The server needs serious change. In hopes of a better experience

[Lysergic]

hecko, my name is Lysergic and you've probably never heard of me before. This will be my first post on these forums, and probably the most transformative of the bunch. I'm a new player to TitsRP, and being fairly experienced with the Dark RP genre, I've noticed this server has some issues I would like to help fix. I believe if it continues to follow the dynamic that is currently established, it is doomed to fail in the long-term. Why, you may ask? For a variety of confounding factors, all of which lead to a resource monopoly in the server.

 

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The Problem

 

The consequences of this system are clear to a new player like myself, yet may be blinding to a player with a lot of experience on the server already. This is because these effects affect new users the most, so its harder to speak out to admins with hundreds of hours, abilities, and money. It also explains why the turnover of new players is so high, and why the server gets boring and stressing for the newbies. The dynamics are already established, there is a meta dictating how to base and how to raid, and outside of this there is little room for creativity and innovation. Some consequences of this system are: high turnover rate, no fun for the new players, an unbalanced economy, overpowered players, a steep learning curve, and a lot of repetition.

 

I think all of us in this server are looking for memorable, fun experiences rather than endless hours of grinding with the server's entirety of printers. Yet this is what we've resorted to. I think the biggest problem relies on the fact that a select handful of people with a lot of experience in the server have 90% of the printers, processors, and bit miners. These are the biggest sources of income, yet a player can hold them ransom for a whopping 24 hours a day. Yes, you heard that right, you can log in at 6AM EST and get raided; don't expect to get your printers back until 6AM of the next day.

 

First of all, a new player has no idea that printers, bit miners, and processors won't respawn until the next day or until they are destroyed. For this reason, they have a more careless attitude towards their potentially valuable money-making methods. Noob bases are easier to raid and they don't have all of the good weapons/abilities/talents to fend off the more experience bunch, yet they are getting PUNISHED the most. They are getting eaten by the top players regularly, which encourages them to stop playing on the server. Why is our method to lure in new players to have them in the most difficult of situations? For example, I joined this morning and went on to make a base with 1 printer and 1 processor. It ended up getting raided in about an hour, and after that I couldn't spawn a printer for the next 12 hours. Fun? I don't think so.

 

Some of you might be thinking a new player has to be more careful, more knowledgable, and deserves to have everything stripped away from him/her. But how do you expect a player to continue playing on a server that has other players holding their items ransom for such a long period of time? They lose interest very quickly and have very little ways to compete against a KOS maze vault holding all of the servers' valuables. Yet this is the reality of the situation. I've seen bases with 30 processors, 30 printers and 30 mini printers. That's potentially 20 new players that will no longer have access to their valuables until the day after. 

 

What happens here is what I call TitsRp's cycle of raiding. From a new player, to an intermediate, to an advanced. First a new player spawns his limited amount of printers. Then, he gets raided by an intermediate/advanced player, looking to either base with the newly acquired goods or to sell these to the mega base that has already established its presence on the server. From there, the mega base either raids the intermediate player or buys the items off of them. Where do all of the server's items end up at the end of the day? In the hands of one or two advanced groups that already have millions of dollars.

 

What is the most absurd part about all of this? The advanced players don't even need this money and are now selling it for real life money to the beginners so that the ones that haven't left yet at least have a chance to catch up. Not the best system, right? I don't think so either. If you have a lot of experience in this server, I am not trying to demonize you. It is not your fault for being "greedy" or "selfish", the system is designed this way by people that didn't know any better. You guys are just doing what is the most profitable and smartest, which makes all of the sense in the world. The problem is the system is rigged and punishes the beginners while shoving it all up to a small group of people, like a production line.  

 

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Suggestions/Fixes

 

Now that we know what the problem is, we can all as a community look for solutions. I don't have all of the solutions in my head, but I have some ideas that may help improve the server. 

 

1. Change the amount of time "unknown" printers are active on the server. I don't think making them instantly disappear after someone disconnects is the solution (leads to FailRP and DC to get your items back), but some middle ground is best. For example, a server I used to play on a lot called Divinity RP had this system where every time an "unknown" printer would print money, it would have a small chance of exploding. This works really well because "unknown" printers are still valuable, but as a new player you can expect to get your valuables sooner than until a restart.

 

2. Change the building dynamics. Building at the moment is very boring and unoriginal. There is no incentive to be creative and innovate, making cheeky bases with interesting pathways or angles to get shot from. This servers' meta is building a one-way, KOS crouch-maze long enough to avoid getting raided by 1 c4's aura. For this reason, most mega bases are inside a warehouse in the sewers. A solution to this is making a rule against KOS mazes longer than an established unit, like 1x8. This incentivizes raiding the big bases, punishes having such a big investment, encourages pvp, and will lead to redistribution of valuables.

 

3. Change the raiding dynamics. Just because building could get nerfed doesn't mean raiding should stay the same. I believe the c4 is overpowered at the moment and resorting to the good ol' keypad and lock pick is necessary. Nerfing the c4 will give way to new players without a lot of money to raid with keypads and lock picks. I think c4s will still be useful against big clans and active bases, but they should be the norm and go-to for every situation. This encourages new players to raid and makes the server more fun overall as there are more events happening at any given time. 

 

4. Make processors more expensive, and make them despawn quicker. In my opinion, processors are extremely cheap for what they do. They should be way more expensive to spawn in (at least $30,000), but they should also despawn after a maximum of an hour after one has dced. Why? Because hoarding processors is overpowered. Let's face it, if they are going for $100,000 to $300,000 on the free market, why is the spawn price $5,000? This will decrease the amount of processors on the server, therefore decreasing inflation and discouraging processor spawning for new players.

 

5. This last suggestion is radical in nature and more of a long-term approach, yet necessary. After a long time of dealing with this dynamic, the economy has suffered from hyperinflation. Some people have so much money that they are reselling it to newer players, incentivizing donations and real-life transactions over actually playing the game. This is problematic. Money is becoming so abundant in the more experienced players' hands that it no longer feels rewarding to them. Some people have so much money they have decided to give it away to make server events (like Asuna). Because, let's face it, the server is not as fun when some people are just giving you everything for free and money is infinite. I think if the server is going to undergo economic changes like the ones mention previously, it needs a reset or at least some cap. What I mean by cap is anything above a given value is stripped from a player, for example any player above $10,000,000 will have their money set to 10mill. 

 

I would like everyone to have an open-mind. I fear there will be a lot of backlash from the older players than have already accumulated an insane amount of wealth. Your efforts should be praised and appreciated, maybe with a cosmetic item or with some sort of ability, but let's face it: it's not fun to sit around in bases with $50,000,000, giving away or selling your money because the server is no longer fun at its core. 

 

 

I really find potential in this server. The community is fun, the staff is helpful (most of the time), and there are very unique mechanics like enchanting, crafting, and farming. I like it, and I really hope these changes can bring about an overall more fun experience, both for the older and newer players. 

[Carelos]

1. Change the amount of time "unknown" printers are active on the server. I don't think making them instantly disappear after someone disconnects is the solution (leads to FailRP and DC to get your items back), but some middle ground is best. For example, a server I used to play on a lot called Divinity RP had this system where every time an "unknown" printer would print money, it would have a small chance of exploding. This works really well because "unknown" printers are still valuable, but as a new player you can expect to get your valuables sooner than until a restart.

 

We practically have this system with fail safes. If you leave with a full battery printer the failsafe has a chance to run out and then proceed to blow up.

2. Change the building dynamics. Building at the moment is very boring and unoriginal. There is no incentive to be creative and innovate, making cheeky bases with interesting pathways or angles to get shot from. This servers' meta is building a one-way, KOS crouch-maze long enough to avoid getting raided by 1 c4's aura. For this reason, most mega bases are inside a warehouse in the sewers. A solution to this is making a rule against KOS mazes longer than an established unit, like 1x8. This incentivizes raiding the big bases, punishes having such a big investment, encourages pvp, and will lead to redistribution of valuables.

 

High risk high reward situation. You strategically break in where they have an advantage (which they should be it should just be one ways not tons of other ones that are currently implemented)

3. Change the raiding dynamics. Just because building could get nerfed doesn't mean raiding should stay the same. I believe the c4 is overpowered at the moment and resorting to the good ol' keypad and lock pick is necessary. Nerfing the c4 will give way to new players without a lot of money to raid with keypads and lock picks. I think c4s will still be useful against big clans and active bases, but they should be the norm and go-to for every situation. This encourages new players to raid and makes the server more fun overall as there are more events happening at any given time. 

C4 and timebombs are one thing that makes this server different then other shitty servers. C4 was recently nerfed and I believe it could be in a good state if they readd being able to shoot it.

Also timebombs are extremely cheap to get and you can average like making 1 timebomb like every 30 seconds if you're doing it right. (Money wise)

4. Make processors more expensive, and make them despawn quicker. In my opinion, processors are extremely cheap for what they do. They should be way more expensive to spawn in (at least $30,000), but they should also despawn after a maximum of an hour after one has dced. Why? Because hoarding processors is overpowered. Let's face it, if they are going for $100,000 to $300,000 on the free market, why is the spawn price $5,000? This will decrease the amount of processors on the server, therefore decreasing inflation and discouraging processor spawning for new players.

 

Processors aren't actually relatively cheap. You can buy 1 and that one normally gets bought by bigger bases for sometimes like 200k but thats extremely expensive. I seen them going for around 100k, but I tend to sell to basemates for around 50k.  Procs have a fuel gage type of thing that makes it so you cant just leave it and you have to drop like 250k into filling them up. There is also proc tokens which are most common with bases so changing the prices will relatively make barely a difference.

 

5. This last suggestion is really game changing and I think most long-term players of the server wouldn't agree on. Yet it might be necessary. After a long time of dealing with this dynamic, the economy has suffered from hyperinflation. Some people have so much money that they are reselling it to newer players, incentivizing donations and real-life transactions over actually playing the game. This is problematic. Money is becoming so abundant in the more experienced players that it no longer feels rewarding. Some people have so much money they have decided to give it away to make server events (like Asuna). Because, let's face it, the server is not as fun when some people are just giving you everything for free and money is infinite. I think if the server is going to undergo economic changes like the ones mention previously, it needs a reset or at least some cap. What I mean by cap is anything above a given value is stripped from a player, for example any player above $10,000,000 will have their money set to 10mill. 

 

The market has actually took a massive drop. To make a large amount of money you have to give a large amount of money. Tons of things are half price. C4 used to be 100k and now its like 65k per. Timebombs were like 30k now they're 15k. VIP Tokens were 2.5m and now they're in the range of 750k-1.25m.

I would like everyone to have an open-mind. I fear there will be a lot of backlash from the older players than have already accumulated an insane amount of wealth. Your efforts should be praised and appreciated, maybe with a cosmetic item or with some sort of ability, but let's face it: it's not fun to sit around in bases with $50,000,000, giving away or selling your money because the server is no longer fun at its core. 

 

I would kinda classify myself as one of the people who sit in a base with tons of money, but I still find things to do. Either just fucking around with friends in the RDM zone and just having a camera on the base, to having games up in other tabs. Some people have been basing daily like 3-5 days a week for a couple years and still find it fun. People look at the bigger picture of what they can do with the money.

 

Overall I like your suggestions from a new players POV, but as a long time player I don't see this fitting the server. Lockpicking and keypads will just cause it to be like UK server bases and will in my opinion kill off the rest of the basers. People just use a dupe and don't wanna have to remake one and perfect it to the new scenarios. C4 is at a near good place for me, if they added punting back it'd be perfect, but I could see how it's bad on a new players side. If you use your math though, $65,000 for a C4. Say a new player base has 1 proc 1 printer and for some reason someone C4's in. That would be like $60,000 in return making it a lost of profit. 

 

 

This is just all my opinion and I think if some of the changes you listed come true it could speed up the process of the death of the server.

[Nep Nep]

I see what you mean, but the servers been here for quite some time, around 3-4 years I think, I've only been here for 2, and have only saw the server grow since then.

[Payanskii]

First of all, thank you enormously for a very constructive and detailed post, it's not often that we see these I appreciate it a lot. 

I completely understand your point of view on the general aspect of the issue we have with improving the experience for new players.

Trust me I have been trying to get things changed and I will do my best to do so.

I have a lot of opinions and wishes for the future of the server, but Im still working on getting the reputation/rank to gain more possibility to make changes.

I would prefer not to discuss this subject further on the forums, as the backlash would be massive, but I invite you to add me on discord to talk about it, with me as a moderator and possibly an admin. Here is my discord tag:

Lewis “Papa Skii”#7276

Take care and thanks again for the post.

[The Herbalist]

A decent read, but have you considered our *plethora* of other money making methods that don't require sitting in a base all day? Fishing, Weapon Enchanting, Treasure Hunting, Resource Farming, Bounty Hunting, Delivering Parcels, selling talismans, I could go on. This is not a new conversation, the basing meta is something that the owners are working towards balancing out. I don't believe your vision that the server is doomed to fail because of this, I'm not a new player but even when I was, sitting in a base all day wasn't how I made my cash. There's plenty of ways to make money out there. Stockpiling up procs and printers is a good way to make some quick cash, but that comes with a risk these other methods don't have, which is getting it all taken away from you due to a raid.

[Lunartique]

leaderboards baby over 10m a week

 

although only one person at a time can really do that so yeah

[Lysergic]

 

1) We practically have this system with fail safes. If you leave with a full battery printer the failsafe has a chance to run out and then proceed to blow up.

 

2.) Processors aren't actually relatively cheap. You can buy 1 and that one normally gets bought by bigger bases for sometimes like 200k but thats extremely expensive. I seen them going for around 100k, but I tend to sell to basemates for around 50k. Procs have a fuel gage type of thing that makes it so you cant just leave it and you have to drop like 250k into filling them up. There is also proc tokens which are most common with bases so changing the prices will relatively make barely a difference.

 

3.)The market has actually took a massive drop. To make a large amount of money you have to give a large amount of money. Tons of things are half price. C4 used to be 100k and now its like 65k per. Timebombs were like 30k now they're 15k. VIP Tokens were 2.5m and now they're in the range of 750k-1.25m.

 

 

4) Lockpicking and keypads will just cause it to be like UK server bases and will in my opinion kill off the rest of the basers. People just use a dupe and don't wanna have to remake one and perfect it to the new scenarios.

 

 

5) This is just all my opinion and I think if some of the changes you listed come true it could speed up the process of the death of the server.

 

I've taken some of the points you made and arranged them, pardon me if it looks confusing I'm not very familiar with the forum system.

 

1 & 2.) Even though the printers and procs have a failsafe system and a fuel gauge system respectively, this does not give a lot of room for them to explode and respawn. This system only encourages people to not AFK farm, as their items could explode, but as long as someone is tending the base and refilling everything, printers and procs will be in the hands of the same people until they are raided by a bigger group. This is problematic, since as long as the experienced players actively refilll their valuables they will keep most of it. I was thinking of a system that would have the printers/procs disappear overtime regardless of whether you were active or not, but not disappear instantly after DC like in a lot of other servers.

 

3.) How has the market suffered a massive drop? I really don't understand how an inflationary system like that of DarkRP lead to negative economical growth.

 

4.) I don't think keypads and lockpicks should be the meta; I actually like the idea of c4, timebombs, trishas launcher, blowtorches, and other raiding tools. It makes the experience more fun. The problem is lockpicks and keypads are no longer viable against good base builds AT ALL. There should be a system that would bring back some utility for new players that have no idea how to use the other raiding tools because they just started out. Make them viable again, but not overpowered and the meta. Maybe you have some idea of how to do this?

 

5.) I get that, some of the changes might be radical and counter intuitive for an old player. That's why I stated I don't have all the solutions, but we can both recognize there is a problem. My suggestions might not be the best, but this is a call to action to encourage active discussion on how to better the experience overall.

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A decent read, but have you considered our *plethora* of other money making methods that don't require sitting in a base all day? Fishing, Weapon Enchanting, Treasure Hunting, Resource Farming, Bounty Hunting, Delivering Parcels, selling talismans, I could go on. This is not a new conversation, the basing meta is something that the owners are working towards balancing out. I don't believe your vision that the server is doomed to fail because of this, I'm not a new player but even when I was, sitting in a base all day wasn't how I made my cash. There's plenty of ways to make money out there. Stockpiling up procs and printers is a good way to make some quick cash, but that comes with a risk these other methods don't have, which is getting it all taken away from you due to a raid.

 

I get that. I was mostly referring to the meta and the most viable money-making methods. There are a lot of other money making methods out there, but these are not made clear for the new player. Maybe there should be a tutorial or some other system to teach new players about these other systems, since they are not conventional for DarkRP. I like that there are other methods, but these are not known and not as profitable.

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I make plenty of money and I don't base whatsoever. Saying the current state is "doomed to fail in the long-term" is kinda ridiculous seeing as how the server has been up for 5 years, and is one of the top DarkRP servers in G-Mod. I think everything is fine lolol

 

Maybe the server dying was an overstatement to emphasize the problem and a general writing technique to lure people into reading the post. I just find a lot of potential in this server and see it being lost in some mechanics that new players can't necessarily delve into.

[Akumi]

I think if the server is going to undergo economic changes like the ones mention previously, it needs a reset or at least some cap.

 

Fat fucking -1 from me chief.

 

If the server had a economic reset, do you know how many people are going to stop fuckin playing on the server after they spent irl money on cash? I couldnt imagine the ammount of backlash the owners would get because of this

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maybe with a cosmetic item

 

An accessories shop already exists at fountain where most of the items are over 1 mil so

[PickNic]

Posted a huge paragraph for this but forums crashed and no longer have it, [-1]

[KDawg]

Thanks for the constructive criticism. It's nice to get a fresh perspective on things.

 

1. Change the amount of time "unknown" printers are active on the server. I don't think making them instantly disappear after someone disconnects is the solution (leads to FailRP and DC to get your items back), but some middle ground is best. For example, a server I used to play on a lot called Divinity RP had this system where every time an "unknown" printer would print money, it would have a small chance of exploding. This works really well because "unknown" printers are still valuable, but as a new player you can expect to get your valuables sooner than until a restart.

 

This is a good idea. Failsafes do exist for a reason but as of right now, it is a monopoly. 

 

People purchase other people's entities and that's the end of that. A lot of people would rather run around and just play the game than sit in a base with the risk of losing their entities. When they're given the opportunity to get 350k for their processor, printers and ect, it's a hard deal to not take. Why spend 3+ hours on the server just to potentially make that 350k when people will pay you right from the start?

 

It's hard to make a really good solution. Making it so printers follow the same rule as processors in a way would drop their price and people would stop hoarding 300+ of them in a single base.

 

You could have it so if you have like 20+ printers in a radius then it will start to cause interference or something. You don't want it to affect all players, just the people who are the monopoly to prevent that hoarding.

 

2. Change the building dynamics. Building at the moment is very boring and unoriginal. There is no incentive to be creative and innovate, making cheeky bases with interesting pathways or angles to get shot from. This servers' meta is building a one-way, KOS crouch-maze long enough to avoid getting raided by 1 c4's aura. For this reason, most mega bases are inside a warehouse in the sewers. A solution to this is making a rule against KOS mazes longer than an established unit, like 1x8. This incentivizes raiding the big bases, punishes having such a big investment, encourages pvp, and will lead to redistribution of valuables.

 

I don't entirely like enforcing building rules as you need staff to do that. I do have plans to eliminate no collided props from basing / making them obsolete. I dislike no collided props. They're too strong as they allow you to pass through, shoot and then back up into.

 

Another solution is to lower the prop count and instead have a dedicated builder job maybe? When you are in a group with 5 people, that's 350-400 props you will be able to use at your max. We have toyed with the prop limit before but people heavily disliked that option. Maybe giving them more tools such as the builder job would make things easier.

 

3. Change the raiding dynamics. Just because building could get nerfed doesn't mean raiding should stay the same. I believe the c4 is overpowered at the moment and resorting to the good ol' keypad and lock pick is necessary. Nerfing the c4 will give way to new players without a lot of money to raid with keypads and lock picks. I think c4s will still be useful against big clans and active bases, but they should be the norm and go-to for every situation. This encourages new players to raid and makes the server more fun overall as there are more events happening at any given time. 

 

This is back and forth. Some people say raiding is way too easy and it needs to be nerfed. People on the other side say its way too hard and needs to get buffed.

 

C4 used to be a lot more expensive. It used to be 300k per C4 and that meant only veterans / rich players could raid. There is a lot of tools and perks and talents to assist raiding and basing. Also did you mean to say "they shouldn't be the norm and go to?". The price was lowered so more people could have access to it.

 

Increasing the price of C4 at this point would make the power gap between veterans and new players a lot bigger. People who have 1000 C4 would just run rampart for months until things normalize out.

 

5. This last suggestion is radical in nature and more of a long-term approach, yet necessary. After a long time of dealing with this dynamic, the economy has suffered from hyperinflation. Some people have so much money that they are reselling it to newer players, incentivizing donations and real-life transactions over actually playing the game. This is problematic. Money is becoming so abundant in the more experienced players' hands that it no longer feels rewarding to them. Some people have so much money they have decided to give it away to make server events (like Asuna). Because, let's face it, the server is not as fun when some people are just giving you everything for free and money is infinite. I think if the server is going to undergo economic changes like the ones mention previously, it needs a reset or at least some cap. What I mean by cap is anything above a given value is stripped from a player, for example any player above $10,000,000 will have their money set to 10mill. 

 

This is a tricky one and it's not as much of an issue as you may think. Out of the 200,000 people who have joined the server, only 30 of them have above 50 mil. 18 of those people have over 100 mil and 9 of those people have above 200 mil.

 

621 people have above 5 million dollars in the server. The rest of the 199,379 people have below 5 mil.

 

Some players spend their time selling their in game cash for IRL money because they treat it as job / gold farming server. This is something I am hoping the new gambling system will even out.

 

Once you hit a certain threshold, there isn't that much to spend money on. You have shop perks, VIP, custom classes, weapons and all of that jazz but people don't really care too much for cosmetics when they could sell their money for IRL cash.

 

I do try to keep adding things and changing things up to prevent this from happening. I dislike when people sell their in game money for IRL cash but I am not sure if it should be outlawed. Maybe it should be. It would prevent the big money men from hoarding everyone's items and it would probably make the economy a little bit more stable.