Make the max slots per OSA and ECA 3 on both servers.

[Cade Valentine]

What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
This suggestion would have the team change the max slots in VJobs to 3 per each Assistant job on the servers.

Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
I'm pretty confident this has been suggested before, but context has changed and thus that's why I'd like to try making the suggestion again.

Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
Should eliminate 99% of all cases where Assistants are queuing just for a chance to get on their role
Makes it even easier for O5 to delegate tasks as there are more people available to work with
QoL as it reduces complaints on the subject substantially and gives people more access to the limited slot.

Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
Too easy to be on the role, according to some
Removes the 2:1 ratio of O5 to Assistant on the Server

Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
Gonna be honest, with how the servers have developed, I think this is just common sense. As Site Command continues to move in a direction of focusing on overarching RP Leadership, which in turn means that OSAs also need to be available so that menial task delegation can be done in a more efficient way, having more potential slots is nothing but a boon for both branches.

The 2:1 ratio actually is irrelevant imo too - it's nothing to do with how many O5 or Ethics Members each Assistant can help, it's the volume of tasks. Issues on the Site tend to flare up all at once, and sometimes two Assistants isn't enough, and bottlenecking occurs. Having more Assistants eases the likeliness of that bottleneck, which DRASTICALLY eases some very fixable pressure on SC and lets them do their job better and spend their time on the Server more efficiently.

This is a small change but a massive, MASSIVE QoL in my opinion and I'd be greatly appreciative of any approval. The context that changed it is to do with how many Assistants I see that are on who play the slot for quite some time. Many Assistants are beginning to actively struggle to find room to flag on to the role and I want that to stop and not be a worry for them.

 

[Emilia Foddg]

Reply time!

Site Command RP
This is conflating two seperate issues. Site Command complain about the lack of RP *flow* because of the fact that the Code 1 to Code 5 loop continues to have a chokehold over how long RP is allowed to last on the Site without it being meaningfully interrupted. The CONTENT of that RP is different per job, and Assistants have a unique and distinct function that means we are not having our jobs stolen by them just because there's more of them. It's important to mention that because of the function of Assistants and their delegatory status, they go elsewhere to begin or authorise RP on our behalf, and thus those players can become quite essential to RP for some scenarios. Any hindrance to their ability to get onsite as a result can serve as a demotivator for other players that aren't even connected to the whitelist to begin with, because THEIR actions are now being rendered to a standstill because of something out of their control.

The "Prestige of Assistant"
Hard disagree with you on this one Yeke. As @Fricky Hecks pointed out yesterday in the thread that I started, the only actual requirement to get the role is to be a total level of 50 on the server. Additionally, your message of application requirement guidance that you put on most jobs on the forums is borderline identical for the Assistant roles as it is for GSD CPT and Medical Consultant - it's the generic reminder that if you're going up to CL4, you should be able to act professionally and maturely. By that logic, if you're ready for the other two roles, you're ready for OSA/ECA

Absolutely nothing concrete in server structure mandates that these positions be held to a higher standard, it's become a phantom expectation which I personally disagree with. Assistants can be given as much responsibility as we trust them with, and newer CL4 members deserve a chance to wade into the waters of that responsibility at their own pace on a job that interests them, not be given the expectation of immediate perfection. Frankly, if the problem was Prestige, then the issue isn't the amount of slots available, it's how many individuals we've recruited and at that point you may as well go about enforcing hard caps like the regiment tab does, but we both know that would not solve the issue at hand.

Ratio of Assistants to SC Members
Both Site Command factions can have 4 members on the site in normal circumstances. Having one assistant per 2 council members is NOT healthy for the Assistants. We all constantly get bombarded by RP encounters just by being there, and frequent delegation is required. How is one player meant to handle the delegation of tasking from not just one SC, but TWO, all while having their own interesting RP to perform and engage with on the server? It doesn't make sense. Having the third goes back to the very thing I said in my initial suggestion about easing the bottleneck. It's an additional slot to delegate the tasking between themselves and thus ease the burden, making their collective job easier and allowing more RP elsewhere to occur naturally.

To put into perspective how insane some days get as SC and thusly why we need Assistants ready to go for delegation immediately:

Wednesday the 12th, I flag on at about 6:30PM. Immediately, the GOC are at SOP Wing and a war is about to break out because they have a warrant to take the Dpt. Director of DEA away. I immediately have to go down there, get bearing on the issue, contact Ethics and come up with an impromptu and fun RP solution to let this play out without going to war, deal with a personal RP storyline involving two specific players in the midst of it AND work with A-1 during the whole thing. From 6:30PM to about 9:00PM, I had ZERO downtime. I need the Assistants available to work with, but they can't move mountains if all of O5 are on, which for the record they were!

Site Admin
This is very much untrue at the present roleplay climate, at least on UK. As the Super and Senior team can personally attest, I have been doing what I can to fundamentally rip apart the two gameplay loops and give them differentiation on the server, with SA having more autonomy to make some judgement calls on the server without us. For example, O5 forfeiting the ownership of RSD and giving it to SA as well as further ERT empowerment. Site Command have been giving as much room to breathe for SA as possible and the Assistants have absolutely no reason to overstep into their loop because they have more of their own things to do as well as their own things to work towards thanks to, at least on OSA, the inclusion of the Senior OSA role of Factotum and more. Site Admin are flourishing in that regard and continue to have my full backing, as well as personal instruction from me to Assistants to let them do what is needed and choose when to come to us if they need help.

The "we need 4 slots" issue.
Yeke I'm going to be honest, this isn't my problem. Every time a concession or change is made on the server, it's an inevitably as much as time is that someone is then going to ask for the next layer of that change because SOMEONE always wants to push the line. I have no personal interest in a 4th slot because I think at that point you do open a bit of risk in the sense of "oh 1 Assistant per 1 SC member" and people will start misconstruing the reasons why I made the suggestion in the first place. I can continue stating that it isn't something I want as much as possible but it's going to be a case of needing you to kinda just trust me on this one that as -1 I have no intent on being cheeky or pushing the line with this should the suggestion be accepted, because I'm not stupid.

Requirements Tracking
Similar to the topic of prestige, however I will concede that SOME additional monitoring wouldn't go amiss because of mistakes like this being allowed to occur in the past. As it stands, we've gone through a major audit of the roster and everyone who has been auditted to be on there is correct. If a third slot is introduced, I could consider adding some very minor tracking to make sure the slots aren't being abused.

General Playerbase Convenience
This is to do with something I hear repeated a lot about "we don't want people MAINING Assistant..." to which I respond; why not? It's still a CL4 with major RP implications and impact to the server if done right, and the majority of the people I know that actually play on OSA a lot specifically actually have an alternate role to hop onto if they really wanted. Yes, there are certain people who play the slot more than others, but that doesn't change the fact that people aren't taking the slot out of exclusivity, but because they genuine have that much of an interest in playing the role, something that we shouldn't be stopping for a passive slot on the server ever. Considering the above points made about the likening to GSD CPT/Consultant and the fact that they have way more slots available, then it is logical to state that Assistants should have the same grace afforded to them in the interest of convenience to letting more roleplay get done faster around the Site.

Playerbase Availability
Another thing this does is ease the flow for those who actually only have set times they can get on the server anyway. An example I'm going to cite is @JesterX3 who is one of the newer OSAs. They have started university this year and have extremely fixed times to get on the server due to the issues involved with having to travel around the country on trains to be at their campus (I experience this hell too, I'm sure many others do as well). If they get on and see that due to a funnel of the slots, they can't actually have a turn when they need to, of course they're going to be burned out or not exactly have motivation to stick to the role!

I also have minimal desire to enforce slots for certain players at certain times to counteract this while keeping only 2 slots, because that is a very easy slippery slope into questions regarding fairness, bias and other potential OOC issues that people would have with the judgement calls made. The easier solution is to increase the chances to play on the role, which is done via the 3rd slot.

Overall Thoughts
In my opinion, I just think it's common sense to give the 3rd slot a chance. There's clearly been a shift in roleplay mentality which allows for these jobs to be extremely active of late, but also in a unique way where they have minimal overlap with roles like Site Admin due to the way that Site Command have been adamantly focusing on keeping gameplay unique. I can appreciate concerns of the past, as well as concerns of the future due to the slot issue, but that doesn't change that my concern is here and now only with the 3rd slot and the ability for Assistants to have more opportunities to play and have fun on a role that is currently very appealing to be part of.

Long ass essay done, thanks for reading and I'll reply further as needed

A lot of times I wanted to play ECA, it was full meaning I usually had to play when nothing was happening to the point where I barely got my reqs because whenever I could play it I didn't want to.

+support

Just weighing in what I've seen but when someone is set to a job that goes over the limit all i've seen (in my experience) is people throw a fit over it. Increasing the limit would MOSTLY avoid this issue and I don't think with the current assistants or SA they'd interfere with each other unless necessery due to recent changes and leadership.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little here while also reiterating a bit - How much will 1 more slot actually fix all of this? Or do we just get all of these things again, with the exception that there can just be 3 Assistants at once? Although maybe a little less pain to deal with on FCOM's part because of the increased availability, sure, that I'll give. But if things are this bad, then surely the barebones idea I put forward of reworking Assistants entirely would work better to solve your problems, rather than what looks to me to be just a small patch-up. Also take into account that FCOM aren't meant to be a focus of the server - I think the approach of increasing their presence on the server is an uphill battle.

 

[Crabbergames]

+support this has been heavily need for two years now

 

[James Dingle]

Just as an update to this thread, there is a meeting with both the UK and the US side of FCOM & their respective assistants to further delve into this issue and hear the justifications as to why this change should happen.

Once this meeting takes place and there has been an outcome, this thread will be updated in due course.

Just weighing in what I've seen but when someone is set to a job that goes over the limit all i've seen (in my experience) is people throw a fit over it. Increasing the limit would MOSTLY avoid this issue and I don't think with the current assistants or SA they'd interfere with each other unless necessery due to recent changes and leadership.

And just to chime in on this, if anyone gets annoyed for being setjob during high level RP then you can send them my way and I'll give them the exact reasons why this is done

Thanks all!

 

[Fricky Hecks]

I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little here while also reiterating a bit - How much will 1 more slot actually fix all of this? Or do we just get all of these things again, with the exception that there can just be 3 Assistants at once? Although maybe a little less pain to deal with on FCOM's part because of the increased availability, sure, that I'll give. But if things are this bad, then surely the barebones idea I put forward of reworking Assistants entirely would work better to solve your problems, rather than what looks to me to be just a small patch-up. Also take into account that FCOM aren't meant to be a focus of the server - I think the approach of increasing their presence on the server is an uphill battle.

My personal answer to this question is a rhetorical question being:

Is it better to leave Assistants in it's current state due to the sceptical perspective of the use-case of a third slot? Is it false to, at the very least, try Occam's Razor before, if it is truly determined to be needed past that point, begin writing a much larger-scale fix to the problem that presents itself?

Whether or not the solution is an extra slot and the result is either most problems are fixed or absolutely nothing changes, it is still a much appreciated attempt at fixing the presented problem rather than either doing nothing or immediately attempting a much larger-scale fix.

 

[Emilia Foddg]

Alright, I'm convinced.
+Support