Gangs and you.

[J_Madison]

Removal of Gang takes a lot of digging through code. I'm not currently prepared to do so, but it's coming.

Gang has existed in three forms over the history of Tgstation13;

Flashes gang - indentical to revolution except the target is the enemy gang leader(s). Conversion via flash, deconversion via implant.

Dominator gang - most similar to current gang.
Period of no gang starts here.
Robustin gang - massive amounts of guns, various other tools added.


Discuss the gang issue and situation here.

[D&B]

4 Periods

Dominator Gang
Period of No Gang
I'm gonna be retarded and re enable a non mantained gamemode and have the players suffer through bugs and bad balance because I enjoyed one round of it!!!1!!
Oh god why are you trying to fix my shitty gamemode reeeeee it's not real gang/TDM Heaven

[Nabski]

Flashes gang sounds aweful.

I liked the dominator gangs, but it was right as I was starting to play. I really enjoyed the territory mechanic, and still do, because it involves running around the station looking for things or cleaning and trying to control an area without having to just look for people to turn sideways.

In the worst idea ever it might be interesting if that was how clock cult bronzed things. Plant your bronze seed and it converts out from that room. People running around knocking down seeds.

[ShadowDimentio]

The station hasn't consented, seeding it without consent is RAPE!!

[J_Madison]

Flashes gang sounds aweful.

I liked the dominator gangs, but it was right as I was starting to play. I really enjoyed the territory mechanic, and still do, because it involves running around the station looking for things or cleaning and trying to control an area without having to just look for people to turn sideways.

In the worst idea ever it might be interesting if that was how clock cult bronzed things. Plant your bronze seed and it converts out from that room. People running around knocking down seeds.

flashes gang wasn't that bad. it was simple and very grey-tide esq. I played many rounds on downstream. They were short, bloody, save for the occasional draw out round. Just like revs.

I hated dominator gang because it was so easy to stop and it ended up being long rounds. The territory mechanic wasn't done well and I found myself randomly dying because I just so happen to be in my department as the wrong gang member.

[oranges]

flashes gang was just rev under a different name though, you could have replicated it with just two or three rev factions

[lumipharon]

Early gang was 10/10 fun, the hilarious firefights we had between 5-6 gangers on either side, sometimes with some security in there also.
Honestly they were the most enjoyable fights I've had in the game, the problems only really appeared after that early phase, when people started playing to win rather then fucking around and having FUN.

My dream is still of datum antags and a more limited (in terms of numbers, gear and objectives) gang(s) running around and being a bit more fluffy an enjoyable, but eh.

[PKPenguin321]

Early gang was 10/10 fun, the hilarious firefights we had between 5-6 gangers on either side, sometimes with some security in there also.
Honestly they were the most enjoyable fights I've had in the game, the problems only really appeared after that early phase, when people started playing to win rather then fucking around and having FUN.

My dream is still of datum antags and a more limited (in terms of numbers, gear and objectives) gang(s) running around and being a bit more fluffy an enjoyable, but eh.

Yeah. Gang before robustin gang was easily the best gamemode in the rotation within the first 3 or so months of its lifespan. I want to go back to that.

[oranges]

You're only remembering the honeymoon period, what you want never existed outside of being a fresh new thing for a few months

[lumipharon]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying though. But that period was FUN.

[Oldman Robustin]

No period of gangs gets to enter the category of "great". Like most team modes it CAN produce great rounds simply by virtue of throwing large numbers of players into each other in a high stakes conflict, but generally speaking the gameplay always had a shitty core.

1) Gang leaders controlling all the influence was awful. Every gang's influence was basically the leader's personal uzi savings account (it was even worse when it was the tommy gun, basically a C20R with more ammo and crazy OP), there were so few games where I would even get a weapon. It was mostly rev in the sense that your ability to slip a security officer and get their gear was a determinative factor in your gang's success.

2) Dom defense was cancer. Even with decent territory doms would take 10+ minutes to finish. Since defending something for 10 minutes is absolutely awful gangs would just wipe out all opposition before planting, then twiddle their thumbs for 10 minutes while 50 ghosts watched. Even when there was still active resistance the best dom defense was wallspam wallspam wallspam.

3) If Dom defense was cancer then pre-dom objectives were Stage 5 Space Aids, you could only win after there was nobody left to give a shit so either you murdered everyone or it was lowpop and suddenly out of nowhere the the round because someone spraycanned enough maint walls to win.

4) Security was always oppressive. The only good gang rounds took place when they were too underpopulated or too dumb to leverage their natural advantages. Honestly even if there was only one gang with multiple bosses gangs would still probably lose because getting the occasional gun is not worth losing the rapid-fire conversion that revs get (plus unlike revs, gangs have obvious tells). If security ever took control of cargo it was GG.

5) There wasn't enough flavor. It always felt like slomo revs except where each revhead is hostile to each other. You had 3 weapons, switchblade, stechkin, and uzi - of those 3 the smart money was always on the stechkin (which was already a traitor weapon) - so absolutely nothing about the mode except tagging felt very "gangster".


Even if you hate vigilantes and the total warfare, the new gang is still far superior. Its only weakness is now that EVERY gangster cares about territory the maint battles get intense within minutes of roundstart whereas before you didn't really give a fuck if someone else was spraying your territory, all it was affect was a handful of influence for a couple people. Now everyone has a stake in tagging so there's a lot more early death and gang v. gang conflict, but in turn that means security and implant spam is still pretty easy to pull off since gangs are too busy killing each other to give a fuck about sec fortifying cargo.

[J_Madison]

Even if you hate vigilantes and the total warfare, the new gang is still far superior. Its only weakness is now that EVERY gangster cares about territory the maint battles get intense within minutes of roundstart whereas before you didn't really give a fuck if someone else was spraying your territory, all it was affect was a handful of influence for a couple people. Now everyone has a stake in tagging so there's a lot more early death and gang v. gang conflict, but in turn that means security and implant spam is still pretty easy to pull off since gangs are too busy killing each other to give a fuck about sec fortifying cargo.

1. absolutely not.
2. battles are as intense as dragging around an infinite ammo mg
3. you literally gave gangs easier and more access to weapons than a changeling with a nukeop uplink. who do you think you are kidding

[oranges]

it makes sense securiyt players would get salty lol

[kevinz000]

TDM is not an answer

[Haevacht]

TDM is not an answer

[Luke Cox]

Any future changes to gang need to involve them claiming a department or area and slowly spreading out. Gang should be a loud conversion antag mode, and pushing into a fully established gang base should be extremely difficult for even for fully equipped sec.

[CPTANT]

I feel we should have just reduced the most major issues from dominator gang and continue with that.


Now it is just an entirely different gamemode and it will take ages for meta to settle and balance issues to become obvious.

[BeeSting12]

I can honestly agree with Robustin on one thing, and that's that giving every gangster his personal uplink is a good idea. Other than that, the prices need to go up on various thing but as I understand it, he included it in the vigilantes PR, which I'm not a fan of because it sort of takes out a part of gangs that I think is good, and that's fighting against security. If you don't act like a complete mongoloid then it isn't very hard to kill security and stop them from killing your gang.

[Steelpoint]

Gang seems to work more on goon since being a part of a gang is optional and the gangs are just focused on killing each other, with sec only getting involved if one gang starts killing sec, which usually ends very badly for that gang.

[Oldman Robustin]

Goon didn't have gangs when I played there but I'm reluctant to have our modes guided by the practices of a DED server.

JMad "pull and shoot" machine guns were around for less than a week before I fixed them in my PR, find a new strawman to beat on.

Based on current poll results (they've been fairly stable since Day 1) it looks like we will keep GW in at its current weight and vigilantes will show up in lieu of security about 40% of the time. Thats well under a 2% chance for vigilantes. I'd like it to be a little higher but hopefully a combined ~4% will still give the round enough exposure for me to keep observing rounds and making balance improvements.

[bandit]

No period of gangs gets to enter the category of "great". Like most team modes it CAN produce great rounds simply by virtue of throwing large numbers of players into each other in a high stakes conflict, but generally speaking the gameplay always had a shitty core.

1) Gang leaders controlling all the influence was awful. Every gang's influence was basically the leader's personal uzi savings account (it was even worse when it was the tommy gun, basically a C20R with more ammo and crazy OP), there were so few games where I would even get a weapon. It was mostly rev in the sense that your ability to slip a security officer and get their gear was a determinative factor in your gang's success.

2) Dom defense was cancer. Even with decent territory doms would take 10+ minutes to finish. Since defending something for 10 minutes is absolutely awful gangs would just wipe out all opposition before planting, then twiddle their thumbs for 10 minutes while 50 ghosts watched. Even when there was still active resistance the best dom defense was wallspam wallspam wallspam.

3) If Dom defense was cancer then pre-dom objectives were Stage 5 Space Aids, you could only win after there was nobody left to give a shit so either you murdered everyone or it was lowpop and suddenly out of nowhere the the round because someone spraycanned enough maint walls to win.

4) Security was always oppressive. The only good gang rounds took place when they were too underpopulated or too dumb to leverage their natural advantages. Honestly even if there was only one gang with multiple bosses gangs would still probably lose because getting the occasional gun is not worth losing the rapid-fire conversion that revs get (plus unlike revs, gangs have obvious tells). If security ever took control of cargo it was GG.

5) There wasn't enough flavor. It always felt like slomo revs except where each revhead is hostile to each other. You had 3 weapons, switchblade, stechkin, and uzi - of those 3 the smart money was always on the stechkin (which was already a traitor weapon) - so absolutely nothing about the mode except tagging felt very "gangster".


Even if you hate vigilantes and the total warfare, the new gang is still far superior. Its only weakness is now that EVERY gangster cares about territory the maint battles get intense within minutes of roundstart whereas before you didn't really give a fuck if someone else was spraying your territory, all it was affect was a handful of influence for a couple people. Now everyone has a stake in tagging so there's a lot more early death and gang v. gang conflict, but in turn that means security and implant spam is still pretty easy to pull off since gangs are too busy killing each other to give a fuck about sec fortifying cargo.

what if you want to play Space Station 13 for it being a game about the operations of a space station

[lumipharon]

Then you'll have to convine the 90%+ of the player base that don't agree with you.
Welcome to validstation 13

[Oldman Robustin]

Current poll results (which have been steady throughout the polling period), strongly indicate that people want a split of sec and no-sec modes - at a roughly 60/40 ratio respectively.

Gang War is just as much about operating a space station as any other mode. Miners still go mine, medbay is a more precious resource than ever because of the wide prevalence of non-fatal harm that quickly exhausts other medical supplies. Science can still deploy game-changers like mechs, borgs, bluespace guns, and AI's that carry outsizes strength due to the lack of EMP's, and engineers ability to control chokepoints, sabotage equipment, hack airlocks, and gobble up walls can be decisive - and of course Cargo can be a crucial for gangs to load up on armor, shields, ammo, and free guns - or loyalists can seize it for implants.

I love seeing how each department leverages its strengths during gang war. You don't see that as much in Warops where dept. identity dissolves immediately upon everyone getting all-access and most dept. tools are relatively useless against Mr. Shielded Hardsuit with a SAW.

[Muncher21]

So we just had a gang round with the test merge so here's my opinions.

I started in medbay and got converted early. The gang head wanted us to lay low and just convert people as they come in. It worked really well and we soon had a healthy gang going in medbay. Other gangs got raided and we managed to fly under the radar as sec took them out. The real opponent was enemy gangs, and I suppose vigilantes? We eventually had most control of the station, but failed to dominate because of a influence bug(?).

The round was a lot of fun. I see lots of complaints about valid hunting, but for the most part I was either attacked first, or was told to kill someone by our gang boss. There is a strong need for new members in the beginning, which really incentives not killing everyone, which works great. From the gang side I never felt like I was "valid hunting", but those complaint may be about vigilantes. I haven't played this role, and I'm not even sure if it exists in the test merge. I've had a decent amount of fun in every gang mode I've played, and I feel like that alone at least qualifies a test merge for a month or so for me. I've had much worse rounds in Rev and ling. It seems like many people just hate gang without giving it an earnest try, which is understandably frustrating.

>test merge for a month
>Poll community at the end of the month
>if >65% merge for another month poll again
>if still >65% merge it