Rule Suggestion Fix Sampling Guidelines

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DuncanMcOkiner

Well-known Member
Jul 14, 2024
6
5
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What does this suggestion change/add/remove
Sampling Guidelines have gotten out of control. As a regular Research player that focuses on Chemical-based Research, it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually gather samples. I've expressed my concerns both in-game and in Discord following the CoC in all aspects, and gotten almost entirely ignored, so I've brought my concerns to the forums.

Official Research Guidelines now state the following:
"NOTE: ALL SAMPLING WILL BE OVERSEEN BY MOBILE TASK FORCE EPSILLON-11. AT THE END OF CHEMICAL EXPERIEMENTATION, ALL SAMPLES WILL BE DISPOSED OF BY THE ACCOMPANYING EPSILON - 11 OPERATIVE. FAILURE TO ABIDE BY THIS RESTRICTION WILL SEE YOUR SAMPLING RIGHTS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."

This means for my conscientium-based testing, E-11 would need to be present for collection of 106 Samples, collection of 409 samples, creation of the conscientium, and all testing. Any 106/409 samples not used would have to be discarded, and I've have to do all of this in one play session as otherwise, E-11 would discard my samples. Typically due to the reasons below, I'm lucky to get 1-2 sampling sessions in a week.

It's already difficult enough to have enough Gensec that they are willing to actually escort a test (luckily the recent change to 2 combatives has helped, but not solved the issue). E-11 struggles to have enough players on actually perform sampling escorts or man the HCZ Checkpoint, and when they do have enough players on, they shut down HCZ for something like wargames or "maintenance". Any other time, the breaches and CI Raids / Deepcovers have gotten just so common that sampling is nigh-impossible to perform.

Additionally, Research Leadership - specifically DoR Ivan, as Frederick usually just tells me to "ask Ivan" since he isn't in the know about the changes - has introduced 6 different Sub-Regiments (that he's calling Departments, for further confusion) that all have different focuses, guidelines, and sampling restrictions. This is the third iteration of the Chemical Research Board that I've seen.

Research Leadership is directly trying to put a harsh limit on all Sampling done by Research, which is having such a negative effect on the morale of the Researchers I've talked to. This also will eventually lead to a severe effect on the player economy without intervention, as only those that are unaffected by RSD's Guidelines will be able to gather samples realistically (Executive Researchers +, A1, O1, etc).

The only real answer I've received for the reasoning of these changes is that "Senior Researcher has become a trolling job" and "Too many people are abusing 106", and somehow the solution to these problems is a total re-haul of all RSD Sampling Guidelines and policies.

I'm not asking for Sampling to be a walk in the park, I'm just asking for it to be reverted to exactly how it was prior to the new Directors taking charge, as it was in a good place. It was realistic to do, and you were able to do all the steps quick enough in between the mass number of Breaches, CI Raids, and CI Infils lately. Finally, you were allowed to collect your samples for testing over a several-day period, as opposed to all in one play session without threat of having your sampling privileges removed.

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?

Not that I could see!

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2)
1. Allows RSD to thrive, letting players continue to sample and perform tests with said samples.

2. Ensure the player economy stays as-is, and does not allow CL4 players to directly manipulate the player economy of which samples are arguably the most important part.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion
Allegedly, Senior Researcher has become a troll job, and too many people are abusing 106. I suppose that might continue if no other solutions are found to those specific problems.

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted
I believe if this continues and RSD continues down the current DoR's vision, RSD will end up in a very unhealthy place. Without intervention, RSD as a department will become an overly-complex and impossible Department to play, especially for casual players like myself that are only able to player a few days a week for a couple hours per play session.
 
Aug 4, 2023
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As UK player who "had" freewill of sampling (i say had with ", because on UK its same thing now, but i guess on USA side is harsher by your suggetion), sampling was best way to get research XP and least some of RP (even tho its mostly not RP but it was some), before SCP-409 was made CL4, it was the best to gather samples of "ice red blood" and with it, i made some merits during early days of tryout based UNGOC on UK, but now, every samping test now needs a document to sample that....its not worth it (even tho document had the format for it, i rather have no document sampling). And yes, you may call me lazy, but in my own words "If you add levels reqsuents to jobs on your 'RP only server', don't be shocked when your roleplayers will limit RP for any best exp making'.
Official Research Guidelines now state the following:
"NOTE: ALL SAMPLING WILL BE OVERSEEN BY MOBILE TASK FORCE EPSILLON-11. AT THE END OF CHEMICAL EXPERIEMENTATION, ALL SAMPLES WILL BE DISPOSED OF BY THE ACCOMPANYING EPSILON - 11 OPERATIVE. FAILURE TO ABIDE BY THIS RESTRICTION WILL SEE YOUR SAMPLING RIGHTS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."
Now this is werid, if its IC, then if you sample with your rights suspended. Do you get allways arrested by ISD? Or do you get job ban on research group for lot of time. And If it somehow counts as OOC rule. Do you get banned or warned for "FailRP"?, because remember, a grinder will go on night/early hours of the server to grind XP and if that grinder has friends that are also grinders, then the "rule" will not work, because if it IC based, then who cares?
The only real answer I've received for the reasoning of these changes is that "Senior Researcher has become a trolling job" and "Too many people are abusing 106", and somehow the solution to these problems is a total re-haul of all RSD Sampling Guidelines and policies.
While i mingle sometimes, i don't mingle to the point that i abuse 106 to full, this is like blaming the whole group when just one person from that group made something bad, SSL,NL and Sr.CL4+ want to keep the current players and coming of new players, but if they do things like this and make that "People who are CL3 or under are minges", they won't keep the players. Also, the MTF CL3 could count to that saying but eh, tryout bias.


And at the end of the rant, i want to put something:
Huge +Support
 
Nov 27, 2022
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Official Research Guidelines now state the following:
"NOTE: ALL SAMPLING WILL BE OVERSEEN BY MOBILE TASK FORCE EPSILLON-11. AT THE END OF CHEMICAL EXPERIEMENTATION, ALL SAMPLES WILL BE DISPOSED OF BY THE ACCOMPANYING EPSILON - 11 OPERATIVE. FAILURE TO ABIDE BY THIS RESTRICTION WILL SEE YOUR SAMPLING RIGHTS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."
i want what the US is smoking while they cooked up these horrendous ideas lmao
 
IC issue sadly, rules are OOC, most you could do is make a player complaint on here.
This is solely a US IC issue. Not an OOC one. This "suggestion" should not be here and should be brought up to DoRs, SA or FCOM.
This is an in-character issue and should mostly be brought up in an in-character capacity.
After giving it some thought, I think there could be reasonable incentive for SSL intervention in this case;

Playerbases when left on their own can come up with some... Very questionable ideas of what is okay to do. Admittedly, this isn't all that up there on some of the really dumb things that regiments/departments have done in the past (I've heard some very telling horror stories) - Although given that chems constitute a significant part of server economy, IMO it's a little alarming that RP leadership is able to curtail obtaining chems to such a degree as requiring E-11 be present for any SCP sampling.

I would agree that it's unfair for me as a UK player to say anything about how things operate on US; I would like to know a little more of the reasoning behind such an extreme measure and on the surface I would agree that SSL intervention may be warranted if it is ultimately (and IMO, quite reasonably) concluded that SA are overstepping here.
Although having a suggestion to limit the IC players ability to stop sampling is interesting, I don't believe it would promote any RP.
Conversely, essentially forcing E-11 to be present for sampling doesn't promote any RP, either - You're just having another player stand around during the sampling because... Well, 'they have to'. That's also not really RP, in the same sense that sampling as it is isn't. But that may also be an extension/byproduct of the problems with extant sampling gameplay.

It could also be argued that while yes, it makes IC sense to have the extra security against CI, you're also impacting their gameplay loop, particularly in cases where the E-11 presence could be considered overkill or otherwise artificial (For example, "lower risk" SCPs such as 999, 457, 912 or 860) - It would make it unnecessarily difficult for any raids or DCs to do anything with those sampling parties, such as take them hostage or w/e. I get that that may be a strange analysis, however I've seen great suggestions in the past get shot down because of how they were seen to potentially impact CI gameplay. I am simply invoking this standard if it still exists in any capacity :schizotroll:
Tee hee.
+Soft Support
As for a solution, I myself would propose imposing limits on RP leadership's ability to restrict sampling lower risk SCPs. That seems like a fair compromise that allows reasonable freedom with the "higher risk" SCPs, while retaining a reasonable level of fairness and keeping the relevant gameplay loops intact.

...Or somewhere to start drafting ideas from, whether it be more intervention or less. 🤷‍♀️
 
Last edited:

DuncanMcOkiner

Well-known Member
Jul 14, 2024
6
5
41
This is solely a US IC issue. Not an OOC one. This "suggestion" should not be here and should be brought up to DoRs, SA or FCOM.
Just to be abundantly clear (it's in the post but I may not not said it clear enough): I did attempt to go through in-game routes via in-game chat and Discord.

All of the Executives said they didn't understand the new policies and to go to the Dirs of Research. One of them (Fred) said he didn't understand the policies, and that the other Director of Research (Ivan) was the only one handling this. After finally contacting him, he would very reluctant to answer any questions, so I went to our at-the-time assigned SA and they seemingly did not care and didn't respond. I tried both in-game and on Discord.

This post was a last resort after weeks of this.
 
Jun 24, 2022
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Just to be abundantly clear (it's in the post but I may not not said it clear enough): I did attempt to go through in-game routes via in-game chat and Discord.

All of the Executives said they didn't understand the new policies and to go to the Dirs of Research. One of them (Fred) said he didn't understand the policies, and that the other Director of Research (Ivan) was the only one handling this. After finally contacting him, he would very reluctant to answer any questions, so I went to our at-the-time assigned SA and they seemingly did not care and didn't respond. I tried both in-game and on Discord.

This post was a last resort after weeks of thi
+support
 
Just to be abundantly clear (it's in the post but I may not not said it clear enough): I did attempt to go through in-game routes via in-game chat and Discord.

All of the Executives said they didn't understand the new policies and to go to the Dirs of Research. One of them (Fred) said he didn't understand the policies, and that the other Director of Research (Ivan) was the only one handling this. After finally contacting him, he would very reluctant to answer any questions, so I went to our at-the-time assigned SA and they seemingly did not care and didn't respond. I tried both in-game and on Discord.

This post was a last resort after weeks of this.
I understand your struggle, I'm just saying that like.. Maybe call a sit in game? This suggestion can't actually do anything other than bring attention to it.
 
Jan 16, 2022
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Playerbases when left on their own can come up with some... Very questionable ideas of what is okay to do.
Mhm, that's why coming to the forums was a good choice, but this is the wrong section. Duncan, I advise you make a complaint on the appropriate section on these forums. The idea makes sense, but this is just the wrong place to put this.
 
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