Balance overhaul
Posted: May 16, 2020, 4:17 pm
Your name: Lost_Soul
Suggestion headline: A type of total overhaul to balance things for everyone.
Picture: Keep the picture in this
Importance of suggestion: 10, because users keep fighting back and forth over balancing, Black Market, and so on.
Why should it be accepted: Let's start with this, This is a long suggestion! I'm going to a lot of details on many things, so please read the entire topic before making a decision, and consider how this could either improve the game, or harm it, before posting.
So, I'm going to tear this into sections: Characters, Quests, Criminals Corner, Leo's Lounge, and so on.
Characters
When you log in, you have a selection of several characters to pick from. Male, Female, Police, Army, Swat, Mechanic, Trucker, Pagati, and so on. This would be the first change. Mechanic and Trucker would be removed from this list, but NOT the game as a whole. Instead you'd only have Civilian, Police, Swat, Army, Pagati. Civilian and police would see big changes, but the others would be left COMPLETELY ALONE. For Civilian and Police, we would have character scores. Not in-game scores (the ones in tab) but like the picture I showed above. Everything you do will result in points. Points accumulated allow you to do more, enjoy more, and have far more freedom with your character.
Let's say you like being a bounty hunter. Is it because you enjoy arresting users who escape jail? No, it's the free guns. Drug dealer? Free drugs. Medic? Healing. So how often to Lawyer, salesman, and so on which offer no real benefit get picked? Never. And that's the half the issue. With this system, benefits would be EARNED, not given. For example, if you want the free guns from bounty hunter, you would need a certain level in bounty hunting. For free healing, a certain level in being a medic. No longer could you just spawn and have an advantage just because you picked a class. You'd have to work for it now.
But how you might ask? Well, quests and hard work. Say you want to level up your medic skill. You would go to the hospital and pick "medic/private medic" or do quests from Criminal's Corner. The more you raise your level, the more commands you get. Starting out, you only get /heal (id) and /cure (id). At certain levels you unlock /cureme, /healme, and /smuggle. Now say you want to go level up Bounty hunting? Again, go to say the LSPD and sign in to bounty hunt. You start with basics, but unlock those sweet free guns and such later on with hard work. So no longer are you locked in one class, you can change back and forth without F4. But there is another benefit.
Higher levels can mix classes! Let's say you have 1000 medic level, and completed all the Criminal's Corner quests for private medics. Well, you go in as a bounty hunter. Now unlike the medic class which can /healme anytime they want (yeah, get rid of the cooldown only when in skin/after a level) and because of that hard work, as a bounty hunter you could use /healme with a massive 15 minute cooldown. Cooldown's would have different cooldowns depending on your skill of course. So if you want that, you have to earn it. I only know a single user who plays as a Lawyer, but if you train it up extremely high, a hitman could /parole themselves (again, massive cooldown, and a chance to fail). Essentially, instead of 'classes', you have a character who trains for weeks to unlock skills to help them. To prevent this being overpowered, levels for unlocks would need to be very high, as well as quests, but those who do that work would have earned it. I don't see many 10k+ score users, but they have put in so much time a reward like this would be well deserved. Trucker and Mechanic would also now be normal classes, instead of being selected at start because honestly, I don't know why they are separate as it is now to begin with.
Now police won't see many changes in their job to begin with. While the criminals build up their skills, so are the police. You would have skills like arrests, tazes, cuffs, kills, and so on. The more you do, the more benefits you unlock. You get trusted from enough 'legitimate kills' (meaning not here you shoot orange users who surrender) that you eventually don't get fined for killing orange users. Get enough taze score, your taze last's longer, does damage, and can even bypass the taze reflector. Get enough arrests, you can tack on extra time! Take enough bribes, and your chance of being arrested for taking bribes drops significantly. The harder you work, the more you get. To counter Criminal's Corner, you get access to Leo's Lounge. Tired of being knocked out with a criminal's copbat? Buy a helmet so it doesn't affect you. Tired of taze reflectors? Reflect it right back! For every tool the criminals can unlock, you can unlock a counter!
Quests
For criminals, Criminal's Corner will have quest's for you to enjoy for score, levels, and money. For the police, Leo's Lounge. Do more quests, get more rewards! So, what kind of quests would there be?
Private medic: Infect 15 users in 15 minutes.
Con Artist: Reach a robbery streak of 50.
Police: Arrest 10 users in an hour.
Police: Send the most wanted user to alcatraz.
You would have to go to your designated place and "sign up" for a quest via a menu. The more quests you do, the more rewards you get, but also the harder they get. Starting out quests will be easy. But if you've done 10 or 20, they are going to get harder. You'll encounter time limits, convoluted restrictions, and so on. Again you have to work for your rewards. You won't be able to just go and arrest 50 people and win a free lifetime supply of shock reflectors. Actual work needs to be done besides just spamming commands and shooting.
Criminal's Corner
Let's face it, the Black Market is... old, and broken. Some of the tools are unfair (like the taze reflector). Some are absolutely pointless (like the copbat, I've yet to see it be used). Others could be put somewhere else and no one would care (pipebombs). Also, the only wall for these items is a simple 1500 score. That's not hard to get. Some of this is worth a score far lower, and others are worth a score far higher. So, Criminal's Corner is like a Black market revamp. Same logic, new execution. At zero score, you get a basic store, cheaper weapons with the chance to get wanted, and drugs with again, chance of being wanted. At 500 score, you get the cop bat and cuff kit. At 1000, drugs and weapons become cheaper and you unlock a cheaper medical unit that cures/heal cheaper than hospitals. At 1500 you unlock the pipebomb and swat jammer. 2000 you get the frequency jammer. At 3000 a few select custom cars with add-ons get added to a garage section. They would be able to be equipped with spike traps, oil slicks, smoke screens, and a few other things. For tagged members, even more is unlocked at even cheaper prices. Quests would also be available here. As I keep saying, the harder you work, the more you get. I've also been thinking of mapping a new location that's a bit easier to access and work with. I've got a few locations in mind, but where do you think it should go?
Leo's Lounge
Finally, for those who play as cops and hate the black market, now you can enjoy the perks also. At zero score, just cheaper injects and such are available. But as you get higher and higher, you'll unlock your own items like shockgun disrupters, doublelock cuffs that can't be picked, custom cars, free medical, and your own quests. As far as locations, I'm thinking the exact opposite side of Los Santos from Criminal's Corner, for balancing. So if Criminal's Corner is in say, Ocean Docks, Leo's Lounge would be in Rodeo. So finally, cops have their own 'black market' to balance things out.
VIP Currently we have VIPs for these places, and these would remain mostly the same. So if you have Black Market VIP, it's now Criminal's Corner VIP. Police VIP becomes Leo's Lounge VIP. So don't think I'm suggestion we rip you off. In fact the final idea would give you more perks than you have now.
The full idea
You may have noticed that throughout this suggestion, I'm only giving basic ideas. I'm trying to keep this as short as I can while getting my point across. I've been working on this for a few months, even mapping some pre-ideas, and discussed this with CXdur who liked it. Ultimately I'm going to have a long detailed written out spreadsheet with every single perk, item, skill, and so on, even costs and such. But to write that all out in this suggestion would probably annoy the world. I just want to put the basic idea out here, for everyone to see, read, think on, and give their own thoughts. Some of you might give great ideas to add to this. Some of you might simply support it. Others will probably flame me, call me names, and disagree just because they dislike me. I don't care about that though, I'm above it. This suggestion is for the betterment of the server. Your opinions are wanted. Just don't laugh and say no without actually considering it though. And if you didn't read this entire thing, then you won't understand, so please go back and read it.
Thank you.
Spreadsheet for full idea will be located here when finished:
Suggestion headline: A type of total overhaul to balance things for everyone.
Picture: Keep the picture in this
Spoiler: show
Why should it be accepted: Let's start with this, This is a long suggestion! I'm going to a lot of details on many things, so please read the entire topic before making a decision, and consider how this could either improve the game, or harm it, before posting.
So, I'm going to tear this into sections: Characters, Quests, Criminals Corner, Leo's Lounge, and so on.
Characters
When you log in, you have a selection of several characters to pick from. Male, Female, Police, Army, Swat, Mechanic, Trucker, Pagati, and so on. This would be the first change. Mechanic and Trucker would be removed from this list, but NOT the game as a whole. Instead you'd only have Civilian, Police, Swat, Army, Pagati. Civilian and police would see big changes, but the others would be left COMPLETELY ALONE. For Civilian and Police, we would have character scores. Not in-game scores (the ones in tab) but like the picture I showed above. Everything you do will result in points. Points accumulated allow you to do more, enjoy more, and have far more freedom with your character.
Let's say you like being a bounty hunter. Is it because you enjoy arresting users who escape jail? No, it's the free guns. Drug dealer? Free drugs. Medic? Healing. So how often to Lawyer, salesman, and so on which offer no real benefit get picked? Never. And that's the half the issue. With this system, benefits would be EARNED, not given. For example, if you want the free guns from bounty hunter, you would need a certain level in bounty hunting. For free healing, a certain level in being a medic. No longer could you just spawn and have an advantage just because you picked a class. You'd have to work for it now.
But how you might ask? Well, quests and hard work. Say you want to level up your medic skill. You would go to the hospital and pick "medic/private medic" or do quests from Criminal's Corner. The more you raise your level, the more commands you get. Starting out, you only get /heal (id) and /cure (id). At certain levels you unlock /cureme, /healme, and /smuggle. Now say you want to go level up Bounty hunting? Again, go to say the LSPD and sign in to bounty hunt. You start with basics, but unlock those sweet free guns and such later on with hard work. So no longer are you locked in one class, you can change back and forth without F4. But there is another benefit.
Higher levels can mix classes! Let's say you have 1000 medic level, and completed all the Criminal's Corner quests for private medics. Well, you go in as a bounty hunter. Now unlike the medic class which can /healme anytime they want (yeah, get rid of the cooldown only when in skin/after a level) and because of that hard work, as a bounty hunter you could use /healme with a massive 15 minute cooldown. Cooldown's would have different cooldowns depending on your skill of course. So if you want that, you have to earn it. I only know a single user who plays as a Lawyer, but if you train it up extremely high, a hitman could /parole themselves (again, massive cooldown, and a chance to fail). Essentially, instead of 'classes', you have a character who trains for weeks to unlock skills to help them. To prevent this being overpowered, levels for unlocks would need to be very high, as well as quests, but those who do that work would have earned it. I don't see many 10k+ score users, but they have put in so much time a reward like this would be well deserved. Trucker and Mechanic would also now be normal classes, instead of being selected at start because honestly, I don't know why they are separate as it is now to begin with.
Now police won't see many changes in their job to begin with. While the criminals build up their skills, so are the police. You would have skills like arrests, tazes, cuffs, kills, and so on. The more you do, the more benefits you unlock. You get trusted from enough 'legitimate kills' (meaning not here you shoot orange users who surrender) that you eventually don't get fined for killing orange users. Get enough taze score, your taze last's longer, does damage, and can even bypass the taze reflector. Get enough arrests, you can tack on extra time! Take enough bribes, and your chance of being arrested for taking bribes drops significantly. The harder you work, the more you get. To counter Criminal's Corner, you get access to Leo's Lounge. Tired of being knocked out with a criminal's copbat? Buy a helmet so it doesn't affect you. Tired of taze reflectors? Reflect it right back! For every tool the criminals can unlock, you can unlock a counter!
Quests
For criminals, Criminal's Corner will have quest's for you to enjoy for score, levels, and money. For the police, Leo's Lounge. Do more quests, get more rewards! So, what kind of quests would there be?
Private medic: Infect 15 users in 15 minutes.
Con Artist: Reach a robbery streak of 50.
Police: Arrest 10 users in an hour.
Police: Send the most wanted user to alcatraz.
You would have to go to your designated place and "sign up" for a quest via a menu. The more quests you do, the more rewards you get, but also the harder they get. Starting out quests will be easy. But if you've done 10 or 20, they are going to get harder. You'll encounter time limits, convoluted restrictions, and so on. Again you have to work for your rewards. You won't be able to just go and arrest 50 people and win a free lifetime supply of shock reflectors. Actual work needs to be done besides just spamming commands and shooting.
Criminal's Corner
Let's face it, the Black Market is... old, and broken. Some of the tools are unfair (like the taze reflector). Some are absolutely pointless (like the copbat, I've yet to see it be used). Others could be put somewhere else and no one would care (pipebombs). Also, the only wall for these items is a simple 1500 score. That's not hard to get. Some of this is worth a score far lower, and others are worth a score far higher. So, Criminal's Corner is like a Black market revamp. Same logic, new execution. At zero score, you get a basic store, cheaper weapons with the chance to get wanted, and drugs with again, chance of being wanted. At 500 score, you get the cop bat and cuff kit. At 1000, drugs and weapons become cheaper and you unlock a cheaper medical unit that cures/heal cheaper than hospitals. At 1500 you unlock the pipebomb and swat jammer. 2000 you get the frequency jammer. At 3000 a few select custom cars with add-ons get added to a garage section. They would be able to be equipped with spike traps, oil slicks, smoke screens, and a few other things. For tagged members, even more is unlocked at even cheaper prices. Quests would also be available here. As I keep saying, the harder you work, the more you get. I've also been thinking of mapping a new location that's a bit easier to access and work with. I've got a few locations in mind, but where do you think it should go?
Leo's Lounge
Finally, for those who play as cops and hate the black market, now you can enjoy the perks also. At zero score, just cheaper injects and such are available. But as you get higher and higher, you'll unlock your own items like shockgun disrupters, doublelock cuffs that can't be picked, custom cars, free medical, and your own quests. As far as locations, I'm thinking the exact opposite side of Los Santos from Criminal's Corner, for balancing. So if Criminal's Corner is in say, Ocean Docks, Leo's Lounge would be in Rodeo. So finally, cops have their own 'black market' to balance things out.
VIP Currently we have VIPs for these places, and these would remain mostly the same. So if you have Black Market VIP, it's now Criminal's Corner VIP. Police VIP becomes Leo's Lounge VIP. So don't think I'm suggestion we rip you off. In fact the final idea would give you more perks than you have now.
The full idea
You may have noticed that throughout this suggestion, I'm only giving basic ideas. I'm trying to keep this as short as I can while getting my point across. I've been working on this for a few months, even mapping some pre-ideas, and discussed this with CXdur who liked it. Ultimately I'm going to have a long detailed written out spreadsheet with every single perk, item, skill, and so on, even costs and such. But to write that all out in this suggestion would probably annoy the world. I just want to put the basic idea out here, for everyone to see, read, think on, and give their own thoughts. Some of you might give great ideas to add to this. Some of you might simply support it. Others will probably flame me, call me names, and disagree just because they dislike me. I don't care about that though, I'm above it. This suggestion is for the betterment of the server. Your opinions are wanted. Just don't laugh and say no without actually considering it though. And if you didn't read this entire thing, then you won't understand, so please go back and read it.
Thank you.
Spreadsheet for full idea will be located here when finished: