Mechanic RP Overhaul - Car Changes

[CULTure]

On 10/17/2020 at 2:48 AM, Shiro said:

How exactly does this help with rp though, the car is just despawned for a few hours and the mechanics in a garage can't really rp with it unless they type the /me's without there being a visible car in the garage (which feels really dumb for sure). 

 

This won't make people call taxis, they'll use their secondary car or ask a friend instead. Just seems like an annoying system altogether, it's the earnings and complexity of the mechanic job that should be changed and not make it more annoying to own a car.

 

And really cars aren't nearly that fragile, it's so strange how 1.5k miles+ cars are seen as worn out or old on this server, while really your first 'maintenance' irl would probably be at 10-15k miles which is nothing. Not to mention said maintenance would be minor and your car would definitely not start stalling or 'stuttering'. The car system should ENCOURAGE sticking to one car and using it for long instead of switching cars weekly to avoid any long term costs. If a system like this would ever be implemented (which I think is a bad idea in this form personally) you shouldn't get any issues until your car's 'health' would be at 30% or so. And 5% per 250 miles would still be excessive. 

 

Perhaps introducing some more minor and quick things would be a better idea, such as tire condition, changing oil and filters. These things do need regular changes and would be much quicker to do while still giving you that sense of maintaining your car.

I just want to clear something up for you... your first oil change and tire rotation should be done at 5k miles. Then go from increments of 5k. Maybe take your car in for an oil change. 

[Tempesto]

I don't think you can have balance. Mechanic RP is not exactly pleasant, it can be considered a chore and it's repetitive. That means that it has to be rewarded financially, or else people wouldn't do it. If a mechanic made $4,000 an hour like the other jobs, you'd just go sit in a store, RP every now and then and make the same money.

 

Mechanic garages are and will always be profitable, just like vehicle dealerships, because GTA World is about cars. It will always be about cars. Guns, drugs, businesses and properties are a thing, but by far, the most traded asset in-game are cars. People spend a ton of time in their car, which is why they keep on getting different ones, modding them and doing all sorts of stuff. That's actually the base idea of the whole game, if you think about it.

 

We don't have to lower the money, we have to increase the RP. I'm not talking about forcing people to do super-specialized RP but having a nicer system and some standards is, in my opinion, the way to go.

[yerro]

16 minutes ago, Tempesto said:

I don't think you can have balance. Mechanic RP is not exactly pleasant, it can be considered a chore and it's repetitive. That means that it has to be rewarded financially, or else people wouldn't do it. If a mechanic made $4,000 an hour like the other jobs, you'd just go sit in a store, RP every now and then and make the same money.

 

Mechanic garages are and will always be profitable, just like vehicle dealerships, because GTA World is about cars. It will always be about cars. Guns, drugs, businesses and properties are a thing, but by far, the most traded asset in-game are cars. People spend a ton of time in their car, which is why they keep on getting different ones, modding them and doing all sorts of stuff. That's actually the base idea of the whole game, if you think about it.

 

We don't have to lower the money, we have to increase the RP. I'm not talking about forcing people to do super-specialized RP but having a nicer system and some standards is, in my opinion, the way to go.

Had that debate a couple of months, on the subject of "mech garages will always be profitable".

 

Profitability isn't bad, excessive and unchecked profitability is. The tl;dr fix is:

 

1. Increase component consumption rate for mech garages.

 

As far as I know, each business uses "components" to actually provide purchasable services to the players. Increasing the comp number required for every single action means increasing cost of production = a way to cut net income.

 

2. Decrease mechanic share.

 

You can currently make 100k a day if you're lucky just because some people drop by to install some turbo, engine upgrades and security. Decreasing the share of each mechanic per job done makes more money go to the business.

 

Yes, this isn't a welfare-oriented fix, it streamlines cash into the pockets of garage owners, though it's also easier to flush the money out of a smaller controlled group than a larger one.

 

3. Change the cost of components.

 

Prolly should've come as #2, but yeah, in that model, I reckon income can be regulated through changing the cost of production for mechanic garages.

---

Naturally, the goal isn't to ramp all the costs up and anchor income to the ocean floor. It is to tackle the situation that's currently best described as "spice oil must flow".

 

You've said it — cars are at the center of all our interactions in the game. Naturally, mechanic garages will never go out of fashion and there's always going to be a high demand for mechanic services. That doesn't mean we can't bring mechanic earnings more in line with the rest of the server, because right now their income is so high it's mind-boggling.

Edited December 6, 2020 by yerro
typo

[Tempesto]

5 minutes ago, yerro said:

Had that debate a couple of months, on the subject of "mech garages will always be profitable".

 

Profitability isn't bad, excessive and unchecked profitability is. The tl;dr fix is:

 

1. Increase component consumption rate for mech garages.

 

As far as I know, each business uses "components" to actually provide purchasable services to the players. Increasing the comp number required for every single action means increasing cost of production = a way to cut net income.

 

2. Decrease mechanic share.

 

You can currently make 100k a day if you're lucky just because some people drop by to install some turbo, engine upgrades and security. Decreasing the share of each mechanic per job done makes more money go to the business.

 

Yes, this isn't a welfare-oriented fix, it streamlines cash into the pockets of garage owners, though it's also easier to flush the money out of a smaller controlled group than a larger one.

 

3. Change the cost of components.

 

Prolly should've come as #2, but yeah, in that model, I reckon income can be regulated through changing the cost of production for mechanic garages.

---

Naturally, the goal isn't to ramp all the costs up and anchor income to the ocean floor. It is to tackle the situation that's currently best described as "spice oil must flow".

 

You've said it — cars are at the center of all our interactions in the game. Naturally, mechanic garages will never go out of fashion and there's always going to be a high demand for mechanic services. That doesn't mean we can't bring mechanic earnings more in line with the rest of the server, because right now their income is so high it's mind-boggling.

I don't think we should aim for reducing the profits of mechanic garages. The high demand is what drives the profits, not necessarily what you pointed out. Yes, those are good ways to decrease the profit, but should we? What I mean by that question is that we shouldn't look for ways to keep decreasing profits of everything because, at the end of the day, less money doesn't mean more realistic. GTAW's economy puts cars in the center. If we were to nerf mechanic garaged, they'd be just like the brewing job - used to be really profitable and okay, now barely anyone is doing it.

 

If you, as a mechanic, are making $X a day and the update makes you earn 5 times less per day, will you keep doing it? Probably not, or you'll just end up grinding, lowering the quality of RP to work faster and make more money, doing side gigs and it'd turn into a shitshow really fast. The high income should only be a concern if the characters are unrealistic - and there's a part of staff who's dealing with such scenarios on a daily. The OOC money they're making is not a problem, the way they're portraying their characters is. There's homeless characters with millions in the bank and rich characters with barely any money. As long as the character development is fine, there's no issue.

[yerro]

28 minutes ago, Tempesto said:

I don't think we should aim for reducing the profits of mechanic garages. The high demand is what drives the profits, not necessarily what you pointed out. Yes, those are good ways to decrease the profit, but should we? What I mean by that question is that we shouldn't look for ways to keep decreasing profits of everything because, at the end of the day, less money doesn't mean more realistic. GTAW's economy puts cars in the center. If we were to nerf mechanic garaged, they'd be just like the brewing job - used to be really profitable and okay, now barely anyone is doing it.

 

If you, as a mechanic, are making $X a day and the update makes you earn 5 times less per day, will you keep doing it? Probably not, or you'll just end up grinding, lowering the quality of RP to work faster and make more money, doing side gigs and it'd turn into a shitshow really fast. The high income should only be a concern if the characters are unrealistic - and there's a part of staff who's dealing with such scenarios on a daily. The OOC money they're making is not a problem, the way they're portraying their characters is. There's homeless characters with millions in the bank and rich characters with barely any money. As long as the character development is fine, there's no issue.

Sorry, but if we're talking about making 100k in a day what other jobs make in /weeks/, then yes, fuck yes, we totally should. 🙂

I don't think that well-paying jobs generate better roleplay. There's definitely some merit to saying that strangling job income too much will make people focus on RP less and on earning more (aka minimum-effort roleplay), though I don't think we can just go on pretending that mechanic income is fine and dandy. They're legit /the/ millionaires of this server.

 

Again, I want to reiterate that my suggestion below isn't to make mechanic RP unprofitable or to make garages less profitable, it's to narrow it down to 1-2 parameters that you can tune up and down and monitor the effect of your changes. I'm all in for balancing, not "wipe it all out and start fresh", for sure.

Edited December 6, 2020 by yerro

[Power]

-1 People obsesses over realism too much. Yes this is roleplay and there is suppose to be some level of realism but the game is still suppose to be streamlined so the game is still enjoyable.

Also this doesn't take into account the reliability of car brands. Like IRL a Toyota if you change the oil and regular maintenance you could easily get 300k miles with it driving the same. And the system you laid isn't reflective of how cars drive realistically. Don't like this at all don't think there are any issues with the current mechanic system. This mentality is what essentially killed player owned dealerships.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Power

[The OG Juicebox]

The system isn't the problem. It's the lack of quality role play. This is not a difficult concept. Allowing players to change engines and turbos in 5-10 minutes because people are impatient? This is the problem. On the other side, people expecting mechanics to finish jobs in 5-10 minutes? This is also the problem. Sure, I'm also of the belief that it shouldn't take days or weeks either, but it should certainly take longer than it does now. The reason mechanic garages get a bad rap is because these expectations exist. Full engine swaps take 10-15 minutes or people start rioting. When a garage comes around that tries to do it right, people just stop going there because it takes too long. This is a terrible cycle. The player / mechanic expectation needs to be changed on a systematic level and I'm not sure if that's possible at this point without some major management intervention.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Juicebox

[Koko]

Doing this will in practice only serve two main purposes: to increase the market for having a second car for when your first car is being upgraded, and to have every single taxi in town chase open mechanic shops to park outside of.

 

Other than that, it's just a way for mechanics to make more money for essentially having your car parked there for up to 8 hours with ostensibly no RP being done on it other than when you're waiting upwards of 45 minutes for all the cars in front of you in the line for service to finish. As someone who more often than not works 12 hour shifts IRL and can often have very limited time a night to RP, I don't want to throw away my time waiting for a shop to open to then deliver my car to then log out for the night because that's me done. Not unless it adds value to the scene and server other than by immobilizing my car arbitrarily for a while every number of miles.

 

Also the shop side of mechanic RP is boring enough as it is for all parts involved (being a mechanic feels like being in a turn of the last century production line with an angry mob glaring at you while you repeat the same process 15 times a day) and the business already holds enough sway on the server business economy as it is. Lines are already long enough as it is with often a good dozen cars waiting every time a shop opens.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Koko

[Tempesto]

I don't understand what implementing this would fix, though. How will having your car stuck at a random garage improve anything? What exactly will happen to the car for 11 hours and 40 minutes, after the RP is over, what would stop you from taking it? The mechanics would most likely leave the game in 12 hours, you just go to the empty garage to pick your car up?

[eTaylor]

I really hate garages. When I do stop at a garage I can’t wait to leave. If I have to leave my cars for hours on end at a garage I wouldn’t exactly see that as an improvement.