Rebels should not have events or expeditions if they do not create engaging content themselves.

[Conundrum]

Now this suggestion is going to be controversial and rile up a good portion of the community, probably, but I propose that no further creative events are provided specifically to the Rebel playerbase by default.

A new system is suggested to come into effect, one where disruptive acts against the Combine on the main server provide points which can be redeemed by the Rebel faction lead(s) to decide what kind of story content they can be spent on. Both random acts of terrorism, as well as quest goals should provide these points. Which can be spent on shipments, narratives and expeditions. With the latter costing a good amount.

Perhaps this could encourage Rebels to put their characters at risk to create 'greater' change, or at least provide something for the general population to gossip about. If they do not do so, then they are provided no support.

The CCA is essentially being given the full narrative focus because unlike Rebels, who should be a counter balance, the CCA actually has a presence and is already in a position to do what they want largely unchallenged.

I don't know. It is just a suggestion. Something needs to change and I'm sure someone else can think up the nuances. I have yet to feel any impact Rebels have provided to the main server. At most, some throwaways have made things mildly interesting with their kamikazi's spicing things up. Dedicated Rebels may as well not exist.

 

[Neonity]

City 24 V3, as a map, is built almost entirely around surface rebels. What I mean by that is rebels who hang out on the surface, appearing like civilians, infiltrating various Combine departments like the CWU and CMU and CPs and the like.

V3 can feel somewhat claustrophobic towards the other end of the spectrum regarding rebels, being those who I like to call "open carry" rebels. Those who are militaristic and wear their rebel gear whenever they get the chance to show it up. Those deserve no pity. They're in one of the central districts of C24 and open resistance can and should be curtailed whenever it becomes apparent.

When I mention raiding the Nexus and killing CCA, something that probably comes to mind right away is an armed group of insurgents looking like the Taliban rolling up to the gate, blowing it open, causing a massive firefight and eventually complete destruction for one side.

But it doesn't have to be this way. See, if your goal is to kill CCA there are much safer options that don't guarantee excessive death. For example, try joining the MOE as a tele-programmer (one of the guys who appear on the broadcasts) and gain Nexus access that way. You get total access to the CCA part of the Nexus just for showing your face and rambling some propaganda? And you don't have to grind for weeks to pull it off, but instead, all you'll need to do is prove your RP quality in the form of showing your character can make themselves presentable for broadcasts. Using this newfound privilege, after several Nexus visits, you can get away with sneaking in a pistol, stashing it somewhere inside if need be, pulling it out when the coast is clear, and killing your most hated CCA member. And you can probably get away before anyone knows it was you.

Or the other more simple solution is to join Civil Protection, work your way up to a rank that provides a gun, and then simply walking up to CCA in the Nexus and shooting them on the spot. It works, there's no reason it shouldn't. Rogue auths are a thing but they're incredibly lenient provided you can sufficiently explain your reasoning. And it doesn't take much.

TLDR; Map built around infiltration-style rebelRP, nobody does it anyway. Give it a try.

 

[Belgg]

The most of the points I wished to make have already been stated by others in this regard, but I believe there to be another 3 OOC reasons on why one may think Rebels are inactive... and that is true to some extent.

Firstly, the map... its small- its layout is not exactly offering much and generally can easily feel stale. With that said, the map is really not made for Rebel Activity whatsoever. It was made to bring RP as close as possible at the expense of Combat and resistance activity... it really is NOT designed for rebels to act at all unlike other maps which have rebel hideouts in every nook and cranny you can think of. The compact size allows OTA and CPs to chase their target and quickly corner them. Its layout offers little in methods or ways to escape that any attempt at an attack is pointless given all escape routes are defacto cut off no matter what.

The recent addition of the new Checkpoint and makeshift wall has put a big stranglehold on the rebels with them not being able to destroy it... why can't they destroy it... well reason number 2.

Secondly, Auths... Auths are the biggest pain in the arse for any rebel or even citizen for that matter. Some take ages to get a response, others do get a response but sometimes the team is not really willing to let things slide or go in anyone's favour. Recently there was someone who wished to blow up CP-3, the new Triumph checkpoint- they had prepared and where about to hit it but of course one thing they needed was an Auth... and while they did in the end give up anyway due to the fact the CP-3 as a big ion cannon capable of one-shotting any rebel in its path (retarded ngl) it is still noted to take about 2-4 weeks for that auth to even lift off the ground. What was the reason? The person who built the checkpoint was to be the one to oversee it... which I found silly since never should a specific person be required to oversee an attack, just do it.

I am the type of person who believes in Clockwork era RebelRP where one did not need to go through an Auth process. Attacks were spontaneous and GMs and factions alike had to respond on their feet as and when shit went down. Never did Rebels have to go through a process other than just waiting for the time to strike when 4+ CPs were online. Surprising everyone with their pants down (not literally). And while yes it was a pain to deal with- everything was indeed more fluent and natural feeling with Rebels behaving like true insurgents and picking the battles they could win without Combine knowing about it OOCly prior.

Not saying auths should go entirely, just ones relating to attacks AFTER THE FACT rebels have the gear they need to do what they wish to do. I remember this being a panic installation because no one could tell how much damage one could do and was always out of control and random.

Lastly, rules... rules are good but a few do have an inadvertent side effect of royally screwing everyone. They are out of date and are currently being updated but even so- they are a bit on the side of a WTF moment in some places. Sometimes entire fights or resistance activity is stopped in its tracks simply because some ambiguous requirement has not been met... how peculiar... how anti-rp some of them are. I know some of them are there to protect other users but maybe a loose ruleset might be more beneficial for those wanting to commit a larger variety of crime without 5 different requirements needing a tick mark.

Honestly, compared to my CW HL2RP days. Willard is a bit of a 50/50 when it comes to matching those environments with some internal panic happening too frequently over the smallest of things.

That is my input...

Honestly Idk why admins don't just let robert handle the economy, or fucking the entire rebel side, allowing him to make big changes like removing auths, or changing them

 

[Belgg]

I thought If u die as cp you just get a new one

Not if you're rogue.

 

[Belgg]

And you don't have to grind for weeks to pull it off

u r right, it's not weeks, it's months

 

[Neonity]

Honestly Idk why admins don't just let robert handle the economy, or fucking the entire rebel side, allowing him to make big changes like removing auths, or changing them

Robert is currently in-charge of the major economy reworks including but not limited to BMD pricing and more. Pretty much every aspect of the economy but more will be revealed by himself.

Yesterday I stepped down from BMD Manager to focus more on the staff team instead, deciding to promote Robert to BMD Manager in my place.

Auths are already much simplified with updated internal rulesets and CT being allowed to view and accept/deny auths so that’s covered as well.

 

[Belgg]

Robert is currently in-charge of the major economy reworks including but not limited to BMD pricing and more. Pretty much every aspect of the economy but more will be revealed by himself.

no way willard is doing something right. It can't be...

Yesterday I stepped down from BMD Manager to focus more on the staff team instead, deciding to promote Robert to BMD Manager in my place.

:O keeps getting better

Auths are already much simplified with updated internal rulesets and CT being allowed to view and accept/deny auths so that’s covered as well.

doesn't fix the problem tho. Auths are fucking shitty cause you can't just improvise something in place by asking someone to supervise you, so making an improvised attack on some combine high up will be impossible, like if you see the fucking city administrator walking around the city with two overwatch soldiers and want to set a trap, make an improvised bomb, or some shit like that, you'd have to fucking get authed

just make Robert server lead.

 

[Robert]

just make Robert server lead.

 

[ultima]

no way willard is doing something right. It can't be...

:O keeps getting better

doesn't fix the problem tho. Auths are fucking shitty cause you can't just improvise something in place by asking someone to supervise you, so making an improvised attack on some combine high up will be impossible, like if you see the fucking city administrator walking around the city with two overwatch soldiers and want to set a trap, make an improvised bomb, or some shit like that, you'd have to fucking get authed

just make Robert server lead.

u have a lot of faith in 1 person

 

[dude]

u have a lot of faith in 1 person

real rebels know... robert carries the resistance

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

2-It is hard as fuck to join civil protection and become a corrupt/rogue, as if you die as that character, you lose your CP whitelist, which makes people not want to be rogue.

That's not how that works, at all.

Info - Civil Protection Faction Rules

Faction Rules This is a collection of OOC faction rules that every member of the faction must know and follow; failure to do so may result in dewhitelist or blacklist; the punishment is, of course, at the leads' discretion. Some rules may be adjusted or removed in case of a server event; any...

willard.network

If your character dies as a result of rogue-escque behaviour, you may create a new unit at the rank of i5 which may not engage in treacherous or corrupt behaviour unless specifically authorized by leads.

You don't lose your WL, that'd be stupid as hell.

 

[Fallizs]

honestly I say we just revamp/change the auth system or remove it entirely, alot of people here seem to hate it and for good reason imo, especially if you are trying to make something small that somehow counts as auth

also, don't forget that auth's take days/weeks to even be answered, it's shitty and it ruins plans as you need to wait days for it to even be replied to

V3 is a good map sure, but it was sure as shit not built for rebels at all

 

[Neonity]

In terms of auths I tend to disagree as a lot of things can be authed in-game with little difficulty whatsoever and that's what the auth guidelines themselves state too.

The general rule of thumb for auths is: "If it can be used to seriously harm or kill another character, it requires a forum auth.". This is a preventative measure and most of the "dangerous" auths do get authed after we've seen the proper IC motivations and methods used to obtain them.

Auths do get checked fairly quickly as well as both CT and staff are able to view and comment and even accept them nowadays which greatly increases the speed.

 

[Gr4Ss]

You are completely wrong. Every single sentence is incorrect.

1- The city is as unsafe as the slums to do big things thanks to how things are set up (You get a full squad to OTA as if it was an attack on triumph for anything you do anywhere, even the slums)
2-Attacks on the city are rare because any time there is an attack on the city the combine overreacts, activating fucking 100 million resources that somehow arrive in minutes (A full squad of fully armed and ready OTA), and there is no way to win anything from said attack(Even if you say: "OH, you should try destroying combine shit on expeditions, or destroying their railways, or doing this, or doing that. That never happens. Firstly because there is no system that actually makes that work, currently. Second, even if you did do it, OTA would still have their guns, and CP too, so you can't do ANYTHING to weaken combine in or outside the city thanks to how the server is set up.)
3- There are no expeditions. They have disabled a long time ago, and now the only expeditions available are the ones that happen once each month and are carried out by admins, and give shitty rewards (Not only on scripts, but lore-wise too), as they have 0 effect on the main server, and if not 0, then 0,00001 effect.

4-Funny. Really funny.
"Bob doesn't take his gear to the city and occasionally goes to the outlands with his friends to shoot some stuff up or dismantle combine shit"
BUT THEN YOU SAY:
"And one day the vice administrator or some other big figure attends the funeral of some combine traitor outside the nexus. He gets blown up by Bob, who has quietly stashed enough C4 to level half a building during the past six months (surprised adminge faces when they determine this is valid). He will kill the vice admin (or some other big figure), get declared anti-citizen one while being recruited by Civil Protection to put out his own fire because they don't know that Bob is Bob"
What an insane amount of expectance from Willard.
I'll discuss this last part on two different issues:
1- He never carries his stuff to the city, but SOMEHOW he is able to build a bomb in seconds/minutes of seeing a high up in the city, which would require him to go to the slums, get his shit, then makes an auth for the bomb, then builds the bomb, then brings it back to the city (And that if no one gets him). You obviously CAN NOT make an auth for a fucking bomb, take your shit from the slums, build it, and then plant it in so little time. And EVEN IF YOU PLANNED TO MURDER HIM WITH A WEAPON, 1º: YOU AREN'T GUARANTEED A KILL, as they have OTA with them, and the gun that deals the most damage is the SCAR, and that's hard as fuck to get, and requires good aim and 4 shots to the head, and 2º: Once he fires, if he killed the high up, what does he do to survive? Toss the fucking scar that is so hard to get? And even if he did toss it, that doesn't guarantee he won't get found.
2-It is hard as fuck to join civil protection and become a corrupt/rogue, as if you die as that character, you lose your CP whitelist, which makes people not want to be rogue.

And to finish, I'd love it if you could tell me A SINGLE REBEL that does what you said and succeeds in it. A SINGLE ONE (That walks on the city silently, and when he sees something big happen, interferes) You can't just say "Mabre", or "rice" as both of them do not strike on the city ever against anyone to later come back to where they were as normal civvies. That is just insanity.

I know there are no expeditions for rebels (I never got to have mine because they were CANCELLED right as it was my turn to go). Consider my post an argument to give rebels expeditions again now that they are starting up once more. And to keep going at it. And to make them matter. I am not sure why you think we disagree here on like the first three points...

Also I don't need to look far for rebels that actually pulled off what I mentioned, because I did it myself - thrice. First time was on i17 where I had essentially started with bare basics (like 300 chips bare basics) and ended up EMP'ing the CPRD lab. Yes, I went through auths for this, made the EMP device using explosives and planted it myself. The entire resistance the whole time on i17 had basically managed to achieve fuck all up to that point. I sat on a bench on the plaza for the sweep timer.

Once was actually fire bombing a funeral that the vice admin was attending together with like every single loyalist online, and I got recruited (read: forced) into the workshift to put out my own fire as I was sitting out my sweep timer on a bench in the plaza. I didn't have explosives at that time, but I was only building up for 2 months and mainly gathering things for my expo which didn't include explosives (with 3 weeks of shit gained left in i17). I had 2 pulse weapons, bunch of armor and some other expo shit without abusing chip loops on the smuggler... I believe that to be worth more than the few explosives a certain rebel used to blow up half the RDT around that time too... Again, this was with auth to use some explosives to cover a larger area with thermite to get a big fire going more quickly.

The other time was firebombing the emergency RDT setup in a store bordering the slums, but CWU put out that fire quickly so it didn't amount to much. Too soon after my first fire I guess. I did wait out my sweep timer on a bench in the plaza again though.

So far Alice still hasn't gotten a BOLO or anything more on her than me purposely giving lip to cops who don't know the contraband guide I wrote and steal my disinfected bandages. Can't be a model citizen if you are going to be seen hanging around the slums as well. Alice did actually go out on an expo, I just didn't really gain anything from it because everyone is a fucking scriptwhore and made me pay an antlion extract to not get killed.

So yeah, say again it can't be done... If I didn't have an actual life to keep me busy, I would come back to do it a fourth time to prove the point.

Edit: would also like to mention, I purposely handicapped myself by disallowing myself chip loops. I also purposely avoided doing anything where me being an admin would have given me an advantage. I got my shit either through means available to normal players, or by going through a GM like a normal player would. Nothing was self-authed.

 

[Fallizs]

In terms of auths I tend to disagree as a lot of things can be authed in-game with little difficulty whatsoever and that's what the auth guidelines themselves state too.

The general rule of thumb for auths is: "If it can be used to seriously harm or kill another character, it requires a forum auth.". This is a preventative measure and most of the "dangerous" auths do get authed after we've seen the proper IC motivations and methods used to obtain them.

Auths do get checked fairly quickly as well as both CT and staff are able to view and comment and even accept them nowadays which greatly increases the speed.

yeah, but someone like "bob" doesn't pull a bomb auth out of his ass (which alone takes quite a bit of time to accept/decline in itself) and make a bomb in the slums like it's nothing in a instant the second a higher up gets out of nexus

sounds like a admin rebel to me, personally

 

[Gr4Ss]

yeah, but someone like "bob" doesn't pull a bomb auth out of his ass (which alone takes quite a bit of time to accept/decline in itself) and make a bomb in the slums like it's nothing in a instant the second a higher up gets out of nexus

sounds like a admin rebel to me, personally

admins can verify I got an auth via the forums for that, twice even if I remember correctly, should still be in the archive

 

[Neonity]

yeah, but someone like "bob" doesn't pull a bomb auth out of his ass (which alone takes quite a bit of time to accept/decline in itself) and make a bomb in the slums like it's nothing in a instant the second a higher up gets out of nexus

sounds like a admin rebel to me, personally

Don't know where you're going with this but every admin (yes, admin) that wanted to craft stuff like this on their normal citizen whitelist character has needed to go through the auths process just like everyone else. No exceptions, I promise.

 

[Belgg]

I know there are no expeditions for rebels (I never got to have mine because they were CANCELLED right as it was my turn to go). Consider my post an argument to give rebels expeditions again now that they are starting up once more. And to keep going at it. And to make them matter. I am not sure why you think we disagree here on like the first three points...

Also I don't need to look far for rebels that actually pulled off what I mentioned, because I did it myself - thrice. First time was on i17 where I had essentially started with bare basics (like 300 chips bare basics) and ended up EMP'ing the CPRD lab. Yes, I went through auths for this, made the EMP device using explosives and planted it myself. The entire resistance the whole time on i17 had basically managed to achieve fuck all up to that point. I sat on a bench on the plaza for the sweep timer.

Once was actually fire bombing a funeral that the vice admin was attending together with like every single loyalist online, and I got recruited (read: forced) into the workshift to put out my own fire as I was sitting out my sweep timer on a bench in the plaza. I didn't have explosives at that time, but I was only building up for 2 months and mainly gathering things for my expo which didn't include explosives (with 3 weeks of shit gained left in i17). I had 2 pulse weapons, bunch of armor and some other expo shit without abusing chip loops on the smuggler... I believe that to be worth more than the few explosives a certain rebel used to blow up half the RDT around that time too... Again, this was with auth to use some explosives to cover a larger area with thermite to get a big fire going more quickly.

The other time was firebombing the emergency RDT setup in a store bordering the slums, but CWU put out that fire quickly so it didn't amount to much. Too soon after my first fire I guess. I did wait out my sweep timer on a bench in the plaza again though.

So far Alice still hasn't gotten a BOLO or anything more on her than me purposely giving lip to cops who don't know the contraband guide I wrote and steal my disinfected bandages. Can't be a model citizen if you are going to be seen hanging around the slums as well. Alice did actually go out on an expo, I just didn't really gain anything from it because everyone is a fucking scriptwhore and made me pay an antlion extract to not get killed.

So yeah, say again it can't be done... If I didn't have an actual life to keep me busy, I would come back to do it a fourth time to prove the point.

Edit: would also like to mention, I purposely handicapped myself by disallowing myself chip loops. I also purposely avoided doing anything where me being an admin would have given me an advantage. I got my shit either through means available to normal players, or by going through a GM like a normal player would. Nothing was self-authed.

Your character is an event character. And you are an administrator :|

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

...to cops who don't know the contraband guide I wrote and steal my disinfected bandages.

(It was me)

 

[Belgg]

Auths do get checked fairly quickly as well as both CT and staff are able to view and comment and even accept them nowadays which greatly increases the speed.

LOL.
I'll send a few screenshots to show how wrong this is.

This is an auth for me removing 1 level that I missclicked (Took almost 4 days)




Took 4 DAYS just to do something as simple as that.

Now another example:


Another one...


With all the examples shown above, we can assume that the average time they take to respond is 4-10 days, which CLEARLY doesn't work for something as Gr4ss described.

Auths only work for assaulting buildings(As they don't move with time), or such things. Not for people, as shown by the time it takes to make auths.
If we understand this point, we can then assume that it's 100% impossible to do rebel activity as he describes and be invisible on the surface while still making a difference, as either you're actively involved in the slums to know what's up (Since they don't post shit in the discord anymore), or you're a city rebel and can't do shit other than rob buildings or get information (Which is used for absolutely nothing unless an event/transfer is going on, which simply does not happen.)

 

[Belgg]

You don't lose your WL, that'd be stupid as hell.

Used to work that way. Ask claptrap, that rule has been changed. (Used to be that you lose your whitelist, and now it isn't apparently)