Chronic understaffing of Firefigher/Roadcrew

[Wolvaras]

This thread is created with the idea for an open dialogue. Any observations and opinions you may have are most welcome to be expressed in this matter.

The problem

From what I've observed, the government jobs popularity are determined by two factors: Demand and Fun. Demand can make a job fun. That's why being a police officer is popular - There's always a demand, and it's fun to do the job due to the activites you can do as an officer. The jobs that are having trouble attracting people (even on a full server) are Firefighter and, to a lesser extent, Roadcrew.

The firefighter job is in and of itself quite fun. However, the lack of events in which they can partake are few and far inbetween, that it's glaring. Compared to the medic, they're quite similar in what needs they fill (first response to a calamity). However, the medic, on a full server, has enough wounded and dying people to be in demand. Fires are too haphazard to create a stream of steady demand for the job to be occupied. Which makes it all the worse when a fire does break out and no one is there to respond. Maybe that's why there are fire extinguishers that can be bought and that there's a fire cleanup script serverside, but that just highlights the problem with the job itself

The Roadcrew is in a similar position, the job can be fun when there is a car breakdown or a towing needed, but these events are too few and far inbetween. And sitting around for 15 minutes around the garage waiting for something to happen isn't attractive for a player who's looking to play and RP with others.

Both those jobs are chronically understaffed, and it's frustrating that they can't always be called upon when they're needed.

Edit: Finally, there's the taxi job. Another job with little and (at best) random demand, which makes the occupation 90% vacant. The job fills a niché against competitors it can't go up against: free private cars, and to a degree, the monorail. Why pay 500+ bucks to go somewhere if you can just run and pull your own car at no cost?

Possible solutions

Firefighter: The reason I opened this topic: It's hard to come up with extra activities. The profession only has a single purpose. Any ideas to create extra activites for them to do would be excellent!

Roadcrew: A maintainence check that a Roadcrew worker can perform on cars for a small fee, which gives a temporary and minor boost in performance for any car. This creates a constant (non-critical) demand for the job, interaction and roleplay with other players, and an extra activity for roadcrew workers to do.

Taxi driver: A rather easy, but possibly controversial solution would be to add a fee to pulling your own car from a nearby garage, but a reduced fee/no fee at the car dealer. This fee is based on the price of the car. It would be quite a small fee, but just enough to give a second thought of pulling your own car. This gives taxi drivers a clearer niché to fill: one-off drives to locations at a better cost/return rate than paying the fee of pulling your own car. It would also have the secondary effect of adding "added value" to already pulled cars, making repairs from the roadcrew more attractive than pulling another car. This solution mean that the taxi has to get cheaper. a $100 entry fee would make them more attractive.


I'm curious as to what others think of the situation.

 

[Ash]

I agree with you on how the jobs do not get used however what you have put for roadcrew is sometimes used. When i role play as a Roadcrew member, i do make little fees and take their cars back to the station and run an 'MOT' on the vehicle, this idea is popular. This idea works a lot, however most people cannot be bothered to role play this what makes it an 'unused job'.

 

[Deleted member 5920]

Firefighters could be made more popular by stoves exploding more often and the addition of fire alarms, when a fire starts nearby it sets off an alarm could be implemented the same as house alarms?

As for roadcrew, higher pay check for a start would encourage more players or actually give them the ability to upgrade cars and fix cars instead of the NPCs at the car dealer, but they have to be paid by a player and the tool would force the money to be on the RC?

 

[Mannerwaffel]

Tried to tackle the problem aswel, look here https://www.perpheads.com/threads/volunteered-fire-department-and-ff-pager.3149/ , but the problem is that a lot of people grow.

 

[Crow]

What about swat, Nothing really happends, I tried been sitting 5 hours straight without any shootouts/calls, Maybe add some more activity, For swat, Since i see some just messing around in the pd (I did that once it defintly made me happy) So basicly what about like adding some training, Yes i know it is against the rules, But thats just a suggestion, Nice idea. tho.

 

[Wolvaras]

Similar to the roadcrew, the taxi job also suffers somewhat from the same issue. I'm adding a section for them as well.

 

[StephenPuffs]

Let me be honest for a moment, any job in which your goal is simply to aid other players the job goes under utilized. As opposed to jobs in which you can negatively effect other players, those are constantly full.

Let's make a list shall we...

• Negatively effects other players
  • Citizens
    • Grow drugs.
    • Mug.
    • Rob bank.
    • Raid.
    • Generally piss people off by saying whatever they want in local.
  • Police / Lieutenant / SWAT / Speed enforcement
    • Can shoot others, give out tickets, and/or take to jail.
    • When asked to aid a player who is calling for help or if they drive into another vehicle while on a chase, it is common to drive off as if nothing happened and do nothing to RP it. (Violating the law regarding accidents)
    • Requesting time to talk with the lieutenant is near impossible when asking any officer, as they will say he is busy without checking at all.
  • Mayor
    • Can set high taxes or adjust them dramatically in not much time.
    • Trying to get a meeting arranged is nearly impossible as every mayor seems to be paranoid and refuses to talk with their constituents regardless of current tax status. (Even at higher range of tax, the mayor should not hide away, as this is failRP, and leads to bad RP all around)
    • Can demote players from their job as like the lieutenant.
  • Secret Service
    • Given a gun to defend the mayor which often times them pointing at innocent civilians and police alike. Often times shooting the wrong person, or shooting a wall because LULZ!
• Positively effects other players
  • Medic
    • Sole duty is to help heal and revive dying players. Often times getting into scenarios which include their death with no chance for self defense.
  • Firefighter
    • Puts out fires as to prevent players from losing items. (Players are able to put out fires themselves generally using an extinguisher)
  • Road crew
    • Helps tow vehicles to safety to prevent collisions and create general driving safety around the city. Yes they can charge players a fee, but this often goes ignored and unwanted by refusing to RP.
  • Delivery
    • Helps players purchase items from wherever they want so they don't necessarily have to go out to the store. Has no real negative impacts.
  • Taxi driver
    • Aids people by getting them to a very specific location instead of the general area like monorail. Often this goes ignored as people give rides to others as is, and as citizens all too often this ends up in a mugging instead of being a general help. So people see it as more worth it to not do as the job because of the added mugging.

Now of these jobs let's review which are generally full...
Police, lieutenant, SWAT, speed enforcement, mayor, and secret service.

Medics and road crew are occasionally filled with positions.

Firefighter, delivery, and taxi driver are hardly ever even though they can provide a worthwhile service to society.

So in my opinion there is far more at play than these jobs not having enough to do, it is what they have to do that is the problem. Typically speaking, people want to see others fail or be punished and they themselves have a position of power over them. So the jobs in which your main goal to help others or do good by others, goes unfilled and has the least to do because no one wants to call to see a person receive the aid they need.

To put this another way, how often as a citizen have you tried to talk to an officer while on foot, and the officer simply runs off as there was a potential opportunity to go shoot someone somewhere? Or times where you have called police repeatedly several times, and they simply never show up to your call? Only to find the entire police force somewhere else, as if the lieutenant couldn't possibly afford to send one officer your way.

How many times have you tried to request a meeting with the mayor about the current tax/job situation, only to have the mayor hide away and refuse to see you at all?

Overall I think there's far more problems at stake than those jobs not having enough to necessarily do, because a job like SWAT is generally taken and doing absolutely nothing. They feel their job is simply to shoot people up, not actual police work, everyone wants the chance to get into a gun fight with no real risk.

Anyways long post I know, but should be a decent read and is entirely applicable.

 

[Bolli]

Anyone can come up with problems, unfortunately that does not solve them. I'm moving this thread since this isn't really an idea

 

[Wolvaras]

-snip-

An interesting view, but one which I do not neccesarily agree with. You assume that players inherently want to muck about and create negative situations on the server and feel all powerful, which in my opinion, isn't true. The jobs list you created from popular to unpopular is exactly the same if you'd arrange them from lots of stuff to do to no stuff to do.

• Police, lieutenant and speed enforcement, can patrol, ticket, help citizens and respond to emergency calls. The mayor manages city funds, manage several departments, and create RP situations between himself and the rest of the server through Broadcast/meetings.
• The Secret Service can be out and about where ever the mayor goes, always having a clear goal and purpose which they constantly undertake and occupy themselves with.
• Medics are almost always staffed, especially in full servers, because that's when the demand for them is high.

• Yes, the Swat sit on their arse most of the time, but only because as you've somewhat correctly pointed out, when they're called upon it's usually something big, fun and exciting to do for which only they are equipped to handle, which makes waiting for it worthwhile.

In my opinion, your reasoning is faulty because you assume that people can only derive fun on the server from being assholes to eachother and/or feeling powerful, which isn't the case. It is a possible source of fun for certain people, and usually it's a symptom because they don't find anything else to do fun or they are completely bored.

It's fun as a police officer to be constantly interacting with citizens and other PD members.
It's fun to give medical aid when there's a big car pile-up on the road.
It's fun to fight an out-of-control fire with everything you've got. (when there actually is a fire)
It's fun to deliver packages around the city and handing them to people (when there are actually orders)
It's fun to drive around people to their destination around the city (when people want/need to take a taxi)
It's really fun as SWAT to be called out to a dangerous situation which the PD isn't equipped to handle (when such a situation arises)
It's not fun when you have to sit around for who-knows-how-long in your garage/department, unable to do anything meaningful with other players or the city itself.

 

[Death Howl]

I brought something up in teamspeak about the roadcrew being able to service cars im still working on the suggestion but when I post it it will effect how the roadcrew are used and how people drive.

 

[StephenPuffs]

@Wolvaras
I don't assume what I said at all, I can give you far more scenarios in which my point is more valid than otherwise. I know for a fact people can have just as much fun not being assholes to one another, but I do know that's where a lot of players get their excitement from. While I wish I could say that people do more RP than simply obeying the very strict lines of "what there is to do", more often than not they do not. You yourself posted a thread about more legal options of how to make money, there are plenty of ways to RP which should make money but do not because people would rather not RP it, and why some changes I feel are necessary as to encourage it. For instance, you can own McUwes or Hungriges Schwein and run it like an actual restaurant, however no one will come to your place because they'd rather just go to Fredy's and pick up a quick burger or hotdog.

Anyways, to go to your points of what is fun and what is not fun...

• You don't necessarily have to be a police officer to do such behavior, although too many people treat you as a hostile person before you've proven to be any sort of a threat as citizen which to me is failRP.
• Yes that is fun, however when you try to tell a person you must take them back to the hospital for further examination, they will refuse and go on their merry way avoiding the RP of it all.
• Fun yes, common no, should it be more common definitely not unfortunately.
• Making deliveries can be enjoyable, but only if the person placing the order remains at their location. Perhaps this should be changed to you have to pick a residence building, and delivery can simply drop off there instead of the person directly.
• I enjoy doing that as well as a citizen, although it is under used because unfortunately the map is as big as it can be, which is hardly big enough to really need a taxi in all reality.
• You would have a tough time making this argument to many people. They commonly look for any kind of firefight they can get into, but disguise it under false pretenses. Being SWAT as one of them.
• I agree with you, which is why I both advocated for adding the Prius for medics and Ram for firefighters as vehicles to allow them to roam the city as they choose. However, many people are very much content with being SWAT with nothing happening as they receive a large paycheck for just sitting around not having to do much of anything in all reality. In some ways I feel it should be an option for the lieutenant to "activate" the SWAT team which would increase their pay for a duration, instead of always remaining high, as it is presently both a waste of tax money and too easy to money farm.

Additionally you said that secret service are with the mayor and have a clear goal, well to be honest, I find secret service all the time who are very separated from the mayor and have no idea where the mayor even is. As well as they are more than happy to go chasing after criminals rather than staying with the mayor, trying to save his/her life acting as a pseudo police force. Commonly you will find secret service simply being friends of the mayor who the mayor is willing to give a full paycheck to, while making cuts across the board otherwise. In some respects I feel the information regarding slots and paycheck info should be found in city hall perhaps as to inform citizens of the current status so they can judge the mayor themselves. Speaking of the mayor, I feel that extremely low taxes <15% for either income or sales, is just as bad as when the mayor has high taxes >35% as it bankrupts the city and is likely to cause problems within the government jobs. Too many mayors try to swing the taxes really high to gain funds, then drop them to the floor losing it all as well. In reality this would do businesses and persons harm as they can't possibly deal with the large fluctuations.

I digress, my point is, I know exactly what I've seen happen on the server. And I find far more people trying to screw the person next to them than help them out, which I feel does not encourage the feeling of serious RP and would like to do a few things to change this.

 

[Wolvaras]

First off, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to elaborate on your experience and position in this thread.

It seems we're arguing from two different sets of experience, though I'll take your word for it as a senior player that the trend you're describing is prevalent. I've tried reasoning from the school of fixing the systems in place, when maybe the systems itself needs changing for the problems to truely go away. There needs to be a very fine balance between RP through game mechanics and RP through effort of the player, and I believe that the first can accomodate the latter.

A big factor in people not wanting to RP out of themselves is the somewhat seggregated "classes" on the server. On one side, you've got the government and its employees, and on the other side the various orgs which have little else to do than to sit home, grow, raid, and antagonize the police. Why try to RP with someone from across the aisle, when you could be earning money with your org or, as a government employee, be killed/kidnapped for the umpteemph time and be held until you pay up, be exexuted or a firefight with SWAT ensues. There is little of a "middle" class to bridge the gap and tension between the two (which was the reason for my other suggestion thread).

Bit I digress. I can't speak for all types of players in the server, and I can certainly see your point of view. For that, I don't envy your position trying to fix the problem. I just hope you take the feedback of my view to help in coming up with solutions to this problem.

 

[StephenPuffs]

I understand where you're coming from, and I typically try to come from the same mind set of trying to adjust what we have to work better, smoother, and more efficiently for all people. And I fully agree that most people with an org will tend to stick to their org and only raid, grow, mug together and not go out and RP together. Although some of the most fun I ever had in PERP was being part of an org with a rival org in which I wouldn't call it all out war, but definite hostility with a structured rank system within the org so some people may not actively raid but rather go out and gain intelligence on the other orgs property and how they have set up. Which in my opinion the spy game is far more fun than the actual raids.

Anyways, to go back to this topic specifically...

Unfortunately there isn't much incentive to give people to go outside once and awhile as even as a couple people as long as you both can afford food, one person can remain at a place while the other goes and buys everything necessary. Additionally if you read through the organization descriptions posted here on the forums, you will see several vowing to

Never get help or help the Government officals.

which in my opinion destroys any sense of roleplay.

I don't care what kind of mafia someone are attempting to run, absolute refusal to aid the government in any matter or calling a medic for some innocent person being hit by a car is just bad for everyone. Sure laughing when you see someone get run over isn't the best, but I mean, one should still call both the medic and give a description of the vehicle to police instead of just letting that person die. All too often are there times in which someone is hit by a vehicle, then both the way citizens in the area and the responders handle the situation is outright terrible.

While I find myself generally playing the role of the "'middle' class" as you called it, often times I find people only focused on their own little world and do not wish to roleplay. Rather they are only interested in the strict game mechanics of "this is what I do" instead of really trying to explore what else there could be. Tell a medic you need to go to the hospital to have your wounds treated, typically speaking it seems you are ignored and they drive off before any more can be said. As they know they have done enough to heal you on scene, so why should you go to the hospital? Unfortunately this is why some features although probably unpopular should be implemented as to encourage more roleplay such as that.

That said, any idea that comes onto the forums with the reason of why it should be added being "it will add to RP" I absolutely abhor. Because if an idea is truly a good one, you can easily state all the different positive aspects that it would introduce, not just a general tag line to make it sound good. Same goes for the +supports that give no additional thought into the idea.

So to get back to the original point of this thread of understaffed jobs... There really isn't much that can be done to fill them as there isn't a huge amount of demand for the jobs constantly as they are very specific in their duties, and while road crew could probably gain a little more to it; firefighter is mostly out of luck as the only other possibility for them would be to inspect buildings for fire code regulations. Which of course that would have no reward based pay really.

 

[Alabin]

@Ethan
I love the automatic fire alarms idea!
It would hopefully make the Firefighter job a bit more eventful as a lot of times people rather get their extinguishers out than call 911.
If it were to be implemented I believe it should be on all of the industrial and commercial properties (not residental ones).
It makes more sense that a factory such as Glass Co or a store/resturant such as Puffer market/McUwes has a built in automatic fire alarm, than to force it on every property on the server.

As you said, it could probably be implemented in the same way as the burgular alarms, only it being permanent in some buildins, and perhaps also for sale to install in your apartement/house.

 

[Krzeszny]

Suggestion: random chance that if there are no fires anywhere, one will start in the forest area or even in an unowned like the wood cabins.