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I think it's tougher to get to the true root of the problems with gangs than anyone expects. A lot of players have a lot of very contradictory ideas. I think if we want to make gangs better, we have to figure out what they all have in common.
From talking to random players on Era, what I've picked up is that a significant majority of players will immediately blame the gang problems on Merc (including most of the members of Merc). Players outside of Merc say that they have too many of the good players, and the players who are left get scattered across the remaining gangs (rather than teaming up to make another super-gang). Players within Merc complain that they are usually only faced with intense competition from one other gang at each set of gang events. When asked why they don't leave the gang to start their own, most of the Souls will say it's because they always play with their friends, and most of the others will say "why would we give up easy, free, plentiful ECs that we're guaranteed to get at the same time each week?"
It seems to be that during and right after Gang Wars every Sunday, the raiding seriously intensifies. Some players have just gotten so used to logging on for Sunday gang events, getting their ECs, and then logging off or idling for the next 7 days that gang activity completely ceases during the week.
In addition, gangs don't seem to care about rank anymore. People who have been leaders of gangs in the old system are more than happy to be a recruit in Mercenary with no rights in the new system; it doesn't matter because there is no gang base, gang guns are free, and almost every gang is constantly at capacity. Being the leader or a high ranking member of gang doesn't benefit you at all, and means that you can't be a part of an already established gang like Merc.
Like Chorch, my personal opinion is that the true root of the gang problem is that the incentive system is completely out of whack. Era unknowingly incentivizes the behavior we're trying to prevent.
If I were to try to fix gangs, I would start by adding a series of gang-only events that a normal ET can host, which would reward a little better than a regular event (maybe 2ecs per player and an MVP coin to the top kills), but have similar restrictions to BHPK and ULMS (can only be hosted once per every x other events).
The next thing I would do is to make gang bases much more important again. Maybe each week, the top 3 gangs get bases, the next 3 gangs get to stay, and the rest of the gangs get deleted. You can only get a gun by owning a base. Only x number of that gun can be out at a time, but this can be upgraded. You can also upgrade rate of fire, freeze, spread, damage, etc. If another gang takes over your base, not only do they gain x points per second, but you lose x points per second (maybe per player online), and this gang can steal some of your guns (not permanently, but they'll be able to use the gun, meaning one fewer of your members can use it until they log off).
It also makes sense to incentivize gang leadership and loyalty (I know we have various types of loyalty prizes, but they clearly haven't been effective so far). Maybe have a system where the top three ranking members of the second best gang are actually rewarded better than the bottom three members of the best gang. There needs to be a reason to work your way up in a gang again, and actually have some sense of ownership over that gang. I think this would quickly put an end to Merc. Edit: (I want to make it clear that I don't mean "put an end to Merc" as in completely get rid of Merc, just put an end to the current problem with Merc)
I would also try to make some more strategic gang events. Things like racing to finish a quest, or something like Benny's old gang island idea. It would be cool to have a gang event that you can win without necessarily being 12 of the best PKers on the server.
Finally, I would add some things to the point shop (both for gangs and individual). Give more incentive to raid, even if it's stupid. Some random noob will die a thousand times getting the 20 points he needs for a ridiculous hat, or a random aura/smoke effect. The players who are capable of getting thousands of points aren't the ones who need an incentive to raid; they're already doing it anyways. We need some lower point things that individuals and gangs would want. A gang vehicle, or gang power-ups (maybe you can buy a 5 point health upgrade for all members on tag).
Does anyone else have additional thoughts? I encourage everyone to try to dig even deeper into the problem if possible; try asking yourself and others "why" repeatedly. "Why do gangs suck?" "Because there are too many gangs." "Why is there too many gangs?" "Because all of the best players are spread out, except for one gang with 12 of them." "Why do all the good players except 12 split up?" "Because they want to be leaders of their own gangs." "Why doesn't Merc want to split up too then?" "Because they enjoy getting guaranteed ECs every Sunday." --I think you see where I'm going with this, but there's always the next "why?" |