bazuka36

@Kain I liked your response. I will reply in a bit of a reverse way by going over the cheat/tryhard case first. I agree that the increasing use of software to gain an advantage has greatly affected MTA as a whole. As you mentioned, MTA is now pretty unstable; however, we can focus on other factors instead of ones we don't have influence over. True, there were always cheats in MTA, but it was very niche. 2022 was the year that MTA became flooded by public releases on VK or Discord. This led major communities and money-based PvP leagues to move on from MTA. MTA-PUBG is a prime example. This leads me to your suspected vs. hard evidence ban dilemma. Because servers like MTA-PUBG moved on doesn't mean that communities regarding PvP have died. It's just that commercial ones were forced to move. However, if we look at SAMP, where cheats have been a thing since the dawn of its existence, it still has PvP servers running with 50+ or 100+ players. Pure DM, non-stop. When I played there, I noticed that cheats tried to kill it, but the community kept it alive. This brings me to the suspected vs. hard evidence debate. One thing those admins in SAMP do, next to cheat detection, is behaviour detection. All bullet hits on a skin are registered. Is your accuracy over 40%? You get 5 minutes to record your gameplay, get banned afterwards, and can't get unbanned until admins analyze your gameplay. Is your accuracy over 80% on certain bone points like chest or head? Too inhuman—get banned, son. SAMP kept their community alive not by solely relying on anti-cheat, but by verifying suspicion with scripts that enable manually verifying human behaviour and forcing players to prove their innocence. That's why it stays alive, while MTA was greatly affected by the flood of cheats. (By applying this scenario from a rational perspective, I agree that my ban from 2 years ago was the right set of actions. As I didn't have recorded in-game evidence to verify suspicious activity, a better set of actions—if we take SAMP as an example—would have been to force me to record a bank robbery and compare my behaviour to its unrecorded behaviour, or verify if the recording is humanly possible.) For MTA, some of those manual detectors already exist. For example, a "bind detector" that blocks the usage of binding certain keys to get a more bugged animation in combat, like binding enter, jump, and aiming on the same key. It would be a realistic move to implement what we have and develop what we need to emphasize fair play more. --- The "tryhard" case: I believe it is a natural process in a game that, as time passes, more people try things out and the meta shifts with those discoveries. Certain mechanics that were overlooked become meta when proven useful. · Shamals were always there; using them to spam kamikazes is a recent discovery. · Bikes were always there (though donator-only at first); spamming them to annoy cops is a recent discovery. · Even drugs were always there. The mechanic turned from something you rarely buy to something criminals will spam you for, if they don't have it for a nanosecond. It's the same case for small skins. They always existed, but one gang decides that it would be good to abuse it (I wonder who to blame for this :p) and the rest of the gangs and squads follow. Are they the core problem? I don't think so. However, I do agree that patching discovered mechanics once they become too game-defining can be a thing. Think about switching weapons after shooting or other mechanics that leave you with bugged animations. However, whether those are the cause, or if it's the same case for skins, is a debate up to the community and admins who, in the end, decide how they want their server to be shaped. --- Cop activities: Now that I've covered your final sub-topic, I will move to the crims vs. cops one, as it is the factor to activity I wanted to highlight with this topic. I now have multiple common grounds on implementing more cop activities. Out of all my suggestions, this is the one I am the biggest ambassador of. However, one thing I saw you mention was your opinion against another BR/CR concept for criminals. I agree, and I want to add that criminals shouldn't be a priority for receiving another activity. However, I do think copside deserves a concept that mirrors BR/CR mechanics. Cops won't rely on criminals to start BRs if they want to enjoy that concept in that scenario. Next to that I also think small PvE activities for copside give those who do not want to engage in PvP some fun. Other than that, I do think the activity thing is sealed and we can move on to brainstorm implementations. --- Turf/GR: I myself haven't seen the first phases of turf/GR for cops. However, it comes to me with no surprise that cops wouldn't have the upper hand in these activities as a start. Criminals are used to the mechanics/tactics/locations of turf for a way longer time than cops, who were newly added. The same goes for GRs that rely on the cracking mechanic, which is a new concept for someone in copside but a daily minigame for a seasoned criminal. Those activities require adaption, and though it can be numbers, I do see that cops are getting more of a hand in that activity. A possible dispute to this can be the map in F11. The thing is, criminals themselves struggle with turf as an activity. The same goes for GR; SWAT/SM/UE are the only organisations with a safe. So it's a bit of a no-brainer that cops, who were newly introduced to these mechanics, have an even harder time. --- Neutral activities: One thing I want to add, which I didn't initially, is additions of neutral activities. A PBR or an activity of another concept every 2 hours can be a great implementation if it's started by the server. We won't depend on either side starting it, and both sides have enough time to prepare for the activity. Cops can now enjoy SR/other variants without relying on criminals to start it. Compared to side-dependent activities, I do think neutral activities need more of a balance. --- Special groups and JBs: I liked your anecdote to HLS. However, I do not think balancing special groups and JBs should be a priority, even if it seems like that from my initial suggestion. I will compare our thoughts on JB, though. I myself agree that the current changes to the JB shouldn't be reverted except for one mechanic: the vent. As I do believe it contributes a lot to stopping the activity. The scenario in my head with this concept is that cops prevent criminals from leaving jail with their newly added corners and positions that prevent just dying over and over, and criminals prevent cops from stopping the activity through their dominant position. However, this concept isn't a priority and can be looked at later. The same goes for bank robs. Once cops do not depend on criminals to perform activities, we can adjust their activities in a way that they start them. But this is even lower priority than JBs, in my opinion, though it seems like a possible necessity. --- Possible actions to take: · Researching ways to manually catch suspected cheaters and verify their legitimacy through recorded gameplay or other methods. · Analyzing which discoveries to existing mechanics disrupt gameplay (skins/buggy fighting animations/etc.). · Brainstorming and adding more activities to copside. - Brainstorm PvE activities for copside. · Brainstorming and adding neutral activities. · And if those are realized: look into tinkering criminal activities (BR/JB) a final time to make them more common.

It's not a mindset issue when those criminals are simply applying basic logic that aligns with real life. In the good old Wild West era, bank robberies were more common. Nowadays, the level of security has increased so much that if a bank robbery happens, it becomes world news. That's exactly what happened in-game. The thought process was that if carrying out a bank robbery becomes harder, the number of failed bank robberies will increase. However, just as you don't see a dozen failed bank robberies in real life, the same applies in-game. A criminal would only rob a bank under perfect circumstances because they need to succeed. This leads to the frequency of robberies dropping significantly. In-game, it's the same—the success rate doesn't really drop, but the frequency of activity does. As I mentioned, it's highly illogical to start an activity you know will end in failure. That's why we should avoid this endless cycle. Don't make police success dependent on criminal activities and failures; instead, give them their own activities, so criminals can focus on theirs as well. We should stop blaming either side and look how we can give both sides the same oppurtunities to preform activities.

I like this nuance to your initial post. My suggestions regarding the balance were written with the intention of reverting changes that made criminals stop doing bank robberies. The thing is, HLS has been realized; it's a reality, as I mentioned, and we should look at which perks prevent criminal activity. I agree that these suggestions can be flawed, even if there were more activities before they were implemented. It's very hard to take away an entire perk after it has already been implemented. But yeah, we both agree that this isn't the core issue. I believe the priority of my suggestion should be giving cops activities they can perform, and then figuring out how we can revert changes to make criminal activities more common as well. Maybe if cops have a certain level of enjoyment in their activity, HLS maybe won't even need its perks to enjoy the game. As stopping a bankrobbery won't be the core way to enjoy this server. I want both sides to have enough enjoyable gameplay that neither side's enjoyment depends on the other side losing.

Over the last decade we have been focussing on buffing and nerfing that is just trying to fix the symptoms. The core problem that I adress is that cop side is dependant on criminal activity. Which makes it that perks are designed to stop a criminal activity. That's where the excitement is. But this is very illogical as I mentioned. A criminal won't start an activity that he believes is designed for him to fail. Instead of revolving cops succes around being able to win against criminals and stopping their activities. We should've focussed on giving cops activities they can do themselves and are good in themselves. Like the bunker-raid example. What I wrote is just a version of what I wrote to Crank but in a bit more summarized way. (Yes I finally learned how to quote)

@Dinazyour response is unfortunately too one-dimensional and focusses on the symptoms more, while I adress the cause in my response to Crank. However I agree that I took too long to get there. I like the mindset tough.

@Crank ( how to quote on new forums? ) In that sense, I am not able to comment on the balance. Though, my thought process was not directed towards nerfing a side. It was made to revert changes that prevented activities from happening, in order to create a new equation. I will mention this equation later in this yap of 4.4k words. Your argument on slow doors or jail is kind of a summary of the mindset that annoyed me, while I myself was playing as a cop. Your objective as a cop shouldn't be stopping the jailbreak, but arresting as many criminals as you can while it is active, because that's when you have something to do, mainly due to the dependance. In a sense, a criminal activity done in the middle of the night is still an activity at that certain moment on the server, rather than none at all. Though, this is where your view and my view come into combat. · Your view: I'd rather stop 1 bankrob a week. · My view: I'd rather attend 9 bank robberies a day. And yes, that's not an exaggeration. Before all those changes were made to make stopping bank robberies easier or to "give a chance," there were more bank robberies done with only 3 banks than there are now with a bank on every corner of San Andreas. You mentioned that the side you play influences your perspective, so let me put it in this way too. Let's say the bunker-raid-like concept was realized. You wouldn't organize this activity if you knew that it would be very easy for criminals to stop it and have the advantage. It is very illogical to start an activity designed to make you lose. This is the very definition of "balancing an activity-based server is not about making one side win over the other," because the point of the activity is to do the raid successfully and not to force a win for criminals. That is the problem with the way cops are implemented in criminal activities over the last years. Instead of getting their own activities (the suggestion we have common ground on), the fun on the copside is designed around stopping criminal activities. That creates a conflict, because a bank robbery essentially becomes designed to be an activity to stop rather than to perform, in which case there is no reason to start it at all. Just like our hypothetical bunker raid that would be designed for criminals to win while the cops are the ones required to start it. However, one part I agree on is that the changes I mention go in conflict with my thought process of "balancing an activity-based server is not about making one side win over the other. It's about giving both sides the same opportunities to start an activity." Though, this is only the case if you take out the part of me wanting to create more activities for both sides. Let me make it less abstract. Crims: have a funny BR activity. · Too easy: bankrobs happen more, cops are frustrated because of respawnmaxxing. (However, I don't think this is necessarily bad, because at least you attend a bankrob. You can arrest while the bank resets and more criminals are wanted for you to arrest after BR. But that's not the point.) · Too hard: bankrob doesn't happen, cops are happy when they stop a bankrob but are bored in general. · Balanced: bankrob happens at times that are inconvenient for cops, cops are annoyed due to this but sometimes feel the reward of winning. All 3 scenarios are bad; however, only 1 is the most realistic for activity, and that's the easy one. That doesn't mean that I am a fan of it, because this entire equation is the mistake this community made over the last decade. It is too tunnel-visioned. Here is how the equation should be: · Crims: have an activity that they start. It's easy/balanced to finish. · Cops: have an equal activity that they start. It's easy/balanced to finish. This new equation keeps activities alive and doesn't necessarily give the objective to make one's own side win over the other, like you mentioned in your JB section, because every side wins in their own way and is good at their own activities. I agreed with your HLS opinion in my original post. HLS was led by Vektor for a long time and was designed to be a roleplay-based group. The shift to add HLS to engage more with gameplay was mentioned by @Kain to be "temporary." However, this wasn't reality, and it ended up with countless people trying their best to be a part of HLS. That's why HLS is the only thing that I want to nerf, instead of reverting. I agree with you that we can see which perks are necessary, but yeah. It would also be cool to give HLS activities they can start themselves so there are reasons to join or make the grind worth it. One last thing, which I might get comments for like "he is mad because he didn't join" or whatever crap. I do not think that HLS would've been a problem if CLO was properly organized. Sure, HLS might involve some friendship politics, but its main purpose was to invite the most effective cops. I believe they did decently at that. Meanwhile, CLO was purely ran on friendship politics (this was told to me by a CLO member in 2016, with extensive details and examples). It resulted in it being a disadvantage to have CLO members that have armor and maybe duals to defend in your bankrob, because as some of them admit of themselves, "they can't aim." They shot themselves in their own foot due to this. But in a way, the entire CLO thing only matters if we look at the tunnel-visioned equation I mentioned, and it shouldn't matter if both sides have an equal amount of activities.

As the title says, I am a firm believer that the strive to stop criminal activities factored into stopping the server's activity as a whole. It was a dilemma if I would type this or not, but as I am taking a shit now with my phone in my hands, my brain says: "fuck it let's go." I will start this topic with a personal anecdote and argumentation for those thoughts. If you want to skip the yappachino and go for the suggestions, scroll down or use ctrl + f to search "My suggestions". If you're on mobile, use the search function for the same word on Chrome or whatever goofy browser you're using. I am writing this topic with the experience of a former HQ and leader in multiple gangs (back when the server was active). In between that period, I had also given a shot at copside in 2019 by joining STF. Back then, JBs were incredible when I played as a cop, even when the jail was "unbalanced." When a JB was active, I would hop in and could easily make around 1 mil in about an hour while also having fun. The turnside was what I saw in teamchat or radio when a JB was active. The majority of the cops wanted to stop the jailbreak. Sure, you want to have a goal, I get it. It wasn't a bad goal back then because it was quite a challenge. However, the reality hits after the jailbreak, because once you had stopped it there wasn't much to do other than AFKing in base. Criminals logged off and so did cops too. Stopping that jailbreak resulted in a temporary activity drop. Now, this isn't a bad thing; it was a part of the game. However, the thought was bad. I recently returned to the game after a spree of bans. The first thing I noticed is that almost every update for copside was made to make stopping criminal activities easier: slow doors in bank robberies, a jail which makes stopping the jailbreak easier, HLS participation in city banks and jailbreaks. It looks like all the updates were made to give cops a "winning moment." However, I believe those moments came at the cost of activities. Instead, what I wanted back when I was in STF was for cops to start activities without the dependance on criminals. I still believe that is something to strive for now that 7 years have passed since. Cops are still too dependant on criminal activity to do something. However, I won't deny the work put in, because it is better than when I was a squad member. I will present 2 lists comparing the two sides of 2019 & 2026 to show the work that has been put in, while simultaneously pointing out the dependance in 2026. (My list might be flawed, because I couldn't decide if, for example, something like patrolling is an activity to put in the list. It is started by cops, but also stops criminal activity by removing them from the map.) 2019: Activities that criminals can start: · Bankrob · Jailbreak · Storerob · Gang robbery (probably my favorite back then, but it was GANG vs GANG) · Turf · Raceflag Activities that cops start: · None 2026: Activities that criminals can start: · Bankrob · Jailbreak · Casino robbery · Organisation robbery · Turf · Raceflag Activities that cops can start: · Organisation robbery · Turf · Money transport Neutral activities (started by the server): · Storerob · VIP As you can see from the comparison, there have been changes. However, even though cops have more things to do without dependance, they are still too dependant. One last thing I would like to point out is the cracking minigame. It is one of the cores of criminal activities. I myself was forced to learn cracking in 2016 to revive bank robberies in MMC, but not everyone is 13 years old and autistic enough to spend time on that. Especially if you are a squad member, who doesn't require any activity to start with cracking except organisation robberies. This results in the fact that most cracked GR safes by squad members are done by ex-gang members, for example Lincoln, who is leading that statistic for cops. Adding activities for cops to be more engaged with this minigame seems like a fix, or getting rid of it altogether. That leads me to another thing. I believe there is a conflict between the implementation of the minigame and additions like "slow doors," because in a way the speed in which you open the door has no value and the success solely relies on defence. Why not just get rid of cracking as a whole and just put doors that open in 25 seconds while you wait in a marker (the speed of an average cracker)? Doing this for GRs, BRs, etc. can increase the quantity of the activities as there is no dependance on a niche amount of players with this skill. My suggestions: Activities: Add more activities for cops to start without depending on criminals. Example: bunker raid. Cops crack doors like a bank. Instead of safes, there are rooms that you crack in which reside high-profile criminal NPCs or terrorists. They have like 10 HP because opening doors and rooms take the most effort. Killing them gives money like a bankrob for all cops in a certain area. So you can like 8/8 terrorists killed or some shit. The raid should reset in like 5 mins like a BR. Crims should be rewarded for stopping a raid by getting money for the amount of criminal/terrorist NPCs that are alive after the reset. More activities like this can be done, but I really like the bankrob mirroring concept. Feel free to write what you have in mind. Balance: · Get rid of slow doors. · HLS armor should be reduced to only 10%. I don't know if STIM is a thing, but get rid of that too. (A lot of cops put effort into getting in, so getting rid of it seems illogical. We resort to nerfing it.) · Remove the vent in jail as it leads to stopping the activity. It is placed infront of key areas to keep the activity running. Cracking: Controversial, but get rid of cracking like we got rid of pressing space to evade tasers. Open doors in 25 seconds and casino in 35, as that is the average speed of crackers nowadays. Doing that might make squads engage in GRs more as well. Alright let me yap one more time: Balancing an activity-based server is not about making one side win over the other. It's about giving both sides the same opportunities to start an activity.

HIDDEN PRIVATE INFORMATION

There's some tunisian guy in the server that keeps saving DDS files from his mta folder to just change 1 thing, and sell it as a shader to someone else. I care about this because it's my work and I spend my time to create those skinshaders. it's annoying me when I receive a PM including a screenshot that has a skin on it which is literally my work with a few changes, 5 years after I made it! It's even used in stuff like gang promo videos?! To what extend is this stuff allowed? There's literally a thief in the server! Isn't there any TOS regarding copyright in the server? @saes

Stop changing the topic! This video and topic was posted to show my innocence in response to my latest ban! If you have the notion that I am a grown ass man you better start preparing and leaving my topic alone, because you will be one too in just 3 years if you're really 18 (😄)!

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I'm so sorry! Anyways I saw that you recently made a gang, goodluck! I hope it won't endup like Hell Raisers MC, The Wild One's, Renegade Rebels, Mayans Motorcycle club, MisCudi, Gangster Demons, The Lost MC, Original Gangsters, Madrid Gangsters and Royal Snakes!

ok, Dregular, Xoedar, ClauDe, Dollaz, ZeroX, AndreX, PoxeR, Eminem, Rabbit, .mickey, Dwayne, 2Dreamy, Franklin

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Bit depressing to see just a bare post while part 1 had an extensive funeral That aside, I believe you have achieved everything you wanted with the gang. It was nice to see