What Makes a Good (and Bad) Prison Escape?

Author Topic: What Makes a Good (and Bad) Prison Escape?  (Read 3832 times)

The aim of this thread is to provide players looking to create Prison Escape servers some insight into what the community wants and does not want.

Try to be specific. For instance, if you say "freekilling sucks" or "team balance is good", also give suggestions on how freekilling can be mitigated or how team balance can be achieved.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2017, 10:09:54 AM by Platypi »

Honestly, the biggest factor is the concept. For example, look at GothBoy77's jail break. It offers multiple ways to escape, as compared to Tezuni's, where you go balls deep and just forgetin leg it. Plus, it depends on how strict the rules are. Better/stricter rules means less rule breaking hopefully, so there are quite a few things.

For example, look at GothBoy77's jail break.
I am actually not familiar with GothBoy77's jail break (or perhaps my memory just needs jogging). Are there pictures or videos of it anywhere?

i generally dislike prison breaks on the gist of crowns, which run by rules that must be interpreted in context. it feels more like heavily on-rails rp, and also a power trip server for whoever is warden. that's not saying the gamemode is bad, i just dont like the core concept.

tezunis was really just crowns but wardenless so it was far less guided, and thus kindof a stufffest cause everyone would go do their own thing and eventually get guns to kill guards.

imo if you can make the rules unambiguous and intuitive, as long as you give prisoners opportunities to do stuff then it'll be "good". although i dislike crowns, many like it, and the rules aren't that ambiguous, so i attribute that to part of its success as people can skirt the edge of the rules, and keep the guards/warden vigilant and not just forget off to do whatever


I am actually not familiar with GothBoy77's jail break (or perhaps my memory just needs jogging). Are there pictures or videos of it anywhere?
He's been hosting it recently. If your on Blockland at the right time, you can see him hosting "Jail BreakRPG." It's actually pretty fun.

maps
That's a very broad topic. What about maps specifically?

He's been hosting it recently. If your on Blockland at the right time, you can see him hosting "Jail BreakRPG." It's actually pretty fun.
I'm looking on the master server list, and I can't find it. Perhaps it's just down for the day. I'll check tomorrow.

Being able to escape

A decent build mostly. Something that's built like a logical prison, with walls, cafeteria, gym, ect. Secrets are good and invisible walls are loving lame, if it looks like I can climb over a fence, I should be able to climb over that fence. Make it so that you can enable brick damage and give the prisoners C4 without letting people escape the map or get stuck in unreachable behind-wall areas

How I think we can improve Jail RP:

1. Ditch the "simon says" BS. I don't know when or how that became a Jail RP staple but I think the majority of us hate it
2. Find a way to make it work with multiple lives. Nobody enjoys spectating 10-20 minute rounds because they got caught with half of their richard inside a vent.
3. Make a logical, repeatable, reliable definition for free-killing that can be translated into computer rules, and then make it an automated system where free-killers are auto-banned instead of hiring 24/7 admins to act as jury judge and executioner.
4. RPG elements. What if going to the gym and working out gave you bonuses, like being able to jump higher, making escape easier?
5. Give more power to the guards. Tasers, handcuffs, the ability to search people to determine what they have on them, currently playing guard loving sucks

Double post

The problem with secrets is that over-time guards will learn their location and just start murdering anyone in the vicinity of that area, or forcing players to clear their items when they notice certain patterns of movement. Secrets should be randomized, weapons should have the ability to show up anywhere throughout the prison. As a matter of fact you could have it so that every prisoner has a random chance to spawn with a shiv or something, maybe even 2-3 shanks so that they can hand them out to other prisoners.

There should be reasons to go to places like the gym or the bathroom or the kitchen, these areas could have activities that give minor stat buffs or something, so that when a guard sees a prisoner going into a bathroom he doesn't just instantly assume that it's a spawn area for a rocket launcher

A good prison escape: yet to be discovered
A bad prison escape: any that still exist

Most jail escape servers walk the fine line between "snipers vs runners" and an incredibly unbalanced tdm. There's only so much you can do with an incredibly powerful team fighting against a large but stuffty enemy team, and spiritually I think that all prison escapes should quit their jobs and get into the B.O.S.S. business. Unlike PE, which is centered around the predictability of the map, BOSS is centered around the uncertainty and tactics of the infiltrators, which have an infinite number of outcomes that they can exact upon guards

Prison escape falls into the genre of attack vs defense, and of all the titles in that genre of game mode, BOSS is the most refined. The only reason that anyone hosts the former is because it's the easiest to exploit as the host and it gives all the admins their necessary dose of power pills. The only reason why people play it is because they have Stockholm syndrome / deep submissive loveual desires
« Last Edit: November 11, 2017, 11:51:39 PM by PhantOS »

guards shouldn't be killing prisoners

Double post

The problem with secrets is that over-time guards will learn their location and just start murdering anyone in the vicinity of that area, or forcing players to clear their items when they notice certain patterns of movement. Secrets should be randomized, weapons should have the ability to show up anywhere throughout the prison. As a matter of fact you could have it so that every prisoner has a random chance to spawn with a shiv or something, maybe even 2-3 shanks so that they can hand them out to other prisoners.
I like the randomization idea. The closest thing to randomization I've seen on any prison server is what cell you spawn in as a prison (i.e. a few cells have vents or item spawns, others don't). Other than that, randomization is pretty sparse. I've found that when I play well-known prison escapes like Tezuni's, I end up developing routines for when I play prisoner or guard. While these routines prove effective, they become tedious over time; almost like a chore. Some people like repetition in video games. But I don't care for it much myself.

I don't see why more prison escape don't use randomization. Not even laziness seems like a reasonable explanation. How hard can it really be to randomize item spawns, or have a section of a ventilation system that can be accessible or inaccessible depending on whether or not the game turns a fan inside it on or off for that round.

There should be reasons to go to places like the gym or the bathroom or the kitchen, these areas could have activities that give minor stat buffs or something, so that when a guard sees a prisoner going into a bathroom he doesn't just instantly assume that it's a spawn area for a rocket launcher
I like this.

A good prison escape: yet to be discovered
A bad prison escape: any that still exist

Most jail escape servers walk the fine line between "snipers vs runners" and an incredibly unbalanced tdm. There's only so much you can do with an incredibly powerful team fighting against a large but stuffty enemy team, and spiritually I think that all prison escapes should quit their jobs and get into the B.O.S.S. business. Unlike PE, which is centered around the predictability of the map, BOSS is centered around the uncertainty and tactics of the infiltrators, which have an infinite number of outcomes that they can exact upon guards

Prison escape falls into the genre of attack vs defense, and of all the titles in that genre of game mode, BOSS is the most refined. The only reason that anyone hosts the former is because it's the easiest to exploit as the host and it gives all the admins their necessary dose of power pills. The only reason why people play it is because they have Stockholm syndrome / deep submissive loveual desires
What is BOSS? My mind goes to "Boss Battles", but that doesn't really sound like what you're describing.

guards shouldn't be killing prisoners
What do you mean exactly? Do you mean guards should be given non-lethal weapons (i.e. tasers) to deal with prisoners, and/or that there should be some penalty for guards dealing with violent prison in a lethal way? Maybe prisoners should be downed and not killed when they are sufficiently injured? The latter would seem like the best option to me. Rowdy prisoners could be downed, put in handcuffs, and escorted to solitary confinement. That way, prisoners can perhaps still participate in the game, which could solve the problem of potentially having to wait 10 to 20 minutes for a new round.

How do you guys feel about policing freekilling deterministically? That is, determining whether the killing of a prisoner by a guard was warranted or unwarranted based on whether a prisoner has an illegal item or has ventured outside the permitted zone. Is this a good system for preventing freekilling, or does it miss some critical nuance?

As long as it works and the guards don't know who's innocent/guilty then it should be fine. Prisoners probably shouldn't be able to tell whether or not they're innocent, if they could I feel like they could eventually learn how to game the system and get guards false flagged

Just want to say though, a prisoner shouldn't be considered guilty just for having an item (imagine a guard drops a weapon on a prisoner, and then instantly kills them), but rather for either equipping the item or firing/using it. Better yet there should be a way to safely drop items without equipping them.

Entering a restricted area shouldn't mark you as guilty the entire round. Instead, if you spend 30 seconds in a restricted zone, you'll be considered guilty for 15-30 seconds after leaving it. If you accidentally walk into an area and then leave within a couple seconds, you shouldn't be marked as guilty.