PART 6: Non-Player Gang Wars, Player Turf, and Behind-the-Scenes | Hytale Gang Wars

DISCLAIMER: This series is speculative and based on pre-release information and Minecraft. This is not to be taken seriously; this is just for fun.
I know I had fun doing this series.

Finally! Welcome to part 6 of my 6-part series about Hytale gang wars: the last of the immensely hard work I put over the past few months while I wasted away doing school work.
Just in time because this is the last week of December and will be the first week of January. Advanced Happy New Year! (Not you, school work. Screw you for planning to drag me back on January 11.)

As part of Hytale's goal of making a living, breathing world, I think gang wars will not be limited to the player fighting against other factions or the other way around. I think factions will constantly fight each other, not just in coincidental encounters like Minecraft wolves seeing sheep, but through serious, large-scale warfare.

To begin with, we already know an official rivalry between factions: the Ferans and the Scaraks, where the Ferans want to exact revenge on the Scaraks for enslaving the Ferans. Some rivalries are implied or speculative, such as Kweebecs being rivals with the Trorks because Kweebecs wear Trork teeth as accessories, and Gaia being a rival of Varyn.

The bottom part shows a Feran enslaved by a Scarak.
Concept art by Thomas Frick from Hytale

This adds an extra challenge into the standard navigation of Hytale's worlds. Unlike Minecraft where worlds are generally free of dangers except for environment hazards and hostile mobs at night, gang wars may randomly occur in Hytale as factions compete for territory, get revenge, or in the case of good factions, defend themselves from evil and eventually destroy evil.

If the gang war is large enough, it can be tough to walk around the battlefield without running into an angry soldier, especially a hostile kind that attacks humans. Players may have to spend lots of time digging/building their way through or finding a detour past all the fighting, if they choose not to charge straight ahead and get caught in the crossfire, or even crazier, actually participate in the fight. (I bet these four choices would work very well in a Telltale Games game.)

If you ask me, though, I'll just run straight ahead! I can dodge all the attacks just fine! If some of the soldiers go after me instead of their rival faction, I can lure them away from the battlefield and take them out one by one.

What if they have a gang war...near my base?

In general, I'll ignore gang wars that occur near my base and command my allies to hold their fire to avoid diverting attention to us, unless an enemy faction is involved in the fight, they attack us first, or our base or allies take collateral damage.

If we do decide to join the fight and the enemy didn't intentionally attack us first, I'll wait until the enemy is cut down to a reasonably small number. This reduces the chance that a large number of enemies will divert their attention to us.

If I want to grind for items, though, I'll charge in regardless of how many there are.

Once the enemy's numbers are manageably small, I'll order our defenders to attack, and I'll attack as well from ground level.

Let's just hope there are no griefers involved. I don't like repairing holes in the ground.

Firetruck this.
Thumbnail from "Creeper triggers your anxiety for 10 minutes straight"
by The Original Ace

What if factions you're friendly with fight each other?

Okay, while this is a tough question, this is also something that I came up with very recently. (I have a bad habit of predicting questions that my readers will ask. I guess it's because I ask a ton of questions about the things I read.)

First, though, I want to stop such fights from happening in the first place. The cool thing about being friends with two factions that hate each other is that I can help both of them make peace (unless both are eternally bitter enemies such as the speculative Gaia vs. Varyn rivalry).

For example, if Kweebecs and Ferans are enemies with each other, I can enter a Kweebec territory while disguised as a Feran and accompanied by other Ferans, then do friendly things for the Kweebecs.

Note that, depending on the moral alignment (good, neutral, or evil) I choose in my playthrough, the factions I choose to help in making peace will be different. For example, in a good playthrough, I won't help Ferans make peace with Scaraks, assuming Scaraks are evil. You bet Ghean, who plays Chara the Oath of Vengeance paladin in D&D, will smite Scaraks in an instant.

When a fight actually breaks out, I'd probably incapacitate the soldiers harmlessly such as by putting them all to sleep.

If I get intentionally attacked while I'm trying to stop a fight, I'll just block or parry attacks.
If I become their enemy or I'm desperate, I'll fight them as if they were hostile mobs, though I'd make peace with the faction(s) after the battle.

Suggestions About Marking Player Territory...with Lots of Math

Player territory, used for triggering enemy faction raids, may be any of the following:

• Any player-made structure with a surface area of more than 100 blocks (not counting the bottom blocks, but counting gaps in walls to prevent cheating through minimal block usage), has been inhabited by the player for at least 2 in-game days, and contains at least one utility block like a crafting table or bed.
• Any territory visited within the last 5 in-game days whose faction is friendly to the player.
• Visiting a friendly or neutral player's territory counts that territory as "shared territory" for 1 in-game day after leaving that territory. It remains shared territory as long as the player stays.
  Enemy player territory will not count as shared territory.
• Any area with a certain item, like a custom flag, placed on it. It's up to Hypixel Studios or the player to decide what item this will be.

Additionally, the following types of player territory may determine what kinds of factions attack or at what "hate" level a faction can attack, including the special equipment they use:

• Open spaces that are at least 10 blocks below the surface and have a volume of more than 200 blocks. These count as "underground" territory, allowing subterranean factions like goblins to easily raid them.
  Surface-based factions will have a harder time finding this kind of territory, so they may avoid looking for this territory until they hate the player to the point that they can't wait to kill the player. When they do attack, they're more likely to bring pickaxes and explosives.
• Underwater territories fit mostly the same criteria as an underground base, except all 10 blocks between the surface and territory have to be made of water. Non-aquatic factions are much less likely to raid this type of base, but when they do, they may bring boats, submarines, scuba diving suits, and/or potions of water breathing. Stronger invaders may not take super effective damage from lightning and/or plant-based attacks.
• Any floating area of blocks whose lowest block has at least 10 blocks of air between it and the block directly below it, and is also at least 16 blocks away from any non-adjacent block. This forms a sky base, which may be raided by flying mobs or faction members that wear flying equipment or have flying vehicles/mounts. Stronger or angrier fliers may not take super effective damage from bows or lightning.
  Additionally, a sky base with 10-16 blocks between it and the surface may be raided by ranged attackers who can't fly.
• Any area of blocks that is at least 32 blocks away from the nearest land block and whose lowest block is at most 2 blocks above water level. This forms an ocean surface base, or epipelagic zone base, which aquatic factions are most likely to raid, followed by air-based factions, then land-based factions riding boats, aquatic mounts, or wearing swimming equipment.

This stuff, admittedly, is hecka complicated, but come on, guys, it's Hypixel Studios. I mean, I bet even Mojang can pull this off, like they did with villager mechanics.

And if Hypixel Studios doesn't want to do it, maybe a modder can. :p

Lazy Conclusion

Factions are an important feature of Hytale, as they contribute greatly to the history and gameplay of Hytale as a whole. In addition to the interactions already known, I think gang wars, whether or not they involve the player, will further highlight these two important aspects through their fighting styles, reasons for fighting, and relationships with the player.
Gang wars should not only make one faction stronger and the other weaker; the factions' behaviors should be changed accordingly to make them (and Hytale as a whole) more memorable to the community, whether it's the friendly factions holding festivals with the player to celebrate victories, an enemy faction trembling in fear, or increasing hatred towards the player. In other words, gang wars should contribute to Hytale's goal of creating a living, breathing world.

Behind-the-Scenes

• Before I split this into multiple blog posts, this was going to be my longest blog post so far at 8000+ words. I'm amazed at the sheer effort I put into this. School work will never get me to match this level of quality and detail.
• I spent 3 all-nighters doing this. One of those all-nighters was actually an approximately whole day of writing--from morning to past midnight. Dad caught me staying up all night.
• I initially gave up on writing this post because I didn't have a lot of ideas at first to pull from other games besides GTA San Andreas, whose gang war system was rather simplistic. I also had no interest in Hytale that time due to the lack of official blog posts.
  I regained my interest in Hytale, as well as my motivation to write this post, after reading Shadrok's theories--I recommend you read them as well. He sees a lot of stuff that I miss even after looking at the same pieces of official Hytale media multiple times. Kweebec Corner and Hytale News have given Shadrok's theories some spotlights in their own videos.
• When Ghean told me about Dungeons & Dragons heavy armor putting the player at a disadvantage in stealth, I researched into D&D...and got hooked. A few days later, I binge-watched D&D videos and built my own D&D character. Now I'm happy to say that D&D has become one of my main interests.
• When designing my gang war mechanics, I took into consideration the fact that Hytale will have its worlds and creatures act as realistically and lively as possible, just like in games like D&D and The Sims. So when I shared drafts of this series with Shadrok, he introduced me to Middle-earth: Shadow of War, which has surprisingly similar gameplay mechanics to the ones I made up for Hytale that aren't in GTA San Andreas, like assigning allies to defend a base, powerful mobs having unique resistances to certain damage types that other mobs of the same species don't have (such as a fireproof Kweebec), and enemy territories rigged with traps. Shadrok additionally stated that allies live their own lives when the player isn't telling them what to do, which is what I expect Kweebecs to do as well...and why I respect them too much to the point that I don't want them to die in combat, unlike Minecraft wolves which have robotic AI and are easy to breed.

i hate school work

I'll be having...yet another hiatus from blogging since school has started.

My term ends on April 5...but not before taking exams where I have to leave the house and go to the university.

I'm planning to make a "My Opinion on Every Fire Emblem Heroes Unit" on mid-February, though.

PART 3: Types of Territory | Hytale Gang Wars

DISCLAIMER: This series 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.

Heyo, I'm back with part 3 of this massive 6-part series of Hytale gang wars.

You know what's funny about GTA San Andreas gang wars? Most territories have the same number of enemies with the same arsenal of weapons regardless of size or strategic importance. A residential neighborhood in Idlewood is defended by as many Ballas armed with AK-47s as a well-developed part of Verona Beach.

I'm not gonna enumerate the many reasons this doesn't make sense from a realistic point of view other than overkill defenses in small territories and weak defenses in big or important ones. But if Hypixel Studios wants to be funny and do this for a few factions that aren't important to the story, I'm fine. Bring on the memes.

Anyway, the same faction can have multiple different-sized camps, as shown in various Trork media.

One of the first Trork screenshots shown by Hytale in "Get to know Hytale's NPCs".
This looks like a medium-sized village to me.

In the "Trork Awakened By Rain" clip, a Trork is shown going into a tent-like structure with a campfire. Although there's a wall in the background, I still think this is a small territory because it's not as large or complex as the other Trork camps.

Scaraks also have various territory types as shown:

Concept art from Hytale

I want to take territories a step further by talking about specialized types of territory for certain tasks, allowing the player to take advantage of a friendly faction's hospitality or take away an enemy faction's ability to fight a certain way.

Note that some factions may not have all of the following territory types, particularly Scaraks and Varyn's faction.
Scaraks have worker units and don't use weapons besides their own body parts, so I think a factory is unlikely.
Varyn would have no use for business or festivals because he can just steal stuff and his minions have practically infinite morale because they have no emotions and care only about killing, not their own safety. I imagine his territories would mostly be open fields and places associated with dark magic.

Generic Territory

This is a simple territory that varies in size and strength. Medium to large territories may have basic survival facilities and items, including houses, walls, weapons, and farms (except for factions like Kweebecs, which don't eat like animals), while small territories may only contain a campfire and maybe a tiny house. Think of a Minecraft village with no libraries, blacksmiths, or similar specialized buildings.

They usually won't have anything special similar to the territories below and are mostly used by the faction for resting, eating, and general village life.

Taking this type of territory doesn't yield anything special besides reducing faction morale and allowing the player to use the taken territory as a base.

(By the way, decreasing morale should reduce stats slightly and weaken faction AI, such as making members run away more often or use more predictable attacks.)

Medical Facility

This is the first thing I thought of when thinking about territory types since I was thinking about Pokémon Centers. Besides, Outlanders have priests, and I think Kweebecs also get along with each other fine considering how they learn about their own history from Treesingers. They're not like generic villains who don't care about losing henchmen while doing their evil plans.

Because Hytale is a fantasy game, I think medical facilities will usually come in the form of shrines where factions worship Gaia. Healing magic is often associated with holiness or light in RPGs, similar to how Jesus healed a lot of people in the Gospel.

I'm not quite sure what a medical facility would look like in a non-religious faction, though. Maybe they would look like the hospital wing in Hogwarts, the magical school in the Harry Potter series? (Ghean agreed with this.)

Anyway, obviously, players can use this territory to heal themselves or their friends. It would also be interesting if this territory sells items that grant helpful buffs to the user or target.

Raiding a medical facility would not only allow the player to steal medical supplies, but I'd imagine it to temporarily suppress the faction's ability to buff itself or remove debuffs. There are a lot of ways to do this: the faction could have their healing spells weakened or disabled, or debuffs like reduced stats and poison take longer to cure.
I even thought of reducing the defensive stats of all faction members.

Notes from Ghean: "[Kweebecs'] med bays would probs be beds of branches and leaves so they can rest...[and the facility would be] filled with medicine from local ingredients that are effective for their kind," she said.
So I guess Kweebecs would specialize in herbal medicine. I remember Shadrok asking about others' ideas about Kweebecs based on other plants, so these Kweebec variants would work as medics too.
Alternatively, if Kweebecs don't benefit from medicines that benefit humans, could fertilizer be used to heal Kweebecs? lololol good luck taking the smell

Business Center

Like a giant market, this is where faction members trade goods with each other and other sentient species.

I imagine that business centers will mainly offer food, seeds, and building materials, plus certain items that the faction specializes in.

I'm not sure if these factions will have business centers, but I imagine Trorks to sell a lot of meat and weapons, while Outlanders would sell animal hides, camping tools, and dark magic-related objects.

Raiding a business center would give different items depending on what the faction sells. This can be done stealthily similar to GTA San Andreas's burglary missions, or by taking it over completely, temporarily reducing the quality of equipment used by faction members (though not affecting the quality of loot they drop).

Festival Center

We don't know for sure yet if factions celebrate festivals besides real-life holidays like Valentine's Day or Christmas (in official Tweets, but I'm not sure about actual gameplay), but I like to imagine factions having fun every once in a while, like when Trorks slay a lot of animals to host a meat-eating festival. Besides, Hypixel Studios staff like having fun; Simon's building a home gaming room, and many staff like traveling the world.

For friendly factions, the player can help organize and participate in festivals to improve their friendship with the faction...and maybe take some selfies and memes. This may also temporarily raise their stats.

Raiding a festival center would greatly decrease faction morale, more so than a generic territory. This may vary, however, depending on how much the faction likes festivals.

However, this can greatly increase hate when targeting a fun-loving faction.

Legacy Gaming (formerly The Game Gurus) has some amazing ideas for holidays in Hytale.

Military Base

This is a combat-focused territory where faction members are trained and combat equipment are stored.

Naturally, it is heavily guarded with sturdy and strategic defensive structures, as well as numerous and frequent patrols (except for factions that don't take defense seriously).

Military bases spawned near other territories may not have training facilities, instead being focused on defending those territories.

This is a valuable territory when it belongs to a friendly faction as it will usually contain well-equipped units, maybe with better AI than other faction members.

Besides making combat easier in general, running to a military base while under attack might divert enemy attention away from the player and towards the faction members while the faction members deal continuous damage to the enemy.

Raiding this territory may yield unique equipment, lore books similar to Skyrim, and tactics books telling the player how a faction fights. It may also temporarily lower faction members' damage, attack speed, and movement speed.

Books may be written in faction-native languages that the player can't understand, which can form the basis for a quest to learn about these languages. (Or maybe just raid more territories? lololol)

Factory with Warehouse

This is where the faction produces and stores its items--pretty straightforward. However, I imagine it to be defended roughly the same as a military base since they might be storing valuables here.

Raiding this territory obviously yields a lot of items, but I imagine the most unique loot here would be crafting recipes for unique items--this fits the factory theme.

Accessing this territory may require a lot more friendship than a military base, but it can yield the same rewards as raiding. Perhaps the faction members can even teach the player new crafting recipes through word of mouth.

Libraries can function as similar territories to a factory/warehouse except they contain more books and spellcasters. Friendly faction members who work as librarians or writers may be willing to share faction lore with the player. Magic items such as wands and enchanted physical weapons may be crafted and their recipes may be available here.

Dark Shrine

This territory is specific to factions that use dark magic, such as the Outlanders. It is defended similar to a military base, except stronger and with more mages than physical attackers.

Because of the heavy concentration of dark energies in this territory, dark magic is more effective in this territory--it deals more damage and inflicts worse debuffs, for example. If Hypixel Studios is crazy, dark shrines may even lower the damage dealt by light magic.

In addition to faction members, it may also contain monsters, which may or may not be Varyn's minions.

Stealth is difficult in this territory because mages can magically detect players such as with the arcane eye spell, which is basically an invisible floating security camera.

Raiding this territory has the same rewards and inflicts the same debuffs as raiding a military base, along with dark magic-related items and equipment.

Dark shrines may be a frequent point of interest in evil playthroughs as they may allow the player to learn and improve their skill in dark magic and commune with the forces of darkness.
Alternatively, in good playthroughs, the player may initially befriend evil factions to gain valuable information about dark forces that can't be obtained through interrogation or conquest, then destroy those factions.

Main Base

Finally, the place where the faction does the vast majority of its activities. This combines most (if not all) of the features from the previous territories.

The main base is often large with sturdy and elaborate structures, especially at the "capital building", the equivalent of a king's or queen's castle. It has incredibly strong defenses and frequent patrols all throughout, especially inside and near the "capital building" (though not to the point where it's impossible to sneak around unless influenced by the player).
(Note that "building" can be replaced with "chamber" for subterranean factions, and similar words depending on where the faction lives.)

A main base may even contain a faction boss, though not all main bases may have bosses. Defeating this boss may be required to completely take over the territory.

If there is no boss, the conditions for victory may be different from simply killing everything. They could be stealing a valuable artifact, destroying or seizing an important structure, surviving for a REALLY long time, or rescuing a prisoner...then escorting that prisoner through huge numbers of powerful ambush troops.

Stealing and seizing missions allow Hypixel Studios to design ways to make these goals challenging, not just by putting enemies all over the place. It can be as simple as putting puzzles, death traps, parkour courses, or a combination of them in one nerve-wracking course.

Destroying a base can eventually lead to an "escape" objective similar to "End of the Line" or several chapters in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. This can be followed by an epic collapsing or exploding animation when the escape is successful. (I bet this would REALLY push Hytale's block tech to the extreme. Imagine if all blocks have realistic physics.)

The explosion scene in "End of the Line".
Footage from GTA Series Videos

I bet escort missions will annoy players, especially when escorting an NPC that is either weak, has Stormtrooper aim, or is unable to fight. The player would have to constantly switch between defending themselves and defending the NPC, especially if the NPC doesn't know how to run away or attacks too aggressively.

After all, in Genshin Impact versions 1.3 and 1.4, players RAGED at Spiral Abyss floor 11-2 where they defended a structure against hordes of faraway ranged attackers.

A simple way to defend an escortee is to surround it with tanky friendlies or durable blocks. Ranged attacks ensure that enemies are taken down before they get too close to the escortee. (It would be nice to be Ningguang right now... Her Jade Screen blocks projectiles and she can attack from a distance.)

I talked quite a lot about main enemy bases, so how about friendly ones?

Maybe main bases can deny entry to the player until they have reached a very high friendship level, especially if the faction is highly protective of a secret found in the base.

Or, if the base is accessible at a low friendship level, maybe it would be the source of a LOT of faction quests. This is also a good substitute for player-made bases (though I encourage Hytale players to build their own bases).

(If Hytale has a fast travel mechanic, I bet players would often fast-travel here.)

My Blog Updates

Sorry for not posting this at 12:01 AM GMT+8 like I usually do. My younger brother is busy with a lot of school work this December and I attended a Bible study and worship service.

I read Hytale's 4 latest blog posts, by the way. I've already drafted a 5000-word-long post, but I still have a lot of cleanup to do and I need time to review others' analysis videos. I can't promise an exact release date for that but I hope to get it out before Christmas.

By the way, shoutouts to Shadrok, TheLividLion, The Game Gurus, Hytale News, and Kweebec Corner for their theories and analyses. They've got better Wisdom (Perception) than me lololol
Edit, December 25, 2019: I admit, it's a bit too late now to post that analysis since many other analyses have been done and it's a pain in my butt to do quality control when I have so many other things to do for myself and my family.

PART 2: Stealth | Hytale Gang Wars

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

Welcome to part 2 of my 6-part Hytale gang wars series, where I explore a non-gang war-related concept from GTA San Andreas and then branch out to other games that I think Hytale can take further inspiration from.

Sometimes, wars are won without the enemy even noticing. That's where stealth comes in. And it just so happened that ThirtyVirus talked about stealth too.

Though gang wars in GTA San Andreas do not involve stealth, there are several stealth missions in the game like "Madd Dogg's Rhymes" where the player raids the mansion of celebrity rapper Madd Dogg to steal his rhyme book and "Black Project" where the player raids a parody of Area 51.

There is also a burglary minigame where the player can break into houses and steal valuables.

What makes Hytale stealth (if it will actually exist) unique is that every NPC has unique customizable AI, so sneaking around one faction's base would be different from another faction's. Back to the Trork and Outlander comparison: Trorks seem fairly easy to raid at first glance, as they sleep during the rain, get distracted by birds, and are attracted to meat, but they compensate for their lack of defense with Hunters and their wolves, which can probably smell the player coming. On the other hand, Outlanders may be much more wary and may take shifts to remain consistent with their survivalist mentality. I imagine Outlanders would also be much more difficult to bait or distract...unless there's a decoy player who can divert enemy attention to one side of the base.

I'm hoping that Hytale has a mechanic that changes how easy or hard stealth is depending on the weather and light levels.

Like in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, rain can be noisy, so it can allow the player to make louder noises without being heard as the rain "covers up" the player's noises.

It's common sense that light makes things easier to see...and the opposite happens with a lack of light. For Hytale, maybe enemies' lines of sight should be shortened in low light levels, except of course for subterranean mobs who can most likely see at any light level. It should also be easier to sneak around at night.

By the way, remember what composer Oscar Garvin said about "Kweebec Village"? "The piece sounds like a small ensemble to create the sense that the Kweebecs themselves might be playing this tune as you walk into the village." Imagine if you could play a faction's favorite genre of music using their favorite instruments to distract them by both luring them away from their patrol posts and generating noise to cover yours up.

(And maybe take a sneaky photo of the enemy faction members dancing, then make a meme out of it? They'd have no idea that their dancing has mysteriously gone viral.)

Anyway, while stealth missions are often performed in video games to gather information, assassinate a target, or steal something valuable, I would personally do stealth missions to weaken a base's defenses to prepare for a larger-scale attack. (Yeah, why did I not think of stealth back in my Hytale play style part 3? YoSquid would be extremely effective for that job because bows are silent killers.)

Side note: I thought of the idea of stealth-killing not affecting reputation, but I realized that this could be exploited by stealth-killing friendly faction members and still remaining friendly to the faction. Don't be a murder hobo.

Of course, there should be factions that cannot be sneak-attacked at all, especially Varyn's faction. I bet those monsters can easily smell human flesh and good morals.

Notes from Ghean: Ghean, being a Dungeons & Dragons player, told me that heavy armor should be noisy "because of clanking metal".
Noxy Tweeted about starting to play D&D, and Oscar Garvin composed a soundtrack for his D&D campaigns with a whopping 32 songs. (I couldn't believe it either, but it's true. The guy's a huge D&D fan.)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has a similar noisy armor mechanic.

Speaking of D&D, the Minor Illusion cantrip can create a sound from a distance, so if there are no note blocks in Hytale, BoltOLightnin might be able to use magic to distract the enemy.

The Enemy Sneaking Around My Territory

Because it's usually players who do the sneaking around. I think Hypixel Studios will break that trend by making enemies stealthily attack player territory.

Unlike NPC AI, real players can be much more wary of their surroundings since they often look around 360 degrees and can have high-quality, noise-reducing headphones that allow them to distinguish even the faintest noises. (This is why I almost always get detected in multiplayer games.) Trained gamers who can see tiny differences in color can even see enemies covering themselves up with camouflage or darkness.

High ground is an obvious way to defend territory from sneak-attackers since they let the player see a much wider area around the base. My Trump wall idea already has that covered pretty easily.

A glass ceiling prevents fliers from sneak-attacking directly from above, forcing them to go through the Trump wall's defenses.

Like my ghost mob post, there should be torches all over the base and even surrounding areas so we can see sneak-attackers before they get close.
Trees and similar potential hiding places should also be removed.

I plan to station a lot of defenders from allied factions, so standard video game stealth won't work. There should also be a lot of paired-up ground-level patrols to ensure that, if one gets killed, the other can alert the entire base easily. (One problem with video game stealth is that some enemies are far from other enemies and away from their lines of sight, making them easy targets.) This also prevents attacks from below.

I've countered many of the traditional stealth tactics with just my structures and army, but these methods of stealth can be trickier and require skill to detect: disguises and invisibility.

Simple disguises that only involve clothes are fairly easy to detect. I can simply socialize with the suspect and look for strange actions that don't align with whatever the suspect is disguising as. For example, it wouldn't make sense that a Kweebec would be attracted to meat, so using meat would reveal the true identity of a Trork. (Just in case there are small Trorks or baby Trorks.)

However, it's the magical or biological disguises (similar to the Prototype series) that are tricky to detect as the disguised suspect may (almost) perfectly copy the DNA and personality of whatever it's disguised as while suppressing its true personality. (Side note: I also have a plan for a more detailed post about Prototype disguises in Hytale.)

I wouldn't dare punch every single Kweebec soldier just to find out who's the fake one or I risk losing friendship with the Kweebecs, unless I'm desperate.

I'm not sure, but could it be possible to magically detect this kind of disguise? Besides, my team has a mage being BoltOLightnin, and there's a spell called Detect Magic in D&D.

But what if the magically disguised enemy uses the same school of magic as the faction member it's disguised as (such as a Trork knowing exactly the same spells as a Feran shaman)?
Good question, you who probably read the D&D Basic Rules or Player's Handbook.
I think it's unlikely that enemies would disguise as a specific faction member to learn their unique memories and abilities--kinda like how two Pikachu of the same level may have different stats and humans have vastly different personality traits from one another.
If the enemy disguises as a generic Kweebec, I can look for inconsistencies such as not being able to share secrets that a friendly Kweebec would otherwise share with close friends.
The tricky part is when it disguises as a friendly Kweebec I know, but I can just solve that by putting the real Kweebec and the fake one to a punching test. I'm willing to sacrifice a little friendship just to reveal a disguise. (But not when it involves punching a lot of Kweebecs--that's too much friendship sacrificed.) Who knows--I may drive the fake one into an unusual rage as it switches into its true Trork personality to defend itself (Disclaimer: we don't know yet if Trorks have a hot temper).
Edit: I wrote this when I was still unfamiliar with the D&D schools of magic. Turns out, Detect Magic can identify a disguised creature by the fact it's using illusion magic.
However, there are ways to protect against divination magic (which Detect Magic is a part of), like the Nondetection spell.

But the Disguise Self spell doesn't change "hitboxes" (i.e. a tall person disguised as a short person can still be touched as if they were a tall person, etc.).
I wanna be ready in case Hytale's magical disguise system is as foolproof as Prototype's disguise system. (Yeah, sounds like my no-damage playthrough rules.)

Similarly, invisibility is also hard to detect if it lasts several minutes similar to Minecraft...especially if it doesn't emit particles.

But this is easier to detect than a disguise since maybe I can use a dog to sniff out unfamiliar smells to indicate the presence of an invisible attacker. After all, the Hytale corgi was shown in a lot of official media including the trailer.

Or we can simply block off the base's entry and exit points using blocks (no pun intended) or by setting them on fire. The areas in front of the walls should also be set on fire to block off invisible mobs that climb like spiders. Too bad it doesn't work on invisible fliers and ghost mobs.

Speaking of blocking off, in addition to doors, can we make huge gates in Hytale that don't need a redstone equivalent to open or close? I suck at redstone.

(In D&D, Detect Magic only works on visible creatures.)

Part 3 will be posted on December 8. I have a different blog post planned on December 1 just to mix things up. lololol

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