Move Coke Pro

[LarrytheLobster]

I think that we can all appreciate that cocaine has really been nerfed by the changes to it's price, and I would argue that even prior to that nerf, coke was a really tough drug to successfully run in big amounts. This has occured for mostly three reasons: Proximity to Athira rebel and Athira HQ, frequency of police raids on both the field and the processor, and finally the fact that it's on the way to rebel, meaning that huge amounts of traffic pass through it often. As such, coke runners are now few and far in between something that I believe kills a lot of enjoyable gameplay. Without coke as a viable drug to run, heroin and weed are the only remaining two-step drugs. Heroin is fine as is, but will likely soon see a much greater amount of robbery and disruption as people move away from coke (since the new patch dropped the prices to similar levels). Weed is also fine, although it pays very poorly, and forces players to cross through or around Kavala, something that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. As such, I would recommend moving cocaine processing to just north of Ifestonia. Below I will go through three reasons why this is a better location.

 

Close enough to both a major city (Athira) and minor city (Ifestonia) without being on-route to other locations

This location means that robbing the cocaine processor would be a deliberate and intentional decision, rather than a crime of oppurtunity as it currently is, where someone coming from Athira goes to rebel, kits up, and notices a car at the processor on the way back (or on the way there). In addition, the proximity to Ifestonia would mean people could still buy houses near the processor, and since it is relatively close to Athira as well, it's still patrollable by cops. More importantly, it would decrease the frequency of cops simply going directly from Athira and having to only drive 30 seconds in order to be at the processor. 

Direct route around Athira from Coke Field

Note now that the goal of this move would be to buff cocaine as a drug, so as to incentivize more people to run it. As such, forcing players to get back on the MSR and head through Gravia/Athira as the most direct route also increases the frequency of them getting robbed, again detering players from running coke. I understand that players can simply offroad, but not only does this decrease the speed of the already tortoise-like tempest/hemmit. but also amounts to probable cause for searches AND attracts attention from anyone watching as it's clear evasion. Thus, allowing players to use the small road that runs through Koroni and then up through Ifestonia bypasses both Athira and the MSR , but also the clusterfuck that is Gravia/Air HQ/Federal Reserve. 

Disguisability of Tempests and other large vehicles due to the proximity of Phosphorus

At the moment, if someone sees a tempest head anywhere near North Athira, they instantly know they are headed to Coke pro, and the robbery begins. Furthermore, cops take notice as well, meaning that any attempt at avoiding attention is ruined. Instead, if there can at least exist the reasonable doubt that players are instead headed to Phosphorus, they are given the plausible deniability with cops, and players might not find it worth thier while to ambush a vehicle on the way to phosphorus, since there would be nothing inside. I understand that this argument is somewhat underwritten by the fact that some players rob large vehicles simply because they are intrinsically valuable, and also because other players rob anything that moves because they are toxic (or bored tbh).

 

TLDR: Move Coke Pro to north of Ifestonia because it will result in the comeback of cocaine as a viable drug to run, and thus hopefully revitalize a little bit of the gameplay that doesn't revolve around the merry-go-round of Federal Events.

Edited May 29, 2020 by cleague

[Hoodlum Priest]

I like the idea of moving it. I would give people a bit more remote location......like Syrta.

This gives a safer location for solo player to run coke, which I think is important. It gives solo and newer players a way to make real money. Putting it in Syrta puts them equidistant to Athira or Kavala drug dealer for selling and Syrta is a bigger town, more houses to occupy....like Dorida used to be.

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Hoodlum Priest

[LarrytheLobster]

4 minutes ago, Hoodlum Priest said:

I like the idea of moving it. I would give people a bit more remote location......like Syrta.

This gives a safer location for solo player to run coke, which I think is important. It gives solo and newer players a way to make real money. Putting it in Syrta puts them equidistant to Athira or Kavala drug dealer for selling and Syrta is a bigger town, more houses to occupy....like Dorida used to be.

 

True, but then coke pro is once again in a major artery between distillery and kavala, AND Syrta is already clogged with solo players running scotch, meaning the same problem of unintentional traffic. Plus too many houses in the processor and it'll get camped constantly by the homeowners.

[Hoodlum Priest]

Just now, cleague said:

True, but then coke pro is once again in a major artery between distillery and kavala, AND Syrta is already clogged with solo players running scotch, meaning the same problem of unintentional traffic. Plus too many houses in the processor and it'll get camped constantly by the homeowners.

Why not Oreo then? They really need to put something up in that area. Its great terrain to fight in. Its remote but not too hard for cops to get to from Kavala, but not easy enough that no one will run coke. And its about 1/2 the houses of Syrta.

[LarrytheLobster]

Just now, Hoodlum Priest said:

Why not Oreo then? They really need to put something up in that area. Its great terrain to fight in. Its remote but not too hard for cops to get to from Kavala, but not easy enough that no one will run coke. And its about 1/2 the houses of Syrta.

Yeah, that could work too, I suppose the only issue with Oreo is that it's a long way from coke field. 

[Hoodlum Priest]

Just now, cleague said:

Yeah, that could work too, I suppose the only issue with Oreo is that it's a long way from coke field. 

True but I would move coke field too....its been there forever and its way too close to the MSR, passing cops can almost see vehicles from the roadway without even going into the red zone.

[LarrytheLobster]

Just now, Hoodlum Priest said:

True but I would move coke field too....its been there forever and its way too close to the MSR, passing cops can almost see vehicles from the roadway without even going into the red zone.

Yep, but where could that go without moving everything else around too?

[...]

All this effort to make a change that will have little impact on the server as a whole. How about addressing the "merry-go-round of federal events" instead of things that suffer from it?

Here's a TLDR for your thick head: Fix the illness and not just the symptoms

[LarrytheLobster]

Ok @Maric, lets assume you're correct, and the issue is the federal events, not the fact that coke pro is presently far too easy to camp, and is constantly being raided by cops. Let's avoid the fact that people going to and from rebel go through coke pro, thus effectively making it searched every couple of minutes or so. Even if you fix what you're idiotically suggesting is the problem with the game (federal events being overdone), that doesn't stop cocaine as a drug from being inviable. 

 

There are, broadly, two reasons why a drug would be underdone. The first is that there is something else that is too profitable in comparison, and thus players that would otherwise be doing cocaine are now doing whatever that other thing is. This would mean that as argued by @Maric, that players are finding themselves making more money just doing feds on repeat than running cocaine even if it were rebalanced so that they aren't getting robbed or raided constantly. That might be the case for some players, but it's likely that they're the minority, because doing cocaine isn't mutually exclusive to doing federal events, meaning that players should theoretically be able to do both. Even if your argument @Maric is that it's the same player group, let's assume that 24/7 there are feds, prisons, evidence lockers and banks going, that's at max 25 players including cops. That should still leave 95 player slots open to be doing anything else, so it's a little unreasonable to assume that nobody would be doing anything else.

 

The second reason would be as I argued that players are instead thinking that it's impossible to get away with cocaine runs, at least in the volume required to make it worth thier time. This is much more reasonable to imagine, given the player numbers listed above. Also, to that point, it leads to players ratting in cities, trying to do small hatchback runs, or doing other drugs.