I don’t even think it’s the PD is fully at fault here, a bigger problem is people getting more and more lazy with their only purpose being farming money.
You're right. Part of the problem I've noticed is the fact that the population of the server is much higher, and the barrier of entry is much lower to compensate for the thinly stretched administrative workforce of the PD. And I don't just mean IA, PS or any other division. Supervisors and CPLs too of every division.
I personally blame the fact, that 3-5 years ago peoples brains were not overstimulated that much and they were enjoing human interaction. Now it must be all chaos and stimuli or else they gonna get bored and leave.
My personal stance on this? Fuck them, let them leave. The last week and a half for me has been a total shitshow. Between the constant shootouts and seemingly ignorant general workforce of the on-duty PD sits unprofessional dispatchers- or worse -control freak dispatchers that absolutely demand you play the way they dictate. The PD is not quite how I remember it, and that's in part thanks to the lowered overall requirements.
Applying for SO for me was honestly just as easy as creating an account for steam, and yet I still see people complaining that they failed even that. Seriously, all it takes is the basic capacity for reading and generally some common sense and you've practically passed the app well before you've even started filling it out.
There are policies, officers should not deny writing ORs
This is great and all, if ORs actually reflected the officer in question's ability to logically solve more complex crimes other than shootouts and assaults. As it stands, you can get two ORs for completely irrelevant things and piggyback off of those to make it to SO at the minimum, from which you can snake your way into TFU roles that demand you use some brainpower to solve hostage situations using advance planning and quick thinking. Those two ORs don't necessarily reflect the officer's logic or decision abilities, which result in promotions that thrust unqualified players into positions with more power than they should have.
Having read a bit further down in your reply, I can see that you've addressed this. Oh well, it's written and I won't be undoing it.
But i see that theres no way to influence new officers and force them to do stuff. Even read the policies or properly understand them. We can only make everything harder - applications, certifications etc. but thats not gonna happen.
If you want to raise the quality of the PD, this
has to happen. Raising the overall bar of entry into SO+ should be the beginning, with both Traffic and TFU following suit. RTFO feels far too easy to achieve, and SO is even more so. There are significant restrictions on RTFO, understandably so, but even then it genuinely feels like the current requirements will lower quality over time. Personally though, I feel that some of the punishments- save for the most dire ones -should be loosened ever so slightly for mundane infringements on-duty. I don't have a frame of reference to the current way IA handles things these days, but I know that in the past that IA was borderline horrifying to receive notices from considering how long it can take to get anywhere.
its obvious that something is going downhill, and its not because V6 was released
Correct, this has been an issue that has slowly been snowballing over time, pushed on by the changes to both how promotions work and the lowered bar of entry to roles that really should have a higher one. I saw these signs back in 2022 and in 2023, with more and more sweater cops signing up, and with each one, the quality of these officers gradually decreased as time passed. At this point, every time I'm on duty, most people behave like sweater cops, and most supervisors, including some command members barely act like their rank. A lot of the time, they're entirely mute or isolated and engage in the most simple things, same as the lower ranked officers.
Don't get me wrong, I've seen SGT+ actually act their station in the time I've been back, but it has become much rarer.
I have a significant gap between 2023 and 2025 PD, which makes it easy for me to tell the difference- compared to someone who has been here since then and only seen gradual change, which is somewhat harder to notice when it's so gradual.
But, take what I say with a grain of salt. I don't feel like I have been back long enough to put together a complete picture, but this is my new first impression of this version of the PD.
Don't get me wrong, I know it's meant to be a game, but at some point this server just stops being roleplay and more of a team deathmatch with extra steps. Moreso now than previously.
Maybe my perception has changed, I don't know, but things feel different with the PD specifically. With the rest of the server it doesn't really feel all that bad, but I also don't engage much with the illegal side.
I really don't think anything here will change, as my desired outcome from any of this is that the gamemode slows down to some degree, to make the overall server more manageable. Having four major shootouts going on in every corner of the map at once is far too much to demand from the PD.
