Roleplaying Fire Department response times

[Biscuit]

3 minutes ago, Florida said:

Brother this is a video game you sound burned out. I said privatized EMT companies because that is the IRL solution to a lack of medical personnel responding to emergencies. It’s really not that complicated.

ok, I’ll take a breather sorry for sounding burnt out via text 

Edited August 21, 2021 by Biscuit

[Kappaurel]

57 minutes ago, Biscuit said:

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.

 

This post is a masterclass, anyone with legit interest in this discussion should read it, and read it again, cause it leaves nothing out, and addresses all the topics that have been brought up. If you want to talk about the topic, first read Biscuit's post. Don't throw opinions and ideas without at least the basic information this post provides.

 

/sendtohospital is the best idea, as Biscuit also suggested. 

 

From the point of view of an FD member who joined as little as 1 month ago. I love the people in my faction, I love a lot of the roleplay we do.. but as a Probationary, I ended up handling Dispatch for SD, Dispatch for PD in /dep, talking in the radio to organize our own ambulances, ALL WHILE HANDLING MYSELF A SCENE, and that wasn't even enough to cover it all. That's the workload we have before us.

 

Sometimes, many LEO members don't even care about us, this is not bashing, it's how it feels from out point. They just want their calls responded with maximum priority (let's not get into how they many times ignore OUR calls for help), and that's that. They don't care about our roleplay, and we feel rushed to make our RP quick and go to the next call (of course, our faction leadership which is amazing tells us to never do that, and always focus on our roleplay and provide quality)

 

As Biscuit also said, it ... sucks to feel your RP so unwelcomed, cause people just want to respawn, ignore injuries and keep on shooting/robbing, no one wants to deal with the consequences. It burns your soul to do the same RP over and over and over and over and over.

 

If anything keeps this faction going (I repeat, this is my point of view as someone who joined just 1 month ago), is the amazing group of people we have and the inter-personal relationships we develop among members. Cause apart from the very rare case of an interesting original call (that most likely than not, you won't be able to take cause you aren't in the SPECIAL GROUP, be it USAR, or AIR, or whatever)... it's always the same.

 

[DasFroggy]

2 minutes ago, Kappaurel said:

It burns your soul to do the same RP over and over and over and over and over.

 

It's going to get worse.

 

2 minutes ago, Kappaurel said:

apart from the very rare case of an interesting original call

 

Like the time I was attacked with a hammer while waiting for LEO? It was fun getting treated for that.

[Kappaurel]

Just now, DasFroggy said:

Like the time I was attacked with a hammer while waiting for LEO? It was fun getting treated for that.

 

You are always an oasis in the middle of the desert.

[KinnyWynny]

26 minutes ago, Biscuit said:

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.

What if I told you I was in the faction for over two years? And most of my opinions are built on hard experience of the faction. I've tried other factions, none of them were as fun, or as flawed as the LSFD. Because ultimately, the LSFD is LSFD's worse enemy in a lot of cases, and it can't all be attributed to bad roleplay they have to deal with. Part of emergency services is bad roleplay, it's expected, your goal in a OOC sense, is to unfuck the fucked, and find enjoyment in that.

 

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?

Because portrayal, portrayal of private EMS is gritty, down to earth and rough. Why do you think people play gangbangers, nazi's, bikers, drug dealers, methamphetamine enthusiasts. From an IC basis, FD is a better career, but harder to get into, and you have to do fire. Private EMS exists because it does, and because governments are cheap. Part of that experience in roleplay is finding the flaws, in your character and your factions that would realistically happen, and using that to make the faction an enjoyable experience for all.

 

I should probably do this so people dont mix IC/OOC. IC portrayal means private EMS is a terrible career, but a necessary one for many EMS providers to even do the job. Plenty of reasons people do it, part of what makes it fun in RP, is the grittyness of being in it. Grit builds character, and we're playing characters.

 

OOCly, it'd obviously be ran well. Just like how the LSSD has corrupt elements based on their IRL counterpart the LASD, any private EMS faction has plenty of horror stories to roleplay.

 

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.

I'm generalizing with my post but I should explain it isn't the /only/ thing we'd be doing. And this is for when calls are rare and in between so. Doesn't really happen much remember? Original post is the fact the entire server is swamped in EMS calls.

 

LSSD ESD for help funny you should mention this.

 

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.

You sound burnt out yeah. I've had plenty of amazing experiences, and plenty of shitty ones. But I never had the shitty ones bother me that much, if I did, I'd log off, play something else. Shitty roleplay is expected, either report it, dont report it, and move on. Or laugh at it. I usually pick the latter.

 

End of the day, I'm going to put my biggest point here. The EMS system in GTAW is utterly and completely asinine. We have LSPD Paramedics, LSSD Paramedics, LSFD trying to run from call to call to call. Which they shouldn't do, your goal isn't to answer all the calls, it's to answer the calls well. If people can see the LSFD being a functional and excellent faction to roleplay in, you'll get more people, and those people will stay. I've been in FD since I joined the server essentially, and I've seen /hundreds/ of people leave because it was just a hard experience. Not the calls, not the lack of motivation, it was the fact the faction was so hard to get in to.

 

Not to mention half the time RA's do show up, they show up as solo ambulances. Of course LSFD get's bullied by LEO's when they're always on their own. You guys need to partner up, join up, and work together.

 

EMS is a team sport. It takes more than one to tango, and doing it alone sucks, its why these calls suck for FD, when you do show up, you demotivate yourself by going in alone, having no one to lean on, to vent to, to roleplay with if your patient is dogshit.

[Biscuit]

1 minute ago, KinnyWynny said:

snip

I have to say, props for making good points it makes for a good debate, as I said that was my last response and cause we’re both on opposite ends of the spectrum and will probably never meet a middle ground and writing more novels is just gonna take up more of our times going in circles.

 

it’s funny how I apparently can sound burnt out over text without actually ever being a firefighter or EMT but just speaking in representation of the department and I’m kinda proud of myself to be connected with the firefighters like that.

 

On that note let’s just agree to disagree and move on

[EliH]

Regular players don't enjoy sitting there and typing /me's about whatever injury they decide they have. Medical RP is very boring for anyone not interested in it, which is the majority of the playerbase.

 

A scripted injury system would go a long way with improving medical roleplay and could easily have the same rules as trucking, that is you use the scripted system (could be simple, but preferably indepth for injuries) but you MUST also roleplay via /me's.

[DasFroggy]

7 minutes ago, EliH said:

A scripted injury system would go a long way with improving medical roleplay and could easily have the same rules as trucking, that is you use the scripted system (could be simple, but preferably indepth for injuries) but you MUST also roleplay via /me's.

 

"Yo, it was whack man, our boy Chester was feelin' pretty bad after that driveby an' all, but then he up and accidentally capped himself in the face three times, y'dig? My man, Chester was feelin' it, for real. Just 'pop pop pop' and DAMN dude, shit was tight. Anyway, look, I'mma be real wit'chu, we don' need no amboolance now, f'real, y'dig? Chester's singin' with the big homies up high now, fam."

Edited August 21, 2021 by DasFroggy
Reason for edit: DasFroggy does not know how gang-speak works.

[Kappaurel]

28 minutes ago, Florida said:

Brother this is a video game you sound burned out. I said privatized EMT companies because that is the IRL solution to a lack of medical personnel responding to emergencies. It’s really not that complicated.

 

Yes, cause IRL clearly applies to GTAW perfectly every time someone tries to go with that genius idea. Listen to Biscuit and assume that what he is saying is as close to the truth as it gets, and his predictions, although with some typical error, will be really approximate to what would happen.

 

You make a private EMT company? You lose players that don't respond for admin stuff, management stuff. You take people out of LSFD, you will lack personnel to train the new faction. Just, horrible idea buddy. 

---

My answer to @KinnyWynny

 

I will TRY to be brief, cause Biscuit has given you an indepth explanation. While you put effort and time in your post, your proposal is very idealistic, and sadly, when it comes to applying it, it would suck, a lot. I invite you to join LSFD and see it from inside, to see where your arguments fail.

 

• You want a private EMS faction that would split the already small playerbase that is interested in medical RP... so they hate the private EMS faction, and they go to LSFD. 

No, that doesn't work like that. Let me tell you how that would work, that faction would be composed by two types of players:

1.  LSFD members who leave to try the new thing, cause they are burnt from LSFD. It would suck, as you predicted, and they'd just leave medical RP.
2.  New players, who would join a new, understaffed and with overall much lower quality that the well established LSFD, it would suck, they wouldn't give medical RP a chance, and they'd just leave the idea forever, without having tried LSFD which COULD have given them a better experience.

 

• Ah yes, it's not all about the calls... the groceries, the maintenance...

Man, you haven't seen how it works, I appreciate your good intention... but please, don't talk about stuff you don't know. If we ever try to do that, we get redirected by 911 calls, and if we ignore them for some reason, we'd get within 3 minutes a OFFICER DOWN, PRIORITY CALL in /dep .

 

We don't have the time to do that, and people who like to do EMT RP aren't usually okay with the idea of just.. ignoring calls. The only chance to do that is going off duty, but then we go to the complains about LSFD is not active yadda yadda no one answers. 

 

• People don't like medical RP cause...

People don't like medical RP cause it's something they didn't have in mind doing. The thing just went bad for them, either they got ran over by a car, they collided after driving like stupid apes and the other player refused to skip the crash, or they got shot after trying to rob someone (most cases). They just don't want to be there, and even the best EMT would not change that. Moreover, let's not talk about how you are basically requesting that LSFD members have an attitude close to Buddha himself, dealing with people who don't want to RP with them call after call, day after day. That burns even Ned Flanders.

 

• 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.

This is not a Mr. Wonderful notebook.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Kappaurel

[Kappaurel]

7 minutes ago, EliH said:

Regular players don't enjoy sitting there and typing /me's about whatever injury they decide they have. Medical RP is very boring for anyone not interested in it, which is the majority of the playerbase.

 

A scripted injury system would go a long way with improving medical roleplay and could easily have the same rules as trucking, that is you use the scripted system (could be simple, but preferably indepth for injuries) but you MUST also roleplay via /me's.

 

I mean, a scripted injury system already exists. You have bleeding effect, and when you arrive on scene you see if the person was shot or what. 

 

But... yeah it could use a lot more of depth... but then once again, it would force players to RP stuff they don't like, and make it a real shit.