Discussion Solving the Rebel Economy Issues

[M!NT]

Greetings. Over the last few months I've heard a lot of complaints about the current 'system' which rebel characters use to gather scripts. The so called 'rebel' economy, if it were. Many people, including myself, consider said system to be half baked, boring, and incredibly time consuming. I think we can all agree that something needs to change.

The purpose of this thread is to figure out what.



This is a very controversial topic so, to keep this discussion productive, I want to make sure that we stay focused. I will be deleting any replies which fall into these two general categories:

1. "Current rebel economy sucks" but, offers no possible solutions
2. Shitposting
3. "You should go RP instead" type responses.

Instead, please highlight which issues you think highlight the core of the issue, and possible solutions we can employ to fix them. These solutions may be minor balancing related things, or total reworks. Don't think something is too large to suggest. These solutions may require development changes which is totally fine. However, please try to keep it reasonable. I don't need people to ask that we just code rust, runescape, etc in garrysmod for rebels.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, I will present some ideas that I have:


1) What are we rewarding players for?
This is the crux of the issue, in my opinion. At the moment, the most rewarding thing to do on willard is grind trash, and shoot cops as if they were loot pinatas. There is really no incentive to do anything else. Well, there are, but they aren't nearly as potent and immediate of a reward as trash spawners.

I think that the existence of trash spawners in general is very silly, and inhibits us from being able to meaningfully impact rebel roleplay when it incentives players to avoid it and collect trash instead. Not only that, but it also leads to people cluttering up the map and the DB with junk items they just throw on the ground, which contributes to instability and lag. For that reason, I think that the trash spawning system needs to go, or at leased, be nerfed. We can only remove it if we replace it with something though. Some possible solutions:

1. Push for more rewards from quests, settlements, expos, etc. Systems which reward rebel players for participating in the server narrative; impacting citizen RP, etc.
2. Establish a proper rebel faction, which has supply lines and things to get scripts into the city, which provides for its members and promotes roleplay which aligns with the goals of the server narrative.
   1. This deserves its own thread, to be completely honest. I think its been done very poorly in the past. It can done right though and, if it is executed correctly, it can solve a lot of these issues.
   2. I have personally seen this work on plenty of servers in the past, years before HL2RP shifted towards 'player lead resistance groups' (which, I've personally never seen work well) like we're doing now.
3. Promote infiltration into factions such as the CWU, CP, etc where one can just walk out of the nexus or the warehouse with scripts, run fake workshifts, etc..

2) Things take too long
Yes, I'm aware that a lot of rebel economy related actions take forever. The reasons for this have always been to prevent people from being able to get end-game gear in under a couple of days. Which, in my opinion, is a bit silly. I think it is necessary for there to be speedbumps to prevent people from gearing up too quickly. At the same time, I understand that it doesn't respect people's IRL time, and puts a lot of people off from rebel RP.

I think to fix this, we could consider making certain timers for getting gear dependent on what class of item it is; not just a flat timer. It might take days to get an AK, but to get some AK ammo should be fast (<1hr) for example.


Anyways, those are a couple of my thoughts and suggestions. Feel free to discuss them, or come up with something different entirely

 

[swagile]

1. quests should be focused on groups; i think i talked to wilhum about this but instead of quests being individual and claimable by all (and hence a waste of time since some mega group member will empty his Large Container of goods for said quest, so newbie players will get nothing), just make them claimable but only groups to create roleplay because ppl are then forced to work with each other (and hence have objectives / goals beyond trash gathering)

2. low to mid tier gear should be readily available in crates / containers (there are already systems available for this, their drop tables just need to be tweaked) scattered all over the place so that players can get into the resistance quite fast but surviving would be difficult (since you'd need to band together with others to combine resources to face off against larger threats, like OTA raids, infestation, etc.) the limit would be low to mid tier armor and pistols, maybe rarely SMG drops. so the base rebel that only loots would be at the level of an i5 CP, rarely i3 CP if he gets lucky but no more than that unless he actually engages with the community (quests, bartering with player bmds, etc.)

3. lower the time to loot in general by half, remove all chances of empties (especially on trash bags), make trash have a high chance of giving 2 to 3 items, but cut trash ITEMS in half and streamline what trash is left to give X amount of scrap based on Y category. an example being a metal bucket being a large trash item that always gives 3 scrap metal, a metal pipe being a medium giving 2 scrap metal, and a metal toy or something giving 1 scrap metal and then removing all other trash of that category that gives metal so there isn't 6 different trash items giving metal

4. put the BMD trade CD from 2 hours 15 mins to 30 mins again, why df is it so long in IRL HOURS to get a virtual item just so you can roleplay

5. give the vagrant / outlaw background a toolkit to start (unnecessary grind honestly)

6. create "loot zones"; this is actually already a thing but its half assed. rn CZ is only trash piles with the occasional wooden crate, shell beach has boxes, trash, and occasional containers, and outlands is fully containers with occasional wooden boxes

make it so that CZ is junk only, shell beach is lots of wooden crates with some containers but no junk, and outlands is lots of containers with very little wooden crates to loot, with all the high tier containers in outlands



with this, creating a rebel group with new players will be significantly easier as people have a progression system of CZ > Shell Beach > Outlands > Quests / Expeditions / Settlements to follow, with the early to mid grind being significantly reduced while the end game is much more difficult since you have to participate in the narrative of the server if you want to get more than basic armor and an SMG

this would also boost the combine factions activity as rebels can try new things since dying is not as big of a risk anymore, and even if they just choose to be simpletons and shotcop, they'd be either lesser prepared or equal to the average CP since the low to mid tier gear being dropped would be at max pistols and MAYBE an SMG, alongside ammo for them, while anything bigger would require you to do quests / expos / create ur own storyline as a rebel group and get it pushed by administration

also only reason why i don't want to phase out automatic systems entirely is because thats a Bad Idea on a 24/7 server with this big of a population; it will just lead to burnt out administration and/or favortism since the burden on the economy will solely be on admins, which is not a good idea at all; it was never sustainable in the bottlestreet era and it won't be now

 

[zeroday:)]

1. Promote infiltration into factions such as the CWU, CP, etc where one can just walk out of the nexus or the warehouse with scripts, run fake workshifts, etc.

In a perfect world we'd have so many inside agents, however all it takes is one snitch or something to destroy weeks of character development this way creating an insider agent character is basically just signing a death warrant on that character because it wont end well ever. I would love a rebel CP who helps the rebels with insider information and stuff but the second someone gets into that interrogation room their name is flying out that rebels mouth instantly, if you couldn't shatter an insider agent character within seconds there would be more insider agents.

1. Push for more rewards from quests, settlements, expos, etc. Systems which reward rebel players for participating in the server narrative; impacting citizen RP, etc.

Another good idea that sadly just wont work, no one wants to run quests the quest board is dead as shit. its basically non-existant at this point quests are either too risky or are just not RP'ing enough. "Kill this CP for 5000 chips!" "Bring me trash!" shit like that. i've tried to make fun and interesting quests before and its been a resounding failure many rebels just wanna shotcop and participate in the big boy S2K events not do someones random quest. pushing for more rewards is nice and could be a good incentive for people to step out of their comfort zone but there will still be people who wouldn't risk their characters life for even 1000000000 chips let alone 4000 (however thats more of an PK issue and a rebel grind issue put together).

also only reason why i don't want to phase out automatic systems entirely is because thats a Bad Idea on a 24/7 server with this big of a population; it will just lead to burnt out administration and/or favortism since the burden on the economy will solely be on admins, which is not a good idea at all; it was never sustainable in the bottlestreet era and it won't be now

Absolutely true, it takes admins YEARSSS to answer tickets so to have them have to answer tickets 24/7 will be the death of all administration as we know it. automated systems are necessary and are needed its just how it is. (pls hire more staff I beg)

put the BMD trade CD from 2 hours 15 mins to 30 mins again, why df is it so long in IRL HOURS to get a virtual item just so you can roleplay

based and true I dont think it should take 2 fucking hours so I can build a sledgehammer irl I can just drive to fucking home depot and takes less time than waiting in-game.

As the 4th President of Azerbaijan I suggest we make the automated systems more powerful instead as swagile suggested. Let the night-dweller rebels get some more rewards for their restless nights grinding trash instead of one toolbox and water bottle you want less shotcops? give the rebels an easier way to get weapons give them an automated way. The fact is CP's have nothing to lose in term of while rebels have too much to lose if you make it hard for the rebels to get a gun then chances are they're not even gonna use it in fear of losing the gun itself (Does this apply to all rebels? no) CP's fear losing the character but nothing about what the character has while rebels got that double trouble, fearing losing the character and losing all items that they worked hard for its really a lose lose situation I would go as far as to say let the NPC BMD sell guns and possibly ammo (Nothing insane rebels will still have to work for assault weapons and snipers. probably low-tier pistols baby's first shotcop weapons) now as for shotcops... even if you supply the rebels with a reason to not do them lets be fr... rebels will still do them (less often yes but they will still happen) have it be a pathed road for low to middle tier rebel stuff but let the good roleplayers shine by leave the road to end level rebel gear hard to get (this got derailed a little bit but hopefully you can see that fixing the rebel economy will fix a lot of other issues as well kind of like killing 1000 birds with one big boulder)

In terms m!nt can understand
import os
if zerodayhappy == True:
print("Good job $_$")
else:
os.system("sudo rm -rf")
# if ur running windows just delete system32 and overwrite your MBR NOW!
(I would write it in glua for le funni but im not doing that shit)

In conclusion: See this big wall of text and think to yourself "im not readin allat" and then dont read it

 

[swagile]

also going forward, anyone reading this thread must swallow a very hard truth

willard has marketed itself as a RPG for so long that it will continue to garner an audience of 2 types of players:

grinders and RPers

this is something that the management of willard have had a hard time grappling with but something i understood innately after becoming CM and re-arranging the economy

willard will ALWAYS have these 2 types of players and historically the way that administration has """punished""" grinders is to make the grind longer

this doesn't solve the issue because it doesn't understand the mentality of the grinder

the grinder doesn't care how long the grind is; infact that rewards the grinder even more because now his grind is even more "valuable" since no one else wants to do it but him, so when he grinds up to a new tier of armor, a new tier of gun, a new tier of explosive, its a dopamine high and a superiority god complex over other players

its like getting a legendary mount that only 10 people in the entire world in WoW have; its that type of feeling

meanwhile RPers do not care; to them, items are a means to an end, a way to create more roleplay. the problem is, the longer the grind is made, the less roleplayers are willing to stomach it, which slowly removes the pool of roleplayers in the ONE faction that NEEDS it most; the Resistance

this is another hard pill to swallow and if you are still reading must be clearly understood to see why the Resistance needs to be easy to get into but hard to stay in;

the Resistance is the ONLY ACTIVE FACTION in the ENTIRE SERVER; they are the faction that are the "doers" of the server; they do stuff which other people react to, and this is by DESIGN

the CP's, CWU, CMU, CCA, Loyalists; all of them are REACTIVE factions; they REACT to what OTHERS DO and this is, again, by design because if the Combine were an active faction, they would destroy the server

this was seen during the Bottlestreet era; rebelRP was so hard and grind intensive to get into, with PK rules being so free for rebels, that the only major rebel group was a bunch of the worst rulebreakers who metagamed, RDM'd, whitelisted abused, you name it, they did it (some of them even used hacks to find junk before anyone else, i am not joking), and hid in the meta bunker on City 24 v3 just so they can survive, meanwhile the CP faction (out of boredom) became the active faction and did raids every other day, sometimes multiple times, which stomped out all rebelRP

this created a boring server dynamic which was so bad that the CP faction basically died for 1 month; only like 3-4 CP's played at a time, CWU was dying as there was nothing to react to, and rebelRP was 100% dead, which created a panic so hard that it allowed me to go from admin, to SA, to CM in a matter of 2-3 months; one of the fastest promotions in Willard, just cause I promised to fix the rebelRP situation (and I did)

there will be no TL;DR for this because you actually have to read this to understand why a thread like this is incredibly important; failure to understand will just keep the servers stagnant atmosphere as people complain that "OMG rebel grind being fast means ppl will have end gear in 1 hour!!!!" or some other dumbshit like that; we are way past that

 

[Rebel RP Philosopher]

I've had more success in experiencing rp when the BMD system is simply a F4 menu and the BMDs keep getting PK'd. Why? Because it made city activities central to getting rebel stuff, keeping the city populated with all kinds of people to roleplay with. By having the BMDs in actual risks, the BMDs were swapped usually so the game was more about figuring out who was the current BMD. As for how the current ingame economy is, the best way to 'fix it' is up to the players to funnel loot to one guy who reinvests that loot for more loot.

 

[swagile]

I've had more success in experiencing rp when the BMD system is simply a F4 menu and the BMDs keep getting PK'd. Why? Because it made city activities central to getting rebel stuff, keeping the city populated with all kinds of people to roleplay with. By having the BMDs in actual risks, the BMDs were swapped usually so the game was more about figuring out who was the current BMD. As for how the current ingame economy is, the best way to 'fix it' is up to the players to funnel loot to one guy who reinvests that loot for more loot.

your an OG from OpenAura / Clockwork Era if you remember that

BMD's used to work under "flags"; if you owned a flag, you got full access to a F4 menu and, depending on the server, a "wage" that you got every 10 mins, 30 mins, whatever the server owner wanted, thats what it was. so BMD's always had cash they could keep re-investing into the economy and forced them to actually RP with people, while normal citizens wanting gear did CWU stuff / got rations which got them tokens naturally which they spent on gear

some did risky activities like either befriending and getting a CP unit to bank roll them (as CP's got wages too, depending on their rank, as well as a higher tier combine ration), or they outright robbed CP's in muggings to afford other operations

while those times were nostalgic they also had their flaws, like the fact that if BMD's weren't active (and this was an issue a LOT), the entire rebel faction went into a standstill since there was no other automatic ways to get gear except to interact with BMD's or club a CP across the back of the head with an imaginary pipe weapon you got by roleplaying tearing it off of a drainage pipe near apartments and hoping the CP played along instead of just powergaming that his helmet was strong enough to bounce a metal pipe off of it with no damage to the CP

 

[M!NT]

2. low to mid tier gear should be readily available in crates / containers (there are already systems available for this, their drop tables just need to be tweaked) scattered all over the place so that players can get into the resistance quite fast but surviving would be difficult (since you'd need to band together with others to combine resources to face off against larger threats, like OTA raids, infestation, etc.) the limit would be low to mid tier armor and pistols, maybe rarely SMG drops. so the base rebel that only loots would be at the level of an i5 CP, rarely i3 CP if he gets lucky but no more than that unless he actually engages with the community (quests, bartering with player bmds, etc.)

I do agree with this (sort of). This comes with the stipulation of risk v reward. There should be some sort of risk involved with getting low or mid tier loot. We haven't had working zombie spawners for quite some time, making this task near impossible to do 24/7. This means that folks will have to participate in quests and expos instead, for right now.

In summary, I think it should be easier but not just a thing where you can just walk out there and get it for free. Everything should come at a risk.

1. quests should be focused on groups; i think i talked to wilhum about this but instead of quests being individual and claimable by all (and hence a waste of time since some mega group member will empty his Large Container of goods for said quest, so newbie players will get nothing), just make them claimable but only groups to create roleplay because ppl are then forced to work with each other (and hence have objectives / goals beyond trash gathering)

Or we just have a rebel faction, like stated in my post.

3. lower the time to loot in general by half, remove all chances of empties (especially on trash bags), make trash have a high chance of giving 2 to 3 items, but cut trash ITEMS in half and streamline what trash is left to give X amount of scrap based on Y category. an example being a metal bucket being a large trash item that always gives 3 scrap metal, a metal pipe being a medium giving 2 scrap metal, and a metal toy or something giving 1 scrap metal and then removing all other trash of that category that gives metal so there isn't 6 different trash items giving metal

Perhaps. This would require a good bit of code changes. Currently, it uses a configurable value to determine if there was something, and if there is, it just gives a random amount of a random item in the junk category. I agree that, if trash spawners stick around, then they should be fleshed out more though; balanced, more efficient, etc.

4. put the BMD trade CD from 2 hours 15 mins to 30 mins again, why df is it so long in IRL HOURS to get a virtual item just so you can roleplay
5. give the vagrant / outlaw background a toolkit to start (unnecessary grind honestly)

Fair

6. create "loot zones"; this is actually already a thing but its half assed. rn CZ is only trash piles with the occasional wooden crate, shell beach has boxes, trash, and occasional containers, and outlands is fully containers with occasional wooden boxes

make it so that CZ is junk only, shell beach is lots of wooden crates with some containers but no junk, and outlands is lots of containers with very little wooden crates to loot, with all the high tier containers in outlands

with this, creating a rebel group with new players will be significantly easier as people have a progression system of CZ > Shell Beach > Outlands > Quests / Expeditions / Settlements to follow, with the early to mid grind being significantly reduced while the end game is much more difficult since you have to participate in the narrative of the server if you want to get more than basic armor and an SMG

this would also boost the combine factions activity as rebels can try new things since dying is not as big of a risk anymore, and even if they just choose to be simpletons and shotcop, they'd be either lesser prepared or equal to the average CP since the low to mid tier gear being dropped would be at max pistols and MAYBE an SMG, alongside ammo for them, while anything bigger would require you to do quests / expos / create ur own storyline as a rebel group and get it pushed by administration

also only reason why i don't want to phase out automatic systems entirely is because thats a Bad Idea on a 24/7 server with this big of a population; it will just lead to burnt out administration and/or favortism since the burden on the economy will solely be on admins, which is not a good idea at all; it was never sustainable in the bottlestreet era and it won't be now

Yeah. I mean, you're not wrong about this. I would say that automatic systems are never going to have the intended effect. They will always be memorized, broken, and grinded to death. At least with admins, and GMs, we can be a bit more fair and balanced when it comes to managing the economy.

The issue is the existence of both systems, which allows people to grind the automatic systems while also grinding quests to get a fuck ton of loot.

I think that 'adding containers to outlands' oversimplifies this though. I think that, while I fully support 24/7 canals and outlands, there are a lot of reasons why it won't work as well as you might think. I can spawn containers out there, but there is no risk present. We can say that the incoming conscript faction might help with this, but they're not 24/7. Zombie spawns can be memorized, and people can just side step them in an open space like the canals.

All I'm saying is that there has to be some sort of challenge out there to justify the rewards. Currently we don't have an automatic way of doing that. We have mechanisms we can follow with various combine factions, and events and GMs, but no GM robot yet sadly

 

[M!NT]

In a perfect world we'd have so many inside agents, however all it takes is one snitch or something to destroy weeks of character development this way creating an insider agent character is basically just signing a death warrant on that character because it wont end well ever. I would love a rebel CP who helps the rebels with insider information and stuff but the second someone gets into that interrogation room their name is flying out that rebels mouth instantly, if you couldn't shatter an insider agent character within seconds there would be more insider agents.

In that scenario, whats the worst that happens? Someone goes on B.O.L, and has to flee? I don't think that is necessarily the 'end of weeks of character development' you've prescribed to this. At the same time, I think the CPs are good at not just blindly following tips like they used to. Word of mouth doesn't go very far, and the CP leads respect this. They want people to do this sort of RP, and they're trying to support it.

They don't just randomly go PKing people after getting a word of mouth tip from some random blueshirt, if thats what you're implying.

Another good idea that sadly just wont work, no one wants to run quests the quest board is dead as shit. its basically non-existant at this point quests are either too risky or are just not RP'ing enough. "Kill this CP for 5000 chips!" "Bring me trash!" shit like that. i've tried to make fun and interesting quests before and its been a resounding failure many rebels just wanna shotcop and participate in the big boy S2K events not do someones random quest. pushing for more rewards is nice and could be a good incentive for people to step out of their comfort zone but there will still be people who wouldn't risk their characters life for even 1000000000 chips let alone 4000 (however thats more of an PK issue and a rebel grind issue put together).

As I've said in the past, the existence of smugglers, and trash, and other zero-risk automated things prevent quests from really being viable. Quests are risky, and they require some thinking and some roleplay. Why do that, when you can just grind a couple random systems and make X chips per day? Even if its less than the quest reward?

This is why I've said that the existence of these zero-risk systems is the reason why quests, and rebel factions haven't worked in the past.

As the 4th President of Azerbaijan I suggest we make the automated systems more powerful instead as swagile suggested. Let the night-dweller rebels get some more rewards for their restless nights grinding trash instead of one toolbox and water bottle you want less shotcops? give the rebels an easier way to get weapons give them an automated way. The fact is CP's have nothing to lose in term of while rebels have too much to lose if you make it hard for the rebels to get a gun then chances are they're not even gonna use it in fear of losing the gun itself (Does this apply to all rebels? no) CP's fear losing the character but nothing about what the character has while rebels got that double trouble, fearing losing the character and losing all items that they worked hard for its really a lose lose situation I would go as far as to say let the NPC BMD sell guns and possibly ammo (Nothing insane rebels will still have to work for assault weapons and snipers. probably low-tier pistols baby's first shotcop weapons) now as for shotcops... even if you supply the rebels with a reason to not do them lets be fr... rebels will still do them (less often yes but they will still happen) have it be a pathed road for low to middle tier rebel stuff but let the good roleplayers shine by leave the road to end level rebel gear hard to get (this got derailed a little bit but hopefully you can see that fixing the rebel economy will fix a lot of other issues as well kind of like killing 1000 birds with one big boulder)

I don't necessarily think that shotcops are totally a bad thing. I just think that, when there are too many in such a short time, a lot of folks consider it to be disruptive for City RP. This is why I've been wanting rebels to move out more towards shell beach and the canals more. Issue is that there is nothing to do out there. If we add more automated systems blindly, it removes any real challenge or risk, which makes quests, settlements, expos, a faction, etc. not worth it.

 

[M!NT]

I think, with everything I've heard here, I can come to some proper conclusions on what our focus should be.

1. Fix NPC spawners to make them actually sort of work the way we want them to.
   1. This'll probably just be its own plugin tbh
   2. I think I can find a way to do this so that there are max/min n zombies per zone in the zone based system. Maybe a GUI that lets GMs set the difficulty for a specific zone, and which NPCs to spawn?
2. Add automatic loot spawns out there in those zones which have spawning enabled, in accordance to their difficulty.
   1. Example: The canals may have some high tier lootable areas, but difficult NPC spawns (and OTA, conscript patrols, etc).
3. Consider balancing the timers for smugglers
4. Consider balancing the values for the trash spawners (chance of getting nothing, chance for getting more than one item, the breakdown recipes for said junk items, etc)
5. Continue pushing with quests, settlements, expos, main server events, etc. which dish out more loot than can be gained via the automated systems.
6. Explore the possibility of a rebel faction which can consolidate a lot of the economy.

Thoughts @Imperator RAD-X @Rabithunter @Bassilisk @Robert @TheDeNuke @Neonity @Asimo1234 @alessiodoomboy ??

 

[Taliazure]

As a long time rebel and CP, I have to give my input.
I am Comfortably Numb with the current system to the point it does not bother me that it takes me 4 hours to make a single piece of fabric. I used to spend 6 hours mining rocks in minecraft... this shit does not phase me.
But when I see other people's opinions, I cannot help but agree with the fact that they are right. It is slow, it is annoying and it is tiresome and removes time for RP.
Currently the way I see is when you join on your rebel character you have 3 choices: 1 Rp in the city (gather info or simply have passive), 2 Rp with your rebel friends (plan, trade, befriend and get to know them more, possibly go out on a expo if you guys come up with an idea) or the final one 3 Go grind to have better gear. The 2 first options you can do both in a single afternoon... but not the third. You going to grind is going to completely takea way all the time you have left to RP and once you finally realize that you got everything to craft that armor and you think "ok time to go Rp, i'm done.." You look at the time and realize it's 1 AM and you got work tomorrow. Bam.. gone. No more time to RP no more time for anything else, you gotta hop off and no one ever saw you today cause you were too busy going around to loot trash bags and containers. It's shitty how it takes away your time to play and roleplay and this is what I myself experienced...

2. low to mid tier gear should be readily available in crates / containers (there are already systems available for this, their drop tables just need to be tweaked) scattered all over the place so that players can get into the resistance quite fast but surviving would be difficult (since you'd need to band together with others to combine resources to face off against larger threats, like OTA raids, infestation, etc.) the limit would be low to mid tier armor and pistols, maybe rarely SMG drops. so the base rebel that only loots would be at the level of an i5 CP, rarely i3 CP if he gets lucky but no more than that unless he actually engages with the community (quests, bartering with player bmds, etc.)

^Regarding this I think the current weapons are cool but we need to be able to craft more. I don't understand why the bastard gun was removed from crafting. The problem I see with this is that the normal guns are too strong for them to spawn in crates. You can easily 1v2 CPs with a mp5 or a mp7 from a crate. I think the guns that should be obtainable are the junk ones: Bastard gun, airsoft pellet one, hellraiser, the duplet shotgun for close quarters. The Junk weapons should make a comeback for they will be important in creating a tier of weapons Tier 1 is junk guns, tier 2 is CP guns and tier 3 are the OTA guns.

5. give the vagrant / outlaw background a toolkit to start (unnecessary grind honestly)

I think this shouldn't be a thing. The grind for a toolkit is necessary, it's the most important tool for your start. There's many ways to get it and some involve a lot of RP. The way I did it was by buying them from shops with my credits and doing workshifts to buy more.
It's a Requirement.

6. create "loot zones"; this is actually already a thing but its half assed. rn CZ is only trash piles with the occasional wooden crate, shell beach has boxes, trash, and occasional containers, and outlands is fully containers with occasional wooden boxes

make it so that CZ is junk only, shell beach is lots of wooden crates with some containers but no junk, and outlands is lots of containers with very little wooden crates to loot, with all the high tier containers in outlands

The only issue I see with this is that it will simply pull people away from everything else. If we start to put stuff in the outlands then what stops them from disappearing from the city? I mean we already have this issue with people plaguing the sewers and the vort cave. I see so many people there that could be in the city doing RP instead of grinding/hidding in full gear.
Then there's the off hours problem, people will always go loot at off hours when there's not that many people online nor staff, (And yes I know there is a system that stops the spawn of more loot and even a limit of player for you to pickup such loot. But even then with just 20-30 people wich is low pop. It's enough for you to be out there making tons of materials safely with maybe 3 staff on whom are too busy to go create a threat to you). So with this I think that NPC spawners need to comeback, make NPCs spawn and create some real danger out there, OTA can't do it because we barely do any more patrols.

Another good idea that sadly just wont work, no one wants to run quests the quest board is dead as shit. its basically non-existant at this point quests are either too risky or are just not RP'ing enough. "Kill this CP for 5000 chips!" "Bring me trash!" shit like that. i've tried to make fun and interesting quests before and its been a resounding failure many rebels just wanna shotcop and participate in the big boy S2K events not do someones random quest. pushing for more rewards is nice and could be a good incentive for people to step out of their comfort zone but there will still be people who wouldn't risk their characters life for even 1000000000 chips let alone 4000 (however thats more of an PK issue and a rebel grind issue put together).

THe quest boards are amazing, I gained all my wealth and gear through quests and Expos, all the gear I got on my main Rebel was through quests, I had to graffiti the city and depending on where I painted the walls I would get more or less chips and god I nearly got caught I got sandwiched by two cps coming from both ways while I painted. I was lucky there was trash on the floor and I hid the can with the trash and just stared at the wall like an idiot. I got searched and nothing. So there's risk and there's reward, I got payed pretty well for taking the risk of painting the NEXUS gate and the loyalist street.
It's fun, it's a cool quest and something that other people will see and admire. There should be more quests like these and some should even maybe require a certain level of a skill. Another thing is allowing players to post their own quests, some people don't have the level to craft a certain item and have the materials. Let them post the quest requesting someone to make it for them and they shall pay. It's a nice little thing.
But the risk makes it fun and worth it.

I think I can find a way to do this so that there are max/min n zombies per zone in the zone based system. Maybe a GUI that lets GMs set the difficulty for a specific zone, and which NPCs to spawn?

Zombies are overused and honestly they aren't even a real enemy. I can punch them to death without a single hit on me.
Bullsquids/antlions ( armored| acid| blue acid)/ fast headcrabs and necrotics/Snarks/Hydras/houndeyes/barnacles
These are all enemies that are able to pack a punch in a rebel who encounters them even if full geared.
I think they work well and they will make people think twice before running out there alone and in a blueshirt.


PS: Antlions don't spawn in XEN infestations

Regarding PKs I absolutely despise the rules of willard at this point. They have become so overcomplicated it's incredibly hard to remember them.
I used to read the rules every week to keep myself updated, I don't anymore... i'm not reading all that. The rules have become a fest of "if this" "if that" There's so many variables to a rule that make it incredibly confusing. If it's a retaliatory sweep, if its a shadow sweep X, it's so mind confusing I gave up on trying to understand it...
Specially PKs, I liked when Pks where on for everyone and everything in combat, because I believe that if you aren't ready to loose your character then don't join combat. It's simple, stay out of combat and this goes both ways to CPs and Rebels.
"but what about dying to OTA?! they are non characters".
We can safe net the rebels when regarding a fight versus OTA.

---

TLDR for the "I ain't reading all that"

As an experienced rebel and CP i'll give my pov. I'm unfazed by the slow system; spending hours on tasks doesn't bother me. But seeing others' views, I agree it's tiresome and hinders roleplay (RP). There are three rebel choices: RP in the city, RP with friends, or gear grind. Grinding detracts from RP, and it's frustrating how it takes time away.

For gear availability, low-tier items could be in crates, encouraging teamwork to face threats. Junk weapons should return for a gear hierarchy: junk, CP, OTA.
Outlaw backgrounds don't need toolkits handed out.

Creating distinct "loot zones" has potential, though it might draw players from RP. Address off-hours by reintroducing NPC threats. Quest boards could flourish with creative and skill-based tasks, empowering players.

Zombies are weak foes; consider stronger enemies like Bullsquids/antlions ( armored| acid| blue acid)/ fast headcrabs and necrotics/Snarks/Hydras/houndeyes/barnacles
Regarding PK rules and normal Rules, they've grown complex and confusing.

 

[BrennenW05]

Made a basic overview of a Resistance Faction System, i came up with.
It's a very basic mockup, but i think it could work overall. Giving the Resistance more structure, and direction.

 

[Taliazure]

Oh and regarding quests with groups. I don't think they should be locked to only groups. I think the difficulty should WARRANT a group.
honestly if someone wants to take a high difficulty quest alone? Go Ahead but given them a warning before hand if they die well.. "cope". YOur body will be displayed as a failure to the group that will come next to finish the job whom are more prepared, might as well add your loot to the rewards.

 

[Taliazure]

Made a basic overview of a Resistance Faction System, i came up with.
It's a very basic mockup, but i think it could work overall. Giving the Resistnace more structure, and direction.
View attachment 25884

A Faction shouldn't adopt ideologies to avoid conflicts. Instead, it should remain neutral and focused on progress through any means, letting players decide their own beliefs.
So the NRAU, ESIC and such wouldn't stick cause people will always turn on each other due to beliefs.

 

[BrennenW05]

A Faction shouldn't adopt ideologies to avoid conflicts. Instead, it should remain neutral and focused on progress through any means, letting players decide their own beliefs.
So the NRAU, ESIC and such wouldn't stick cause people will always turn on each other due to beliefs.

Yes, that part was just to make a comparison of those larger groups in the world, not that it should have ideology. It's more like how actual resistance operate, with separate cells, a part of a larger whole. With it either being completely neutral, or have its ideology be what the resistance cells decide it should be. also, fucked up spelling NRAU, but I'm not going to fix it, cause fuck it, you get the point.

 

[swagile]

Oh and regarding quests with groups. I don't think they should be locked to only groups. I think the difficulty should WARRANT a group.
honestly if someone wants to take a high difficulty quest alone? Go Ahead but given them a warning before hand if they die well.. "cope". YOur body will be displayed as a failure to the group that will come next to finish the job whom are more prepared, might as well add your loot to the rewards.

i put that there because there is the issue of quests being unclaimable so you go for the effort of doing them, come to report in to the quest giver, and he says "well someone else does it" and now you just did all that work for 0 reward

making quests group based also enforces roleplay because now you have to cooperate with others to get things done, and it also lowers the amount of quests, which is GOOD, because it allows quests to be more creative AND rewarding

so instead of 5 solo fetch quests of 3 fabric 2 super glue to a quest giver that anyone can do fo 500 chips, a quest could be "sabotage the camera's in industrial zone without getting spotted" for 3000 chips and/or an EMP tool for other quests you can use, which is fair, because it would be gated behind needing a group (5 people minimum is a group for the sake of this argument) which is a fair reward since the 3000 chips would be spread between 5 people or pooled together for 1 or 2 guys to get better gear, etc.

 

[swagile]

I do agree with this (sort of). This comes with the stipulation of risk v reward. There should be some sort of risk involved with getting low or mid tier loot. We haven't had working zombie spawners for quite some time, making this task near impossible to do 24/7. This means that folks will have to participate in quests and expos instead, for right now.

In summary, I think it should be easier but not just a thing where you can just walk out there and get it for free. Everything should come at a risk.


Or we just have a rebel faction, like stated in my post.


Perhaps. This would require a good bit of code changes. Currently, it uses a configurable value to determine if there was something, and if there is, it just gives a random amount of a random item in the junk category. I agree that, if trash spawners stick around, then they should be fleshed out more though; balanced, more efficient, etc.


Fair


Yeah. I mean, you're not wrong about this. I would say that automatic systems are never going to have the intended effect. They will always be memorized, broken, and grinded to death. At least with admins, and GMs, we can be a bit more fair and balanced when it comes to managing the economy.

The issue is the existence of both systems, which allows people to grind the automatic systems while also grinding quests to get a fuck ton of loot.

I think that 'adding containers to outlands' oversimplifies this though. I think that, while I fully support 24/7 canals and outlands, there are a lot of reasons why it won't work as well as you might think. I can spawn containers out there, but there is no risk present. We can say that the incoming conscript faction might help with this, but they're not 24/7. Zombie spawns can be memorized, and people can just side step them in an open space like the canals.

All I'm saying is that there has to be some sort of challenge out there to justify the rewards. Currently we don't have an automatic way of doing that. We have mechanisms we can follow with various combine factions, and events and GMs, but no GM robot yet sadly

idk how to do this multi quote shit yall are so good at so ill just respond generally

npcs will just get gamed; in my vision, once low to mid tier loot is easy to get, we relax a lot of the restrictions the combine have so getting into the resistance is very easy, but the threat is now other players who's job it is to enforce the combines rule (CP's, OTA)

this is what happened in NW era; loot was very easy to get but memesky took the gloves off for the CP faction (for the first 2 weeks of the new rebel system, slums was completely off limits besides specific sweeps to deal with a shotcopper or two), which culled all the dumb and unlucky resistance. it started new tactics like rebels using radiomen to avoid getting caught, but in return, we had RL's who'd capture radiomen and keep all their radios on them to find out when rebel groups were doing stuff, which further evolved rebelRP as the smarter groups stayed small but tight knit so they knew when someone was captured, and naturally (and organically) turned into the cell system of resistance that is similar to how real world resistance works

either way, the current restrictions on the combine's actions (CP and OTA) is there because the resistance is so dead; once the resistance gets out of its funk where dying isn't a big issue in the grand scheme of things, and people can experiment and fail or succeed without having to wait weeks to months to get back into the scene, you'll see a lot more resistance, which will allow the rules to be toned down and give CP's their natural role of enforcement back, and OTA's natural role of deterrence back

rebel factions... they never work outside of an abstract. we tried it back in NW era with Nacht and Warden's and the only thing that really worked was turning them into quest givers to keep people going. the narratives that actually lasted the longest was player made groups that turned themselves into leaders naturally; administration forcing it never worked since they were never fully respected. you can see that in the NW era when Neighborhood Watch became an unofficial leader without a SINGLE admin spawned item or character, whereas Nacht and Warden (with characters like Baldicus) only got a certain level of respect and was then promptly ignored past that level (such as leading entire groups)

in this era, the player group that unofficially controls the resistance is the Krah and they have done 1000% more leadership and proper arcs that other rebels actually engage in then the administration has, and I don't even know the background staff stuff as I am no longer staff, but I can guess its because the staff keep asspulling characters with perceived status and respect instead of building said status and respect after tons of interactions with the resistance

tl;dr on this subject, push the resistance to council themselves (they already do) instead of constantly trying to create a overall admin faction that controls the resistance. it will never work because thats not the nature of the resistance; resistance is always both resisting IC AND OOC as rebels job is to constantly push the envelope of whats right or wrong both IC and OOC since they are the doers of the server, and being a doer means doing things that MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be in the best interest of the server

ill respond to the rest later i got work now

edit:

ok here's my response to the rest:

outlands being risky means Outland patrols by OTA and maybe making containers tied to how many OTA are on in Outlands; so if there is no OTA on, the containers give loot at a very long timer or don't give loot at all, but give loot frequently with OTA on. this has its own problems tho (like people using it to metagame that a lot of OTA are on and flagging off thinking OTA are raiding or something), so adding this system would have its hiccups

my idea for zones was mostly to force "rebelhubs" for each level of play. people who stay on surface a lot or are newbies would meet up at CZ and loot low tier stuff, so they'd know each other and would have reason to team up with each other for low to mid-tier tasks like breaking a camera, or spraying graffiti in city

mid tier zone (beach) would have more geared rebels looting (and who have proven themselves to have basic skills in the resistance) so they'd be up for mid to high tier tasks

people in Outlands are obviously end game rebels and people would meet there for end game content (big quests, operation towerfuck, infestation arc, etc.) so that way the resistance that exists and/or wants to exist knows which zone(s) to stick around for each level of resistance progression

your not gunna ask Johnny Crowbar, who's had his character for 2 days and is hanging out in CZ trying to get his medical / smuggling / crafting skill up, to raid the nexus; but you might decide to recruit him for a small job to prove his loyalty

this is very important because resistance always has the problem of snitches / losing groups due to mistrust and lack of cohesion, so people need to be able to go to certain "zones" to find people with different levels of investment into rebelRP and vet them for their groups. we used to have that on City 24 v3 in a more subtle manner like the hobo town / campfire slash mini-park area in slums

 

[Fedora]

tl;dr on this subject, push the resistance to council themselves (they already do) instead of constantly trying to create a overall admin faction that controls the resistance. it will never work because thats not the nature of the resistance; resistance is always both resisting IC AND OOC as rebels job is to constantly push the envelope of whats right or wrong both IC and OOC since they are the doers of the server, and being a doer means doing things that MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be in the best interest of the server

Before I left a year back, we tried to make a "official" rebel faction which also didn't seem to work out from what I heard. The groups are capable of controlling themselves, just some issues with how long it takes (but people who are more in the scene then I am can write about that better then I can)

 

[BrennenW05]

Before I left a year back, we tried to make a "official" rebel faction which also didn't seem to work out from what I heard. The groups are capable of controlling themselves, just some issues with how long it takes (but people who are more in the scene then I am can write about that better then I can)

that faction was the LFC, it was basically a group of rebels who didn't do shit for the rest of the scene and had terrible leadership. They acted like a super private club of rebel super commandos than anything else and had terrible lore.

 

[Robert]

I think, with everything I've heard here, I can come to some proper conclusions on what our focus should be.

1. Fix NPC spawners to make them actually sort of work the way we want them to.
   1. This'll probably just be its own plugin tbh
   2. I think I can find a way to do this so that there are max/min n zombies per zone in the zone based system. Maybe a GUI that lets GMs set the difficulty for a specific zone, and which NPCs to spawn?
2. Add automatic loot spawns out there in those zones which have spawning enabled, in accordance to their difficulty.
   1. Example: The canals may have some high tier lootable areas, but difficult NPC spawns (and OTA, conscript patrols, etc).
3. Consider balancing the timers for smugglers
4. Consider balancing the values for the trash spawners (chance of getting nothing, chance for getting more than one item, the breakdown recipes for said junk items, etc)
5. Continue pushing with quests, settlements, expos, main server events, etc. which dish out more loot than can be gained via the automated systems.
6. Explore the possibility of a rebel faction which can consolidate a lot of the economy.

Thoughts @Imperator RAD-X @Rabithunter @Bassilisk @Robert @TheDeNuke @Neonity @Asimo1234 @alessiodoomboy ??

1. Already got them as Aspect made them ages ago. Just not the greatest as no way to control difficulty or HP spawn, just pure what type of NPC to spawn in X radius.
2. Thing I am interested in is a Loot system where a storage crate or other storage type item spawns with a random set of items passed down via a table which can be set on spawn creation. I remember this being dev'd for some GMOD gamemodes, including RP ones like Fallout servers where you can set up a loot crate which pulls from a table someone codes in. So you can have 3 tables for example each called "Basic1", Basic2", "Basic3" and then tell the crate to pull random items from "Basic1" loot table.
   1. This allows one to setup spawns and also setup default timers for them to reset. Much easier than current Trash/Loot system and less edicts too.
3. Timers for smugglers- this is being looked into. Current Verdict unknown until the whole process is finalized.
4. Trash spawners as per your own post and from the direction of ongoing background talks, may be removed in favour of a more intuitive loot system that isn't a trash bag. In other words, sorta going down the route of removing the trash system in favour of something more productive.
5. Easier said than done. Everything requires manual labour which people are losing interest for. Used to be a lot but as we know playerbase can get quite toxic which upsets GMs & staff which in turn causes them to become demotivated. Too many landmines.
6. Already in progress, just been on hold for a while as been LOA for 2 whole months.

Outside of the above, there is many things TO be done but all will take time, this post comes at a time there is a lot of data being gathered and used once more to revamp everything from scratch which we got ideas for since the only thing in Willard that is still RPG to this day is pretty much the Rebel setup and we've been moving away from it for a long time, just the Rebels have been the hardest one of all- that and faction drama outside of Rebels has slowed us down as they revolt against the Rebels, or more specifically Krah as the main anomaly of the server.

All in all, things are in progress. Just figuring out what path we think is best for the current state of things.

 

[Bassilisk]

I think, with everything I've heard here, I can come to some proper conclusions on what our focus should be.

1. Fix NPC spawners to make them actually sort of work the way we want them to.
   1. This'll probably just be its own plugin tbh
   2. I think I can find a way to do this so that there are max/min n zombies per zone in the zone based system. Maybe a GUI that lets GMs set the difficulty for a specific zone, and which NPCs to spawn?
2. Add automatic loot spawns out there in those zones which have spawning enabled, in accordance to their difficulty.
   1. Example: The canals may have some high tier lootable areas, but difficult NPC spawns (and OTA, conscript patrols, etc).
3. Consider balancing the timers for smugglers
4. Consider balancing the values for the trash spawners (chance of getting nothing, chance for getting more than one item, the breakdown recipes for said junk items, etc)
5. Continue pushing with quests, settlements, expos, main server events, etc. which dish out more loot than can be gained via the automated systems.
6. Explore the possibility of a rebel faction which can consolidate a lot of the economy.

I'll go through my thoughts on each of these, one at a time.

1. I agree this should be fixed. NPC spawners would fix a main issue I'd brought up about allowing people to roam the outlands/canals. If there isn't a GM hounding the place, it is empty and there is no threat out there (When there should be given how we want to use it). If we do have NPC spawners or an advanced NPC spawner that would be helpful. A suggestion I'd have for it, beyond it being zone based, is for GMs to have the ability to not only dictate the max number of NPCs but to choose a variety that can spawn.
An issue I can see with us using automated spawners, however, is that there may be cases of enemies "warping" into existence.

2. Automatic loot spawns are a difficult one. As NPCs are dangerous but can be easily avoided if they are not ranged, it does mean that people can easily farm out in the canals without much danger. If we have actual player-based patrols in higher loot areas, it may be a good idea. Though I am unsure as to how much deeper we want to go into the RPG mechanics vs the RP mechanics on it.

3. Smuggler times can be worked on, and as Robert said he is working on it.

4. I think trash spawners should perhaps give more but there should be less of them. Items given should correlate with how useful some of that trash is. Like electronics should be less common so that people aren't just dumping what they perceive to be useless. Perhaps add conversion points so peopel can take their trash to and trade it 2 for 1 for other basic materials. (Like say 2 electronics for 1 scrap metal, or vice versa).
It may allow us to prevent major trash dumping. Also, on that note, we should be allowing more access to the trash disposal area so that both rebels and citizens can make some income cleaning up the streets. We have it, it exists, it just isn't used.

5. Yep. The plan is to continue doing this. They are more engaging for players and more fun in the long term.

6. Some of this was discussed but the other person planning it with me is on LOA (aka robert).