Willard Roleplay Atmosphere Discussion

[Risvolto]

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.)​

Don't blame the player. Blame the system

Willard's system is made for people to want to win. I'll divide it in two sides.
(I have civil protection whitelist, and play it frequently, and I also main rebel, so I have absolutely no bias)

CIVIL PROTECTION:
Civil protection, while not losing as much as rebels do upon dying (Unless you're a rank leader), DO lose a bunch of progress upon death. This is what understandably makes them want to have their characters survive, and therefore PLAY TO WIN, altho, precisely for the specified above, because they don't lose as much as rebels, there are many players in the faction that sometimes do play to lose (Including myself).
Losing consequences:
-De-ranking
-Losing all your backstory
-Losing all your credits
-Losing all your character relations
This can take away from one week to months, or even years in the case of rank leaders.

REBELS:
They're pretty much obligated to grind, and incentivized to do so (The whole system is around that, with lootcrates and the crafting menu). A top tier rebel will have spent from 1 month to years in their character. That's why they're almost obligated to play to win, and prepare ambushes that give them the full advantage over the situation. Playing to lose is punished with death and the loss of months of progress with a character.
Losing consequences:
-Completely starting over from the beggining
-Having to re-grind you way up
-You lose every conection, and backstory
-You lose every single script and skill.
OVERWATCH TRANSHUMAN ARM:
OTA are non-characters that don't lose anything upon death. They shouldn't play to win, right? Well, in my opinion there's a 50% on this. IF OTA don't play to win, then rebels will always win, and that's not fun for anyone. OTA should play to win, but have the dissadvantage (Like that event in the lighthouse with tons of rebels against groups of 8 OTA), causing them to win in some situations where rebels can't win even with the advantage, and lose in others.
There are no losing consequences.

 

[Rebel RP Philosopher]

To my experience, the grind is for those who want to have their own control of rebel rp. If you do not like the grind, try forming an interesting character which a rebel main with a stronger grind mindset can rely on.

 

[ItsLiam]

To my experience, the grind is for those who want to have their own control of rebel rp. If you do not like the grind, try forming an interesting character which a rebel main with a stronger grind mindset can rely on.

The grinders do NOT want to help you PEASANTS out, okay? You will grind, you will have the grindset, and you WILL like it, capiche?

 

[BrennenW05]

What Rislov said, when losing = death and months to years of progress lost, people will play to win

 

[CyckaLoop16]

i got an SG after months of trying, ofcourse I want to keep my character alive at all costs and not lose my SG. Also, it would be very unrealistic for to play P2L.

 

[Neonity]

When everything you've ever worked to accomplish in up to a year or more of playing is on the line, of course players are going to do everything they can to keep it. When the punishment of failure is losing everything you ever had, this is obvious human nature, and not something we can blame players for.

For most people, the brand-new character experience is the worst one there is. You have nothing to your name, nobody knows you, nobody cares about you. The only thing you're presented with from this point forward is grind. The magic of the first time playing Willard is gone, because you know everything and everyone OOC, so the sense of discovery is gone. The only thing you are now faced with is that dreaded grind you've already spent several of your IRL months on doing. A LOT of players quit the server at this stage, for good reason. Losing your character can be the very difference between having fun on the server and no longer having fun. And correct me if I'm wrong, but most people play the server because it's fun. Of course they don't want it to no longer be fun.

 

[George]

bruh it's not that deep if you die and lose months of progress just quit the server idk man simple to me

 

[Vadim]

People who mainly play loyalists without playing any OWF faction or Rebel faction always play this shit (redhotginger)
VERY easy to say "Why don't you just lose..." without having any experience in the factions affected the most
Also very ironic certain people here have had the same characters for 2+ years and are saying this shit....

 

[Kaffee]

just play to lose guys why don’t you want to be constantly miserable jeez

 

[CyckaLoop16]

you play to win, i win to play.

 

[George]

winners perspective only w's

 

[RedHotGinger]

People who mainly play loyalists without playing any OWF faction or Rebel faction always play this shit (redhotginger)

I didn't even give my opinion on it directly nor imply any opinion I have is correct. It's very plainly a poll, which was posted so community members can give thoughts on if a problem is present/why its present. Staff and whoever can then be plainly aware of such metrics. It's that simple.

 

[HalfLife2CitizenMale09]

But like how do you fix this anyway

 

[George]

But like how do you fix this anyway

PK everyone, start fresh.

Remove grind for scripts accommodating good rp = rewards

Reduce PKs unless they fit narrative.

People probably wouldn’t play to win in this atmosphere but it brings plenty of its own issues. Even if they did play to win it would have that big of an impact.

 

[Rabid]

The mistake is thinking that removing penalties on death will stop people P2Wing - I used to think like this until I played on several communities that have next to no penalties on death regardless of what happens, to the point you have to consent to losing your character. Y'know what I quickly found out?

People still powergame. People still complain about others powergaming. People stop measuring progress in gear and start measuring it on whether or not they can keep the RP they've just sunk hours into doing via dodging their next NLR instead, which is no better, or the gear they've dropped that potentially got snatched by someone else.

I'm not saying losing everything is ideal - far from it - but its basically trading one headache for the other.

 

[Equinox]

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​

---

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.)​

Absolutely. This comes with the nature of grinding and scripts. Back in the day of old HL2RP the term “scriptwhore” was very real and even considered derogatory because it was put on people who cared more about getting guns and shit rather than roleplaying. I don’t know why this changed. Scripts should be given to people who demonstrate that they’ve done extensive roleplay both to develop their character, and maybe even improved overall RP on the server.

This play to win attitude has screwed Citizen RP. Rebels don’t want and are even discouraged from improving Citizen RP (which they should be doing primarily) because collecting scripts is most efficiently done by being disconnected from the rest of the server. This ultimately falls on the staff to provide an alternative, roleplay focused method of obtaining resources- but I’m not sure if that’s happening atm.

 

[Vadim]

Rebels are discouraged from interacting with citizens, cause when you RP anywhere but sewers or rebel areas (or even if you do) you get /request REBELS ON ME. and then a squad of CPs instantly floods in to PK you with no regard for your own fun

 

[BrennenW05]

Absolutely. This comes with the nature of grinding and scripts. Back in the day of old HL2RP the term “scriptwhore” was very real and even considered derogatory because it was put on people who cared more about getting guns and shit rather than roleplaying. I don’t know why this changed. Scripts should be given to people who demonstrate that they’ve done extensive roleplay both to develop their character, and maybe even improved overall RP on the server.

This play to win attitude has screwed Citizen RP. Rebels don’t want and are even discouraged from improving Citizen RP (which they should be doing primarily) because collecting scripts is most efficiently done by being disconnected from the rest of the server. This ultimately falls on the staff to provide an alternative, roleplay focused method of obtaining resources- but I’m not sure if that’s happening atm.

having items and wanting to get them dose not = no rp

 

[RedHotGinger]

you get /request REBELS ON ME. and then a squad of CPs instantly floods in to PK you with no regard for your own fun

Really, its the crux of the issue with everything people seem to do. "We have to be dicks because if we don't, we'll be dicked first."
At some point players have to start deciding to stop that cycle that was probably started during the Bottlestreet era and try to actually build a degree of trust amongst eachother as a group of likeminded Roleplayers. At the end of the day, if you log onto the server, you ought to be most interested in narrative and forming relationships with other characters. That goes from both Rebel and all the way to CP, civ and all others.

The above logic is what everyone uses - even me. Because the environment of the server is hyper-competitive, and with the way people engage with eachother, never have any reason to assume they wouldn't just be shot. Not because it would be a good thread to start a story, or any other worthy reason, but because it provides bragging rights on Discord or an ego check - maybe a script or two.

Honestly, who cares which faction does it the most at this point. The poll clearly shows that a majority of the playerbase believes this in some degree, and changing some PK policy slightly or altering any rule I dont think is going to even approach fixing it. Its a community issue that started at some distant past, and has since snowballed into nobody trusting anyone to respect them.

I think there's probably alot of symbolism in how bleedout executions currently work. Why does every rebel and CP take the time to double-tap each unmoving corpse in their way? Why did that become the accepted norm? Why is beating some poor dude with a pipe, while he has no weapons, to death in wildly janky S2K spam fests considered fair play? Its not just about grind imo.

 

[Zebra]

I dont know why someone with a hatchet is able to s2k someone unarmed. That seems ridulous.

If it was for injury, to make a point, sure. But just killing them for nlr is so silly.

And we really need to enforce the 5 item limit in mugging. If you arent killing someone, why do you need useless shit like a loyalist armband, a junk item, and a pair of standard shoes. You had my AK, 3 mags, m40 gasmask, and radio. Why do u need my blue beanie and a turtle lol.