The new drug system

[OllieWollie]

So before i delve in to my views i would just like to point out these are my OWN PERSONAL OPINION. I am in no way taking away from the brilliant Dev work put in by the team.

The new drug system to my knowledge, has made it so only one selling spot at a time will give a bonus for selling drugs, rather than being solely dependant on the amount of police online. Now this may seem good at first look, however i believe it is a slight backwards move. We knew that drugs needed changing, as coke had been dominating the server for years. So the Gus drops changed, which adds a nice variation to the products available to sell. So the bonus was tweaked and selling prices changed to be dependent on how many police were online (to stop people selling at crackhead hours in order to not be bothered) which was a very good move. It also allowed us smaller groups to look for our own way of manufacturing and selling drugs. This has lead to a big increase in pharmacies being hit, in return creating more RP for the police (chases, hostage situations etc.). It was a high risk, Medium reward system which also allowed us to work with many other gangs, trading different chemicals that we needed and buying and selling accordingly. However, with the very recent edition of "hotzones" (which only whitelisted gangs are able to check where these are) It seems to be a step backwards. Obviously we all know that Whitelisted gangs should be rewarded, as they are whitelisted for providing high quality roleplay. However, this update has set back us smaller groups a lot, when we were once manufacturing our own drugs, expanding our business with other smaller groups as well as some whitelisted, we now have to either pay a whitelisted gang in order to find out which turf we can sell on, or try and find it ourselves and inevitably be taxed. To add to this, last night i paid 35k to find out the location, only to be told it was the Occult camp (to anyone that doesn't know, the occult camp is behind a locked gate, and usually has 2 or 3 locals inside the gates at most). I just want to get other peoples opinions on this as i understand this is new and most likely will be tweaked. Please feel free to tell me where i am wrong or if you disagree with anything i've said.

 

[SGT Dean Hastings]

I don't play crim (I'm police main) but if the hot zone as you call it can be places like the Occult camp then perhaps this needs to be tweaked. That does seem a bit unreasonable, the hot zones should make sense in RP.

I recommend making suggestion, or move this post to suggestions?

 

[OnlyWanWayne]

I think hotspots are a great idea, however from my experience the positions in which the hotspots are placed, seem to be low local density areas, I dont know if theres a way to implement it so that when a hotspot spawns, the population would increase to make it worth while. On the other hand I actually think its a positive to boost drug bonuses in ordinary areas in correlation to police presence, pushing everyone into a hotspot will not work due to the sale limit on locals

 

[qaws]

I think hotspots are a great idea, however from my experience the positions in which the hotspots are placed, seem to be low local density areas, I dont know if theres a way to implement it so that when a hotspot spawns, the population would increase to make it worth while. On the other hand I actually think its a positive to boost drug bonuses in ordinary areas in correlation to police presence, pushing everyone into a hotspot will not work due to the sale limit on locals

Butting in on this, mixing both recent changes (buffed drug prices but also having a hotspot) would be class. Maybe, in a hotspot, delete the max limit of purchases 1 local can do (currently 4-6?) and spawn more locals that can buy.

 

[Martle]

IMO I feel this is a backwards step maybe they are just testing it to see how it goes but b4 this change it was a nice change instead of doing bins 24/7 as this is the best paid job only if all jobs were equal pay would be a lot better and give us options instead of just doing bins. So when the drugs changed, it was great u could chill on turf and make a bit of cash and rp with gang members. Yes u can do this in any aspect, but to me a lot of ppl seem to be down and bored now because of this change, probably just me lol. I can't say what every signal person is feeling. Maybe tweak the time u can sell at high prices b4 am sure it was good prices from 6 till like 2am maybe shorten it to 7 till like 11 maybe idk, but this new change isn't it imo. There was high risk of chases gangs having issues like going to the island but now as the prices isn't as good and u can only sell pacific drugs in pacific areas at a lower cost who would want to go through the time it takes to make certain drugs to sell for not great prices.

 

[norskov23]

I think hotspots are a great idea, however from my experience the positions in which the hotspots are placed, seem to be low local density areas, I dont know if theres a way to implement it so that when a hotspot spawns, the population would increase to make it worth while. On the other hand I actually think its a positive to boost drug bonuses in ordinary areas in correlation to police presence, pushing everyone into a hotspot will not work due to the sale limit on locals

I agree with this; hotspots are a great idea but I don't believe the execution was as the community expected.

In my personal opinion I believe hotspots should be multiple zones (2-3, maybe even 4 after 6 PM storm) and not just one. I believe that having a singular zone be hotspots promotes a lot of negative consequences that not only promote unnecessary gang conflicts, but also makes it harder for newer players to really get settled in when it comes to illegal activities. Not only that, but as Wayne mentioned, with a singular hotspot, it's not unrealistic that the ratio of locals to players will be severely uneven, making it hard for majority of people to actually get their drugs sold. I'm a big fan of different drugs in different zones, and I think this could be enforced by adding multiple hotzones with different drug types selling for different values.

Adding onto what i said about unnecessary gang conflicts and increased difficulty for newer players, i heard that the first day the hotspot was introduced (correct me if i'm wrong), the area was the Occult camp. Not only is this a very hard place to get to and actually start selling, but (again, correct me if i'm wrong) i heard that Occult charged around 40.000 pounds for people to be allowed to sell there. Now, knowing Occult, i'm not doubting that this tax wasn't to try and bait a war, but to be completely upfront and honest, i think there will be a lot of gangs who will see this as an opportunity to bait a war. Charge 50.000 in tax, someone will go down to the turf and refuse to pay tax, and just like that a beef has started that could potentially last multiple weeks.

 

[AdamD]

I agree with this; hotspots are a great idea but I don't believe the execution was as the community expected.

In my personal opinion I believe hotspots should be multiple zones (2-3, maybe even 4 after 6 PM storm) and not just one. I believe that having a singular zone be hotspots promotes a lot of negative consequences that not only promote unnecessary gang conflicts, but also makes it harder for newer players to really get settled in when it comes to illegal activities. Not only that, but as Wayne mentioned, with a singular hotspot, it's not unrealistic that the ratio of locals to players will be severely uneven, making it hard for majority of people to actually get their drugs sold. I'm a big fan of different drugs in different zones, and I think this could be enforced by adding multiple hotzones with different drug types selling for different values.

Adding onto what i said about unnecessary gang conflicts and increased difficulty for newer players, i heard that the first day the hotspot was introduced (correct me if i'm wrong), the area was the Occult camp. Not only is this a very hard place to get to and actually start selling, but (again, correct me if i'm wrong) i heard that Occult charged around 40.000 pounds for people to be allowed to sell there. Now, knowing Occult, i'm not doubting that this tax wasn't to try and bait a war, but to be completely upfront and honest, i think there will be a lot of gangs who will see this as an opportunity to bait a war. Charge 50.000 in tax, someone will go down to the turf and refuse to pay tax, and just like that a beef has started that could potentially last multiple weeks.

I’m sure things will improve, P.S no one was charged 40k that’s nonsense

 

[norskov23]

I’m sure things will improve, P.S no one was charged 40k that’s nonsense

Apologies lad haha

 

[Samuel Shire]

Almost like people forgot the apostles used to charge 80-100k to sell outside the church 4 years ago if they caught you that is

 

[_Zino]

Agreed!

 

[_Zino]

down and bored now because of this change, probably just me lol.

And me pal

 

[Nikki Nixon]

The city was bursting with bikes everywhere. Everyone talking about drugs and where to make them and how. Every turf had people on. and all of a sudden dead again. I didnt know why but now i do. Id say run it back. Dont change it if its not broken. A lot of things are now punishing non whitlisted gangs and giving everything to W.L gangs. This will make it a lot more harder to start up new gangs as it takes a long time as it is and will put people off from doing so. When players can just join an already whitelisted gang and save all the time and get all the perks. Non whitelisted gangs need stuff too.

 

[Doctor Box]

The idea of hot zones was a good one in my opinion, however the execution went wrong. I agree with norskov that instead of only one hot zone being active at a time several of them can be active and I think instead of being the only place where you make an increased amount of money the boost still takes place on all turfs, but hotzones sell more often and have a slight to moderate edge over selling in the non hotzone areas.
Along with this it'd be nice to have Gus send the message to everyone with access to him within the group that paid for the info, as that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

 

[Leroy C]

I agree with this; hotspots are a great idea but I don't believe the execution was as the community expected.

In my personal opinion I believe hotspots should be multiple zones (2-3, maybe even 4 after 6 PM storm) and not just one. I believe that having a singular zone be hotspots promotes a lot of negative consequences that not only promote unnecessary gang conflicts, but also makes it harder for newer players to really get settled in when it comes to illegal activities. Not only that, but as Wayne mentioned, with a singular hotspot, it's not unrealistic that the ratio of locals to players will be severely uneven, making it hard for majority of people to actually get their drugs sold. I'm a big fan of different drugs in different zones, and I think this could be enforced by adding multiple hotzones with different drug types selling for different values.

Adding onto what i said about unnecessary gang conflicts and increased difficulty for newer players, i heard that the first day the hotspot was introduced (correct me if i'm wrong), the area was the Occult camp. Not only is this a very hard place to get to and actually start selling, but (again, correct me if i'm wrong) i heard that Occult charged around 40.000 pounds for people to be allowed to sell there. Now, knowing Occult, i'm not doubting that this tax wasn't to try and bait a war, but to be completely upfront and honest, i think there will be a lot of gangs who will see this as an opportunity to bait a war. Charge 50.000 in tax, someone will go down to the turf and refuse to pay tax, and just like that a beef has started that could potentially last multiple weeks.

I'd like to preface this by saying this is also my personal opinion and not staff opinion,

Also I've been out of crim life for a while so haven't really had the chance to experiment with the recent changes, but from what I've gathered reading peoples responses it seems like just increasing local spawns or removing the buy limit in these hotzones would be a good solution.

You mention gang conflicts, so I'm wondering if that's necessarily a bad thing. This could, for once, create some proper beef instead of a full blown war caused by someone who had their feewings hurt. Maybe down the line something could get added that allows for gangs to control a hotzone if they're there first, or maybe graffiti tags could define who controls a hotzone and thus gets to tax people. (Again, this I don't know, I'm just adding own ideas to this discussion.)
I get where people are coming from with population in those areas vs local buy limit though, can definitely see that being an issue.

Someone else mentioned how, before this was implemented, gangs were actively sitting on turf and selling again, maybe there could be some middle ground where locals on gang turfs always buy at a reasonable price, but nowhere near as much as these 'contested' hotzones. Although that would obviously require a lot more testing to figure out where that middle ground would be.

 

[Stavik]

What makes me happy is that none of you guys knows yet how hotzones works haha.
We atleast made that work as intended!

What we have discovered is a bug and this is pending fix. You will see prices be abit nicer to you and as intended when this is pushed in.

I don't play crim (I'm police main) but if the hot zone as you call it can be places like the Occult camp then perhaps this needs to be tweaked. That does seem a bit unreasonable, the hot zones should make sense in RP.

I recommend making suggestion, or move this post to suggestions?

This is info we only really learn about after the fact when data starts running in. Thats why we have to try them first in a live environment.

Increasing NPC's is a server stability thing, we have to look at it first and see whats doable. Time
But we might have another way of maaaybe dealing with that.

Butting in on this, mixing both recent changes (buffed drug prices but also having a hotspot) would be class. Maybe, in a hotspot, delete the max limit of purchases 1 local can do (currently 4-6?) and spawn more locals that can buy.

Most of this is replied to above.

IMO I feel this is a backwards step maybe they are just testing it to see how it goes but b4 this change it was a nice change instead of doing bins 24/7 as this is the best paid job only if all jobs were equal pay would be a lot better and give us options instead of just doing bins. So when the drugs changed, it was great u could chill on turf and make a bit of cash and rp with gang members. Yes u can do this in any aspect, but to me a lot of ppl seem to be down and bored now because of this change, probably just me lol. I can't say what every signal person is feeling. Maybe tweak the time u can sell at high prices b4 am sure it was good prices from 6 till like 2am maybe shorten it to 7 till like 11 maybe idk, but this new change isn't it imo. There was high risk of chases gangs having issues like going to the island but now as the prices isn't as good and u can only sell pacific drugs in pacific areas at a lower cost who would want to go through the time it takes to make certain drugs to sell for not great prices.

There is was discovered a bug that led to what was not intended. Fix is awaiting push. More actual normal level pay will come.

I agree with this; hotspots are a great idea but I don't believe the execution was as the community expected.

In my personal opinion I believe hotspots should be multiple zones (2-3, maybe even 4 after 6 PM storm) and not just one. I believe that having a singular zone be hotspots promotes a lot of negative consequences that not only promote unnecessary gang conflicts, but also makes it harder for newer players to really get settled in when it comes to illegal activities. Not only that, but as Wayne mentioned, with a singular hotspot, it's not unrealistic that the ratio of locals to players will be severely uneven, making it hard for majority of people to actually get their drugs sold. I'm a big fan of different drugs in different zones, and I think this could be enforced by adding multiple hotzones with different drug types selling for different values.

Adding onto what i said about unnecessary gang conflicts and increased difficulty for newer players, i heard that the first day the hotspot was introduced (correct me if i'm wrong), the area was the Occult camp. Not only is this a very hard place to get to and actually start selling, but (again, correct me if i'm wrong) i heard that Occult charged around 40.000 pounds for people to be allowed to sell there. Now, knowing Occult, i'm not doubting that this tax wasn't to try and bait a war, but to be completely upfront and honest, i think there will be a lot of gangs who will see this as an opportunity to bait a war. Charge 50.000 in tax, someone will go down to the turf and refuse to pay tax, and just like that a beef has started that could potentially last multiple weeks.

The community has gotten exactly what it wanted. Updates. We have now ventured into new features within that. So we are actually way past what we set out to, but response was good so we kept going.

You very much dont know how hotzones work. I'll leave it at that, cause its fun seeing people run about to figure out things! It's like a treasure hunt where certain aspects here and there

The city was bursting with bikes everywhere. Everyone talking about drugs and where to make them and how. Every turf had people on. and all of a sudden dead again. I didnt know why but now i do. Id say run it back. Dont change it if its not broken. A lot of things are now punishing non whitlisted gangs and giving everything to W.L gangs. This will make it a lot more harder to start up new gangs as it takes a long time as it is and will put people off from doing so. When players can just join an already whitelisted gang and save all the time and get all the perks. Non whitelisted gangs need stuff too.

Thats abit negative isnt it?
Being a *normie* should not be easy. If you want to dedicate your life to crime, find the big ones or venture down the path of starting a new group and work towards becoming one.
Every single drug is to some extent available to everyone - so if you really want it, you can get it. Be smart about it. Fix is coming in for a bug that snuck in and we'll see, no. I know it will improve then.

The idea of hot zones was a good one in my opinion, however the execution went wrong. I agree with norskov that instead of only one hot zone being active at a time several of them can be active and I think instead of being the only place where you make an increased amount of money the boost still takes place on all turfs, but hotzones sell more often and have a slight to moderate edge over selling in the non hotzone areas.
Along with this it'd be nice to have Gus send the message to everyone with access to him within the group that paid for the info, as that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Again, we have been very much holding back on info from hotzones. Cause we wanna see people use their head abit. Gone are the days silver platters.
Why cant your gang member just share the information?



TLDR;
Bug detected, fix is awaiting push.
Happy hunting for more information about the hotzones <3



Use this thread to ask questions if you have them.

 

[qaws]

This is info we only really learn about after the fact when data starts running in. Thats why we have to try them first in a live environment.

I honestly applaud you for the effort you and the devs are putting in, but I do have an issue with what I quoted above. I think some things could be foreseen before an update goes live. I know for myself I've applied to be game tester once, and there's probably other experienced people (in this case preferably crim mains or have spent a lot of time on a crim) that could tell you beforehand that stuff like this could happen.

Not trying to bash anyone here but I know "my" resources are available to help with stuff like this and with me many others I assume!

I think besides this minor issue and the latest changes we are going in the right direction for gangs. Hopefully there's more to come!

 

[Stavik]

I honestly applaud you for the effort you and the devs are putting in, but I do have an issue with what I quoted above. I think some things could be foreseen before an update goes live. I know for myself I've applied to be game tester once, and there's probably other experienced people (in this case preferably crim mains or have spent a lot of time on a crim) that could tell you beforehand that stuff like this could happen.

Not trying to bash anyone here but I know "my" resources are available to help with stuff like this and with me many others I assume!

I think besides this minor issue and the latest changes we are going in the right direction for gangs. Hopefully there's more to come!

Game testing could only show so much.
Overall server stability we are talking about here. Dangerous territory.
Il rathe be careful

 

[qaws]

Game testing could only show so much.
Overall server stability we are talking about here. Dangerous territory.
Il rathe be careful

I mostly mean "simple" things that devs would overlook because 1: they're so busy with the code and stuff they might legit overlook it 2: they don't have a lot of experience as criminals

Example: occult being a prominent hotzone etc

 

[Stavik]

I mostly mean "simple" things that devs would overlook because 1: they're so busy with the code and stuff they might legit overlook it 2: they don't have a lot of experience as criminals

Example: occult being a prominent hotzone etc

Why leave someone out initially without learning about its potential problems?

The Occult isnt the only hotzone (Hot tip)


We do talk to our experienced players bud. Recipes, time, input, output. Thats all based of what players say.

 

[Bobinz]

I think besides this minor issue and the latest changes we are going in the right direction for gangs. Hopefully there's more to come!

There is indeed more to come!

I think some things could be foreseen before an update goes live

To very breifly address this. There only so much you can emulate on a testing environment. We do try to test the features we add/change, but sadly we need to "force" some scenarios (in code) to simulate certain events. - A total unrelated example can be, instead of lowering the required amount of cops for a robbery, we try to emulate that we indeed have the required amount of cops online (even when not) - because in fact, I dont want to have 25 cops online on my dev server to work on the bank robberies ( again - an example). This means, that for testing we do need to set a "ground" most of the times, the problem is when a bug/error occurs on the steps before - This is the current bug.

Example: occult being a prominent hotzone etc

This was added and I did not forsee this as an issue, because the idea is to force RP between groups. The same can happen if a group (lets take hustlers as an example) are very aggressive torwards you if you are selling on their turf. Same principle! Yet, I do see the "advantage" that a gate community has. - even when it is fully possible to go inside with a closed gate

Along with this it'd be nice to have Gus send the message to everyone with access to him within the group that paid for the info, as that doesn't seem to be the case right now.

Gus is a very impatient man, and he doesn't work for you! - on a serious note now, why do you think this should be the case?
One person asks for information, one person gets the information. He can share with the rest of the group.