Deathmatching & Character Development.

[MoneybagsCarminati]

I want to suggest an idea that will hopefully mitigate or take value away from people who don't seem to share the same developmental values as the people who will spend lots of time building and growing their characters.  I'm sure we can all agree that people who go around issuing PKs and CK's for little to no reason (as stated in IG rules & 4) can be a major reason why universes either get split and/or people quit the server. 

 

A good example I'll use for the sake of this discussion a recent issue between the Bellomo Crime Family and the Hells Runners MC.  Up until recently, @danut and myself didn't see each other as healthy for the server because a lot of interactions between our members revolved around shooting and killing.  We didn't see his faction as a group who wanted to develop here, and vice versa, they didn't see our faction as a group who wanted to let anyone else develop here.  To both of us, if grace wouldn't have been shown during a moment where we had reached out to each other, members of both of our factions were threatening to quit the server.  And sometimes, the staff can't do anything about whether a player stays or goes because sometimes the players just can't co exist with each other and that comes down to the patience of the players, not the staff.  Sometimes, the staff can do everything we ask for and for some people it just won't be enough.  Thankfully, that isn't the case no more since danut and I spoke, and in just maybe a half hour to an hour, we have set a better canvas for both of our factions to co exist by simply agreeing to keep IC completely IC and identifying and acknowledging each other's wants for our factions.  Going over a few realistic points.  Going over the key word in this discussion.  Standards.  

How many other factions are experiencing that?  Well, I can't say off the top of my head but I'm sure we werent the only ones, and won't be the last.  So now that the preamble is over lets go over a few things. 

 

Deathmatching can ruin the development for many.  Players who go around shooting and killing each other for little to no reason other than for the sake of wanting to shoot someone create a hostile, unplayable environment.  We must first identify the problem.  The behavior of deathmatchers are as followed:

* People who kill over OOC fighting. Not keeping IC completely IC.
*  People who kill swathes of others or unrelated bystanders in 1 swoop by themselves or with a small group.
* People who kill and log out immediately, not leaving room for the opposers to hit back or the police to get involved.
* People who make up lies or exaggerations as to why their kills were justified.
* Players who kill more than 1 person per 2-3 weeks.

Right now, the deathmatching standards are not clear as a bell, though the rules written are clear enough, there needs to be a line drawn on what deathmatching behavior is.  Perhaps, based on what was just listed, the deathmatching STANDARDS can be extended.
____________________________________________________________________________

Preventative measures:

People who'se behavior follow the points listed can be subject to being in violation of deathmatching even more so than the person who kills someone in self defense or kills an enemy probably once per 2 or 3 months.  People who are actually considered guilty of deathmatching frequently should be forced to CK their character based off of their lack of understanding of character development, the very thing they ruin for people who are actually trying to develop.  While some people think that deathmatchers are not trying to develop characters in the first place, rendering this suggestion useless, we must remember the main thing that deathmatchers want.  Clout.  So if we take away the character they've been building their clout with and turn it into a point of reference for shame, perhaps they'd be less inclined to go around shooting people so often on each and every character they've made.  People who are guilty of deathmatching shouldn't be allowed back for 30 days minimum.  And those who are caught in the actually roleplayed act of murder shall be looking at near-permanent time in jail, making use of our court systems on the forums.  (I think court should be roleplayed more ICly, but we will work on that.)  If the LSPD and SASD roleplayers took the act of murder more seriously and more intensely went after the murderers on our server, I'm sure that murder would be a less desirable act as well.

TL:DR for this section:
* Force CK convicted deathmatchers. 
* Make deathmatching punishments longer and harsher.
* Create IC measures that make murders a far bigger risk, bringing war roleplay into a realm where it's less desirable, to prevent the act of deathmatching.
* Give LSPD and SASD more tools such as ballistics, forensics, and investigation rooms to properly investigate and punish murderers in the roleplay environment.

In the current state of the server, who thinks this is needed?  I will leave the post open for people for 7 days.  Really think about it, add to the discussion if you must and please cast your vote when you're ready, not immediately.  No answer is wrong.  This is an opportunity for the community to speak.  In advance, I won't take people's criticism as an attack.  Do not attack each other's views and do not attack the general point of this discussion please.  The community has an opportunity here to make LSRP a more stellar environment for character development.  

[livid]

Hey, man! I'm sorry to say, but not only is your suggestion not going to be accepted, but if @Sparkles runs across this one - better be ready for this to be locked and archived before you even get a response! For reference, read through one of my suggestions to understand why I'm saying that.

(I love you, Sparkles, just joshing around <3)

 

In conclusion, people really don't like the rules to be altered in any single way (source: the poll on my above mentioned thread), which ultimately means that a certain group of people might slightly agree with you, while the other won't - and it'll all just come crashing down and all that text you wrote will amount to absolutely nothing, unfortunately.

 

I suggested a very similar thing, however, people's experience on this server mostly revolves around "rule-playing" and exploiting that exact rule (deathmatching) that you so vigorously wish to be stricter. A majority of the community is here to have fun, and not necessarily spend too much time developing their characters at all. I, just like yourself and many others, have a different viewpoint on how roleplay should be approached, albeit, the most we can do is stick to ourselves and try to keep roleplay as interesting as possible. 

 

As for the forced character kills, this unfortunately won't ever be implemented due to the fact it has a pint of "mixing" involved; meaning that we're punishing them OOC for their IC actions (even though their IC actions are driven by OOC motives) - disbanding their characters due to something that they may or may not get punished for on an OOC level.

 

Deathmatching punishments certainly should be harsher, or well, punishments in general. Thirty minute admin jails aren't going to do anyone any solid, because:

A) These people are not here to contribute to the community, therefore, they certainly won't be applying for the staff team (rendering their admin record useless)

B) These people are not here to contribute to the roleplay, therefore, they certainly won't be applying for any LEO faction (rendering their admin record useless)

C) These thirty minutes that they get admin jailed for will ultimately be used to watch a single episode of their favorite show before resuming their shenanigans.

 

Admin jails should be based on a point system and each punishment should have a certain amount of points that will be issued on the player's admin record; which means they'll obviously be ranked via severity (hacking, deathmatching, powergaming, metagaming, common courtesy, etc..) - and these punishments should last a minimum of twelve (12) hours to a maximum of seven (7) days. They should be completely banned from entering the server at all until their punishment expires. Once you accumulate a certain amount of points, your sentence either gets extended (for example: twenty-eight (24) to forty-eight (48) hours) for being admin jailed several times in a short time period, or you simply receive a permanent ban and are unable to log in until you appeal. Points should expire after a certain time period, let's say a month, and then the point system resets and the repeat offenses become less severe.

 

Regarding the forensics and increasing IC punishments for murder - absolutely yes! Law enforcement roleplayers should be able to conduct thorough investigations in order to apprehend people guilty of murder. I have had several situations where I couldn't pursue a situation due to the lack of server/script support for Detectives or LEO roleplayers in general.

People either ignore you when you ask for any sort of footage which would've realistically been caught on a camera in a replica of a modern day Los Angeles in the middle of a popular and busy street where there are several businesses, both government and citizen led - and then you'll be asked to request mapping of a physical CCTV entity to be present in order for you to be able to roleplay having any sort of footage (because doing the opposite will render you as a mere rule-breaking powergamer), which, of course, is rarely ever going to happen, and being told that is ultimately useless because the crime already took place and there's no use in requesting the camera.

 

My honest conclusion? I don't think this thread is going to go much further than a divided discussion in which people will include other less important factors to prove why the current system must remain as it is in order to avoid player attrition. I would love more than anything to be proven wrong, however! So excuse my slight pessimism and sarcastic jabs; that's just how I mess around. 

 

 

[MoneybagsCarminati]

My goal clearly isn't to divide the community.  Thanks for your input.  If people fight on this thread, I'd imagine it's because they can't handle the suggestion that's being put forth.  Hope nobody loses sleep over so far 9 people wanting a better change for the community.  Great thing about this is, it requires no script changes.  It's just a harder look at the rules and what everyone's here for.

[Kaos.]

I believe the punishments need to be harsher in general. I've noticed a trend of people leaving after being DM'd or people leaving because of DM occurring to much within the community. Deathmatching isn't something that should be let off with just a 20-30 minute ajail. Deathmatching should be a break from the server.

[livid]

I never implied your goal is to “divide the community”. I said “I don't think this thread is going to go much further than a divided discussion in which people will include other less important factors to prove why the current system must remain as it is in order to avoid player attrition.”

 

Nor am I saying anyone is going to fight over the thread. Point is that I doubt the staff team is going to put “you can’t kill more than one person in two weeks” in the rules. The conclusion will always be “You can report someone if they’re breaking the rules and they’ll be handled appropriately.” I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m saying that that’s how things go.

 

I also appreciate your input and agree with you that the rules should be stricter, however, you should be a lot more specific with your suggestion when it comes to a revamp of a rule that’s been in place and not changed for almost a decade at this point. 

[MoneybagsCarminati]

2 hours ago, livid said:

I never implied your goal is to “divide the community”. I said “I don't think this thread is going to go much further than a divided discussion in which people will include other less important factors to prove why the current system must remain as it is in order to avoid player attrition.”

 

Nor am I saying anyone is going to fight over the thread. Point is that I doubt the staff team is going to put “you can’t kill more than one person in two weeks” in the rules. The conclusion will always be “You can report someone if they’re breaking the rules and they’ll be handled appropriately.” I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m saying that that’s how things go.

 

I also appreciate your input and agree with you that the rules should be stricter, however, you should be a lot more specific with your suggestion when it comes to a revamp of a rule that’s been in place and not changed for almost a decade at this point. 

I think if the staff team wants to be harsher on deathmatchers, they'd pay attention to the polls and the discussion that take place in this thread.  So if they can keep their eyes off the arguing and more on the will of the players, your worries shall be for nothing.  This is for the better.  I'm excited to see how it turns out.

[Sprinter]

Nueve Flats 13, as a faction, was DM'd day in, day out. We had 60 people in that faction and majority eventually all quit from how often we'd get DM'd. We had to go through some lengthy reports to even get a fraction of punishment towards those who deserved it.. The amount of effort that had to be put in to get someone punished was annoying for all of us, due to how crappy the punishment was. Punishments should be much harsher to deter those from killing the playerbase. A lot of the deathmatchers actually knew how to roleplay but didn't take LS-RP seriously like they did their other servers.

People may disagree with what I've said but if you weren't in NF13, you had no idea how bad it was. Luckily we had @Birdman & @Marshall as admins in our faction. I could only imagine how fucked it would've been if we didn't have staff in the faction. Regardless, DM'ing literally killed the largest and most active faction on this server. Also, DMs punishments were extremely light at the time so idk about now. Just thought I'd put it out there cause I'm sure I'm speaking on alot of behalfs.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Sprinter

[DirtyEddy]

On 11/2/2023 at 6:44 AM, Sprinter said:

Nueve Flats 13, as a faction, was DM'd day in, day out. We had 60 people in that faction and majority eventually all quit from how often we'd get DM'd. We had to go through some lengthy reports to even get a fraction of punishment towards those who deserved it.. The amount of effort that had to be put in to get someone punished was annoying for all of us, due to how crappy the punishment was. Punishments should be much harsher to deter those from killing the playerbase. A lot of the deathmatchers actually knew how to roleplay but didn't take LS-RP seriously like they did their other servers.

People may disagree with what I've said but if you weren't in NF13, you had no idea how bad it was. Luckily we had @Birdman & @Marshall as admins in our faction. I could only imagine how fucked it would've been if we didn't have staff in the faction. Regardless, DM'ing literally killed the largest and most active faction on this server. Also, DMs punishments were extremely light at the time so idk about now. Just thought I'd put it out there cause I'm sure I'm speaking on alot of behalfs.

I feel this one. It's disheartening.

[MoneybagsCarminati]

Poll will stay open for 2-3 more days until we see this discussion come to an end.  I appreciate everyone's input and participation.  We'd like a little more input and a little more voting for the sake of survey.

[MoneybagsCarminati]

In accordance to our poll, 80% of the participating people in this thread believe for the sake of character development that deathmatching should be treated harsher, and the staff should consider some of the points in this thread.

The poll is closed off and the 10% of people who think these are just too harsh of points have not explained why they think deathmatching should be treated as is, and left as is.

I'd like the staff to close this thread for the sake of later discussion and use this as a point of forward movement.  A portion of the active community has spoken.  Thanks for keeping this thread up, and to the players, thanks for keeping this on meaningful terms.

We've had 1 week to vote and explain our sides.  I'd like to conclude my end with this.  The deathmatching on LSRP has effected the playerbase.  How we treat deathmatching has set the wrong standard.  LSRP since 2007 has been known for upholding better standards despite the very regular slips each and every server experiences.  What's important to know early is that when you set the standard early, the more acceptable it is the further down the line.  So the longer we are lenient on deathmatchers, the more it'll become OK to deathmatch in LSRP.  The more harsh we are on deathmatchers, the less likely people will be inclined to commit the act of deathmatching later on down the line.

Thanks for the opportunity to let the community speak. Please lock. Thanks again.