PSA: Call more cabs!!!

[Cypher99]

24 minutes ago, PRESCRIPTION said:

Players get a rentable vehicle when starting out which really takes out of taxi utilization. The prime time to use the taxi system should be when you don't have a vehicle and that just doesn't happen. Also it goes both ways imo, there's been times I've tried to call a cab with 20+ drivers on with no response.

I feel this is because of the hourly script payments they get (4K / hour), for up to a maximum of 2 hours a day. I suspect that people are farming it without actually taking orders. They only have to emote every 5 minutes to advance the timer (this was changed from 1 minute to help benefit other areas that also use the 4k/hour script, but I suspect its abused with the taxi driver job). Can't prove it obviously but with 20+ drivers online, there's no way they are all on taxi calls or this thread wouldn't exist 🤣

Edited January 26, 2022 by Cypher99

[Topinambour]

20 minutes ago, PRESCRIPTION said:

Players get a rentable vehicle when starting out which really takes out of taxi utilization.

Mostly because they start with very little money, can't rely on having taxis online, and certainly can't take the chance of having a taxi suddenly chargine $500 per minute (because yes, it happened - to myself and to a fair few others lol, some have mentioned a helicopter ride can be cheaper than some taxis). 

 

Regardless, there could be ways to encourage the use of taxis. But taking out a command that solved countless bugs and saved admins insane amounts of hours is probably not the right one. That said, someone mentioned in the suggestion that we could have a drug-like effect for alcohol, visible in /examine. It could definitely encourage cops to stay around clubs at night, and in turn, club & bar-hoppers could have a bigger use for taxis. It creates an encouragement on the customer-side of things, and quite a few more can be thought about 🙂

 

As for the risk of taking a taxi, yeah... I've taken one a couple months ago (my dude got driven home by a friend after drinking too much, so his car was left at the bar)... and holy fuck I legit thought I was going to die in there ^^'' Maybe bringing back taxi licenses instead of making it a fully-accessible script job, could help? Because it's how most taxi services in the US work, and I can guarantee if you get flashed at 100 mph downtown, or destroy your front headlight because you ignored a stop sign, you're not gonna keep your license for long lol 

[Rasta]

Drove a taxi today for the entire duration of my playtime which was about 14 hours (Don't judge). In the morning hours with about 150 players on, I was waiting about half an hour to an hour between calls. Then mid day with about 290 players on it was becoming a struggle since I wasn't the only taxi on duty, I was fighting who types the command in faster with others but managed to snag quite a lot of calls, probably got about 8 calls which I responded to. Then towards the end of my playtime when there was about 490 players online I barely got any calls, I did manage to snag two before others could and to be honest each and every interaction I had with a player as a taxi driver was very unique and refreshing since people tend to know how to roleplay in detail and present their characters. I only had like one person who took the ride completely OOCly, didn't roleplay jack shit and paid like five thousand for the ride for no appearent reason. 

 

Speaking for myself as an active taxi driver. I drive according to law, since my character doesn't have cash to pay fines, and doesn't want to risk his life over a few seconds of skipping an intersection, makes sense really and I don't see why others wouldn't do that aswell, plus any damage to the car means expenses out of my characters pocket. I don't use the scripted fare since I find it stupid, outdated and really useless in terms of providing immersion whatsoever. I charge 300 for local rides, 600 for city wide and 1000+ for state wide or so I try to keep it since it makes sense to me.

 

My character is making money and providing a service, I tend to be polite, since a satisfied customer is a happy customer and happy customers tend to give a tip. It wouldn't make sense for me to act any other way since that would be against every principal that enables me to make money trough this service. Now if people are acting crazy that's just because they are being guided by an OOC mindset and are not really invested into their character. I guess this is what separates good roleplayers from bad.

 

I like the current taxi script after putting more than 60 hours into it. I don't rush it, I try to enjoy it and make it enjoyable for everyone else, since that is why we are here and this applies to everything. The only problem is that people generally don't have the same mindset I do in regards to this, they either have an OOC mindset or are too new to roleplay to realize what matters, and that is to create a fair and enjoyable roleplay environment. People putting every taxi driver into the same box are stupid. Today I earned $40,000 just by doing relaxing and enjoyable taxi roleplay. It's a special kind of roleplay that is not for everyone, and people forcing themselves into this environment either get bored and rush which defects the quality of the roleplay they provide or are not in it for the roleplay but rather the money.

 

If you're a roleplayer that does taxi driving, please for the love of god, take it easy, take a deep breath and if it's not working out for you, please do something else. Forcing yourself into it just makes it worse for everyone else, and then we, taxi drivers that put effort to create a reputation of enjoyable taxi roleplay are driven into dirt by people like you. It's not the problem that people don't call the taxi hotline, it's the fact that when they do call it, the service does not provide any roleplay and why call a taxi if you're not going to get any roleplay out of it when you can just abuse the script and get yourself a ride.

 

TL:DR

 

Lazy taxi drivers are the problem which create a domino effect that makes people not call taxis because they assume that no roleplay will be provided and no interaction given because of a lot of bad apples that are using the taxi service with an OOC mindset. If you are a lazy taxi driver, f*** you and piss off. If you're a player who encountered a lazy taxi driver or wasn't provided the service, I'm sorry, but it's a live game and not everything falls into script, shit happens.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Rasta

[dionkoffie]

Why don't we invent a system where taxi drivers randomly get a job to pick up an npc? Collect the person from point a and bring it to point b. Seems like am easy system to implement and keeps people active while being on taxi duty.

 

I'm sure there is also a failsafe to implement where the job will be canceled if the taxi driver is driving 130mph through downtown.

[Mahitto]

5 hours ago, PeopleKind said:

I always try to call cabs instead of /fixveh, but 9/10 the taxi that arrives is either;

 

• A new player simply grinding cash but has no idea where anything is.
• A troll stereotype indian or arab character that is borderline racist with how they RP.
• Someone that cares more about money than RP and drives like this is a remake of fucking Crazy Taxi.

'

 

I'd love to take taxi's more but until the issues above are fixed, it's just not worth the IQ loss.

 

Unfortunately. I usually enjoy those random taxi interactions but I've started to see more and more people grind that for the money rather than the RP (or the RP and the money both), sometimes going to the point of ridiculousness to get an extra buck, I've seen people complain of some charging $50/5 seconds and driving 20 mph, amounting to $1,000 for 0.7 miles.

 

Taxi drivers and truckers should get the $4,000/hour bonus instead, especially now that we have the auto-pilot script and that they can role-play and chat while driving. Otherwise it's prone to people abusing it - the ones who do it for the development would do it regardless of the payout.

[Dom.]

Too many people RP taxi driving as a side thing rather than roleplaying an actual taxi driver. I've done it a few times. It's pretty enjoyable, when there's calls.

[ScarletRose]

There are 2 main reasons I don't really use cabs that often:

• The Taxi Driver has poor knowledge on basic GTA V locations and areas of the map. I've had many drivers just be completely clueless on where certain areas of the map are. I'm not saying you have to know each and every street address perfectly. But a driver should know the difference between Vespucci vs Del Perro or Rockford Hills vs Vinewood. Last time I used a cab, the driver mistakened Sandy Shores for Paleto. I think this issue mostly stems from a lot of taxi drivers being new players, often players who are new to GTA V itself. 
   
• The cost of the ride is inconsistent. In real life, I can usually predict the approximate cost of a cab ride before I even enter the cab. Not here, every driver is different. Some cabs charge less than $250 for a nice ride across the city. Others drive so annoyingly slow or intentionally take weird routes and charge an insane amount so that the meter reaches over $1000 for a simple half a mile ride. It's never the same. Fares are unpredictable as every driver is different, It's gotten to the point where if I do call a cab, I just carry thousands of dollars with me into a cab just so I can ensure I have enough to pay for the ride in case I get a greedy driver. Very inconvenient.
   

I would like to use cabs more often, but these two reasons just deter me from doing so. 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by ScarletRose

[Chipsdose]

Quote

 

I see so many ppl complain about drivers not knowing the map when they could just place a waypoint for them. 

Edited January 27, 2022 by Chipsdose

[bwarp]

if i did what you said this would be metagaming

 

so no

[Rasta]

27 minutes ago, bwarp said:

if i did what you said this would be metagaming

 

so no

How is it metagaming? You roleplay inputting the address into a GPS system provided by the taxi (So not a personal GPS) just like it has an integrated dispatch system. Then the customer can place a blip on the map simulating that GPS output. Saying that is metagaming is like saying you're metagaming if you place a marker on the map.