What are some examples of unrealistic escalations that you've seen on the server?

[SaintBatemanofWallStreet]

6 hours ago, Mistery14 said:

 

I believe you've missed the point of my comment. If you're interested I'll clarify.

 

Just because something has always been there doesn't mean it's not meant/prone to change. I'd be glad to see Los Santos turn more peaceful, just like I'd be as interested to see it turn into a lawless, anarchic hellhole, I love dynamic change in a world, no matter the direction it takes. I just don't see why characters shouldn't be allowed to feel threatened when they're facing situations they deem threatening considering the current violent climate in Los Santos.

 

Let's take someone who's experienced 5 robberies. The char sees 2 guys with masks running towards them. - If your character has experienced a similar scenario before where this would be seen as a threat, wouldn't they be prone to thinking that these masked people would want them harm and therefore take action if they had the means to? Why should your character act oblivious every single time something bad happens to them? Why can't they learn and progress as people in the environment they live in?

 

Similarly, less exciting of a scenario, someone gives your char a death threat, your character comes from a rough background and is legally armed. Later on, that guy shows up with a bat and a buddy, but simply wants to intimidate you, and they raise their bat to scare you. You don't know what their intentions are. You're armed. You shoot. Is that poor escalation? To them it was clear, it was intimidation. But what about you? How could you know they didn't really intend physical harm?

 

I see these as currently valid reactions in my eyes in the context that your character is living Los Santos, and not the real world, where more thought can be put into people's behaviors and situations can be assessed differently, depending on your own environment and what you know of it.

 

If Los Santos wasn't such an unforgiving place to live in for everyone involved, certain aspects of poor escalation would be more relevant. The less violent the in-game setting, the more relevant poor escalation rules would be to enforce, vice-versa. It shouldn't be a static rule but instead should evolve with the overall situation and should fit the current theme just like many other rules that work in conjunction with environmental factors. Like say fear RP for riot situations. People are going to act differently because of the nature of rioting - It makes sense to have different rules for different settings of RP.

No. I didn't. Still the problem.

[Junx]

6 hours ago, Mistery14 said:

-snip-

[Mistery14]

30 minutes ago, SaintBatemanofWallStreet said:

No. I didn't. Still the problem.

 

Well, I have not much else to say. I've never said "We've come too far to come back", quite the opposite. Anything can change in GTA W, nor would I want to imply that it's solely up to regular players to deal and fix whatever issue they face, it's more of a collective effort if you will, from all involved parties.

 

What I can in turn interpret from your comment as there was not much more elaboration is: "If any changes regarding unrealistic escalation happens, it should just be spontaneous, it should happen entirely OOC, and players should never be allowed to contribute to the change in setting of Los Santos, it should all be static." Which wouldn't make sense considering you've implied earlier that change is actually better than keeping things as they are currently by saying this:

 

13 hours ago, SaintBatemanofWallStreet said:

This is the problem.

 

Basically what I got out of this statement is that "We've come to far to go back. Just deal with it."

 

 

 

Which I've clarified I didn't mean by saying the following:

 

Quote

Just because something has always been there doesn't mean it's not meant/prone to change. I'd be glad to see Los Santos turn more peaceful, just like I'd be as interested to see it turn into a lawless, anarchic hellhole, I love dynamic change in a world, no matter the direction it takes.

 

Is the problem to you the change itself? Again, I see change as good. But I particularly do not mind where exactly that change takes the setting of LS, if it happens dynamically and within reason. None of what I said is fact and it's just opinion, I just struggle to see what exactly your take is on the matter.

[Mistery14]

56 minutes ago, Junx said:

 

Heavily TL;DR'd: I think the poor escalation rule should be multi-layered, follow server continuation and take into account the current setting of LS and the way people behave, it can't just be a static set of rules that applies to all RP scenarios, because it lacks context. Example: LS goes into a city-wide turmoil with heavy rioting going on.

 

If violence increases as it should during a rioting, and if the same poor escalation rules apply, people would be punished left and right if context wouldn't matter. I'm simply saying the poor escalation rule should be contextual to the situation and take into account the way people behave in general, the more violent the RP setting, the less an escalation is "poor" relative to the situation. If you turn things around and pretend Los Santos is a peaceful city, then yes, stricter poor escalation rules makes sense to the overall situation.

[RedRover]

7 hours ago, Mistery14 said:

Let's take someone who's experienced 5 robberies. The char sees 2 guys with masks running towards them. - If your character has experienced a similar scenario before where this would be seen as a threat, wouldn't they be prone to thinking that these masked people would want them harm and therefore take action if they had the means to? Why should your character act oblivious every single time something bad happens to them? Why can't they learn and progress as people in the environment they live in?

Because the server dictates civilians to be the punching bag of the bunch, that's why. No matter what the situation, no matter how many times they've been in a robbery or violent situation, the civilian is always expected to "be afraid" and show fear RP just because they are the civilian. A criminal is allowed to pull a gun and shoot at me if I don't comply with no hassle, but I'm required to provide a 4 paragraph essay as to why my civilian character who's been robbed 5+ times pulled a gun and shot to defend themselves. This has been the meta on this server forever and I agree that is a huge problem.

[knppel]

The whole problem with this is that "unrealistic" escalation implies on the other hand there has to be "realistic" escalation, with the one being justified and the other not.

Realistically speaking, cases where mutual agreement over escalation to violence is reached are limited to arranged fights- in all other situations it's an unwarranted, unjustified and in case often inexcusable offense from one party on the other, no matter if we speak of domestic violence or a robbery gone wrong here.

 

Furthermore, if we take a look at reality without some coloured goggles, we'll generally agree that quite many cases of violence erupting- again on all scales and in all fashions- are fairly stupid (which is why a few particular potential motives are even outlined as not valid in our rules).

 

If we now aim to portrait violence as realistic- where it's often unjustified and/or outright stupid-, while simultaneously seeking to justify certain acts opposed to others and implementing murder as valid conflict resolution method, the cat bites its own tail instead to go anywhere.

However, this is exactly what we're trying.

 

While it's clearly not intentional to apply a behaviour pattern on players subconsciously, this is exactly what such schizophrenic approaches do, specially in combination with other rules (i.e. you rp fear from someone's gun but only to escalate it "legitly" and come back with a bigger one to catch them hopefully unaware).

[SaintBatemanofWallStreet]

42 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

 

Well, I have not much else to say. I've never said "We've come too far to come back", quite the opposite. Anything can change in GTA W, nor would I want to imply that it's solely up to regular players to deal and fix whatever issue they face, it's more of a collective effort if you will, from all involved parties.

 

What I can in turn interpret from your comment as there was not much more elaboration is: "If any changes regarding unrealistic escalation happens, it should just be spontaneous, it should happen entirely OOC, and players should never be allowed to contribute to the change in setting of Los Santos, it should all be static." Which wouldn't make sense considering you've implied earlier that change is actually better than keeping things as they are currently by saying this:

 

 

Is the problem to you the change itself? Again, I see change as good. But I particularly do not mind where exactly that change takes the setting of LS, if it happens dynamically and within reason. None of what I said is fact and it's just opinion, I just struggle to see what exactly your take is on the matter.

 

The players can rarely be trusted to do anything that isn't self serving. And that mentality is the reason the server is a war zone. If the players wanted to contribute to the problem, they would. But we have plethora of people who have main character syndrome and think these rarities that happen in the real world are acceptable because they're doing it and it's a one off for them. But when 100 people are doing it with the same  logic - and they are, it's unacceptable.

 

So yes. It has to be an OOC change. Like most things on this server, the population has demonstrated an inability to be trusted to manage themselves. Example - properties.

 

While there may be some players on the server who want to fix this, there is no collective effort. Because there are people who either don't care, or aren't smart enough to see what they're doing as a problem, because the small modicum of research they've done into a character has said that it was acceptable.

 

We have a literal war zone on this server. And then the same people who are doing this are the ones on the forums pissing and moaning about things that LEO's are overpowered and it's just not fair when in reality the things that they're crying about are purely reactionary. A solution to the problems that they are creating. People using phrases like Davistan, Sureno Team Six, and stuff like that ain't doing it for the memes, it's truthful. Every LEO RPer knows the best way to find yourself shot is to pull someone over in or around the hood. You deal with it by calling in more units? Oh well you're just playing to win.

 

They complain and coin the term PF Warrior, and I'm not saying it's not an issue, it is sometimes.. But by the same token, there's also an issue with a death squad of (M)afia members running around the city armed to the teeth trying to rob houses in rich neighborhoods and kidnap every lone person they see walking down the street every day of the week.

 

Look at the reports section on the forum. A good chunk of them is people reporting other people for killing over dumb shit.

 

That right there tells me the community as a whole cannot be trusted to manage themselves. There has to be some kind of OOC resolution. The impression that your statement 

1 hour ago, Mistery14 said:

What I can in turn interpret from your comment as there was not much more elaboration is: "If any changes regarding unrealistic escalation happens, it should just be spontaneous, it should happen entirely OOC, and players should never be allowed to contribute to the change in setting of Los Santos, it should all be static."

 

is that you don't think we can evolve with rule changes in reference to community issues. We can. We have. We do.

 

Change isn't something I want. It's something I see as a necessity.

[Mistery14]

2 hours ago, SaintBatemanofWallStreet said:

 

The players can rarely be trusted to do anything that isn't self serving. And that mentality is the reason the server is a war zone. If the players wanted to contribute to the problem, they would. But we have plethora of people who have main character syndrome and think these rarities that happen in the real world are acceptable because they're doing it and it's a one off for them. But when 100 people are doing it with the same  logic - and they are, it's unacceptable.

 

So yes. It has to be an OOC change. Like most things on this server, the population has demonstrated an inability to be trusted to manage themselves. Example - properties.

 

While there may be some players on the server who want to fix this, there is no collective effort. Because there are people who either don't care, or aren't smart enough to see what they're doing as a problem, because the small modicum of research they've done into a character has said that it was acceptable.

 

We have a literal war zone on this server. And then the same people who are doing this are the ones on the forums pissing and moaning about things that LEO's are overpowered and it's just not fair when in reality the things that they're crying about are purely reactionary. A solution to the problems that they are creating. People using phrases like Davistan, Sureno Team Six, and stuff like that ain't doing it for the memes, it's truthful. Every LEO RPer knows the best way to find yourself shot is to pull someone over in or around the hood. You deal with it by calling in more units? Oh well you're just playing to win.

 

They complain and coin the term PF Warrior, and I'm not saying it's not an issue, it is sometimes.. But by the same token, there's also an issue with a death squad of (M)afia members running around the city armed to the teeth trying to rob houses in rich neighborhoods and kidnap every lone person they see walking down the street every day of the week.

 

Look at the reports section on the forum. A good chunk of them is people reporting other people for killing over dumb shit.

 

That right there tells me the community as a whole cannot be trusted to manage themselves. There has to be some kind of OOC resolution. The impression that your statement 

 

is that you don't think we can evolve with rule changes in reference to community issues. We can. We have. We do.

 

Change isn't something I want. It's something I see as a necessity.

 

Well, what you're saying here is valid.

 

I absolutely think that OOC management is crucial, you cannot possibly have a community manage itself without some boundaries set, that's absolutely correct.

 

My previous argument is that, no, it's not too late to change things. But people absolutely have the power to make of Los Santos, and GTA W as a whole whatever they want it to be within reason, but ultimately, the majority of the people who are playing on this very server and going to be driving and anchoring it into what it is currently.

 

To bring back what I said about the poor escalation rules - Here are the options I see:

 

Option 1: A static set of rules designed around what makes sense OOC for a peaceful city, which Los Santos currently is not.

Option 2: A variable set of rules designed around the true nature of Los Santos as it currently is IC.

 

Let's break it down.

 

Option 1 Makes sense OOC speaking, it's what the server rules would want. Makes it so that characters are supposed to behave as if they lived in a normal, relatively peaceful city. Which Los Santos isn't. What's the result? Stagnation. Players are going to have to keep pretending their characters are safe when they are truly not, and they'll have to do it for as long as these rules are kept in place, resulting in a lot of people taking proportionate actions against legitimate IC threats, using a set of rule that is disproportionate to their situation.

 

Option 2 is currently self-destructive if we take it at face value, but it's the one that makes the more sense for IC lore continuity even though it would encourage violent escalations. Is it bad? It really depends on who you ask. I think it would be horrible! But what do people want, really? Do they want strict OOC rules dictating exactly how they should behave, or allow IC decisions to have IC outcomes and consequences? So, IC vs OOC dictating. Is there a middle ground somewhere in there?

 

We reach a point where we have two extremes here, either have Los Santos eventually fall down into total IC anarchy for all characters because people will be tired of pretending to live in a peace they don't have, or enforce lower levels of violence through purely OOC means, which will no longer make sense for IC continuity of Los Santos, continuity and lore which people want to keep cohesive.

 

Actually, I think that there's a major hypocritical problem that comes with our player base. Many of us want that IC and OOC change, but how many of us actually go out of our way to apply that change both OOC and IC? For example we want more diversity with the business scene, less bars, less clubs, more unique businesses and events, but look at what happens to those who try to be anything but those. They get ignored at best and those same people continue to go to these bars and clubs.

 

Quote

The impression that your statement is that you don't think we can evolve with rule changes in reference to community issues. We can. We have. We do.

 

To put it bluntly, I do think we can evolve with rule changes, but it has to work in conjunction with actual OOC and IC results from players themselves, which you did point out were lacking, and I do not have a viable solution to those problems. What good do OOC rules have if players are reluctant to follow them correctly?

Edited June 3, 2022 by Mistery14

[SaintBatemanofWallStreet]

12 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

Option 1 Makes sense OOC speaking, it's what the server rules would want. Makes it so that characters are supposed to behave as if they lived in a normal, relatively peaceful city. Which Los Santos isn't. What's the result? Stagnation. Players are going to have to keep pretending their characters are safe when they are truly not, and they'll have to do it for as long as these rules are kept in place, resulting in a lot of people taking proportionate actions against legitimate IC threats, using a set of rule that is disproportionate to their situation.

Stagnation, I don't think is the correct term. What it would force however is these people to not be so brazen in their crimes. Because it's obvious that people don't want this resolved IC. If they did? They wouldn't be on the forums complaining about things like helicopters overhead constantly, and the capacity of rifle mags that LEO's carry, when the same people are shooting AK's in broad daylight over something stupid. People don't want realism. They don't want reactions to their behavior. They want to coast and have someone say "Man this RP thread you have on the forums where your 13 year old drug using 40 body deep character is so good." They want accolades and reputation for their quality of RP or even further, they want their character to be a feared individual. The problem is, they're all doing it. So nobody is feared. They're on the same plane, and you have to be on that plane to even compete. And I know there are characters that are well executed that don't do this and probably have reputation. I'm not talking about them.

 

35 minutes ago, Mistery14 said:

Option 2 is currently self-destructive if we take it at face value, but it's the one that makes the more sense for IC lore continuity even though it would encourage violent escalations. Is it bad? It really depends on who you ask. I think it would be horrible! But what do people want, really? Do they want strict OOC rules dictating exactly how they should behave, or allow IC decisions to have IC outcomes and consequences? So, IC vs OOC dictating. Is there a middle ground somewhere in there?

So going back to what you said in option 1 about proportionate response to proportionate problems. We keep heading down this path? You don't answer to LSPD anymore. You answer to the National Guard, and units of the military. Because this is 100% a martial law situation. It's obviously unable to be contained by local law enforcement. I don't even think that's something that's even debatable. And the people that complain now, boy do I have bad news for you if you think it's unfair the way that PD/SD handle things. A martial law situation suspends your rights. You get detained until they decide you're not a threat. Your privacy in your home? Wave goodbye, tell it to take it easy. It's gone. You think it's bad a few cops pull a rifle out after you've shot someone? Wait until every interaction you have with an LEO, they have rifles, helmets, and body armor. Helicopters? Be bumping into each other there would be so many in the sky. If we follow the course of keeping it IC, this is what comes. It's what has to come. And it's jarring for people that aren't a part of it. And just because at no point in US history have we seen all officers doing this on a regular basis, you can't tell me for a single second that the contingency plan isn't in place to address something like this. Prime example would be the way police respond to riots. They have the equipment, they just don't use it on a daily basis.

 

We have plenty of OOC rules that dictate how we behave. We venture into the extreme when it comes to micromanaging escalation behavior. But I can tell you right now, they don't want to deal with it IC. Look at the influx over the past 6 months of suggestions that inhibit LEOs while this issue KEEPS growing. So that leaves it to where it has to be addressed OOC. Do I know how to? No. Even if I did it wouldn't make a difference. I'm not an admin. And those are the people who make the changes. Based off the way this server has declined over the past few months, it makes me wonder if they genuinely see the problem, or if they see all these incidents as isolated, even though they're not.

[Mistery14]

1 hour ago, SaintBatemanofWallStreet said:

Stagnation, I don't think is the correct term. What it would force however is these people to not be so brazen in their crimes. Because it's obvious that people don't want this resolved IC. If they did? They wouldn't be on the forums complaining about things like helicopters overhead constantly, and the capacity of rifle mags that LEO's carry, when the same people are shooting AK's in broad daylight over something stupid. People don't want realism. They don't want reactions to their behavior. They want to coast and have someone say "Man this RP thread you have on the forums where your 13 year old drug using 40 body deep character is so good." They want accolades and reputation for their quality of RP or even further, they want their character to be a feared individual. The problem is, they're all doing it. So nobody is feared. They're on the same plane, and you have to be on that plane to even compete. And I know there are characters that are well executed that don't do this and probably have reputation. I'm not talking about them.

 

 

My take on all of this is that this falls into individual preferences at the end of the day, loads of people like this sort of.. I guess, dystopian setting of Los Santos where you have to watch your back. Just like loads of other people would prefer a relatively peaceful way of life for their characters without them having to worry about much.

 

The problem is in its execution of it all both on some aspects of the rules and player-base. Here's my personal take on why things are the way they are:

 

Some server rules have been there for as long as the server has existed and still remain to this day, they were tailored to exactly what Nervous wanted for the server.

Over time, rules were added while taking into account the majority of what people preferred to see and as the server evolved into a bigger community, views started to clash a little. If you take a close look at the rules, you can visually observe what rules have been changed and improved upon, as well as the newer additions compared to the older ones. My go-to rule set example is the powergaming rule which looks to be a very old one. Some of the presented examples are a little vague compared to the more detailed recent rules. I'll quote the most confusing one: "Roleplay through a /me to shoot a player with the result of the player ending up dead in the process." - This rule could be interpreted in many ways by all the different people reading it if it's not explained in the exact way it's supposed to be interpreted.

 

This alone creates confusion and speculation. You do not want to have that. I'll cross post here to an argument as to why this is bad.

But, to really summarize the post, I stated that rules are pillars for RP standards and that even a slight oversight in those rules could throw a lot off-balance, which includes individual RP standards being vastly different as a result of interpretation of some rules. My point being, that players should take it upon themselves to respect the rules as much as they can, but that no rule should be left out at all from being updated whenever a change is made.

 

So, to finalize my point with an analogy, a bicycle's wheels with slightly twisted spokes can still roll forward and function, but it's not going to be working at its most optimal capabilities and it's going to cause the wheel to be slight off-balance ultimately. And the person riding that bicycle, the player, is going to be affected by that as well.

 

Not the best analogy probably, but it's the best I could find. I think all rules need a revision whenever a major change is bound to affect other rules, it's only fair, but with that, players also need to put in some effort to better their RP standards and behavior.

 

Quote

 

So going back to what you said in option 1 about proportionate response to proportionate problems. We keep heading down this path? You don't answer to LSPD anymore. You answer to the National Guard, and units of the military. Because this is 100% a martial law situation. It's obviously unable to be contained by local law enforcement. I don't even think that's something that's even debatable. And the people that complain now, boy do I have bad news for you if you think it's unfair the way that PD/SD handle things. A martial law situation suspends your rights. You get detained until they decide you're not a threat. Your privacy in your home? Wave goodbye, tell it to take it easy. It's gone. You think it's bad a few cops pull a rifle out after you've shot someone? Wait until every interaction you have with an LEO, they have rifles, helmets, and body armor. Helicopters? Be bumping into each other there would be so many in the sky. If we follow the course of keeping it IC, this is what comes. It's what has to come. And it's jarring for people that aren't a part of it. And just because at no point in US history have we seen all officers doing this on a regular basis, you can't tell me for a single second that the contingency plan isn't in place to address something like this. Prime example would be the way police respond to riots. They have the equipment, they just don't use it on a daily basis.

 

We have plenty of OOC rules that dictate how we behave. We venture into the extreme when it comes to micromanaging escalation behavior. But I can tell you right now, they don't want to deal with it IC. Look at the influx over the past 6 months of suggestions that inhibit LEOs while this issue KEEPS growing. So that leaves it to where it has to be addressed OOC. Do I know how to? No. Even if I did it wouldn't make a difference. I'm not an admin. And those are the people who make the changes. Based off the way this server has declined over the past few months, it makes me wonder if they genuinely see the problem, or if they see all these incidents as isolated, even though they're not.

 

 

Let's pretend to head down this path, a lot of players are going to be exceedingly unhappy, just like some others would actually really enjoy it, again it depends on the person. Personally I find it interesting of a scenario and it'd be exciting to go through IC, but it's nowhere near what I think GTA W aims to be, so of course in actuality I'm going to lean towards a big no. In a sense, yes, I still think that letting things happen IC organically would be a good thing, things like escalation or letting players choose what they fear or not based on their personal experiences. - But before we could ever come to that, I believe and agree that we lack the sensible mindset to do so currently and that doing so right now would be more detrimental than anything. We have too much of a play-to-win mentality and it shows.

 

Of course, I don't pretend that anything I say is fact and I'm just presenting my opinion as a player, like you. Based on what I could observe since 2020, which is not that old compared to the server itself.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Mistery14