Ideas to keep the scourge servers fresh

[Kazurax]

Hello all,

 

I play on EU Scourge. I know things are a bit hectic with the staff right now, but I wanted to make this post to see how my fellow players feel about some ideas I have to make the server feel more like a more dangerous place and not so mundane.

1) Using Botspawn (or a plugin that does the same thing) Botspawn lets you place scientists or murderers around monuments. It gives a large amount of control over them, like weapon accuracy, damage, health, behavior (you can have them patrol, remain stationary, or roam freely), their loot tables as well. Being able to afk in a monument seems a little silly. I was thinking having them drop barely anything, so they aren't farmable to keep the economy in check, and to have their accuracy low, to be new player friendly. Maybe have the smaller monuments have npc's that are weaker, and drop items that are new player friendly, like the revolver or the compound bow and ammo for these, wood armor, etc. They can also be on a timer, just to make players be aware and on their toes.

 

2) Having Halloween mode permanently. The spooky models for the collectable resources and the sounds at night seem to fit a scourge pve experience rather well. I also like seeing the creepy npcs like the scarecrow. The candy event doesn't need to be on, but I think having Frank enabled would be fun.

 

3) Making night more meaningful. It's pretty short as it is. Maybe have the hostile npc's being stronger/faster at night, and maybe having a slightly better loot table. Also increased level xp for night

 

4) Bring back death tracker scoreboard. A great way to add more to the server is more gamification, and the scoreboard will be used a lot to hit those records, keeping players online for the entire month.

 

5) Roaming zombie hordes. I don't remember if it was here or another server, but these packs would actually move around the map and group agro on players. Great way to keep the players frosty.

 

6) More zombies in general. The amount of zombies randomly around seems less than when I last played, some time ago. More would be more ideal to the scourge theme.

 

These are just a few ideas I have to spice things up, as the challenge bar is fairly low for the type of server it is. I would love to hear back from everyone on how you all feel about these propositions, or if you have any of your own.

 

Thank you for reading my post!

Kazurax

[rubiks-q-bert]

I'll just say this in general. EZ is in the name. Not everyone here is cut out for higher difficulty. More mobs means more chance at death. There are other servers for that. Couple specifics.

The record shot thing broke some time ago and Death mentioned he has plans to make his own vs using the plugin that broke. I want to say it was not up to date anymore?

I don't recall the reason but there used to be more zombies. Server stability maybe? Or it was to much for some people? 

The rest goes back to that you can't make a server that's meant to be easy into something more difficult without people complaining or leaving. I love your ideas personally, but it's just one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of things.

[Marija]

21 minutes ago, rubiks-q-bert said:

I'll just say this in general. EZ is in the name. Not everyone here is cut out for higher difficulty. More mobs means more chance at death. There are other servers for that. Couple specifics.

Sorry, but adding few more zombies and NPC's wouldn't make it that more difficult.

 

Here are some of my ideas - 

1. Make zombies more diverse and / or increase population. 

- I know that zombies were nerfed due to issues, but i was kind of hoping that would get fixed because they are dumb as hell now. Moreover, more stuff should be added, like we had with the Halloween event - bomb throwing zombies 

- Population definitely needs to be increased - where are the hordes? 

2. Maybe add few NPC-s to some monuments, number depending on what tier monument it is (like how it is on Airfield and Train Yard) 

3. Armor should loose it's hp like guns do. There would be more use for leather. You would actually need to hunt for animals to craft armor. Armor shops selling would be a thing.

4. Spawn in server first time nakkid with a rock and a torch only. 

5. Longer nights (that is controversial a bit, but I would like it a lot) - more zombies/zombie hordes at nights, wolfs also. 

6. Put launch site in snow area entirely. I believe that I don't need to explain reasoning behind that idea. 

7. Ability to call in Bradley distress signal (tied to launch site area ofc) 

8. I'm not sure if that is even possible, but if you could add poker table (from bandit/underwater labs) to the RustEZ store that would be awesome 

9. Add possibility to /home to admin built monuments (EU Scourge for example has Community Center) 

10. I know that vodka bottle was added with missions, so if something could be made with that, for example with each sip there is a chance you could get hydrated / puke / heal / radiated

Poll would be nice for any changes that would affect everyone.

[rubiks-q-bert]

1 hour ago, Marija said:

Sorry, but adding few more zombies and NPC's wouldn't make it that more difficult.

 

Here are some of my ideas - 

1. Make zombies more diverse and / or increase population. 

- I know that zombies were nerfed due to issues, but i was kind of hoping that would get fixed because they are dumb as hell now. Moreover, more stuff should be added, like we had with the Halloween event - bomb throwing zombies 

- Population definitely needs to be increased - where are the hordes? 

2. Maybe add few NPC-s to some monuments, number depending on what tier monument it is (like how it is on Airfield and Train Yard) 

3. Armor should loose it's hp like guns do. There would be more use for leather. You would actually need to hunt for animals to craft armor. Armor shops selling would be a thing.

4. Spawn in server first time nakkid with a rock and a torch only. 

5. Longer nights (that is controversial a bit, but I would like it a lot) - more zombies/zombie hordes at nights, wolfs also. 

6. Put launch site in snow area entirely. I believe that I don't need to explain reasoning behind that idea. 

7. Ability to call in Bradley distress signal (tied to launch site area ofc) 

8. I'm not sure if that is even possible, but if you could add poker table (from bandit/underwater labs) to the RustEZ store that would be awesome 

9. Add possibility to /home to admin built monuments (EU Scourge for example has Community Center) 

10. I know that vodka bottle was added with missions, so if something could be made with that, for example with each sip there is a chance you could get hydrated / puke / heal / radiated

Poll would be nice for any changes that would affect everyone.

More of any NPC absolutely ups the difficulty. That's just math. Good for some. Bad for others. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't. Mentioned this but at some point the zombie pop was lowered forever ago. Not sure why.

Don't really have anything to add to 1,2, that I didn't already mention. RustEZ is meant to be easy. Can't change it to much.

3. Agreed. Add more to the economy as a whole.

4. Agreed.

5. You nailed it. A lot of people would be very upset if night were longer.

6. Would not stop camping at all if that's what you're getting at. They would just go in with cold gear.

7. It was mentioned that was on the to do list at some point. I'd add that cooldown be put on the player/team before they can kill it again. 

8. $5 or something. Bet they would sell pretty well.

9. /home is on the backend so not sure how that would be doable every wipe to a brand new building. Maybe a hotel like building with rooms with beds that people could claim and lock up nearby? 

10. Molotov cocktail... Recipe - Bottle, LGF, Cloth. Throw it and watch things burn. 

Again, I'm all for more difficulty which is why I don't play here much but I also understand that they may not want to alter the servers so much.

[Marija]

7 hours ago, rubiks-q-bert said:

 

10. Molotov cocktail... Recipe - Bottle, LGF, Cloth. Throw it and watch things burn. 
 

That is also good idea, I like to burn my bases at the end of the wipe. But I also like my vodka at poker table .

 

New Garisson should also be made, I could do this one with my eyes closed and I did ti like 4 times maybe.

[rubiks-q-bert]

12 hours ago, Marija said:

New Garisson should also be made, I could do this one with my eyes closed and I did ti like 4 times maybe.

I mostly play on a server now with 5 different difficulties of garrisons/raids which has over 40 designs between the 5. Neat thing is that players can make a raid and if it meets the design qualifications, it get's added to the rotation.

The problem with the one on Scourge is it's to simple and not worth resources. But I understand why it was nerfed too and I was on the wagon pushing for said nerf because of how lucrative it was. Needs to me be more designs, bigger, more tiers.

I think Death runs a different plugin than the one on the other serve so no idea how it runs or if it's even possible. 

[Marija]

I don't really mind it being not lucrative, as long it's not the same always.

[Rygoat]

I know the impact would be drastic, but I've been wondering if removing teleportation and having /backpack drop on death might be an overall positive impact for gameplay. Force people to make use of all the various transport options we now have (trains, horses, cars/taxi etc)

[rubiks-q-bert]

15 hours ago, Rygoat said:

I know the impact would be drastic, but I've been wondering if removing teleportation and having /backpack drop on death might be an overall positive impact for gameplay. Force people to make use of all the various transport options we now have (trains, horses, cars/taxi etc)

The outcry would be tremendous. Teleporting is amazing and all but does take a lot away from the game. Adding to that, take away the revive as well.

[Marija]

This conversation we have with new people or old people coming back especially very often.

[Kazurax]

I think teleporting and reviving are great, but the costs should be much, much higher, and have cd's. Having all equipment take a durability hit would be a nice deterrent as well.

 

Marija, that pic speaks volumes, seen that same conversation many times. And that player logs off and never comes back due to a perceived poor experience. I would not want to alienate some players, but I originally thought that players looking for an easy experience were encouraged to use the pure servers. The definition of scourge is to induce suffering after all.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Kazurax

[rubiks-q-bert]

Neither here nor there but that particular player... 

I never saw anything about zombie pop being lowered recently. They tend to swarm excavator more than anywhere else I've noticed.

[Marija]

 Maybe make tp price scale same as revive, but I think that chaning tp or revive would make pople riot, that should not be messed with probaly . And it makes people to comunicate more and do stuff together more easilly, and that is what pve is about.

I would honestly just be happy with more zombies and the armor changes.

And new Garrison.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Marija

[rubiks-q-bert]

13 hours ago, Marija said:

And new Garrison.

They could make that into one of their build contests. 

[Jamesy]

Personally, anything that makes players use traditional methods of transport (Cars, Horses, Helis etc) more often would be a great benefit in my opinion. It would encourage far more player to player interactions. I do notice alot of the time there are players online i have never seen communicate with other players, and hey thats fine, some people prefer to keep to themselves, but randomly coming across players on the roads would definitely encourage more interaction and fun for people. 

[Kazurax]

I can understand how changes to a familiar server may put people off, so what about making a new server, a real hell server? Clone a scourge server and start editing that. I know the staff are really busy right now, but what about the idea itself? A server that has a real challenge to it for players looking for that. I know I'm not the only one.

[Blur]

Please, smile or laugh while reading this post and excuse my English.

All epic games have wings.
Is it not time for Rustez Scourge to reach new heights by introducing
variety (cute, ugly, fabulous, edgy, wtf?! etc) of wing(s)
as rewarding vanity item(s)* for the mortals** in a time period(like a wipe or two so you can't keep them)?
Maybe one solo-based challenge(s) and one multiple-players-based challenge(s). 
These could be popular  challenge reward(s) and encouraging social interaction.
And now that I am here...can we make the recyclers work even more faster, pwease?

In my opinion, the existing regular player base in EU Scourge are not interested in going out to purely to fight
zombie in regular basis. They just see the zombies as part of the normally dangerous fauna.
So most zombies on the server just stand there and growl for days and nights.
Btw, new players that joins the server and are already looking for a massive horde of zombies to fight within an hour,
have usually not enough firepower.
Although there are some new players looking for zombies,
imo, most of the players are mainly looking for a non-sweaty-non-vanilla Rust PVE gameplay.


If the amount of zombies (and corpses) in overall places
will be greatly increased to stimulate the shooter's itch,
then the island should offer
greatly amount of resources (nodes etc) for heals, repair costs and
firepower, or it will be too grindy, scarce and tedious to fend off this pestilence. 
Maybe it's better to put especially scary and a significant amount zombies in designated places
(zombie monument) and let their remains despawn quickly? Respawn timer?

I don't know if some of these forum thread suggestions are sustainable or
practical and how they will effect the server performance.
I let someone else do the balancing-chain-changes math.
 

Soon comes the world's longest sentence!

Dying is a painful agony for the pride and the virtual wallet but because, 
thank goodness!, Rustez Scourge don't have too punishing 
and expensive death-revival and teleporting system
that would risk to disrupt the flow of the gameplay, and the social interaction, 
hence, discouraging playfulness, exploration of the game and the server.

Although I like the suggestion of encouraging traditional travelling for more unplanned social
interaction, I don't like the idea that it should cost more to teleport to other players.
Instead, I would like to see a transaction fee for using /trade
- in that way - encouraging players to meet up or go to other places more. 

 

*"Vanity items are wearable items that can be equipped in social slots next to the armor and accessories slots in a character's inventory. Wearing them will change a character's appearance, but will not provide any functionality. Vanity items placed in the armor slots will also cover all armor appearances. Many of these vanity items are references to popular culture and other video games."

"https://terraria.fandom.com/wiki/Wings"

**Players that can't use god mode to cheat death.

[Death]

Haven't had time to thoroughly read through things, but just skimming I can confirm a lot of this is in the works and will start to trickle out in January!

[Kazurax]

Looking forward to seeing what you have in mind 

[dave40262000]

As a brand new player to the server I would like to offer my opinion as a newcomer. I would like to see higher costs to using TP and more zombies. I get it that the title says EZ, but on the Scourge server I think many would welcome increased difficulty. I am horrible at PVP and even as a fresh spawn there was no challenge to handling them with just a bow. They need to be tougher and possibly have more of them roaming. If they are too great of a challenge for a player, there are the Pure and Survival servers as options.  I am also not accustomed to teleporting all over the map and have always been in the habit of using a horse to roam the map. Teleporting should be either capped to X times per day or have the cost continue to increase with each use and not cap at 200. I get it that teleporting is a huge time saver for players that can't play many hours (like myself), but roaming the map I feel is an integral part of  the Rust experience. The final thing I was surprised by was the hundreds of pump jacks, large furnaces & oil refineries at so many bases. My FPS was less than half of what I usually experience while on the server, and I am not sure why a single base would need several pump jacks, 6 large furnaces & 6 oil refineries for a PVE server. I would like to see those capped at just 2 versus 6 only because of the server lag it seems to cause.

That being said, I did enjoy the server and it has MANY refreshing mods to make it a very enjoyable experience for players. I am looking forward to becoming a VIP in the next week. I also look forward to exploring all the unique monuments and events on the server.

 

Edit: sorry I am now seeing this should have gone into the suggestions thread and most has already been covereds in that thread.

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by dave40262000
i'm dumb

[rubiks-q-bert]

6 hours ago, dave40262000 said:

As a brand new player to the server I would like to offer my opinion as a newcomer. I would like to see higher costs to using TP and more zombies. I get it that the title says EZ, but on the Scourge server I think many would welcome increased difficulty. I am horrible at PVP and even as a fresh spawn there was no challenge to handling them with just a bow. They need to be tougher and possibly have more of them roaming. If they are too great of a challenge for a player, there are the Pure and Survival servers as options.  I am also not accustomed to teleporting all over the map and have always been in the habit of using a horse to roam the map. Teleporting should be either capped to X times per day or have the cost continue to increase with each use and not cap at 200. I get it that teleporting is a huge time saver for players that can't play many hours (like myself), but roaming the map I feel is an integral part of  the Rust experience. The final thing I was surprised by was the hundreds of pump jacks, large furnaces & oil refineries at so many bases. My FPS was less than half of what I usually experience while on the server, and I am not sure why a single base would need several pump jacks, 6 large furnaces & 6 oil refineries for a PVE server. I would like to see those capped at just 2 versus 6 only because of the server lag it seems to cause.

That being said, I did enjoy the server and it has MANY refreshing mods to make it a very enjoyable experience for players. I am looking forward to becoming a VIP in the next week. I also look forward to exploring all the unique monuments and events on the server.

 

Edit: sorry I am now seeing this should have gone into the suggestions thread and most has already been covereds in that thread.

 

Zombies are broke until facepunch un-fucks their mistake which hopefully will be this next wipe but I don't think it's a big priority for them. Def agree there should be more and variety. Problem with traditional zombies is they are stupid. Stand on any player made platform, easy pickings. There is an option somewhere to let the scarecrows have beancans. I even spent a brief amount of time where they had a plugin that some zombies had guns and survey charges. Having never used a survey charge, they hurt... But again, facepunch needs to fix their mistake or Death would have to use a plugin to heavily modify them.

As someone who uses the teleport function, it's convenient yet game breaking. I'm all for just eliminating it altogether but then we'd go back to the problem we had before of way to many random bags and people just suicide traveling. Really isn't an easy fix for this on imo short of making the suicide a super long cd and actually limiting how many beds you can place. Both can be done but don't see either happening. You can get around the suicide cd by drowning, finding a bear, etc. There is a limit to beds for the teleport function but not for death traveling.

Far as the pump jacks, etc. People trade in fuel for the in game currency.

Good feedback. VIP is so worth it.

[Kazurax]

Hi Dave, welcome to RustEZ. I'm usually into pvp, but this is a great community, I came here looking to get updated on new Rust stuff without having to worry about raiding, and the server with the people I've met made me a regular here. I'm glad to hear you seem to agree with why I started this thread. I'll admit, I've been into the build/horror/survival thing for a while, but that's what I'd like to see regardless. I hope you stick around, I have faith that Death will deliver what players like us want to see 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Kazurax

[Clover Ocean]

When I first joined the server, there was this feature, that broadcasted the longest distance kill with a weapon. I thought this was hilarious and funny and really miss seeing it pop up. But, I feel like that's a feature that could be expanded on just a little bit. Like, include with it a feature that keeps a zombo/enemyNPC/animal kill count. Maybe small prizes for people who have reached certain murder milestones. Like, maybe 100 zombos = tombstone or something. Something fitting / funny to add to your home as sort of a badge of honor. I don't know. I feel like it would add a little bit of friendly competition and reason to actively seek out and hunt things together. 

[rubiks-q-bert]

37 minutes ago, Clover Ocean said:

When I first joined the server, there was this feature, that broadcasted the longest distance kill with a weapon. I thought this was hilarious and funny and really miss seeing it pop up. But, I feel like that's a feature that could be expanded on just a little bit. Like, include with it a feature that keeps a zombo/enemyNPC/animal kill count. Maybe small prizes for people who have reached certain murder milestones. Like, maybe 100 zombos = tombstone or something. Something fitting / funny to add to your home as sort of a badge of honor. I don't know. I feel like it would add a little bit of friendly competition and reason to actively seek out and hunt things together. 

That particular plugin broke and if I recall, no longer was updated. Death mentioned plans to do his own at some point. That second thing is doable for sure. Quest plugin that can be setup for any number of things. To include a set number of kills of a certain type of npc and rewarded with whatever it's set to give out.