Trial Game Master
DonatorForeword
I should note at the outset that I make this suggestion with full awareness of the prior series of events. For this explicit reason, I have rearranged the format for this suggestion to go over the prior suggestions first, because this appears to be an ongoing series of discussions in which the community seem to very clearly have a desire for something that CT have stated multiple times as not necessary/useful. This isn't the first time I've done this kind of thing - But of course, this isn't really an as-frequently suggested thing; It's just a little notably recurring back-and-forth (between the community & CT) that I noticed while going back through past suggestions and was wondering if there was any feasibility to this at all.I think there is significant merit to exploring this and I honestly don't mind if we don't see it for... However long. It'd be a big thing to work on, like yes we have existing structure, but that would need to be configured and tested for the relevant CI & F jobs, it needs to be balanced. I intend to cover as much as I reasonably can with this and hope to produce some level of closure to this debate, that's as reasonable and satisfactory to both CT and the community alike as possible.
I also realise that a lot of you don't like long suggestions;
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
As you can guess based off of the title, this appears to have been suggested at least four times before. It may also be possible that this was also quite often raised back when suggestions were Discord-only. I will cover each past suggestion, give a brief summary of what each one was asking for and explain how this suggestion attempts to build on these past suggestions, hopefully resulting in something that sufficiently gets across the need for further exploration of this - As seems to be the general consensus among the community when it comes to this specific aspect, that this is a needed feature.Denied - Warfund System Rework
What does this suggestion change/add/remove: This suggestion would be to overhaul the Warfund system in the following ways: CI and Foundation will now have a Warfund and will their respective groups will receive Warfund for surface ops, not just GOC. This will incentivize more activity with...
www.civilgamers.com
Denial reason -
Largely agree - Foundation and CI should not be able to call airstrikes, airdrops, etc. That should remain a feature exclusive to GOC. However, where I (as well as most of the community, it seems) disagree is that factions should be able to barter with warfunds; Which is something that gets expanded on in later suggestions, as well as this one.
Denied - GOC Warfund Spending
What does this suggestion change/add/remove: GOC being able to buy ingame content with our warfunds like weapons, construction and etc. Possible Positives of the suggestion Giving GOC a goal to grind for GOC warfunds to be spend on things like construction with our own custom requests...
www.civilgamers.com
Denial reason -
...Yeah. Not the strongest past suggestion; Bears the least relevance to this warfunds chain, however with this suggestion I do want to expand on what warfunds will be able to do, but definitely not in like a buying weapons or whatever with warfunds. Largely here as an indication that people want changes to warfunds and expansions on what you can do with them.
Denied - Warfunds for all factions (not for the obvious reason!)
Preface: This suggestion is NOT asking for warfunds to be added for the sake of combat. What does this suggestion change/add/remove: Adding warfunds to all factions that ARE UNABLE TO BE USED FOR ANY DEPLOYABLE ASSISTANCE. CI and Foundation are unable to use warfunds for buying anything like an...
www.civilgamers.com
Denial reason -
Entirely agree - The idea is not fleshed out enough at this stage to warrant further investigation; But I'm largely disappointed that it's not being further explored. This suggestion seeks to encourage looking at ways that warfunds can be added as a trading tool to F and CI that can be used for more than just barter (NOT IN THE FORM OF AIRSTRIKES/AIRDROPS AND SUCH), that either retains or potentially even improves on, the weight of actually kidnapping people.
Denied - SOP/DEA WarFund
What does this suggestion change/add/remove: This Suggestion would give SOP regiments/departments (Mainly DEA and CI) a Warfund accessible through a different version of the tactical tablet (maybe a "trade tablet") that does not have drone/air strikes but has access to a fund to be traded across...
www.civilgamers.com
Denial reason -
Primarily just part of this list to further highlight community desire for this to be a thing. The sentiment is otherwise the same as previous, since again... It's a duplicate suggestion. Listen, this looked a lot better when I was ideating it. You get the point.
Denied - ECM / Communications Jammer
What does this suggestion change/add/remove: My suggestion is to add an ECM / Communication jammer to certain classes (CI/GOC/Foundation). This jammer could be used to block all communications in either a certain direction (within a set amount of degrees in front of the character) or around the...
www.civilgamers.com
Added because I saw this as a potential CI item to have purchasable via warfunds - With the idea being that CI could use them to make F less reliant on hacking alerts (additionally encourage the relevant combatives to patrol for intruders/hearing the ECM), etc.
Denial reason -
If I were to approach people and go
Wouldn't that be powergaming? I also don't think we should be encouraging these kind of powergame-type interactions; We're already trying to phase out '/me shows Site Admin ID' with a SWEP for that. ...At some point.
What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
Give warfunds to CI & F, but without the airstrike stuff. Also to Civ but just for GMs to use for events, on the Event Team/Character jobs.Give CI & F ways to accrue warfunds (such as CMissions, same way that GOC does now) - Could even let people contribute from their own money if you want (could add that to GOC as well, since they can't IIRC); Obviously the GM one can be manually set to whatever value GMs need for their event, trust them to give out funds reasonably.
Let GOC, CI, F & GM warfunds be traded between factions for negotiations, events and such.
Give unique things for CI & F to do with their warfunds so that they have weight and meaning, so hostage negotiations don't just become pointless. Give all (or most, if you're concerned about abuse) warfund abilities to GMs for event purposes.
So that GOC retain superiority, give them a few more things they can do with warfunds. Additionally, give generic and reasonable warfund abilities to all factions.
GOC should be the only faction that would be able to use their warfunds to receive deployable assistance, in the form of care packages and airstrikes, etc. Their role in the server is that they are the technologically superior faction with the most firepower and monetary backing; And their abilities in this regard should reflect that. They should have the strongest tactical combat power and widest array of options available to them when it comes to conflict situations. In addition to what GOC have presently, GOC would be able to do the following with warfunds:
- Airdrop of combat stims for use all combative situations. These could provide temporary health/armour buffs, or even just like... Weaker versions of chem effects? Although that risks interfering with/detracting from the chems system. Not particularly fussed about the how or even about this particular option. You get the idea that GOC should get more options than what they have presently, to keep them on top when it comes to what can be done with warfunds.
Foundation are the largest faction, with their primary focus on trying to keep SCPs contained and their property secure; Their abilities in this regard should reflect that. Foundation would be able to do the following with warfunds:
- Call ERT teams for recontainment of grievous SCP breaches (Which is currently limited to either breach length or Admin+ - Decisions would need to be made about who has access to this option and the process of executing it. Ideally, you would want this to not be used until a certain amount of SCPs are breached and/or within a given timeframe of the start of that breach. This could be enforced mechanically, by rules, or by IC policy. THIS DOES NOT MEAN IN PLACE OF AUTOMATIC CALLING OF ERT - THIS WOULD BE IN ADDITION) As with the above, not particularly fussed about the end result - It's a mess to untangle. You just generally get the idea that there should be things that Foundation would be able do with this, that give warfunds weight and reasonably make sense for them to have, without detracting from the way GOC uses warfunds.
- Temporary buffs for E-11 or Nu-7, for the express purpose of recontaining SCP breaches - Basically similar to the extra thing I said for GOC, my main point with GOC's one is that they should get more, not that they should uniquely have some extra things. You could reasonably have extra, generalised things for each faction, as well as unique things for them that would make reasonable sense for them to have. You could argue that this could be also done in the form of a combat stim airdrop in the same way as I suggested for GOC...? Like just "Hey, here's something adjacent to like 10L of potent, go use it to deal with the breach" and that could dropped into compound to be brought to the active breach responders, add some barrier of actually getting this in effect as opposed to making it immediate? - Although I'm not a fan of giving F airdrops in any capacity despite it making sense; Just steps too much on GOC's toes imo. Again, not fussed about it, not fussed about any of these points. Point of these suggested things for having things like this for F & CI is to give these funds weight and meaning.
CI's thing is they have less manpower than F and not as much technological superiority as GOC, but still have more firepower than F; And their role is engaging in conflict with other GOIs for the purpose of retrieving anomalous and anomalous-related things such as documentation, SCPs, etc., with the endgoal of using those anomalies freely. So as with the other factions, what warfunds grants them, should reflect that. CI would be able to do the following with warfunds:
- Trigger a sitewide blackout (For this purpose, remove the random blackouts, as you don't want them conflicting or chained). While allowing CI to take advantage of both the temporarily disorientation of F as well as the cover of darkness that this creates, this effectively announces to F that CI are going to raid and as a result, gives CI the option of 'raiding quiet' or 'raiding loud' when arranging a raid.
- Remote door control hijack - For this purpose, create a new SWEP similar to the hacking tool that select CI jobs can use on certain door keycard scanners (Could potentially include blastdoors? Not too sure how strong that is. - Definitely wouldn't include any doors immediate to an SCP, especially 096 as it could be abused for FailRP). When used on any of those keycard scanners, they would first need to complete a hack of that keycard scanner's level. Afterwards, it would place a device on the scanner, which can be destroyed by shooting it. Then from the tactical tablet, the device can be triggered and that would force the connected door to the other state (but not break it); The device would disappear following this, making it a one-time use type thing. Could make an argument to give this to GOC, too.
Alternatively, something like
Again, could make the argument to give this kind of thing to GOC as well.
- (Alpa's find) The upcoming SCP Neuro Controller implementation could be something that is purchased via warfunds.
- Consider the recently denied ECM/Communications Jammer idea (also Closed on the Github for Not Planned) as a warfunds item: It could have one of two deployment methods - Or exist as two separate versions that use each,
It could be placed, similar to the reality anchor, giving its effect anywhere within radius - Or be a handheld device, operating similarly to the SCP beams: Keep it out to charge, then hold left click to use, affects within cone in front of user.
In addition to giving users in the area of effect a message saying their communications are jammed, it could be used on SCP containment boxes to either disable the hacking alert for its duration - Or delay it until the jammer effect is no longer active.
The jammer would make sounds while active.
- Nu-7 Commander (both LTCOM and COM), both barter and what is listed below for F, except for ERT (under the assumption that it'd be ok for ERT to be called in this way)
- E-11 Commander (both LTCOM and COM), Overseer Assistant & all Site Admin roles, barter or ERT only (or not at all for E-11 LTCOM/COM if ERT isn't ok, OSA & SA should always have access to barter)
- DEA Senior Agent+, barter only (unless you can come up with some reasonable DEA options related to like... I don't know, anomalous or anomalous-related stuff in Pinewood? Chemtrail amnestication?? And even then, that would probably also be to specific DEA rank, depending. OSA could get that, too. (Little goofy to be mass Class-Aing civs, but it'd be funny))
- Site Command, all F items
- All jobs available to DELCOM+, the items for CI dependent on the content of the item and suitability for it to the role, could also limit the frequency of their use in this way (in addition to mechanically implemented cooldowns); So for example maybe the blackout one could be BCOM+ (I would find it reasonable to give Neuro Controllers to Delta+, though. Again, up to you,)
- Event Character/Event Team, for the Civ Warfunds - Again, entirely only for GMs, to facilitate events. I'm also aware that those jobs' loadouts are changed on the fly as and where needed, just covering my bases with this, really.
Optionally, also consider a physical, raidable "warfunds vault" type location for all 3 factions, as a raid target.
This could be a population-restricted raid target? (So like, it's a CL6 or 7 hack, you can't hack into it at like less than 70 pop, etc.) Only thing I can think of is that would make GOC (or even CI) very vulnerable as the smallest factions (as F are always going to be the largest faction and could easily meet that requirement by themselves, even if it were a full-server requirement) unless implemented correctly. Could also make it mechanically such that you can only take so much at a time from the warfund stash. It's also unclear whether this would be able to be translated into pocketable money or warfund money (for the raiding faction, like a forced transfer). It would also need mapping changes. Very eh on that idea, but I'm throwing that out, in case it's liked and is a reasonable thing to be added.
Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
- Encourages factions to pay off negotiations - Nobody has to lose money from their own pocket; Also makes little sense that a DEA agent would personally pay for a hostage, rather than the money being wired to the other party by the Foundation. This also would encourage hostage taking and related RP - Aside from the other benefits that hostage takers can get, such as information from hostages; But also hostages don't always end up being killed or w/e, because the other side just refuses to strike a deal.
- Communal money within a faction could be used as a gauge of success
- Additional things to the various gameplay loops on all three sides - Relating to breaches, raids and negotiations, making all the involved loops a little less stale, more fun & interesting
- Warfund money can be used in events which could enable fun and new usage - Enriches event RP as well as encourages people to participate in and engage with events
- Warfunds, from GOCs perspective, would be a less for-granted feature - There would not only be actual flow between factions for their use, but also more things that GOC can do with them; As opposed to just sitting on hundreds of millions that they basically get a free pass to do whatever they want with. As a result, they would also start out as being the richest faction.
- More use of the warfunds system
- Incentivises surface ops for all three factions
- More things for Parawatch to come up with conspiracy theories about - "THE CANADIAN MILITARY IS SPRAYING CHEMTRAILS ALL OVER US????????"
Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
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This... Is asking a lot. I did say before, we have existing structure and that would need to be configured and tested for the relevant CI & F jobs, it needs to be balanced. But also with this there's adding more functionality, more entities, items, SWEPs and such that interact with the warfunds systems for the factions to use, give functionality. All needs creating, all needs testing, all needs balancing. Of course the first concern then, is if that's all worth it. Again - I don't expect to see this worked on with any level of urgency or in some short timeframe. I'm fine with not seeing this for a very long time. I'm happy with knowing that it'd be coming at some point. It would be better than not having it at all, in my opinion. I think I've justified it well and can only hope that CT also sees it this way.
- Detracts from GOC - As much as I've emphasised to implement all this in a way that takes away from GOC as little as possible, but the ultimate truth is that this still takes away from GOC. However - I've made the case about how the system is right now and that GOC basically just sit on stacks of warfund money that they can only use offensively, because there's really just no other way to use it. This would be another way to use it. Imo... Like, let's be honest. who joins GOC because they have warfunds? And anyone that said yes to that, I'm pretty sure the main reason for that is airstrikes and such, right? Again, I did specifically say that airstrikes should stay GOC-only. Foundation and CI would just... Get their own things, but everyone gets the ability to trade between all factions. As things are now, warfunds is... Basically kind of a nothing feature.
- Abuse - ...Okay, so... There is one major thing I realised here. One faction could basically pay another in warfunds to use another's warfunds ability for their purpose. So like, F could pay GOC to airstrike CI. And then that's basically F using GOC airstrike abilities however they want, with GOC as the middleman. That is probably not something that is desired? I would just... Make that against the rules? I don't know how to reconcile this, unfortunately. I haven't put enough thought into this specific point that I can come up with a way to reasonably prevent this...? I mean I would prefer obviously that this doesn't happen, but... That doesn't... Make it not happen.
Although, what is present right now that prevents this kind of trade from happening anyway? F can go to GOC and say something like "Hey, here's 5L of Class F. Carpet bomb CI base for the next 5 consecutive minutes," "I would like to borrow your Orange Suit to use for our purposes, here's 2 008 syringes." What stops that? The fact that GOC would say no? The fact that those trades are extremely unrealistic and that having access to actual warfunds would facilitate this better? Ok, they're not great examples, but... You get my point, right? My point is that there is a solve here.
Potential Arguments Against Implementing Your Suggestion & Rebuttals To Them:
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Again, GOC can still call in airstrikes - That would still be a thing that only they can do. Although to be fair, I don't know how it is on US, it's probably the same, but on UK, GOC have... Hundreds of millions in warfunds. We have airstrikes on tap. You can ask any of UK GOC leadership and they will probably largely agree that warfunds are a very nothing feature for them, just a way to facilitate being able to deploy airstrikes, etc. I'll say it again, I don't think GOC particularly care about warfunds and it is not their core focus.
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I mean... Like if it's truly too much dev work for too little result... Suuure? I guess? But I maintain that I have adequately made a very solid case for this to happen, throughout this entire post. Encouraging hostage negotiations, making GOC warfunds less for-granted... The primary issue here that I feel is, just what do we give F and CI? And I appreciate that this just can't be resolved overnight. I do honestly think this could work.
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I agree. I'm primarily focusing on encouraging RP, but I can't deny that this would also encourage combat in the same hand, because there would be more features to use for that; Ideally, I hope what I've proposed is something that is adaptable to the SCP-RP format, so like F would more be throwing their warfunds at SCP breaches, keeping the SCPs from getting to surface, etc. And CI would be using them to increase the effectiveness and/or variety of their raids, etc. Like, I get why everyone shouldn't have airstrikes, that why I say only GOC should keep airstrike-type functionality. Otherwise not only is GOC's unique thing just gone, but everyone's just calling airstrikes on each other. And a small town becomes a warzone.
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Yes; I touch on this later, but I'm aware of this and I don't intend this to replace that, ideally it would work in tandem with whatever's existing. D-Class kind of provide like temporary roleplay value (plus it also depends on the disposition of who the D-Class is) which I mean if it's good roleplay, it should be encouraged, but... Eh? It's not a favoured option, as far as I can tell - And chems still have both a monetary and time value of their own. Now of course, warfunds as implemented like this, would also have both monetary and time values of its own, but I think my justifications across this post have reasonably stated why this should join the list of 'What you can pay for a hostage with'.
I also do think that either not enough people are aware of that or that it's just not as good of an option, because I rarely ever see chems or D-Class come up in trade deals; And when they are, they're hotly debated. I have seen some go through - But not enough where it's like, this is a thing people are actively doing. I also don't think people see chems as a good enough trade for a hostage. The primary trade currency when it comes to hostages, seems to be people's money. Of course, having warfunds then become the primary trade currency over money, chems and D-Class then makes chems and D-Class trades less common, but... I think that'd still be more down to the fact that people just don't want to do that, especially considering planned chem nerfs. -
...Yeah, it's very boilerplate. If anyone has any ideas, please reply with them and I'll consider throwing them on the list. I don't want to saddle coming up with these things entirely on the dev team, but I mean, I did what I could. It's honestly very difficult to come up with things for F to have and if we're being honest? F should probably have the least items available to them. Warfunds would still have value to them based not only on what they can do with them and how that should help F; but I think F should be the smallest beneficiary from warfunds just purely for balance reasons.
Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted?:
I should stress that this is not suggesting warfunds to be added purely for the sake of combat - Even though there are things that interact with combat situations, those are primarily to give weight to warfunds for F and CI. I also stress that GOC should remain the primary benefactor of warfunds, with the most options and how flexible they are in how they can use them; With F & CI having less options, as well as their own specific, unique things that suit them and the purposes of their factions in roleplay.This has been very hotly debated in the prior suggestions that I mentioned. The way I feel about warfunds on F & CI, this reply to one of the previous suggestions perfectly captures my sentiment here:
...Yeah. Like, why would you use your own money to pay for a hostage? Especially since hostage negotiation RP is not only heavily encouraged, but also somewhat enforced as a rule in that any given faction has to respond to another when they are trying to get in touch for hostage negotiation; And like... It just feels forced because people don't want to engage in it. The other end of a hostage negotiation only has something to lose out of it, which disincentivises hostage taking and negotiation RP - You have an entire gameplay loop that... Is just seen as poison by the majority of the community. I mean yes, I'm aware that you can also pay for hostage negotiations with stuff like D-Class, chems, etc. This wouldn't prevent that. This should be in addition to that. Could very reasonably allow this sort of thing to happen.
I do also want to raise this that the current UK CI COM said in one of those previous suggestions:
And I generally agree here. As per previous denials from CT, just having everything be done via warfunds trades, with them having kind of no weight to F or CI at all because that's their only use - Would essentially mean that F & CI need a use for warfunds so that they would have a reason to A) Want to increase their own warfunds (such as receiving them as a result of a trade) and B) Be less okay with trading away their own warfunds.Do not give the same abilities to all factions (Airstrikes/1000LB) Each faction should have its own independent artillery that makes sense to have, such as mortars for CI or something a small cell could deploy as CI should not have airstrikes it makes no sense. However both CI and F should have strict restrictions (Except from GOC) to prevent abuse of the warfunds as we do not want MRP gameplay on surface
It is also convenient for DEA since they won't have to spend all their money on a hostage they can make use of the warfunds system i am not certain how the transfer will work maybe meet up IC and do a wire transfer i dont want hostageRP to be ah yes wire transfer hand over hostage it should be a mixture of IC meet ups as the usual
I'll also raise this one past reply:
Not really sure how much I can reasonably reiterate the same things over and over. But this really speaks for itself. There's a lot that could be done here. I think it's worth at least looking into, if at all viable.
Let the three factions barter funds between each other for negotiations and deals. Let them barter with event characters for events. Give them things that they can reasonably use those funds on to provide benefits, without taking away what's special about GOC. Incentivise negotiation roleplay, give all three factions new toys in the process. Don't turn the surface into MRP.
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