Server Player count low again

[femboy]

This really sucks man, I enjoy the server so much but it's so quiet now. It barely reaches 50 players on a good day now, it doesn't help that the majority of the actual content is cop locked, so if you do get on, and wanna do something with a low pop, you're fucked.
I thought the first part of 2.0 was really fun, the server honestly seemed pretty good till about a week ago where all those cheaters got banned, it's a catch 22, they cheat but they also bring so many players in the server and allow for content to actually be doable.

Put what you think could be changed below to make the pop rise again; in my honest opinion I feel like there was just such a gigantic gap between 2.0's release that the playerbase slowly dropped off, people complete the new content so fast because they've been waiting for so long

 

[Zenius]

Sad to see the server pop really low as of late, but personally I think the reason for it is consistent nerfs for criminals and the amount of cheaters that play.
I have some ideas that might get the player count up, but idk if it's even possible.
1. Add map rotations, Monoford is fun and all, but it just get's really stale. (already saw Tj speaking that they're interested in that which is good)
2. Stop nerfing cocaine, it's already hard to get kerosene I see no reason why the party thing was added with kerosene.
3. Getting some more EU staff would be also great, when staff are offline there is just a lot of cheating alts that get on and mass rdm. This usually happens at morning hours for EU player.
4. Most important thing is to listen what the community wants I think there should be at least like 1 community meeting every 2 months discussing what plans they have for the server, what they planning to release and ask players what they think about it. Because at the end of the day it's us who are playing and enjoying the game.

What I have stated above is not "Shitting on devs" or anything like that, it's just my thoughts that I wanted to share to see if people have the same opinion or not.

I really hope this discussion doesn't get locked for turning into a shit post.

 

[femboy]

Sad to see the server pop really low as of late, but personally I think the reason for it is consistent nerfs for criminals and the amount of cheaters that play.
I have some ideas that might get the player count up, but idk if it's even possible.
1. Add map rotations, Monoford is fun and all, but it just get's really stale. (already saw Tj speaking that they're interested in that which is good)
2. Stop nerfing cocaine, it's already hard to get kerosene I see no reason why the party thing was added with kerosene.
3. Getting some more EU staff would be also great, when staff are offline there is just a lot of cheating alts that get on and mass rdm. This usually happens at morning hours for EU player.
4. Most important thing is to listen what the community wants I think there should be at least like 1 community meeting every 2 months discussing what plans they have for the server, what they planning to release and ask players what they think about it. Because at the end of the day it's us who are playing and enjoying the game.

What I have stated above is not "Shitting on devs" or anything like that, it's just my thoughts that I wanted to share to see if people have the same opinion or not.

I really hope this discussion doesn't get locked for turning into a shit post.

I like the idea of a rotating map a lot, would be cool if you would keep your items or maybe have different items for each map
I don't think coke needs more nerfs either, I don't get the group thing as it just encourages zerg groups
Community meetings sound really nice too, yeah.
I think a big problem is the amount of cheaters that play, exactly. A bunch of ming-ey dupers get banned and half the pop dies, because those people were playing for like 5 years each and all got bored of the game so they decide to cheat

 

[Jamal Hisin]

Yea im sorry, however the player pop isn't ever gonna come back to what it was. The upper administration/cms have already made it clear that a main objective of theirs is to remove fragrp, which was very sucessful as well.

No one bases, and this is directly caused by low player pop. As criminalrp dies along with server pop, many criminal rprs are very desperate to find a raid, mug, pretty much anything involving a gunfight. This means that many players who base are close to immediately raided, losing all their stuff which can amount to a pretty hefty cost. Only the best players or the biggest zergs can base at this point, and with the lower server pop there are no newer orgs or players stepping up to replace the players at the top currently, so you pretty much have one big ass zerg with everyone knowing and being friendly with each other.

Removing l1 bank raids was another part of removing fragrp as it was one of the funnest activites to run as a criminal, and l2 is pretty much impossible with there being only one exit in the bank, and how overpowered cops are to criminals. Jewerly is somewhat of an exception, however it is still a lot more difficult then old l1 bank raids. Cargo is pretty overpowered for the players at this point, however aren't done as much as prep is pretty annoying.

The addition and nerf of power plant is absolutely terrible for people who want to make cocaine, as no one really bothers anymore since its a pain in the ass to get the stove, leaves and kerosene just to get raided most of the time.

Simply, revert L1 bank raids, un-nerf power plant, and make lsd items cheaper (such as fridge) and you'll have a higher server pop, but with that more fragrp.

 

[MrTaxi]

Simply, revert L1 bank raids, un-nerf power plant, and make lsd items cheaper (such as fridge) and you'll have a higher server pop, but with that more fragrp.

Definitely agree. I used to be against drag rp but Im more into it now

 

[heater]

- Definitely needs a map change or more added content
- Revert back to how things were with making coke due to the fact that it's already hard and expensive as it is, I've had coke product sitting in my locker for over many months I decided to try it out in the most secluded place and instantly got it taken from a group of more than 3 people that listened for the sound or saw my trash cans.
- Definitely needs some leniency on veteran players of the community without the exceptions of hackers of course but for things like simple rules that your average new joe would get punished for 3 days to a week even for exploiters and people who mass I've seen they regret what they do after a few days and after months they hate themselves for doing it.
I see people getting banned left and right for long amounts of time they just lose interest in the server.
- People should feel rewarded for when they've grinded out and saved up a large amount of money for a car for them to buy it and it being a shitbox, everything in monolith is the same in the sense that the only objective in monolith which is sad to say as of right now is to become rich and have a ton of guns..
- When I was on radio with my friends and were discussing how I wanted to do a bank robbery for l1 bank they stated that I needed a keycard for robbing l1 bank now and that its difficult to obtain I just said to myself they just killed the purpose of L1 bank robbery granted the payout is nicer but no one is going to do it unless there is less risk. no one irl goes to rob a bank with a pistol and says "oh shit i need a keycard" no they tell the bank tellers to "put they hands up and open that bitch or else they gon' get clapped."

I love the server to death and will always support it. (even if I get permanently banned which I hope never happens because I don't believe I'd ever jeopardize that)
but there's other ways of resolving issues instead of punishing the player base on making things harder and more boring it's GMOD a game we're supposed to enjoy and have laughable moments on not log on and feel as if everything is a chore to do. That's why I've been recently RP'ing as a detective.

 

[femboy]

Yea im sorry, however the player pop isn't ever gonna come back to what it was. The upper administration/cms have already made it clear that a main objective of theirs is to remove fragrp, which was very sucessful as well.

No one bases, and this is directly caused by low player pop. As criminalrp dies along with server pop, many criminal rprs are very desperate to find a raid, mug, pretty much anything involving a gunfight. This means that many players who base are close to immediately raided, losing all their stuff which can amount to a pretty hefty cost. Only the best players or the biggest zergs can base at this point, and with the lower server pop there are no newer orgs or players stepping up to replace the players at the top currently, so you pretty much have one big ass zerg with everyone knowing and being friendly with each other.

Removing l1 bank raids was another part of removing fragrp as it was one of the funnest activites to run as a criminal, and l2 is pretty much impossible with there being only one exit in the bank, and how overpowered cops are to criminals. Jewerly is somewhat of an exception, however it is still a lot more difficult then old l1 bank raids. Cargo is pretty overpowered for the players at this point, however aren't done as much as prep is pretty annoying.

The addition and nerf of power plant is absolutely terrible for people who want to make cocaine, as no one really bothers anymore since its a pain in the ass to get the stove, leaves and kerosene just to get raided most of the time.

Simply, revert L1 bank raids, un-nerf power plant, and make lsd items cheaper (such as fridge) and you'll have a higher server pop, but with that more fragrp.

L2 isn't impossible in my opinion, i did it earlier with a group pretty easily.
I like how l1 is, It's meant to be hard that's what makes for cooler rp imo, let people get hostages and make trades with the cops, and stuff.
I don't like how the power plant works either, I think cheaper LSD is a cool idea too

 

[Jamal Hisin]

L2 isn't impossible in my opinion, i did it earlier with a group pretty easily.
I like how l1 is, It's meant to be hard that's what makes for cooler rp imo, let people get hostages and make trades with the cops, and stuff.
I don't like how the power plant works either, I think cheaper LSD is a cool idea too

each time i do l2, 10 more cops get on and just watch doors. when you have at the least 12 cops watching one exit, youre not getting out of it lol. most cops ive gone against is 23 with a group of 4

 

[femboy]

each time i do l2, 10 more cops get on and just watch doors. when you have at the least 12 cops watching one exit, youre not getting out of it lol. most cops ive gone against is 23 with a group of 4

dunno why youd press in l2

 

[MrTaxi]

but there's other ways of resolving issues instead of punishing the player base on making things harder and more boring it's GMOD

YES I feel the issue is that the server is so focused on bans and punishments, you can’t do anything fun without it being “failrp”

 

[Horse]

Hello my friend, I agree with this post of grievances that you have made.

The recent dupe exploits that were abused by low and high level players alike can also be attributed to the community reduction. Organizations like Cancer Patients and WavyNavy were slaughtered like pigs and many of their members that weren't punished haven't returned since. But yes, I agree my friend, many high level players despite being of different organizations are friendly with one another and only target the low level players.

Cargo ship rewards are also very bad for the amount of effort it takes just to get to that point. 5 hours to collect diamonds, gather resources for the drills, and round up the raid party only to get a few medkits and some steel bars is very disappointing.

I would like to see map rotations that last for 3 months at a time with exceptions made for seasonal theming such as Halloween and Christmas.
The maps they mentioned in the dev discussion were Florida v2 and Riverden which look like promising maps. Perhaps SouthSide could be the fourth map.

If they do not go with map rotations, the least they could do is reduce the size of layer 2. But, that has been spoken of for nearly a year and nothing has been mentioned yet.

I do not like the grind that one must endure to prosper on the server, especially when manufacturing weapons. The least they could do is make crushing time 5 seconds per chunk instead of 10 seconds. At least so that it is consistent with the furnace which also takes 5 seconds per item. They could also increase the amount of chunks you can get per node to 16 rather than 12.

Overall my friend, many changes must be made, yes yes.

 

[Deleted member 874]

Hello my friend, I agree with this post of grievances that you have made.

The recent dupe exploits that were abused by low and high level players alike can also be attributed to the community reduction. Organizations like Cancer Patients and WavyNavy were slaughtered like pigs and many of their members that weren't punished haven't returned since. But yes, I agree my friend, many high level players despite being of different organizations are friendly with one another and only target the low level players.

Cargo ship rewards are also very bad for the the amount of effort it takes just to get to that point. 5 hours to collect diamonds, gather resources for the drills, and round up the raid party only to get a few medkits and some steel bars is very disappointing.

I would like to see map rotations that last for 3 months at a time with exceptions made for seasonal theming such as Halloween and Christmas.
The maps they mentioned in the dev discussion were Florida v2 and Riverden which look like promising maps. Perhaps SouthSide could be the forth map.

If they do not go with map rotations, the least they could do is reduce the size of layer 2. But, that has been spoken of for nearly a year and nothing has been mentioned yet.

I do not like the grind that one must endure to prosper on the server, especially when manufacturing weapons. The least they could do is make crushing time 5 seconds per chunk instead of 10 seconds. At least so that it is consistent with the furnace which also takes 5 seconds per item. They could also increase amount of chunks you can get per node to 16 rather than 12.

Overall my friend, many changes must be made, yes yes.

I appreciate a reply like this and I will answer some of these concerns.

For example the cargo ship rewards are completely being changed, I think the system is close to being great but its not rewarding enough for those who spend all that effort to actually do it. To that end, we are changing it so that players will feel rewarded for spending all that effort and doing a cargo ship raid. You will no longer be getting med kits and steel bars exclusively.

Map rotations is something we are considering but talking about internally, and we have more information to share on this soon. More specifically we are moving to Southside very soon and will be on that map for quite some time for an upcoming event. We will talk about more map changes during the event and what we plan to do for the future.

 

[AnslyBuddha]

Because of Monoford's size, when the player count is low it feels like a ghost town. I would like to see Paralake again or another map that's not as big

 

[Delta.]

I haven’t played in such a long time but this has given me insight into what is happening, this happens every 3-4 months when i use to play around a year ago. People’s friends would get banned and a chunk of people would quit and never be seen again.

FragRP i feel keeps the server alive since it gives the only true reward for doing something that isn’t random chance such as bank. You kill a person or raid and u get guns and drugs to sell and make a profit. It’s more than just hey shooty shooty killy killy. And with drugs being nerfed and banks being nerfed im hearing at the moment i see people only are going to look toward frag rp more since it’s a pain to do anything else.


It’s been happening for so long people against FragRP but when u grind drugs for months and no one roleplays what else will you do ? Killing and shooting people gives that rush and sense of gain. Also it’s pretty fun going against a crew you have beef with and winning. As someone said above it shouldn’t feel like a chore to play it’s suppose to be a game. Monolith has always felt like a job to play and frag rp or “raiding” and killing people was always there as the stress reliever to get away from the grind 24/7.

Monoford in its wake was liked but the community always asked for paralake back for a change of scenery and no one ever listened, i’ve always had a place for this server in my heart( yea ik cheesy) but changes have to be done now or this sever won’t prosper any longer. FragRP will honestly never leave unless guns are just outright taken from the server. I say although it’s a roleplay server you’ve got to let it live. Really many of the player base loved the server and stayed to grind when it was easy to make drugs but when grinding got harder everyone left.

Ps. Sorry for the long response it’s just something i’ve held in long for a post like this although i haven’t played in ages.

 

[Deleted member 12627]

Honestly every “server player count low” thread is the same thing over and over again. I would be wasting my time if I said how many times things “could change for the better” but sadly the fact of the matter is they will never get better unless some more open minded thinking happens.

 

[hawke]

Monolith sucks / dying thread #349484

Its way too late in the game to fix the real issue with Monolith. And that is, beyond cop and fragRP, there really isn't any city roleplay.

There's no running corner stores, delivering pizzas, solving court cases, performing extensive medical surgeries, running serious political campaigns, hosting news stations, buying stocks, developing storylines that go beyond surface-level interactions and making big impacts on the city for weeks to come. I'm not talking about isolated cases because there have been attempts usually unsupported by the gamemode to undergo these things, but they're not encouraged nor an integral part of gameplay by any means. What we have instead is a strange dystopian world where all the civilians are criminals who use 19th century technology to excavate raw metal in order to make illegal military grade assault weapons that they store inside the same place they rob on a daily basis.

Meanwhile you have the occasional clueless soul who becomes one of the few non-cop jobs that earns him petty cash and makes him want to quit all together until he realizes the only way to progress and enjoy this dystopian world is to pick up said 19th century tool and start picking away until he too has his own arsenal of weapons to rob the same place he stores all his precious belongings as well.

By the end of it all, the gamemode is in an endless loop of weapon/drug grind > rob/raid > buy car/cosmetic with virtually nothing in between besides death, taxes, cops and a boat load of admin sits. There's a lot of hard work that went into this gamemode and its 1000% better than 99.9% of the shit on Garry's Mod, but its been too late for a long time to fix its underlying structural flaws and the player base since mid-2017 onward would never allow such radical changes to come to fruition regardless if we tried. Instead, ya got what ya got.

No amount of "revert L1 bank raids, un-nerf power plant, and make lsd items cheaper" is gonna fix the need for constant updates and appease a good portion of the player base to stick around for years and years without losing interest or getting themselves banned.

All we can hope for now is a tasty Mono s&box sequel.

 

[Bobby Hive]

Monolith has been an experience I’ll never forget to be completely honest. From when I joined back in mid 2017, the server was just amazing for what it was back at the time and it was totally different from all those other rp servers and it felt amazing to hop on and grind or “fragrp”. But we all know that’s not the case anymore unfortunately. I’ve seen countless people (many of my own friends) come and go and it sucks to say the least, but that’s how it’s always been. People will play for a long amount of time, start to become bored and restless when they achieve everything they’ve wanted, and either intentionally get themselves banned or quit entirely. I still remember when monoford was being teased and so many people we’re hyped because it was going to be a map that no one had ever experienced before and it was definitely worth the wait IMO, but just like with Rockford, paralake, and true north, it became stale, and not enjoyable to a good percent of the player base. I’m really hoping with south side being added back in, the player count will rise for the time being and it can start to feel like it was all those years ago, but I’m probably getting my hopes up and maybe it won’t do much to improve the player count. Only time can tell with when it’s being dropped, and with what I’ve seen in the trello recently, I’m hoping some of those additions are going to be very beneficial to the player count but who knows, just gotta cross my fingers and hope.

 

[MrTaxi]

Monolith sucks / dying thread #349484

Its way too late in the game to fix the real issue with Monolith. And that is, beyond cop and fragRP, there really isn't any city roleplay.

There's no running corner stores, delivering pizzas, solving court cases, performing extensive medical surgeries, running serious political campaigns, hosting news stations, buying stocks, developing storylines that go beyond surface-level interactions and making big impacts on the city for weeks to come. I'm not talking about isolated cases because there have been attempts usually unsupported by the gamemode to undergo these things, but they're not encouraged nor an integral part of gameplay by any means. What we have instead is a strange dystopian world where all the civilians are criminals who use 19th century technology to excavate raw metal in order to make illegal military grade assault weapons that they store inside the same place they rob on a daily basis.

Meanwhile you have the occasional clueless soul who becomes one of the few non-cop jobs that earns him petty cash and makes him want to quit all together until he realizes the only way to progress and enjoy this dystopian world is to pick up said 19th century tool and start picking away until he too has his own arsenal of weapons to rob the same place he stores all his precious belongings as well.

By the end of it all, the gamemode is in an endless loop of weapon/drug grind > rob/raid > buy car/cosmetic with virtually nothing in between besides death, taxes, cops and a boat load of admin sits. There's a lot of hard work that went into this gamemode and its 1000% better than 99.9% of the shit on Garry's Mod, but its been too late for a long time to fix its underlying structural flaws and the player base since mid-2017 onward would never allow such radical changes to come to fruition regardless if we tried. Instead, ya got what ya got.

No amount of "revert L1 bank raids, un-nerf power plant, and make lsd items cheaper" is gonna fix the need for constant updates and appease a good portion of the player base to stick around for years and years without losing interest or getting themselves banned.

All we can hope for now is a tasty Mono s&box sequel.

I agree, passive rp needs to make a comeback. I don’t have anyone against frag rp but there needs to be a balance, and currently, frag rp just gets you the same things you’re using: guns

its a pointless cycle

 

[DK.]

Monolith sucks / dying thread #349484

Its way too late in the game to fix the real issue with Monolith. And that is, beyond cop and fragRP, there really isn't any city roleplay.

There's no running corner stores, delivering pizzas, solving court cases, performing extensive medical surgeries, running serious political campaigns, hosting news stations, buying stocks, developing storylines that go beyond surface-level interactions and making big impacts on the city for weeks to come. I'm not talking about isolated cases because there have been attempts usually unsupported by the gamemode to undergo these things, but they're not encouraged nor an integral part of gameplay by any means. What we have instead is a strange dystopian world where all the civilians are criminals who use 19th century technology to excavate raw metal in order to make illegal military grade assault weapons that they store inside the same place they rob on a daily basis.

Meanwhile you have the occasional clueless soul who becomes one of the few non-cop jobs that earns him petty cash and makes him want to quit all together until he realizes the only way to progress and enjoy this dystopian world is to pick up said 19th century tool and start picking away until he too has his own arsenal of weapons to rob the same place he stores all his precious belongings as well.

By the end of it all, the gamemode is in an endless loop of weapon/drug grind > rob/raid > buy car/cosmetic with virtually nothing in between besides death, taxes, cops and a boat load of admin sits. There's a lot of hard work that went into this gamemode and its 1000% better than 99.9% of the shit on Garry's Mod, but its been too late for a long time to fix its underlying structural flaws and the player base since mid-2017 onward would never allow such radical changes to come to fruition regardless if we tried. Instead, ya got what ya got.

No amount of "revert L1 bank raids, un-nerf power plant, and make lsd items cheaper" is gonna fix the need for constant updates and appease a good portion of the player base to stick around for years and years without losing interest or getting themselves banned.

All we can hope for now is a tasty Mono s&box sequel.

That first paragraph is what I wanted and still want with monolith, but anyone well known on monolith who still plays actively only wants to kill and shoot their guns. Anytime anyone PassiveRP's in my experience always gets minged on. Such as unplugging the oven, taking pots off the oven and running away. Pulling out a gun outside the store in front of a cop then running inside the store.

As a person who plays in serious whitelisted FiveM communitys, I see people do far better RP with much less mechanics and props. GMOD and specifically Monolith have so many great tools and mechanics that the RP on here could be honestly endless. FragRP doesn't need to be complete taken out, but the criminal mentality needs to change, just because you have the option to kill someone doesn't mean you should. The rule "Attacking to kill should be carried out sensibly and not as a first resort, unless you have a good reason for immediate lethal action." needs to be brought up more in sits. I think a staff member who uses the rule perfectly is @Thanewolfe .

 

[Jordan Vercetti]

I feel like everyone tries avoiding the fact that shitty staff members are more then half the reason the servers currently low pop. Last week I saw around 7 people OOC blacklisted by a staff member for simply typing in OOC. After blacklisting everyone he then got off the server. Staff reports don't do anything but result in targeting or bias from the staff you report. At the end of the day staff members should be there to make sure you have a BETTER experience in the server or community as a whole. I bet 90% of the people who play on monolith can give a time where they had a staff member fuck up roleplay or their gameplay because they felt like it. On the other hand there's a few staff members who actually make the game enjoyable and they're p much the only reason I have any faith in the staff team. If you want to see the server with more then 60 members consistently then the staff team needs to be fixed so people can feel like they can enjoy the server again.