Kidnapping & Robbing Rule Suggestions

[Zethnos]

These are all the current rules related to robbing and kidnapping players:

Quote

• In order to rob a player, you must be directly involved and have a valid RP reason to do so. You should not be pocket wiping players (taking most or all of their items), using it as a farming tool or robbing incapacitated players you come upon without having been involved in the scenario 
• Players should not kidnap another player for more than 15 minutes without their consent. An absence of objection to being held longer than 15 minutes is considered consent
• Players should not kidnap or hold EMS/LSFD personnel hostage at any time while they are on duty
• Players should not kidnap another player while they are locked in a menu (hairdresser, clothing store, banking, Los Santos Customs, etc)

While these rules provide some protections, like for EMS, and players that are actively using a menu, I feel it could be expanded a bit. I met a guy in character the other day who got taken hostage 5 times on his first day in the city. Another person IC told me they met someone who was held hostage 15 times his first day. A lot of players don't like the amount/frequency in which they get robbed (including myself on my alt characters). I believe I have some suggestions that could help reduce this a bit, while forcing people to have to get more creative with how they take hostages

First and foremost, I believe we should instate a rule that says you can not kidnap or rob someone in an open, crowded, busy, place in broad daylight. My best example of this is people pulling up and snatching you off the street corner in legion square at noon. The reasoning behind this plays into needing a realistic fear of police. I say this because players should not be treating NPCs as NPCs. They should have a reasonable fear that an NPC could call the police on them. It's a busy, downtown area of a city. It's not realistic to be taking hostages like that.

The next biggest one is to prevent people from abusing civilian jobs to take hostages. By far the best example I can give is my alt character. He is running taxi to get started and meet people to make connections. I've literally had to stop taking calls from other players and only drive NPCs around because more than half of the calls for a taxi I have personally received (this is over the course of several weeks mind you) is literally just to rob/kidnap the driver. Another example I see A LOT is people pulling up to mechanic shops to get a "repair" and as soon as the mechanic starts the repair they immediately take them. I know this can be covered in the rule about menus... maybe?... but I think it needs to be explicitly stated and combined with the other civilian jobs. This would also protect tow truck drivers from getting called out to be taken.
- I would like to point out this would literally just be preventing people on calling services to take hostages. People like go postal drivers delivering packages down back roads and stuff would still be fair game, but would receive protection from not being able to be taken on busy streets during day time hours.

People should not feel it's okay to use civ jobs as a way to get an easy hostage. Their purpose isn't so that crims have ripe pickings for their bank jobs. Taking a hostage should be hard. Find them in secluded places or at night. Catch someone lacking. Don't abuse the main sources of income and RP for newbies and civilians for your own gain. It's starting to really take it's toll on a decent percentage of the population.

Finally, people should not be allowed to try to pull you over by pitting, you, slamming you into objects, or other acts that are highly dangerous to both parties, to try to take a hostage in vehicles. The amount of times someone has attempted to run me off the road just because they could tell I wasn't an NPC to take me hostage is astounding. That is a real NVL issue. If people wanted to make barricades and wait on less populated roads to jump someone, or act as if they are injured to get someone to pull over that is fine, but literally pitting someone on the highway to take a hostage should not be allowed. It's super thirsty behavior, it's not taking their lives into account, and it's also not having a fear that an NPC on a crowded road would call that in to police if they saw a car start trying to pull crap like that on the highway/busy road.

I feel these changes will give civs and newbies a better chance at not being used as a game mechanic constantly, should make crims come up with unique ways to take their hostages that are more realistic, and should lessen some of the burden on police by slowing down the rate of robberies due to needing to spend the extra time to take a hostage. Overall I feel it's a net positive for the server. I understand the majority of criminals won't appreciate these changes as it makes life a bit harder on them, but it doesn't make it impossible, it doesn't make it so difficult that it's not worth doing. I believe it will overall help make the server a healthier places.

[Denver]

14 hours ago, Zethnos said:

Finally, people should not be allowed to try to pull you over by pitting, you, slamming you into objects, or other acts that are highly dangerous to both parties, to try to take a hostage in vehicles. The amount of times someone has attempted to run me off the road just because they could tell I wasn't an NPC to take me hostage is astounding. That is a real NVL issue. If people wanted to make barricades and wait on less populated roads to jump someone, or act as if they are injured to get someone to pull over that is fine, but literally pitting someone on the highway to take a hostage should not be allowed. It's super thirsty behavior, it's not taking their lives into account, and it's also not having a fear that an NPC on a crowded road would call that in to police if they saw a car start trying to pull crap like that on the highway/busy road.

This falls under VDM, please report this if you encounter it.

[Zethnos]

3 hours ago, Denver said:

This falls under VDM, please report this if you encounter it.

Thank you, any opinion on the others at least?

[Ari]

My staff opinion:
Most of the points you bring up are already covered by the rules. Maybe not in a specific sense (such as VDM, for example), but covered regardless.
If it's not being reported and brought to staff attention, how are we supposed to assist?

My personal player opinion:
I would also argue that a crowded area is a great place to kidnap someone from, especially discreetly. You'd be surprised what people miss when there's chaos around. Food for thought.

[Zethnos]

1 hour ago, Ari said:

My staff opinion:
Most of the points you bring up are already covered by the rules. Maybe not in a specific sense (such as VDM, for example), but covered regardless.
If it's not being reported and brought to staff attention, how are we supposed to assist?

Would you be willing to clarify which rules cover the different suggestions. I only ask because as I read the rules currently, what exactly would I make a report on for someone using the taxi service to take a hostage instead of for its intended purpose? Same with taking people in a crowded area.

 

1 hour ago, Ari said:

My personal player opinion:
I would also argue that a crowded area is a great place to kidnap someone from, especially discreetly. You'd be surprised what people miss when there's chaos around. Food for thought.

I would disagree here. I'm not sure watching 3 people hop out of a car with guns drawn on a busy city street would really go ignored. With that many people around at least a handful would call police, take down license plate numbers, etc. I'd find it very hard to believe as many people as would be in that area would just act like nothing is happening. In the US it's very very rare for something like that to happen and that's with hundreds of millions of people in the country. For it to happen constantly with a max population of 250 at a time is hardly reasonable. There really should be a fear of consequences to doing that even if the LEO population is low and there aren't any "real people" around.

[Amnar]

too add to this i have been working at legion and have 5 people at my food stand and people pull up guns drawn and take one of us as a hostage we could definitely get into a shoot out and win over it but to the NVL thing we usually just let someone get taken its super annoying having someone who who just purchased food get taken half way across the map(they didnt even get to grab their food) && i think you should be able to take someone off the side of the street during the day but i dont think you should be pulling up on a group of 4+ if you only have 4, there should be a rule you cant engage crowds you dont out number or outgun like lets say 3-4 people with ak's/draco's is allowed to pull up on a crowd of 6-8 but people with pistols have to outnumber the crowd in order to pull up

[Aquiles Delmar]

2 hours ago, Amnar said:

too add to this i have been working at legion and have 5 people at my food stand and people pull up guns drawn and take one of us as a hostage we could definitely get into a shoot out and win over it but to the NVL thing we usually just let someone get taken its super annoying having someone who who just purchased food get taken half way across the map(they didnt even get to grab their food) && i think you should be able to take someone off the side of the street during the day but i dont think you should be pulling up on a group of 4+ if you only have 4, there should be a rule you cant engage crowds you dont out number or outgun like lets say 3-4 people with ak's/draco's is allowed to pull up on a crowd of 6-8 but people with pistols have to outnumber the crowd in order to pull up

the rules state that the first person to draw a weapon isnt necessarily the winner just cause someone pulls up on your group, doesnt mean you have to give up, especially if you outnumber them. wouldnt exactly be NVL as compared to one person trying to take on 4 people. two different situations that are handled very differently

[Ari]

If you feel like a rule is being broken (even if you're not sure which one), best bet is to report it. If it's actionable, we'll handle it.

[Zethnos]

This is the kind of thing I was talking about in my general review/feedback of the server before this post. Instead of openly talking about if certain scenarios are or are not against the rules when someone brings them up because they clearly don't know or don't think it was a rule break, we always get this canned customer service type response. I wish the staff were more open to talking about things when people are unsure instead of sounding like automated tech support. No offence, that may be just what upper staff say to do, but it just doesn't feel like we are allowed to talk about things and it doesn't really provide clarity for things that are or can be grey areas.

[George Doors]

Taking someone in broad daylight in a busy street isnt too crazy, Happens all the time. I agree cops would normally be called, but they aint gonna be appearing within 5 seconds to respond. By the time police arrive that van is long gone. I feel if you made these kinda rules implement its just gonna drag on the amount of time you try to find a hostage. "only at night and only in non popular locations" So i can only grab a dude at night down an alley way, this would just lead to more people sitting in legion knowing full well they are "protected" by rules. 

On the whole "people rammed me and put lives in danger" I've seen that and honestly had to resort to that. It wasnt 100+ mph rams, but more a 30-40 pit leading to gunshots at tires. You dont understand how frustrating it is to pull up to people on the street when they alone and pull a gun on them only for them to pull a gun too and we have to shoot them down, or we get a drop on someone in their car, hop out 4 deep with aks and they just drive off. Once you have that happen 3-4 times in a row and you go to find your fifth one and hes in a truck, again surrounded by 4 people with aks and yet he still drives off radio'ing to people that hes trying to be taken hostage it can lead to frustration and dragging out what would be a 15-20 minute hostage thing into a long drawn out shoot out and chaos.

I feel again implementing all this will just add to the amount of time to find someone to hit a job that may or may not be ready to hit. A lot of people dont have 10-15 hours a day to play and in their small amount of time between rl things,work and playing games having to wait for nightfall to find someone just isnt viable, Only thing i would suggest is that when you take someone hostage anywhere on the map if locals are within 20 meters of guns being pulled and drawn then the cops get a call in. But apart from that anything else added is just making this fun gta rp server into a RL simulation which is not fun at all.

Edited December 7, 2023 by George Doors
second paragraph didnt make sense