Enabling decay for Pure

[Death]

Ever since the creation of Pure back in 2017, the server has always run with no decay to make playing a bit less tedious for our casual players. Back then, decay was a nuisance and required you to log in every 24 hours and interact with doors to reset the timer. Nowadays, with upkeep and a cupboard, it's much more manageable.

Since the purification of Pure, enabling decay has always been on the roadmap to truly steer the server back to its vanilla origins and help naturally moderate player bases to preserve gameplay mid to late wipe. Before making such a big decision, we would like to get your feedback.

Would you like to see decay added to Pure, or keep things the way they are? If you could also spare a minute, please explain your decision below!

[Rei Ayanami]

if decay is added make it low please there are a lot of big bases that would be impossible to upkeep as my base is not even done and its 55k stone 

[fuddbutter]

 

14 minutes ago, Rei Ayanami said:

if decay is added make it low please there are a lot of big bases that would be impossible to upkeep as my base is not even done and its 55k stone 

This will help stop massive bases and the lag that comes with them!

[Rei Ayanami]

4 minutes ago, fuddbutter said:

 

This will help stop massive bases and the lag that comes with them!

yeah that is true but where is the fun in that

[Brad]

i have waited for so long for this to come back around.

Hoping for a better outcome than the last time. Would love a passing vote 

My belief for wanting this stems from the absolute monstrosities that accumulate over the course of wipe. 

Having to downsize certain large creations due to upkeep in my opinion will help relieve some of the stress certain areas of the map end up being halfway through. It isn't fun watching my frames get shot in half.

Personally i do think the term "used space of a base" is a very loose term and with no decay players certainly take advantage of that in a negative way

Working to keep your base up is a nice chore 

Edited Wednesday at 05:50 AM by Brad
reason

[sunamuna]

Back then when I started playing PvE, RustEZ was the only (bigger) PvE server that I could find which didn't have decay enabled. 
Building and decorating bases in Rust is one of the things I enjoy the most, but I don't like the hassle of farming for upkeep, especially when I do not or cannot play for a couple of days. 
I don't want to log on after a really long day only because I feel the need to farm - which was one of the reasons RustEZ became the main PvE server I play on (or why I even started playing PvE instead of PvP).
I can't think of any other vanilla PvE server that has decay disabled. There probably are some smaller ones, but it is much more enjoyable on RustEZ as it is one of the biggest PvE servers, so you get to have way more interactions with other players. 
The disabled upkeep is one of the things that make the server stand out to me compared to other PvE Servers.
There are a lot of really big twig bases which also play a big role with lag, but enabling decay wouldn't help here as those huge twig bases barely need any upkeep, so those would still be a problem. 
Personally I think a better option would be to go back from 10 to 7 days inactivity from the server until the base decays, or enforcing stricter rules regarding the size, entities or number of builds, as not only the big twig bases but also some of the giga bases barely passing the 1 grid limit play a big role in the lag.

[jiraiyanosannin]

9 minutes ago, Rei Ayanami said:

yeah that is true but where is the fun in that

I dunno... maybe in playing with less lag?

[jiraiyanosannin]

2 minutes ago, sunamuna said:

Back then when I started playing PvE, RustEZ was the only (bigger) PvE server that I could find which didn't have decay enabled. 
Building and decorating bases in Rust is one of the things I enjoy the most, but I don't like the hassle of farming for upkeep, especially when I do not or cannot play for a couple of days. 
I don't want to log on after a really long day only because I feel the need to farm - which was one of the reasons RustEZ became the main PvE server I play on (or why I even started playing PvE instead of PvP).
I can't think of any other vanilla PvE server that has decay disabled. There probably are some smaller ones, but it is much more enjoyable on RustEZ as it is one of the biggest PvE servers, so you get to have way more interactions with other players. 
The disabled upkeep is one of the things that make the server stand out to me compared to other PvE Servers.
There are a lot of really big twig bases which also play a big role with lag, but enabling decay wouldn't help here as those huge twig bases barely need any upkeep, so those would still be a problem. 
Personally I think a better option would be to go back from 10 to 7 days inactivity from the server until the base decays, or enforcing stricter rules regarding the size, entities or number of builds, as not only the big twig bases but also some of the giga bases barely passing the 1 grid limit play a big role in the lag.

Enforcing size limits would definitely help, but they're choosing the hands-off approach, so....

[Death]

22 minutes ago, jiraiyanosannin said:

Enforcing size limits would definitely help, but they're choosing the hands-off approach, so....

Limits would be hard to enforce. But the decision is up to the players and the outcome of this poll.

[JamieinNC]

I vote yes for this, but like others request that it's less than normal.

I used to play your servers a lot, but the lag was more than I could handle..  I was in an EU server because that was were the first set of friends was I had made in Rust, but with the lag I switched to the US server and it's equally as bad.   I love a big base just as much as the other guy, but having people build these MASSIVE bases that lag you out, or they TC all the great locations just in case they want to build, it interferes with others play.

I have recently played on another PVE server that has decay but it's at a 50 percent rate I believe, but they do have it set so that if you don't upgrade from twig it will be deleted.    I like that approach, twig is a good base to figure out the lay of your base, but after that you should upgrade it to wood at least, if not stone.

Just my two cents worth..  if lag becomes manageable again, I would love to play, I liked your servers better than any others I have played on so far, with the exception of the lag.

[stroiger]

I've come to understand that a big part that plays a role in why server performance decreases isn't just the size of bases but also the amount of entities it contains.

Think about the tons and tons of lighting, (hundreds of meters in string lights, hundreds of industrial lights, tons of decorational items and so on) industrial components etc.

A big base containing a couple dozen boxes and a few lets say sofas, shelves and lockers won't nearly have as much of an impact as a small 4x4x4 containing lights on every wall, dozens of garlands on every door frame, red and blue siren lights being spammed on the roof for no reason at all, and a bunch of wind turbines (because, unless someone brings it to the server admins attention that someone has more turbines than allowed nobodys checking that from my personal experience) tons of automated objects and literally 50+ vending machines full to the brim on the outside. 

Another thing is building materials - with enabled upkeep huge twig bases that barely need upkeep will still be a thing - negatively affecting performance much more than a similar wood/stone/sheet metal upgraded one. And the easy solution to that is to reduce decay time for inactivity - theres dozens of people joining the server at the start, laying down a giant foundation for very ambitious sized bases and then never coming back on - and with 10 days of inactivity protection from decay thats a 3rd of the whole wipe where nobody can do anything about that or the hit this maps area takes in terms of performance. 

The whole reason why it was changed to 10 instead of the prior 7 days was to give everyone, wether its a student or someone who works full time or has other obligations and for that reason doesn't have unlimited time to play but still wants to have a fun and enjoyable experience, the option to play and build for a bit, then come back a couple days later and continue where they left things without having to worry that it will be gone (and enabling upkeep doubles down on that only that now their base will be gone after a day or two unless they spend their limited time to farm up ressources, which I underestand is easy to do on PvE servers but it still takes time that would be otherwise spent on actually playing and chatting with others and enjoying the game instead of making it feel like a chore).

Enabling upkeep destroys the sole purpose behind that change and the whole reason why many players value this server so much over others and comes back every wipe. When looking at peoples reasoning for why they left PVP servers to join RustEZ or left other PvE servers it's the fact that:

- PVP servers feel like "competing with ""unemployed people"" or those still in school who have unlimited time to play - can't farm upkeep? your time invested will be wiped out either by being offlined or the base decaying itself
- PVP servers feel like a chore, build anything decently sized, have fun spending an hour or more farming up to maintain it - can't be online for a day or two? same result - your time invested will be wiped clean and your base will decay
- most PvE servers have upkeep enabled, which makes RustEZ so special -  it's a vanilla gather rate serverwithout upkeep, no 2x, 3x or 10x one where the increased gather rate compensates for the fact that you have to farm up a lot of ressources to maintain your base ---> having upkeep on a vanilla gather rate server just brings the downsides without balancing it out
- the size of the community ! it's one of the bigger (non-modded) PvE servers in terms of playerbase and I don't see the change do anything more than drive away potential new players, casual or "weekend" players or keep existing ones from coming back after having their base decayed

A few underlying topics that deserve more attention when asking about wether or not upkeep should be implented are:

1.) which types of players have the most impact on the server performance 

---> it's not the average Joe's hopping on for a weekend it's the people who've played for a long time on the server and keep coming back to build gigantic pyramides, huge farm bases, walling off big chunks of the map, putting in 16 hour days for the majority of the first week(s) until they have a crazy amount of vending machines, giant farm bases to sell hundreds of teas and thousands of items in the shortest possible time after the server wiped, or those being in the biggest groups therefore filling a small part of  the map with the most entities since they live together in a certain area which makes the entity density in those areas the reason for performance hits (in those areas but also for the average performance of the server itself)

2.) moderation of server rules regarding performance 
 
---> from personal experience I can say that while we do have 2 new amazing admins (and many existing ones) on EU Pure, the nature of volunteering as an admin comes with it's own challenges namely not having the time of overseeing everything thats going on or going wrong in a timely manner. these people have their own lifes, obligations and can't be there every day ofc

BUT unfortunately it seems that current or recent (talking about recent few wipes) admin activity is not really covering the needs of moderation on this server size/pop and therefore active enforcement of rules like max. of 4 wind turbines for example - there's been cases of people putting up 12 or more, and sometimes people speak up and admins take a look, sometimes it gets lost along the process and nothing happens for one or another reason, but the fact is that it takes maybe 5 minutes for an admin to get a rough overview by flying over the map to see blatant or obvious cases of people disregarding that rule - from personal experience I can say theres multiple cases like that every single wipe I've played, and it isn't always being solved, sometimes it just stays that way until the server wipes

---> same with unresonable/ excessive usage of lighting, for example people putting up 100 siren lights on top of their roofs which tanks FPS in that area significantly - it takes a quick fly around the map to find extreme cases of such and a quick note ingame to address the player in question

---> unfortunately it feels like these rules are being enforced in a reactive rather than proactive way, unless someone stumbles across such buildings/areas and speaks up in discord (since realistically except for the first 1-3 days of wipe there are rarely admins online and if so rarely for very long unless those admins have projects of their own they tend to e.g. building for events or preparing for such) not much is gonna happen on its own, and even if someone addresses said matters in discord its oftentimes overlooked, which I don't blame on the admins, I understand stuff gets lost with the many many enquiries being admitted to the general or help channel in discord on a daily bases for matters concerning all kinds of RustEZ servers and regions

3.) what rules or measures can be put in to place for giant twig bases degrading server performance early in to the wipe ?

---> everyone who played sometime around wipe and the following days knows the situation where huge ambitious projects are being started with giant twig foundations and shells being built for these people to never come back online, while the decay time that was changed last year from 7 to now 10 days locks these buildings in to place for a 3rd  of the whole wipe - this time frame is way too long and enabling upkeep will barely counter that considering you can farm up a tc full of wood in 10 minutes and secure  your upkeep for your giant twig frame of a base for the remainder of the wipe

---> maybe going back to 7 days or implementing a measure concerning a different, shorter time frame for twig decay is an option? and keeping the time for decay for  anything  upgraded to wood or even stone and above the same? a big base out of twig can be maintained for 30 days with a single TC full of wood, a same sized base out of stone with a stone filled TC only for a day or two (exemplary for the sake of the argument, ofc it depends on the actual size and amount of building blocks and so on)


To summarize, enabling upkeep, in my opinion, mostly affects "casual" or average players which make the majority of the servers population, not the few putting in hundreds of hours every month who will barely be affected by the upkeep(rushing progression the first couple of days by putting in exorbitant hours after wipe), therefore driving away new players, putting off existing or new players from coming back or the latter ones with limited time to spend on the game which would negatively impact the servers population and maybe even hinder growth or just maintaining the existing player base while not addressing issues or matters that are equally contributing to performance degradation that can be explored before ultimately changing such a fundamental aspect of the Pure servers.


DISCLAIMER for people who want to bring individual hardware or free time on hand in to the discussion of this topic:

This is coming from someone who has a high-end system (RYZEN 9800 X3D, 32 GB RAM, RTX 4090) and more than enough time on hand to sink in to the game. HOWEVER up until the end of last year I was playing on a low-end system myself and was experiencing the same performance issues being brought up by other players in this discussion so I understand their point-of-view equally as well.

Therefore all arguments and points made by me are not made out of self-interest, since my situation fortunately allows me to not be affected (neither server performance wise or from the point of having to spend time farming for upkeep) nearly as much by enabling upkeep as the average RustEZ Pure player.

Cheers!
 

Edited Wednesday at 07:17 AM by stroiger

[a 3/0 sc lauan]

also keep in mind, a stack of diesel at GE can provide you with enough stone or frags to maintain a moderate sized base most if not all wipe using industrial conveyors into the TC (assuming a reduced decay rate) 

but this also provides players the opportunity to have something to do later into wipe, opportunities to set up vendys and trade for resources if smashing rocks isnt your thing, and will open up a lot more space that can sometimes be taken up by random foundations or players who joined for 5 minutes (without having to wait 10 days for purge). 

it's not nearly the burden some players will inevitably make it out to be.  

[a 3/0 sc lauan]

33 minutes ago, stroiger said:

I've come to understand that a big part that plays a role in why server performance decreases isn't just the size of bases but also the amount of entities it contains.

Think about the tons and tons of lighting, (hundreds of meters in string lights, hundreds of industrial lights, tons of decorational items and so on) industrial components etc.

A big base containing a couple dozen boxes and a few lets say sofas, shelves and lockers won't nearly have as much of an impact as a small 4x4x4 containing lights on every wall, dozens of garlands on every door frame, red and blue siren lights being spammed on the roof for no reason at all, and a bunch of wind turbines (because, unless someone brings it to the server admins attention that someone has more turbines than allowed nobodys checking that from my personal experience) tons of automated objects and literally 50+ vending machines full to the brim on the outside. 

Another thing is building materials - with enabled upkeep huge twig bases that barely need upkeep will still be a thing - negatively affecting performance much more than a similar wood/stone/sheet metal upgraded one. And the easy solution to that is to reduce decay time for inactivity - theres dozens of people joining the server at the start, laying down a giant foundation for very ambitious sized bases and then never coming back on - and with 10 days of inactivity protection from decay thats a 3rd of the whole wipe where nobody can do anything about that or the hit this maps area takes in terms of performance. 

The whole reason why it was changed to 10 instead of the prior 7 days was to give everyone, wether its a student or someone who works full time or has other obligations and for that reason doesn't have unlimited time to play but still wants to have a fun and enjoyable experience, the option to play and build for a bit, then come back a couple days later and continue where they left things without having to worry that it will be gone (and enabling upkeep doubles down on that only that now their base will be gone after a day or two unless they spend their limited time to farm up ressources, which I underestand is easy to do on PvE servers but it still takes time that would be otherwise spent on actually playing and chatting with others and enjoying the game instead of making it feel like a chore).

Enabling upkeep destroys the sole purpose behind that change and the whole reason why many players value this server so much over others and comes back every wipe. When looking at peoples reasoning for why they left PVP servers to join RustEZ or left other PvE servers it's the fact that:

- PVP servers feel like "competing with ""unemployed people"" or those still in school who have unlimited time to play - can't farm upkeep? your time invested will be wiped out either by being offlined or the base decaying itself
- PVP servers feel like a chore, build anything decently sized, have fun spending an hour or more farming up to maintain it - can't be online for a day or two? same result - your time invested will be wiped clean and your base will decay
- most PvE servers have upkeep enabled, which makes RustEZ so special -  it's a vanilla gather rate serverwithout upkeep, no 2x, 3x or 10x one where the increased gather rate compensates for the fact that you have to farm up a lot of ressources to maintain your base ---> having upkeep on a vanilla gather rate server just brings the downsides without balancing it out
- the size of the community ! it's one of the bigger (non-modded) PvE servers in terms of playerbase and I don't see the change do anything more than drive away potential new players, casual or "weekend" players or keep existing ones from coming back after having their base decayed

A few underlying topics that deserve more attention when asking about wether or not upkeep should be implented are:

1.) which types of players have the most impact on the server performance 

---> it's not the average Joe's hopping on for a weekend it's the people who've played for a long time on the server and keep coming back to build gigantic pyramides, huge farm bases, walling off big chunks of the map, putting in 16 hour days for the majority of the first week(s) until they have a crazy amount of vending machines, giant farm bases to sell hundreds of teas and thousands of items in the shortest possible time after the server wiped, or those being in the biggest groups therefore filling a small part of  the map with the most entities since they live together in a certain area which makes the entity density in those areas the reason for performance hits (in those areas but also for the average performance of the server itself)

TC rings are still allowed, which provides players the opportunity to build at a rate they can both maintain with their individual playtime, and expand as needed throughout the course of the month.  

2.) moderation of server rules regarding performance 
 
---> from personal experience I can say that while we do have 2 new amazing admins (and many existing ones) on EU Pure, the nature of volunteering as an admin comes with it's own challenges namely not having the time of overseeing everything thats going on or going wrong in a timely manner. these people have their own lifes, obligations and can't be there every day ofc

BUT unfortunately it seems that current or recent (talking about recent few wipes) admin activity is not really covering the needs of moderation on this server size/pop and therefore active enforcement of rules like max. of 4 wind turbines for example - there's been cases of people putting up 12 or more, and sometimes people speak up and admins take a look, sometimes it gets lost along the process and nothing happens for one or another reason, but the fact is that it takes maybe 5 minutes for an admin to get a rough overview by flying over the map to see blatant or obvious cases of people disregarding that rule - from personal experience I can say theres multiple cases like that every single wipe I've played, and it isn't always being solved, sometimes it just stays that way until the server wipes

---> same with unresonable/ excessive usage of lighting, for example people putting up 100 siren lights on top of their roofs which tanks FPS in that area significantly - it takes a quick fly around the map to find extreme cases of such and a quick note ingame to address the player in question

---> unfortunately it feels like these rules are being enforced in a reactive rather than proactive way, unless someone stumbles across such buildings/areas and speaks up in discord (since realistically except for the first 1-3 days of wipe there are rarely admins online and if so rarely for very long unless those admins have projects of their own they tend to e.g. building for events or preparing for such) not much is gonna happen on its own, and even if someone addresses said matters in discord its oftentimes overlooked, which I don't blame on the admins, I understand stuff gets lost with the many many enquiries being admitted to the general or help channel in discord on a daily bases for matters concerning all kinds of RustEZ servers and regions

there are no building restrictions on windmills or electrical components.  lag happens individially on a case by case basis, and is addressed upon reports to the admin team.  we are not allowed to make modifications to these bases outright, and generally will ask a player to make those modifications voluntarily prior to the team taking action only if the case is serious enough to warrant doing so.  this process can take days or more depending on the situation and playtime of the owner of the offending base.  

3.) what rules or measures can be put in to place for giant twig bases degrading server performance early in to the wipe ?

---> everyone who played sometime around wipe and the following days knows the situation where huge ambitious projects are being started with giant twig foundations and shells being built for these people to never come back online, while the decay time that was changed last year from 7 to now 10 days locks these buildings in to place for a 3rd  of the whole wipe - this time frame is way too long and enabling upkeep will barely counter that considering you can farm up a tc full of wood in 10 minutes and secure  your upkeep for your giant twig frame of a base for the remainder of the wipe

---> maybe going back to 7 days or implementing a measure concerning a different, shorter time frame for twig decay is an option? and keeping the time for decay for  anything  upgraded to wood or even stone and above the same? a big base out of twig can be maintained for 30 days with a single TC full of wood, a same sized base out of stone with a stone filled TC only for a day or two (exemplary for the sake of the argument, ofc it depends on the actual size and amount of building blocks and so on)

Rules governing the size, material, or outfitting of a base are highly unlikely (however you can always add suggestions in the suggestions forum of this website) in addition to differing purge rates based on material.  Decay would serve as the "alternate" option here to more quickly remove many of those 5 minute bases where the player logs on and never returns.  situations where those short time players fill the TC to maintain it for the duration of wipe would likely be few and far between, and purge would still remove inactives at that point.  


To summarize, enabling upkeep, in my opinion, mostly affects "casual" or average players which make the majority of the servers population, not the few putting in hundreds of hours every month who will barely be affected by the upkeep(rushing progression the first couple of days by putting in exorbitant hours after wipe), therefore driving away new players, putting off existing or new players from coming back or the latter ones with limited time to spend on the game which would negatively impact the servers population and maybe even hinder growth or just maintaining the existing player base while not addressing issues or matters that are equally contributing to performance degradation that can be explored before ultimately changing such a fundamental aspect of the Pure servers.


DISCLAIMER for people who want to bring individual hardware or free time on hand in to the discussion of this topic:

This is coming from someone who has a high-end system (RYZEN 9800 X3D, 32 GB RAM, RTX 4090) and more than enough time on hand to sink in to the game. HOWEVER up until the end of last year I was playing on a low-end system myself and was experiencing the same performance issues being brought up by other players in this discussion so I understand their point-of-view equally as well.

Therefore all arguments and points made by me are not made out of self-interest, since my situation fortunately allows me to not be affected (neither server performance wise or from the point of having to spend time farming for upkeep) nearly as much by enabling upkeep as the average RustEZ Pure player.

Cheers!
 

 

[sunamuna]

30 minutes ago, a 3/0 sc lauan said:

there are no building restrictions on windmills or electrical components.

On RustEZ EU Pure there are widely known rules which are unwritten but being enforced, for example you are not allowed to place more than 4 windmills per base, you are only allowed 2 cars per team/player (not sure, because as I said those rules are nowhere written down) and so on.
If an admin notices or is being told about more than 4 windmills on EU Pure, the player in question has 24 hours time to decide which windmills they don't want to keep, any windmills that are exceeding the limit of 4 will be removed by then. Same applies to any more then 2 cars (except if they are not for personal use + you have an automated car shop to sell them to other players).

From what I have seen there seem to be different rules for EU Pure and e.g. US Pure that are being enforced, which can be confusing if you can't find those rules anywhere other than by asking an admin or another player, but that's a different topic, which should maybe also be taken into account

Edited Wednesday at 08:12 AM by sunamuna

[a 3/0 sc lauan]

Just now, sunamuna said:

On RustEZ EU Pure there are widely known rules which are unwritten but being enforced, for example you are not allowed to place more than 4 windmills, you are only allowed 2 cars per team/player (not sure, because as I said those rules are nowhere written down) and so on.
If an admin notices or is being told about more than 4 windmills on EU Pure, the player in question has 24 hours time to decide which windmills they don't want to keep, any windmills that are exceeding the limit of 4 will be removed by then. Same applies to any more then 2 cars (except if they are not for personal use + you have an automated car shop to sell them to other players).

From what I have seen there seem to be different rules for EU Pure and e.g. US Pure that are being enforced, which can be confusing if you can't find those rules anywhere other than by asking an admin or another player, but that's a different topic, which should maybe also be taken into account

the rulebook we have to follow as admins should be consistent no matter the server you play on as it's the same rulebook for all 13 servers.  the only rules that should be enforced with warnings are located on the rules list.  (in reference to lag/performance issues, there will obviously be a lot of admin discretion being used for those cases, however hard "limits" dont exist)

 

[sunamuna]

3 minutes ago, a 3/0 sc lauan said:

the rulebook we have to follow as admins should be consistent no matter the server you play on as it's the same rulebook for all 13 servers.  the only rules that should be enforced with warnings are located on the rules list.  (in reference to lag/performance issues, there will obviously be a lot of admin discretion being used for those cases, however hard "limits" dont exist)

 

I am aware of those server rules and I understand and agree that every server should have the same rules.
However, as I said before, there definitely are unwritten, but widely known rules which ARE being enforced on EU Pure - talking from experience after 1 year and over 1k hours of playtime on EU Pure. Those aren't exceptions but the norm. 

[stroiger]

23 minutes ago, a 3/0 sc lauan said:

the rulebook we have to follow as admins should be consistent no matter the server you play on as it's the same rulebook for all 13 servers.  the only rules that should be enforced with warnings are located on the rules list.  (in reference to lag/performance issues, there will obviously be a lot of admin discretion being used for those cases, however hard "limits" dont exist)

 

To pick up on "the only rules that should be enforced with warnings are located on the rules list." - I remember a wipe from last year where I set up to build a big Roleplay focused car dealership. Not your normal put a car in a 2x2 space with a vending machine deal but a face to face selling business with player interactions, server advertisement, taking pictures with "happy customers" who bought, configuration and extra goodies when buying a car from me, it was all named "Torrettos Body Shop". We even met someone roleplay as a taxi service who we "collabed" with. Great wipe, awesome interactions, no harm done. I sold them live , and for that I had a mailbox for people to leave notes when they wish to buy a car, and I would respond almost immediately, for the duration of the car shop I was online for 16 hours per DAY, so everyone who did want a car, got a car.

Now at the time, there was no written rule and there still isn't as you pointed out (which theoretically is true but in reality isn't, see sunamunas response to you, I can confirm her experience on the EU Pure server since I play on that server too, there ARE several rules being enforced, some less some more seriously that aren't written down anywhere.) about car limits - as long as you're not being a douche about hoarding them for personal use. At some point a player which I won't name started started being vocal about me "hoarding them" after I refused to sell him more cars after already selling him 3, so other players would get a chance at getting one too, while his "collection" of I don't remember, 12? 14 ? cars (that he had for the sole purpose of collecting not using them as a solo player, which greatly reduces the available cars for others as there is a set amount of cars being spawned for the map, 60 to be precise) got decimated down to 2 by an admin. He was given notice that he had too many cars. Naturally players started asking what the rules in that case were - are there limits for cars ? if so how many? and some staff members in discord as well as on the server itself said "2 cars per team, no hoarding them, if you sell them you need the shops to be automated so players can buy them at any time without your presence being needed". 

I understood, but I also never had an admin approach me (even though several visited my base already and knew about how many cars I was selling) about me not having my car shop automated (since I was online pretty much ALWAYS for the duration of the shop) or stashing too many to sell. 

A day later I came online and most of my cars are gone, removed by an admin. No prior notice, no "warning", no being approached beforehand, which contradicts you saying that normally, depending on how serious the offense/case is, depending on reports submitted to staff enforcement only happens after prior warning or approaching the players in question before any interference or removing objects/buildings. And that "hard limits don't exist" seems also not to be the case as you can see, nor does the rulebook seem to be the same on all 13 servers BEYOND the ones everyone can read up as you've attached.

All I'm trying to say is there seems to be a discrepancy of what is being enforced and how serious (or if at all), depending on server, case, or even admin who takes on the matter. 

I would greatly appreciate it if you could look into this, seeing that you didn't know about such differences regarding rules occuring on the different Pure servers. This would impact the decision of players regarding the vote on upkeep - server performance related rules and issues, or rules regarding "hard limits" for objects like wind turbines would be weighed differently depending on wether or not these rules ultimately exist and are being enforced or are subject to individual staff members/ admins handling them differently depending on the specific case and/or server region.

Thank you.

[R1G]

This decision effectively kills the possibility of creating the large-scale, aesthetic bases that players spend weeks building. Instead of progress, we will end up with a server filled with identical thatch "boxes", as they will be the only structures economically viable to maintain. If the goal of implementing a decay system is to optimize server load, it would be more logical to apply it exclusively to temporary thatch structures rather than punishing players for using other materials.

Implementing a universal decay system demotivates the community from building anything of quality.

Edited Wednesday at 10:11 AM by R1G

[fl0x]

I'm voting yes to decay because the pros far outweigh the cons for me.  

- Random foundations will be cleaned up.  Am I going back to destroy that random triangle I put down to kill a bear on wipe day? Unlikely.  I also don't think people should be able to claim entire areas simply by placing twig everywhere with 0 commitment. Last wipe on US Pure a player tc'ed nearly half a lake on day 1, then never returned.  These tcs blocked off the area for the rest of wipe because this person authed active players to their tcs.

- Over-building. I think that if you want to build the mega farm of your dreams that's fine, but is that 100+ planter farm really going to be used all wipe? More likely you're going to do a couple harvests and that's it. You'd like to build 5 heli-towers around the map to gain an advantage over the rest of the server? Fine. But like the farm, you should have to put in a bit of work to maintain them.

- Vending. One of my favorite things about RustEZ servers is the active vending machines all over the map. I believe adding decay would only strengthen this by creating more demand for items like diesel, pies and tea.

There's a variety of things that keep people coming back to Pure and I think that if you've been here for a while, you can agree that it's not all about your system's performance. But one of the main reasons I play pure is because the performance drawbacks of modded servers isn't worth the extra content/features to me. I'm simply looking for a some-what vanilla Rust PVE experience.

[R1G]

Enabling Decay on Pure is the fastest way to kill off any creativity here. We come to this server specifically for the freedom to build — to bring to life massive, complex projects that we’d never have the time or resources for on a vanilla server.

The moment upkeep is introduced, every player will stop thinking about architecture or aesthetics and start worrying about the "daily cost." Instead of cool, unique buildings, we’ll end up with the same old 2x2 boxes that are cheap to maintain, or those ugly "dick-towers" just for shooting down Karen. It would stifle the very essence of Pure, where building is meant to be an art, not a chore.

Why turn the game into a forced daily grind just to feed the TC? It kills the drive to experiment.
Let’s not turn our creative playground into just another job.

[samygrl]

Upkeep on a PVE server will never be a "daily" grind.  We don't lose our materials like in PVP, I think the daunting factor for most is that they believe upkeep will be harsher than it actually is. 

A tea and bear pie goes a long way, there is GE, HQM, Stone quarry, and outpost that sells materials.  As a player I would end wipes with boxes of metal frags and items.  When I cut myself down to a single box of items and refused to add more, it was clear why we could use decay.  People collect for the sake of collecting, hoard for the sake of hoarding, and build because they had extreme amounts of excess materials and got bored 1/2 way through wipe.  Instead of 4 boxes of comps and 3 boxes of guns etc. simply recycling will keep up with a large portion of base decay needs.  Vending machines can sell items for materials instead of scrap (who needs to end the wipe with a large box of it anyways) or the scrap can be used to purchase materials from outpost.  Industrial can be utilized to autofeed a TC.  As for being worried about it hindering creativity, it could also enhance it.  Mix materials your buildings are made out of to even out material costs etc.  Solo players have no true need for 6 bases or a mansion with 18 rooms, yet it happens and way too often. 

Aside from that, those random foundations people place or the start of a base they made and abandoned. The players that come in, see no decay and build twig mansions will poof without upkeep.- these are the small things that will help the health of the server.  Anyone playing the game will be able to upkeep and I know for US Pure (should this be enacted) any admin will absolutely help with setting up industrial if players do not know how.  But I will also insert a photo that anyone can reference to ease minds (click on it to expand).  

There are build servers and then there are servers meant to play the game on, we are the latter and because of no decay people have ignored reasonable building at the cost of overall server health.   

[wookiecookie]

Not taking at side ATM as to whether to enable decay or not but was thinking... 

When a base decays to the point where the items inside the base are now accessible, I'm assuming it is still against the rules to loot those items (eg: the player may be coming back on and would rebuild). 

Players should of course always lock their TCs, boxes, etc to avoid theft, but when the walls fall, anything inside the base becomes accessible. I expect an upturn in player item loss due to decay. For sure the rules will need to be updated to note exactly what the rules are around this to avoid issues.

[SpeedJourney]

For me decay is must have , not only becouse it will moderate big bases , but it will be good for server economy  , becouse it will give the players who as farmars more opportunity to trade and buy things , and for people like me who sell alot of things and build alot of scrap who is basicly usless at some point  , reason to spend  via buying metal or stone to upkeep my base !

[GeilePute]

Honestly, I’m against adding decay to the Pure PvE server. Not everyone can or wants to log in every single day just to farm resources so their base doesn’t fall apart. The fact that we can build and be creative without upkeep stress is what makes this server so enjoyable for many of us. PvE should be relaxing and fun — not feel like a daily chore. If the concern is performance or lag, stricter building limits would make more sense in my opinion than introducing decay.

[sunamuna]

6 hours ago, fl0x said:

I'm voting yes to decay because the pros far outweigh the cons for me.  

- Random foundations will be cleaned up.  Am I going back to destroy that random triangle I put down to kill a bear on wipe day? Unlikely.  I also don't think people should be able to claim entire areas simply by placing twig everywhere with 0 commitment. Last wipe on US Pure a player tc'ed nearly half a lake on day 1, then never returned.  These tcs blocked off the area for the rest of wipe because this person authed active players to their tcs.

- Over-building. I think that if you want to build the mega farm of your dreams that's fine, but is that 100+ planter farm really going to be used all wipe? More likely you're going to do a couple harvests and that's it. You'd like to build 5 heli-towers around the map to gain an advantage over the rest of the server? Fine. But like the farm, you should have to put in a bit of work to maintain them.

- Vending. One of my favorite things about RustEZ servers is the active vending machines all over the map. I believe adding decay would only strengthen this by creating more demand for items like diesel, pies and tea.

There's a variety of things that keep people coming back to Pure and I think that if you've been here for a while, you can agree that it's not all about your system's performance. But one of the main reasons I play pure is because the performance drawbacks of modded servers isn't worth the extra content/features to me. I'm simply looking for a some-what vanilla Rust PVE experience.

That's an argument I see a lot when it comes to the discussion of decay. But I don't think those single random triangle foundations, which are an exception, are really a big problem that would justify the need for such a big change. Big areas being blocked off would also still be a problem as, again, twig barely costs any upkeep. It might drive even more players to build twig bases, ensuring that their base will still stand where they left off when not playing for a while, which then again leads to more lag and the server performance suffering because of it.

While automating the TC is an option, not every player will do so. Newer players might not even know about it, or others, especially casuals, maybe take longer until they have enough ressources for researching the needed parts, not being able to do so for quite a while.

I agree that enabling upkeep would strengthen the ingame market. However when visiting a monument that spawns diesel, (e.g. Water Treatmant Plant or Trainyard), or even checking them out regularly, in hopes to find some diesel, in most cases it is already gone. And I'm certain that some people camp those monuments to be the first to lay their hands on the diesel, especially when clicking around the shops and seeing a questionable amount of diesel being sold (for example, a couple of wipes ago there was a vending machine selling literally over 200 diesel - it feels like more and more people are just driven by having the most of everything). That would only become a bigger problem as the demand for diesel will grow.

But then what's the problem when they sell it anyway??

Well, first come, first serve. That might sound fair, but then again you will have those players who would (and be able to afford to) buy huge amounts of diesel, they would be able to build their ultra big bases or their towers all across the map anyway, no matter if decay is enabled or not. The diesel wouldn't be distributed in a fairly manner, as the need for diesel will be even higher then now, making it even harder for casuals to find diesel at monuments than it already is, with it being vacuumed away on the regular. And casual players maybe won't be able to afford enough diesel across the wipe, due to them not (being able to) playing as much, therefore having less.

Sure, relatively "poor" players could just build their base out of wood, as it is safer than twig but cheaper and easier to get than stone, especially when getting their hands on a chainsaw and maybe even a wood tea, but why should they  be restricted  from building their base the way they want to, in which it brings them joy?
Also, since wood would be a cheap alternative, it would just be another option for players to build their unreasonably big bases - the kind of players who plan on building their one-grid-giga-base will find a way to do so - big bases would not disappear, and they will still drag the server performance down.

 

Every playstyle should be taken into consideration when it comes to the question of wether to enable upkeep or not.

Just because some people have way more than they need due to hoarding, that doesn't apply to everyone.
Not every player grinds every day the whole day and has way more than enough like 4 boxes of comps or 3 boxes of guns by midwipe/the end of wipe, and I don't think that it is fair at all to assume that applies to most of the players. There are a lot of players who play casual for just a couple of hours to cool down after a long day work, who joined because they want to have a fun and relaxing PvE experience, instead of coming home from a shift just to take on another shift, farming for their base.
Of course it wouldn't affect those players putting 12+ hours a day into the game. 

RustEZ Pure is one of my favourite PvE servers, having spent almost half my total Rust playtime on here, and I would love to see the servers grow even more!
But I truly believe that the population/size of the server and especially the "No Decay" feature are some of the things that make the server stand out compared to other vanilla  servers, and that enabling decay would just make it more like any other non-modded PvE server - with the consequence of players that joined for that feature not coming back, and less newer players joining the server as there will be one big point less that would make it stand out. 

Edited Wednesday at 10:06 PM by sunamuna