in every gta getting busted is a slap on the wrist. you lose some money and some guns and you are back outside in ten seconds
with lucia having a prison backstory and a whole correctional system in the setup, is there any sign that being arrested has weight now or is it still a fail state with a fee
fair, i was doing exactly that. still would like it to mean something though
Nothing has been shown about the arrest state. What we do know is that the wanted system now has a phase before pursuit, which suggests they have thought about the whole arc rather than just the chase.
The criminal profile might carry it. Getting arrested repeatedly could feed a reputation rather than a fee, which is a penalty that costs you nothing immediately and something eventually.
Lucia's backstory being a prison sentence does not imply an arrest mechanic. It is a narrative fact about a character, not a systems statement, and people are merging those constantly this month.
That is the most plausible version I have read and it uses a system that already exists rather than inventing one.
A meaningful arrest state would be genuinely difficult to design. Losing an hour of progress is not fun and any lesser penalty is what we already have.