Willard Roleplay Atmosphere Discussion

[RedHotGinger]

For the purposes of this thread, when I mean Play to Win I refer to mindsets that encourage things like the following:
Skirting around RP or prolonged encounters to rush towards a favorable conclusion.
PK'ing or otherwise bringing significant harm to characters over slights or OOC motivation (I.E killing another character because they threatened you once, and eliminating them arbitrarily is your safest bet to not get killed yourself)
Players acting in a manner that suggests notable faction bias, disregarding any possible notions of non-violent (or at least non-fatal) interactions
Players disregarding general interactions and RP for the sake of purely grinding​

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This thread is something I am making out of genuine curiosity. To gather the thoughts that the player base holds to the current status of Roleplay on the server - specifically in relation to practical victory or defeat. I am curious to see if the community as a whole feels this is an actual, tangible issue...or something completely benign and not worth noting. This is also not a call-out thread towards any specific factions or players - this is a general measurement on how much/if such things effect the server and should be treated as such.

Beyond that, If people do believe it to be so, I think it would be good to have it known, and have somewhere thoughts can be drawn and collected so the issue can be tackled, if present. It's not my intention to have this be a massive drama thread. Keep any discussion relevant and decent.
(Note: Between game releases, the above impressions and a void that left a sour taste in my mouth, I've scarcely been on the server for over a week. This question is based on my observations and playtime over the last while, rather than anything particularly recent.)​

 

[ItsLiam]

The phrase “it’s just a game” is such a weak mindset. You are ok with what happened, losing, imperfection of a craft. When you stop getting angry after losing, you’ve lost twice. There’s always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle.

 

[Vadim]

The phrase “it’s just a game” is such a weak mindset. You are ok with what happened, losing, imperfection of a craft. When you stop getting angry after losing, you’ve lost twice. There’s always something to learn, and always room for improvement, never settle.

 

[ultima]

i like men

 

[Donavin Jones]

Blow up the nexus.

 

[ZeroPants]

The longer someone plays a character the more attached to it they become, the idea of losing your character along with everything they have and every experience they have been through can be scary, it pretty much forces players to play to win in fights and events, if you play to lose you most often end up dead. I don't have a clue how to fix this.

 

[TheDeNuke]

Clicks 'extremely so'

Refuses to Elaborate

 

[ItsLiam]

When you make a whole server around grinding 4 hours for 1 hatchet, ofcourse people are going to want to P2W

 

[Neonity]

When you make a whole server around grinding 4 hours for 1 hatchet, ofcourse people are going to want to P2W

4 hours if you’ve minmaxed your character build and know all loot spots and are lucky enough to get there before anyone else has looted them.

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

When you make a whole server around grinding 4 hours for 1 hatchet, ofcourse people are going to want to P2W

Broski, you weren't there when it took like a week to get a hatchet. Goddamn kids these days.... :troll:

 

[Zebra]

Twice ive almost been killed, and the players are just almost entirely un serious, and it felt like bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed.

Seeing chats ic and ooc of “Why are we wasting energy! Just fucking kill him! Hurry up and do it already” just puts everything you do to shame. Making it feel like a chore for people to interact with you.

There are good apples, I wont lie, but the bad ones spoil the bunch.

And sadly, as the stereotype goes, these problems stem from the rebels. I dont think out of a single interrogation, ive ever seen an officer get sick of seeing me oocly or get pissed off. Its always been pleasant encounters no matter the outcome.

I just think the rebelrp bar needs to be set fairly high. Almost as much as the civil protection one. Ive seen above average, to excellent typing speeds and clarity from units. Where as rebels rather treat every scenario as s2k.

 

[ZeroPants]

Twice ive almost been killed, and the players are just almost entirely un serious, and it felt like bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed.

Seeing chats ic and ooc of “Why are we wasting energy! Just fucking kill him! Hurry up and do it already” just puts everything you do to shame. Making it feel like a chore for people to interact with you.

There are good apples, I wont lie, but the bad ones spoil the bunch.

And sadly, as the stereotype goes, these problems stem from the rebels. I dont think out of a single interrogation, ive ever seen an officer get sick of seeing me oocly or get pissed off. Its always been pleasant encounters no matter the outcome.

I just think the rebelrp bar needs to be set fairly high. Almost as much as the civil protection one. Ive seen above average, to excellent typing speeds and clarity from units. Where as rebels rather treat every scenario as s2k.

I was trying to think of a good experience I had with rebels, I remembered that back during the I17 event the rebels didn't shoot me and Rad when we went down to talk to them on our CPRD characters, it was super cool being able to have a civil conversation with the rebel players while being part of the combine, it was super cool. Things were leading up to a sort of alliance between the local rebels and the CPRD in order to take down the Vuente administration, I loved where it was going.

...and then a rebel that witnessed me and rad speaking with the rebels snitched to the administrator and ruined the entire mega-event.

That whole situation really put me off from interacting with rebels at all. On the rare chance you get to RP with the good rebel players that don't shoot you instantly, another rebel will ruin it, sometimes for little to no reason at all.

 

[John Rico]

P2W mentality is just a staple of the gamemode as a whole. When you have so much hours wasted on developing your virtual character on the line, it's just inevitable that 99% of people will avoid taking risks and take bad faith shortcuts even if it means fucking over other people. If the game played in such a way that progressing your character wasn't such a grueling process in most cases, people would surely play nicer, but hl2rp never worked that way.

 

[Rat King]

When you make a whole server around grinding 4 hours for 1 hatchet, ofcourse people are going to want to P2W

yeah unfortunately this is just what it is. The more we funnel players into running around and pressing E for hours, the less likely they'll be willing to roleplay amicably when those accumulated hours of effort are in danger. If we moved away from a system that's both less entertaining and more grindy than most MMOs, you'd immediately see a huge decrease in what's percieved as 'P2W behavior'

 

[Eternal_Light]

yeah unfortunately this is just what it is. The more we funnel players into running around and pressing E for hours, the less likely they'll be willing to roleplay amicably when those accumulated hours of effort are in danger. If we moved away from a system that's both less entertaining and more grindy than most MMOs, you'd immediately see a huge decrease in what's percieved as 'P2W behavior'

Back in my day, we mugged CPs to get our loot. And that was the only way.

 

[AgathaL]

yeah unfortunately this is just what it is. The more we funnel players into running around and pressing E for hours, the less likely they'll be willing to roleplay amicably when those accumulated hours of effort are in danger. If we moved away from a system that's both less entertaining and more grindy than most MMOs, you'd immediately see a huge decrease in what's percieved as 'P2W behavior'

I think the "running around pressing E" for hours is fine though, what you absolutely don't want is reducing the entire outlaw/rebel experience to be trickle down economics dominated by player-led black markets with basically an extremely high bar of entry.
Like, P2W mentality is bad for Roleplay, but it's also just giving more alternative playstyles for people to enjoy without rebels becoming an exclusive club in which no new players will ever have a chance of experiencing.

All in all, P2W will always happen and its not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a reality that some people will be more obnoxious than others

Edit: Also I think this is how Willard has stayed relevant, a sprinkle of P2W/gamey aspects of actually accessible crafting and looting on top of serious RP, stuff for everyone to enjoy

 

[ItsLiam]

Broski, you weren't there when it took like a week to get a hatchet. Goddamn kids these days.... :troll:

Joku, I was around for that. I was there when it was better to take a LTARP ban then get pk’d because you’d genuinely save time

 

[ItsLiam]

yeah unfortunately this is just what it is. The more we funnel players into running around and pressing E for hours, the less likely they'll be willing to roleplay amicably when those accumulated hours of effort are in danger. If we moved away from a system that's both less entertaining and more grindy than most MMOs, you'd immediately see a huge decrease in what's percieved as 'P2W behavior'

I think Travis summed it up best when he told me “It takes 4 hours to grind for 1k chips.”

Funnily enough, 1k chips isn’t even a gun that’s not scrap, to not even mention the amount of ammunition you have to buy, not to mention the armour, food, everything.

The grind should he halved at least. Me personally, I’m fine with grinding 4 hours, I’ve played RPG’s where I had to grind 3 days for 0.5 more damage per hit. But it encourages P2W and toxicity/pk appeals whenever a character dies.

 

[Kappatalist]

I suppose it's a double edged sword. Willard's heavily invested into crafting/item gathering for rebels whereas other servers I've played this was very rare and the emphasis was placed on a lot more 'passive' RP.

By making items hard to get, you only encourage players who are willing to go through that to have a big play to win mindset.
By making them easy, you risk balancing issues and having a really militant server. For serious CityRP, this is bad. Although, I think if these things were solely used on expeditions, etc it just wouldn't matter and would only serve for players to have an enjoyable time.

I think more emphasis should be on RP, instead of grinding - the only problem is that this could be unfair, who decides who should be rewarded, and for what, it's the more traditional approach but it's flawed. Ultimately, I think this is simply what Willard chose to be.

When it comes to other factions, some have it more than others, although CPs are actually quite good for it in my experience. It's hard to balance what you want for your character, and creating an experience for other players. Deciding whether to report somebody, or to turn a blind eye for the sake of RP knowing it could come back and bite you in the ass is a hard choice when you're unsure if the other player would do the same, especially when you're in a Citizen faction who unlike CP you don't get second chances or a new character when you fuck up.

 

[ItsLiam]

Just half the grind… It’s so shrimple really… Make the buys cheaper and the sales more expensive…