{Suggestion} Experience System for staffs

[andrehsu]

What I am proposing is a experience system for staffs, as the title suggests. The longer a staff stays at your prison, the more experienced the staff is. This system will discourage people to fire and rehire staffs, as this means that the newly hired staffs will be unexperienced. More experienced staffs should then be better at their jobs, such as the guards will be better able to handle fights, the workmen will do things and walk faster, the janitor and gardener will clean faster, the cooks will waste less food, the armed guards might have better guns/ melee weapon, and the dogs will run faster and have less false negatives on detecting tunnels.

[vellence]

Hello,
I m even in favor of more strict measures against that hiring/firing. People are trying to keep safety with 8-10 guards and in case of fight they hire 5-6 to beat down the prisoners then fire them and like nothing had happened.
I would like to see more realistic process of hiring staff. From arriving from off map to contacts or why not even 12h working shifts ).

[greavous]

guards - gain extra health, beat prisoners faster/more effectivly, patrol better/faster.
cooks - make high quality meals without the cost and reduce cost on feeding (as stated waste less).
workmen - work faster and manage jobs better, save money on jobs, can recycle things (walls for bricks etc).
gardener - grows tress faster and cleans faster, adds flowers/ plants for enviroment.
cleaner - cleans faster, uses laundry faster, etc.
armed guards - more health/armor, ability to 'subdue' by shooting legs or such like, larger radious of assistance to fights.
lawyer (no current use) - reduces penalties more, lowers good prioners sentences.
accountant - makes more money, reduces wages, increases grants.
warden - better regimes (1/2 hourly rather than hourly maybe), different regimes for prison groups/security levels.
cheif - better patrols (or make it so his level increases patrols length/amount of patrols), overall better guards.
doctor - heals faster, can resurect/resusitate prisoners/staff.
psychiatrist - better needs readout (such as lvl 1 bar is transparent, lvl 2 bar only shows medium, etc).
foreman - cheaper building costs.

all managers - lvls unlock rooms.

[m_wellbring]

I don't like it. I feel that an experience system doesn't belong in a game were your control of the individual staff members is as limited as this one (and I like it that it is limited). Further I think that experience just doled out over time makes little sense, I think that if there is an experience system it should be more intricate. (As a side note, I read a study that indicated that doctors often get worse as their education becomes more and more out of step with recent findings, and that's probably true for other professionals). There would also have to be a way to hire more experienced staff as well which might or might not be difficult but would eat up time nonetheless.

I don't really see what it adds to this game. In which way does it improve my game experience?

[andrehsu]

Well, this makes it so that guards and doctors won't be like the emergency staffs, which can be deployed quickly and when the crisis ended, they are fired. This or rather make it so that you can't instantaneously hire staff, which can be abused easily.

[m_wellbring]

Which can be accomplished by having staff arrive by truck instead of just popping up.
An experience system doesn't really accomplish that either as you could still hire unexperienced staff for a short while and then fire them when you don't need them, sure they'll be a little worse than the experienced staff but it would still be exploitable.

[ArjanS87]

I'm recalling the staff hiring system of Theme Hospital...
Limited options over time, difference in skills shown as a bar.
Even an option to do some training; like training normal guards to become armed guards and so on...

[xander]

My opinion on this has not changed much since the last couple of times that this has come up: the guards, workmen, cooks, and so on cogs in a prison machine, and any change which personalizes the staff weakens that portrayal.

xander

[Citizen]

My opinion on this has not changed much since the last couple of times that this has come up: the guards, workmen, cooks, and so on cogs in a prison machine, and any change which personalizes the staff weakens that portrayal.

xander

Nonsense.

Prison staff may indeed be the cogs the way inmates are the product that flows through the factory machinery (to expand upon Xanders factory analogy), but just as inmates have traits and characteristics - so too should prison staff. Hiring, retaining and providing for the staff is part of the simulation. It doesn't detract, it adds. Does personalizing the inmates with a complete bio and family history also detract? Of course not!

We currently have the staff room, which is hopefully just the foundation of a more indepth system yet to come.

Now, all this silliness about levels and lower production costs and higher health is pretty silly. This isn't dungeons and dragons.

[nini]

Can't see why the staff would need the personalities or levels or anything that the inmates do and having a more "realistic" means of maintaining them just makes them into a different set of prisoners to maintain all in the name of increased difficulty. Sounds more like a micromanaging frustration source rather than solving any actual problem or actually adding depth (even if only in a superficial way), I still can't see this as the highly detailed sort of game the hardcore sim players seem to want it to be.

[UberFuber]

Isn't the rapid hiring/firing issue already partially addressed by that you have to pay 3x ~ 10x times their daily salary just to hire them? So if you hire/fire them in quick succession, you're going to lose a lot of money?

Although allowing you to have more "experienced staff" is very appealing.
I'm somewhat against leveling, in that it makes it a bit too... game-y. I would call it something like "seniority" that counts how many years/days said staff is in your prison.
To prevent too much micro-management, I would suggest said seniority only effect stat that generally do not require player having to specify a specific staff to work somewhere to maximize their usefullness, such as Tireness.
A freshly hired staff gets tired at 2~3x the normal rate. As the staff gains more seniority (basically, how familiar they are with your prison and its layout), the rate reduces down to normal (say, over 20 years/days).

[Kezarus]

This game starts to be very much like Theme Hospital. Which is great! In that game, some of the staff evolves too. But basically through training. Well, I think that the staff could 'gain XP' with time and be better. Some traits to will add some to the game too. =)

[vellence]

I don't like to see that much experience of staff than more depth system of staff management. Shifts - longer shifts ends in lesser vigilance, salaries - low salary ends in higher prone of bribery... etc.

[xander]

Nonsense.

I find it odd that you, one of the people who most loudly accuses me of being a bully and attacking newbies are so quick to dismiss what is clearly stated as an opinion by calling it nonsense. Way to be a moral leader.

Prison staff may indeed be the cogs the way inmates are the product that flows through the factory machinery (to expand upon Xanders factory analogy), but just as inmates have traits and characteristics - so too should prison staff. Hiring, retaining and providing for the staff is part of the simulation. It doesn't detract, it adds. Does personalizing the inmates with a complete bio and family history also detract? Of course not!

Groovy. We have a difference of opinion. Rational people are capable of having a difference of opinion without calling each other names. In fact, if you had bothered to read the posts to which I linked previously, you have seen that we really have a very large difference of opinion: one of the things that I find interesting about Prison Architect is exactly what you are highlighting. Prisoners have personalities and individuality while staff don't. It is an intriguing narrative decision.

Clearly, you disagree. There is no reason to be hostile simply because you have a different opinion.

xander

[Citizen]

Nobody is being hostile, Xander You're always wound so tight. I didn't call you a name, I didn't attack you. Just settle down FFS.