Do you use a custom popcycle mod that adds cops to traffic? That can be a big part of how many ambient units join in a chase, and considering LSPDFR is designed mostly for an unmodified game (so they don't have to try to deal with all the various ways changes to the game can mess things up; their apparent plans for supporting things from the RDE mod is kind of surprising), its really could be an unintended effect of 3rd-party changes.

Now, it's not to say that things currently happening with the mod aren't at fault. I don't know if certain callouts are set up to have multiple units spawn immediately, or if persistence issues are causing far more units to be on the map than intended. I've personally noticed the latter a lot.

32 minutes ago, The Loot said:

I don't know if certain callouts are set up to have multiple units spawn immediately, or if persistence issues are causing far more units to be on the map than intended. I've personally noticed the latter a lot.

Armed suspect pursuits always have a small convoy after them. It's generally a helicopter and a few ground units. I always call in NOOSE immediately because the local cops just get shot to hell in their cruisers because they drive so close.

14 hours ago, Azteco said:

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 ;)

It's actually not just Downtown but all the city. Wherever you are the AI will respond too close and swarm the suspects. I cannot speak of the county as I have never been too keen patrolling there but in Los Santos I can definitely tell that the difference is huge.

 

unr3al I am not going to post a long answer as I am done with you, till you won't understand that this is a video game, as much as a game try to be a sim, discussing with you is pointless. You can post all the videos of police swarms that you want, you cannot bring the RL argument into a videogame, you still don't get the point: in terms of gameplay you cannot have a game play and resolve situations for the player. This is something that you will never see in any game. This is called player input, if your only input is only to press Y to accept a callout and then sit back while the other units will take care of 2/3 of the situations by themselves, where is the fun? I don't need to play 3 months to spot an obvious issue, that's something I am used to in my line of work, making a judgement with little time and I am pretty good at it.

Play any game that comes with a party controlled by the AI (any decent game, there are obviously some crappy games with a lousy AI having that kind of problems) and the AI will never be able to win without the player. This is nothing about being the hero but about being in control, that "player input" I was talking about. Read any game design theory book...

I will just leave that link, give it some thought. A couple of months ago The Old Republic had a new expansion that came with an overhaul of the companion system that actually rendered them way overpowered, you had plenty of videos on YouTube of people showing how their companion would deal with any pack of mobs up to dealing with champions boss fights and still survive while the player would just sit back and watch. It took a couple of weeks for the nerf bat to come and here's what the developpers had to say:

Some of you will certainly ask, why the need to nerf Companions? (...) What we saw in those instances is that Companions, simply put, were just way too good. Their healing and damage output could be greater than that of a very skilled player with a fully maximized character.

(...) Companions, from a combat perspective, should complement and provide support to your character, not overshadow them. However, in looking at how strong Companions are, we may have gone a bit too far in that direction. Simply put, while playing through much of the game, there are a lot of situations in regular combat where it is practically impossible for you to be killed if you have a healing Companion. Although this can be fun for a time, this wasn’t our goal. Companions should be strong, they should fill any role you need, but they should not make your actual gameplay be overshadowed by how strong they are.

This is the same exact situation with swarms of police units spawning on top of the suspects and taking any challenge out, especially coupled with the fact of how easily suspects now surrender. There is no need to play 3 months to see this issue.

Edited January 18, 201610 yr by DLM3
Typos

Like Kilyin i am with DLM3 too.

The thing is that the backup not should be toned down by default, it just would be cool to give the player the option to customize it the way he likes it^^

Before in 0.2b we had 100% control over the backup. Not anymore. And we are the player in this game. Nearly every mod creator gives you essential options via an .ini.

For example: If want i can set in Albo´s Traffic Policer the drunk driver event to zero. Then i decide to not use Breathalyzer. So there i am....in my little world people who drink and drive are non existent. Because i want it so in this case. Its my decision.

And now if i want to catch this evil dude in a pursuit only by myself to give me a challenge, then it is so. Its my decision. In my litle world in my sinlge player game where nobody else get hurt by my changes in my .ini or backup.xml or whatever^^ Maybe its unrealistic, so what. Its unrealistic that there are no drunken drivers, but i am able to do this. And thats great.

 

This is no blame! No salt!^^ Just a suggestion and  a wish i think several players of LSPDFR have for 0.3.

Really thank you for LSPDFR.... a great and the main thing in my gaming atm. So please be with the players who made this so big :)

 

On 1/18/2016 at 5:43 PM, DLM3 said:

t game, there are obviously some crappy games with a lousy AI having that kind of problems) and the AI will never be able to win without the player. This is nothing about being the hero but about being in control, that "player input" I was talking about. Read any game design theory book...

Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Unreal Tournament, Quake, Doom, Tom Clany's Rainbow Six, Operation Flashpoint... shall I go on? I don't hear about a whole lot of complaining if you end up dying or falling behind and your team with AI on it manages to pull out victories for you. Those are all excellent, award winning gmaes with cult followings. The same goes for any MMO that allows you to have AI companions that you can either micro manage or be self sufficient.

 

On 1/18/2016 at 5:43 PM, DLM3 said:

you won't understand that this is a video game, as much as a game try to be a sim, discussing with you is pointless. You can post all the videos of police swarms that you want, you cannot bring the RL argument into a videogame

My chief problem with you is that you're sitting here telling me what a video game should be. That's not up to you to decide, that's up to the developers. There are borderline simulator games such as ARMA or Operation Flashpoint, there are arcade style games such as Unreal Tournament or Quake, and there are some that meet part way in the middle. Because LSPDFR deals with the activities of an existing profession (no, there aren't any openings as a space mercenary yet), a goal of the development team is to bring that experience to people who don't join the force. I've explained to you, politely, for that matter, that based on the fact that LCPDFR eventually had a .ini file with a field you could edit for maximum number of backup units per chase, LSPDFR will likely have it too, but at a time frame that has yet to be determined. That should really be the end of it now that you've made your issue known. This thread should not be about game design theory, as you've now made it.

Edited January 20, 201610 yr by unr3al

For what i've understood, all DLM3 ask is a way to customize/tweak the callout strenght. Seems pretty reasonable to me, I don't get all the fuss.

On 1/18/2016 at 3:10 AM, The Loot said:

Do you use a custom popcycle mod that adds cops to traffic? That can be a big part of how many ambient units join in a chase, and considering LSPDFR is designed mostly for an unmodified game (so they don't have to try to deal with all the various ways changes to the game can mess things up; their apparent plans for supporting things from the RDE mod is kind of surprising), its really could be an unintended effect of 3rd-party changes.

Now, it's not to say that things currently happening with the mod aren't at fault. I don't know if certain callouts are set up to have multiple units spawn immediately, or if persistence issues are causing far more units to be on the map than intended. I've personally noticed the latter a lot.

For me, I think this is what is causing too many units to join a pursuit. I installed a popcycle mod that added cops to traffic. Not sure if this the case with DLM3 too, but I know in my case my pursuits are ending up with a small army because of all the additional units spawning in traffic joining in as well. With the default popcycle, the number of units in a pursuit would probably be less.

However, I do agree with DLM3 and others in this thread that there should be a configuration flag in an ini file eventually to control how many units join a pursuit and/or if roaming units join as well. Personally, I liked how it was done in 0.2 where you had to call for backup manually for two reasons: 1) it felt more realistic to me as I had to notify other units that a pursuit was in progress (now they just know automagically) and 2) I could control how many units joined the pursuit.

It's funny how people wanted to have ambiant cops joining the chase in 0.2b, and are now complaining because they do :p

That being said, I agree that this should be configurable by the player. I personnally like it that way, but I don't have the RDE mod, so I don't experience all the "problems" you guys have (too short chases, etc).
What I would like to see tho, but it's just pure comfort, is to be able to define the percentage of units joining in. Or maybe a system to define the chase level (the higher the level, the more cops join in) I mean, IRL (yea, I like to think LSPDFR as a simulator :p), you don't have all cops on duty joining a single chase. They all have different tasks to do. For instance, the speedtrap guy will not take part of any chase, I assume, since his job for the day is to catch speeders.

So, that was just my 2 cents on this, to maybe add a little more realism, but I'm already fine with the current state of the auto-backup.

Edited January 22, 201610 yr by liberto

Just discovered that @Albo1125 has released a mod for those of us who prefer the old backup system: