An Honest Question

[Guac]

Before I start, PLEASE do not use this as a post to shit on High Staff / any specific member of the community, that is not the point of this topic by any means.

Now, the question

What do you believe, if anything, is holding roleplay in this server back from being great?

For a while, people mention the past and how things were so much better. "Ah, when I was on (INSERT MAP HERE) things were soooo much better". Or some just saying blanket terms such as "server culture" and "shit roleplay". I for one, am not the first to cast any stones, however, I wanted to see what you all thought.
 

My personal opinion, people don't know how to take a loss. I think that drastically ruins many possible RP scenarios.

[Hanz]

I agree with you, people do not know how to RP to lose and that is a major flaw in PvP interactions between the Republic and Bounty Hunters in most cases. People lose and instead of doing rp, they find every small thing they can complain about and try to say is someone breaking rules.

[Daytona211]

 

(some of) The players. (sometimes)

What seems to be a majority of the player base tend to want to treat the game like an FPS with in game local chat 75% of the time and an RP game 25% of the time. This leads to no one getting what they want because people that try to play a character have to deal with people bunny hopping at droids blasting Sabaton through there mic while people who want to shoot droids have to stand around for 10 min while Jedi Master nut sack gives the dark jedi a therapy session. 
 
I'm pretty biased as I try to play the game like I am playing a character. So I don't charge at enemies, I don't try to fly ahead of battles, I don't ask for immediate respawn of vehicles because that's not what a clone would do / have access to. 

But I do understand the point of view of "This is a game. If I can't use the vehicle / weapon / training I spent 15 min sitting in a channel listening to someone read me a google doc of, it's not fun" 

No where do I see this more prevalent then with OP jobs / guns.
We have put rules around say a jedi force repulsing an entire area full of droids and ruining it for the clones but the thing is that shouldn't even really need to be a rule because a jedi wouldn't do that unless it was a last ditch suicide effort. Most Jedi Master's know this and don't do it but a brand new knight probably won't unless they have a decent amount of experience. 

Lastly there's an over reliance on people of "authority" to create RP whether that be the staff team, GM team, Commanders etc. Part of being a clone trooper is making a routine. Perhaps during down time you create a standard patrol route for yourself to do and notice an engineer in the MHB working on a ship. You go over and have a convo with him about the ship and start helping him with it. That easily fills 30 min of time when most people are just complaining "make something happen please". 

I understand this isn't always realistic as if no one is doing this to begin with it, it won't start happening but I have done this on crosshair quite and bit and have been pleasantly surprised with the results sometimes and called "a fucking ugly ass megamind" in others. 

The easiest way to star ta change is to shift the attitude of why you play. If you are playing simply to shoot things you may be missing the point of the gamemode. It's the experiences that stick with you and make you want to keep playing, and is the most common reason people say "This server was so much better on X map" because they had good experiences which are hard to come by due to the communities often faction way of interacting with people outside of there group.

TL;DR: be willing to inspire RP of your own in downtime and play a real character (not just you behind a computer) and you will see your interactions on the server having more depth and substance and overall spend less time going "when's the next time I get to shoot something" 

 

@Woeny

21 minutes ago, Guac said:

PLEASE do not use this as a post to shit on High Staff / any specific member of the community, 

Spoiler

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Daytona211

[Conrad]

Biggest problem is what i like to call "I am the main character syndrome."

[Guac]

9 minutes ago, Conrad said:

Biggest problem is what i like to call "I am the main character syndrome."

“NOOOO, MY SFC CANNOT DIE🙀!! HE SURVIVED ORDER 66 ALONG WITH THE REST OF HIS FANDOM SQUAD AND KILLED DARTH VADER!!!”

[Conrad]

12 minutes ago, Guac said:

“NOOOO, MY SFC CANNOT DIE🙀!! HE SURVIVED ORDER 66 ALONG WITH THE REST OF HIS FANDOM SQUAD AND KILLED DARTH VADER!!!”

AcTuAlLy ImPrOcCo cOmPaNy ArE aLl FrEe ThInKeRs ThAt DiSoBeYeD oRdEr 66!

Edited February 14, 2022 by Conrad

[justuscloud5]

28 minutes ago, Conrad said:

AcTuAlLy ImPrOcCo cOmPaNy ArE aLl FrEe ThInKeRs ThAt DiSoBeYeD oRdEr 66!

Yes and do you have a problem with that trogladyte. They are impeccable beings made and cast in the same mold of God himself.

[Jayarr]

 

2 hours ago, Guac said:

Now, the question

What do you believe, if anything, is holding roleplay in this server back from being great?

we're using an ancient sandbox game to RP

Edited February 14, 2022 by Jayarr

[Dono]

2 hours ago, Jayarr said:

 

we're using an ancient sandbox game to RP

I see ppl rp on Roblox without any voice chat and create better experiences then Synergy does 50% of the time passively. Having genuine in character interactions with people is so much fun and underrated. Gmod RP has the consistency of something to do in game that other rp games like Arma 3 lack. The potential to be entertained consistently is so much higher but its often thrown out the window. I tend to side on the ideals of semi serious rp where fun is still allowed but when rp occurs ppl are expected to reciprocate rp with rp. Instead you can just have ppl here tell you to fuck off, "I dont need to rp" and walk away. If you join a RP server and tell everyone that tries to rp around you to screw off..... you shouldn't play on the rp server...... thats my hot take. I think the mentality on Synergy can be very anti RP, especially on Main server. Its so bad that many of the GM leadership team just dont even do main server events and only focus on event server deployments. As it stands now from my perspective the best time to do rp is on event server when your pulled away and isolated from the other 70 players on main. 

[Craigary]

5 hours ago, Guac said:

Before I start, PLEASE do not use this as a post to shit on High Staff / any specific member of the community, that is not the point of this topic by any means.

Now, the question

What do you believe, if anything, is holding roleplay in this server back from being great?

For a while, people mention the past and how things were so much better. "Ah, when I was on (INSERT MAP HERE) things were soooo much better". Or some just saying blanket terms such as "server culture" and "shit roleplay". I for one, am not the first to cast any stones, however, I wanted to see what you all thought.
 

My personal opinion, people don't know how to take a loss. I think that drastically ruins many possible RP scenarios.

/HT
Let’s dive deep here.

Back in 2017/2018 was the peak for the server and it’s gone hill since and it’s simply because of said culture.

People we’re getting on and there was always something happening. Not just events. It was easier to get on the server and find something to do. Now I just connected to the server today as a matter of fact and noticed all people do is events and afk. Or do shit they have to in order to rank up.

There used to be just random PVP sims in the claimable areas and stuff of that nature that was fun. Now the only thing being hosted are shit trainings/ poorly planned Sims so people can get points and rank up.

Besides that the people in general. New leadership = a lot of changes. Between now and 2017 a lot of how the server functions has changed. Staff is literally turned into a high command popularity contest? Why not just make HA and application at this point. Let’s take people not involved in the staff team and give them a vote. Cmon. No H8 just my opinion.
 

Theres  a lot of stuff that’s changed. The atmosphere is huge and the reason why I stuck and got as far as I did, and it’s just not the same, it also doesn’t help that life is changing in general and there’s no real places to just be yourself anymore, that ideal has been brought to this gmod server. Can’t be dumb with friends without people getting angry. 
 

In terms of a loss like you stated, that has always been a thing. 

TLDR

It feels like no one really has the same drive in general as they used to. It’s just autonomous oh “somethings broken” and fixing/changing it immediately instead of working for a better solution. And in general people don’t really have a whole lot of fun, just boring promotions and repetitiveness.

 

 

[Brian-Limmon]

People from all corners of the server, whether you be a high rank, low rank, new player, old player, all the way from casual players to the highest of staff ranks, has a serious case of main character syndrome LMAO.

I'm not sure how it used to be on the server, but I'd take a very confident guess and say that there was a lot more humility going around compared to nowadays where people aren't content with just being a background character, even if the situation calls for it. Everyone wants to get involved in everything that seems interesting, which is understandable, though it usually just leads to people talking over each other, everyone trying to do their own thing, noone working together, etc. And this isn't just when it comes to verbal RP, every single time I've partaken in or hosted a deployment, there are a noticeable amount of people who are trying really hard to be the one who runs off on their own and finds an objective or something interesting before everyone else, which makes it harder from a GM standpoint to accomodate everyones needs. From what I've seen and compared to how I've seen things run very differently on other servers, it's mainly due to battalions being really loose with their rules like PTS, being hesitant to hand out punishments and not being very strict when leading events so to keep people together. I don't think I've ever seen an entire battalion who were so coordinated they didn't have but 1 person that ran off on their own and went unnacounted for in any sort of plans they made or orders they gave.

People also get really impatient when there's an RP scenario that doesn't concern them, most of the time during breifings or centre piece scenarios there's a lot of people jumping around or even spamming their mic sometimes, it would help a lot if battalions were a lot more strict when it came to people just "acting dumb" in this way as I've seen even BCMDs do it lmao, I doubt anyone does it malliciously but it can seriously ruin RP and "immersion".

This isn't to say that there aren't a lot of people who are fine with sitting in the shadows and letting RP scenarios play out when it suits the scenario, though there are still a way higher portion of "main characters" than what I've seen on other servers.

Also I want to add most times rolling is dumb its gmod not dnd if you disagree sorry but your opinion isn't correct?

Edited February 14, 2022 by Brian-Limmon

[Bbstine]

The thing that truly holds us back as a community is the fact that we have a structure and culture that we have built on for the past 5 years. At no point have we completely re-evolutionized the system of how our server works other than slight adjustments. The culture in battalions will always default to a centralized thinking process that ranking up is good and being this is better than being that, as is being a member of High Command in roleplay structure.

 

Just recently one of the biggest changes happened to our staff team, and it's a good one! We are creating a new way that is so unbelievably involved that it blows my mind that it hasn't been done sooner. We are so split in the ways that we want the server to be, we have people like myself that are so used to the old ways that it is all we know, and most of the people controlling the server are old people from my time. Not to say an old dog can't learn new tricks but it is hard. 

 

The community is good with communicating what they want as long as someone brings it up first, that is what needs to change. I know half of the shit I said was me going off on a shpeel about some dumb shit but the biggest downfall to the future of our server and the roleplay aspect is people hiding their true opinions and thoughts because they are afraid they'll be crucified for it by "old heads" and their "butt buddies."

[Marvel]

24 minutes ago, Brian-Limmon said:

Also I want to add most times rolling is dumb its gmod not dnd if you disagree sorry but your opinion isn't correct?

Much agree!

Get rid of rolling and replace it with the chess addon ez. Now every time you do a /me and someone wants to challenge it they have to play a game of chess. This takes actual skill and isn’t based on luck!

Fr tho I hate rolling. Would love to see something new introduced to distance ourselves away from luck based roleplay because it just isn’t it imo. That’s why I love the tech addon and the bomb addons we had. You actually *do* what you’re trained for rather than typing it and hoping you roll high enough. 

[Dono]

1 minute ago, Marvel said:

Much agree!

Get rid of rolling and replace it with the chess addon ez. Now every time you do a /me and someone wants to challenge it they have to play a game of chess. This takes actual skill and isn’t based on luck!

Fr tho I hate rolling. Would love to see something new introduced to distance ourselves away from luck based roleplay because it just isn’t it imo. That’s why I love the tech addon and the bomb addons we had. You actually *do* what you’re trained for rather than typing it and hoping you roll high enough. 

RIP bomb defusal addon 

[Heart]

From my hundreds of hours GMing, the three things people hate most is:

1. Being unable to take a loss under bullshit circumstances. I've done a few events where the republic is unable to proceed and must retreat, and a lot of people like the dynamic. Having to camp out in the woods and wait for reinforcements or a battle plan, it really gets a lot of people going. However, when droids are spawned on top of them, or when HMC just turns off after /advert blows up HMC, I always hear a belated sigh or "bruh" every time, and it really tanks ratings. This is both a player and GM problem: Learn to lose more, and learn to create acceptable losses (I.E don't bomb 45 troopers that have no way to survive it unless proper warning or "Anti-Moron" adverts go off.)

2. Passive RP is non existent outside of GM and Senators. Being in the military (cringe i know) there's a lot of dumb, passive shit that happens all the time. We shoot guns maybe twice a year; granted i'm not in a combat zone. Some things we're always doing is PT, classes on how to handle certain scenarios (IEDs, Anti-terrorism, Counter-intel and spying, etc.), classes on our jobs (Get all the MEDs, and start doing a class for a new "illness" going around, how to identify it, and cure it), platoon lunch/mess nights, patrols, and so much more. This is a SUPPLY unit that hasn't been deployed in 8+ years, so you can take these ideas AND MORE to SWRP and create something for yourself and others.

3. Too many people suffer from "I wanna be the guy" disorder. Every battalion has a role, and every subunit has a role, but I'll be damned if I'm not the one to do it. It's not a bad thing, and it's hard to account for these things. It's a double-edged sword after all: You want the best EOD to do the EOD roleplay (I.E SOBDE), but your EOD training never gets used because they always want the best to do it, so whenever you DO get the opportunity, it's all you could ask for.

 

None of these are critiques on anyone, just things i've observed. Doing these things won't even fix the server entirely, but it'll create a lot more memories which is really what it's all about, right?

[Brian-Limmon]

1 hour ago, Marvel said:

Much agree!

Get rid of rolling and replace it with the chess addon ez. Now every time you do a /me and someone wants to challenge it they have to play a game of chess. This takes actual skill and isn’t based on luck!

Fr tho I hate rolling. Would love to see something new introduced to distance ourselves away from luck based roleplay because it just isn’t it imo. That’s why I love the tech addon and the bomb addons we had. You actually *do* what you’re trained for rather than typing it and hoping you roll high enough. 

Wait, we had those?? Why tf were they removed?????????????????????????????????????

[Heart]

6 minutes ago, Brian-Limmon said:

Wait, we had those?? Why tf were they removed?????????????????????????????????????

They were "pattern" based, and didn't require any RP. You just clicked and there was a few wires, and you had to have a second tab open similar to KTANE
Example: Blue black yellow red
then you go to the guide and it says
"If it's blue followed by black, cut red, only if the third one isn't green"

No skill really

[Brian-Limmon]

1 minute ago, Heart said:

They were "pattern" based, and didn't require any RP. You just clicked and there was a few wires, and you had to have a second tab open similar to KTANE
Example: Blue black yellow red
then you go to the guide and it says
"If it's blue followed by black, cut red, only if the third one isn't green"

No skill really

Still sounds better than rolling tbh. It could definitely be fleshed out a bit more by the sounds of it but I'm not sure anyone would want it removed without an alternative :(

[Jad]

18 minutes ago, Brian-Limmon said:

Wait, we had those?? Why tf were they removed?????????????????????????????????????

Some mechanics of them worked fine, like the defusing part. Unfortunately the primary function of the bombs (Boom) would cause the server to become extremely unstable. In most cases would cause a server side hang and require a restart if the auto restart didn't catch it.

Edit: Also, it's rather difficult to make or find plugins that would completely replace rolling. I would love to believe that the roll system is no longer required, but unfortunately it's one of the few things left that require players to think and be creative if they fail. As it currently stands if we were to remove it staff chat would be flooded with "Marvel has been revived bring him to me" or "GM I fixed the event thing"(After no attempt was fully made). It's easy to say "I believe in my fellow players to do the right thing and follow their trainings!" but in practice and experience I can promise you this isn't the case. And I'd really prefer not having 3+ people have to oversee every move someone makes just to confirm their actions or have a staff member float overhead. A lot of our current system relies on trusting players intentions, rolling isn't perfect but it does show attempts are made.

[Brooklyn]

9 hours ago, Guac said:

What do you believe, if anything, is holding roleplay in this server back from being great?

Guac trying to limit Bounty Hunter ability on base

[Finn]

The biggest issue I see is that everyone treats the game as a single player FPS, where they are the protagonist, and everything good must happen to them. They can't lose, or let others win, and if the situation isn't 100% in favor of a person, they complain,

[Guac]

From what I am seeing there appears to be a few shared opinions.

 

Many players, ironically, forget that this is a roleplay server. This is a 13 year old game, not a AAA FPS. Many don't feel as though roleplay can exist outside of a shoot-em-up event.

As a cause of this, many individuals get the "main character syndrome" as explained in a few posts above.

These issues, coupled with a stagnation in genuine change, seems to have brought many to a "roleplay burnout". Knowing that any interaction attempted will be met with pushback from the player base that believe they are in a CoD game.

This burnout causes player to not be able to look past the rudimentary tools given too them, placing all the stress of entertainment on things such as the GM team, further increasing the divide between the staff team and general playerbase.

When the GM team attempts to step back to stimulate a bit of player made roleplay, it usually turns into PvP. This is the point where the rule books come out, and people forget they aren't the "main character" and simply cannot take a loss.

This all seems like a self destructive circle in my opinion. If you want a solution, I don't quite have one. I'm glad we were able to stimulate conversation, and possibly change some player outlook,

[justuscloud5]

Also I could say the culture shift from a few years ago where the server was admittedly more toxic it lead to more undesirable people getting put in there place when they thought they were the main characters. But this also went to the other side where people that had a lot of friends could treat themselves as the main characters and no one would bat an eye. As well there was more I could say loyalty to friends and battalions on the server and it basically turned into RP gang wars at time and/or feuds and competition in things like rp or pop. This also lead to different standards in battalions and set the groundwork for what they are today, but as years go by visages of those that built the battalions get twisted into basically parodies of themselves, notably DU, SOBDE, 21st, and Rancor, they became parodies of themselves. As well as with the server becoming more political in a sense where this server is its own game of thrones. 

TLDR: @Guacthing a became hypercontextualized and things began to twist into a parody of themselves, by the onset of people becoming 3mphatic about their battalions and the people that built the server leaving, with newer people exaggerating things of the past and bringing a very single minded individualized mindset. Very distant from what the community was originally envisioned as. Also the constant game of thrones eac lack of loyalty and willing to sell people out to get brownie points with high staff or to get positions. This all led to main character syndrome and kind of a deterioration of the original vision.

[Brian-Limmon]

12 hours ago, Jad said:

Edit: Also, it's rather difficult to make or find plugins that would completely replace rolling. I would love to believe that the roll system is no longer required, but unfortunately it's one of the few things left that require players to think and be creative if they fail. As it currently stands if we were to remove it staff chat would be flooded with "Marvel has been revived bring him to me" or "GM I fixed the event thing"(After no attempt was fully made). It's easy to say "I believe in my fellow players to do the right thing and follow their trainings!" but in practice and experience I can promise you this isn't the case. And I'd really prefer not having 3+ people have to oversee every move someone makes just to confirm their actions or have a staff member float overhead. A lot of our current system relies on trusting players intentions, rolling isn't perfect but it does show attempts are made.

Honestly that still happens a lot anyway, people often just do something silly like /me hacks into CIS ship and starts countdown, /roll. IMO we'd be better off shifting to /mes that don't involve rolling when it comes to things like repairs, revives, etc. as, although they might take longer, people who have more experience with them are ACTUALLY able to be better at them and do them more efficiently rather than it just being down to complete chance. Plus it is really dumb that defcon 1 can be called at a completely random time both during someones unrelated event and during downtime just because someone got unlucky lmao

[Porch]

Some individuals role-play that they're a super soldier that's invisible. I can't remember when it was, who was all there, ETC but I remember in interrogation when I was in Null, you'd have event jobs getting their limbs cut off and just other extreme stuff happening. And they'd be like - "I didn't need that leg anyway. I ain't talkin'."  Funny memories but the super solider ideal might be a problem. There's pros and cons to it. Depends on who you ask. 

[Comics]

People don't wanna be soldiers they wanna be cool. Listening to people is lame, that's the basic lesson. 

People don't wanna play their role they wanna always be in charge. I think the easiest way to get better RP is to just tell BCMDs to stamp their foot down and be commanders in RP. Most regulars would never talk to their BCMD casually, they either feared them and or had the highest level of respect for them. I think BCMDs being more commander like in game would probably increase the likelyhood for the player base to follow suit. PVTs don't run off on their own yet individual players are valued far more highly than squads of troops.

 

We need two changes: stronger more central leaders (RP wise), and events wish punish people running off on their own

We need people falling more in line behind their BCMD and people being more accepting they aren't a machine in of themselves but are a cog in a larger one.
People seem to forget PVTs aren't super soldiers and that CMD+ are actually leaders. They need to start stepping into their roles because I rarely see any difference between the too except how much more headstrong higher ranks are usually

imo it's the best way to kill main-character syndrome. Plus this would bring a nice divide between OOC TS where everyone is friendly and more down to earth, and a more serious actually RP-oriented in game experience 

 

Although I would look into how battalions would treat each other, I personally don't want 41st Officers screaming at naval recruits or smth. Maybe keeping people more in line with their batts could help this foreseeable issue

Edited February 16, 2022 by Comics

[Smeck]

On 2/14/2022 at 11:11 AM, Jayarr said:

 

we're using an ancient sandbox game to RP