Content Suggestion Fundamental roleplay and server rework.

Content Suggestions will be reviewed by Content Team weekly, please allow time as not everything can be reviewed at once.
What does this suggestion change/add/remove:

Enhanced Character Creation


When a new player joins the server, they will have to initially choose between playing a combative Foundation role or a non-combative Foundation role. There should be a description of what these roles are, their responsibilities and examples of what departments they are.

Combative Foundation Roles
- General Security

Non-Combative Foundation Roles
- Research Department
- Medical Department
- E&TS

These are all the roles a new player has available to them on. All other roles are obtained through in-character means, such as tryouts for MTFs, training for DEA/ISD and interviews for SA/SC.

Characters may be transferred between departments by requesting a transfer from Site Admin.


Reworked Levelling System

Levels are no longer split between combat, research, support etc. Instead, each character has a single type of experience to gain, through activities that are relevant to their department (testing, healing, repairing, killing hostiles).

A skill tree would be added, allowing players to choose between minor perks to enhance themselves. For instance, a medical skill could be to heal faster, or give people temporary over health. Other departments would have different skill trees based on their role. This would give players more choice in what they wish to specialize in, while not being able to be good at everything.


Character Based Inventory

Each character will have an inventory linked only to that character, including their stash. This will make it much harder for low clearance characters to have items that make no sense in their possession (for instance, a cadet with Class-F that he made while playing his Executive Researcher).

Along with this, ISD will be able to search anyone's inventory, given valid RP suspicion of contraband. They may also search their stash, but this will require a "warrant" from SA+, making the stash safer.

Of course, skins may be transferred across characters.


Character Limits

By default, players will have access to up to 3 character slots, to be used in any department.

Player Kills

Player Kills (PKs) will force a player to rename their character and will wipe their inventory and stash. Their money will also be reset.

PKs can be done by GMs with valid RP reasoning, and should be reserved for major RP scenarios.

SL may also permit a PK where needed. For instance, in a situation where a Site Manager has been found guilty of high treason in a tribunal and sentenced to termination, SL may authorize a PK as their character no longer makes sense to exist.


Civilians

Civilian characters will not be immediately accessible to new players. This is because it is important to teach them the core Foundation gameplay loop. New players on civilian are usually confused, and unsure of what to do.

Anyone's second character may be a civilian character, if they wish.


UNGOC

UNGOC will be removed as a playable faction, and instead reserved solely for events. GMs may request people to assist as event characters within UNGOC, but otherwise the faction is no longer playable. The faction simply does not have a place on the server. It was added hastily, without care for how it would interact with the Foundation whatsoever and does not work.

CI

To incorporate a return to Foundation based RP, CI will be reworked entirely.

Instead of being a job that is constantly playable, players will be able to opt-in to CI raids, that will happen randomly every 3 or so hours. This will be done similarly to how ERT is now.

Deep cover raids will be run in the same way, where 2 randomly selected players can "opt-in" to a deep cover raid.

This will remove CI mains, that do not contribute to the server's roleplay development whatsoever, and move players back into the Foundation as their main role.

RP disruptions will be limited greatly by this change, and combat will become a secondary aspect of the server.


SCPs

Researchers will be able to access a terminal in every SCP chamber, which will send a prompt to anyone who is willing to play SCPs (an option in settings) requesting that they flag on. SCPs will be creditable, which will earn the player XP towards their own character.

Players who consistently answer the prompt to play an SCP for tests will increase their probability to be chosen for the next breach queue.

Progression

As touched on before, characters must go through trainings, tryouts or interviews to join non-standard departments. Outside of MTFs and CL4 roles, progression will be handled via the level system, simulating that their character has gained more experience in their role and has been elevated.

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
I believe character based inventories have been suggested before.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
- Emphasis on character based roleplay.
- People will be less attached to their characters due to the possibility of PK.
- High clearance items will be less accessible to lower clearance characters.
- Enhancement of ISD roleplay through searches.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
- The server will see a dramatic shift away from combat, which could drive some players away.

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
Overall, this suggestion aims to fix many of the core issues of the server. Players do not play characters, they play themselves. This is evident in the fact that PKs are incredibly rare, and are entirely optional as people cannot handle having their character killed, who is an extension of themselves most of the time.

ISD will see an increase in their importance, as they will be the primary force searching for contraband chemicals and weapons. This will create new roleplay opportunities, with creative ways to evade ISD being rewarded.

Skill trees will give each player much more agency in what they want their character to be good at. Hopefully, no objectively "best" combination will be found, instead leaving it up to preference.

Combat and GOIs will take a backseat to the core of the server, which is Foundation and passive roleplay. With less RP disruption, players will be able to conduct much higher levels of RP than is currently possible.

This is a dramatic suggestion, which will change the server fundamentally. Therefore, I expect a lot of backlash and disagreement, but please try to articulate your points in a respectful way.
 
Major -Support
I get the intent and spirit of this and agree with the general premise, especially with the idea of being able to choose where you start in Foundation in GSD, RSD, Medical or E&TS roles. But I also appreciate that that in itself may be damaging to the D-Class/GSD/RSD gameplay loop and disrupt the stability of that 'RP triangle'.

I personally agree in principle with reworking levelling. IMO the current system is grindy & frustrating, and not conducive to retention.

While I get the reasoning, I personally disagree with outright reworking GOC & CI away from factions that players can just flag onto at any time. I appreciate that there can only ever be 128 players at most on the server and having other factions servers to splinter the players into lesser and lesser populous groups - As well as the problems incumbent with both of them as individual factions. Many GOC/CI removal suggestions have been made in the very recent past and have been denied every time for the same reasons - That being that it's not a simple affair to just carve out current server content and that there are significant repercussions as a result of doing so, which is a large reasoning behind the reticence on this matter. My reason for disagreeing is that it just doesn't simply sit right with me. It's not something I can put into words.
Character Based Inventory

Each character will have an inventory linked only to that character, including their stash. This will make it much harder for low clearance characters to have items that make no sense in their possession (for instance, a cadet with Class-F that he made while playing his Executive Researcher).

Along with this, ISD will be able to search anyone's inventory, given valid RP suspicion of contraband. They may also search their stash, but this will require a "warrant" from SA+, making the stash safer.

Of course, skins may be transferred across characters.
As a corrupt individual who has amassed a large stash of 106, who has stated on numerous occasions that it's intended for, and will be used for, FailRP, I get the reasoning behind the inventory part of this, but out of pure bias, I cannot in bad conscience agree with it, because the ability to drink the funny teleporting black goop is funny and should be protected as a human right under the very real constitution which this server definitely has.
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I'll have you know that I paid good money to play FailRP sim. I also fully expect any Staff that take me to a sit for related reasons to cite this post before warning me.

Anyway, mingery aside, I would consider cutting off the ability for people to use other jobs to obtain chems as a form of RP limitation. If the chems are basically stuck on the character that obtained them, for things like combative chems, it makes them and the process of getting them, kinda useless (Although this would be beneficial to the combative server imbalance), which in turn devalues those chems and the sampling mechanic (Although that would be beneficial to curbing the sampling gameplay epidemic). Finally, this is easily bypassable via trading. Yes, it's cumbersome, but if people want a thing, they're going to get that thing. So for example, the 860 nightvision chem. IIRC, UK A-1 likes to keep a bunch of it on hand, but if they flag onto RSD roles and get them, they then can't switch characters and bring that to the A-1 fridge. But they could trade it around and such.

My point being is that this largely seems to cause more problems than it solves, and I believe is a major part of the reason why it as a feature was denied before.
Civilian characters will not be immediately accessible to new players. This is because it is important to teach them the core Foundation gameplay loop. New players on civilian are usually confused, and unsure of what to do.
This is planned.
Researchers will be able to access a terminal in every SCP chamber, which will send a prompt to anyone who is willing to play SCPs (an option in settings) requesting that they flag on. SCPs will be creditable, which will earn the player XP towards their own character.
Is this instead of being able to flag onto SCPs via the F4 menu, or in addition to? If instead, nuh-uh. No. Bad. But if it's in addition, I wouldn't mind this as an implemented feature, especially if CI & GOC could use it, too.
Progression

As touched on before, characters must go through trainings, tryouts or interviews to join non-standard departments. Outside of MTFs and CL4 roles, progression will be handled via the level system, simulating that their character has gained more experience in their role and has been elevated.
I like this. This is good.



Ultimately, as others have said, this is probably gonna be thrown out for breaking the stated guidelines as this is a lot of reworks grouped up into a collection in one thread. I know you're trying to push this as a full server rework; However this is not more than the sum of its parts. It's not even the sum of its parts. IMO, it comes across as some good ideas and a couple not-so-good ideas stacked in a trenchcoat.

My advice is to take all these things apart and suggest them piecemeal, one at a time, trying to make the changes gradually - Starting with your SCPs idea as IMO, that's the best thing here (if it's not instead of being able to flag onto them via the F4 menu).
 
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Enhanced Character Creation

When a new player joins the server, they will have to initially choose between playing a combative Foundation role or a non-combative Foundation role. There should be a description of what these roles are, their responsibilities and examples of what departments they are.

Combative Foundation Roles
- General Security

Non-Combative Foundation Roles
- Research Department
- Medical Department
- E&TS

These are all the roles a new player has available to them on. All other roles are obtained through in-character means, such as tryouts for MTFs, training for DEA/ISD and interviews for SA/SC.

Characters may be transferred between departments by requesting a transfer from Site Admin.
When someone makes a character, will they be able to re-assign them afterwards? If not, why not? If yes, +Support with the assumption that all items get removed from their inventory afterwards.
Reworked Levelling System

Levels are no longer split between combat, research, support etc. Instead, each character has a single type of experience to gain, through activities that are relevant to their department (testing, healing, repairing, killing hostiles).

A skill tree would be added, allowing players to choose between minor perks to enhance themselves. For instance, a medical skill could be to heal faster, or give people temporary over health. Other departments would have different skill trees based on their role. This would give players more choice in what they wish to specialize in, while not being able to be good at everything.
There should still be a total level between characters, that are permanently saved between characters to enforce level requirements for regiments.
Character Based Inventory

Each character will have an inventory linked only to that character, including their stash. This will make it much harder for low clearance characters to have items that make no sense in their possession (for instance, a cadet with Class-F that he made while playing his Executive Researcher).

Along with this, ISD will be able to search anyone's inventory, given valid RP suspicion of contraband. They may also search their stash, but this will require a "warrant" from SA+, making the stash safer.

Of course, skins may be transferred across characters.
Apparently, a developer, this was intended from the start, and assumed to be true by the rest of the high dev team until it was brought to their attention. This can be proved with the Chemical Storage system, that is character locked because they assumed that normal inventory stashes worked this way, when in reality it wasn't. +Support. This is also assuming that any collectors items, such as weapon skins, event items, or knives will be able to transfer between characters in a "global stash" of sorts.
Character Limits

By default, players will have access to up to 3 character slots, to be used in any department.
No issues, as long as you can re-assign them to any other department with a inventory deletion afterwards.
Player Kills

Player Kills (PKs) will force a player to rename their character and will wipe their inventory and stash. Their money will also be reset.

PKs can be done by GMs with valid RP reasoning, and should be reserved for major RP scenarios.

SL may also permit a PK where needed. For instance, in a situation where a Site Manager has been found guilty of high treason in a tribunal and sentenced to termination, SL may authorize a PK as their character no longer makes sense to exist.
+Support, with the exception of reseting money. Nowhere in this suggestion does it state that money for each character is separate. Maybe if you specified the fact that money for each character would be separate, we would have less of an issue.
Civilians

Civilian characters will not be immediately accessible to new players. This is because it is important to teach them the core Foundation gameplay loop. New players on civilian are usually confused, and unsure of what to do.

Anyone's second character may be a civilian character, if they wish.
I feel like if you're going to remove UNGOC and CI and not rework Civilians in a meaninful way, surface RP will just become completely dead.
-/+ Neutral, this would need a MAJOR rework of how surface works if the suggestions go through.
UNGOC

UNGOC will be removed as a playable faction, and instead reserved solely for events. GMs may request people to assist as event characters within UNGOC, but otherwise the faction is no longer playable. The faction simply does not have a place on the server. It was added hastily, without care for how it would interact with the Foundation whatsoever and does not work.
I really don't see the point of this. If you're removing CI as a playable faction that can consitently RP on surface, then UNGOC would become the only other faction on the server.
If you're going to remove ALL surface factions with the exception of an ERT style CI deployment system, MC&D and citizens, then the surface region would only consist of Nu-7, who would be reserved for general surface RP & dealing with CI raids, and then DEA, who would do... what exactly? Assist Nu-7? Deal with citizens? DEA would just merge with Nu-7, and then we have a repeat of B-1.
UNGOC should be fundamentally reworked in such a way where SCP Foundation WANT to interact with them, not the other way around. I'm still forming ideas for this for (maybe) a future suggestion, but this currently a -Support from me.
CI

To incorporate a return to Foundation based RP, CI will be reworked entirely.

Instead of being a job that is constantly playable, players will be able to opt-in to CI raids, that will happen randomly every 3 or so hours. This will be done similarly to how ERT is now.

Deep cover raids will be run in the same way, where 2 randomly selected players can "opt-in" to a deep cover raid.

This will remove CI mains, that do not contribute to the server's roleplay development whatsoever, and move players back into the Foundation as their main role.

RP disruptions will be limited greatly by this change, and combat will become a secondary aspect of the server.
I'd need to see how this works in function, so far the function seems good enough, just as long as it doesn't happen as often as current SCP breaches or CI raids.
I'd also love to see how the need DC raid functions would work. Where would they spawn, inside or outside SCPF? Would they start with any items such as a keycard or disguises? What weapons would they have, etc.
+Support, but I'd need to evalutate it after it would get implement it.
SCPs

Researchers will be able to access a terminal in every SCP chamber, which will send a prompt to anyone who is willing to play SCPs (an option in settings) requesting that they flag on. SCPs will be creditable, which will earn the player XP towards their own character.

Players who consistently answer the prompt to play an SCP for tests will increase their probability to be chosen for the next breach queue.
+Support, seems way more engaging than how it works now.
 
When someone makes a character, will they be able to re-assign them afterwards? If not, why not? If yes, +Support with the assumption that all items get removed from their inventory afterwards.
Yes, as I touched on in the post, you can approach SA in character to request a transfer to a different department.
This is also assuming that any collectors items, such as weapon skins, event items, or knives will be able to transfer between characters in a "global stash" of sorts.
Of course.