Lets talk about our population...

[PrisonNightmare 741]

Viva pretty much hit the nail on the head with his points he made in my opinion. Although I wouldn't really say GMOD is a dying game, or at least that really isn't a reason on why MRP/SWRP is lacking in numbers.

 

MRP is essentially a TDM server with light sprinkles of "Roleplay" in the mix of it. There's only so much you can do before it gets stale and people leave, like Viva said most people only stay on for wars and then go play something different when peace time occurs. The only things people can do during war is either host/participate in tryouts, sims, or some bullshit training which literally no "regular" recruit even likes doing. Of course there is the rare event some people plan out, but even those get boring/repetitive because there's only so much a regular player can do.

 

I personally think the way PVP works/wars in general needs to be reworked/revamped. Having only 30 minutes of TDM war and then having over an hour of peace time gets so boring the only reason people really stay on the server during peacetime is for tryouts (which in reality are stupid boring themselves, why the fuck do SOC officers feel the need to make them last for 1-2 fucking hours?) or to talk to random people in base who are equally as bored.

 

There's also the fact that there literally isn't a point in becoming an officer anymore when there isn't any real "reward" to it. Again, I know I bitch and moan a lot about reserves being removed but there is literally no point for officers to stick around or even try to decently run a faction when they know they aren't going to get jack shit from it. You need to give people some sort of incentive to stick around and actually care for the faction they lead, whether that be reserves or some other way of rewarding them. Not sure if you saw this thread or not but if you haven't I recommend reading it as it suggests a lot of balances and whatnot to reserves. 

 

 

EDIT: Just saw your latest post, not sure if any sort of system like that was implemented yet for reserves. Definitely should be something Jim or whoever is a manager now should think about if it hasn't been implemented yet. Most of the community wanted it to return in the first place.

Edited July 6, 2020 by PrisonNightmare
some wording sounded fucked up and wanted to reword some stuff

[Mob 33]

Let me start out with this, I left StarWarsRP because I was burnt out of being Rex and a GM, and it was mainly the GM part because I was only able to GM when Phantom was on, which wasn't really an issue, just me being impatient because I wanted to test out my ideas. The issues that were present when I was there probably will not be the same now, but I will still try to go into detail on each. 

First of all, there was the issue of nobody feeling motivated to get on the server unless there is an event. Some ways to counter act this (mainly focused on the GM team for this) is to host simple PvE events in the training room or citadel. Nothing to big or anything, just some simple runs through the citadel where you spawn training droids in set locations.  Also, while I was on the server and training new players, most of the players were people from other servers that were full, and there's nothing we can really do about that other than continuously try to make the server better and better. Some of the competition has been up for years, and the servers show it by almost always having at least 70 players on, but eventually, Garnet Gaming will be up there, just gotta be patient and give players more reasons to switch to Garnet. 

Another thing, I noticed over time that with the second server being removed early on, it limited the possibility of battalion specific events.  Personally, while I was a GM, the most difficult part of planning an event was to give each battalion a meaningful role in the event. I don't know how much it costs and how difficult it is to upkeep a second server that is linked to a first, but if that server is to come back, it could allow GM's to plan smaller, but better events for 1-3 battalions at a time. It also allows GM's to set-up their events before hand, instead of making the players wait 5-10 minutes at spawn or something. Also, it allows GM's to use the second server as a kind-of building and testing grounds. Picture this, the battle-group is heading to Geonosis for another battle against the CIS, server 1 switches onto the Venator for travel. Meanwhile, the GM's are building or placing their dupes around the map inside of server 2. The GM's are finished, Venator exits hyperspace, playbase switches onto server 2. 

Also, I think that there should be the upgrade items, instead of paying full price for each donator. I know at the beginning I heard you said something along the lines of "It would be unfair to those who bought T3 when they already had VIP" or something of the sorts, but I think it's being more unfair to those who want to buy T3 that already bought T2 due to it's availability to them at the time, and making them pay the full 75 dollars. 

Sorry if almost all of this doesn't reflect the player base anymore, I was just trying to talk about my experience. 
Also sorry if there's a bunch of grammatical issues, I'm very tired. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Mob
Suggestion I had is already planned

[Snapper 36]

10 minutes ago, Mob said:

Also, I think one of the main reasons so many players are not staying, is that our donator items are some of the most expensive for what the player gets. After I left, I was DM'd on discord by a few others who left the community asking me if I would like to tryout the server they are playing on, and I noticed that all of them are signifacicatly cheaper and give more for the donating amount. My suggestion for this is to either drop the price by about 10 dollars on Elite and 15 on Titan, or give more reason to purchase the rank such as a permanent weapon they get to have and use from TFA reworked upon purchase, or more T2 and T3 roles they get to have such as giving each battalion two T2's, one being ARF, the other being maybe a second specialization within the battalion, such Carnivore battalion for 501st. Also, I think that there should be the upgrade items, instead of paying full price for each donator. I know at the beginning I heard you said something along the lines of "It would be unfair to those who bought T3 when they already had VIP" or something of the sorts, but I think it's being more unfair to those who want to buy T3 that already bought T2 due to it's availability to them at the time, and making them pay the full 75 dollars. 

I agree with all of what you said, especially the GM part. For the section I quoted, I want to let you know that Conway plans to expand the donator classes, look at his post in SWRP suggestions

[Vizii 566]

Mainly speaking for MRP:
 

One thing that I noticed that changed mrp and not for the better was the constant changes in the rules. Back when you used to be able to crouch spam, it made pvp challenging for other players. They had to actually adapt and learn how to the server played and it added that extra commitment to really improve yourself as a pvp main within the server. As of late, most of crouch jumping is extinct due to the constant change within the rules making it so you can only crouch jump over obstacles. What if someone has their crouch button as their C key? I feel as if the staff team constantly trying to change things because players dont want to spend the time to learn certain aspects of the server is part of the reason it's slowly bleeding out today. 

The second thing I would like to add was the removal of marines. Although some may say marines and army being seperated was a bad thing and caused a massive divide between the two. It was something you could hop on for and make attempts at besting the other faction in regards to pvp, match time, oc time and other sorts of aspects like that. You dont find that anymore. US is almost filled with players that are playing US to balance out the server.  A mass majority of players that now play US have been RU mains in the past and want to go back to RU. It's just because of how dead US is and how incompetent the leaders are (not all but you know who you are) it just makes it so demotivating to just get on and play.

The third thing that imo is killing the server would be the dono's and the dono meta's. ill say this for the players who either dont want to throw money at a garry's mod server and the players who cant afford to buy things from the store. I feel as if within the server based classes, There isnt much diversity when it comes to the certain weapons that are given to the players that grind their asses off to get into a certain faction that upholds a high standard. For starters, allow me to use rangers as an example. When I joined almost two weeks ago, I was excited to use ghost because of the sniper. That was it, I saw the rifleman weapon and said "wow, this is literally the same weapon that army gets" And sat there for a second and was quite upset to see that one of the best factions on the US sides to have a copy and pasted weapon from army. From my eyes, I feel as if there was little commitment to make the certain factions unique besides their counter parts that live on the other side of the war. This showed me that there was little care of the factions when they we're created because of the weapon choices. Now, some of the weapons are good when they come with as of an example: PDSS and Vega arguably have the best base weapons garnet has to offer. Now, I can't speak for the vega PKM which gamma has come to suggest a change due to the inconstistancy the weapon provides. This was quickly shut down and it was a real eyebrow raiser. What doesnt make sense to me is that someone could grind for weeks to get into a SOC factions, use the base weapon that they use and always be at a disadvantage to someone using donation weapons. When it comes to the dono weapons, let's be real here.. There are mainly 3-5 weapons that are mainly used within MRP. Them being the Orsis, The AEK, both mp5a5 and the mp5a4 and sometimes the super 90. These weapons get used so often that the other weapons that could be used are left behind and never get the chance to really shine.  Now, this may not be true as a whole due to alot of players going out and using other weapons in the shop but mainly speaking if you ask someone what the best weapons on the server are, you are either going to be told the AK-105, the AS VAL and the 5 donation weapons I listed. This is sad because players that play on a daily basis deserve the chance to have a fair chance to fight against the other players that have bought donation weapons and still feel the cripple of not throwing money at a gmod server. 

Cont of donations: So, when it comes to donations, you can pay 25$ to get T1, Understandable. But, what doesnt make sense to me is that, when you buy T1, you have to pay 50 dollars to get T2.. Even after you bought T1. That just makes zero sense, in that matter it makes it seem as a massive cash grab which sucks to see. Along with that, Some of the weapons given to the donation classes arent even that good. I was hyped to see more donation classes because I thought garnet would have reached into the bag of CW and other weapon packs and utilized the variety that there is to offer. But I was wrong. That fucking sucks. It really hurts to see that players have to pay a certain amount of money to use a class that has weapons that you can earn. Donation classes are meant to be unique and it all just seems stale. 

 

I used to love the server but after what the server has come to, the players that are constantly stabbing at each others necks and just the overall downbeat vibe and repetitive hour clock. It just aint fun no more... 

[Nutter 15,181]

2 hours ago, 0zzy said:

Another thing I’ve noticed from talking with individuals from all walks: they are getting tired of incomplete projects and missed deadlines. Weapons skins, Titan Exp boost, etc. I think that’s something that would fit on your plate as opposed to management.

Yeah, it is absolutely something that'd fit my plate. The XP boost for Titan is a passive thing, and it is in effect. It was added days after the ranks were. As for weapon skins, I have them completely ready, I just personally don't feel it's right to add more donator content out of all things when a server is losing population. The skins I worked on have been ready for about a month now, but that is about when we stopped hitting 80s, and dipped onto the 60s. I don't think that would be determined as a "missed deadline" as it was just a donator item. If you're able to point me at anything else that I missed, I would thank you and go back to working on it

2 hours ago, 0zzy said:

And updates on progress in general would always be appreciated. I can understand if you want to keep some things under wraps for shock value, but I think I can speak for the MRP community when I say we enjoy seeing updates regarding the progress of your projects.

I'll be honest with you here Chief, updates now come down to what the management team forwards to me at any given time, currently, all @JimTrash has posted for me to do is relocate the Duel NPCs, change single objective wars from a maximum of 80 players to 50, and finally, he posted a reminder for me to finish the Gamemaster system for MRP (which is underworks) but everything else is pretty redundant, so there is nothing to really be excited for.

2 hours ago, Bortnik_ said:

Finally I think it’s important to talk about some donator items, I feel the stuff we have can be improved upon, maybe like more ranks, such as a $50 rank, and maybe a $5 rank. Also maybe add some other weapons to the portal. I’m not exactly sure what guns, but if you’re interested in expanding it, I can definitely look into it.

Honestly again, I don't think donator content is a solution for a dwindling playerbase. It's not something I even think about when a server is doing bad. But I appreciate it man.

2 hours ago, AceSWRP said:

I'm going to collect suggestions and ideas from my 501st boys and see what we can come up with.

Please do, because the rest of your post literally said "we should add something for engagement when GMs aren't on, I don't know what though" which doesn't help much.

2 hours ago, Josh said:

BRING back cs_desert as well as afghan, population will flood back

DO NOT only bring back cs desert without afg because no one likes russia

The reacts you received speak volumes.

2 hours ago, eli_ said:

By chance we make donator classes free, we will be needing a new active Commander Colt to hold/uphold ARC tryouts. Which is extremely obvious. Someone could 2nd life this because they could hop on just to run tryouts then hop back to their main battalion role. 

Yeah, I would like to make everything free for a period of time as you know, I don't mind people having 3 lives given the state of the server.

2 hours ago, eli_ said:

But as stated by several people, we don't need to piss off people who bought T3 and refunding them would be a disaster for you.

If somebody freaks out about a permanent they'll have for the duration of the server, being free for a month or two while the server is dying, that person doesn't support the server  

2 hours ago, eli_ said:

I know this has been suggested a shit ton but I'll say it again. We could use some sort of thing to get up to high places. Whether it's a climb swep or a grappling gun. Will just help in the long haul. I believe these ranks could receive them. 
T1 - T3, Snipers, special forces, things like that. 

I have added the climb swep onto the server for testing purposes, and a climb swep is not out of question.

1 hour ago, Viva said:

It's a snooze fest in between wars. You may say "Well, just create your own RP!". Even then that is not fun for a lot people. There is only so much you can do on a Garry's Mod server that isn't churning out consistent updates. A vast majority of people will play war for the 30 minutes, then hop off and queue and play other games with friends. 

Don't have a whole lot to update with an empty suggestion section and no requests from the management team for an update  I also don't think constant updates are all that necessary, look at Icefuse and SuperiorServers.

1 hour ago, Viva said:

The server is basically a simulation of IRL politics. Everyone is at each others throats all the damn time. The server is just SO divided between US and RU. Sometimes RU would play on US for a war and go to a US TS channel for callouts. The channel would get tense and become quiet. That's just a small example. I know it sounds so cliche but "A house divided against itself cannot stand" - Abraham Lincoln. The community just doesn't seem welcoming to newer players.

So a management issue noted again

1 hour ago, Viva said:

The work of faction leading far outweighs it's rewards. The appeal to faction leading for some people was a guaranteed reserve slot (assuming you weren't a retard). Now that that's gone, what's the reward? Clout in a forum signature? For others, it is having your own faction that you can hang out with friends in. Why not just play other games with friends? A 30-min DM server gets boring after a while.  Then for some people, it's being able to have more control of the RP you want to create. Like I said previously, there is only so much RP you can do on a GMOD server without consistent updates. If there is no appeal to faction leading, then (new) players are going to be less likely to stay active and work up the ranks. Most people don't want to come home from school/work and deal with imaginary problems. 

Well, I was personally all in favor of keeping reserves so long as the system isn't abused, but again, this is partly my fault as I stay outside of the server politics, but it's obvious at this point that Aidan's implementation did not go down too well, HOWEVER, last thing I heard from D Rose is that this was going to be reversed or eased up to where the reserves position simply needs to be approved to an administrator, which I thought was entirely fair. You simply have to state 'hey I helped the faction for X period of time, and I would like to step down, however, I will still contribute X amount in return for my reserves spot' done deal.

1 hour ago, Viva said:

Becoming staff is a waste of time. I spent 7-9 months-ish working through the staff ranks, eventually making it to Head Admin. I was then demoted 3 ranks to Head-Moderator for "not voicing my opinion enough; too quiet". If that's not demoralizing, I don't know what is. I am in no way trying to play the victim card. I have since gotten over it and don't care anymore. All I'm trying to say is that no one appreciates one-another in this community (especially staff). It seemed like all the sits/work I did for the server was just forgotten and tossed aside like a dirty rag. Everyone has their own agendas and could care less about others. I'll probably get shit on for this bullet-point in particular but guess what, I'm voicing my opinion . 

I don't recall ever having an input as for your demotion, but I also have never heard of somebody getting demoted for being "too quiet" 

1 hour ago, Viva said:

Garnet. You are stretched too thin. We have like 50 rust servers, some being in Europe. It just seems like you're continuing to add new servers without fixing the problems on the current ones. From the outside looking in, you are juggling: coding, map-making, donation support, being more involved with the community, IRL responsibilities, etc...  I think consolidating the servers and putting more resources into hiring developers/mappers will be more beneficial for population. 

Have you taken a look at all my threads offering people cash to manage some of my servers professionally? I offered up the server's entire revenue once I pay its expenses, and still nobody worthy has stepped in to this day haha. I have taken developing and mapping into my own hands because guess what, when we did pay a developer for a war system, it was broken, and me and Bizzy had to re-create it, and then, our map (Echo) came out HEAVILY unoptimized and laggy after 3-4 months in the making. It's unfortunately not that easy to find the right people.

1 hour ago, Viva said:

Suggestions don't work. Most of the suggestions are for adding new content. Which is just unrealistic because of the lack of developers, so they are simply denied. The server has essentially the same content since I started playing in January 2017. I feel as if people have exhausted all the RP options in this drought of content. New content = More RP/players.

I don't even know what the hell you're talking about there, I don't know why somebody would deny a suggestion because "they are for adding new content" but if you can point me to a thread, I would thank you. Sounds like a genuinely made up thing. I'm here to create new content, just tell me what.

1 hour ago, Moabkilr45 said:

A) Make peacetime shorter and wars longer

Or B) Incorporate an indefinite war system, whether it be the one I talked about or something else

That would be the easiest way out, but I think if we found things together that can be added during peacetime, that would be far more fun than just a constantly repeating war. I think that'd get more boring than anything else.

EDIT

I HAVE MISSED ALOT OF POSTS, BUT I WILL GET BACK TO IT IN THE MORNING. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR INPUT PEEPS, BECAUSE I'M TAKING NOTES/MAKING CHANGES.

[Trooper 3]

Why I don't feel like playing on SWRP.

GG SWRP "Gameplay" loop goes something like this: afk for 1.5h, do an automated event, afk 1.5h, maybe GM hosts a small event. repeat.
Incredibly boring and most of the time is spent afk because no one wants to RP or do anything in-between.
I was discouraged when I was told tryouts shouldn't rely on staff/GMs which is in my opinion incredibly stupid. What is the point of tryouts if you can't even test the combat capabilities of the people trying out?
There are so many people who constantly make excuses why they don't get on, I don't mind because I don't wanna get on either. But the fact that they can keep their rank while not playing for weeks is weird.
Officers need to be more active about warning/demoting/kicking the absent players. Also Promotions should take into account your activity. If you hop on only for events then you shouldn't be NCO/CO.
The server seems to treat planetaries like they are super special and we only get 1 bi-weekly. Playing on the same map with same repeated events for 2 weeks is incredibly mind-numbing.
We should also train new people instead of relying on the quiz that doesn't actually teach them anything about SWRP. So many times 501st tryouts have been also basic training because the people just randomly guessed until they completed the quiz.

We have 6? Regiments but it feels like 3-4 because some of them are copy-paste. 91st and 41st have the exact same jobs, only difference is their color.
501st and 212th are largely the same, only difference is 501st has breacher. Jet trooper is dono class in 501st while anyone can join aerial on 212th.
Overall I don't feel like they offer anything unique to join other than which color you like more.

I feel like some of the problems could be fixed without changing or adding tons of addons. We just need to be stricter, take pride in our batts and actually have fail conditions in tryouts and such.

Or we can try changing era, going JvS, or MRP style SWRP PvP. Who knows?

Just wanted to rant a bit, I don't have the answer to the problems so I hope we can come up with something together to save the server.

[Vibe 1,088]

This reply will be solely based around MRP. I played SWRP before the majority of higher-ups left. 

 

If you do not agree with what I said, leave an actual response and we will have an actual conversation.

 

Table of Contents

GMOD / MRP

Staff

Leadership

Friend Groups

Balance

No Veteran Presence

Map

Different Servers

Revisions

 

GMOD / MRP

https://i.imgur.com/F9I9zoW.png

In the recent gaming environment, games like Gmod are not played as much as others in different genres. Games such as Fortnite, Tarkov, Valorant, DBD, and many more have an exponentially larger player base than Gmod and it is beginning to show. Gmod and the MRP game mode, in general, are slowly dying. If a player wants a real MRP experience they go to games such as Arma and Squad thinking of MRP as a mingey alternative. Gamemodes like TT and DarkRP are taken less seriously and have adapted over the years to fit a player’s wants and needs. While we have made strides to improve our server here in recent time we have begun a deadly tumble that could lead to a permanent player base loss if things don’t turn around. 

 

Staff

Staff have been and will always be an issue on this kind of server. They are the majority of the time made to look like a bad guy. When it comes to people in management positions they are forced to either make a decision that will hanger some players or do nothing and also anger some players. Players are too focused on being nice and trying to be liked by all. As a member of the staff team, some people will not like you, that's just a fact. Notable players like Jackal (of course), Phantom, Kendall, and Older members like Toxic, Shepherd, and Rick have all made decisions that players have not liked. Some of them took it on the chin and rolled with it while others took it to heart and let the opinions of the players make them second guess themselves later down the road and lead to them resigning. 

 

Nowadays most applications are accepted and no thought is given to it. The application process should be remade to focus on current staff opinions and especially the staff who are not personal friends with the applicant. When applying for a job you don’t put your best friends from high school as recommendations, you put people you know professionally and I think the staff application process should be the same. 

 

Leadership

I am not the first and I won’t be the last person to comment on leadership. I have only begun playing again a couple of weeks ago so I cant confidently comment on the leaders of most factions, but leadership is more than just leading factions. For me being a war leader is a super fun experience. That feeling of winning a war while using your plan and tactics just feels amazing. 3 OBJ is also the most fun war type, but with the diminishing player base and what little player base we have become content with these 1 OBJ wars will never feel the fun of a war going down to the final minute and leaders rotating their forces for a last-minute defense/offense. 

 

Poor leadership is another one of those issues where the majority of leaders are not remembered fondly. I am a prime example with my Seals being one of the worst rosters in its history. I take that responsibility and I look back and realized what I did wrong, but I don’t let comments about it affect me. My MID, however, is looked back at fondly by the people in it. While leading is about being strong, confident, and respectable, making sure your members are having fun and interacting with them is so important. Inactive leaders do not only hurt morale for the country but especially the moral of their faction members. 

 

Friend Groups

In the last section, I spoke about how having fun is an important part of the server. That is the whole reason the server exists, but there is a point where it can go too far. I know this sounds real hypocritical coming from me of all people but I will talk about memeware. While there are other friend groups on the server I don’t know them well enough to talk about them so I’m just gonna talk about the one I’m in known as memeware. We have all been friends for 3 or more years now. Faces have come and gone but the core has remained the same. We all play similar games and usually have a lot of fun with each other. 

 

At one point multiple members held high ranks in different factions and we all thought this was cool. Looking back on it now though I can see that with all of us being officers in different factions we kinda had free reign on Afghan. I think about how players underneath us might have felt and wonder if the same thing is going on right now. There are a couple of friend groups on the server right now who are spread out between multiple factions and even multiple countries. I have not been playing long enough recently to tell how the new players feel so I’ll leave it at that.

 

Balance

Balancing a PVP MRP server is a lot harder than people realize. It’s not as easy as changing a few numbers here and there. Balancing involves the map, guns, player count, vehicles, and many more small things that you think wouldn’t matter. I think the biggest issue right now when it comes to balance is the difference in skill and the player count. For a while now RU has outmatched the US in skill and when combined with the lack of leadership and numbers it hurts the country as a whole. Recently it is taking RU SOC factions to switch over to even provide a challenge for RU. The US needs a jump boost and right now I don’t know how to give it. Bringing back Marines would only harm it more I feel. Change in leadership is the best bet but if you go down this right I don’t know who should or is even capable of leading a faction.

 

No Veteran Presence

During CSGO and even up until RU was just starting new players have had well-respected community members to look up to. People like Ethan, Phantom, Duel, Shepherd, and Tayler just to name a few. These players were respected and a lot of people like myself even looked up to them. Most players know Ethan as the guy who led SSO pretty good for a long time and he raised the generation under him just like how Tayler raised a generation in the navy of players like Jackal who later lead good factions of their own. Today however the players don’t have anyone to look up too in my opinion. Some members like Homast have played a decent while and have left a good path on Garnet but most players don’t follow it. All players care about now is PVP, but doing PT on Rangers with Slate, Fluffs, Bendak, Slapdog, and Mitchell were some of the most fun I’ve had. From remembering the cadences and even teaching them to little Army PVTs who want to join Rangers. Idk how you would fix this but just thought I would talk about it and maybe help some people realize that older members of the community need to lead by example and help the new player base have fun. 

 

Map

Maps have always been a touchy subject in the community. Everyone has a favorite and for most, it's the map they started on. Taiga is a really good map and made to be balanced for both countries. I know what I’m about to say is gonna be controversial but I have facts to back up my opinion. CS Desert was one of if not the best map in Garnet history. Like I stated above I have a personal bias as this is the map I started on in Taliban. I remember so many more things from just CS Desert than any of the other maps. Roughly 4 years ago to this day I joined because I was bored of playing Dota and failing all my classes. My trainer was WO1 Redidny (Who later became the leader of Tali and my higherup)  I remember getting put into the cannon fodder squad and just running to TC over and over praying that a Ranger would not be in the UK and take my head off. That went on for about a week then I got the Tali Sniper class. That changed everything for me. 

 

I remember how fun it was ranking up and getting better. I started to go with the 55th Brigade to UK and eventually joined them. Working my way up the ranks and then I finally hit LtGen of 055. I was so happy and I was not looking for a reward, being an officer is its own reward. That whole story took place over about 7 months. It was easily one of my favorite memories of my gaming career. CS Desert holds such a special place in so many people’s hearts. Many relationships were made and most are still friends and talk to this day. Just last year we did a Valentine Event for people who don’t know and Garnet brought back CS Desert. What was supposed to be a 2-week event at most lasted a couple of months. Before the event, we were averaging about 60 players prime time. Not dead but certainly not good. After we switched we were in the hundreds. The player base was having a blast and while I think other things could have been changed I think it showed Garnet how much people love the server and this community.

 

Different Servers

Currently Garnet is running 12 servers. Murder is fine so that’s one-off. Enigma is doing well with TTT so two more off the list. That leaves the MRP server, the SWRP server, the DarkRP server, and 6 Rust servers. Currently, both MRP and SWRP are undergoing a bit of a player drought. As Garnet stated in the first post the SWRP is currently failing. While I know a lot of work has gone into it from many different people, Garnet has poured so many resources into it. While it is not a good choice I feel that it might be the best option to shutdown the SWRP server. Shutting it down will allow some players to go to MRP and hopefully bring back some numbers. This will not fix everything though and that leads us into the next section.

 

Revisions

Earlier in the post, I talked about CS Desert and the effect it had on the player base. While it was very good for some time I think that with some other changes to go along with it a resurgence could happen. The first one is changing the map back to CS Desert. While controversial I think it was the map that had the best numbers over Garnet’s history. Second would be to bring back the old vehicle bases (ATVs, Humvees, etc.)and lower the tick rate to compensate and hopefully relieve lag. The third change would be for Garnet to sit down with some respected members of the community that he trusts to tell him the truth, get them all in a call or channel and go through each weapon and discuss stats. This can’t be done in a day and will be a gradual process that hopefully, over time will allow the player base to reap the benefits. This entire last section is just a suggestion and if anyone would like to tell me how it wouldn’t work I am willing to have a conversation with you whether in DMs or on the thread so we can come to a middle ground and make the server better for everyone. 

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Vibe

[huskaii 586]

I would also like to bring light to the rust situation. Currently, half the staff that have been accepted months ago, have never even been spoken to/ trained/ or given perms. On top of that, lots of staff just dont enjoy the servers anymore because of the presence of lots of toxic people and cheaters. We still dont have any admins/managers to help with anything, and the mods cant do everything on their own. This causes the entire rust community to just lash out at us mods and continue blaming us for not banning someone or helping them when in most situations, we cant help due to our limited permissions. I would also like to point out that the rust community does not work well with forums. They just simply dont understand it, and prefer spamming in the discord. I dont know of a way to fix that issue due to it simply being something that the community just isnt accustomed to. That being said, i think if we were to just get somebody similar to an SA, on all servers at that, that can do most of the same things as garnet and be able to set up these things, it would benefit the entire garnet community as a whole.

[Kendal 450]

56 minutes ago, Jackal said:

Why do you think staff either are super open about their views or super secluded? It's  so hard having a confident staff team when 20+ people shit on you for it since they don't "like" it.

Basically my time as manager in a nutshell. Not that I am special and deserve pity or anything like that.

Staff

In my mind, looking back on my time as staff, and the players opinions of me I can honestly say it isn't just the mindset of staff that needs to change. Sure some staff have their own vested interests to protect, friends to please, etc (which is a problem). However the players also have problems when staff do things for the good of the server, that happens to effect their friendgroup/faction/ideas, whatever that be. Case and point the reserves system. The reserves system is a clear-cut example of how differing the opinions of staff and players can be. 

It would take staff being genuinely honest with their intentions to make the players happy

It would take players that appreciate and understand that staff members are trying to help in order to make staff happy with helping the players.

On this point, I'd like to say that if staff and players could appreciate what they all do, the server would be in a much healthier state in that regard. If the community treats it's staff well, then the staff will treat their community well.  With that being said, I'd also like to note that the main rule of being a staff member is that you reach conclusions in an unbiased and honest manor, if the community feels that it is being cheated then it will break things.

Look at the relationship between staff and player as somewhat of an unwritten and non-verbal contract. Players believe staff will look after the community and protect it from minges, Intent massers, hackers, etc. And in return the staff expect that the community will stay healthy and flourish with new players and a lot of fun for the community as a whole. But what happens when someone within the community is loved by many, masses or does some dumb shit to catch a ban. Well on staff's side of things, they are doing their job in protecting the community, whereas the players are now in an uproar because they really like that guy. It's fine when 2GA PVT Noname gets banned, but not when V SGT (Insert name here) gets banned. See what I mean? And that kind of pressure puts staff in a position where they have to pick and choose when they need to uphold their end of the bargain because they don't want to be roasted by the community, and they also don't want the community to become toxic and destructive.

 

To end that part, it is not only the staff mindset that needs to change. The players need to understand the decisions that staff make without causing an uproar on forums or OOC whenever things happen. OF COURSE if something is clearly bullshit (staff banning a player for a dumb reason or staff not banning a hacker because they are friends) then that is cause for concern and anger.

Now when I was a staff member, I belonged to a friend-group. However I tried my best to keep myself unbiased when it came to that friend group. As an example, Whiskey was a good friend of mine, however when he intent massed on a claim, Jim and I agreed he should be banned at the time. As I got higher in staff, and I was more pressed to deal with larger and larger issues, my attitude needed to change to fit the role of manager. My old friends began pushing me away because they felt as if my decisions were being made to hurt them, or that because I was their friend I should be more lenient with them. So having no friends, I started talking to other people (This included Jackal) and so all the sudden it was the opinion of many members of the community that I was a puppet for memeware/Jackal. This was my experience, and was what ultimately led to me resigning. I was trying to do the right thing, trying to be fair with what I did, and I still got shit on for it. My old friends had all thought that I "changed", and they were right. I HAD to change. Because I was no longer GRU SPRP Milton, I was a manager in the community and I was tasked with acting and being more mature and responsible to uphold my commitment to that "contract" I spoke of earlier in my post. This goes for most staff, especially the higher ups. We all come from small friend groups, and if my experience taught me anything it's that as soon as you obtain any sort of decision making power, you need to come to terms with the potential to lose the friends you knew since day 1 on the server. This in no way is meant to beg for your pity or empathy for me, it's moreso just giving insight to the ordeals I faced as a staff member, and why staff isn't the only issue when it comes to the community aspect.

More Content/Changes to the server

3 hours ago, Moabkilr45 said:

Or B) Incorporate an indefinite war system, whether it be the one I talked about or something else

While an indefinite war system sounds great, in reality it would change a lot and if this idea was pursued staff and the playerbase would need to adjust rapidly to accommodate said change. 

Not to say it's a horrible idea. This would make a lot more RP possible, for example it would actually make it worth the RP effort to go on a patrol with your squad outside of base. One of the dumbest and most redundant things I could think of when going on patrols on the server is "what's the point?". Even if we had found an enemy convoy or something during the patrols, it's not like we could do anything. The RP information would be redundant "Looks like enemies are outside of embassy" in comms, only to be thinking to myself "Why the fuck does it matter since it isn't war?". But lets say in an indefinite war system, you take a small team to patrol an objective, and you see a huge wave of enemy troops on route to capture it, well suddenly your info becomes way more important as now you can mass up a team of reinforcements to go prevent them from taking it. 

With indefinite war Kidnaps could have more RP value as well, as now you'd be able to find out patrol routes or plans the enemy has to take an obj, etc in RP terms. The kidnap system right now consists of (kidnap bind) | (Interrogate kidnapee) | (Kidnapee pretends he's someone else) | (He gets killed because either the kidnap timer is up or you get bored of him).

Raids would ALSO have more RP value. Because now you can raid the enemy base, and they could potentially be getting ready to go capture an objective, that raid would cause a lot of disorder and could potentially by your side more time to prepare a defense against the enemy capture attempt. Altogether indefinite war adds some more RP value to the server, the ideas presented here are only a couple.

HOWEVER with that system new rules would need to be implemented or current rules changed so that they make sense in the context of the new system. What counts as RDM if it's technically always war? Precap wouldn't be a thing anymore, Preproxxing rules don't make sense anymore, that's a lot of work for staff. And to add to that, Garnet would have to do a ton of work on the development side of things because he couldn't just copy paste another popular server's war system, he'd have to change or create a new one from the ground up which takes time. 

however I am all for this system if Garnet can find the time and resources to develop it, and the staff team can create rules to accommodate it, AND the players can enjoy and get used to it. I feel as if the system would make RP have actual in game value and purpose, players can actually create their own mini-events easier in this system. At least in my mind.

[Captainswag 894]

Heya Peoples, Swag here.

This is why I personally don’t play SWRP or MRP currently.

When SWRP started up I was in SSO, I had GRU LTR and 2GA LTR, I left SSO and didn’t receive reserves and became Neyo on SWRP.

Soon after I started maiming SWRP, my MRP reserves were killed in a fire. So then I decided I wasn’t going back to MRP, even if SWRP dies. Well, SWRP wasn’t fun, the people who ran events when I played did like 3 a week and they were all very very similar. I get that you guys are now planning them and stuff, but it didn’t help that initial population, you needed a GM team prior to launching the server. Well once everything just kinda went downhill on SWRP, I left and didn’t go back to MRP due to not having my reserves and such so I didn’t really have a place there. 
 

But I can tell you one thing you can change. Your events are all planned ya know. And you guys “Need a certain server population” you guys know that if I was a GM I would be on at 7 AM EST and surprise the people there, be it 1 or a 100 with an event, then you proceed to work with the other GMs throughout the day, in making that event into a story. The fact you haven’t thought of that or are not going to do that is strange to me. “Everyone get on 6:30 PM EST this Wednesday” Then everyone will proceed to do that, then get off, because they know nothing else will happen. Of course if it’s like, “they could host an event at any given moment”, more people will probably get on.

Once in your discord I saw someone write “If only everyone online in the discord could get on right now, we’d have full pop” well guess what, no ones gonna get on unless they know something fun could happen. Which is why MRP is generally always populated (War and Sims and other funny moments generally occur.)

Lets talk about MRP, after a lot of people went to SWRP and loss their reserves like me, we planned on not returning, we would either stay on SWRP or just kinda leave and probably return at a later time. It’s cause you guys took our reserves and shot them in the skull 5 times. We actually would return, I know I would return to MRP, if I still had my reserves. It gives me a place to be, it makes it so I don’t have to be in a faction for another 5 months to get MLT in it. It’s just something that we all wanted as proven time and time again. Sadly the managers do not want to listen to the community’s opinion and are going off on their own accord. 
 

So those are my solutions, for SWRP, make events happen at any time, cause if I held GM I’d be on right now hosting one, rather than talking about it.

And MRP, give reserves back, if you have them around for how long now? 4 years? Then the managers take them away for the community’s sake? Well I don’t know if you have realized, but, we all kind of really want those back.

Hope y’all have a good day and hopefully I helped a little here today.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Captainswag

[LalaDeviluke 328]

MRP back in CSDesert I felt that ranks were something to be proud of climbing up ranks. You had to work for it either being active and partaking in wars, training, Tryouts. People don't go afk during peace times instead we chatter do random shit stuff that is fun during our off time. But also we had people dedicated to training, Dee back on Char was dedicated to training he impressed all of the 1MD/MARSOC officers. I feel like as of now we lost people who are dedicated to training going through the process of giving them a true first experience to the server. I don't know why the quiz was implimented but I know we didn't need it back then when people are able to train properly. I stayed because my DI was cool and the enlisted and officers were incredible and awesome as well. And we lost the competitive spirit back on Taiga V3 we always had people compete for a quick speed in KH now we dont see that often. But thats just an example during war people tend to just stop caring once we're around the half way point because they lose motiviation to play more RU still has that kind of spirit but US its dwindled. As of right now most of US SOC is inactive i rarely see most of them on its mostly the people leading the factions getting on. And on the other hand most of RU SOC is popping PDSS and Vega. But this all tends to lead back to the people in those factions and the experiences they have with the people and the faction. 

My experience when i came back was a little weird. Things quickly changed like the 1MD removal, becoming 2nd IC for MARSOC. I know a decent amount of people who didn't want to come back since the 1MD removal. And I think 1MD just had its downtime during char it always comes back up sooner later if we just gave it some time. And along with the "removal" of reserves it just doesn't make older players want to come back either because they lose their rank that they worked hard for. The denied reserves post that Huskaii made was not something i was expecting. It was denied because there was "reserves" just had to be done via staff not the faction leader's choice. There were ideas that were amazing in there that could help reserves and make it so people can't faction hop with reserves. I feel that the removal of 1MD was too sudden and denying bringing back reserves was a little too quick without asking staff members their take on it and try and figure out a compromise to bring back reserves.  

[Josh Martin 33]

I don’t know if this is been said but I think we need to touch up the rules about base camping because of privates cannot leave the base because all the RU base camp the US and Half the time we don’t even know where that shooting because they are head glitching.  Something else we could do is try going back to cs desert everyone liked that map and it was fun, not only that but if I remember that was also the prime time for the server.  We should also try to make it so we get all the toxic people out because they are also not helping the server grow and I’m not saying just perm ban them right way I’m saying we need to have a big meeting with everyone from milrp and talk to them try to get the rp back and have fun.  I would say bring reserves back aswell because a lot of people left when we got rid of that and I think if we bring it back then that might also help a little.  Tbh idk what would really help the server except trying different things I am a tmod on milrp and there like some people say it’s the staff or management but it’s the bad staff that we have had that made us look bad that is also the reason I wanted to become staff is to also try to show not all staff is bad and to try to help the server grow and not die.  And to touch base on rules if people are on the line of breaking rules like just before they actually break it than we should be able to do something about it because people on the server like to do that as staff I see it first hand and we should be able to do something about it I tell people to stop when I see them minging or anything like that but half the time it don’t matter and when we warn it’s like a slap on the wrist for them they are just gonna keep doing it no matter what and I don’t wanna ban people left and right for small stuff but if that’s what it comes down to then it is what it is.  I would also say we should try to bring back marines a lot of people also left when we got rid of that aswell. Something else that we can do for now to since I have heard people complain is shorten peace time I know it’s there for tryouts and stuff like that but people get bored because either no one is hosting sims or tryouts and if we shorten it than we would have to make the tryouts in 2 parts but I’m just saying that we should give that a try and see. That all I got to say for now if I think of anything else I’ll post on here

Edited July 6, 2020 by Josh Martin

[VBSA 106]

There are many topics that I can suggest and complain about. I know I'm not an old player. I haven't even completed my first year on the server. But I hope the things I say are evaluated without considering them. 
 

I chose unspoken topics because some people have already spoken about other topics.

 

1-There is an identity problem on the server.
What I mean by the identity problem is the unique identity of the server or the direction it is going to be quite ambiguous.

Do we want more serious RPs or do we want semi-RPs?
 

Why do we complicate things unnecessarily if we are going on more semi-rp paths? If we are to adopt the Semi-RP approach, shouldn't things be more effortless and easy to accomplish?

But instead, we are adding new additions to the things we used to do very easily. Since the semi-rp crew (the majority of the servant) cannot come to the difficulties and struggles, they start not doing what they do.

Remember how easy it was to raid in the past and it was something unpredictable? During the DB, we were serving some soldiers and guarding the towers against the possibility of being raid during DB. There were various interactions. Some people remained at peace for this reason only.

I am not saying the new raid system is worse than the old one, but the semi-rp path we chose as an example is this example to show that it is a system that is incompatible.

This is one of the problems for me. The server must set a course for himself and make decisions accordingly. When other kinds of decisions are combined, it makes both sides unhappy instead of making one side happy. (I am talking about semi-rp and serious-rp crew when I say sides).
The effort to make everyone happy makes everyone unhappy in the long run.


2-Base factions do not see the required value. (not a suggestion. Just a complain)

I can understand the rivalries and disrespect caused by the conflict between the US-RU. But it seems extremely absurd to me that groups on the same side disrespect each other. Nobody puts himself in someone else's shoes. People don't care how good he is or how hard he works on the server. The only important thing is how skilled you are.

For example Base factions.

While Soc factions have the luxury of playing other games of peacetime, Base Faction officers are always working hard at the beginning of the game to ensure the cycle of players on the server.

But in doing so they are only respected in Base Faction and despised by other factions. Because, according to Soc factions, Base Faction officers are nothing but plebs.

I am looking through the eyes of a player right now and asking myself.

Why would I want to be a base faction officer?

You are always under pressure
Most of the time you don't have the luxury to stay AFK
-You must work hard and be active to rise the ranks.
-You should train people without stopping.
-The rank you have raised does not matter because you are in Base faction. Even if you are the highest rank, your words are worth less than a Vega PVT.

What do you get in return?
A 2GA Soldier  whitelist that can deliver a whitelist.
And that's it.

Instead, I can join a soc faction and have better weapons and get rid of most of my responsibilities.

If I have to make a suggestion on this issue (the part until now was a complaint.) Reasons should be given for people to participate in base factions. Maybe things like a more advanced AK and handcuffs. I do not know. But as long as Base factions are deemed small and worth not, it will be so hard to keep players on the server. People should be aware of this.

(Please dont get me wrong bois.I am not saying that I did not appreciate when I was Marshall. People loved me in a way I don't understand. But my ideas didn't matter. I prefer to consider my ideas and opinions rather than being loved as a person. Because what sets us apart from other people is our ideas and opinions.)

3- No offence but after Echo V2 i feel like you just dont care anymore
I know there are other servers you need to take care of.. But it looks like this from the outside. Of course it is very difficult for me to put myself in your shoes since i dont know you very well.

TL;DR

Choose yourself a path and make your decisions only accordingly
Make the activities that people can do peace time easier.
Make Base Factions something more valuable and desirable.


I have a lot more to say, but since I am a person who gives a lot of detail on a subject, if I open every topic you will have to read a 5 page article. These are the things that come to my mind right now. Maybe I'll add a few more later.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by VBSA

[PraetorDon 485]

So I'll just post some of my thoughts here. MRP only, because I've only been on SWRP once.

When it comes to staff, for six days in a row now, there's been someone massing/minging/breaking rules, and there have been zero staff on to deal with it, There are plenty of staff AFK however. It's become a meme among some of the active players on that current situation, and Saturday night for instance, in what should have been peak hours, six 11B's of varying ranks kept massing each other in base because a) no ru were online, b) no army officers were online, c) no staff were online. The amount of times in the last few weeks alone I've switched on to US Army : General/ RFR/DI to take whitelists is obscene. That being said, Jim should be addressing it in the next staff meeting.

I also believe that those who are putting in a ton of effort besides sits, are not rewarded for said effort. This can be said for catching cheaters, creating engaging rp, etc. This has been an issue since back when I was staff, being told that a few staff members including myself couldn't be double promo'd for a missed promotion, but then watching a month later when someone was double promo'd twice in a row. Not the fault of the staff member who was double promo''d, just inconsistency in the team. Take it for what you will.

Onto my next topic: base factions.

11B: I've seen an increase in activity over the last few days, especially with your WO's. They've been doing sims/tryouts, and I haven't seen too many recruits going untrained for over 15 minutes. Keep up the good work. One point I want to make though, I was at some Army Sims at Company yesterday evening. They showed the enlisted where to cover corners and how to peak and fire (and how to break their model by crouching in corners, but a still target is an easier target), I would have liked to see some actual sims between the two groups rather than just a demonstration of where to stay. Other than that, I like the improvements.

2GA: Going to be perfectly honest, you guys are killing me and other RU SOC. I've seen, and been around for, Soldier, a formal Marshall and currently an officer in PDSS, training 60-70% of your new recruits, only for them to leave because there's no officers on to do anything. While it's fine for RU SOC to train, Soldier shouldn't be doing it as much as he is. You might know this, I blew up on you guys Saturday,  which is not like me. I'm really not sure why the activity of 2GA officers has dipped so much lately, so if you could enlighten us, that would be great. With that in mind, myself and a few other members of RU SOC have been granted permission by Management to hold Marksman and Demolition Tryouts, in addition to doing sims for 2GA. This is still being worked on, and was brought up last night, so I thought I'd include it.

tl;dr Base faction leadership is lacking, and changes need to be made.

 

Map/War Balance: Taiga is fairly balanced, and base camping is really only an issue because the most active factions on the server right now are RU SOC factions, feel free to disagree with me. If all SOC, both US and RU were equally active, the problem would go way down. If US Army is getting destroyed by RU SOC, than US SOC needs to get on and be active to stop that from happening.

 

I'm just going to touch on the structural/dire issues that need fixing, reserves/roleplay/other stuff is being handled or should be its own separate thread.

Edited July 6, 2020 by PraetorDon
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[Ozzy 1,992]

6 hours ago, Garnet said:

The XP boost for Titan is a passive thing, and it is in effect.

The experience for both kills and afking still says 100. I don’t know if that’s just a visual, but in reality it is 120 exp. Clarification on that would be appreciated.

 

6 hours ago, Garnet said:

I just personally don't feel it's right to add more donator content out of all things when a server is losing population

I can respect that and it makes sense. I guess it could be looked at both ways. “It’s just a money grab!” Or “Some new content that adds to player customization .”

 

6 hours ago, Garnet said:

I don't think that would be determined as a "missed deadline" as it was just a donator item.

Yes it’s “just” a donor item, but it’s new content. It’s new content that you personally made a thread about, getting the MRP community excited. So “missed deadline” might not be appropriate in this case, but it is an example of a project being teased only for the community to never hear about again. I can respect your reasoning, but it ties a bit into my last point: 

 

6 hours ago, Garnet said:

And updates on progress in general would always be appreciated

If you can step into our shoes for a second, you made a post on January 7th staying you were on the cusp of introducing weapon skins. Fast forward half a year later and there hasn’t been any update (I don’t mean implementation, I genuinely mean a status update). So I don’t think it’s too harsh for the community to think the project was scrapped. That’s why I feel like status updates on the projects are a win-win. The community gets informed about the progress, and you don’t have the community losing faith.