[Suggestion] Callouts should not be distributed to individual firefighters but to a fire department

[TomAB]

Suggestion for (MTA, Forum, website): MTA

Suggestion: Callouts should not be distributed to individual firefighters but to a fire department

Why should this be added?: It would be more realistic. You would always work with colleagues like in reality, which is more fun. You would be able to put out fires faster. 

Anything else you'd like to add?: Of course you would have to change the callout system, but it would be an improvement. There are also roleplay servers where this is done.

[Tosfera]

This requires such a massive rewrite of code for a feature which I'm not stoked about, only with enough people liking this idea; we might give it a thought about whether we actually want this or not. It redefines the entire gameplay for FD, and it might not be in a good way.

[TomAB]

26 minutes ago, Tosfera said:

This requires such a massive rewrite of code for a feature which I'm not stoked about, only with enough people liking this idea; we might give it a thought about whether we actually want this or not. It redefines the entire gameplay for FD, and it might not be in a good way.

Take the gameplay in a bad direction?
Analysis of the current situation:
It happens more often that for example player A logs in and gets a callout and extinguishes the fire alone then player B logs in and gets his own callout.
Now answer me the question if this makes sense? And whether it is fun to extinguish fire alone? If I want to extinguish fire alone I can also play singleplayer. I remember the sentence of MTA: "stop playing with yourself".
In general, I have the feeling that you don't put so much value on cooperation that is server-side determined. But that's the only reason why you play on the server at all. Of course it is a little bit difficult to make cooperation possible. If I want to have good police gameplay alone I play LSPDFR. 

[Tosfera]

Callouts are currently shared, meaning that if there are 3 players online and a callout requires 3 players; we'll try to fill all of those slots by taking at least 3 players.

Making it possible for the entire FD is a hell in a technical aspect. There are so many edge cases when someone should or should not receive experience, so many ways to spiral out of control with this. Because if we invite the entire FD.. what if another call happens, another building catches fire or something burns down in the middle of the highway? You won't have the units, which is why the callouts only take a small amount of players since the release of the FD. The same goes for the PD and EMS.

If we would to take the FD as a separate entity and make it so that every FD gets experience for every single fire they extinguish... what's stopping them from ignoring callouts which are too far out and just go to the nearest ones? That would still narrow down to; no one is around you, you're on your own, extinguishing fires like a lone wolf in a multiplayer game.

Not starting a new fire because 1 is still active will block the entire FD from operating because they're too lazy (and I'm not accusing people of being lazy, this is what data has shown us) to get to the other side of town for just a tiny bit of experience. Which only fuels my negative thoughts about rewriting the FD callouts to; screw the limits, every firefighter can extinguish every fire and be rewarded for it, no matter where they come from or where they're supposed to be.

 

If you want to work together on callouts, you should make sure to support your fellow firefighters and go in service at the same time; the script will do the rest.

[TomAB]

I don't mean that all fire departments are called to a fire but only one fire department. There should be only ONE callout to ensure that the firefighters can work together. There should be one callout and every firefighter gets this point on the map. Everyone who comes gets experience as now and everyone extinguishes as currently.

The current situation is that often hardly firefighters are online, so this change would be in order. I have nowhere written that the entire Fire Department should get experience. The current experience system is fine. The only thing that could be added is a time bonus that everyone gets for working together as a team.

If in the future there are 10 firefighters online, you could consider adjusting the system so that there are two callouts with 5 firefighters each.

You could also consider whether you make for all fire departments a large fire that sometimes comes where then all fire departments are called.

The system is like on some roleplay servers, so I don't understand exactly what the problem is. I find the system much better.

Edited September 28, 2022 by TomAB