[MRP] W Shax Take

[shax999 148]

Description: [description of what you are suggesting, one paragraph minimum] 
This suggestion details the staff control over faction leadership. After discussing with various members on the Afghan side, we believe that it would be good to relinquish the executive restraints over leader-based decisions. For some changes, the Marshals/Generals would take over in place of executives, bestowing more power to entry leadership, whereas in other areas, the leaders of each respective faction will be able to have greater freedom of operations. It should be noted that much of what was suggested was already the case on server throughout 2016-2018(/19?) according to the players I have consulted. Essentially, we want to restore decision making to each respective side instead of relying on staff and executive decisions, which typically involve the opposing population making choices.
 
Reasoning: [how would this benefit our server?]
Our server previously was very chaotic at times without fully hands-on leadership from higher ups but the memories that people vividly remember or stick by are the tragic cases of terrible leadership at times. Instead, we should look past that and realize the immense amount of value that letting faction leaders have full control over the entire aspect of their factions can bring to the table. As always, factions belong to the server, and not to the leaders. While keeping this in mind, a certain level of autonomy is still required to provide greater room for success. With bestowing trust in each leader, there are heightened capabilities within each faction, as well as the partial elimination of a long known blatant double standard. Below are some changes that would come from this general idea:
 
Changes -
Reserves: Reserves are a very touchy case to discuss, however, as of now the current system is very flawed and a majority of the high ranking individuals and staff community tend to hold grudges and presume subjective opinions on people’s character instead of actually valuing what's supposed to be the true intentions of what this was made for in the first place. This system also gives huge benefits to friend groups because they can easily sway an opinion on newer members on the staff team and this has always been an issue with this system. The benefit of giving back the control to the faction leaders will immediately remove these issues and people will get an even more fair opportunity through this change. With this change, staff votes would be removed from reserves. This entails maintaining the current standard, in which a player must have been in a faction and attained an officer rank in order to hold a reserves position. The elimination of a staff vote as previously discussed may help reduce grudge holding behavior from opposing sides, such as through instances of war rage, witch hunting, and friend groups.

Handpicking: While the expectations for T1 players and leadership has always included being in the top skill bracket of the server, these players are far and few between. Evidently, the standards of skill and faction readiness has changed over the past few years. Handpicking helps with this scarcity by allowing faction leaders to bring in potential prospects and training them up without forcing them to attend a few dozen tryouts. While it is true that players should be attending T1 tryouts many times before joining the faction, the current state of the server has proven that filtering players into SOC factions is far more important. The skill group of these players is something that will naturally be developed over time as they play. Additionally, leaders/officers who want someone in are likely to throw or "ease" tryouts for them to begin with. This has led to many instances of infighting, rule wars, executives complaining about throwing incidents, and server-wide double standards. Myself and many others believe that it is better to just allow handpicking as a whole, while still monitoring friend group factions.

Faction Leader Selection: Executives should only be selecting the next leader for a faction when absolutely necessary. While it could be argued that this is partially the case already, in reality, executives have consistently passed users up for either personal grudges, or general doubts. We believe that each faction leader should be able to select their next leader without any constraints upon resigning. This entails not having to consult executives on who the next leader should be. While some have previously argued that this could lead to poor leadership terms, the simple solution is for executives to not be lazy, and to wipe where necessary. Factions fluctuate, as do population and skill. It is important to give players a chance to have a healthy natural leadership ecosystem where players can feel like they are genuinely working towards something without having to worry about an executive's opinion on their character. Again, when necessary, if a leader is severely underperforming, leading an entirely friend-centric faction, or not playing, they are able to be removed. This is solely about placing the power of selecting who leads next back in the hands of faction leaders. Additionally, we believe that the GA/Marshal of each side should be able to maintain having a say in SOC leadership as they supposedly do at the moment. While this is the case currently, it is severely underutilized, likely due to the fact that the decision is ultimately up to the management team at the moment.

 

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by shax999

[Reynolds 72]

+1

I also feel like giving power back to faction leader positions will make the grind to that position much more desirable for all players alike, and having these changes will greatly conserve RP

[Spencer 84]

+1 I haven't lead a faction recently but when I did back in 2019 there wasn't much influence from the administration team. The image of how I wanted the faction to be was my own and my own alone. Even though the faction wasn't perfect, I learned a lot from it and made my next leadership experience better. I believe this suggestion will provide a better atmosphere for faction leaders. 

[Horse 362]

2 hours ago, shax999 said:

Faction Leader Selection: Executives should only be selecting the next leader for a faction when absolutely necessary.

+1 Holy shit dude at no point should executives be micro-managing factions I have seen some of the littlest fucking problems be ran through executives. At one point promotions in army I believe were being ran through fucking smity when the GA was on LOA this is absolutely ridiculous. I dont want to sound like a boomer but back than executives had almost 0 control over factions and they didnt want to and this was when the server was hitting consistent over 100 pop. You see situations like taliban base faction where you have officers working their ass off in the ranks just to have executives pull rank and place not just a faction leader but a second in command in a position when there was already 2 previous generals and like 2 senior officers fully capable of dealing with the day to day. Its overprotective, restrictive, and unnecessary.

However, there have been multiple cases where executives have made the right decisions there were certain previous friend group factions and all out bias occuring on certain corners of the server that management dealt with properly but I think there has been multiple cases where executives have over-stepped and whilst currently its not that huge of an issue I can see it starting to get blast out of proportions this isnt a suggestion you can just add into the server box people have to acknowledge what is right and what is wrong and truly see how it could benefit the server and I really hope theres some changes soon.

 

[MaxxTheApe 23]

+1 actually one of the best suggestions i've ever seen! you pretty much covered all the benefits and causes for this matter.

[Cold Soldier 184]

I have mixed feelings on this suggestion, as there are some points that I can agree and disagree with, so I will go through each one, explaining my thought process.

19 hours ago, shax999 said:

Reserves

I think removing the staff vote transfers from the bias of the staff team to the bias of the faction leader. In the past, reserve rosters were full of people who did not earn their reserves, hence, they were being given like candy. Now unless I am wrong, I have not seen any cases of such a bias that someone's reserves were denied while having a considerable impact on the faction. However, I only fell back into the loop a few months ago, so if this is the case, you can inform me. Now, if reserves are held to a high standard and are subservient to active officers of same (or higher) rank, then this could avoid becoming an issue (to an extent). Simply remove those who act like hot shit on their reserves (aka me) or behave poorly. So for this section, it will be a fine change, if these standards are enforced by faction leaders, and by extension, the HR (staff) team.

 

19 hours ago, shax999 said:

Handpicking

Fairly straightforward. Just allow handpicking, but stay monitored by management. If an entire faction is handpicked and tryouts are never held, then management steps in. So essentially what you said.

19 hours ago, shax999 said:

Faction Leader Selection

This section is slightly more complex and not as simple as portrayed. As mentioned before, faction leaders have their own biases towards their own faction members, which is can be good because they know the strengths and weaknesses of their own officer base. However, this leads to faction leaders making poor decisions in picking the next leader for their faction, leading to the faction pop going down, and worst case scenario: the faction dying. Ideally, the faction leader should pick their own successor, but sometimes the successor is not qualified to inherit a leadership position. And especially when the server pop is starting to slowly increase in the past weeks, if a poor faction leader were to inherit a base faction (Tali specifically), then Tali will stay dead with no numbers. What's needed is a surefire leader to at least have good chances of keeping the faction healthy enough to give another leader a chance. The person in question should be able to prove (or at least give good reason) that they are a capable leader before they fully take charge of the faction. In the last 2-3 months, I have not seen management cuck a qualified person out of a leadership position. Of course, it has happened before where they skipped over a person that could've led fine, but I believe that is relatively rare. All that aside, once a trusted leader has control of a faction, they should be able to match that faction to their image however they want. If a new marshal wants Tali to become more RP-oriented, as long as they have numbers, not breaking rules, causing drama, etc. then it's fine.

 

19 hours ago, shax999 said:

to wipe where necessary. Factions fluctuate, as do population and skill

As for this solution, this will not help. As my example stated before, wiping Taliban officer core, for example, is only bound to keep it dead for at least another 3 months.

 

19 hours ago, shax999 said:

Again, when necessary, if a leader is severely underperforming, leading an entirely friend-centric faction, or not playing, they are able to be removed

This reactionary response will leave the server in a worse state for a longer time. Better to prevent the issue entirely or at the very least minimize the damage that can be done.

In sum, this post does make a good point that Afghan should have more freedom to lead themselves, but I think it's too soon for complete governance like in earlier years.

[Nutter 15,293]

I understand that you and and a select group of players from the server believe that relinquishing executive control over faction leadership would be beneficial for the server. However, I fully disagree with the sentiment, and this is NOT a change I will implement, no matter how many people attempt to refute my sentiment with "what ifs". I can only recommend the select group of players switched over to another MRP server if they wish for this type of control, although I don't believe ANY OTHER server offers what's being asked.

Here are my responses:

Firstly, removing staff votes from reserves may not necessarily eliminate grudge holding behavior or friend group biases. While it is true that staff members MAY sometimes hold a bias against players, the exact same argument could be said for faction leaders (officers and commanders). In fact, faction leaders ARE 100% MORE LIKELY TO HAVE THEIR OWN BIAS TOWARDS THEIR OWN FRIENDS AND MEMBERS. 

Secondly, handpicking new members without attending tryouts could lead to the recruitment of unskilled players who may not be a good fit for the faction - or outright create friend groups, which in every single scenario, has proven to be a disaster for the server. It accomplishes the exact opposite of building a large, friendly community, and instead, results in player isolation. Player skills will develop over time, and it's important new players learn more about the server and meeting a set standard being being accepted into a faction. If all factions were equal, I would make them all equal in loadouts as well, there is no longer a purpose for Tier 1,2,3 factions. They're all the damn same at this point.

Lastly, while allowing faction leaders to select their own successors may seem like a good idea in theory, it has almost always led to poor leadership and instability within factions. It is important to have some level of oversight and accountability to ensure that factions are being led effectively and fairly. In the past this was the case, and we ended up with a nearly dead server. The truth is, a player resigning from the community does not care nearly as much as the staff team for the continuation past their leave - and will not be as likely to select a good candidate.

Overall, while I understand the desire to give more control over to faction leaders, however, I don't think your proposal would lead to desirable outcomes. 

Locking, and denied.

 

PS

would love to see some actual content suggestions in the future, to make the server fun for vets and new players alike, as opposed to ones that encourage friend groups and anonymity. 

 

PSPS

The fact you named this thread your own "W Take"....