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Roleplaying Fire Department response times


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9 minutes ago, Peak. said:

Where's the Chest Pains, Shortness of Breath, the chronic diseases

 

Drowned out by the GSWs, usually. Answer a call about someone who's having difficulty breathing instead of the gunfight three blocks over, and we get this thread again, discussing how FD and EMS in general isn't responding to dying people.

 

I'm all for less GSWs too, but you're better off betting your money on a real winner, like ammo sales.

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17 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

 

Drowned out by the GSWs, usually. Answer a call about someone who's having difficulty breathing instead of the gunfight three blocks over, and we get this thread again, discussing how FD and EMS in general isn't responding to dying people.

 

I'm all for less GSWs too, but you're better off betting your money on a real winner, like ammo sales.


From my experience as a physician as Pillbox. These types of patients do appear once in a blue moon. Unfortunately they usually skip on calling 911 and they self transport to the ED. This may, or may not be a result of FDs reputation. 
 

On the topic of other ground ambulance providers. I’m all for it, I think FD could use some healthy competition, because as the sole EMS provider they have no incentive to improve. They are fully within their right to say “it’s our way or the highway” at the moment, if players who were more interested in quality/advanced prehospital RP had a faction of their own, FD would be forced to up their own standards, OR choose an alternative focus. Because honestly I think having a separate ambulance would benefit them by allowing them to staff more actual fire apparatus, which is something they struggle to do currently as they barely meet ambulance demands.

 

EDIT: Basically, don’t take away FDs ambulances, just allow other factions to have them (Private Ambulance/PHMC) for scenarios when FD can’t meet demands.

Edited by TheSenate
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Another EMS company, either a private ambulance company or something volunteer isn't a recipe to take members from the LSFD, as many have stated above, the actual faction has a specific goal, roleplaying as a city fire department, yes it does run EMS, but that's a specific culture.

 

There's a large and missed opportunity to showcase another major EMS component in a county EMS system, the prevalence of private EMS companies. A section of roleplay utterly untapped by roleplay communities. 

 

Part of that, and this is super prevelant in LA county, are EMT/Paramedics who work private, who work in terrible near burnout conditions, with shitty supervisors, forced overtime, ambulances that break down, charging for ambulance rides out of system, which creates the massive Ambulance bills you see in the US. None of this can really be done by the LSFD, because they're a city fire department, which has a ton of cash, an excellent union, and a different goal in mind.

 

So there's a ton of people who wanna portray that gritty aspect of EMS, but simply can't with a fire department, also that Fire Department would probably love to not have to staff a hundred RA's, and instead run an Engine or two to a medical call, like IRL, and in LA county.

 

 

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tl;dr private ems would probably help the massive call volume by giving interested players a new faction to try out.

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43 minutes ago, Peak. said:

I myself hold said experience, I have been apart of FD, and I agree that clinically there isn't much too it. Then again, is it there fault with the player base generally calling 911 for GSWs and MVAs a very boring and repetitive part of EMS. Where's the Chest Pains, Shortness of Breath, the chronic diseases there are none. Like you say players are following guides. It takes up to three years to even learn the basics of pre-hospital medicine. I just wish LSFD had a surge of players under strong leadership.

 

I've been in a couple roleplay scenarios where FD would've been crucial to have on-scene, and those situations didn't involve being wounded. One situation was where my character was stuck on a high place (think a hill/rooftop edge with no means of getting down), and FD could've either used ladders or a helicopter to rescue, but alas nobody was on duty at the time.

 

With that being said, I feel like situations like mine are quite rare. I don't blame FD for this at all, I blame some of the players for only being interested in either venue roleplay, or crime roleplay. I do wish that FD had a huge influx of quality roleplayers joining; I've had some pretty good experiences with FD members, and a lot of them seem to know what they're doing, so props to them. The issue is that there aren't a lot of them at all — people would rather be a cop with a gun than a paramedic with potentially nothing but lines of RP by their side.

 

32 minutes ago, HaminLord said:

I don't really know nor care for FD's members, but lets at least try to keep this discussion on topic and not make this a "Oh yeah this is LSFD's fault because of this and that".

 

Thanks.

Echoing this. What more could FD really do? When you think rationally, it's actually quite hard to blame FD — it isn't their fault that people aren't joining their faction. It is a staffing issue, but if their recruitment is open then what more could we expect from them? It's really down to the playerbase and whether any of the players want their characters in the faction.

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2 hours ago, TheSenate said:

This logic follows the assumption that everyone who wants to RP in EMS is already a member of LSFD or planning on becoming one. I’ve met numerous people on this server (many of them actual EMTs/Paramedics) who would be willing to roleplay in EMS, but refuse to join FD due to the state of the faction. 
 

LSFD is (and I say this as a member of it) a faction that isn’t overly interested in the clinical aspect of EMS. Very few members are interested in learning more about EMS or advancing their understanding of it. Most of them follow guides dating back to early LSRP and they often have a unwelcoming attitude towards individuals who come along and try to help them better understand the realities of EMS. This isn’t universally true of -all- LSFD members, but it is unfortunately very prevalent in their ranks.

 

So it is understandable that there is a community of prospective EMS roleplayers outside of LSFD who choose not to join that faction.

 

The issue really comes down to the lack of staffing. I've been going on duty at night (around midnight) for an hour or so, in the last few days, and I'll tell you this. You get absolutely hammered with calls, they won't stop, from the usual 911s everyone speak about, to PD/SD requesting 4 RAs for a shooting or an MVA, we simply do not have the resources for it. If we did have these resources, it would give us actual room to provide some quality roleplay instead of rushing to your next scene. And before you say "Quality > Quantity", look at the thread you're in, this is the direct result.

 

You also seem to forget not everyone are into medical RP as much as you are, and that means the victims too, I don't know how much experience you have going around Davis in an RA,  but not many actually care about your 40 minutes monologue of /me's about how you're treating them, they just want to go on with their day, the RP goes stale very quickly, as the other side is simply forced to RP with you, and is not actually having fun.

 

I'm sorry if you and others feel like the LSFD isn't good enough for your EMS skills, but the truth is, if it was something the community wanted, we probably would have done it, but like I mentioned above, majority of the server simply doesn't want to go into such depths of medical RP as they are not real life EMT/Paramedics, and barely understand when you're asking them for their pulse.

 

Oh, and if you encounter even the slightest attitude from one of our faction members, please, report it, we're only trying to get better for you guys.

 

1 hour ago, DasFroggy said:

 

Drowned out by the GSWs, usually. Answer a call about someone who's having difficulty breathing instead of the gunfight three blocks over, and we get this thread again, discussing how FD and EMS in general isn't responding to dying people.

 

I'm all for less GSWs too, but you're better off betting your money on a real winner, like ammo sales.

 

This. We had a nine one one call about food poisoning last night, cool, unique, right? It really is, problem is, we only had 2 RAs available, with about 6-7 calls pending. We simply can not keep up with the call volume, especially when it's for a long call that provides us with fun unique roleplay.

 

I won't be replying to the rest as it's getting late for me, but for the actual suggestion, this (NPC ambulance) was brought up already and we're discussing it in the faction.

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I don't expect anyone to read this entire post so here's a TLDR;

- A new faction wouldn't work.

- Some statistics

- Rapid drop in player numbers

- People don't like to roleplay medical injuries

90% of the time, it's people that tab out and watch youtube whilst you have to paste the exact same /do 3 times to ask them for their Blood Pressure

before you even get to the scene, sadly it does happen with gangs mostly, but gang members will just tend to /acceptdeath if you arrive on scene and just /do No pulse.

- It's really fucking rare that you get anyone that actually enjoys roleplaying medical calls, so much so that I can say that only 10% of all total calls are overdoses, heart failure, pregnancies, stuff like that.

- In short, I honestly thing the main killer of activity here is the reason that people just don't like medical RP, it comes with the play-to-win mentality that exists on this server,

 

 

I'm sorry, but I genuinely fail to see how making a new faction would fix anything, if anything, it'd probably make it worse in my eyes and I'd have reasonable research to use as arguing points.

 

Let's adapt the best case scenario, we instate EMS as a private company / entity, they have their own faction and they work alongside the LSFD. Whilst, that, in itself, would cause issues similar to how the LSPD Staff and LSSD Staff, but ignoring that, we go with literally the best case scenario, the 1% which is that everything is perfect.

 

The LSFD currently has ~100 members, a little bit less, but it's around that number, with the factor that they have a specialized EMS division that focuses on nothing else but medical callouts. Okay, we put that into perspective;

More specific factions with more specific roles that aren't wide ranged, usually have a member count of around 30-50 members, here's my numbers:
SFM has 15 members. (Average online during peak time ~2)
SAPR has ~50 members. (Average online during peak time ~5)
DMEC has ~50 members. (Average online during peak time ~5)
PHMC has ~50 members. (Average online during peak time ~2)
Hope Health Group has ~30 members (Average online during peak time ~2)

 

So, going with the best case scenario, we say that the private EMS group is a successful launch and they get ~60 members to be generous. That doesn't come without consequences, most likely, in any scenario, there will be a couple, not a lot, but a couple of resignations from the LSFD going to the private EMS group, okay, lets say best case scenario, LSFD looses 10 people and 5 of them were in the EMS division.

 

Now, we have to account for administrative / management roles, usually for character portrayal reasons, management members don't really actively go out on calls, this is mainly high of the highs, CEOs and stuff, people busy with administrative work, so we bust down the numbers a bit ~55 members in EMS. Along with that, activity.

 

SFM, SAPR, DEMC, PHMC have around an average of 30-40% per month activity rate whilst they're on the server, so, being generous, lets give the EMS faction a 50% activity rate. That is, with the people that even go on the server, which 100% of your faction going on the server isn't really a realistic number, so out of lets say a good 3/4 of your faction, going on the server in a month, counting LOAs, general inactivity and all that, we have 3/4th of the faction having a 50% activity rate, so about 40ish members having a 50% activity rate, which means at peak time it'd be around, in the best case scenario, around 20 members online. Whilst it may not seem realistic, let me just emphasize that LSFD, in this current comparison has 50 more members and they rarely reach that number with all staff included, so I just want to emphasize how generous we're being with these numbers.

 

We have 20 people online, at peak times, when there's either zero calls or a fucking waterfall of calls, what now? Everyone would instantly get demotivated and the numbers would drop instantly the same way the LSFD gets demotivated fast, why? People just don't want or don't like to roleplay medical RP. 30ish% of all calls the LSFD has are pretty much MVAs, which means a private EMS company would need an Engine on scene to help with possible entrapments or hazards, which means that FD would pretty much still have to respond to 30% of all callouts, not really giving the FD a change in response time using this example, but still, we're being generous, most of these calls are pretty mediocre at most, whilst some people do really detail their roleplay ability, 90% of the time, it's people that tab out and watch youtube whilst you have to paste the exact same /do 3 times to ask them for their Blood Pressure. What's the rest of the call statistics? About 60ish% of all callouts is shootings, and boy are those not fun at all. Most of the time, it's a result of mass shootings of gang members and/or police officers who have zero interest in roleplaying with the FD, before you even get to the scene, sadly it does happen with gangs mostly, but gang members will just tend to /acceptdeath if you arrive on scene and just /do No pulse. The 10% of other calls are really rare medical calls, such as heart attacks, pregnancies, overdoses, you RARELY get those calls where the person actually wants to roleplay with you.

 

In short, I honestly thing the main killer of activity here is the reason that people just don't like medical RP, it comes with the play-to-win mentality that exists on this server, making a new faction won't fix it, telling people to wait won't fix it, force CKing people that won't roleplay might fix it.. I dunno, I wouldn't want to try due to the backlash... And looking at the statistics, there's absolutely no way the faction would be the magic savior that people claim for it to be, there's no way that the faction would get 20 members online at peak, and if they would, massive amounts would just drop interest as soon as they arrive to the first scene and see how people don't like medical RP.

Edited by Biscuit
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18 minutes ago, Biscuit said:

snip

tl;dr dont ask for blood pressure

 

OK. Time to address a couple of points to this. This is a nihilistic approach to EMS, and I don't disagree on it being the right attitude, the EMS scene on GTAW is at best... problematic. Doesn't mean there isn't fun to be had, it's why EMS factions exist, it's why a hospital tries to exist. So let me address a few points where I can.

 

 

The LSFD currently has ~100 members, a little bit less, but it's around that number, with the factor that they have a specialized EMS division that focuses on nothing else but medical callouts. Okay, we put that into perspective;

More specific factions with more specific roles that aren't wide ranged, usually have a member count of around 30-50 members, here's my numbers:
SFM has 15 members. (Average online during peak time ~2)
SAPR has ~50 members. (Average online during peak time ~5)
DMEC has ~50 members. (Average online during peak time ~5)
PHMC has ~50 members. (Average online during peak time ~2)
Hope Health Group has ~30 members (Average online during peak time ~2)

The issue with SFM, DMEC, PHMC, and HHG, is there niche is overtly passive. The most high acuity PHMC will get is a code or maybe a rushed ER, SFM might have a fire to respond to, DMEC... a very nasty body and hope health is fine on activity. These factions in their own niche are very very very chill, so it tends to get a little stale after awhile, which is fine.

 

Contrast that with any EMS faction, which responds to scenes which aren't very safe, how many times has law enforcement officers have gone silent on a "LEO's needed" request? Where you and your partner are at risk of being shot. Kind of exciting right? And EMS is out in the field, community interaction and all that. A lot more room to move, roleplay, and generate story content.

 

So, going with the best case scenario, we say that the private EMS group is a successful launch and they get ~60 members to be generous. That doesn't come without consequences, most likely, in any scenario, there will be a couple, not a lot, but a couple of resignations from the LSFD going to the private EMS group, okay, lets say best case scenario, LSFD looses 10 people and 5 of them were in the EMS division.

 

Now, we have to account for administrative / management roles, usually for character portrayal reasons, management members don't really actively go out on calls, this is mainly high of the highs, CEOs and stuff, people busy with administrative work, so we bust down the numbers a bit ~55 members in EMS. Along with that, activity.

This isn't a lost, they'd be staffing private ambulances and assisting in callouts. FD would also gain members because in my previous point, any private EMS faction will have to deal with the fact that being in private EMS fucking SUCKS. ICly. That's part of the portrayal, you'll have Paramedics wanting to switch back to that sweet Fire Department job, with union benefits and good PR. Use that to the factions advantage.

 

 

We have 20 people online, at peak times, when there's either zero calls or a fucking waterfall of calls, what now? Everyone would instantly get demotivated and the numbers would drop instantly the same way the LSFD gets demotivated fast, why? People just don't want or don't like to roleplay medical RP. 40ish% of all calls the LSFD has are pretty much MVAs, which means a private EMS company would need an Engine on scene to help with possible entrapments or hazards, which means that FD would pretty much still have to respond to 60% of all callouts, not really giving the FD a change in response time using this example, but still, we're being generous, most of these calls are pretty mediocre at most, whilst most people do really detail their roleplay ability, 90% of the time, it's people that tab out and watch youtube whilst you have to paste the exact same /do 3 times to ask them for their Blood Pressure. What's the rest of the call statistics? About 35ish% of all callouts is shootings, and boy are those not fun at all. Most of the time, it's a result of mass shootings of gang members and/or police officers who have zero interest in roleplaying with the FD, before you even get to the scene, sadly it does happen with gangs mostly, but gang members will just tend to /acceptdeath if you arrive on scene and just /do No pulse. The 10% of other calls are really rare medical calls, such as heart attacks, pregnancies, overdoses, you RARELY get those calls where the person actually wants to roleplay with you.

EMS and fire departments portrayal aren't all about the calls. Public service is the name of the game. For the fire department you have fire hydrant maintenance, events, community outreach, not to mention you're a fire department, fire rigs are used all the time in the community. You'll see companies going out for groceries between calls, or just chilling with the community.

 

EMS has community paramedicine, and inter facility transports for TTCF and PHMC. Both'll be fine, and activity is the measure of a faction with a healthy landscape. Calls aren't the end all be all of a faction's health. LSSD and LSPD have fucktons of shitty calls, trust me I was in one of them, maybe 1 in 20 calls were OK. You know what made those factions fun? Community interaction and the interaction on scene with your fellow cops. Also the weird shit you see. Poor roleplay is kind of funny.

 

As for the medical roleplay critique, just don't do vitals. If the person isn't responding, you're not hitting a roadblock, you gotta find another angle. Start asking questions of witnesses, look for clues on the person, make it interesting. EMS is a profession about being a medical detective. Your entire goal is finding the thing that's wrong, so the ER has an idea of what's going on, and maybe on how to fix it.

 

Vitals on a roleplay server are always secondary because they're complicated, do your patient a favor, ask if they want to NPC the vital taking, and let you make them up based on their RPed condition. Help them roleplay the medical issue! Give them ideas, do a little research. EMS isn't about vitals on a roleplay server, it's about patient-EMT interaction.

 

 

In short, I honestly thing the main killer of activity here is the reason that people just don't like medical RP, it comes with the play-to-win mentality that exists on this server, making a new faction won't fix it, telling people to wait won't fix it, force CKing people that won't roleplay and looking at the statistics, there's absolutely no way the faction would be the magic savior that people claim for it to be, there's no way that the faction would get 20 members online at peak, and if they would, massive amounts would just drop interest as soon as they arrive to the first scene and see how people don't like medical RP.

For my most controversial opinion, people don't like medical roleplay because they're not sure what to do. Any good EMS/Medical roleplayer assists their patients, and focuses less on the actual medicine, and more on the right actions, right interactions, and doing their best to make it either a quick or extremely fun experience.

 

You're a responder to a person's worse day, you can make that fun. It's all about how you teach it and how you roleplay around the headaches and roadblocks.

Edited by KinnyWynny
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20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

snip

 

I dunno man, if I can't convince you, try it out yourself, least go through the probationary stage as LSFD EMS, if you have fun then that's you, but as far as literally everyone has told LFM, including LSSD EMS, including LSFD, including DMEC, including PHMC, the main reason medical calls aren't fun, is cause they're not fun.

 

I can tell you as an admin, as much as you try to educate someone with a play-to-win mentality, the response you usually get is "lol whatever, lets just get it over with." which is, as I said, 90% of pretty much every single call.

 

I don't know how more people online during peak times would improve response times, especially that if you take due care to educate a patient, you're going to be stuck on calls longer, making people wait longer, essentially not changing anything at all.

 

Point by point;

20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

The issue with SFM, DMEC, PHMC, and HHG, is there niche is overtly passive. The most high acuity PHMC will get is a code or maybe a rushed ER, SFM might have a fire to respond to, DMEC... a very nasty body and hope health is fine on activity. These factions in their own niche are very very very chill, so it tends to get a little stale after awhile, which is fine.

 

Contrast that with any EMS faction, which responds to scenes which aren't very safe, how many times has law enforcement gone silent on a "LEO's needed" request? Where you and your partner are at risk of being shot. Kind of exciting right? And EMS is out in the field, community interaction and all that. A lot more room to move, roleplay, and generate story content.

It'd honestly be the same thing for EMS, I am willing to bet 1000 WP that if an EMS faction opens up, at peak times, it'd be about 3-5 people at most.

 

Along with that, it's rare as fuck that LEO needed request are gone unanswered recently, especially since all the new communication divisions that the factions have made, with civilian dispatchers. So for that rare 10% of the time that LEO needed requests aren't answered, and if you make an EMS faction with the basis that LEO requests aren't even made, then I guarantee you that your faction is gonna get reported by every single LEO faction and LFM is gonna have to step in and restrict EMS from going to scenes without calling for LEOs first.

 

Then again, absolutely nothing is stopping LSFD from making a tactical response unit, and I do think that one is in the works.

 

20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

This isn't a lost, they'd be staffing private ambulances and assisting in callouts. FD would also gain members because in my previous point, any private EMS faction will have to deal with the fact that being in private EMS fucking SUCKS. ICly. That's part of the portrayal, you'll have Paramedics wanting to switch back to that sweet Fire Department job, with union benefits and good PR. Use that to the factions advantage.

Then.. What's the point?

 

I genuinely don't get it, the argument here is to make a faction that's better but apparently it's not better? Private EMS is apparently not paid a lot, and if you don't pay your staff a lot, your faction isn't gonna go anywhere for the amount of bullshit callouts you're gonna handle. I get the point of competition but what's the hassle when FD is always better then EMS?

 

20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

EMS and fire departments portrayal aren't all about the calls. Public service is the name of the game. For the fire department you have fire hydrant maintenance, events, community outreach, not to mention you're a fire department, fire rigs are used all the time in the community. You'll see companies going out for groceries between calls, or just chilling with the community.

Already being done, just not common, since we never have time due to the amount of calls.

 

20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

EMS has community paramedicine, and inter facility transports for TTCF and PHMC. Both'll be fine, and activity is the measure of a faction with a healthy landscape. Calls aren't the end all be all of a faction's health. LSSD and LSPD have fucktons of shitty calls, trust me I was in one of them, maybe 1 in 20 calls were OK. You know what made those factions fun? Community interaction and the interaction on scene with your fellow cops. Also the weird shit you see. Poor roleplay is kind of funny.

Inner facility transports are fucking rare, never happen, cause right now, for an inner facility transport to happen, you have to a) Get some gang member to roleplay injures without accepting death. b) Have hospital staff online. c) Have the person roleplay realistic recovery.

 

That happens 1% of the time. So, for that 1% of the time, I doubt people would be interested.

 

Literally everything else is PR, which, believe it or not, is not gonna be reality, cause we're still gonna be swarmed with calls, cause 3 more people helping us with calls is literally like asking LSSD ESD for help, it does jack shit to help.

 

20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

As for the medical roleplay critique, just don't do vitals. If the person isn't responding, you're not hitting a roadblock, you gotta find another angle. Start asking questions of witnesses, look for clues on the person, make it interesting. EMS is a profession about being a medical detective. Your entire goal is finding the thing that's wrong, so the ER has an idea of what's going on, and maybe on how to fix it.

 

20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

Vitals on a roleplay server are always secondary because they're complicated, do your patient a favor, ask if they want to NPC the vital taking, and let you make them up based on their RPed condition. Help them roleplay the medical issue! Give them ideas, do a little research. EMS isn't about vitals on a roleplay server, it's about patient-EMT interaction.

 

20 minutes ago, KinnyWynny said:

For my most controversial opinion, people don't like medical roleplay because they're not sure what to do. Any good EMS/Medical roleplayer assists their patients, and focuses less on the actual medicine, and more on the right actions, right interactions, and doing their best to make it either a quick or extremely fun experience.

 

You're a responder to a person's worse day, you can make that fun. It's all about how you teach it and how you roleplay around the headaches and roadblocks.

Refer to my earlier points;

 

I can tell you as an admin, as much as you try to educate someone with a play-to-win mentality, the response you usually get is "lol whatever, lets just get it over with." which is, as I said, 90% of pretty much every single call.

 

I don't know how more people online during peak times would improve response times, especially that if you take due care to educate a patient, you're going to be stuck on calls longer, making people wait longer, essentially not changing anything at all.

 

 

-----------------------

I'm not really gonna go back and forward on this thread take it or leave it, it's my final response, as LFM, I can just state that with the factions that promised to be innovative, game changing, super active, all of that, it never turned out that way. PHMC being a really good example, and not bashing PHMC bless them, I understand their pain cause it's shared with LSFD equally.

Edited by Biscuit
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