The PLPD is a joke

This might be kind of a dumb take but I think the poor quality of the PLPD right now is a result of years of stagnation in the quality of roleplay on this server as a whole.
Granted, this server's always had more of a PVP focus, but when I look back at the state of the server years back (though most likely through rose tinted glasses, and despite my own constant mingery) people were a lot more willing to create interesting roleplay scenarios, to act out silly little things like marriages, court cases, passive roleplay like opening restaurants and cafes. Shit like that of which I haven't seen happen in quite a while.

I think nowadays people only really play for the PVP and don't particularly have roleplaying in mind whenever they join, and that ends up being reflected in both the quality of the users joining the PLPD and the way the PLPD gets treated- Kind of as an opponent to get into shootouts with instead of somebody to roleplay with and talk to, hence the abuse PLPD officers get whenever they try to actually create RP scenarios such as cracking down on minor crimes and traffic violations, performing investigations etc. Then, as other people have brought up, officers end up not wanting to create those scenarios because whenever they do they get false IA complaints filed against them, abusive language hurled at them, and their attempt at creating a genuine RP scenario just gets thrown to the side so the crim user can get back to their powergrowing and raiding.

It hasn't helped either that the social aspect on the server- From what I've seen so far- Is dead. Previously popular hangout spots like the bazaar are now barren except for a couple of gun stores spaced out far apart from each other, and it seems like if you want any sort of social interaction in the server nowadays you're forced to join a large org and powergrow, base, and raid- Which I feel does nothing more than add to that pure cops vs robbers PVP dynamic that imo has killed off any semblance of roleplay left on the server.

Personally I was excited for the release of V6 as I thought it would bring more opportunities for roleplay to the gamemode and we'd see a breath of fresh air so to speak blow through the server, but with my experiences on the server recently it seems like the RP quality is at the lowest it's been in quite a while. No fault of peeps of course though, I think she did a great job with the map especially for (as I understand) her first map.

I'm not really sure how this could be worked on or fixed at this point, other users have brought up solutions that might help raise the quality of officers in the PLPD and raise the bar for promotions and such but I don't feel like that would fix the larger community issues that have brought it to this point. I'm not sure if it's an issue with the high server population as some users like @Exnem have mentioned, if there's just no incentive to engage with genuine roleplay like @Allen Kennedy mentioned, or what, but it's come to a point where users like myself that like to passiveRP and engage with those small police interactions don't really have the opportunity to do any of that anymore and I'm not sure if this is something the server can come back from.

TL;DR An oldhead complains about how it was better back in his days and how he thinks the state of the PLPD is just a reflection of the wider roleplay quality on the server.

exrobite said:

Officers will literally drop anything they're responding to if a shootout comes up, leading to a lack of actual decent policing and just a constant TDM between police and zerg criminals.

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I would be so happy just patrolling void of any duty to respond to pointless shootouts. At this point I don't respond, unless an EMS dies. Coupled with me being in traffic gear which is already a disadvantage.

I truly believe if we had active dispatchers & a radio system that meant the dispatchers could truly control what incidents other officers are aware of we would see an improvement.

If a dispatcher is active, units should only have access to unit radio & direct to dispatch. Unless the dispatcher opens the radio during a bank robbery etc.

Goonsberg said:

I truly believe if we had active dispatchers & a radio system that meant the dispatchers could truly control what incidents other officers are aware of we would see an improvement.

If a dispatcher is active, units should only have access to unit radio & direct to dispatch. Unless the dispatcher opens the radio during a bank robbery etc.

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Atleast with the current system units know if they’re speaking over one another. While I like the sentiment I don’t see how this could be carried out effectively. If dispatch as a role was less cancer I feel like the PLPD would benefit significantly.

Goonsberg said:

I truly believe if we had active dispatchers & a radio system that meant the dispatchers could truly control what incidents other officers are aware of we would see an improvement.

If a dispatcher is active, units should only have access to unit radio & direct to dispatch. Unless the dispatcher opens the radio during a bank robbery etc.

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With the state of how dispatcher is right now, when I'm on duty and see a dispatch come on duty I pretty much instantly go off duty. This isn't saying that all dispatchers are bad (although the majority are), I just think that the way dispatch works now makes playing PD pretty horrid.

Even the cops cant handle eachother

Staff killed crim so now lets blame plpd

The problem is crims and mainly their lack of RP The server is to shootout heavy and when you hold someone accountable for their actions in a not shootout situation they bitch and moan and file frivolous IAs on you. I’ve had a few lately where I was exonerated because people are mad that I was actually role playing. There are far too many shootouts in the server and not enough crime that involves not shooting people the first chance you get. There are some days where we have 3 to 4 regular raids at once that split up the department and cause chaos where no one can do anything besides rush to shootouts. As for ORs they are useless and needs a serious revamp for them to actually be useful. Another issue PD side is the quality of SGTs. I’ve had to pull sgts aside and correct them on laws and stuff on multiple occasions. It’s to easy to rank up nowadays imo

Caveric Jonson said:

The problem is crims and mainly their lack of RP The server is to shootout heavy and when you hold someone accountable for their actions in a not shootout situation they bitch and moan and file frivolous IAs on you. I’ve had a few lately where I was exonerated because people are mad that I was actually role playing. There are far too many shootouts in the server and not enough crime that involves not shooting people the first chance you get. There are some days where we have 3 to 4 regular raids at once that split up the department and cause chaos where no one can do anything besides rush to shootouts. As for ORs they are useless and needs a serious revamp for them to actually be useful. Another issue PD side is the quality of SGTs. I’ve had to pull sgts aside and correct them on laws and stuff on multiple occasions. It’s to easy to rank up nowadays imo

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SOme crimes that create "roleplay" are against the rules tho.. I'd like to have car meets and do a bit of silly driving, starting a chase, having cops (traffic) use what they are thought to do. You can only run from cops in a car if you've basically killed a guy, which will then just result in a shootout, because you cant break minor laws and try run from the cops

This again, PLPD is against, because they have to do something such as chasing and using their braincells.

Just an opinion of mine, as I am quite interested in non-pvp related rp, especially including cars. Chase me in my DU mini ‍

I was gonna say the staff seargent that denied my request to corporal was very professional and thorough with his reasoning as to why I didn't get promoted. I felt as if I listed everything necessary for handling situations but this goes to show some officers are still willing to go above and beyond. I think as of right now with the flux of new people applying for PD along with the major update people are still getting used to everything. Let's give it a little time to see if your point of view changes

Goonsberg said:

I truly believe if we had active dispatchers & a radio system that meant the dispatchers could truly control what incidents other officers are aware of we would see an improvement.

If a dispatcher is active, units should only have access to unit radio & direct to dispatch. Unless the dispatcher opens the radio during a bank robbery etc.

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This I think would be a game-changer. I also think there should be some sort of change to how gov life alerts work. I swear anytime there's a raid or shootout and a new life alert pops up on the other side of the map 98% of officers on scene rush to their cars instead of trying to clear up the scene and assist with transport and so on...

Goonsberg said:

I truly believe if we had active dispatchers & a radio system that meant the dispatchers could truly control what incidents other officers are aware of we would see an improvement.

If a dispatcher is active, units should only have access to unit radio & direct to dispatch. Unless the dispatcher opens the radio during a bank robbery etc.

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Here's how that will go:
17 cops online.
dispatch comes on duty
6 cops online.

A lot of dispatchers can't even do the job well enough to be more of a help than a hindrance anyway, given how when one is online, you don't get notified of new calls that come in, and you want to make it so cops have to rely on them to know literally anything that's going on? Even a fantastic dispatcher would be unable to work with this, simply because nobody knows who is talking to dispatch at one time so you'd get people talking over each other without even knowing.

How the fuck have four people upvoted this? Democracy is retarded and this is proof.

Allen Kennedy said:

Here's how that will go:
17 cops online.
dispatch comes on duty
6 cops online.

A lot of dispatchers can't even do the job well enough to be more of a help than a hindrance anyway, given how when one is online, you don't get notified of new calls that come in, and you want to make it so cops have to rely on them to know literally anything that's going on? Even a fantastic dispatcher would be unable to work with this, simply because nobody knows who is talking to dispatch at one time so you'd get people talking over each other without even knowing.

How the fuck have four people upvoted this? Democracy is retarded and this is proof.

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How about only allowing one transmission at a time? There's a panic button for a reason. Maybe change the panic button to also open the channel?

Prkchop said:

How about only allowing one transmission at a time? There's a panic button for a reason. Maybe change the panic button to also open the channel?

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limiting the channel to one transmission at a time would still make it impossible for dispatchers, because you'd have a queue of people spamming their radio key, waiting for it to light up showing they're connected to dispatch. And for dispatch, that would be constant, because they'd need to go through dispatch for so much shit. Panic opening the channel just causes more problems. How long would the channel stay open after a panic? Whats to stop people abusing it?

This is at it's core a fundamentally shit idea. If it's meant to nerf cops abilities to communicate effectively then fair enough, it certainly does that, but I fail to see ANY benefit of this. It would absolutely kill dispatch as well, because no cop would want to deal with not being able to communicate with medics, firefighters, and other cops directly, if the situation calls for it. Any dispatcher who came online and failed to keep up with that insane, utterly pointless workload of managing every bit of communication on the voice radio would be cursed by every government employee there is, and then when they go offline and the radio goes back to how it should be, they'd celebrate.

Allen Kennedy said:

Here's how that will go:
17 cops online.
dispatch comes on duty
6 cops online.

A lot of dispatchers can't even do the job well enough to be more of a help than a hindrance anyway, given how when one is online, you don't get notified of new calls that come in, and you want to make it so cops have to rely on them to know literally anything that's going on? Even a fantastic dispatcher would be unable to work with this, simply because nobody knows who is talking to dispatch at one time so you'd get people talking over each other without even knowing.

How the fuck have four people upvoted this? Democracy is retarded and this is proof.

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it wasn’t a genuine ‘suggestion’ more a where I think it’s going wrong.

The issue is, the PD is too unorganised for 128 players. Everyone responds to the same thing & it means some things are massively over responded and others are massively under responded.

Officers hear a shootout and drive as fast as they can no matter if they are needed or not.

Allen Kennedy said:

Here's how that will go:
17 cops online.
dispatch comes on duty
6 cops online.

A lot of dispatchers can't even do the job well enough to be more of a help than a hindrance anyway, given how when one is online, you don't get notified of new calls that come in, and you want to make it so cops have to rely on them to know literally anything that's going on? Even a fantastic dispatcher would be unable to work with this, simply because nobody knows who is talking to dispatch at one time so you'd get people talking over each other without even knowing.

How the fuck have four people upvoted this? Democracy is retarded and this is proof.

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Because dispatch is fucking annoying. I seen many many times over the last 2 years playing perpheads. 90% of dispatchers forget a situation is happening next thing you know there's 7 and 8 dead bodies at slums because the dispatch wasn't paying attention to his screen.

Prkchop said:

How about only allowing one transmission at a time? There's a panic button for a reason. Maybe change the panic button to also open the channel?

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This is why radio protocol is a thing and people breaking it will be sanctioned

Allen Kennedy said:

limiting the channel to one transmission at a time would still make it impossible for dispatchers, because you'd have a queue of people spamming their radio key, waiting for it to light up showing they're connected to dispatch. And for dispatch, that would be constant, because they'd need to go through dispatch for so much shit. Panic opening the channel just causes more problems. How long would the channel stay open after a panic? Whats to stop people abusing it?

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This proofs that the one transmission "solution" would never work.

Officer's just need to be patient with dispatcher and yes I agree, some Dispatchers need a bit more training but overall that will be taken up in the next few weeks.
Due to a few things for dispatch it has been bleeding out, things such as : No application form for getting promoted, Officers hopping off duty directly when dispatcher comes on which makes it impossible to do their job, et cetera.

Just give the dispatcher some guidance (especially as higher ups) and have them improve instead of you lot complaining here

tylerye said:

With the state of how dispatcher is right now, when I'm on duty and see a dispatch come on duty I pretty much instantly go off duty. This isn't saying that all dispatchers are bad (although the majority are), I just think that the way dispatch works now makes playing PD pretty horrid.

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cops don't want to get IAs for interacting with people who are cussing them out
so they avoid rp situations

you very rarely get an IA from a shootout, raid, or chopshop car chase.

Joey Skylynx said:

cops don't want to get IAs for interacting with people who are cussing them out
so they avoid rp situations

you very rarely get an IA from a shootout, raid, or chopshop car chase.

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Yes and No,

I can see where you are coming from that some cops are afraid of that indeed, but at the end of the day most cops don't know how to properly roleplay either.
Percentage wise I think that most IA's actually come from things like Traffic Offenses and Shootouts (Whether the shootout is raid related or pulling over a wanted suspect that results in a shootout).

If an officer is dealing with a rude/annoying person --like me on crim-- it is still their duty to stay respectful to the individual, If you get annoyed by them just don't respond to them and ask if another officer can take over if needed.

ExcelentAxelent said:

Yes and No,

I can see where you are coming from that some cops are afraid of that indeed, but at the end of the day most cops don't know how to properly roleplay either.
Percentage wise I think that most IA's actually come from things like Traffic Offenses and Shootouts (Whether the shootout is raid related or pulling over a wanted suspect that results in a shootout).

If an officer is dealing with a rude/annoying person --like me on crim-- it is still their duty to stay respectful to the individual, If you get annoyed by them just don't respond to them and ask if another officer can take over if needed.

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That's what I'm getting at.

If you are trying to get promoted or get certs, it's detrimental to do things like traffic violations, going after people for jwalking, and things that people consider Police RP. Even if you are not worried about getting promoted, you still have to worry about interacting with those situations because it does carry a risk of being demoted for what basically amounts to small mistakes.

And the real shit sandwich about all of this is that you still have to deal with people acting like complete toddlers. Some people could be RP'ing the freakout, but I have absolutely seen several people go full crashout and threaten to file F6s and IAs because they didn't get their way. After a certain point you would figure Excess Negativity would come into play because sweet jesus some people on here need a Xanax.