I honestly didn't realize how utterly fucked this community was until yesterday, and I don't mean that as if I didn't already know it was fucked, I mean UTTERLY fucked. I see people put in "a whole ton of work" to host PD training sessions that require like 4-6 trainers for maybe 3-4, maybe even 10 guys. And all that's being taught might be use of force or pursuit tactics or whatever, maybe a stage "#" for RTU. Maybe it's combined at times, yet all of that seems to take absolutely forever to set up and when no one signs up, trainers complain about a lack of people signing up or showing up. Even then you spend two fucking hours on those two topics to learn a few things that anyone with a brain and common sense should already know and understand with some simple research.
You can say you spend a ton of time behind the scenes getting things ready but in reality all you should ever need to do is prepare the training area, understand what you're going to teach, teach it (and preferably show examples while doing so), take questions after teaching it, cover that and move on to the next topic.
All of this hit me like a fucking train yesterday, I practically had a flashback due to the environment being so incredibly similar to my previous learning area (which is learning about becoming a professional driver, trucks, buses, semis, logistics, etc. This was all an IRL flashback) where almost everything was down to visual teaching and some self inserts where you made an attempt at doing it right after having learned about it and demonstrated to you.
This wasn't the only thing that I found different. It was the lack of trust in PD trainers, they have practically no powers to do their job and rely on someone ranked captain or higher to host the training session for you.
The training session I took part in yesterday had a single guy organizing, announcing, hosting, training, providing feedback, taking criticism, taking feedback, keeping track of & managing trainees, handling promotions and more. In the span of two and a half hours, where 95% of that time was spent teaching, it was an instant promotion the moment you were deemed to have passed. Where as the PD spends practically a whole day or seven thinking if they should pass me or not based off some numbers they calculate. Does anyone see how ridiculous that is? And you know what? That training method is surprisingly effective, those who pass don't actually abuse their positions because they actually intend to stay in the community and have fun. The game itself doesn't make you want to break rules just so you can have a gag.
While this is a goodbye post and I've said some things you could consider to be me bashing at this community for, I'd actually like to leave behind some pointers as to how you could potentially improve.
First of all PLPD, your point system makes no sense when it comes to applications, especially practical applications where you have to perform to "show competence". My TFU and RTU training felt more like a test more than a training session. Basic questions are understandable, and I met all my requirements when applying, yet I had no idea what exactly you were expecting of me when I was being "trained", I was kept guessing. The driving/pursuit/response course was a joke and if you missed something you were marked for it. Driving on perp can be goofy and is natural, you should never be getting marked for it.
All of this should mostly come down to common sense and ability to follow the basic rules listed. Change this whole system from "show me how you do it and I 'might' pass you" to "I'll show and tell you how it's done, if you need help, ask". The whole point to being trained is to become better at what you're applying for, a short test to find out if you've been paying attention at all is fine.
Games are meant to be fun. You didn't join perp to have a second or in some cases a third job. The PD feels like a chore, no one really wants to do it, I personally was fed up with it myself and willingly spent 5 months away from perp thanks to this. Professionalism is great and all, but in the name of maintaining professionalism you've managed to kill the joy of being an officer with a plethora of policies in which some don't make sense for a roleplay server you're meant to have fun on. If you were a hardcore realism guy, and the server was actually advertised that way, maybe. The way I see it, perp was designed to be fun from the start. The PD system wasn't designed to work with in-depth ranking, sections, divisions and sub-divisions alongside the core gamemode. Plenty of people enjoyed things being simple, it was easy to get into and could be taken as far as they wanted during RP. Now it's forced, and it's not fun.
Again, find some way to make it simpler, stop forcing people to extensively roleplay, let them take it at their own pace. Take a good hard look at the policies you've written up, and determine if they really actually benefit the community or not, if they don't fit, even if it's in the name of professionalism, cut it. I came here to have fun and I can with confidence say that for quite a lot of people here or who have been here as well.
I'm not just going to focus on the PD here. I personally feel that exceptions regarding rules should never exist, and scenarios where rules/some rules don't apply should be listed. People will find a way to have fun, which don't break server rules. I also feel that ban lengths should always be predetermined and staff discretion be wavered. Bans ranging from 7 days to 30 to permanent should be standard in that order. 7 > 30 > Permanent.
Of course, the seriousness of the rule broken depends on the context. Running across the highway doesn't really warrant a 7 day ban, does it? Which is why I suggest adding a set of warning quotas that have to be met for certain rules before the first ban can take effect. Two warnings for any minor rule breaks within the last month or two should be standard
Of course, this is going to have cons, major immediate cons. This community's playerbase currently doesn't support this way of enforcement, and will quickly be purged at this rate if rules were set like this, main reasons being toxicity, lack of general respect for other people, lack of respect for current rules and staff not being taken as seriously as they should. Toxicity should never be acceptable, neither should behavior that intentionally baits or otherwise sparks toxicity in other people. It sounds like I'm imagining some sort of happy funland, but it's true. Negativity sparks negativity, just look at how well the forums has fared recently. People are so desensitized to all the negativity that it's second nature and it's frankly disgusting how it's ended up like this.
These were three overly complicated suggestions, you being the reader, can take it however you like but I'm not interested in staying around to elaborate further, if you can't use your imagination to continue the train of thought yourself there's something seriously wrong with you, because being spoon fed the suggestions to a T is utterly dumb. I also see a lack of general acknowledgement from any people in power currently that the community is in fact dying (one announcement doesn't really count, but it is acknowledged). It was announced by several community members that they thought the community was dying way back in 2017 and 2018, no one really believed it and chalked it up to being an overreaction. You can't sit there, look at the playercount in the past 30 days and honest to god tell me the community isn't dying. Forums has far more activity than the server itself, and I think that mostly comes down to wishful thinking that the server could become better and otherwise mostly action requests because the people who are left are toxic fucks.
Although this little goodbye rant of mine will probably go ignored by, well, anyone that can do anything about it and I'll be picked on for caring at all by some of the most toxic people to ever exist in this community: At the very least I'll know that I left behind some suggestions that might work out if thought out a little more, and that puts me at rest and I can sleep nicely at night. I'm willing to answer questions but full on elaborating and creating several paragraphs to explain something you could probably come up with yourself is not going to happen. I don't see a community going anywhere if you can't use common sense, some imagination and thinking ahead.
Edit: To clarify, this is a goodbye post.
You can say you spend a ton of time behind the scenes getting things ready but in reality all you should ever need to do is prepare the training area, understand what you're going to teach, teach it (and preferably show examples while doing so), take questions after teaching it, cover that and move on to the next topic.
All of this hit me like a fucking train yesterday, I practically had a flashback due to the environment being so incredibly similar to my previous learning area (which is learning about becoming a professional driver, trucks, buses, semis, logistics, etc. This was all an IRL flashback) where almost everything was down to visual teaching and some self inserts where you made an attempt at doing it right after having learned about it and demonstrated to you.
This wasn't the only thing that I found different. It was the lack of trust in PD trainers, they have practically no powers to do their job and rely on someone ranked captain or higher to host the training session for you.
The training session I took part in yesterday had a single guy organizing, announcing, hosting, training, providing feedback, taking criticism, taking feedback, keeping track of & managing trainees, handling promotions and more. In the span of two and a half hours, where 95% of that time was spent teaching, it was an instant promotion the moment you were deemed to have passed. Where as the PD spends practically a whole day or seven thinking if they should pass me or not based off some numbers they calculate. Does anyone see how ridiculous that is? And you know what? That training method is surprisingly effective, those who pass don't actually abuse their positions because they actually intend to stay in the community and have fun. The game itself doesn't make you want to break rules just so you can have a gag.
While this is a goodbye post and I've said some things you could consider to be me bashing at this community for, I'd actually like to leave behind some pointers as to how you could potentially improve.
First of all PLPD, your point system makes no sense when it comes to applications, especially practical applications where you have to perform to "show competence". My TFU and RTU training felt more like a test more than a training session. Basic questions are understandable, and I met all my requirements when applying, yet I had no idea what exactly you were expecting of me when I was being "trained", I was kept guessing. The driving/pursuit/response course was a joke and if you missed something you were marked for it. Driving on perp can be goofy and is natural, you should never be getting marked for it.
All of this should mostly come down to common sense and ability to follow the basic rules listed. Change this whole system from "show me how you do it and I 'might' pass you" to "I'll show and tell you how it's done, if you need help, ask". The whole point to being trained is to become better at what you're applying for, a short test to find out if you've been paying attention at all is fine.
Games are meant to be fun. You didn't join perp to have a second or in some cases a third job. The PD feels like a chore, no one really wants to do it, I personally was fed up with it myself and willingly spent 5 months away from perp thanks to this. Professionalism is great and all, but in the name of maintaining professionalism you've managed to kill the joy of being an officer with a plethora of policies in which some don't make sense for a roleplay server you're meant to have fun on. If you were a hardcore realism guy, and the server was actually advertised that way, maybe. The way I see it, perp was designed to be fun from the start. The PD system wasn't designed to work with in-depth ranking, sections, divisions and sub-divisions alongside the core gamemode. Plenty of people enjoyed things being simple, it was easy to get into and could be taken as far as they wanted during RP. Now it's forced, and it's not fun.
Again, find some way to make it simpler, stop forcing people to extensively roleplay, let them take it at their own pace. Take a good hard look at the policies you've written up, and determine if they really actually benefit the community or not, if they don't fit, even if it's in the name of professionalism, cut it. I came here to have fun and I can with confidence say that for quite a lot of people here or who have been here as well.
I'm not just going to focus on the PD here. I personally feel that exceptions regarding rules should never exist, and scenarios where rules/some rules don't apply should be listed. People will find a way to have fun, which don't break server rules. I also feel that ban lengths should always be predetermined and staff discretion be wavered. Bans ranging from 7 days to 30 to permanent should be standard in that order. 7 > 30 > Permanent.
Of course, the seriousness of the rule broken depends on the context. Running across the highway doesn't really warrant a 7 day ban, does it? Which is why I suggest adding a set of warning quotas that have to be met for certain rules before the first ban can take effect. Two warnings for any minor rule breaks within the last month or two should be standard
Of course, this is going to have cons, major immediate cons. This community's playerbase currently doesn't support this way of enforcement, and will quickly be purged at this rate if rules were set like this, main reasons being toxicity, lack of general respect for other people, lack of respect for current rules and staff not being taken as seriously as they should. Toxicity should never be acceptable, neither should behavior that intentionally baits or otherwise sparks toxicity in other people. It sounds like I'm imagining some sort of happy funland, but it's true. Negativity sparks negativity, just look at how well the forums has fared recently. People are so desensitized to all the negativity that it's second nature and it's frankly disgusting how it's ended up like this.
These were three overly complicated suggestions, you being the reader, can take it however you like but I'm not interested in staying around to elaborate further, if you can't use your imagination to continue the train of thought yourself there's something seriously wrong with you, because being spoon fed the suggestions to a T is utterly dumb. I also see a lack of general acknowledgement from any people in power currently that the community is in fact dying (one announcement doesn't really count, but it is acknowledged). It was announced by several community members that they thought the community was dying way back in 2017 and 2018, no one really believed it and chalked it up to being an overreaction. You can't sit there, look at the playercount in the past 30 days and honest to god tell me the community isn't dying. Forums has far more activity than the server itself, and I think that mostly comes down to wishful thinking that the server could become better and otherwise mostly action requests because the people who are left are toxic fucks.
Although this little goodbye rant of mine will probably go ignored by, well, anyone that can do anything about it and I'll be picked on for caring at all by some of the most toxic people to ever exist in this community: At the very least I'll know that I left behind some suggestions that might work out if thought out a little more, and that puts me at rest and I can sleep nicely at night. I'm willing to answer questions but full on elaborating and creating several paragraphs to explain something you could probably come up with yourself is not going to happen. I don't see a community going anywhere if you can't use common sense, some imagination and thinking ahead.
Edit: To clarify, this is a goodbye post.
