I have thought about this a bit, and there is no easy answer, so instead of giving a list of ideas, i have one idea that is just something to start the conversations.

I think pushing the role play initiative a bit more in the beginning might be advantageous - this will breed more RP as user grow in the game and maybe keep those just looking to build a gun from being click monkeys. I'm not saying force the RP, but maybe for a few days (5 maybe? 3?) you can do your petty crimes and bust people out of jail and stuff, but what if you can't shoot, for example. Maybe cut the gun range time in half, and allow a gangster to hone a skill at the range. this gives them complete access to all aspects of the game but cant be killed or kill anything.

I don't think there is a viable solution with how this game is built.

1) Remove the idea of cities working in co-operation. Create a "My City" attitude for each Family from the GF down. To encourage a city to look inwards for growth as opposed to ensuring survival of small families through extended relationships/friendsships outside their immediate family.

2) Encourage CL's to be more proactiv in their recruitment and management of crews to create a "need" for new blood and successfully training said new blood. This could be done through the current loyalty system with stacking defensive/cash generation multiplier bonuses or indeed by limiting additional donations made to members and restricting it to only taxes generated thereby encouraging more players to make more money. Alternatively could have taxes generate plus small amounts like sub 100k to allow for PP returns, small quiz prizes etc but not large scale movement of money/credits.

3) Limit BG numbers massively and counter this by seriously upping the loyalty bonus to again encourage CL's to be more actively invested in running a good crew.

1 - Let Toby and Syn handle more of the Admin stuff unless they are unable to. 

2 - Once you/they(Toby/Syn) have solidly determined that someone brings the site more stress than you determine is worth in value in both dollars and 'sense of community' - ban them, and stick with the ban. 

3 - Set up some type of "Newb Island" or some variant thereof which protects the actual new incoming customers/players. If someone nefarious wants to pretend to be new as their ploy, well, I suppose they'll just have to get better? Not exactly sure how to counter that potential pitfall, as it's a commonly used way of staying incog. 

4 - Reduce the obscenely high Dice bets available to a more reasonable amount, as fun as it is to see people doing 5K Tops, it's truly a staggering amount of money to be thrown around in any circumstance. I'm not saying to put a cap on Credits, merely on the Dice bets available. A bandaid at best really as far as that goes, but I don't have anything better. 

5 - Reduce the amount of protection that a BG provides so that more of the Defense CL's/Uppers comes from Loyalty Settings throughout their City as opposed to the amount of cash they are able to provide for their BGs. 

Isolating new players is not the answer. The people who stick around are the ones who form bonds early in their gameplay.

In my judgment, the issue originates from two distinct perspectives from people at the top. There are leaders who see new members as opportunities and leaders who see new members as threats. Because once a leader has collected a sufficient amount of credits, money, or BGs, crew members only serve to meet the Godfather qualification and nothing more. Their power becomes intrinsically sustainable and all threats to that power now require their explicit approval to make a move.

Usually, awful regimes pepper in a few of these opportunity-minded CLs (and it's the reason why they often turn to "experimental cities" and "first-time auth cities" because they know they'll actually take care of the members). But even these crewleaders will either turn to the threat-minded ideal or get purged by the other leaders.

As long as you're going to allow players to train up endgame-level characters with credits and hustle points, you need to make it possible for players to achieve the same strength socially. Some off the top of my head:

City isolation. This has already been mentioned, but the ability to exert power across city lines allows cliques to face threats as a united front instead of one at a time. Just like in the actual mafia, if the boss of New York wants his influence felt in Las Vegas, he sends someone there to run it, not run it himself. Isolating the cities will also produce a climbable hierarchy that caters organically to players at any level. The city with three GFs- a tough fucking place to make your mark. The city with one CL and two empty districts- accessible and strategically in play.

Note: I know this fundamentally changes how wars are fought, and I'm willing to get into that in detail but for right now, this is my suggestion.

Fix BG Wack. I have advocated for this for years, but BG wacking is a training mechanic instead of a tactical feature. The BG cap and the difficulty of killing BGs makes this mathematically pointless. Which means that a 1k kill gun will always do more than even 20 100-kill guns (and getting 20 people together is no small feat).

Activity rewards for job recruits. When a player joins a crew and is regularly active (either by petties, ranking, hustle points, etc.), give the crewleader a kickback. It can start small and grow as the recruit ranks up, but giving leaders (especially ones without a bankroll) a reason to take recruiting very seriously will improve things. Couple that with CLs willing to crack down on member whoring, and you have literally an ideal signup funnel.

If you were to do any or all three of these, I think you'd see a shift in how this game is played that will, eventually, expand access to power for many more players, which will favor less toxic cycles, reduce the frequency and potency of cliques, and give players something to do at every stage of their character development.

Fair point - isolating complete newbs would significantly limit their interactions with other folks, depending on how it was done. 

In my first year here  I  brought  about 8 to 10 friends  here and they left due to the quote "toxic mentality of people", harassing across character names, and the way people can't talk to each other without being derogatory. 

First off anyone who has said they are trying to / want to  ruin the game should be 86'd for life. No second chance.  That is just terroristic mentality. 

The same old people for the last 5 years I know of have been upper structure, so  maybe put in CL  and/or GF term limits, such as  any one player can only be a CL 3 times in a year or a GF once a year.  ( obviously suggest more viable numbers if you don't like my numbers.) This will give newer players the  chance at an opportunity to actually make it up higher in the ranks. 

Suggestion 1: Some kind of term limit as to how many times in 1 year a player  can be upper structure.

This whole blood lining and purging (usually due to bloodline or not being friends with the regime outside the game) is terrorist tactics and should not be tolerated by anybody.  

You can't tell me you can't play the game with out people knowing who are and only be judged by your merit. I have done this for the last 5 years, I have been  RH many times and a LH many times. I have been offered to be a CL a couple times, and turned it down. Why ?  Because of these practices of blood lining and purging  and many practice here being rooted in outside friendships. 

The way  I see  it too many old timers here, ( those older than 5 years) have deep hurt caused by and to  them from past years they played with others here. And as a result created this practice of blood lining and purging to protect or defend their feelings. This  is understandable behavior but it is toxic and abusive not only to themselves but the entire game.  This is the underlying problem. They need to put aside these issue and play the game.   

You see when your character dies so should any issue you had with anyone. 

Suggestion 2: Temporary leadership bans, maybe with having to take a linkedin (can make a free account here) class on how to be a leader or communication  and show the certificate of completion  before the temporary ban is lifted.

Implement a feature that prevents top guns in and out of family from killing a made man for no reason other then paranoia. This purging shit is what's killing the game. You can bring all the new people in you want, but when they're killed way too often, they hang it up. 

Similar to zooms island point, is a shame we can't have crews outside the scope of normal families with features like wack gradually moved in, so that new players are directly moved into basically container crews, then prepped, taught and when competent shipped to established crews.   You would have to be new to be moved into such crews.

Is a less daunting environment, a smaller crew easier for more one on one help, and outside the scope of normal city and functions means they are not going to be an ass for the fun of it.

Rewrite the gun code. You don't need to have a big gun to take out the top guys. A bullet is a bullet and can come for anyone at anytime. Be a little slow or a little late just once and you'll find yourself dead instead of having to grind a gun for months.

I agree with Micha on the game change suggestions, a lower rank requirement for all authed shots coupled with a slight increase in the instance of stats not coming into play for the shot would create an environment that actively discourages purging.  Currently with how the game is set up, a small group of dedicated individuals can effectively hold everyone else down while remaining untouchable themselves.   When people feel take-downs are fair they are more willing to move onto the next character and when they feel the current game environment would make that option a waste of time another route needs to be available to them that is realistically (yet not too easily) achievable if enough time and effort was spent dedicated to it. 

I think you also need to look into #main. We can sit and merit the arguments of how toxic people are in game but #main is a horrific place to walk into should you not understand what it is. 

Last night I got called all the cunts under the sun. My dyslexia got threw back in my face and comments where made about where I live in a detrimental fashion. I don't really think that's an environment that's going to be enticing to new people.  

Its like watching clown court. And people here take it waaaay to far and have free reign to do so. Its not monitored anywhere close to how the game is.  You can't sit and argue that its away from the game, when certain features of the game require you to be there. 

Scousepole, would an "in character" main be a way forward? We have an in and out of character forum, why not default people to the in character one which runs the same perks as main? Access to both would be available, too.

Policing it would be a bit of a drag, though. I expect you'd find the writers and recruiters would frequent it, making the environment much more appealing. 

Yea I don't think that's a bad idea. For the newer guys. I don't think it would stop people being toxic in main. It goes too far.