My two eurocents:
Rust is a tough game, until you take PvP out, then it becomes a totally different and quite an easy one. As a result people get bored. This boredom flows into two things; people leaving without actually playing the whole wipe, or they find something to do. We give ourself a challenge or we are able to just enjoy the time while using the game without any clear goals. Not many people are able to do the last, in all honosty, most of us get bored if we progres through the game naturally. With a team you can "complete your wipe" in one or two days. So "the game" (read developers , or @death and co) have no choice but give us something to do. Or things get out of hand, without need, just because it can.
Resources are very easy to find, there is no pvp and there are public and instanced (for your convenience) pumpjack ánd quarries. There is no real resource sinkhole other then the bases we build and the odd fireworkshow. After a week you see markets overflow, inflation (scrap devalue rapitly). All signs of gameplay out of balance. This indirectly results in a unhappy community and a lot of work for the team.
I think its wise of Death to adress this matter. Althoug Decay will only partly solve this issue it will at least make it a bit more engaging and get some resouces flowing somewhere.
Keeping in mind there are two types of players, the casual and more dedicated type: Once you are setup and have the quarries running, its easy and decay will make almost no impact on your game, unless you go absolutely bonkers on a build, but even then a small team can maintain that easally. If you are alone and play casual in a smalll base there is no issue either. you dont have to go HQM, you can go for wood, just as safe with dmg off. Its oke to make an effort to build something to experience end game content (fighting a heli from a HQM tower).
All in all it is the casual player alone in a big base that will get hit hardest, and that is what we want. It has to hurt somewhere.
What makes Pure perfect in relation to the other servers is two things imho: the community and the inconvenience. The last might seem strange, if you play EU pure you will know what i meen with the first. There is reason for the community being stronger: we need eachother more. There is no revive (people help out with guarding bodies, replenish lost resources , team up because the dont want to die etc etc.) Also bases are less secure, boxes need locking, tc can be stolen when unlocked (people advise eachother, help out building, warn and keep an eye out for eachothers bases). My point is , if it gets more inconvenient, we need eachother more and we have another common enemy: Decay, and we will solve it like we solve everything. Hardship and challenge (within limits) creates community if maneged well, and this community manages itself quite well already and admins do the rest.
There is one real downside to decay: the decaying. Everything has to connect in the right way or it will go, this meens you are less flexible in building and you run into more problems with overlapping TC's and building on cliffs and slopes (it will show as connectedd but will not repair). I doubt though many people run into this cause a normal flat buid wont show this issue. It is just something to take into account while building, making it harder and as a result more challenging (not necc a bad thing).
I would opt for returning everything back to vanilla gradually including decay, remove quarries (or have them run on diesel), remove custom monuments with to much loot (and also, while we are at it, to remove techtrees as well as outpost ánd banditcamp, by that ; creating a serious player market (impopular opinion, i know).
Everything that adds to building a community and making the game more of an experience gets my vote.
