I don't want to sound like I am complaining but I personally find that the bunch of units joining in a pursuit right at the start takes away all the fun. Most suspects don't even get the chance to go far and pursuits quickly come to an end. Heck as a player you don't even have to do anything, I went into a Maverick out of curiosity and was watching things unfold: you don't even need to play, you get a callout, you accept it and then you just watch over a dozen of officers taking care of the situation in less than 1 minute.

That's a thing, as a player, that we should be able to control. So I really hope that it is something that will be looked at and tweaked. Starting a callout with one unit already in pursuit is fine, then let us decide if we want backup but please don't let the game play for us

Edited January 17, 201610 yr by DLM3

There may be something in the backup.xml. It's located in your Grand Theft Auto V/LSPDFR folder. Right click on it, and open it with notepad. If there's nothing in relation to that inside, I don't know if there's any other way to tone down the backup that spawns at a callout. 

The XML file doesn't let you set up that kind of thing. You can specify the number of officer occupying a vehicle but you have no say about the amount of units joining at the start.

I think it comes from the fact that roaming officers now automatically join in a pursuit. While I was in my Maverick during an armed suspect pursuit, I was on scene in less than 10 seconds, they already had the suspect's vehicle boxed and a bunch of units on foot --including LSPD forces, highway bikers and FIB-- were about to apprehend the suspect... It took less than 30 seconds and I haven't done anything to help. And that's how the majority of callouts ended.

Edited January 17, 201610 yr by DLM3

35 minutes ago, DLM3 said:

The XML file doesn't let you set up that kind of thing. You can specify the number of officer occupying a vehicle but you have no say about the amount of units joining at the start.

I think it comes from the fact that roaming officers now automatically join in a pursuit. While I was in my Maverick during an armed suspect pursuit, I was on scene in less than 10 seconds, they already had the suspect's vehicle boxed and a bunch of units on foot --including LSPD forces, highway bikers and FIB-- were about to apprehend the suspect... It took less than 30 seconds and I haven't done anything to help. And that's how the majority of callouts ended.

I'll ask if it'd be possible to have this option, since I imagine it can be pretty annoying for some people that don't want a lot of NPC cruisers. 

Edited January 17, 201610 yr by Original Light

nothing wrong with backup keep the way it is sam and crew

 

1 hour ago, DLM3 said:

You just watch over a dozen of officers taking care of the situation in less than 1 minute.

That's a thing, as a player, that we should be able to control. So I really hope that it is something that will be looked at and tweaked. Starting a callout with one unit already in pursuit is fine, then let us decide if we want backup but please don't let the game play for us

We're walking a fine line with this topic. The truth is that in the real world, you're not the only cop on the planet, and you're not always in charge. You will also be joining in progress pursuits, some that have only one car, some that have a whole fleet and two choppers. That's the reality of police work in California, along with many other states. In my months of playing, this has not been a common problem.

I would give the game more than a few hours of play time before we start writing in new suggestions, guys.

While I can't speak for the development team, I'm sure they appreciate good feedback, and being able to customize the game is something G17 takes seriously. The way backup works has changed from version .2b, and you can expect it to change further as LSPDFR continues to go through more revisions. Please give the developers some time, and take some time on your own to play the mod before hurling a big to-do list at them.

I had just joined a pursuit where there were multiple cars, bikes and heli's chasing 4 perps in a fast car all over the map. 

Heaps of fun, and we finally boxed him in just outside the tunnel at Fort Zancudo, by landing a heli at one end of the tunnel - no escape. The pursuit started back in the city just as I drove out of the downtown station.

 

5 hours ago, unr3al said:

We're walking a fine line with this topic. The truth is that in the real world, you're not the only cop on the planet, and you're not always in charge. You will also be joining in progress pursuits, some that have only one car, some that have a whole fleet and two choppers. That's the reality of police work in California, along with many other states. In my months of playing, this has not been a common problem.

The issue is that this is also a game. And it should be up to the player to choose how they want to play instead of being forced to see other units doing all the work for them. My experience may be limited, one night compared to your months of testing, but I have had quite a few callouts now (playing Vanilla and forcing them) and I have seen you guys streaming last night, easily 2/3 of the pursuits can be resolved by the other units alone without your intervention. That's where you are crossing the fine line as a game designer (yes you're doing game design!), while it looks cool the first few times you can't have the game play for the player. Imagine if I launch Dragon Age or Mass Effect and my party deals with the enemies while I sit back and watch... You are the player, you're still at the center of the action, this is not RL.

The thing is —and I am certainly not alone— that I want to keep my interactions with the AI including police forces at a minimum because the AI is stupid. I am not blaming you and it's even not that the AI itself is dumb but we are (ab)using it in a way it was not intended to so obviously it doesn't behave the best way.

So I know I sound like complaining but a few months ago when we were told that we would be able to customize our backup I didn't have their outfit in mind (that's a cool addition, don't get me wrong but that doesn't help on the field which badge my units show up  ) and yes please add this option to the XML file. For instance I was also expecting to be able to say for certain that a bike unit would show up if I wanted my backup to be a bike. I know that I can remove police4 from the State vehicles in the XML (that's what I did) but that also means that I will never see a State police car... That's the kind of full customization of backups that I was expecting.

Edited January 17, 201610 yr by DLM3

In the hour or so I've had time to play so far, this was only really an issue with the default callouts. With third party callouts or traffic stop-initiated pursuits it was fine (unless of course you're right near a police station, which adds a wonderful new layer of immersion IMO).

36 minutes ago, Darkmyre said:

 (unless of course you're right near a police station, which adds a wonderful new layer of immersion IMO).

And this is probably the biggest improvement in 0.3 in my opinion. You guys have done a great job with that, there was nothing more enraging than being engaged on a pursuit on the freeway, waiting for backup to catch up while units on the side didn't give a damn. But there had to be a middle ground between no backup and 5 cars + 1 air unit showing up at once on top of the suspect...

Edited January 17, 201610 yr by DLM3

Well you could try not calling additional backup. As far as I can tell its back to the LCPDFR system where units around you will also join in on the pursuit. Its not a case of the callout adding additional units to the call, so much as units that are already in the area jumping in.

I personally haven't had anything overwhelming as of yet, well ... unless I spammed the backup button ...

21 minutes ago, AshHill07 said:

Well you could try not calling additional backup.

This is without calling any backup. Armed suspect pursuit? 4 cars already spawn right almost upon the suspect...

13 minutes ago, DLM3 said:

This is without calling any backup. Armed suspect pursuit? 4 cars already spawn right almost upon the suspect...

I dunno then I'm not having that issue at all, even with my usual habit in calling in 2 additionals I'm still rarely at more than 4 cars by the end, often without a helicopter either.

I agree. I like the auto backup very much but, it does seem a bit excessive I am almost battling for lead position lol.

I am with @DLM3 on this. If you take a default LSPDFR pursuit call, the moment you accept it, 2-3 helicopters and anywhere from 4-7ish car units are all over the suspects. Basically you just drive to the red dot and if anyone is still alive, they'll be fleeing on foot from the army of police after them and you clean it up.

Edited January 17, 201610 yr by Kilyin

Well then that's the challenge drive faster and eventually you'll catch up instead of driving miss daisy to a pursuit. That's the fun in it going fast since it's a game and challenge of not wrecking or causing havoc worse then what already is in gta. I think it's fine as is. Plus in future call outs where there is more heavy armed suspects this will be a moot issue I believe as not all those will be around that spawn such as heavy armed terrorist callouts. Being a game it is what it is I think. One can always revert to previous if they want bare world. Just my thought.

51 minutes ago, code3response1010 said:

I agree. I like the auto backup very much but, it does seem a bit excessive I am almost battling for lead position lol.

Being a game and gta it's a doggy dog world. If I got to pit a couple units out of the way I will. Makes for fun. Lspd style everyman for himself wanting a captains award.

1 hour ago, DLM3 said:

This is without calling any backup. Armed suspect pursuit? 4 cars already spawn right almost upon the suspect...

Is it possible your just in a area by chance where allot of ai units happen to circle endlessly? I've noticed certain parts of LS that seem to naturally have saturated patrol ai.  I know out in boonies it's different in allot areas and takes bit for them to catch up. This was in previous versions also of gta itself.

Edited January 17, 201610 yr by Azteco

2 hours ago, Azteco said:

Well then that's the challenge drive faster and eventually you'll catch up instead of driving miss daisy to a pursuit.

 

No. Just no. I'm sorry but you maybe missed the part where I said that I was watching how things were unfolding from a Police Maverick. That means that I was on scene almost immediately. When you are on scene in 10 seconds and things are about to be resolved there is a problem.

I haven't noticed anything acting like this everytime I'm sure there ewill be times a few call outs in row or pursuits will have fast reaction specially if one takes a call or pursuit immediately after ending another in same vicinity all the ai just cleared from. If it happens endlessly idk I haven't had that issue.

19 hours ago, DLM3 said:

The issue is that this is also a game. And it should be up to the player to choose how they want to play instead of being forced to see other units doing all the work for them. My experience may be limited, one night compared to your months of testing, but I have had quite a few callouts now (playing Vanilla and forcing them) and I have seen you guys streaming last night, easily 2/3 of the pursuits can be resolved by the other units alone without your intervention. That's where you are crossing the fine line as a game designer (yes you're doing game design!), while it looks cool the first few times you can't have the game play for the player. Imagine if I launch Dragon Age or Mass Effect and my party deals with the enemies while I sit back and watch... You are the player, you're still at the center of the action, this is not RL.

Let me first start off by saying that I agree that since measures in LCPDFR were taken to adjust how many units can be involved in a chase, this will likely be a feature that returns in LSPDFR. That being said;

That's like suggesting that Dragon Age or Mass Effect should be designed the way you want and nobody else's way. Pardon the old adage, but the world (including game design) does not revolve around you. G17 has their own vision of what LSPDFR is supposed to be, and while it is certainly molded by the players, suggesting that your way is the only way is rather brash, in my opinion. While LSPDFR is not intended to be a simulator (since there are no reports to fill out, or morning briefings to attend, as a couple of examples), it is intended to be more than a mod that changes your character model and vehicle. Sam and LMS can tell you better than anybody what the mod is "supposed to be", but it's been described in the past as a mod that puts you in the position of a police officer working the streets of Los Santos, which is unarguably a replication of Los Angeles, California and the surrounding area. You are a patrolman, you're not the chief of police, sitting behind a desk filling out reports or a neatly dressed female officer controlling radio dispatch. As such, you are not in charge of every little thing.

We're well aware that video games are not real life. But this mod is intended to have touches of authenticity in it. And an authentic experience with police backup is that it may be available in large abundance in the world's police chase capital, the state of California. Other times it may not be, if other units are tied up on more important calls and all news choppers are on other pursuits. But that scenario rarely exists. An average police pursuit lasts about 3 minutes on average, largely due to driver error resulting in a crash, or the suspect bailing out of the vehicle or giving up. Pursuits that last longer than that are understandably going to attract a lot more attention.

This chase happened three weeks ago:
 

This one happened a few months ago:
 

And I shouldn't have to remind you about the San Bernardino shootings that happened recently:
 

See the pattern? You're going to have the area completely canvased in police vehicles and sometimes multiple helicopters (LAPD and news choppers) within a matter of minutes if the call is deemed serious. And as soon as a suspect comes to a slow down or stop, the police are immediately all over the fleeing suspects. It is noteworthy that the police in California keep their distance from the car during most chases due to their non-aggressive pursuit policy, but because Rockstar coded the police AI to be aggressive against the player, there most likely isn't a whole lot that can be done about them aggressively chasing enemy AI as well.

 

19 hours ago, DLM3 said:

The thing is —and I am certainly not alone— that I want to keep my interactions with the AI including police forces at a minimum because the AI is stupid. I am not blaming you and it's even not that the AI itself is dumb but we are (ab)using it in a way it was not intended to so obviously it doesn't behave the best way.

Unfortunately, the AI's behavior is an element of the game we can only manipulate so much, because it's something Rockstar developed, as stated above. What I can say is that generally speaking, a good driver in this game is going to be at the front of the pack, and can often end a chase before more than one or two units join, often by a PIT maneuver or pinning the fleeing vehicle against something like a wall or guard rail. As you said yourself, I've been testing this game for months, and having 10 police cars is not common, especially if I don't call any of them. By default, you generally get one unit in pursuit which often falls behind at the start of a call. There are occasions where you will end up joining an active pursuit, but I've only experienced that a hand full of times out of all the time I've spent.

And again, insinuating that the AI backup is not intended to behave a certain way is to presume that G17 is designing the game with you specifically in mind.

 

19 hours ago, DLM3 said:

So I know I sound like complaining but a few months ago when we were told that we would be able to customize our backup I didn't have their outfit in mind (that's a cool addition, don't get me wrong but that doesn't help on the field which badge my units show up  ) and yes please add this option to the XML file. For instance I was also expecting to be able to say for certain that a bike unit would show up if I wanted my backup to be a bike. I know that I can remove police4 from the State vehicles in the XML (that's what I did) but that also means that I will never see a State police car... That's the kind of full customization of backups that I was expecting.

As far as I've seen, G17 has not promised anything that they didn't deliver. The backup customization announcement was likely ambiguous in its description for a reason. As implemented, it was intended to have the right kind of units responding to the right area. While still a work in progress (as the entire mod itself is), the testing team was satisfied with the adjustments as far as I could tell.

I'll end this reply by saying the same thing I did when I started it: Since measures in LCPDFR were taken to adjust how many units can be involved in a chase (the default cap was 5, if I remember correctly), this will likely be a feature that returns in LSPDFR. I've been working closely with G17 since 2012, before version .95 of LCPDFR went public (I started with version .91), and even back then the mod had a high level of notoriety at the time. However, said feature was not implemented until after .95 was released. It was not considered high on the priority list compared to things like getting a better prisoner transport system, taming the bad AI driving, implementing new callouts, redesigning handcuffing, changing the traffic stop interaction process, adding in a police station to go on duty, etc.

So, I'd like to ask you to please have patience, spend some more time with the mod, and provided that time can be made for it, you'll most likely see this in a future update. :)

Happy hunting.

Edited January 18, 201610 yr by unr3al

Right now is perfect example. Downtown near the station I am seeing patrols of ai pretty much saturating the area. To me normal. It's downtown and the ai is going around as normal so in areas like this you may get sat patrol. Now I go out to mo man's land and back up seems like it'll never get there. This was also case in previous versions. I think allot people didn't suit out at downtown or certain stations much and since the release of 0.3 since it was show cased at downtown more are going there to start game taking calls right away. Sitting here watching the ai to me is normal and has dame reaction it always did. If I go watch activity farther north away it seems same as before and feels like back up takes bit to get to you. I think it's normal and most haven't noticed it much before as they didn't suit out downtown or a couple  other stations where ai saturates naturally. Before 0.3 allot I think drove quickly and took calls going away from those areas but now are actually getting to see close calls in the immediate vicinity and ai crimes with the normal saturation. Just what I think. To me it's all normal.  I like it though. I wish they'd be like this when I'm by stab city alone lol. The miss daisy thing earlier was joke though I couldn't resist ;)