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Discussion: Illegal Faction Revamp


khadijeh.

Do you want to see the faction tier system on the server instead of the current faction system?  

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21 minutes ago, Copa Cabana said:

 

Absolutely agreed. And even if that issue is rooted out, IFM will still have some biases, it's only natural. It's just that they have to get ahead of the biases somehow. Even if the staff member is not present at the decisions that may cause conflict of interest, they still have friendships with other staff. There should be some way for the common folk to point out the inaccuracies and problems without getting ignored or chased off.

 

I agree. We definitely need a way for the "common folk" to point out problems without being ignored or chased off. I've felt that the census' we have done have received some of the most honest comments I've ever gotten in IFM, because they cannot be held accountable for their words. An anonymous reporting system might be an option? Just spewing ideas here.

 

18 minutes ago, Joseph Tarano said:

In this day and age, there is absolutely zero reason for a group/faction/whatever you want to call it to be excluded from having basic organisational abilities over their members in the form of a faction chat and the like. 

 

Gone should be the days where basic perks such as faction chats are held on a pedestal. The very fact that Discord has become so popular is because it allows OOC organisation/monitoring of members and ranks, and that should tell you something as the faction management team.

 

If a faction shows that they are serious about sticking around, this tier system only serves to benefit those people and will reward them for their efforts, but at least gives them a basic level of in game functionality/script assistance as a tier 0 faction. 

 

I support this idea, with the caveat that we should use this as a precedent moving forward to stop imposing so many OOC restrictions/provisions on things. Faction management should be there to steer and guide factions, and not outright interfere - not that I'm saying that's what's happening right now, but there certainly does seem to be some degree of nepotism or bias when it comes to factions. Giving everybody a base level of functionality will help combat that.

I've boldened what I'm replying to so it makes sense: We definitely need to remove the OOC restrictions and provisions as a whole, the entire system has too much OOC in as it is. We will be starting this A-S-A-P and this will be done before this system is pushed out. Less paperwork, for example with RoE that @TyJ and @Ali have revamped, we will be removing a lot of barriers that are IFM made.

 

16 minutes ago, Chuckles said:

I think the emphasized points have been somewhat misrepresented to divert the criticism to alternate areas and most of them directly correlate to one another. What it does is offer selective members of the community a handicap position. The lack of progression is parallel supplier selectivity and faction favouritism in the sense that they're honoured based on their OOC positioning much more than they are their IC standing. For example, supplier roles carry across characters and not factions. The aforementioned supplier creates a brand new faction establishing themselves as a "plug" from day one with no prior development and this propels them into much more prominence than any of the already-established factions because of the player base's lust for guns and drugs. I heard somebody mention that IFM fast track "established leaders," which is impractical. A faction should be judged on its roleplay and not somebody's OOC standing in the community or with IFM members.

 

But to touch a bit on faction favouritism I feel that it's completely opposite to what's described. Factions are not given precedence over good roleplay and I believe good illegal roleplay is largely overlooked for the most part. If anything, faction favouritism is influenced by your OOC network and intermediaries. I think heathen's case is a good example to bring to light to emphasize just how institutionalized the system actually is. Fundamentally the apparatus has been flawed for that long that there is more discussions than there is fixes. The reason factions don't have longevity is because they're given very little help and even less discourse. The tier system's essentially just a transcript of LSRP's "point" system.

 

What I don't like about GTAw's illegal aspect of the server is that everything is micromanaged. There is so much unnecessary bureaucracy involved that it completely dilutes and affects the IC landscape. Having to jump through countless OOC hoops just to explain every little step of your roleplay is what is serving as a deterrent here. I generally think inexperience plays a huge factor in this too. I was having a conversation the other day about it and it was brought up that the focus is in all the wrong places. There is too much underscoring on impracticalities when the emphasis should be put on functionalism. 

 

I'm personally happy that the impartiality has been addressed because it was the elephant in the room for a long time. I noticed IFM has a council compromised of non-staff roleplayers and I think to increase transparency they could be involved in these discussions too. But for an Illegal Faction Revamp to work I think management (or IFM's leader) would need to revamp IFM itself. We have been going through countless discussions, reviews and polls for months but there has only been very minor changes implemented, if any. Something like this is only good in theory because when it comes to the execution we'll be back to square one again.

 

I think transparency would give us more faith in the system.

 

For a day or two I think giving us, the community, a look into how factions are assessed would give us a lot more clarity into the decisions that go into enforcing factions. Is there a way IFM, or management, would make these "official applications" public or read-only for a few days or a week?

 

It shouldn't take weeks to get answers that can be given in minutes.

There is 100% too much micromanagement, these issues are all still present and need to be addressed, I cannot argue with you on that one. I agree. I do not know what LSRP's point system was as I was never on LSRP, so if there is similarities then that is a coincidence but I don't know what that is unfortunately. It may have developed over time from suggestions of other people.

 

I agree transparency hasn't been the best. This is something that you are right, has been flawed internally for a long time now. We can only improve on this each day at a time, step by step. The IFM Discord is currently being discussed to be opened up to more members of the community who are not necessarily leadership. Leadership does not equal knowledge. To note: as of today, the IFM Council has been shutdown. There will be no more voices heard more than others, we are moving towards more discussions like this, more transparency, more input from the people it impacts the most and that is the main community base.

 

Regarding the assessment of how factions are enforced, we would not be able to show directly on an example, but I think that a thread drafting what we are actually looking at, looking for, assessing might go a long way? What do you think?

 

I also agree it shouldn't take weeks to get answers that can be given in minutes. We have thought about making a Q&A thread, but for now my DMs on Discord and Forums have always been open and I usually get back to people within a day at maximum, same with other members of the team when they are around and available.

 

13 minutes ago, Arnold Inserra said:

Quality over quantity has always been the name of the game when it comes to portrayal of any sort of organized crime in role-play communities. Just like time, time's relative no pun intended at all. I'm not sure why you're willing to reward factions due to the fact that they've been up and running for a certain amount of time?

 

If anything a factions portrayal of their characters and their role play surrounding their faction is what should be rewarded and evaluated. A faction that is up and running for four months but provide exemplary portrayal of their organization is clearly more valuable to a role-play server than one who provides mediocre role-play but manage to stay alive for a longer period of time. Not to be harsh but the faction that stands out are the ones that should be rewarded in order to make sure that they stick around and that IFM do what they can to make sure that they're able to portray their organization the way they'd like to portray it. 

 

Everyone wants the role-play on the server to improve, it's only possible if the factions that actually provide the quality and the exemplary portrayal of their organizations are rewarded because of their quality not because of the fact that they've been up and running for 6 months. 

 

IFM should only be there to provide guidance & assistance in a factions portrayal and make sure that what they're trying to portray is possible and not limited. 

The length of a faction being open does not mean that they are a quality faction. We have all seen this in recent examples, factions that do not provide quality roleplay are not going to be rewarded. The timeline is a guideline to make it fair, but we won't give out pity tier increments or anything of the sort. If they do not meet the quality that we expect, that other players expect, we won't give them additional benefits. 

 

Factions will not be rewarded just because they have been open for a long time if they are not quality.

 

2 minutes ago, Miggs said:

If a faction closes and reopens do they keep the months official from the first run?

No decision has been made on this yet - they'll most likely receive at least some "refund" as they had been open before, but this will be established in the final review. Thank you for bringing it up.

 

3 minutes ago, Horgen said:

I'm glad that you're trying to fix up the bad steps that have been made previously. It's also refreshing that you're starting to actually listen the voices of roleplayers who should be the band that actually creates the actual vocals. We all do want to have the server improved with roleplay, hence IFM's the stand-point from where we can start. The fact that the previous IFM council is disbanded tells us that someone noticed all the problems and started to figure things out on how to remap the situation on the server. Taking that aside, I'm really glad to see that couple of official/unofficial factions really provide a great sense of roleplay and I really hope that this new progress won't favourise a faction that's on good terms with the leading team and get the status without actually deserving it. 


[THE CHIEF'S QUOTE]

 

This should go without saying. Well said.

The IFM Council initially did provide extremely good feedback and help, it was definitely something we will not take for granted. That being said, no one should feel like their voice is heard less. We are all equals here, regardless of staff or not staff, IFM or not IFM, leader or not leader of a faction. Everyone has different experiences, some of the most knowledgeable people I know are not in leadership positions in factions or in staff at all. 

 

This thread will be one of many to come, I hope. Transparency is so important in making sure a system that benefits the majority instead of the favoured minority is in place. As I've said in previous messages, this system will bring accountability to IFM. We will need to provide these factions 'fair & speedy trial'. Equality and universal system for all, no loop holes and no more God damn shortcuts for people who have it "in" with anyone.

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Except from the area claim, which needs to be done ICly, I'm in love with this idea. This will help well developed factions that have no supplier access to evolve into something bigger and probably get into the bigger league. This is a good compensation and will level the playing field a little.

 

Stellar job with this suggestion, +1.

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37 minutes ago, UTOPIA said:

Disenfranchised role-players who are anti-social, low quality role-players who are broadly disliked by the illegal faction community but manage to get by are now entitled to free stuff. 

 

I can't support a system that entitles and offers factions that may not be respected by the community at large not an opportunity but a guaranteed set of  guns, drugs, properties, mods, and a domain? I cannot support a system that uplifts undeserving factions. I am a firm believer in all factions having been created equally, they all have leaders, the ability to recruit new members, the ability to apply for opportunities, schemes, properties, and ultimately supplier. What this is doing is not only offering dinosaur factions that may not even really contribute to the scheme free stuff, but hard limiting new and upcoming factions from acquiring IFM properties. 

 

I say this as the former leader of the oldest faction on the server, there is no benefit to giving OLD factions free stuff, they should have been able to acquire these things on their own, they should be able to ICLY create connections and secure these opportunities, or apply for supplier.

 

This will create a copious amount of work for IFM to do, having to spawn in drops for 20+ factions on top of supplier drives, on top of approving faction threads, on top of monitoring faction quality, responding to scheme requests, IFM property requests, the list goes on - you simply cannot do it all, you are overbearing yourselves with responsibilities. Which will ultimately lead to the total and complete demise of this awful system, you do not have the resources, the time, nor do you care enough to monitor factions as is

 

If you cannot adequately monitor faction quality now, how do you intend on doing so for every single tier application? Even then, there is no established definition of what 'good roleplay quality' even is, it is all subjective. This is a system that takes something that is already incredibly simple, offers opportunity to everybody equally, and TIME-GATES it like it's an MMORPG, grinding and existing forever making you more powerful than other factions.

 

You are overcomplicating the system and this will ultimately lead towards a total administrative mess, we are trying to fix the system to remedy the lack of longevity within factions in south central, we all know that is what this is about. The fact of the matter is, if the faction leaders and members are not up to snuff, they do not deserve to exist nor do will they continue to exist! 

 

Addressing Demotivation

 

I cannot help but laugh at the notion; people who believe that the following reasons are reasons to be demotivated do not want to do it, or want to be spoon fed. I will refute them all briefly.

 

Lack of Progression: Would never be said by anybody who cares to create and facilitate roleplay for others and create interesting roleplay environments, players who say this want arbitrary power, they want to deathmatch, and they want free stuff.

 

Supplier Selectivity: Suppliers are high-quality and vetted role-players by the IFM team, the issue is very obviously supply and demand; as I have always said, IFM DECIDES WHO GETS SUPPLIER, if they want to give it to street gangs, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so, which renders this tiered give outs system redundant and pointless. Open up supplier to more street level role-players.

 

Faction Favoritism: Society has it's outcasts, there are simply some people who do not deserve to be brought to the forefront and are not given opportunity for a reason, when factions are known for deathmatching, instigating random conflict, and ultimately being noobs- but cannot be handled by IFM as it is out of their scope (so they claim), again- as I mentioned previously, factions manage to get by despite being full of shit heads.

 

If factions cannot get along with other factions ICLY, that is their fault for destroying their opportunities to get anywhere. If I go around pissing everybody off and being a dumb ass, deathmatching but getting away with it, overall being a shit head- but I post really really good roleplay screenshots, I am entitled to go up in the tiers and get more free guns to deathmatch with, brilliant idea! -_-

 

Incentives: One's incentive to lead a faction should simply be to create roleplay for others, not for free stuff, lol!!!!!- if anyone genuinely believes that factions need incentives to keep going? They should not be leading factions.

 

The poll is obviously a welfare poll, VOTE FOR FREE STUFF BRO!!!!! Everyone is going to vote for it, it's obviously what people want- MORE GUNS, MORE DRUGS, MORE STUFF- but this is only at face value, if you are going to make a decision based on a poll, I encourage you to poll for demographics and search for a relationship between what factions believe this system will work and who voted for more guns, I think this is necessary information and should be addressed on an individual basis, it will be very clear to see who wants this to be put in place. (Mostly going to be noobs.)

 

TL;DR

System will not work, will create way too much work for IFM, IFM will not be able to adequately gauge faction quality due to being so busy with new overbearing responsibilities, alleged issues are people wanting free stuff and being sad/moody :(.

 

 

2 minutes ago, lucky_ said:

What do you have to say on what UTOPIA posted? After reading his post it's got me thinking a lot more critically on this newly proposed system.

 

Honestly, I agree with almost everything he has said. However, I'm all for reducing the guns/drugs that are given at each tier completely. I'm all for increasing the amount of suppliers instead. There are so many solutions that can be trialed, instead of, alongside, replacing, etc. none of it is absolute.

 

This system was not just created by IFM, it's a combination of hundreds of suggestions that were brought up, the majority of which did come from roleplayers who are not within organised crime, or not within factions that have been at the top. I myself cannot have a completely objective view to this entire idea, I have my own personal gripes with it and I disagree with some parts of it myself, but in the end, it comes down to whether or not it will benefit the majority moving forwards.

 

I agree with all the concerns regarding what IFM can handle, which is why this system will not be pushed until that itself has been amended, but this is a discussion for a reason, it's not a preemptive approval, it's to open it to criticism, different opinions, opinions of people who see it differently and UTOPIA is extremely valid in what he's said

 

The poll will absolutely not be a determining factor, the most comes from the comments which are all being read, and replied to. The poll is a guideline but will not be taken at face value, it's simply a happy function to get some idea. Street suppliers have been tried, there is currently street suppliers also and people providing this, yet there is still issues.

 

There are still issues with this proposed idea of a system.

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1 hour ago, voucher said:

I think that it’s overall a good idea, but the month requirements should be removed. The quality of the faction and its roleplay should determine moving up exclusively, how long the faction has been around is irrelevant. 

Yeah, agree with this. Please don't make this time-locked, base it off the quality of the faction.

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1 minute ago, Hutch said:

Yeah, agree with this. Please don't make this time-locked, base it off the quality of the faction.

 

Absolutely. No faction that provides great roleplay should be time framed. This should be put in the books. If a faction is on the top of the game with providing top of the line guidance, there shouldn't be limitations whatsoever.

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17 minutes ago, honey. said:

 

Regarding the assessment of how factions are enforced, we would not be able to show directly on an example, but I think that a thread drafting what we are actually looking at, looking for, assessing might go a long way? What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

An inside take's definitely the answer to those hidden questions and a step in the right direction. There was a board on LSRP for this named Faction Management Public and it promoted discussions, dialogue and engagement between the average player and faction management. The only problem was it was a closed-group and invite only. I think an open board like this under the factions subcategories named IFP "Illegal Factions Public" could increase both the transparency and practicality of the genre. Instead of limiting it to one discussion there would be many coupled with suggestions and even updates. It was where the bulk of LSRP's illegal mandates came from: the public.

 

Except in this case it'd be partial and not exclusive.

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7 minutes ago, honey. said:

 

I agree. We definitely need a way for the "common folk" to point out problems without being ignored or chased off. I've felt that the census' we have done have received some of the most honest comments I've ever gotten in IFM, because they cannot be held accountable for their words. An anonymous reporting system might be an option? Just spewing ideas here.

 

 

Well, sure, an anonymous channel would guarantee better reporting rates, but what then? The people handling those complaints and reports will be the same ones that caused the issue and they will most likely try and downplay it or shoot it down all together. There has to be more transparency and accountability, especially accountability of those that make the executive decisions here. It's one thing to receive criticism but another to act on it. In my personal belief, some certain people are unfit for their positions.

 

Often times IFM takes decisions that are incompetent but not necessarily biased. We could remove the incompetence rather easily. An idea that I have seen blossom on another community is the IFM having a select group of players to go to for advice. Let's say you've received a complaint about a LCN faction roleplaying walking into businesses and demanding protection money and when the owner disagrees they damage the property. You don't know a thing about LCN and how it operates, so you look up one or few of the IFM advisers that knows about this kind of roleplay. You give them the facts of the matter without any names or factions involved and they give back an assessment to you back, preferably with reliable sources cited. This way we will be able to rule out mistakes/incompetence and decisions that regard RP quality will be down to either doing the right thing or being corrupt in favor of something.

 

Another thing we could do is empower LSPD and LSSD more. In cases where the behavior of certain groups is idiotic, I think the law enforcement should have more tools to take said groups down. Even to a point of archiving a faction. Then again cop-to-criminal ratio is too low and shootouts happen daily so I don't know if enough can even be done.

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From my personal experience, faction longevity's not a product of getting any gun or drug boosts, it's a product of having a good and dedicated leadership and middle ranks throughout your faction that know how to roleplay and develop a faction with their characters through a period of time, which in return brings the faction the longevity. 


Now that's being said, with the ideas given in here we'll just promote people to force some type of semi inactive closed-doors roleplay longevity, which in return, in this case - won't bring us back any quality.

 

Time that a faction has been open, in my opinion, should only be a given period to see if they can run without getting administrative actions taken against them. A faction that's open for 1 month can very well be better than someone who's been running for 3 months, regardless of the time they've been around. Groups of good roleplayers with well thought out characters and IC story will in the end always be attracting the crowd of newcomers and with that they will always get new activity and new in-character generations, leaving factions of lesser quality to simply die out as a group - which in result solves the problem by itself.

 

The problem that arises with the system that's being proposed now, is if you put any group over another based on time they've been running and give the older group perks based on that - you'll always have people chasing for guns and drugs maintaining the faction for the two beforementioned, essentially making a never ending cycle of harassing new factions of the same concept so that you can hold a monopoly based on something that's OOC, something that was happening not so long ago if you think about it. It's like saying two objects are racing endlessly with the same speed, but you let one go before the other. Whole crime groups IRL have been wiped out by younger generations with better plugs or by just having smarter criminal groups as rivals in general. That's how it should be on the server as well. 

To touch on the turf claims, it ties back to what I said previously - if a younger faction has more numbers and ends up getting more power or just better connections, they shouldn't be limited on taking the area over someone who's just been there for longer. One regulation to add is maybe that gangs shouldn't be able to open and immediately start running the older gang out the area if they have more numbers, because it takes generations to change the gang ethic background of a neighborhood. 

Crime is a fluent thing, it moves places and forms and people move with it. Areas like East LA that have stayed mostly Hispanic where life's pretty locked down to the area are almost non existent anymore and it's not a rare thing to see groups of gangmembers or mobsters chilling outside of their original turf if there is a need for them to be there.

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23 minutes ago, undefined said:

From my personal experience, faction longevity's not a product of getting any gun or drug boosts, it's a product of having a good and dedicated leadership and middle ranks throughout your faction that know how to roleplay and develop a faction with their characters through a period of time, which in return brings the faction the longevity. 


Now that's being said, with the ideas given in here we'll just promote people to force some type of semi inactive closed-doors roleplay longevity, which in return, in this case - won't bring us back any quality.

 

Time that a faction has been open, in my opinion, should only be a given period to see if they can run without getting administrative actions taken against them. A faction that's open for 1 month can very well be better than someone who's been running for 3 months, regardless of the time they've been around. Groups of good roleplayers with well thought out characters and IC story will in the end always be attracting the crowd of newcomers and with that they will always get new activity and new in-character generations, leaving factions of lesser quality to simply die out as a group - which in result solves the problem by itself.

 

The problem that arises with the system that's being proposed now, is if you put any group over another based on time they've been running and give the older group perks based on that - you'll always have people chasing for guns and drugs maintaining the faction for the two beforementioned, essentially making a never ending cycle of harassing new factions of the same concept so that you can hold a monopoly based on something that's OOC, something that was happening not so long ago if you think about it. It's like saying two objects are racing endlessly with the same speed, but you let one go before the other. Whole crime groups IRL have been wiped out by younger generations with better plugs or by just having smarter criminal groups as rivals in general. That's how it should be on the server as well. 

To touch on the turf claims, it ties back to what I said previously - if a younger faction has more numbers and ends up getting more power or just better connections, they shouldn't be limited on taking the area over someone who's just been there for longer. One regulation to add is maybe that gangs shouldn't be able to open and immediately start running the older gang out the area if they have more numbers, because it takes generations to change the gang ethic background of a neighborhood. 

Crime is a fluent thing, it moves places and forms and people move with it. Areas like East LA that have stayed mostly Hispanic where life's pretty locked down to the area are almost non existent anymore and it's not a rare thing to see groups of gangmembers or mobsters chilling outside of their original turf if there is a need for them to be there.

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