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!!! DISCLAIMER !!!
This is going to be a long, complicated thread. If you do not have the will or the patience to read through all of it before posting a reply, then please don't. There will be no TL;DR, and uninformed or unreasonable responses will not be contributing to anything.
This is going to be a long, complicated thread. If you do not have the will or the patience to read through all of it before posting a reply, then please don't. There will be no TL;DR, and uninformed or unreasonable responses will not be contributing to anything.
After reading through the entirety of the Overwatch Transhuman Arm guidebook, I have come to the concrete conclusion that all of the duties that are currently performed by the OTA can easily be translated and executed by the Civil Protection. Therefore, I propose that the OTA faction be removed completely; both in theory and in-game.
A couple of days ago, I posted this suggestion in the Staff-Debate channel of the discord server in order to get some initial reactions and build counter-arguments. In this thread I will be going through and responding to all arguments that were made against this idea, and why this action would be a positive change for the majority of the playerbase.
Starting off with the most obvious reason - that Combine Soldiers have no place in the city. They are essentially the National Guard - why would they be in the city? This is observed in Half-Life 2 as well. Throughout the first part of the game, you only encounter Civil Protection units, and CP-derived enemies (Manhacks, hunter choppers, etc). You only see Combine Soldiers outside the city; in the outlands. Combine Soldiers only appear in the city after the uprising has started. Considering that Willard is not currently undergoing an uprising in-game, there is no reason for the National Guard to be active.
One argument that was made against this is that City 24 is very close to Summit 24, which is a very heavily guarded location; thus justifying the presence of the OTA. To that, I say that that's even more of a reason to not have Combine Soldiers in the city because they would all be off nearby S24.
Many reasons against this were stated, such as OTA being guards for important figures, acting as support in the event that CPs fail, maintaining a guard perimeter around the Nexus, and them maintaining the 'aesthetic' of Half-Life 2 Roleplay. While yes, these are some of the new tasks that the OTA are tasked with; I am of the heavy belief that CPs can handle these tasks just as easily. They already guard areas, so guarding the nexus should be no issue (A location that doesn't even really need guarding in my personal opinion - there are heavy industrial doors and cameras everywhere - nobody is getting in there without attracting attention). As for support in case of combat failure, why not send in more CPs? Besides, the OTA are already being (or have been) reworked to not deploy on the first sign of trouble and instead let CPs handle their own problems, so this argument is null. Guarding important figures should also be no problem. Yes, it is a bit unusual, but keeping an entire faction just because they have an 'aesthetic' or it would be unusual to not have them or have some else replace them does not make much sense. Gameplay should come first. If people are not having fun, then aesthetics have little value.
Another presented issue is power. Power as in OTA being stronger and generally better than CPs, thus being tasked with the tasks that they currently have. To that, I say that either buffing CPs up slightly or increasing them in numbers would be more than enough to eliminate this issue. A counter-argument to this is that this would make CPs an 'endgame enemy'. Given the incoming 'rebel buff' and general rebalancing, considering that rebels will be able to go 1 to 1 with an OTA soldier in both HP, armor, and gear (<-- OTA Lead's words, not mine), buffing CPs would not make them an endgame enemy. It would just bring them up to the standard of them being stronger than the resistance and the resistance being stronger in numbers. Take the arms race for example. Three countries constantly improve their military power in order to stay ahead of their enemies. Does that make any one of them an endgame enemy? No, because they're all on the same level.
Another good point that was made after I posted this thread is the OTA-Rebel character restriction. Currently, if you have an OTA character, you are forbidden from being part of big rebel groups and/or operations. And if you are part of big rebel groups and/or operations, you are forbidden from having an OTA character. Thus, many people are restricted from playing both sides, which is not great, although the reason behind it is somewhat understandable. With the removal of OTA, people would no longer be restricted and forced to choose between these two conflicting sides, thus creating more roleplay and more opportunities.
Speaking of gameplay, I would like to specify why it would be good to replace OTA with CPs. I don't want them to be replaced just for the sake of replacing them, or because they can be replaced. It is no secret that OTA characters, for a large majority of the time, only get on to sweep an area or to kill a character. Not only that, but it is explicitly stated that they are at least half-machine, and they are heavily brainwashed. The point that I'm getting at is that they are not characters. They don't have a personality; they don't have a backstory. They have no real meaning. In heavy contrast, Civil Protection characters are humans. They have feelings, thoughts, and histories behind them, thus, generating more roleplay for both themselves and the people that they interact with. Giving them more things to do would not only lower the chances of them ever getting bored but they would also create more roleplay for themselves and the people around them; being the person that they're guarding, the random citizen who is loitering outside the Nexus, the protection team that they're reinforcing, and more. Having OTA actively harms roleplay in exchange for 'aesthetics'. Not worth it.
All that being said, I will be going over some more specific arguments and answering them here in order to avoid any duplicates in the replies:
I disagree. That is precisely why they are bad, and why they are unfair, even. An OTA squad going up against a resistance cell has nothing to lose and nothing to worry about, whereas the resistance cell spent days if not weeks grinding to get where they are and establish themselves as an actual enemy. If OTA fail, they are back up on their feet again the next day as if nothing happened. If the rebels fail, they gotta start over, often from scratch, and spend several days getting back up to where they are, likely to get shot down once again. Sending CPs after them is far fairer, not only because rebels actually have a chance at beating them, but also because both sides have something to lose. As for OTA deaths and CP deaths, I have a difficult time believing that CP deaths just get 'forgotten about'. If anything, they would be remembered more because actual characters are lost.
Keeping an entire faction just because of old Half-Life 2 Roleplay stereotypes makes little to no sense. Hurting the server and shutting down possible roleplay opportunities because some people don't know how to act properly in-character is not very smart. If there is a real concern about something like this, it can easily be resolved with firm quality control from the faction leaders, or even staff. There is a solution for everything.
Thematic-wise, yes, this is true. However, the same effect can be achieved with propaganda. Again, aesthetic should not be enough of a reason to keep an entire faction.
Mechanical-wise, again, buffing up CPs either in power or in numbers would do just fine to replace the force of the OTA.
From an In-Character standpoint, yes. However, from an Out-Of-Character standpoint that doesn't matter - people already view OTA as a circlejerk, with all their recent drama about deployment and whatnot, so there are not many points left in that so to speak. No one is doubting that the Combine are in charge, anyway. If someone wants to question authority, scary OTA photoshoots would not change their mind IC neither OOC.
While yes, it would make sense to trust a brainwashed machine more than a human in a uniform to guard important figureheads, going off-protocol, being reckless or circle-jerking would be grounds for severe punishment, and given that CPs are actual characters with personalities, backstories, and, as opposed to OTA, can actually lose their character, I believe people would be smart enough not to risk things like that. As for CPs controlling the CCA - I don't exactly see how that would be implied. They would just guard the CCA, not order them around.
Considering the upcoming rebel buff, I think buffing the CPs up a bit would not cause much harm. If anything, it would be needed in order to maintain the narrative of the combine being stronger than the resistance.
For events that take place outside the city, I can understand having OTA present. They are outside the city in the Half-Life games (for the majority of the time), and they are a formidable enemy to the resistance. I am more talking about their presence on the main server.
I can't exactly understand how the faction would become a disorganized mess if it became an event-only faction. If anything, people will be on their A-Game when they do play OTA, because they'll be playing it for the first time in who knows how long, and likely in a very important role. It would be all but logical to squander that rare opportunity that someone would get to play on their OTA. Not to mention, they can be trained and prepared, guided, and taught. If they can become a disorganized mess, it wouldn't matter whether they are an active faction or an event-only faction.
People have tried to reform them and contain them time and time again, not only on Willard but on other servers as well. It never works well, or people are not willing to go the extra step to ensure that the changes matter. My approach may seem overdramatic, but given all the facts, there is nothing but positives to gain from this change, for all parties. However, if this does not work, a severe limit on the faction would also help to an extent.
I don't see how the option to guard the nexus would harm roleplay. As for the presented example, what you said goes for OTA as well. It's a very specific speculation. Hell, CPs are bound to do a better job and be more careful because they have a character that they could very much lose if they show negligence or fuck up. They wouldn't go off and do something like that, unless they're intentionally looking to lose that character.
I understand that many servers often use OTA as an OOC admin tool to preserve the setting of the Combine being in control and everyone else being heavily oppressed, but what would happen if the OTA fail too? What if the rebels somewhat wipe them out? Do you just keep sending them over until the rebels are defeated? That doesn't seem fair; if that's the case then what's the point of rebelling in the first place? If you don't keep sending them, do you switch to uprising or outlands RP? No, that's not what the server is about. That argument collapses in on itself when the 'city's last line of defense' is broken.
That falls under individual cases - pick out the bad apples and teach them how to play instead of letting them control you and put fears into your mind and allowing the faction to dissolve into something lesser. It's really not that hard to spot the odd ones and fix them. That's one of the responsibilities of the faction leaders, anyways. To ensure the players in their faction are behaving correctly.
I understand a large and drastic change like this that heavily varies from the HL2RP norm can be daunting, but Willard already stays away from the norm in several ways - this won't hurt us, it will help us. And letting stereotypes control what we do is not only silly but can also be suicidal to the server's integrity. If something doesn't work well, we investigate why and propose changes. Why does it matter if it's always been like that? If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
If you are in support of this suggestion, if you are against it, or if you have a compromise to propose or any other sort of constructive feedback, please make a post. A thread rating is good, but words are better. Several people need to be in support of this in order for it to actually happen. If this doesn't actually pass, at least it will get people thinking about how to resolve the currently ongoing OTA issues.
If any more arguments against this are made in the comments, I will add them here in order to avoid any duplicates.
Thank you very much for reading.
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