The best solution is to avoid trouble before it gets to you. I - and I assume many other people - do not have awesome fighting skills or carry around weapons; however, there's no telling what those looking for a fight are prepared to do. It's better to run and then call 911 instead of standing there waving your cell phone around. pfft. You'd need something more than "scary-looking people were walking towards me." If you are caught in a fight, then fight back to get away. If you can't physically help your friends, then it's better to get away and call for help.

Pft haha. I would agree to this as long as those "thugs" have weapons. If they are simply the "thugs" that we all knew in high school then I'd give them a good beating if they try anything. I'am pretty confident when it comes to an old fashion brawl, but like I said... knives/guns are a different story.

It don't matter anyways, since once you beat a thug down, they'll track you and get you with more people. Possibly with weapons. The smartest would be "run with your friends".

We're talking thugs here, not the dang mafia. Those ordinary street thugs you see walking around can't do anything to you. Track you down? Unlikely, unless your somehow involved with shady business like drug sales, ect.

If you meant thugs as in regular street punkasses, I get you. But I usually picture a thug as a gangster, generally the type who has his buds. With.. baseball bats or other crude weapons. Even the best fighter can't take on five guys with weapons, despite how they're portrayed in mangos and animu.

Why isn't there an option to just ignore them? Its says they approach you, not attack. Or an option to ask them whats up?

I've seen one beat three pretty quickly before, and five is not such a big jump; especially if there is a huge gap in experience as well as training. I'am pretty sure that someone with enough training can handle 5 guys; people with hardly any real experience and lots of talk (ie: thugs) are rather easily taken down. Also, it's not like you have to fight all 5 at the very same moment; seperating them by just a few steps makes it that much easier.