Hello everyone, sorry for the late response. Ok, first thanks for creating the topic and giving your input about the new requirements applied on gangs. Even when we do not take the decisions you might want, we're always aware of these and trying to pick the best for the current gameplay.
However, I'd like to approach this topic with the first argument said, which was that the requirements were increased because of the peak during corona outbreak. While this is true, the only focus of doing that change was not only to be kept during the corona virus outbreak, it just worked as a trigger from an already existent problem.
That meaning, while the playercount might be lower than it used to be at the time, we're still planning to keep the change during a prolonged amount of time to check the behaviour of these changes on the server. While we appreciate your feedback, this was made during an early stage, considering it has just been roughly more than a month since the change was implemented.
Now, I'd like to clarify our aim is NOT to kill gang side, however recently the increasing amount of gangs in the server is concerning at the point that it tells us something is not working properly. While I agree with you, some development must be brought into the server to make it equally fun for both sides, we're working right now with the tools we have at our disposal and our possibilities as GMs.
That said, we believe the amount of current official gangs should be lower, and hence keeping the same requirement as we had for years now is just standing still without trying to fix the current situation. While some of you said that the approach shouldn't be changing the requirements and saying it is not your fault that there's currently that many gangs, not changing the requirements only brings us to the same outcome, more and more gangs popping up due to the requirements that were easily reachable for everyone.
Our ideal view of gangs is a strong organization filled with a good amount of players, ergo we don't think a lot of low tier organizations with low amount of players in them is an accepted state for organizations. That's why the requirements were rised by 5 players on most of the levels, except on level 2 that the requirement increased by 6.
That being said, I reiterate we don't want to kill gang side, we are just seeking a good state on the criminal organizations side. The gangs that were notified/warned in the most recent results drop were organizations that already were on the edge of activity or dropped their activity a lot.
In the past month, we saw how 13 (without counting level 1 gangs) were able to fulfill the needed amount of members required for their level, and even how two gangs managed to level up from level 1 to level 2. That leaving to only 6 from the 21 official gangs being warned or notified for their low activity. And some of those were about to be warned even without implementing the current requirements.
I think this is already a long ass text so I'll stop it in here and I'll reply to any concern or question you decide to write below. I will not disclose any private information in this thread so if you want to discuss anything that has gang private information on it, please refer it to your private channel on the GM discord server.
We know it might be really bothersome to be taken out of your comfort zone but I believe you can adapt once again to the new conditions on the table.
TLDR; Right now we're not going to change the requirement since we're still checking the impact of it on the criminal organizations gameplay. May changes be implemented on the future but as it is for this month and most likely the next, there's nothing to change yet.
