Firestone Activity Suggestions

Development Suggestions
21

Communication
I’m mainly commenting from an FFA point of view but I think other departments would also greatly appreciate more autonomy or greater communication between department heads and the founders regarding decisions which will affect them. I appreciate it is your group that you’ve built up over several years and you will do what you see fit but sometimes the decisions made by the founders seem impulsive without enough discussion (if any) with department heads about the best way to implement them. For example, FFA, among other departments were mandated to have 24/7 applications without prior notice and without any kind of discussion as to how we would implement this (regarding scheduling of intakes, monitoring activity of admissions officers, etc). Side note - since this decision FFA applications have massively declined in quantity and quality, you can DM me if you want specific examples. It could be a coincidence, I haven’t discussed much with the other affected depts so I don’t know if this is unique to FFA. I respect your authority but it’s not great to have things forced upon you without any prior notice or discussion.

V3
Yeah, kind of an obvious thing of “release v3” but v3 has been getting promised for literal years to the point where most people have given up on the idea. We’ve repeatedly heard that v2 isn’t getting more updates only for v2 to be updated again and again (which personally I am not opposed to - no point in v3 if the group dies before you release it)

Developer Events
Developer events can be really cool but they need at least a little bit of prior planning. If you do disaster events spontaneously then you’re less likely to get good attendance, because people may be busy (or sleeping). If you just consult a few people who know a little bit about what you’re planning then you can make the events more enjoyable. A virus RP was a good idea in principle but the execution was poor as the origin and spread didn’t really make a lot of sense, which definitely demotivated some people from dealing with it.

On the topic of events, it would be nice to see greater presence of the founders at in-game events (if at all possible - I appreciate you and path likely don’t have time to be on v2 all the time). To an extent, having you or path at, or promoting an event does increase the attendance due to your status. For stuff like FFA graduation (our first in over a year) I am confident that if you or path were there, we would get greater attendance from civilians and that gives us greater exposure.

Foreign Relations
Already mentioned so I’ll be brief but strong foreign relations is like free advertising. If we could make some form of agreement to fully or partially recognise certifications gained from training programs in other states (for example, a medical certification/curriculum could be reviewed the supervisory board and approved) I guarantee this would bring more people into the state and into departments. I’m not trying to suggest direct certification transfer but maybe partial recognition (e.g. if you had a cert from a certain game you could skip certain post/ffa tiers). Particularly on the fire and EMS side this would help us to recruit more skilled staff for FFA and FMA (Lost several good FFA staff this class - I’m not super up to date with FMA but I think DOH have said that it’s necessary for them to look outside of firestone for people to help set up the MD curriculum).

Side note, doing more foreign visits or events in foreign nations will increase (free) exposure of firestone.

Criminals
I’ve mentioned this elsewhere before, but it would be good to have an official/dev-supported crime group. A lot of “gangs” in firestone tend to just be a bunch of losers wearing a uniform mass shooting law enforcement, which gets old really quick. A way to enhance RP would be to establish an official crime group with a set of policies that all members must follow (almost like a department for criminals). In return, members would get some benefits and advantages (slightly higher pay, advantages in robberies like a delayed 911 call, discounts on guns, etc). This rewards criminals who do good RP vs the “toxic” criminals who just shoot up med scenes and then flee cops in a mclaren. This is probably the best way to really enhance crime in a way that benefits cops too (they get to do good rp with criminals without just being shot immediately). You could find a famous criminal to lead it - the group would also help train new players how to do robberies and stuff to encourage newer criminals to do good RP (like hostage situations etc) vs just mass shooting cops all the time and eventually being banned.

22

I don’t think a mass casualty vehicle would be of much benefit to SCFD or DOH

23

This could be a thing for criminals too if you added a graffiti tool

24

I know it will not be used on a daily basis and probably would probably only be used every two weeks. It could help in transporting those MCIs with 7-10 patients because if I recall the SCFD had to rely on the DOT with their bus to transport some of their patients during that pile up a few years ago on the Skyway. It could also serve as a bit of a clinic and rehab center for PR events. We could just take the design of the existing DOT bus, repaint it, put some lights on it and put beds in it.

25

As an events thing I think it would make a little more sense yeah, my issue with an MCI bus is that in V2 you will very rarely be in a situation where you’re transporting multiple patients at once, it’s typically quick succession. Depending on how its used it would also need a lot of staff to continue monitoring patients during transit

26

v3
For one, v3 is a sunk cost fallacy. It’s not going to magically bring people back, or explode the group again. It’s a years long money sink. The bottom line is our player base is getting older, the tech has changed, the culture has changed, we have not. As many have suggested, a v2 revamp with updated tech, mechanics, etc. is likely the best development course; a fresh slate with a familiar feel. Because the game is functionally a worse version of what it was in 2016 in that it’s a team shooter under the guise of cops and crims. There’s no real RP or anything anymore. And the tools and mechanics aren’t fun enough to even offset that.

General development and management attitude
You need to be willing to change your vision most of all, Fed. A lot of the original thread amounted to “that’s not what I envision FS to be” as a response from you. Well, unfortunately, what you envision doesn’t seem to be cutting it anymore. It’s time to get up with the times and surrender some control (I recently did this myself, and it was a necessary and hopeful change).

Dev support
Not to echo my v3 section too much, but we have all these devs working on a long dead project instead of just actively reworking the current experience beyond minor random add ons. We have one of the largest dev teams I’ve seen in a ro-state (I recall OG Mayflower having like, what, four actual devs?). Yet our shit breaks every other week, takes forever to get fixed, and it’s all dying. This is the peak of bloat. Similar games with much smaller dev teams and less funded teams are making better player experiences in the game their players actually play (not the “don’t worry guys, this time it’ll come out I swear!” fever dream project.

Game balance
The 8 bajillion LEAs we have is unnecessary. Municipal PDs were a huge mistake that divided up an already limited LEO community and imposed jurisdictional limitations by you that tie the hands of such individuals beyond what it once was. As a result, the crims now all have automatic weapons and the LEO experience is just: get shot trying to do literally anything, chase the shooter, maybe arrest or kill them, they just bail out/respawn and repeat. That’s a shitty gameplay loop and is why they aren’t playing anymore.

These are all more macrolevel, larger community issues that I feel likely contribute to the issue as a whole. The bottom line is, minor new add-ons are only going to momentarily increase activity before people get bored (see Parks). There are great add-on ideas here (i.e. the legal and illicit trucking stuff), but those are duck tape on a spewing pipe.
10 Likes
27

Even if the spoon isn’t considered contraband, when you search an Inmate it get’s taken away. It’s an in game mechanic. CO’s don’t have the ability to decide if they want to take it or not; the game automatically does it.

28

If you ever worked at a Jail, trust me Inmates hide contraband in odd places, one time I found a shank under a table twice, and another shank stuffed inside a ripped mattress, another inside a toilet (rip my hand), and air vents.

Trust me, think like an inmate and you’ll find clever areas inmates hide contraband. :3

29
31

Simple: Remember why we made RoStates to begin with…

To get away from real life

Rockport / TRC!

I think a lot of people have been driven away by toxicity in these communities. I tried to return to RoStates overall, and ultimately Mayflower had even worse toxicity there. With a political party there nuking a discord by planning months ahead to gain their trust on an alt account… Something I thought wasnt even possible from people on roblox.

I think that RoStates overall should go back to simpler structure like existed in Rockport / TRC. Whereas, one of the defining qualities was being allowed to be a cop and a criminal with no issues. Now, if you get arrested in the game, depending on if people like you or not then that could just be a great opportunity to kick you away forever.

If it wasn’t for a constitutional amendment, I would still be barred from joining departments even… and its been 6 years.

Of course, theres also political bars which are repeatedly abused by the legislatures. The barring of OrangeBear22 as the most recent and noteworthy example.

Mayflower

Mayflower does do a lot of things right. Their primary profit model involves a blackmarket ran by the admins- in USD. This allows them to have gambling, stock market, private banking, “drugs”, etc in the game.
But Firestone doesn’t necessarily need all of those things and questionable TOS violations. In Firestone there is not even a reasonable way to make money as a civilian. You have to be a criminal or cop to make a decent amount of money. Firestone’s profit model is dependent on people purchasing ingame cash.
While in Mayflower, I can grind for money at a decent pace that is enjoyable- many different ways! Not including businesses or “drugs”, I can do logging, gun parts, cargo transport (legal and illegal), barrels of oil, crafting items…

Additionally, I doubt anyone will say this but I will. You have definitely improved a lot in terms of getting community feedback and making some improvements to the game that have been requested. However, there is still the overwhelming feeling that Firestone is YOUR state, and really thats why people like these other RoStates- they feel more responsive and honest with what they are. In Mayflower, major changes are often advertised first with polls to gain feedback.

Fedlaw

Fedlaw itself existing isnt necessarily an issue either. Mayflower has “Central Authority” directives, some of which people disagree on- like I 100% disagree that there should be departmental budgetting for example. But that is in place to create artificial demand to fuel their blackmarket business model.
People may have an issue with Fedlaw because of how disorganized, inconsistent, and deaf it is to the community. Generally, Mayflower does polls for it.

I hate to keep comparing to Mayflower, but it is currently the best example I know of, and IS your direct competitor, whether you wish to acknowledge that or not. But most of these concepts apply to other RoStates like Ridgeway too.

While this may just be my opinions on the situation, I hope you can extract something of value from it. I’m not trying to hate post because I only want to see people succeed. Just yesterday I have provided some people in Mayflower the resources from that recent stock market attempt that was axed for Firestone… You being no longer interested in moving forward with the idea did really demotivate me to continue working on it :frowning:

Firestone’s game and you as a person has definitely progressed a lot since I was gone, and despite all of the criticisms people have- it took a lot of work to build and maintain. I hope that the work your team has put in does not go to waste.

A great example of how you have improved, was providing Chill_Bunniez dev support for his traffic cam project. He is smart af and has made tons of things. If you want like a map system for ATC aircraft or game moderators to view, give him a poke again :wink:

Even though a lot of people in Mayflower trash on you and Firestone, even a lot of them will admit you have matured and improved.

tldr;

My opinion, some of which is on the extreme end:

  1. Acknowledge your competition and don’t be dismissive of what they do right (Mayflower, UN)
  2. Publicly outline your goals for The State of Firestone, and compile officially any of your directives (FedLaw)- ideally while taking on community feedback.
  3. Continue more community feedback and positive changes! Dont be afraid to admit mistakes.
  4. There needs to be a way for non-criminals to make money that is enjoyable and a reasonable pace, without paying robux for in-game cash.
  5. Games and communities do not need to be hyper realistic for people to have fun and enjoy it.
  6. Consider a different profit model, if it means players get a more enjoyable and feature rich game.
  7. Find ways to reduce toxicity (I wish I had more specifics)
  8. Disallow barring from public office
  9. Allow being a cop and a criminal
1 Like
32

overall my views as someone whos been here pretty constantly for the last 6 years are:

  • Everyone is getting sick of just shooting each other constantly and theres a lot of toxicity back and forth which makes this worse
  • There is no RP anymore
  • It is extremely difficult for new people to join. (CDs being spaced out makes this worse)
    • Any new “legal” person has to go through application processes which they probably aren’t gonna know about until they join the discord and find someone to explain it to them.
    • Any new crim has no idea how to be a crim. They have to use their 5k starter cash to buy a rusty cv for like 2k at rcd. They then have to figure out how to find the dealer that is in the cabin and only there 50% of the time and buy an item. They then have to figure out what item does what and where they can use each item. If they want a gun they have to figure out to either find paws (who moves locations and is oftentimes not there) or figure out to go to skull island. Then they have to figure out where and how to rob. If they somehow get away with their rusty cv and cz, they have to find the single house in old rw res with the dirty money dealer (who is also only there 50% of the time).
  • The majority of the community wants an overhaul of v2, including terrain, replace old buildings, move cities around, change locations up, etc.
  • the community has asked for a lot of things and has been shot down on a lot in the name of “realism” when this is a game.
  • the only crim mechanics that are used are house and store robberies which just get spammed and leos cant handle them. They also turn into cop shows up, crim runs out to their mclaren and takes off, cop then loses crim after 30 seconds, rinse and repeat. There are no big RPs at bank robberies or anything like that anymore.
  • a lot of bugs and minor quality of life stuff is left unfixed

suggestions:

  • add a tutorial in game for new people on how to do crime and how to join a dept
  • pause v3 and overhaul v2: terrain, new GUIs, move stuff around the map, revamp old buildings , future lighting, new trees, gun sounds, sirens, liveries, etc etc
  • add more in game RP mechanics. car theft, house buying, medical system, potholes for dot/dpw to fix, vehicle damage when crashing, gun jamming, bleeding when shot until a tq or medical aid is applied, downed wires for dot/dpw/scfd, etc etc
    • with houses, possibly add stuff that legal people can buy and place in it, as well as illegal stuff that crims can buy to like make their own guns, clean their own money, produce their own dirty money, etc (would prob have to be expensive and would need some method of LEOs finding it, getting a warrant and shutting it down). also let people store stuff
  • bombs
  • Host more dev supported events such as the sinkholes, tornadoes, mass crim hostage sits, etc
  • decrease the value of house/store robberies and increase the value of bank robberies to increase hostage situations and actual rp instead of just rob and run
  • incentives for people to hold hostages? like something for LEOs to give to crims to get hostages back (idk about this one cause it could easily get abused)
  • add the state bank and make it difficult to rob with multiple minigames such as lasers, lockpicking, etc. make the payout worth while
  • make the civilian jobs worth while. they pay next to nothing.
  • decrease the cost of the lower end guns and increase the cost of the higher end ones
  • decrease the cost of regular cars
  • add more civilian jobs (trucking to different locations, food delivery, business passive income? (crim turf stuff but for civs, depending on how much of their product they sell), actual fisherman job with different zones of the lake that give better fish (would give a use for boats)
  • add other rp mechanics. tackling, holding someone at gunpoint, grabbing, etc
  • add more for people to do while in jail. possibly make it easier to escape. maybe require someone to spend like 20% of their time in doc before bailing out. possibly allow doc to bring inmates out to pick up trash, clean things, etc
  • group storage units
  • gun drops
  • in-game hit/bounty system for crims to place hits on people
  • gov officials drop keys when they die that can be used to rob/access cap offices to rob
  • fix the minor quality of life stuff and bugs. This stuff builds and is aggravating when it takes months for minor stuff to get fixed because “v3 is priority”, yet v3 is months if not a year or more from being released fully…
    • Some of the DHS stuff: no barriers (despite being the dept that arguably needs them the most), vehicle images not updated (applies to a lot of depts and civs, not just dhs), DHS only has class A,B,C uniforms and CAT doesn’t have tactical uniforms—the old ones have been taken off sale, DHS has won the activity contest for 4 months straight, yet only one agency (FPS) is rewarded
    • other stuff: phones broken (and have been for a while), DOH uniforms, civ cars randomly flip with tires out,
  • add the small updates that are requested by the community. Yes, v3 may be the focus but the community is all playing v2. v3 is so far away and people have lost so much hope in it that nobody is sticking around for it anymore. I don’t have any specific ones but I know a lot have been requested, I’m sure they’re somewhere on forums
6 Likes
33

Push (some of) the work that’s been done to V3 to the public build, 15 months with no updates is ridiculous. I would really hope after a year+ of work being done, it’s on par with V2 features. Updating V2 is like dropping an iphone 6 and spending hundreds to fix it, just get a new phone at this point man. Keeping V2 working has been and will continue to be more trouble than is necessary

1 Like
34

DOS does control them, they simply DM me to add it. Only time I deny them, is if there’s legitimate safety risks that I want Firestone to steer clear from.

35

Yeah either fully commit to V3 or just revamp V2. They’ve been trying to do both pretty much and that’s one of the major factors that has seen the continued decline of firestone

1 Like
36

1, Recognize Mayflower and the UN their are so many groups we could partner with and it would make fun events.

2, Make it so every crim does not just kill a cop, rob a store, rob a bank, shoot more people and get off IRL every single criminal is not a mass murder there are different levels of criminals and tehy commit different crimes throw some bar fights, neighbor disputes and noise complaint and it would be wonderful.

3, Make it more friendly to other timezones I have to get up at like 6 or 7 just to attend events and then everyone gets off around 12 for me.

4, During hostage scenes make it like a long scene IRL hostage scenes are finished in 10 mins they go for a while and the officers first goals are not “Throw a flashbang and shoot em when we get a chance” Ofc I’m only a P5 in POST but with what I’ve seen it makes my point.

5, Add more recgonised states/nations

6, Do more events with other states/nations maybe in V3 add embassy and DOS can have DSS.

7, SSU’s

1 Like
37

Crims dont rlly do hostage sits these days because overtime they got boring and repetitive for both LEOs and Crims. Normally these days hostage sits barely last, mostly at 10 minutes before flashing and breaching.

38

Respectfully, RP won’t work in Firestone main servers. The generation of TRUE ROLEPLAY was carried out by veterns from Norfolk (the best RP group ever) as they left Firestone after v2 alpha the RP left with them. If you really want RP then you need RP servers with strict rules. (Most RP games have these rules)

  • No random killings
  • No reckless driving
  • No constant crimes

95% of the criminals in Firestone won’t play the game if these were the rules.

1 Like
39

for real man like why do i have to pay $700 for a 5 round mag SKS to use at a range

40

Nah the true generation was rockport / trc

41

thats not true, norfolk had legit rps, rockport ems was just taking u from 1 location to 2 hospital there was no true rp. rockport and trc was just the start of the idea of cops, ems and crims