Character Slots - What do you want out of it? [POLL]

[Serena]

Re: the whole character swapping for police stuff.

For me, if my RP is going to be forced to play for an entire storm, I will never make a new character, because until Serena is dead... She is my main. And any other character is supplemental and short-lived when I do RP as them. I don't want to be restricted in my RP choices just to ensure cops can catch the dude who drove off from a traffic stop... I think the BOLO idea is the best yet (but feel like there can be a better way). If you're wanted, you're stuck until it's cleared. But the server cycle idea I just cannot get behind.

 

[Tomas García]

18 hours ago, Victor said:

Am I only one who does not see any issues in people change characters even if they commited crime? Fled the crime scene. Didnt get caught. City of millions of people so in RP sense he went underground. Just dont make it so that you can change character on the spot.

All these timers and cooldowns and other nonesense is just restrictions upon people who want to roleplay and in my opinion then we better off without any character slots. 

About that I will let you know my point of view, so you can  understand why most of the rules/restrictions on this server are there. If it was for me some of those would be way more strict, but been in badlands for quite a long time,  I really have to thank the government for stopping some of my suggestions in that direction since many people enjoy a more light RP setting. Rules are there to balance things out keeping a wide style of RP players in the same city having fun. And setting those rules is not an easy task, and will never be perfect.

So why changing to a different character right after ditching the cops shouldn't be allowed? Because anything that negatively impacts the experience of other players should be lowered to a minimum. It's not just about the cops but can be applied to civs/crims. Let's say John beats up someone that belongs to a group of players. PD or that gang chases John but John is able to ditch them. John should lay low to do not get caught and that usually means not going to the usual hang outs and places to make money. If you allow character swapping while someone has to lay low, then John will change to an alt and go grind money or to usual hang outs, while his other character "lays low". It's really an unfair situation since the other players unless they meta and know that the other alt is "John" would still looking for a player laying low that's no longer around. Currently people can do that logging out, but then logging out, that's their loss, because they need to choose, between staying and dealing with consequences to their actions or simply not playing for a few hours. And the worst thing I seen recently is players swapping cities once they were in a hot situation.

VVV --- Next 3 paragraphs describes RP term. Not specific to the current settings of BadlandsRP --- VVV
So all of that can be resumed to an RP term called Power gaming. Power gaming covers from doing things beyond what a character is able to do, like surviving a huge fall that no human should to pushing actions into other players without giving a chance of reaction or accept the action. In the environment of GTA some actions are forced by the game itself but others are based in pure RP. One example of powergaming is "/me throws a punch towards John hard in the face and breaks his nose", the reason why that's power game is because a RPlayer can describe their actions but not force anything into a player, is the other player the one that takes the damage and decides how much it is. So if whoever is punching John wants to break his nose would have to post like this "/me throws a punch towards John hard in the face, hard enough that could break his nose", that way the other can react better since there is more information but doesn't need to take that kind of damage if he doesn't want. But replying "/me gets hit right in the face and doesn't even flinch" is equally bad since the other way of doing powergame is acting like superman and taking no damage. So for better or worst the in-game system in GTARP takes care of that for us. And it's at the player discretion if RP more damage than the one enforced by the game dynamics or just go with what the game forces them to do.

So with that brief description of powergame let me elaborate in how it applies in settings that aren't so short term. Also will focus it more towards how things can happen in badlands. XXX, walks into the Yellow Jack and insults a group of players that are there, gets on his bike and drives away without any time to those inside to react, insult back, or even ask 'what's wrong with you, fella?".  Sure that could happen in RL, but RP usually needs a bit more time for players to react. In RL, people can start running after XXX right away, or even throw him the bottle of beer they are drinking as he turns to run away. In GTA you might be stuck in a pose which takes a bit to be disabled when you press Y, you don't have a chance to do many of those actions you could do in RL since GTA has limits. Badlands currently is open to both, players that are into deep RP and will hold in there waiting for a reaction and players that are more into the in-game dynamics and simply do the runaway thing without giving time to react. In a pure RP enviroment, runing away without giving another player time to even emote "/me was mid converstion with his buddies when XXX started to insult them all. He was so shocked that didn't have time to react as XXX flew right away" would fall under powergame, since the action of been insulted is forced without a chance of taking it in or replaying to it. In fact any kind of interaction but mostly if they are hostile, need some warning before getting away, like "/me insults those in Yellow Jack and turns, ready to leave in a rush" so everyone there know that they only have a single chance to post before that player leaves the scene. So once more, I'm just comparing a pure RP situation with the current setting of Badlands. As you play around you will find that some players never go for the quick rushed RP and running away while others do.

TLDR: Let's go by wikipedia definition
In online text-based role-playing games that emphasize collaborative role-play over acquiring levels or skills, a player can be described as a powergamer if he or she presumes or declares that his or her own action against another player character is successful without giving the other player character the freedom to act on his or her own prerogative. They may also be a player who tries to force others to participate in unwanted role-playing. For instance, a player who unilaterally describes his character as doing something with (or to) another character that would usually require the other to play along — such as having a fight or a sexual encounter — is considered to be powergaming.[5] In such games, in which a sense of community and rapport between players is seen as crucial and conducive to the game's overall well-being, powergaming is generally regarded as extremely offensive behaviour if it is not stated in the rules as being a bannable offense. It is often seen as synonymous with twinking or godmoding.
^^^

With that there, now knowing that current setting of badlands allows quick nearly one sided hostility events, the only way of making it fair is to give a chance of retribution. So far with the current system it's the player choice to be online and deal with it if it comes, or log off as long as the current hostile event is over but then they loose as they won't be playing. But once you add multi-char, the only motivation that some had to stay around and deal with retribution will be gone. That's why some kind of limit about swapping chars needs to be implemented. Another example is having a character just for store robberies or an enforced to beat up people, if you play that character just while doing the bad dead and then just drive to the middle of the desert and swap to another, it's going to be nearly impossible to catch, by PD or by anyone that wants him to pay for what he did. And that kind of powergame godmod will be quite hurtful for the city health.


As always, I think that I typed way too much and probably it isn't the most clear or easy to understand part, but hope that it helps tackle the point of why some time limitation is needed. Badlands currently do not have any rule that mention powergame but some of the rules around are there to tackle the issues of doing it. And as always, this rule suggested along with many of the ones in place, are mostly there for those that like to push some limits and play in a 'nasty' way. Anyone that plays fairly generally doesn't even need to think about the rules. And 'better off without character slots' no one is forcing you to have more than one character is character slots come, but those that do want more than a character might need to follow some rules once the government states how things will be.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Tomas García

[Coach]

Any updates on this? Did the devs come up with a compromise for both sides?

[Serpico]

It was just put on hold while I’ve been busy with other things. Likely going to be option 1