MP Whitelist, Council & Overhaul please

[Urytion]

No to MP whitelist. Maybe to CMP whitelist.
No on council. I'm opposed to councils as they currently exist and don't want more of them.
Overhaul is desperately needed. I'd like to see more MPs deployed to the field or at least FOB.

[Disturbedgod]

I am not sure how much my opinion here is worth... But I'm going to throw it into the mix anyway. I have been playing for a decent time now. I usually go by Derrick "Hands" Cunningham. I've been known to play everything from a basic PFC to the XO. (Never tried to get white-listed for anything) In that I am usually more comfortable as a Smartgunner or a Staff officer. Either way, through my experiences, the MP's I have dealt with personally were decent people. I even tried to play an MP for one round, I did not understand it in the slightest, and much like the OP should have never been allowed to play it at the time I did.

-The idea of a white-list does seem a bit unnecessary, but the idea of having a 2 month blacklist or something is a good idea.
-I would love to see MP's ground-side at the FOB, the idea of that is pretty cool (Plus extra security against the Xeno scum)
-I would also love to see the MP's enforcing a stricter code among the PFC's, and NOT JUST the MP's. (If you see a bald marine as an RO or CT... please do not hand him a grenade.)

I suppose in short I support a good majority of the OP's ideas. Minus the white list... And a heavier emphasis on PFC control, so long as it does not transgress into being even more newbie unfriendly than this game ALREADY is.

[Zheak]

A Council for MPs would be unnecessary given how few people actively play MP enough to warrant such a thing, but even then it would be a bit of a waste seeing how you need to learn MP to play MP. There is nothing wrong with being new and shown how to play a role correctly, nor should you be held accountable for fucking up for being new unless you seriously fucked up. (ex: Shooting a Marine with lethals because they hit you or wordlessly arresting an innocent because someone said they did a bad thing.)

If MPs were to be revamped they seriously need MUCH better skills than their currently incarnation has at their disposal; I personally believe buffing the CMP and MP to have a faster running speed even while armored would be a massive benefit to their ability to Serve and Protect the Almayer seeing how encumbersome their armor is and prevents them from getting to where they need to fast enough and in in some cases causing them to lose the offender and having to go on a ship-wide man hunt for someone that may have a higher skill set than them in certain departments. (ex: A survivor that is capable of hacking doors and shocking them or a Engineer that built a bunch of walls to hide himself.) or maybe give the MPs an option for light-weight armored vests as opposed to armor if Devs/Admins are not comfortable increasing MP's skill sets/agility

MPs should have non-lethal ammo available to them at all times and why they do not is beyond me, sometimes you need to use a rubber bullet or two instead of a Taser which can put down a friendly MP that is assisting you in an arrest, which brings up another point... MP Armor gear should be more resilient against gunfire than it currently is, since they have riot gear for melee combatants, why not buff their regular gear against bullets since they tend to be shot at more than they are to be caught up in melee combat?

There could be some nice QoL Changes for MPs, like having preset offenses they can put into the jail cell and adding additional time if required or giving MPs (maybe CIC too) the ability to lockdown a department if something "bad" happened since one exists for Research and Hangar.

[coroneljones]

MPs dont need to become the FOB Guards as a way to "make their gameplay better"

If you join as an MP and want to shoot xenos, then you are playing the wrong role, your job is to enforce marine law, nothing more, nothing less.

[Enigmachine]

MPs dont need to become the FOB Guards as a way to "make their gameplay better"

If you join as an MP and want to shoot xenos, then you are playing the wrong role, your job is to enforce marine law, nothing more, nothing less.

Well, you're one of the most notable MP players if not the most. Do you have any suggestions for the current issues with the department and how it could work better if more expectations to crack down on players are placed?

[Blade2000Br]

Hell no on whitelist and council. Whitelists are for roles that can affect the game in a very menibgful way, not for a role nuch like an RO or Spec.

And a council is worse, only a few people have a very good understanding of ML, so voting-like council is out of equation, as they can't be just anyone.

Moreso, MPs are there to enforce marine law and AT BEST assist other roles if they need some help, but the focus is applying the law on the ship.

[Avalanchee]

assist other roles if they need some help

pffft

[Vispain]

Oh boy. Welp, as someone who considers themselves to be a former MP main... I suppose should chime in on a couple aspects of this discussions.

I absolutely oppose this. MP whitelisting is a bad idea for the role in the sense that even fewer people will play it + due to the nature of the role, the quality of MPs will go even further down. Now let me explain that.

Firstly, very few people play MP. It's one of my issue whenever I am a MP, SO, or CDR.
Either there is no MP or the the MPs are very … subpar.

If MP was whitelisted, it'd be a popularity contest.
MPs are hated roles and, occasionally, players. Even the best and nicest MPs will *eventually* have moments of jaded response after the shit they'll inevitably go through. There's are boredom phases of MP where MPs don't do jackshit (this turns players off the role) and other "shitcurity" phases where MPs realize… they have a job to stop crime and if they look for crime... they can find crime... Personally, I consider the "shitcurity" phase to typically just be the MPs doing their job... marines commonly exaggerate and will actively make the situation worse.

A whitelist would be popularity contest for a role that is enforcing rules and...well... you aren't going to get the best people in that situation. You'll likely get people with the exact opposite in mind in fact.
You'll probably get the following accepted: A couple meme players, a couple joke apps, poor effort applications, some apps accepted by merit of meta-buddies, and a handful of genuine MPs (albeit very lenient ones).

In short, you'll get a mix of memesters, Marine Law soft, meta-friendly MPs combined with a overall low MP group. Pretty shit idea imho.

Welp, that's my two cents in this ramble of a post.

[Enigmachine]

Everyone seems to miss and ignore the fact that the catalyst for my writing the OP was the idea of MP's being demanded to improve the RP by cracking down on PFC's harder. None of the changes I've suggested are needed or matter if that isn't ALSO done. You're all talking about making changes OUTSIDE that context for some reason. Go make your make your own thread talking about MP changes as an isolated issue. I made this thread to talk about MP changes that would be coordinated with the one about role-play issues.

EDIT: Furthermore, I don't why you guys commenting on a whitelist are being so obtuse and unimaginative as to think that it would HAVE to be the same as Pred/CO/Synth. There's no reason for that.

[Madventurer]

Nopenopenope.

I have never played MP, don't intend to, and if there was additional roadblock to that, then round average count for MPs would be between 0 and 0.05

[Enigmachine]

Nopenopenope.

This, to the notion of what you followed it up with having value.

EDIT: If I could recall one single, solitary time that I've seen or heard of a baldfuck MP being anything but a massive detriment, I might be able to understand the "whitelist would mean fewer MP's" objection. But I can't. So I don't.

[Madventurer]

Completely bald MP is just going to fail at everything, not be a detriment.

And the point of my objection is that few people in the first place WANT to play MP, and having it behind another roadblock would further cut down the numbers to unreasonably low amounts.

[coroneljones]

if an MP whitelist was a thing, you could instead make it for an alt-role or two:
-Senior MPs, same number of slots as the current MP ones, same thing as normal MPs but with higher ranks and with it, in theory, more respect.
-A Marine Law Advisor (working title) one slot job, has the last say on marine law while onboard, is ment to work alongside the CMP as an advisor and Adjudicator. Cant do arrests normally I would say.


As for things for MPs to do that keep being bringed up, they dont need to do anything else outside of enforcing marine law, its their one job, and the only thing they need to worry about.

[Archiezt]

These are all reasonable points. The addition of yet a fourth council does sound like something that might not go down, correct, and yet.

So to summarize, if staff is getting ideas of using MP's to handle shit behavior more proactively in the interests of RP, then with the way the MP department is now they need to either forget about it or just play the role themselves. Because as of now that would be to ask non-staff MP's to put themselves into an awful catch 22 of being expected to be more proactive, intolerant and aggressive while also expecting OOC punishments for doing so.

The above quote I find compelling. This is easily a problem. The current mix of poorly defined examples, a lack of MP autonomy, and aggressive oversight creates a role that does not have the means it requires to do the very job that is being expected of it.

The role currently has an unhealthy mixture of 'Hands-off-self-regulation-except-it-isn't-trusted-to-self-regulate-at-all-and-ends-up-being-work-for-staff-anyway'.
It is currently not being what it's supposed to be; a method for players to sort out minor round-inconveniencing behaviour in a way that both stops the need for admin intervention, and creates a little RP by letting marines not always need to do quote 'the right thing'.

The MPs don't have the necessary rule-interpreting power they need to be able to perform their role without the people they're arresting stirring the pot in protest, which right or wrong, also draws the intervention of admins because neither the admins nor the players trust the MPs. It's a mess. The brig needs to have some 'wiggle room' to be able to do the very thing (Curb crazy behaviour) it's meant to do, and does not have that. The solution is either give them that room (probably by vetting the players), or just abandon the pretense and make it a fully staff-administered system.

The role is presently playable, absolutely, and it works in some way. But I have a lot of sympathy for that it's not fun to play whilst under the contempt filled gaze of Big Brother. This is absolutely a reason why so few people play it.

[Snypehunter007]

I'd rather mods and admins move towards a "hands on" approach again, honestly.

[Enigmachine]

I'd rather mods and admins move towards a "hands on" approach again, honestly.

To what, exactly?

[waswar]

I haven't been MP'ing a lot lately. There's just not as much shipside roleplay outside of the medbay to make the role compelling. You get a few occasional gems like the one time Hailey Altman was a survivor, but otherwise, there's just not a lot to do with the role. Medbay has chemistry and arguments about smoking, officers have authority, MT's can break into shit, but if no one is breaking the law, then the MP role is basically do-nothing until the round end.

You don't even need action, per sé, for it to be fun. One of my more favorite MP rounds was when Heinz was negotiating with some well-armed people on the planet, and we were both guarding them and making sure the Marines didn't unga at them and worsen relations. There wasn't any action aside from occasionally harm-batoning the stray runner, but the roleplay was decent and made the role feel a bit more present.

[Snypehunter007]

I haven't been MP'ing a lot lately. There's just not as much shipside roleplay outside of the medbay to make the role compelling. You get a few occasional gems like the one time Hailey Altman was a survivor, but otherwise, there's just not a lot to do with the role. Medbay has chemistry and arguments about smoking, officers have authority, MT's can break into shit, but if no one is breaking the law, then the MP role is basically do-nothing until the round end.

You don't even need action, per sé, for it to be fun. One of my more favorite MP rounds was when Heinz was negotiating with some well-armed people on the planet, and we were both guarding them and making sure the Marines didn't unga at them and worsen relations. There wasn't any action aside from occasionally harm-batoning the stray runner, but the roleplay was decent and made the role feel a bit more present.

Sounds like a Freedom/Corpse Guard event, though, I could be wrong.

[solidfury7]

I wonder if giving MPs the ability to work as other roles would be an interesting idea to explore.

Give the MPs the ability to have one of the MPs in each department.

One MP with Overwatch access to help command

One MP with medical expertise (surgery for brig prisoners)

One MP with engineering abilities

One MP with cargo access.

Or let them choose which ones when they spawn in. (with hard slot limits so we don't have 2 or more surgical MPs)

Their primary role would be that to secure the ship but if theyre not required, they could help other chosen departments.

[Maxim Inc]

I usually play CMP when I'm bored with standard marine gameplay and prefer to take a more mellow view with people, I don't accept that "arrested for throwing eggs and given 10+min brig sentence" stuff. I would enjoy a MP revamp but not one with MP's manning FOB, cause the reason I play CMP is to escape stuff like that.

[waswar]

One MP with Overwatch access to help command

This I really like in general, some more Command support roles without having the onus of the mission fall entirely on yourself, and without adding another role to see it done.

[KennyTGuy]

I usually play CMP when I'm bored with standard marine gameplay and prefer to take a more mellow view with people, I don't accept that "arrested for throwing eggs and given 10+min brig sentence" stuff. I would enjoy a MP revamp but not one with MP's manning FOB, cause the reason I play CMP is to escape stuff like that.

I imagine as a CMP you could just delegate the task to an MP and stay on the ship.

[Del_tac0]

I think an application based whitelist is not needed for MP, since the role basically amounts to keeping Req line and briefing civil, processing the occasional survivor, watching the CL for crimes against humanity, keeping medbay from getting high, and responding to whatever marine shenanigans the overwatch officers call out.

Maybe any accounts under 1-2 months old should be blacklisted from it, as a cleaner solution.

There wouldn't be a way to do that without an API.

[Del_tac0]

Also I feel MP and CMP should be able to call command ship or elevate the emergency level on the ship if they get white listed.

[Enigmachine]

We are already able to elevate the alert level with our ID's. As for calling a command ship I'm not sure what you're referring to there.

@ Solid That idea's imaginative but I don't care for it much or think it has a chance of flying. Making the MP department an everyman thing would detract from the other departments and I think make it straight OP on lowpop.

CJ's ideas sound good to me. People could still try the role without needing the listing. The 'Advisor' just sounds like a Provost Marshall, though. Not that I've yet to see one shipside, though.

@Waswar I'm not sure what to tell you if your MP RP is sucky but what makes it interesting for me is that I'm always talking to someone or looking to provided that I'm not locked in a task. Some people will banter with you, others will tell you about themselves or their day. Some people are just LRP shitheads who flatly don't comprehend anything outside their min-maxing activities. But talking to people who do actually bother to type back in-character are worth the trouble because later if they're involved in a case, then that person knows you already. So if you try being socially proactive you might have better RP while making your MP duties smoother too.