MisterMysteryMan
Active member
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2024
- Messages
- 101
- Thread Author
- #1
Not too long ago, I made a discussion thread on whether or not we should have a gear wipe going into V3, where I argued in favour of this position, stating that extreme rebel activity going into V3 will disrupt roleplay and make life for the average slummer much harder. In hindsight, this was an absolutely TERRIBLE decision for me to hold because the reality was the complete inverse. Ever since the beginning of V3, there has been little to no action between the Combine and the Rebels; nothing has happened because the server won't LET anything happen. Hear me out:
(NOTE: I will be arguing from the rebel main point of view since I haven't played on CivPro in over two years. So I hope and expect some clarification for CivPro mains.)
SECTION 1: THE DEATH OF SHOT-COPS:
As mentioned above, there has been essentially zero conflict between Civil Protection and the resistance members of City 24; it feels almost as if Loyalists receive more flak from CivPro than suspected terrorists do these days; both factions are content with simply ignoring and just tolerating each other's presence. You'd think with the extremely obvious and horribly hidden rebel bunker that the Combine would at least investigate? Especially with all the people waltzing in and treating it more as a tourist attraction rather than a base of operations. So far, there hasn't been a peep about it, and I'm unsure if this stems from OOC reasons to just leave the place alone, but there's also IC justifications for the bunkers' negligence, that being that Rebels so far haven't really done anything to warrant a response from CivPro. Outside of a very fringe all all-Russian group, Shotcops have been very scarce on main, why is that? Simple
It's. Not. Worth. It.
For a moment, let's compare the average rebel to the average Civil Protection unit. If our Rebel relies solely on his Crafting skills, he'd be able to whip up a Tier-1, 25 armour kevlar for himself, a gasmask, maybe a crowbar, and his two choices for a firearm will come down to either a Popper or a Makeshift AKM as literally everything else he COULD make is complete dog-shit. Now let's look at the average Civil Protection officer, which, if we take into account every single Combine unit, would probably be an i5. The i5 would have a USP, an inaccessible pistol without a blueprint auth, that's objectively the best one you could make, and 50. Fucking. ARMOUR, what the fuck? Why on earth - wait, who am I kidding? I already know why they did this! Remember the Partisans, ladies and gentlemen? Because I do. Long story short, the Partisans were running amok, so the Devs raised the standard armour from 25 to 50 and then spammed sweeps until they were dead, which is the equivalent of turning on God-mode on a boss you can't win, but I mean... It worked?
Okay, now that the partisans are all dead, why is it still 50?! This should've been a temporary solution to a temporary problem! You have an additional 25 armour, 50% more than what rebels can make, AND the best pistol in the game. The Power disparity between the average Combine unit and the average Rebel is overwhelming. In a 1v1, the i5 takes it 9/10 times, with the only loss coming from a frame/skill issue.
>"B-but Mystery Man! i5s HAVE to have 50 armour so they don't get shit-stomped by rebels!"
Okay, when was the last time the Combine faction suffered an extremely humiliating, embarrassing defeat on main since the Partisans were wiped out? Struggling to remember? Thought so.
Now, let me offer a solution to the problem of over-equipping the Civil Protection units could possibly be to have set "Tiers" in response to rebel activity. Similar to the system of STABLE-MARGINAL-CRITICAL, we have now, just long-term. It would be set by a ratio of rebel activities to Combine defeats. So, for example:
Low RA/CD: 25 armour, standard weaponry
Medimun RA/CD: 50 armour, standard weaponry
High RA/CD: 50 armour. better weaponry.
As you can see, this is in a very rough draft phase. I would just like a system to establish to prevent Combine leads from slapping on Riot gear and assault rifles whenever they feel like it.
The rebel also has much more to lose if he fails to win this fight; if the i5 dies, he loses his rank (Or just remains an I5, Doubt they force him to be a recruit again) and some cash. If the rebel dies, he loses EVERYTHING and has to start over again. Is this inherently a bad thing? No, he took his chances and went ahead with the attack, knowing that there's a good chance he would've died, but I'm merely highlighting how much more is at stake for the rebel compared to the Civpro officer. In summary
When you're shot-copping your facing:
-Enemies that, at their lowest, will often be better equipped than you
-Will outnumber and swarm you (I believe there's a rule that says if four cops go down, you need to retreat)
-Have a lot less to lose than you and suffer fewer consequences for doing so
This isn't even taking the recent ammo nerf into consideration, which further punishes you for doing what you're supposed to do as a rebel. You used to get a box of 120 SMG rounds, now you get 45, that's almost 1/3 of what you used to get. What am I supposed to do with a clip and a half? That's absolutely nothing. With the odds weighed extremely in the Combine's favour, why even shootcop? What's the point in risking an entire army storming into the slums because you want a free MP7? It's just not worth it, and it's why Rebels relegate their bloodlust to the weekly quests Nath or Cocohop holds since it's far less risky and rewards decently.
>"I mean okay... But what's so important about shot-copping anyways?! What are you, some PK hungry script-whore that wants to play COD on a roleplay server?! Why do we NEED shotcops?!"
Because HL2RP, at its core, is about the struggle for humanity's liberation, which "PREDOMINANTLY" Includes engagements and skirmishes between the two sides, the rest mostly being espionage. If you remove this from the equation, then what exactly are you left with? Boring, mundane city roleplay and "Politics". If this is what you're left with, why even HAVE Civil Protection? what are you protecting them from? Themselves? Without rebel intervention in the city, Civil Protection units turn into glorified mall cops that are just kinda mean to you on occasion. So if this conflict is so important, why don't rebels do anything?
SECTION 2: Nothing ever changes.:
>"B-but Mysteryman! The Combine has a large number of units at its disposal!"
No, they don't. The Combine doesn't have a secret cloning lab (They probably do, now that I think about it) or an infinite supply of recruits. The population on Earth is probably less than one billion, and out of that number, how many do you think signed up to be a Civil Protection unit? The Citizen to CivPro ratio is immense. Even more so for Overwatch units, which is why when a CP dies, it's not enough that they just get de-ranked, because that's at worst an annoyance. There needs to be MORE IC and OOC punishment for failure, the Combine has your family as hostage for Christ's sake.
I've toyed around with the idea of facing a De-Whitelist for getting PKed as a CivPro/OTA unit (With getting WLed again being much easier than someone who never got the WL in the first place). I know that the French Server does something a little similar to this, with recruits playing on Iron Man mode until they rank up. But losing some cash and one rank is not good enough; there actually needs to be some weight behind their deaths. otherwise, what are they shot-copping for? Loot? Go do an Expo, it's much safer, and the rewards are about the same.
>"But MysteryMan! What if I want to cause bodily harm that'll scar a cop for life!"
Sure! Unless, of course, they have an insurance token, magically healing all of their wounds and basically making them unkillable, but you go do that!
The problem of nothing ever changing doesn't just stop when it comes to CivPro deaths, but to city life itself. Blow up an RDT? fixed within a week. Want to spray some graffiti on the Nexus? Cleaned and forgotten within a week. Want to blow up a camera? CivPro equips riot gear and spam sweeps until the group is wiped out. The labs on C24 V4 were blown up TWICE, and nothing came of that; contrast that with what happened on I-24, when the lab was blown up once, and that caused a serious xen infestation for 2-3 weeks. Now look, I understand that the Server council wants to maintain a status quo; the last time any meaningful change happened was when the LFL and the Krah blew out some thumpers and forced a map change. I can understand how frustrating it can be for some shitrebs to throw a wrench in your plans and scramble for a new map. But if none of the actions I take on the main have any meaningful effect... Why bother? I really want to hammer this point in about the doomer mindset rebels are in right now. Rebels these days just PassiveRP in the meta bunker and wait for Expos. This is not good for the overall server health, and there needs to be some changes soon.
In summary:
-CivPro players should be punished more for deaths/failures
-Actions taken on the city need to hold more weight
-A suggestion I heard was that if too many OTAs die in a short period of time, they're unable to deploy for a while since their numbers are extremely low compared to CivPro. I like this idea and think it should be looked at.
MISC COMPLAINTS:
(for complaints that don't deserve their own thread)
Credit Tax:
This has been irking me for so long, and I just really gotta moan about this. Whenever you make a purchase, you get taxed a couple of credits each time you do it... WHY?! Credits are a completely fake and worthless currency; they're just numbers displayed on a screen, so why the hell do they need to tax me?
>"Oh, so they can use that money to pay workers and -"
With the money THEY make? It's so stupid and clearly wasn't thought out at alll. The only logical explation for this is that the Combine just want to spite you, even then, it's still a completely shit reason as they have many other ways to do this, so in conclusion:: #TAXATIONISTHEFT.
Blueprints:
I understand that Blueprints are basically in their infancy/testing phase, but regardless, the system currently is not good. The only things you can make with these blueprints are pistols. With one of them being the clear meta, correct choice. That's not even that much better than the choices you originally had. There are plans to make blueprints for mid-tier items like SMGs and T2 Kevlar, which is good. I talked about this idea here:
Implemented Post in thread 'Weapon Schematics'
VORTS:
I touched on this topic a little on the Rebel discord, but essentially what I was saying was Vorts are incredibly clumsy and do a lot of stupid shit, but the problem is that these Vorts can't really be held accountable for their actions or told "No" because they will absolutely stomp any rebel in a 1v1, regardless of the gear they have. Also doesn't help that because of their hive-mind, if you have beef with one of them, you've got beef with all, so it simply isn't worth the hassle to try and control them. So I guess nerf Vorts...? I dunno, more of a player thing then a server thing I guess.
That's all, folks. Enjoy arguing in the comments.
