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Post #1Hi all,
I've played on a few Servers now and all of these Servers had the same Problem. After the Servers got wiped, the population was quite high because many starters joined the server. The run on the mostly desired items (M4, Bolt Action, Explosives, Explosive Charges etc.) begins and some players get them on the first day.
On the second day some players with unsecure bases got raided already and the players who got the Explosive Charges on the first day are further ahead than others. Others will also get their hands on these items and the number of raid groups increases. Now all the players that didn't achive that much get raided pretty fast and their bases are destroyed entirely, doors are replaced and w/e.
A player who lost everything won't start over an a server that runs for five days already. He'll look for a freshly wiped server to start again.
The population on the server goes down by ~75% after 5-6 days and all left over players have pretty secure bases and pretty good items. Now the raid groups have to target each other because there isn't much else left to raid and the game becomes boring. The Air drops are decreased due to the lower player base and the few groups that have survived without getting their hands on explosives have a way harder time getting it. A server with 150 players at peak times now has 25 players at peak times. The raid groups can't find stuff to raid, the bandits can't find people to shoot and the former Minecraft players have towers with 20 floors no one can raid.
It's just boring to play on this kind of server. The game needs some mechanics that help new players to start on a server that is running for a few days, otherwise new players won't join this server but old players will leave it. It has kind of an survival aspect, because the last raid group on the server wins the game somehow but it's not an achivement if other players got bored away.
The game is full of positive feedback systems and has too less (maybe none) negative feedback systems. In terms of game design this is really silly actually because without negative feedback it's impossible to balance the game. It might be a real world simulation and in the real word negative feedback is pretty rare but it's still a game and it has to be balanced to be fun for the majority of players.
For the people that don't know what I mean with feedback systems in Video games ... two examples:
Positive Feedback: A player gets an item which makes it easier to get to another item. (See: Rust -> getting C4 will increase your chances of getting a M4 because you can raid houses)
Negative Feedback: A player is on the last place in the racing game. His chance to get the best powerup of the game increases. Vice versa the chance of the player in first position has lower chances to get the best powerup. (See: Mario Kart)
The positive Feedback systems are needed in a game like this but there have to be more negative feedback systems as well.
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I totally agree about everything you just said, even though I didn't get Feedback system entirely.
It became more like a 'level system' the first one starts the more powerful he is, not to mention some of these just shoot on sight whether if you were naked or equipped.
There must be a solution! or it is just going to be boring as hell.
I mean even if you were the first to enter the server, you'll get bored for killing people knowing that you're the most powerful among them.
By most powerful I mean even if I died, I'll just spawn with the same loot over and over!
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Look for a server that disable c4 for at least 1 week after a server wipe. Or a server that disable explosives from crafting options + airdrops with c4. This way people will have to fight everyday for a chance of getting 1 c4 that may or may not drop from that airdrop. This way people wont risk using a c4 on a small base just to get a few things. they will stock up and use on big bases.
This was the best solution it took me quite a while to find a server with such features and options as most of the servers are run by kids/abusers/etc. Such a shame. I wish they disabled c4 on main servers.
You could still use granades to raid but that would take a LOT of granades and truth be told... almost none actually use granades on this game. I think i'm the only one that carry tw granades everytime i'm raiding just to catch that random guy on th corner with a shotgun.
I still dont see why people think its funny/fun to raid someone base while they are offline. Especially when its someone new. I've seen a group of 10 players raiding a shelter and calling him a lot of names that i will not mention in this topic. It's a shame that there is no "ignore/mute" function yet.
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Man up and attempt to face the already formed groups? I've started on a server with a couple of big clans, hell, I build right next to one of them. My base is secure, I put 7 hours a day in on 2 of my days off and now they will have a nice hard time getting through my base.
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That's something that's needed imo. Explosives should be a resource like Wood or Metal and should be uncraftable. The amount of Explosive drops could be increased by a bit and Explosive Charges would be a pretty valuable thing you wouldn't waste on a small house.
At the moment I can raid small houses with two or three c4 charges and get like 8 stacks of gunpowder and some other stuff out of it ... that's enough to craft more charges, so even a small base is worth raiding.
It's pretty easy.
Negative Feedback: The weaker player gets some advantages / The stronger player gets some disadvantages (Handicap)
Positive Feedback: The stronger player gets some advantages / The weaker player gets some disadvantages
I'm not the one who has to man up ... I survived a week on a server and own a huge metal base. The problem is that all the other players are gone xD
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Hope the devs gonna find a good solution for this huge problem.
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The progression path & timing from stone age to modern age isn't properly implemented yet and is therefore out of balance.
This, I think, is because the game in terms of content is probably about 10%-20% implemented. Right now the focus for the devs is to create a stable, smooth foundation that content can be injected into. They are putting their time into the foundational pieces of the game and not on creating new content. This will come with time.
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people want things to be easy. frankly i have been playing on the same server for about a week now and yes we have lost players due to raiding wipes etc... but i keep playing mainly because i am tired of looking as long as the server has a few players i will keep playing.
yes its a problem but unless people learn to adapt and work hard they are just going to get raped on a established server.
high pop servers are probably have the side effects mentioned the most. a low pop server doesn't have it nearly as bad with player loss. mainly because of play times are different from other players so while max pop takes longer to log on. it means that normally threw the day competition isn't as hard.
my advice play on a low pop server if player loss is getting that bad.
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If they'd be so "big" you'd already be dead...
If they're inactive as shit, then it's easy to build next to them..
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Server population dying out has NOTHING to do with what you posted.
it has EVERYTHING to do with their being TOO many servers.
EVERYONE wants to be a server admin because they think they can replicate the server success they were just playing on.
Its a snowball effect.
My server on Saturday peaked at 42 players. By Sunday, 2 groups of 8 have left to create their own servers. Not because they didnt like my server, but because they thought they could replicate it as well.
Reality hit them within the first day of opening the server and realizing no one is joining except their own friends. They are all asking me on steam "how do I do this" "how do I do that" etc. Truth is, while 42 players isnt close to max populated, its still on the upper echelon of of servers as my server has 90+ active players. Which is sad, because 42/100 slots SHOULDNT be one of the more populated servers.
what people dont realize is that my server is ranked #13-15 always on toprankedservers.com + heavy advertising EVERY where for WEEKS to even PEAK at 42 players and always have a stable 10-30 players on at all times of the time. It didnt happen over night.
Where the snowball effect comes into play is that, on Saturday I had 42 players on at once and 30+ for 12 hours during the day/night. But when 2 8 player groups leave, and on Sunday I now only have 22-30 players on during peak hours, the mind set/perception of the general player is already set, the server is dying. People join active servers. 20 players? Not so much. 35+ players, they will at least try it out.
Yesterday morning there was 5500 players on and 4500 servers LOL. That is a BIG issue that needs to be addressed.. 1.2 players per server, when the game honestly requires 35+ people on it to be entertaining.
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I was on a server that had a good community, mostly friendly, lots of fun. For about a week. Then the admin and bunch of his friends raided and killed everyone using admin to do it. I left, never to return. Admin abuse ruins the game.
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These issues are already being taken care of by the dev team. Future patches are going to slow down research extensively making it take 2-3 research kits to learn something. Also with the new research it will destroy the item, which means you will need to find 2-3 M4's before you can fully research it.
Also as people have stated there is currently other ways to deal with this. The admin can restrict air drops for the first week so everyone has an even footing, then enable the air drops. Or they can restrict C4 from crafting and only allow it be to be looted. Another way of restricted c4 a little is making flares uncraftable and make the drop rate lower on them. This way people can still craft everything but have to farm for the flares.
Either way I don't see this as a problem as I have been on many servers where there has been 3-4 power groups and I have done just fine. It all depends on the people playing on the server. I also think do the large selection if anyone gets fed up with anything they will just move to another server.
If you have a good community on the server this won't be a problem. I think more servers need to have a forums setup for the server and have more interaction. Also frequent wipes, like once a month is also good as it keeps things fresh, but how often to wipe is whole other discussion.
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They should remove the Research kit imo..
Brings way more fun to search for your guns, then simply make 5 of them after a few hours of gathering.
Without the kits, you got more to do.. more to store and might even bring more fun, the enjoyment of finding a gun will be great then !
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For me, the big challenge is maintaining a population on a server. I am pretty dedicated to the Rustia Town Wars servers even though I am not an admin or anything. We see a lot of turnover from people feeling like they can't even catch up. We are not a violent or chaotic server by any means. In fact, we make an effort to keep the violence down and restrain ourselves from raiding just because it kills a server if you don't let people build up at least a little. If they feel like they have no chance, they don't even want to play.
There does need to be more progression so that someone can't play for 8 hours and reach the endgame like I do every time. But that will only come with time as the Devs work. Nothing we can do for now except discourage killing of nakeds.
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IMO, they should remove C4, it's too OP
Houses shouldn't be breakable, how annoying it is to start over, again and again..
PS: It's only my opinion :)
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Once they actually get some features out there with some form of objective other than just a Kill fest for loot then it may actually have some longevity, but right now as it goes it gets quite stale after a few days.
You can find everything you need the only rare part is Explosives and once you farmed like a madman the world is your oyster. There's nothing to do apart from the same thing day in day out and sadly these updates they've been pushing don't do it any favors.
I'd rather have one large feature and lots of tiny ones than just replacing existing content with more failings i.e. Infected Wildlife. Burns more bullets but the AI Path finding is terrible. I'm aware its Alpha, but that should also mean they're pushing out wider features rather than just focusing on what they've already got.
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Good point... We joined a few local low-ping servers that looked promising, but nobody else ever joined! Currently, there is a glut of servers, and those that do get popular are hacker-magnets.
This will probably change in time as the buzz from the game dies down, but I still don't understand the entire concept of non-official public servers. They don't seem to serve any useful purpose, other than dilute the player base and make the play experience very inconsistent.
At this point in time, the entire concept of "modded" servers is just weird. The game is nowhere near complete yet you have all sorts of 3rd parties trying to tweak it to their preferences, and then making them publicly available.
The idea of a quasi-public server is fine, where you need to advertise the server on a 3rd party site (like Minecraft), but having them as part of the in-game browser is just odd at this point.
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Plenty of servers without C4...just join one of those. I like C4 but I also agree it's one of the main reasons people leave a server, they'd rather start again on a freshly wiped server than try to rebuild on a server where everyone is ahead of them.
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Ive seen this also. Before the wipe we were hovering around 10 players on average, even as high as 25 sometimes. After the wipe within a few days me and the 2 other people i play with are back up to our prior peak after a month of playing just before the wipe, if not more. were able to start on a metal building after only 3 days. Excluding our ability to create explosives and the bolt action rifle. But the explosives is only because we havent even peaked 5 players at once yet since the wipe. It seems as the OP stated that it was fairly easy for select groups of people to rush and get everything they had back fairly quickly. To me it seems that the acquisition of what ill call "zombie drops" is drastically increased. Not sure if this was intended or just a side effect of the mob change but it seems way to easy for one, and especially 2-3 people to farm up all the BP and weapons and armor and ammo they could possibly need within days. My friend had already looted something like 3 explosive charges within a couple days of the wipe. That fun, slow build up from before doesnt seem to be there. Either we know what we are doing this time around or the loot tables are different
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In the past all the previous servers I have played on that had good populations died for different reasons.
The first one died due ownership change
The second one died due to frequent wipes, 4 in three weeks
The third died because the host implemented P2W or donations where you would get items for your donations and you would always get these weapons once after every wipe. Then the wipe came and everyone just left.
I've been on servers where my base got emptied out and its not the end of the world as you have a bunch of stuff researched by then so rebuilding doesn't take that long.
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Usually we join a high populated server...we are 20 players...we usually raid at night times between 2 am and 8 am... after 2 days we raided the entire server...server population decreases by 90% after everyone is raided...switch server...rinse and repeat...seems like once people get raided they rather switch server instead of relocating and building smarter...
I mean there is only 1 type of building construction that its unraidable unless you have 100 c4s (tested every form of base defense)...but people just seem to do stupid constructions that are easily raided by raising existing pilars or walls, using ladders and ceilings , using the mountains around , etc to gain access to the higher floors where the loot is...
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Untrue. I've started over on other servers because of how bad the snowball effect on some servers is. Take your superlatives elsewhere.
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Why don't they introduce the age factor?
You start at 18 years old and for each day(realtime) alive on that server, your age increases.
In 30 days(if you live) you are 58years old, much slower and weaker(can fall from high places without crippling yourself, etc)
There's a lot of factors that should be taken in account(like increasing amount of infections, 2 bandages to stop bleeding, less/more food required) but i think you'll catch my point.
That way, the "older" players had a slight disadvantage(advantages could be gathering more resources from 1 pile of wood/rock, and crafting faster).
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Maybe for now until they come out with a proper system.
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I would actually love to see you try and break into my base xD
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Because of the way I run my server, I've actually seen my popularity level increase and playerbase grow. It all has to do with pulling more fun out of the game than currently exists. There is only so much you can do, yes, but if you play on a server with admins that engage the playerbase, then it's worth it.
The only time I lose players is when the provider pulls some bullshit and crashes. Luckily I'm with one now where I'll have iffy performance for maybe 1-2 hours. But invariably, those players come back because they tell me time and time again it's the best server they've played on after....one guy told me he's tried 20 different servers. So I'm doing something right--- the growth and incoming donations to keep the thing running are proof.
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The server I play on is 50 pop in off peak and 180 in peak times no matter how long the wipe was. Dunno whaats wrong with ur servers
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Admins can balance their server by providing a Secret Service
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I agree with the original posters insights on the current situation of Rust.. but I disagree with his feedback system to solve the issues.
Essentially things are just not balanced out yet. There is almost no reason to build metal bases because the resource cost and time it takes to do so is not worth the investment.
The game is so centered around raiding / griefing and random PVP because there is nothing else to do in the game. If there was more dangerous things instead of crappy AI Flesh bears.. You would have to struggle more to survive.. you wouldn't be able to farm naked with a pickaxe.
The game would have more meaning.. Gathering the resources to destroy a base would be a big deal.
Most raiding happens at 2AM when people are logged off.. Of course they will leave the server when their base has been busted into and pillared while they were sleeping or at work.
You don't need to give advantages to starting players.. you need to change how the game progression plays out.
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Post a screenshot and i will describe exactly how easily i would do it xD
We can raid any base easily...it just takes 5 min to study the base and use your brain...all bases are raidable without using to much C4...one time we used 1000 wood planks to raid a mega massive base and only 1 c4 to enter the loot room...people just dont think when they build...
Edited:
Maybe learn how to build bases??? Study where your base failed and rebuild a better one instead of rage quiting??? And by the way is so dam easy to start over...best way to farm is killing players and raiding...my clan can raid an entire server in 24 hours after we start playing on it...
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I've built a lot of bases so far and the best way (imo the only way) to make it secure ist to build somewhere where no further foundations can be placed.
My current main base is on a mountain. All foundations that could be placed were placed and are part of the structure. The shape of the base might look a little bit odd but at least no one can add a foundation and build stairs or barricade ladders.
At the moment it has 6 floors and is built out of metal. People could get in on the second floor, if they manage to get on the rock next to the base and place the c4 while jumping down. From one stair to another are at least 3 walls or doors to destroy.
I think it's pretty hard to raid mountain bases like this ... wouldn't be worth the c4, since there are so many bases that are less secure with the same loot in it. It takes a bit longer to get to points of interest but at least the stuff is pretty safe, once we bring it home.
IMO not all bases are raidable without using too much c4 but the only security you can get is placing all foundations down you possibly can place down. If only one foundation can be added at any side of the base, it's not secure.
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I really hope this is not the case. Making things obscenely difficult to get will only hurt the newer/lower players and make it even more difficult to compete against players who are established (which is already an issue).
I do agree with expanding the power level progression, but with what you describe most people would simply stop playing because there isn't a reasonable reward for time, and no one wants to spend weeks (as opposed to hours/days) learning how to make one 9mm, all the while getting blasted by players with guns and making it virtually impossible unless the server was just wiped.
What you describe sounds absolutely insane, and I hope the dev's come up with a better alternative to balancing it.
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I'm not sure if the OP was about dwindling numbers or the feedback idea. Since the dwindling numbers part felt like he was just throwing out random numbers and percentages to try to make his case I'll just skip that part.
The feedback idea you had though would be doomed from the start as you described it. Essentially you are punishing older players for playing on the server. The longer they stay, the more they get held back. The system you suggest to solve dwindling numbers would soon be added to the causes of dwindling numbers.
If you want to keep players, there needs to be the opposite, give them incentives to stick around, even after being raided. Reward the players for playing on the server longer, and encourage new players to stick with it. The problem isn't just players getting left behind, it's also that a lot of players give up a little too easily.
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Yes, the numbers were just estimated. It differs from server to server. One server lost 60% of it's player base and another server lost 80% ... there could be an average number calculated but I had to watch tons of server to get a good average.
Feedback systems aren't an idea I came up with. It's an concept you'll find in every game, intended and unintended. While positive feedback systems happen naturally, negative feedback systems are added to games to make them more fair. Think about the most MMOs. The starters have a starting area and their PvP flag is off, so high level players can't kill them for fun. In some games high level players can kill low level players but there are penalties for it. Making c4 harder to obtain would already be an negative feedback system, because newbie bases wouldn't be raided that often. The Lockpicks are a negative feedback system as well, because you can't loot a naked guy right away and you don't want to wait, so why bother shooting in the first place (I don't like this feature though, because of the downsides).
I don't want to punish older player for playing on the servers - I rather want to help new ones to be able to get started.
The large, good equipped group of players should focus on taking down other large, good equipped groups of players and not on some newbies. At the moment you can raid a small newbie house and get more resources out of it as you used for the c4, which is a really bad thing imo.
That's right, you have to encourage players to stay on the server. The only progress that isn't lost when you die is the stuff you can craft - if they add the feature that research kits destroy the researched items and you need more than one kit, this will already encourage the players. If this change happens, you worked hard for the ability to craft C4 or a M4 or some other rare items - you don't want to research it again on another server.
When house ownership is implemented and doors can't be replaced by non house owners it encourages the players as well. It's no problem to fix up the base but when other players placed doors in it, you just have to start over. I currently have four bases, so I'm not completely lost when someone claims my house. I got raided six times and they didn't get much because of the multiple bases, since I don't keep everything in one place. It's currently the only way I can think of to survive on a two week old server.
I just think a new player should be able to build some stuff before he gets destroyed and this will be achived by making the new player less valuable for the older player.
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so you run around with 20 people at times where noone is playing and raiding their houses?
man i would kill myself out of boredom.
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@Donar- when you say making C4 harder to obtain, do you mean for everyone? If so it would be a fair method to reduce raiding. I wouldn't necessarily call it a negative feedback though because it applies to everyone the same. As far as being able to get resources from raiding, my belief is that is entirely on the players. How much we store in our bases, how easy our bases are to find, and things like that are our choices.
As far as making the new player less valuable, I guess their value will be up to the other players' that encounter them. Hopefully more content will help alleviate this.
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Yes, of course it should be harder for everyone. I see the point why you don't see it as negative feedback but think about it ... the new players aren't valueable enough to raid, so they can build and secure their bases before someone wants to raid them. They'll have the ability to grow stronger, even on an old server. Once they're strong enough to have enough value, they'll be able to defend their base.
IMO explosives shouldn't be craftable at all ... only C4. To justify the inability to craft explosives, I'd increase the drop rate of explosives. NPCs should drop explosives in some cases and air drops could happen more often. Air drops are pretty hard to get if you have to fight against two other groups who want to have them. A new player has a pretty hard time at the moment to become the strength to fight for an air drop - with rare c4, the new player wouldn't be a raid target, which means he has time to build some stuff to contest air drops.
Everything new players need is time to build their bases and get some basic stuff. Once they got that, they can defend themselves.
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One particular aspect that this game suffers of right now is exactly the inability to defend yourself. Most players will wait for you to log out before raiding your base if you're any kind of threat, that's the smart things to do.
That coupled with the fact that there's little in the way of base defense and glitches like barricade stacking exist, makes it impossible to have any active defense over your items for more than a couple of hours (or whatever your average playtime is, it probably won't be 24/7 unless you crawled right out of the grave).
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use no less then 100 metal doors with a metal base... u have to use c4 to do anything period.. why build up just make a 100 foundation one story base with 100 doors... also you should be ashamed if u can't wipe a server with 25 guys...
Until they bring back 500 man servers and a group of 200 has a 2000 metal door base and laughs at you
Agree x 28
Informative x 3
Winner x 2
Dumb x 1
Disagree x 6
Artistic x 1
