Gang War feedback

[Ikarrus]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Yeah, I can see how implants can be too OP. I was thinking of having it like cult where it doesn't deconvert people, but can block conversions.

Or make it require two implants --one to deconvert, another to block future conversions

[Allohsnackbar]

Yeah, I can see how implants can be too OP. I was thinking of having it like cult where it doesn't deconvert people, but can block conversions.

Or make it require two implants --one to deconvert, another to block future conversions

Please God No.
When it's a game mode where it is easy enough to convert as rev, we need a relatively stable way of deconversion.
Also, Saegemir, quit ducking using examples from other gamemodes to pack up your points. This isn't other gamemodes.
This is gang.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I think the main problem with making it about building up resources to take the other gang down is how much easier it is to just prod->cablecuff a sec officer, steal his helmetcam and dump the corpse, then use all his stun items to shrek the rest of sec, then use their stuns and armory access to roll the other gang.

[Drynwyn]

Yeah, I can see how implants can be too OP. I was thinking of having it like cult where it doesn't deconvert people, but can block conversions.

Or make it require two implants --one to deconvert, another to block future conversions

Please God No.
When it's a game mode where it is easy enough to convert as rev, we need a relatively stable way of deconversion.

It's NOT as easy to convert as Rev.
The gang leader recruitment pen has a significant cooldown that scales with the size of the gang.

[rdght91]

One idea I think would be interesting would to an advanced loyal implant for undercover sec/imformants to be "fake-gang" converts that appear to the gang to be loyal. Combine this with a more hands off policy for sec (Gangsters are not automatically valid just because they are antags) and you'd encourage a lot more stealth or posturing and discourage overt violence.

[Scones]

One idea I think would be interesting would to an advanced loyal implant for undercover sec/imformants to be "fake-gang" converts that appear to the gang to be loyal. Combine this with a more hands off policy for sec (Gangsters are not automatically valid just because they are antags) and you'd encourage a lot more stealth or posturing and discourage overt violence.

"antag not valid"

good luck enforcing that one or getting it across to half the community

[Drynwyn]

Alternatively just make gang spray cans not meta-able so that Sec officers can't metaconfirm they are an antag and proceed to Validate.

[Oldman Robustin]

The maint mechanic was actually pretty good. Encouraging gangs to tag from maint meant that maint was the most valuable territory to control. If you wanted to beat maint. sprayers you had to either spray inside the territory away from walls or fight for control of maint. I thought it was pretty appropriate that a gang war have most of its fights in maintenance.

Ikarrus desperately needs to let go of immersions and give the gangs the tools they desperately need to be effective. Private radio channels, less cooldown on conversion, and some kind of centralized "gang storage" hidden in maint that would serve as the Gang HQ, perhaps even with the storage invisible to non-gang members. This would prevent the "oh my paint can is out and now I'm wandering around trying to PDA/whisper allied gang members to fruitlessly find out where I can get more while they all ignore me". The uplink should spawn items in the gang storage instead of on that person, so that the Gang feels more communal and gangs will feel like they have a "home turf", one that is valuable to them and definitely worth defending.

Adding the suggestions in the 2nd paragraph would go a long way to making Gang a top game-mode and not just the clumsy spray paint simulator it is today.

[Ikarrus]

For a while I've struggled with the idea of a home base, just because necessitating one puts the gangs in a considerable risk, as discovery means imminent gang attack or security raid. Having it only visible to its members makes it viable enough to be an idea we can try out down the line. Still though, establishing a base is something you can already do by communicating with your gang. A common location you would frequent physically to distribute weapons/evaluate strategy.

Gangs are not meant to be large-scale organizations that span half the crew. The long recruitment cooldowns, the penalties for having larger gangs, and the incredible expense of additional pens are intentionally designed that way to distance gang from rev. Gang is not meant to be Team Deathmatch: The Mode and it never will be. It's because of this that I don't feel that an open and guaranteed means of communication like a private channel would be suitable, as it's meant to service larger gangs a lot more. One thing I could try out is having a cheap (~5 Influence?) "Gang Announcement" one-use ability purchasable from the gangtool that sends messages to everyone in the gang.

If you feel the gangs are underpowered in general I agree with you 100%. Update 5.1 includes considerable buffs to their rate of income that should make it easier to buy and distribute tools and weapons.

[Alex Crimson]

Eh i dont think they really need a private chat. However some basic way for the leaders to organize their underlings would be neat. Maybe give pens the ability to also generate a custom message when you recruit someone? Leaders could use it to give underlings their initial orders and even list ways to communicate or point them towards a stash of cans/gear. The uplink message thing sounds neat, but rather than a message, why not just a ping/summons that sends a message to all gang members telling them to gather at wherever the ping originated.

[Ikarrus]

Eh i dont think they really need a private chat. However some basic way for the leaders to organize their underlings would be neat. Maybe give pens the ability to also generate a custom message when you recruit someone? Leaders could use it to give underlings their initial orders and even list ways to communicate or point them towards a stash of cans/gear. The uplink message thing sounds neat, but rather than a message, why not just a ping/summons that sends a message to all gang members telling them to gather at wherever the ping originated.

I like this

[Oldman Robustin]

A recruitment message combined with hidden HQ storage would do wonders for centralizing the gang. Trying to organize new recruits is frustrating since you're already juggling a lot of tasks as gang leader.

I don't think the gangs need to become massive, but almost every gang war I see ends up something like 6v4 when the server is holding 60. The "gang war" feels more like a "gang kerfuffle" since the conflict very rarely escalates to the point it affects anybody outside of the gangs or security. It's pretty much extended for 70% of the crew as they occasionally hear messages about graffiti, but nothing more ominous than that.

Larger gangs would go a long way to ensuring a healthy level of conflict and accelerate the pace of the game (nobody likes playing cat and mouse with a 1-2 enemy taggers for an hour). There are a lot of ways to fine tune it, but I'm confident that the pen cooldown simply makes the game too slow and too dull right now. Doesn't need to go up much, but even a few more members on each gang would exponentially increase the chance of conflict.

There should be other ways of encouraging conflict between the gangs too. Influence bonuses for killing enemy gang members, perhaps even special items that can only be "purchased" by dropping off the ID of an enemy gangster into the HQ. Something that encourages gangs to take the risk of engaging in direct conflict even while on camera or near other crew. Right now gangs suffers from the same issue as traitor, nobody wants to do anything outside of maint. because otherwise you risk instantly getting bolted in and tossed into perma once you engage in gang violence. It's really pretty stupid that when you see an enemy gangster tagging a room, your best option is to yell about it on radio to security. Pushing security toward your enemies should be a tactic, but right now its by far the best tactic since any on-camera violence is just as likely to take you out of the round as the person you're attacking. Even an alternative e-mag with a moderate cooldown, exclusive to unbolting/opening doors would be a nice way to bypass the AI's efforts to contain you and/or tag the more high-security areas that are otherwise too risky to tag.

I could go on an on, but the problems basically boil down to:

1) Gang war doesn't actually encourage "war", beyond painting over each others tags and then running away.

2) Gangs don't scale well with station pop. and feel like extended rounds with graffiti... and regular crew will have almost 0 interaction with the gangs and their activities since doing anything remotely interesting on camera is a fast track to getting bolted in and sent to peram.

3) Gangs have big organization problems. From giving orders to forming a base, it's like herding cats trying to get your gang to do anything cohesively as a group .

[Not-Dorsidarf]

So in the same post you say that you should remove cooldown on gangpens, literally turning it back into rev V rev without the easily spotted FLASH, but also complain that gangs don't function well in large groups?

[Oldman Robustin]

Gang war gets shit on by security during high-pop games.

Loyalty implant destroys the gangs way too easily, once one dude gets caught tagging he squeals on the whole gang and gang cannot hope to fight sec.

It plays like a shitty revolution with a high cooldown conversion tool, easily identifiable contraband, and no clear objective to unify the gang. The gang weapons are all brute which sucks against sec armor compared to their tasers and flashbangs.

The implants should work like they do on cult, and security shouldn't be executing or spacing gang members unless they are guilty of murder. At least giving the gang an incentive to do dramatic jail breaks would benefit everyone by spicing up the round as opposed to "well sec implanted a gang member, who out'd our leader, who got dunked and spaced by security, and now we're fucked".

[Oldman Robustin]

So in the same post you say that you should remove cooldown on gangpens, literally turning it back into rev V rev without the easily spotted FLASH, but also complain that gangs don't function well in large groups?

Make them bigger AND also easier to coordinate, boom now you have a decent gametype instead of 5v5 deathmatch on a 60 person server, where security shits on both sides and nothing interesting happens beyond a few graffiti sprays.

[Incomptinence]

I think rather than reducing cool down number of gang/ gangleaders should scale with population. Maybe one gang leader per 10/15 people also maybe late join gang leaders to mix things up a bit maybe with catch up points. They are territory limited and have competing take over objectives and we have more than two gang signs, it should work.

Also get rid of the fake gang signs from spray cans they look exactly the bloody same, also might want to make things made with paint not look like crayon when examined.

[Alex Crimson]

I think its fine as is. Bigger gangs seems like it would ruin the fun and just turn things into a warzone. This isnt Rev.

[Ikarrus]

New Gang Update is live https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9226

- Gang bosses can now rally their gang to their location with their gangtool.
- Gangtools can no longer recall the shuttle if station integrity is lower than 70%
- Removed requirement to be in the territory to tag it.
- Recruitment Pen cost reduced to 40.

[Ikarrus]

Also get rid of the fake gang signs from spray cans they look exactly the bloody same, also might want to make things made with paint not look like crayon when examined.

The two selected gang icons for a given round will never appear as a fake gang tag. They're removed from the pool of gang names at the start.

For example, if a round is Waffle vs Donk, the Waffle and Donk gang tags will never appear as fake tags.

Also, the crayon is because of shitty spraycan code, which has a number of other bugs that sawu is basically ignoring: https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/issues/8940

[Incomptinence]

I have worked as janitor in gang and really the spam of fake signs possible makes that pretty irrelevant. I mean being restricted doesn't really stand out when the fake tags can make it look well within random variance to the guy dedicated to cleaning it up.

[Oldman Robustin]

I think its fine as is. Bigger gangs seems like it would ruin the fun and just turn things into a warzone. This isnt Rev.

It will never be rev due to the fundamentally different objectives. It's also possible to make bigger gangs without opening the door to flash spamming a department and turning the station into a battlefield within minutes.

Reducing the cooldown while still having the cooldown rise as the gang grows accomplishes this quite well.

Also keep in mind that the gang war NEEDS to have an impact on the round. People abhorred the initial changes to newling because it basically meant you were playing an extended round since the antags were few in number and lacked any kind of offensive power.

Gangs have the same issue right now. They can get interesting on lowpop, but on highpop every round I've seen involved some graffiti getting sprayed, maybe a couple small fights, and then some gang member is eventually sloppy, gets caught with a spraycan, and then gets implanted and gives security all the names they need to basically end the round.

Security should have a reasonable fear of gangs, but the lack of communication tools and clear objectives makes the gang an impotent force. Tagging is very loud and when I play sec during a GW I know that's im basically invincible. I roam maint, listen for spraying, search the nearest dude I find in maint, and since he has 0% chance of being able to rally a gang to his aid, he gets dragged off to sec, implanted, tells me the leader, and within 5 minutes that gang is basically dead.

I've already made some suggestions but my description is accurate. Gangs feel downright impotent. Even when a gang wins it's basically "One gang had a tagger get caught by security, who promptly shit on the gang, while the other side just lurked and converted and eventually tagged 50% of the station because sec was too lazy/bored to hunt down some spray painting assistants". There's almost no "war" in a gang war.

The round isn't fun for security either when there's nobody actually antagonizing the station. It's boring and I could care less if one side sprays enough paint to win if the only role I get to play to tazing a bunch of unarmed gang members and stuffing implants up their butts.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

Suggestions:
-You need to kill the other gang leader AND capture the station with tagging
-Gang members show no message when implanted, and aren't allowed to remember anything. This means that sec can't just implant every shitlord until they get a ganger, then pump him for all the bumpkins and the leader.
-Make pistols even cheaper. Maybe even make a variant pistol (same sprite) with fewer bullets, so you can all be packing heat, but won't be able to go rambo alone.
-Make gang pistols not use an ammotype from the autolathe. This way, the flow of guns is reliant on the gang leadership, encouraging the gangers to work with their boss instead of being le extreme pistol robuster extraordinaire.
-Make it more explicit to sec (maybe in spesslaw) that their objective is keeping the peace, not slaughtering gangsters.
-Let the crew win alongside a gang if more than 70% of the station is alive at the end of the round (and make that the requirement if a shuttle is called) to discourage MUST GET GREENTEXT-isms
-Possibility for up to three gangs when above 55 pop

[Ikarrus]

-Possibility for up to three gangs when above 55 pop

Totally doable once I refactor gangs into datums (so basically when hl3 is released)

[Wyzack]

What exactly is the duty of security in these rounds? I played my first one as a sec officer on Sybil a couple weeks ago. We collared a confirmed gang member, so I took him into interrogation and tried to get him to sing like a canary and give up his gang mates. All he did was yell JIM OTIS GANG LEADER KILL HIM FUCK U U CUNT. I even got a bwoink asking what I was doing because it was seemingly so strange. Are we just supposed to load up and valid the gang leaders to end the round or what

[Ikarrus]

Well, first off, gangsters shouldn't be revealing who converted them pretty much ever, and the goal for security doesn't change from other game types. Just protect the station and uphold law and order. Technically, though, the round can't end unless the shuttle arrives, and that can't happen if the gang bosses are still alive and kicking, so that's something you can work on if you need something to work towards.

Whoever that gangster was needs to have his shit kicked in (jobbanned)

[Wyzack]

Not 100% but i think it may have been Tedward. It is certainly worth noting that at the time i had no idea that you could loyalty implant gang members to revert their loyalty to the gang, but no one on my sec team told me that either or even mentioned the implants. If sec catches the gang leaders can we ship them off to the gulag or something for the same effect, like when heads leave the station during Rev?

[Gun Hog]

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3541 in the ideas thread has some stuff that may interest you, Ikky. Having played Gang a few times, I agree with the others that there is a lack of urgency when there are non-violent gangs involved. Some bosses will simply spray-tag areas and move along. Sometimes, the opposing boss will simply spray over the other gang's tags. In some cases, I could ignore the tags entirely (I do not know how to clean them), if the gangs happen to be docile or in hiding.

Also, as for being a gangster, I find it just as lacking as the other conversion roundtypes. You could be converted, but given no special antagonist items, meaning you only have what is available to you as a crewman to use in a fight. Players that are not robust or bold end up sitting around, or even continuing their jobs.

This is only my opinion. The far more robust and aggressive players only need their antagonist status and access to Assistant level weapons to start a fight. I, myself, am very poor at combat, and I prefer not to start a fight without having an advantage or I am acting in my own defense. People like me (cowards) are the ones that stagnate and drag on the round. Oh, well. I already lost track of the point I was trying to make.

[Reimoo]

You could be converted, but given no special antagonist items, meaning you only have what is available to you as a crewman to use in a fight.

Is that not interesting though? Improvised weapons fit the theme nicely I think. If there has to be more antag equipment it needs to be more ghetto melee weapons like bats and brass knuckles.

[Oldman Robustin]

Again, implants are the single greatest factor shitting on Gang War right now.

1. Implant a tagger
2. He names every gang leader/member he's ever seen
3. Sec PDA's the AI with names and within 5 minutes one of the gangs is completely eviscerated with no hopes of recovering.
4. Sec has an army of loyal minions who Sec can trust, and they get sent out to repeat the process on the other gang. Sec then catches a tagger/aggressor from the other gang and rinse/repeat.

At best while sec is shitting on one gang, the crew ignores the tags and the other gang wins. Any game where security breaks out the implants and has a well-staffed force is going to be a shitty gang war round 100% guaranteed.

[onleavedontatme]

Implants were a mistake.

So was buffing the AI/security so much

[Ikarrus]

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9291

This was merged only 8 hours ago. I'll see to getting the server updated tonight.

[TheNightingale]

How about a big, bright red message saying; "YOU FORGET EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR GANG LIFE" when loyalty implanted? If Security wants a gang member to snitch on their allies, they'll have to try a little harder than just implanting them.

This was posted ironically, I absolutely did look at the link above, honest. Uh-huh.

[TheNightingale]

How about a big, bright red message saying; "YOU FORGET EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR GANG LIFE" when loyalty implanted? If Security wants a gang member to snitch on their allies, they'll have to try a little harder than just implanting them.

Did you not even click on my link?

I clicked on it, wrote the post, and then read it...

But it's a good idea!

[Wyzack]

So does this mean i can interrogate gang members while they are still in the gang? Are the gang members allowed to snitch in exchange for amnesty for crimes committed? It almost seems like it might be cooler if there was no way to deconvert. Make it a little less like rev and a little more like people in an actual gang

[lumipharon]

Basically you gotta find the balance between gangs being limp dicked weaklings, and being so strong that rolling over sec and raiding the brig is the go to option.
Balance is a bitch.

Also fuck the whole murderbone thing I see going on, by NON ANTAGS.
Like seriously, I've had multiple gangsters in perma, with chucklefuck implaned people going out of their way to get in and murder them for zero fucking reason.

[Loonikus]

Also fuck the whole murderbone thing I see going on, by NON ANTAGS.
Like seriously, I've had multiple gangsters in perma, with chucklefuck implaned people going out of their way to get in and murder them for zero fucking reason.

MUH. VALIDS.

[Scones]

Basically you gotta find the balance between gangs being limp dicked weaklings, and being so strong that rolling over sec and raiding the brig is the go to option.
Balance is a bitch.

Also fuck the whole murderbone thing I see going on, by NON ANTAGS.
Like seriously, I've had multiple gangsters in perma, with chucklefuck implaned people going out of their way to get in and murder them for zero fucking reason.

Gang is a bit of a bitch to balance but I do think the right measures have been taken in how mass conversion is not really a thing with the scaling conversion CD, among other things.

Also, GOTTA GET THOSE VALIDS

Somewhat related, on the other end of the spectrum, can we please stop saying it's okay for revs to gib non-implanted non-heads because 'lol im antag'

[Ikarrus]

Apparently Rally calls are utterly ineffective (Hardly anyone actually responds to the rally if it ever actually gets used), so I'm going to jump to the next level and try this out now:

https://github.com/tgstation/-tg-station/pull/9391

[Saegrimr]

In the round I was just in I never even noticed the rally text, if it was even used by Prima's gang.
Spent most of the round as a janitor cleaning all the graffiti, got converted and then went on a very innocent looking crusade.

Never before has janitor actually felt like an important role on the station, except for maybe slipping nuke ops but the clown did that better anyway.

[Ikarrus]

I think it was just the tunnel gang that used it, and only because I suggested it to him in a subtle message.

I think most Gang leaders get the impression that it's a button only used for emergencies. So most of them just never use it.

[onleavedontatme]

I felt like I was stuck in a weird spot where I saw gang members obviously going around spraying shit, organizing meetings, etc, but was worried admins would ban me for "validhunting" or OOC would erupt with the same.

I guess that's more of a rule issue than a code issue, but I can see troubles with "why'd you kill that guy for spraying paint"

Fun stuff otherwise

[Oldman Robustin]

Yeah, I can see how implants can be too OP. I was thinking of having it like cult where it doesn't deconvert people, but can block conversions.

Or make it require two implants --one to deconvert, another to block future conversions

Please God No.
When it's a game mode where it is easy enough to convert as rev, we need a relatively stable way of deconversion.
Also, Saegemir, quit ducking using examples from other gamemodes to pack up your points. This isn't other gamemodes.
This is gang.

Try playing as a gang leader before posting.

A revhead can flash their entire department in under 30 seconds. A gang leader will need 10x the time to get the same number of converts.

Also Rev has many advantages since enemies of the revolution are easy to identify and they have clear objectives. As a gang recruit, you have no idea who your enemies are, what you should be doing, what the plan is, etc. I'd say 50% of my recruits will just go back to doing their job no matter what I whisper in their ear after poking them.

I think the round would simply be more entertaining/fun for everyone is gangsters could raid perma/gulag to free their fellow members. This isn't like cult/rev/etc. where the converted are dedicated to murdering sec and it's a huge liability to keep them imprisoned. I also think a Nukeops-style MAJOR/MINOR victory system would be a good way to encourage security to keep gang leaders alive. Major victory if both leaders are alive & brigged on shuttle, minor victory otherwise (assuming no gang has won by round end).

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if Security has better equipment, tons of tactical advantages, and the ability to convert enemy faction members (while said enemy factions cannot convert members of security), then the game type is not about GANG v. GANG but rather watching security shit on the gangs as the clear superpower of the round while gangs are forced to split their resources/attention/time to avoiding security AND detection by enemy gang members. If Gang war is EVER going to be interesting, security has to take a backseat role as "peacekeepers". Nerfing the effect of implants is the first and most obvious way to tone down the power and role of security in a gang war.

[Arete]

I felt like I was stuck in a weird spot where I saw gang members obviously going around spraying shit, organizing meetings, etc, but was worried admins would ban me for "validhunting" or OOC would erupt with the same.

I guess that's more of a rule issue than a code issue, but I can see troubles with "why'd you kill that guy for spraying paint"

Fun stuff otherwise

This is an important difference between gangs and ops/cult. Ops and cultists are both working toward a goal that involves the station being essentially destroyed, so there's more justification to use against people saying "Why'd you kill that guy for trying to steal a disk?" or "Why'd you kill that guy for having a book?". It'd be putting security in a really precarious position if they're facing a group antag who's fully willing and able to kill officers, but the officers themselves were to face strict rules of engagement. I'm not sure how any additional flavor justification could be added when the gangs' win condition really is nothing more than spraying paint, though.

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I think that the absolute most inportant thing to discourage valid hunters in Gang is to let the crew free text alongside a gang. Sec shouldn't green text from permabrigging/murdering all the gangers, they should win by keeping the crew alive long enough.

[MeatShake]

I felt like I was stuck in a weird spot where I saw gang members obviously going around spraying shit, organizing meetings, etc, but was worried admins would ban me for "validhunting" or OOC would erupt with the same.

I guess that's more of a rule issue than a code issue, but I can see troubles with "why'd you kill that guy for spraying paint"

Fun stuff otherwise

I dunno why you'd kill a dude for spraying paint regardless. Bust him for vandalism then let the rest follow. You can still fuck a dude over completely under the veil of "IC Innocence." Gangs IRL routinely tip off the police to enemies and use other underhanded methods. You can be more creative than just killing all rival gang members.

Also stop getting cucked by the admins, unless you're genuinely griefing you generally won't get more than a message to clarify what happened.

[Oldman Robustin]

>Be captain

>Reports of gang tags and converting

>Want cargo loyal so we can get more implants if need be

>Cargo tech on duty runs from the sight of me, chase him into maint and implant him

>BLAH BLAH LIFE OF CRIME. He names his leader, AI tracks him, he's arrested within 30 seconds.

>Gang leader tells us the identity of the other gang leader

>Other gang leader arrested within 30 seconds

>Gang wars over guys

[Ikarrus]

They're not supposed to be revealing each others' identities when deconverted. The game even tells them this.

Either way I can't do much while the code freeze is in effect.

[Septavius]

petition to add 50 Blessings as an ingame gang.

[Wizardjenkins66]

petition to add 50 Blessings as an ingame gang.

This.

[Saltycut]

Not sure if this was mentioned somewhere in the thread, but currently spraying graffiti tag on the wall always proceeds with pushing the wall. That leaves fingerprints and means that that person with forensic scanner can easily obtain a list off most of the gangmembers without even catching them redhanded spraying. Not sure if that was intended by or should be posted as a ballance issue since its greatly buffs security side during this game mode.

[invisty]

What effect would increasing the number of gangs have for higher population games?