A Modest Proposal

[Walter_Melon]

Let me start this out by saying I have absolutely zero coding experience, so I have no idea how difficult my ideas would be to implement, or if they are at all possible with the SAMP structure. My ideas are somewhat of a drastic change from how things are handled currently, but I believe they will go a long way to help cultivate a community and help with roleplaying by both getting rid of the grinding aspect of the game while simultaneously giving players a more interesting experience.

JOBS

First off, I believe that changing the way jobs are handled would be a massive credit to the server. What I am proposing we do with jobs is change them more into a MMORPG-esque state, somewhat reflective of how skills were handled in SWG pre-CU. For example, we would basically still have the jobs we have now, however the leveling system would be different and linked to the character's overall level.

Max player level will be 10. With characters having a max level of 10, so 10 skill points, which each tier in a specific job costing 1 point, a player can, at max level, have 10 skills at one time. However, you can only chose skills from three separate jobs. This means you can max out two jobs and have two skills to put in one more job, or you can spread them out between three jobs without mastering any certain job. I would suggest it takes approximately 4 hours to gain one level, meaning it will take 40 hours of gameplay to max out your skills. Of course, players should be able to change their skills around for a price, with the cost going up each time it is used and resetting after X amount of hours have gone by without a change.

Another way to increase game interest and diversity for RP sake, we could allow certain skins to be usable only to certain jobs so that no one is stuck with gang skins that they do not like. Gangs can be identified by the color of their names (which we could say in RP is them showing off their colors) instead of all having to look alike.

Arms Dealer

The Arms Dealer is an expert in creating and distributing weaponry, either for profit or for his or her gang. Arms Dealers will purchase raw materials for X amount of dollars from warehouses or what have you (mat points). This would also work much better if we get rid of mat runs altogether, simply having the Arms Dealer having to sell the weapons they produce for more than what it cost to create in order to create a profit. Matruns, I feel, lead only to poopsocking and detract from RP and community. We could also change it so that weapons have a finite amount of ammo, thus further increasing the need for future business for Arms Dealers.

Tier 1 - Able to create shotguns, sdpistols, dildos (able to hold X amount of materials)
Tier 2 - Able to create MP5s, desert eagles, katanas (able to hold X+1 amount of materials)
Tier 3 - Able to create AK47s, country rifle (able to hold X+2 amount of materials)
Tier 4 - Able to create M4s and combat shotguns(able to hold X+3 amount of materials)

Drug Dealer

The drug dealer is a shady character, dealing in back room and dark alley transactions of the most illegal sort. The drug dealer is able to purchase raw materials to refine drugs from international suppliers (drug points). Like the Arms Dealer, the Drug Dealer job would benefit from having mat runs done away with. Simply have the Drug Dealer purchase the raw materials from certain locations (possibly shifting locations as to allow them to evade police scrutiny, and to allow deeper undercover cop-criminal RP in the way of the cop needing to find out locations IC, or by being a Drug Dealer themselves) and then refining those raw materials into final products which they are able to sell for a profit.

Tier 1 - Able to refine and sell Pot (small self heal, short cooldown (note: any time I refer to a length of a cooldown, this obviously is open to suggestion and can be tweaked. Skill cooldowns should also be independent of one another. For example, you should be able to use pot, then Ecstasy, if you have both. But must wait to use pot again after using pot.) (able to hold X amount of materials)
Tier 2 - Able to refine and sell Ecstasy (medium self heal, medium cooldown) (able to hold X+1 amount of materials)
Tier 3 - Able to refine and sell Cocaine (small amount of armor, short cooldown) (able to hold X+2 amount of materials)
Tier 4 - Able to refine and sell Adrenaline (provides invulnerability for a short period of time? don't know if this would work, open to suggestions. Maybe a medium amount of health AND armor, long cooldown) (able to hold X+3 amount of materials)

Medic

The medic would be a new addition to the jobs, which I believe could further help with improved gameplay AND provide greater RP opportunities for those that do not wish to join a gang, but remain civilians. The Medic is highly trained in keeping those with severe injuries from dying. The Medic isn't always altruistic, however. S/he can also poison a foe, as well as cure that poison on an ally. The Medic combines the current role of prostitution with the more legal aspect of being an EMT.

Tier 1 - Small Heal (heal ANOTHER player for a small amount, short cooldown) (all names for medic skills are placeholders)
Tier 2 - Medium Heal (heal ANOTHER player for a medium amount, medium cooldown)
Tier 3 - Large Heal (heal ANOTHER player for a large amount, long cooldown)
Tier 4 - Able to use Poison (DoT effect on another player, must be in melee range, long cooldown,) also able to use Antidote (cures another player of the Poison effect, may charge for this service, equal cooldown with Poison)

Mechanic

The Mechanic is an expert in both driving and fixing vehicles of all sort. Mechanic won't change much from how it currently works.

Tier 1 - Can paint and customize vehicles (can charge for services)
Tier 2 - Can add NOS x2 to vehicles (can charge for services)
Tier 3 - Can repair vehicle to 100% condition (medium cooldown, can charge for services)
Tier 4 - Can add NOS x10 to vehicles, can pilot aircraft

Private Detective/Kidnapper (can't think of a name)

Tier 1 - Can use /find (is it possible to make this a toggle instead of so many seconds?)
Tier 2 - Can use /tie and /blindfold
Tier 3 - Can mug a person in melee range, stealing money, drugs, materials, etc. (% to fail, long cooldown)
Tier 4 - Can tap a person's phone, listening in on their conversations for a certain amount of time

Lawyer

The Lawyer is great at defending a citizen's rights, and can help to keep those who are in trouble with the law, or even rival gangs, from harm.

Tier 1 - Is able to hide a client from /finds (lasts X minutes, with a cooldown of X * 4, only one person can be hidden at a time) (MUST charge a minimum fee, can charge more)
Tier 2 - Is able to hide a client from /finds (lasts X+X minutes, with a cooldown of X * 2, only one person can be hidden at a time) (MUST charge a minimum fee, can charge more)
Tier 3 - Can take away wanted stars (MUST charge a minimum fee, can charge more, long cooldown)
Tier 4 - Can get a client out of jail (MUST charge a minimum fee, can charge more, long cooldown,) can block a Phone Tap (MUST charge a minimum fee, one person protected per Lawyer, no cooldown)

Miscellaneous

This field will have extra, non-job specific skills. Perhaps add another Misc category or so. This is not very well thought out currently, open to suggestions.

Tier 1 - Reduced bleeding
Tier 2 - Reduced hospital stay
Tier 3 - ???
Tier 4 - ???

Proposed General Game Changes

- Get rid of personally owned houses. These may add in some small part to RP, but detract greatly from community and from RP overall. (Players should still be able to purchase individually owned vehicles) Which leads to...
- Only allow Gang Hideouts, all of which are publically accessible and able to be seen on the minimap in-game. This will help to concentrate the playerbase into certain areas and prevent the fracturing of the playerbase we currently experience.
- To facilitate the new Jobs system, GET RID OF MAT RUNS.
- Revamp tutorial to show different areas of Los Santos, give a tour and basic commands.
- Create a commands list and put in on the website in an easily accessible area.
- Full and regularly updated game map linked in the server MOTD, especially if new changes are not able to be displayed on the minimap ingame.
- This may be controversial, but get rid of non-gang, non-privately-owned vehicles. Make people purchase a license in order to be able to drive any vehicle.
- Allow non-licensed drivers to use things such as bicycles, golf carts, etc.
- Position key locations in the game to create "hot spots" of activity and to keep server feeling alive
- Perhaps move player owned stores to a more central "market" location, or at least mark them on in-game map
- Give guns finite ammo as to keep economy flowing

Gang Leveling

- Gang levels. Give gangs the ability to purchase certain benefits for large sums of money (possibly include an upkeep of benefits, as well)
- No longer allow gangs to request certain types of cars. All gangs start with a basic and equal set of crappy vehicles (can still keep gang colors) and are able to purchase better vehicles with gang funds.
- Gang Benefits can include cheaper raw Arms Dealer and Drug Dealer materials for members, spawning with armor (10%, 20%, 30%...,) better gang vehicles.
- As stated before, gangs won't be restricted to certain skins. Name colors will be enough to represent what gang the member belongs to. This will increase RP potential greatly.
- Restrict the amount of Private gangs, focus on Public gangs and getting new players into the game and learning how to play. Possibly assign new players to a public gang (player one joins server for first time, is put in Ballas, player 2 joins server for first time, is put in Vagos)
- New public gang, Civil Service. A "gang" for those not interested in a life of crime, but work instead for the city. Can include medics, lawyers, mayor employees, etc.
- Public gangs will not be able to purchase levels, but Civil Service will have more unique vehicles (ambulance, limos, etc.)


Turf Wars

- Expand point battle system to include gangs fighting over territory. No gang will every lose its hideout, but can fight over areas on the map (hopefully able to be displayed on the in-game map)
- Each territory worth a certain amount of money per hour into the gang fund, misc. other benefits
- The more areas a gang owns, the better the benefits per each individual zone
- Increase the vulnerability of each zone based on average server population or simply have them vulnerable at ALL times. If anything, randomize the areas that are vulnerable at certain times so that people don't log in to protect/take a zone and then just log off. Having them vulnerable at all times seems like it'd be the best.
- A gang must have at least X amount of members present and alive to assault a territory


I recognize this is a lot and most of this probably cannot be done, but I feel that if we are able to do these things the server will explode in popularity and people will be excited to come back and give it another try. The biggest focus is on giving people things to do while minimizing or completely taking away any grinding, allowing for more RP, community and interactivity.

(EDIT - Forgot to include the Private Detective/Kidnapper job)

[jimmy_jakens]

I like this its kind of like a skill tree and you branch off into what you want to go in. Also I can see why you want to remove mat runs but the thing is mat runs are a strong part of the games economy it helps noobs get some money and helps high level people having to drain their banks a little. If it was to be removed we would need something for new people to be able to move out of the level 1-3 range faster, such as making the first 3 free of charge (this i think should be implemented anyways), because as i recall you start off with almost jack shit, and so you don't focus on Rp'ing right away but spend most of your time trying to make money so you can actually do stuff. There would also have to be something high level people would spend on, i'm guessing those gun parts or those factory stuff you said before. Its a great idea, but there has to be a balance somewhere to support the general aspect of it.

[Walter_Melon]

With this system, you wouldn't be buying levels. You gain your level and your skill point automatically with each 4 (or however they want to work it) hours. And taking away mat runs would do nothing to the economy. They would still essentially be there...except you just go to a certain spot, buy the raw materials for a weapon (say $100 per material) needing 10 for an MP5, making the base price for an MP5 $1,000 for the Arms Dealer. Then the Arms Dealer would sell that MP5 at a higher margin to make a profit. The biggest difference is people won't have to be spending a million hours driving back and forth between a pickup and a dropoff. You just buy the materials.

As far as there possibly ever becoming an abundance of money, well, the fact that guns would have ammo, that gangs would need to pay for extra things such as better cars, and even possibly pay an upkeep on those items, should keep money flowing out of the economy, as well. So it seems like it could be pretty balanced. We could always use more ways to make money other than paychecks, drop car and fishing, however.

[Elmer_Fudd]

I like this alot. /support

Similar to what you said...

Since we can now do proximities. Arms Dealers, I think should be like /call dealer; it spawns a civ NPC randomly somewhere that you go up to and /talk to then you get some text draws that allow you to set package sizes... then it should spawn a vehicle somewhere with the amount of mats that run gives in a open trunk, depending on what type of mats you obtain. If you want to do team-runs /grun [playername]. If someone finds the civ, regardless if they're arms or not they can /interrogate the civ (having high chance of failure) to get the location of the vehicle.

I like the ideal of Turf Wars like once you obtain turf in a vicinity your faction leader is able to place your "HQ" anywhere they choose within those limits, then they can set a max of like 4-5 cars at their new HQ completely removing the old one and making the faction spawn at the new place; yet if they so happen to lose their turf it randomly puts their HQ somewhere else not turf related (Proximity so you can't put HQ's close together). That allows for a more realisitic environment aswell (Making it so people can't fuckin' spawn kill people or zerg points because they know exactly where to go) with like a cooldown of 12 hours (for changing HQ's). Any thing bought and sold within their turf would make them commission, including stores and /pay. Turf wars happen at random, and doesn't necessarily mean that the opposing gang has to be in that turf to start a turf claim.

I don't like the /find as a toggle, but I do think everyone should have the same amount of time and it shouldn't be based on who poopsocked longer.

Point battles could still remain but should also spawn randomly and instead of being used for mats, they should be used to claim new turf not yet claimed (maybe even having a admin go around and set new points every so often) or they could be used as gang "drug dens".


I don't like the idea of bicycles and golf carts for non-licensed people, I think they should be able to "hotwire" cars and get shocked randomly if they fail; aka bleeding to death/heart attack eventually. Aka, having medics coming to save these people (medics should have the /dispatch system for dying people and car fires) . This also allows cops being able to use /registration for actual RP to see if a car is stolen or not.

Sorry for the wall of text but I love all of these ideas.

[Ari_Papadopoulos]

I would recommend extracting what you think are the best ideas out of this gigantic post with a ton of ideas and post in more detail about them in individual threads. I like some of the ideas here a lot, and I think some of them are terrible, but given how many there are a point by point response would probably be the longest post I've ever written on these forums.

[Rachael]

I actually wrote and tested a new job skill system based on a mathematical algorythm which is very similar to what you suggested here. This system removed the need to poopsock jobs skills, instead increasing your skill every hour you hold the job, and gradually reducing it when you don't. The old system of "skill points" still existed, but affected the rate of decay, rather than the overall skill level.

It worled well, and im sure mkrtich is more than capable of writing a similar system if he wants ( at some time in the future )

[Walter_Melon]

The biggest focus of the post is the jobs system, which, besides a little polishing, I think I've gone into as much detail as I could. All others were just things that I came up with randomly while thinking of ideas. If nothing else were ever even considered, I'd love the jobs idea to be implemented. Maybe even add more jobs over time.

Anyone else have any ideas for new jobs, or for the skill tiers I couldn't think of?

[Elmer_Fudd]

Here are a few, not really well thought out suggestions to add to Walters suggestion.

Rewritten tutorial and rules - I think a /rules command should be written with text draws and categorized. Also the tutorial should be written to where people have to type their ages and stuff like before, this would also help keep people who can't speak english out because they would basically have to verify that they are english speaking.

Reworking the animlist with text draws - I think all the old commands with some new commands should be put into place. With the new SAMP there are a ton of new animations that we still don't have. It should also have the text draw screen pop up with the animations categorized. Along with a "ALL" section.

====================

Jobs that are passive like Fishing (To pass time and gain a small amount of money and keeping people logged in)

Charisma - A job based on roleplaying. (Make a badwords list for anything moonspoken in /l... such as emotions :) :( xD, etc and abbrivations such as lol lmao rofl, etc. even common arabic words and more then 2 killings of an individual in a hour would also decrease charisma points) with each negative Charisma you being to lose skill points in other skills or money depending on if you have any skill points or not. Having positive charisma points would allow you to buy things with those points that would normally cost money, such as houses and items (not guns or anything player based). Having like 1 skill point being $5,000... you gain 1 charisma each hour from your paycheck. I would say have it where players can /rate you and you gain more charisma points in that hour but it could probably be a abused.

Courier - A courier would drive packages to stores and 24/7's. (Doesn't have to increase inventory, but could be a plus for like flair shops, etc if it does) (Similar to /dropcar)

Towing Service - A tow truck would pull cars off the roads and take them to a place to respawn the car. (If the car isn't on it's spawn point then you get money. If you take a car from it's spawn point you get no money)