blasting straight away just they can hoover up some guns n throw people in prison for a couple hours, only doing so after a decent amount of time passed to actually give people a chance to leave the area. Even back in the OG Vagos/Azteca war that lasted like 6 months, police presence was nowhere near as much as it was now, they let us do our thing, kept their distance, collected evidence n handed out warrants etc. Both of those periods in time where Roleplay was put first and people were allowed to have their fun on both sides, I never once saw an MRAP, very rarely saw the Blackhawk and never saw an Apache or an F15 at least not until the end of the fights to get the Helis gone out of the sky.
Not saying gangs are perfect, there should be more thought in how long you stay in a situation, taking armed response into account, and if needed just leaving instead of taking on police as well. At the end of the day the police should be stronger than you, you should fear them, but at the same time, it should at least be POSSIBLE that if played right you could fight the police and win.
The whole ‘well this would/wouldn’t happen irl’ argument is bullshit and should be ignored IMO. At the end of the day it’s a server, yes it’s branded as serious RP but if we’re being real, it’s not really is it anymore. The server needs a change and it needs to have a direction, and that needs to come from how the server is now and how it should be going forward taking note on feedback from suggestions like this, groups discord and the community as a whole.
This thread isn’t going to change a thing either. As of right now it’s 2 sides going at each other, one feeling like they’re owed something, one feeling the opposite, and neither having an actual conversation about it.