Police Simulator: Patrol Officers

Police Simulator: Patrol Officers

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Slayer 2021 年 8 月 5 日 上午 8:19
Comparing Patrol Officers to Patrol Duty

[Now before anyone jumps in to state the obvious...I know, and I am fully aware, Patrol Officers is still Early Access so everything mentioned here can, and should, change over time.
It's purely a critical look at where we are currently]


So while Aesir look to Real Police for ideas on how to make this game more authentic, I think they should also not only learn from past mistakes, but also where things went right with past police games.

In this thread, I will NOT be referring to LSPDFR as that has already been compared to Patrol Officers on numerous occasions (if not all the time) and while I think there are things to learn from LSPDFR, I want to focus on the other standalone Police games.

Most notably, Flashing Lights and Police Simulator Patrol Duty.
I've had a chance this past month to play both games, see what their about and what they offer and I have some thoughts.

I'm going to start by saying something that's going to most likely be unpopular here but....I like Patrol Duty!

Now lower the pitchforks. I get why it's disliked.
It was abandoned by the developers, while still being unfinished with bugs.
That's never a good thing so I can totally understand the ire it gets.
I also get that's why there's a sense of being burned with it, and why everyone is watching this game with intensity and baited breath.."please don't stop working on this one".

So I'm not going to try and convince anyone on here that Patrol Duty is a better game or that it's amazing or anything.
But I have to be honest and say, from what i've played, I have enjoyed it.
Some things I dare say currently (until these devs make changes) Patrol Duty even does better.

With that said, I want to outline the things I found in Flashing Lights and Patrol Duty I think Patrol Officers could learn from.
There's already things Patrol Officers does better, so this will focus solely on where it could improve.


FLASHING LIGHTS
---------------


. Ability to Grab People

A feature like this has been mentioned before but it needs repeating. The ability to manually lead pedestrians somewhere specific, ie safe, or closer to Patrol Car for processing, is really useful. In PSPO, it could literally mean the difference to a Ped just standing in the road causing a traffic backup forever, or the ability to resolve it

. Simulating the Paperwork

The fact that writing tickets or handing in prisoners to the station actually simulates the player filling out a real form is surely what a 'simulator' should do? If Flight Simulator expects me to literally plan my flight down to the detail of IFR Approach to airport before takeoff, then shouldn't Police Simulator ask me to be specific in the ticket i'm writing?
I also like the way Flashing Lights handles it. You can either type the details in manually (suspect name, licence plate etc.) or just press a 'key' to have the form autofill the form, for those players who want to skip the minutiae.
While It's great that Patrol Officers allows to specify why you are writing a ticket, I feel like that should be done AS you are writing the ticket.


POLICE SIMULATOR PATROL DUTY
-------------------------------


. Shift Time

Maybe it's just me but it feels like I have twice as much time in a working shift in Patrol Duty than I do in Patrol Officers.
Now I know this is already a issue the devs are aware of, but if we're discussing what previous games did right, it has to be said here.
I also like the fact that when your shift ends, if you are in the middle of a callout it actually says "finish the job you are currently doing and return to your desk".
Patrol Duty let's you end your emergency first.
There's also seemingly no hassle to get back to your desk either (from what i've encountered so far).

. Evidence collecting and Crime Lab

This adds an extra layer to callouts that would also be realistic.
Those photographs you take for accidents...what happens to them? shouldn't they be "evidence"?
What about those guns/switchblades/drugs you find on people? Shouldn't they be "evidence"?
What about the scene of a Assault/Robbery? Shouldn't there be crime scene evidence to find?
I also like the Crime Lab because it gives you a reason to return to the station during your shift to do something at the station.

. Pull over requests are immediate

Patrol Duty still suffers from the same issue that both Flashing Lights and Patrol Officers have, in that you cannot interact with a driver 90% of the time, unless you've pulled them over.
But at least in patrol Duty, the moment you flag them, they pull over.
In some cases, right in the middle of their lane...they just stop.
Is it safe? no.
Realistic? no.
But...it works for gameplay. You tell a car to stop, it stops.
You can process the driver.
In Patrol Officers, it has this whole "driver looking for a spot" mechanic which, sounds good on paper, but works abysmally in practice.
You tell someone to stop and instead they lead you round the block first, or worst case, out of your jurisdiction.

OK, for me, this is the big one...

. ANIMATIONS!

For a game that's so "broken" and "unfinished", my god, the animations!
Ok they may not be AAA quality animations for sure, but for a start they are better than Flashing "what animations?" Lights.
An ambulance comes to pick up a injured ped, ped just vanishes. Medic goes back to Ambulance, medic just vanishes into car.
A Police Transport comes to pick up suspect, cop leads suspect to van, then suspect vanishes into van.
A tow truck comes to collect a car, guy runs up to car, car just vanishes..poof...into thin air, not even on the back of the tow truck.
Flashing Lights needs a lot of work in that department.
At least Patrol Officers has some animations.

But this is where Patrol Duty outshines Patrol Officers at present.

In Patrol Duty:

- Suspects get lead to the back of the car, the officer opens the door, places his hand on the suspects head and guides them into the back before closing the door.
Compare that to Patrol Officers, where there is no "leading", the officer just follows the cuffed suspect, the doors get opened, and thr suspect climbs in.
Now I don't necessarily have an issue with Patrol Officers way of doing it....if it didn't bug out all the time!
9 times out of 10, the suspect clips through the back of the van, or is facing the wrong way when they climb in, the arresting officer also facing the wrong way when they open the doors.
Patrol Duty's arresting animation not only works all the time, but it's arguably more complex to animate, with the officer leading the suspect and guiding them in the car!

- Tow Trucks.....You know what...I used to have an issue with Patrol Officers's tow trucks but since they fixed the biggest issue I prefer this games truck system, where it lifts the car onto the truck.
The issue in the past was that if you called multiple trucks, the subsequent trucks would skip the animation and just teleport the car onto the back. [This has been fixed in an Update].
That being said, it's still not without it's issues.
Tow Trucks in Patrol Officers still have a tendency to grab unrelated cars at times.
But on the whole I'll give this one to Patrol Officers...I prefer the tow truck animations here.


- Calling an Ambulance

Two people get out, one grabs a stretcher (with animated wheel legs) and guides it to the wounded ped, both medics grab the head and legs of ped and lift them onto stretcher, which is then wheeled back to the ambulance, and loaded back into the Ambulance (again with animated wheel legs) before both medics climb into Ambulance and drive off.

Compared with this game, where a single medic runs up to an injured person "are you alright?" and miraculously "yea i'm fine. I'll walk".
Even though, they were hit by a car or savagely beaten up?
I actually don't mind instances where it's less serious, but ALL the time?
let's get some stretcher action going on!

[EARLY ACCESS...HOPEFULLY ANIMATIONS WILL GET RESOLVED IN TIME]

Anyway those are just my thoughts after playing "the competition" lol.
I think on the whole Patrol Officers is a better game but for the things I've listed in this thread I really hope the devs consider what games have done "right" in the past as well, as this game moves forward into the future.

If you read through all this, thanks for doing so.
最後修改者:Slayer; 2021 年 8 月 5 日 上午 8:25
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Slayer 2021 年 8 月 5 日 上午 8:42 
I forgot one! Another Patrol Duty plus point.

. Dispatch

Firstly, all the radio chatter (which firstly, there's random radio chatter in Patrol Duty between dispatch and other cops) sounds like it's coming from a radio, as opposed to Patrol Officers where "I shall deal with the accident" sounds like the officer is stood next to you.

Also, dispatch actually describes the callout!
"we have a stolen car parked at North beach. Car is a Red Van, Licence plate 8X7RT."
(example for the purpose of this thread)

Again, Patrol officers is just "we have an issue that needs taking care of"
.
..
...
any more details dispatch?

"never mind, the microwaves working now!"

I also like that dispatch tells you where the call out is, so you can decide whether to take it or not, if it will lead you too far away from your current job.
最後修改者:Slayer; 2021 年 8 月 5 日 上午 8:42
CalFirearm 2021 年 8 月 5 日 下午 12:14 
引用自 Slayer
I forgot one! Another Patrol Duty plus point.

. Dispatch

Firstly, all the radio chatter (which firstly, there's random radio chatter in Patrol Duty between dispatch and other cops) sounds like it's coming from a radio, as opposed to Patrol Officers where "I shall deal with the accident" sounds like the officer is stood next to you.

Also, dispatch actually describes the callout!
"we have a stolen car parked at North beach. Car is a Red Van, Licence plate 8X7RT."
(example for the purpose of this thread)

Again, Patrol officers is just "we have an issue that needs taking care of"
.
..
...
any more details dispatch?

"never mind, the microwaves working now!"

I also like that dispatch tells you where the call out is, so you can decide whether to take it or not, if it will lead you too far away from your current job.
Your points are actually highly brilliant. Another thing I would like to add is that Patrol Duty had parking boots attached to offending cars. However, they only appeared after the tow truck came and were applied to every vehicle no matter if it was parked or driven. I would like to see Patrol Officers have parking boots added to parked cars that we decide to tow, but cars towed for being involved in crimes or accidents should not have parking boots.
Slayer 2021 年 8 月 5 日 下午 1:24 
That's a good catch too.
In fact, in Patrol Duty cars get clamped the moment you ticket them.
You don't need to tow them to have them appear.

Just adding some further thoughts to a couple of the points.

Grabbing People :-

Maybe when Aesir get round to implementing taking people to the station yourself, that would make the most sense to implement this feature.
part of getting them in your car would be "leading them"..so why not implement a "grab" ability as part of it.
That way, players can use that feature not just for arrests, but also for certain relevant scenarios, like escorting a ped out of an undesired area (road, out of player zone)


Prison Van : -

In Patrol Duty, although the animations are cool, it seems to only be catered for arresting a single person.
A single Patrol Car turns up to collect them.
Whereas in Patrol officers, an actual Transport Van turns up.
However....
Patrol Officers doesn't currently make the most use out of such a vehicle.
While we may handcuff more than 1 or 2 suspects on a call, the van (designed for transporting multiple offenders) has to be called for each offender.

Either allow more than one offender to be placed in the van at a time (which would be better) or use a patrol car which would explain why it needs to be one for each suspect.
最後修改者:Slayer; 2021 年 8 月 5 日 下午 1:25
Brandl 2021 年 8 月 5 日 下午 1:32 
Good post slayer...you have a lot of good points but lots of them are on the roadmap already and the fact, that the Devs are looking for real Policemen for advice is a sign that they dont plan to give up easily.
To be honest im no friend of early access games. I have been dissapointed for to many times when the Devs quit working to early.
If you look at what we have in the game at the moment you notice that it isnt much. Within two days you can easily reach lvl 20/30 without a reason to play on. BUT remember its still EA. Its just the beginning ...the game is still pretty "young"...
Im optimistic that this game will be a success and there are several points to hope for it.
First...take a look at the credits ingame...i know...only very few people do this ;) but you will see that there are LOTs of people involved into this project.
Second thing ...they have a roadmap...so they have a plan...they are organized...i know at least 6 EA games who failed just because of dont having a development plan.
Its a good and an bad thing at the same time...if you follow a plan, you cant fulfill the wishes of the customers very fast...but that for you move on quicker with the complete project.
Software development ist a intense, highly time consuming and expensive business.
Another disadvantage is, and i think this is happening right now, that if you have a lot of bugs you havnt expected, you are running low on resources (Dev power ;) ) So on the one hand you want to fulfill the duties of the roadmap, on the other hand you have to fix all the bugs...well well....difficult business...i know. :D
So all i can say is...patience is a virtue.... ;)

最後修改者:Brandl; 2021 年 8 月 5 日 下午 1:42
Slayer 2021 年 8 月 5 日 下午 1:56 
I totally agree with you Brandl.
That's why I added the Disclaimer at the top of my post saying how aware I am that this game is currently Early Access and that all the things mentioned may not be "absent" forever.
All I really wanted to do was raise these points because, at this stage, these things are not in the game.
One of the benefits of Early Access is getting to provide feedback and suggestions while the game is being developed.
This is precisely the moment to raise these concerns, while the game is young, because once it becomes more mature with deeper baked features and more complexities added, it will be harder to change any direction.
Try telling Rockstar now how they should have improved GTA5 lol
Not that I would dare! :p

You raise a good point though.
if Aesir is seriously reaching out to real police for help making sure this game is authentic, that does show a level of commitment by the devs to this game.

That being said, and I realise this also could reflect back on me and this entire thread, the devs also need to not be swayed too much by "many cooks in the kitchen" otherwise the project could run away from them.
Keep it simple, but make what it has solid and function correctly, then build out from there gradually.
Otherwise the House of cards could collapse.

The roadmap is what will help them, keep them focused as you say.
That's what they should focus on most, above even the police feedback.
get that roadmap implemented first and foremost.
Even above the things mentioned here, if not alongside feedback that can be addressed at this stage.

For example, I would hope they fix the animations for the things currently in this game before adding too many new ones for other crimes.
最後修改者:Slayer; 2021 年 8 月 5 日 下午 2:11
Brandl 2021 年 8 月 8 日 上午 1:38 
引用自 Slayer

For example, I would hope they fix the animations for the things currently in this game before adding too many new ones for other crimes.

Yes, i see we both think equal ;)
But your last point is worth to talk about and repeat it. Because thats a number one mistake lots of other Devs do...they are to busy to add new content because the people want it or they just want to sell a new DLC....and that for they dont fix Bugs...thats the super numer 1 mistake you can make....because new content isnt worth anything if i cant even play the game because of Bugs.

Good point from you ;)
And i know this very well...worked many years as software tester...not for games but for business software...but at this point theres nearly no difference ;)

最後修改者:Brandl; 2021 年 8 月 8 日 上午 1:42
Slayer 2021 年 8 月 8 日 上午 8:17 
Yep totally.

I think if anything, the NightShift Update might very well be an indication as to how this game will be focused development wise.

We're getting two whole new gameplay features (Night time, and, 2-player), a couple of tools (road flare and flashlight) plus some new callout types (graffiti and car exhaust).

In the last update we got a computer, a car and a district.
This time we are getting a major game changer (literally) in 2-player.

What will be insightful will be not what they "add" when that update comes out, but what they "fix" alongside it.

One of the things that super impressed me with the computer update was the sheer size of the "bug fix" list.
It was longer than the "what's new" list.
While the game still isn't perfect it showed a positive sign of commitment by the devs to make it work.
I hope that trend continues as it's very important as you say, to ensure the foundations work before you add too much extra strain on to anything.
最後修改者:Slayer; 2021 年 8 月 8 日 上午 8:20
Mister of Battle 2021 年 8 月 8 日 上午 9:39 
Its not a real sim until dispatch send you to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ call 30 minutes before your shift ends...

Bonus points if your Sgt calls in on the radio, "Hold that for swing shift"
最後修改者:Mister of Battle; 2021 年 8 月 8 日 上午 9:40
DogAgent 2021 年 8 月 9 日 上午 4:18 
To me Patrol Officers is better than all the others, despite having some early access issues.
I know that Flashing Lights has some cool features that Patrol Officers should have, and I also think most of your points if not all, are good ones.

I do believe that Patrol Officers will be the best police simulator once it is finished.
It is vice to take the ideas from the topic this author made, and implement some if not all into the game.

I like many of them, but specially the one where you escort the NPC by grabbing them.
Nidge 2021 年 8 月 9 日 上午 9:02 
Patrol duty has been abandoned by its developers they took the money and ran so no support exists for the numerous bugs and glitches so dont be fooled into buying the game yet Steam still has the game for sale
Slayer 2021 年 8 月 9 日 上午 10:07 
引用自 Nidge
Patrol duty has been abandoned by its developers they took the money and ran so no support exists for the numerous bugs and glitches so dont be fooled into buying the game yet Steam still has the game for sale

The game is still playable.
While it definately has it's bugs, for sure, value is up to the individual consumer.

As someone who plays and enjoys Patrol Officers, I have found equal enjoyment in Patrol Duty.
I don't necessarily recommend it over this particular game, because of the fact it's not going to grow beyond what it is, but I knew what I was buying into and was quite happy to do so.

The reason for bringing it up in this thread is not to suggest buying one game over another.
It was to discuss what each game does.
In that aspect, there are things that Patrol Duty does, broken or not, that are currently done better than Patrol Officers.
However, unlike Patrol Duty which is now no longer supported, Patrol Officers has the ability to take those ideas on board and go further.
Aivar 2021 年 8 月 10 日 上午 7:40 
引用自 WhiskeyKilt
Its not a real sim until dispatch send you to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ call 30 minutes before your shift ends...

Bonus points if your Sgt calls in on the radio, "Hold that for swing shift"
How about dispatch telling you "i know you have 5 calls already, just add this as well, everyone is busy" or "there is another noise complaint from the last address you visited, do your job".
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