PART 1: Intro and Basic Mechanics - Hytale Gang Wars

Screenshot from GTA San Andreas

DISCLAIMER: This is speculative and based on pre-release information, Minecraft, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This is not to be taken seriously; this is just for fun.

I use "dark magic" as a general term to refer to magic with stereotypically evil themes such as raising the dead. Dark magic may not always refer to void magic, which is used by Varyn. Outlanders use water magic in their dark rituals, so I refer to Outlanders' magic as dark magic.
Dark magic also includes casting literal darkness.
That said, we don't know much yet about dark and void magic and whether they are similar or vastly different.

I also consider "ice magic" as part of water magic.

Acknowledgements

Permissions to use all of these people's names were obtained.

Funny thing is, this was originally supposed to be one gigantic blog post, coming in at 8000+ words. But I realized maybe this would be too long for a single post to maintain the reader's attention span, so first of all, I'm very thankful to my classmate Ghean for suggesting this should be split into a series. This way, I don't have to come up with new ideas every Sunday 'cause I've already written many of them in advance. lololol

I also included some of her opinions on my series...with permission, of course.

Secondly, another massive thank-you to the Hytale theorist Shadrok for reviewing drafts of this series and for re-igniting my interest in Hytale with his theories.

Introduction

This is the first part in a planned 6-part series of blog posts about Hytale gang wars to be posted throughout the rest of 2019 plus January 2020.

Prepare to get hyped 'cause I worked on this like crazy back in October 2019.

On September 21, 2019, I got Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for free from the Rockstar Games Launcher, and needless to say, I got hooked...too much. (Thanks a gigaton, Rockstar Games!) I literally had nightmares of me driving away from cops or Ballas chasing me. In just my first week, I beat about 70 of the main story missions.
Heck, I even stopped thinking about Hytale a few days into my playthrough...until I got hooked with Shadrok's theories.

I've already gotten past the mission "Home Coming" where the protagonist Carl "CJ" Johnson meets up with Sweet, his older brother and Grove Street Families (GSF) leader, after Sweet was released from prison. They then take back their home, Grove Street, from their rival gang, the Ballas. This is the mission where gang wars can be played again after a temporary absence due to Sweet's arrest.
Since that mission, I've taken over all but one territory (allowing Denise, one of CJ's girlfriends, to do a drive-by shooting date), so I have a solid idea on how gang wars generally work, including tactics.

Speaking of which, I want to talk about GTA San Andreas gang war tactics first.

San Andreas Gang War Mechanics

In my Hytale play style part 3, I talked about hostile factions becoming increasingly aggressive towards the player as the player performs actions that trigger their hatred. I imagine that the more they hate the player, the stronger and more frequent their attacks will be against the player and/or his/her bases.
Though not quite similar, in GTA San Andreas, enemy gang members are more likely to attack CJ if he's wearing clothes that increase how much the GSF respects him. Otherwise, they'd just ignore CJ unless he gets very close to the gang members, in which case they'll talk to him and any reply from CJ will cause them to attack.
In GTA Vice City Stories, though, enemy gang members will constantly pursue the player in cars, even outside enemy gang territory. The attacks get more frequent as the player takes more enemy gang properties until the gang loses all its properties and the game is saved afterward.

A gang war in GTA San Andreas is started by killing at least 3 gang members in enemy gang territory. After a few seconds, enemy gang members will randomly spawn at a fairly far distance from the player in an ambush, with an occasional car and a drive-by shooter. The goal is to survive three waves of defenders.

Hytale-related Speculations (if Hypixel Studios adopts this idea)

I know Hytale factions are not "gangs", but I just REALLY like saying "gang war". So when I say "gang war" in a Hytale context, I really mean a faction war.

Attacking an enemy faction's base may not just be limited to defenders in the base to begin with. Ambush parties may appear outside the base, allowing the enemy faction to pincer-attack raiding parties.

This is more likely to occur among factions with strong camaraderie between members, such as Outlanders. Being skilled in the art of survival, they may know a lot of large-radius signaling techniques to call in faraway allies.

This means the player shouldn't just look for enemies in the base--they should keep an eye for ambush parties hiding in the bushes. This also makes hit-and-run attacks harder to perform.

However, this can be somewhat frustrating for new players as they may get bored of fighting enemies that "just keep coming". So maybe reinforcements should be limited in smaller bases as they are probably less important to the faction.
There should also be ways to prevent or lessen reinforcements, such as by preventing enemies from sending signals or just quickly killing 90% of the enemies in the base. lololol

Many gang territories in San Andreas have some kind of strategic terrain like a rooftop or an alleyway. High ground allows the player to see more of their surroundings and force the enemy to get closer to get a good shot, while alleyways function as chokepoints which allow the player to easily shoot enemies with very little room for the enemy to move side-to-side.

Similar strategic terrain can be used in Hytale, though this can vary as Hytale territories may not look like a city filled with buildings like San Andreas. Although block breaking and placement allow the player to create their own defensive terrain, I'm bracing for the possibility that enemy territories cannot have blocks placed or broken, similar to portal dungeons.

This Trork encampment screenshot was recently reposted by Hytale's Twitter account based on Sylent's reveal in the Hypixel server forums.
I'd consider it medium-size; I don't think a small-scale base would have tall watch towers and a fairly tall wall.
Unlike Sylent's reveal, this shows two Trorks guarding the watch towers. One clearly wields a spear (which BoltOLightnin can throw an axe at for a weapon triangle advantage; just kidding), but I'm not sure what the other wields--maybe a bow? Or is it unarmed?
There are spikes on the walls, though not enough to prevent pillar-jumping attacks.
There's a stone tower to the right of the encampment, but I consider it to be not part of the Trork encampment because it's inconsistent with Trork architecture. That said, that tower makes for a good vantage point...
Thanks to Shadrok for sharing Sylent's reveal!

In contrast, Outlander territories are fairly large, detailed, and well-fortified.
They take advantage of the high ground to make it difficult for raiders to reach them.
Chokepoints and spread-out watch towers make it difficult to rush head-on without being skewered by arrows.
Screenshot from Hytale

In the mission "Beat Down on B Dup", after CJ and Sweet take territory from the Ballas, they raid B Dup's house. Additionally, taking over at least 35% of all gang territories is required to play the final mission "End of the Line" where, after intimidating the rival gangs into submission by taking their territories, they reveal the location of one of the antagonists.

Perhaps taking over enemy territory in Hytale can grant access to dungeons, treasures, or even deeper faction territory leading to a powerful faction commander (not necessarily the highest-ranking leader).

Continue Reading

But these mechanics only scratch the surface compared to the vast potential Hypixel Studios has for gang wars besides adopting GTA San Andreas's ideas.
Enjoy the next 5 parts on the following links:

Part 2: Stealth

Part 3: Types of Territory

Part 4: Raiding Tactics

Part 5: Defense

Part 6: Non-Player Gang Wars, Player Turf, and Behind-the-Scenes