Let me start off by saying that I love Rust.
It's a great game, and it isn't even out of alpha yet. The shooting mechanics are tight, the building mechanics are intuitive and the comedic aspects are spot on.
It only has one flaw, but it's a big one, one that I think is going to make me stop playing the game.
Its known as offline raiding, or offline griefing.
You see the problem is that I have a life outside of gaming that I cannot ignore, even if just to sleep or earn money so I can continue playing games. Rust never sleeps, nor does it have to stop playing to earn money, and it is this dynamic that speaks to the core of the problem. Rust is a game where you are required to collect resources, build a base and defend it against other survivors. It encourages you to have an ongoing relationship with it over multiple days, even weeks or months. And yet it offers no protection for those who while playing for weeks or months, must leave to do other things. And in the space of one night your base can be obliterated, your loot taken, and your dreams of never being naked again shattered.
This is more than just a simple mechanics problem however. Much of the problem stems from the player base. I am on an Australian server, and I know for a fact that there are swedes, french, germans and americans playing on the aussie server because of the simple fact that when it is night time here, and everyone is asleep, it is daytime for them and a playground for easy offline raids. For me personally, this kind of behaviour goes against what I believe the spirit of the game to be. To me, an online raid is more honourable and fun than an offline one, for both parties.
On the salty end of the scale we have the griefers. People who will intentionally wall up, destroy or take over your base (mostly while you are offline) for the pure joy of seeing others suffer.
I'm not here to talk about the way other people play though. I'm here because i'd like to put my voice forward, to try to work for changes, before I have to say goodbye to Rust for good. And I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that.
Simply put, if the Facepunch team and Rust in general cant offer me any level of protection against offline raiders and griefers, timed or otherwise, then I will have to quit Rust for good. But seeing how my mother said you shouldn't complain about something without thinking of ways to make it better, i'd like to offer ideas for some kind of offline protection that we can all discuss, and possibly even get implemented. The more feedback on this the better.
IDEA 1 - Timed Protection
After going offline, or perhaps through activation just before you go offline, you can activate a trigger which triples the hp of all your structures health. This would make it much harder and more costly to raid an offline player than an online one, and promote online raiding again. When you log back in this protection disappears. The protection is also on a timer, and will expire of too much time has passed before logging in again.
IDEA 2 - Blanket Protection
Blanket protection for all offline players, perhaps on particular servers. This isn't my ideal solution but it is a possibility.
IDEA 3 - Tool Cupboard Changes
Make tool cupboards harder to destroy and lockable so that raiding players can only destroy structures and not build them. This would help to prevent griefing by other players. Make ladders placable even in building blocked zones so that raiders can move around without needing building permissions.
These are just some ideas. Tell me what you think.
POLL:
I recently added a poll asking you guys what percentage of raids do you think are offline raids. Please participate if you can:
[url]https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1502351[/url]
dead bodies remove to fast!
lose loot within 160 secs killed by wolf or bear?
dev,s garry!? put in [U][B]decay for body's corpses[/B][/U] gee god! fresh dead to rotten skin partial bones and to skull and bones - a cycle
Online raiding = Everybody dumps.
Fix that problem before you try and complicate things.
Do other games do this?
[QUOTE=jumonjii;49547323]Do other games do this?[/QUOTE]
I dont know if other games do this. I think they have less elegant solutions, like making structures invincible permanently.
[editline]17th January 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=joejoejoey04;49547252]Online raiding = Everybody dumps.
Fix that problem before you try and complicate things.[/QUOTE]
Good point man. Dumping is a problem. But for me its less of a problem than offline raiding. Raiders are the aggresors so the risk of rewards vs losses should be on their heads. It could be even more of a reason for raiders to act quickly.
I guess maybe they could make items last for longer if there is people near them....i dont know.
[editline]17th January 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=panzerguard;49547118]dead bodies remove to fast!
lose loot within 160 secs killed by wolf or bear?
dev,s garry!? put in [U][B]decay for body's corpses[/B][/U] gee god! fresh dead to rotten skin partial bones and to skull and bones - a cycle[/QUOTE]
They do disappear very quickly. That probably ties in to the dumping problem joejoe mentioned.
This game is about offline raiding. You must be crazy to attempt an online raid. I have dumped many times my stuff when being raided and thus have made the raid unprofitable for everyone. I think you may play this game wrong if you reconnect to find yourself without a base. In my experience it is way easier to build a second base than a first and if you have 3+ bases you never get them all raided overnight.
[QUOTE=vachon644;49548137]This game is about offline raiding. You must be crazy to attempt an online raid. I have dumped many times my stuff when being raided and thus have made the raid unprofitable for everyone. I think you may play this game wrong if you reconnect to find yourself without a base. In my experience it is way easier to build a second base than a first and if you have 3+ bases you never get them all raided overnight.[/QUOTE]
I disagree, but if this game really is about offline raiding then it is definitely the wrong game for me.
Rust is a hardcore experience. It does not forgive individuals who have their belly exposed, and griefing is a measure to ensure you stay gone. We are currently on a server that does not allow griefing, and it's ridiculous. I'm moving out newbies every single day who just move back in to their shit shacks. Sure they are gathering for me, but it's a pain in the ass re-raiding bases. Area control is something only people at the top of the food chain will understand or appreciate. That may go the distance in explaining where you sit on there...
Also loot dumpers are chumps, but it has been my experience that most people don't start dumping if they think they still have a chance at keeping it. Online raids must be hard and fast and planned. Just how I like it.
[QUOTE=vachon644;49548137]This game is about offline raiding. You must be crazy to attempt an online raid. I have dumped many times my stuff when being raided and thus have made the raid unprofitable for everyone. I think you may play this game wrong if you reconnect to find yourself without a base. In my experience it is way easier to build a second base than a first and if you have 3+ bases you never get them all raided overnight.[/QUOTE]
Spoken like a true 2nd story sneak thief in the night who needs to learn how to play better and learn how to gain the advantage over the players they are trying to live raid. I think all bases should have offline protection that stops after 24 hrs of not being online to stop the hoards of miscreant sneak thieves who wait cowering in their little shit shacks for players to log off so they don't soil their spiderman underpants when the owner pops up.
As a player I see rust as S.E.R.E. Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. then after you build up your own resources and maybe even a decent and loyal clan you grow a set and do real online raids rather than being the little offline 2nd story burglar waiting for the neighbors to go on vacation.
offline raids are more profitable and have been part of rust since day 1.
cant believe that I need to explain this again for all the wannabes like Datadawg.
raid online? not only are you playing against stacked odds (defenders usually have a huge positional advantage), but you also have to deal with defenders moving the loot away from wherever it is you are breaching or just simply despawning it.
And in the end you might lose either all your c4 for nothing or all your c4 and your gear if the defenders are really good.
No thanks. If you feel like you need to throw away a weeks worth of sulfur for nothing then go ahead.
2196 hrs doesn't make me a wannabe, it makes me somebody who likes the good fight. So keep sneaking around after all the other players log off if that's the only way you know how to play.
There is a reason they have weapons and ammo because the way you play all you would need is C4 and picks.
Much more fun coming over a hill with 20-30 clans members and having the base owners soil their panties.
Oh yeah, it's a game. The loot doesn't come back into the real world with you and gets wiped every month anyway. Survive, Gather, Build, Raid.
[QUOTE=Datadawg;49550710]2196 hrs doesn't make me a wannabe, it makes me somebody who likes the good fight. So keep sneaking around after all the other players log off if that's the only way you know how to play.
There is a reason they have weapons and ammo because the way you play all you would need is C4 and picks.
Much more fun coming over a hill with 20-30 clans members and having the base owners soil their panties.
Oh yeah, it's a game. The loot doesn't come back into the real world with you and gets wiped every month anyway. Survive, Gather, Build, Raid.[/QUOTE]
You have a point. The only fair and square interesting live raid I've seen was some 10v8 in one of chillz videos.
More often than not I witness a 4man group get killed on their way to raiding someone (or partook in killing them) and shit stories like that. If you got a big ass group fuck yeah. A small group?
Just too many risks man.. you can get outplayed by the defenders easily, there can be random 3rd parties fucking you up the ass, the defenders can move their loot making the whole thing void.. its just frustrating imo.
That's the game man. All I can take from it is a good time win or lose. Just never been one to play it safe. For me, no guts, no glory. RUST ON!!!
mostly because no matter what defense you have no matter how much resources you pour into the base of still going to get raided very easy. There is not point in base building
Now this is a pussy build and just spams server.
[IMG]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/357275257009731422/20A1CEAC5E48D64EB261E0A39864FBD2941886D2/[/IMG]
That's what you have to do not to get offline raided
Offline raiding is unfortunately the only way people can ensure they will get the loot. Since you so easily get interrupted when raiding (while having your most expensive resources on you) and since you practically need to build a base nearby in order to ensure your safety, people will stop online raiding with more than pickaxes. Fasten the pace of the game and people might go around, but probably not. Dumping is the second issue, or on modded servers called loot-teleporting where the defenders have nothing to lose. Solution: differ loot crates between gearboxes/wardrobes and resource boxes. When base gets attacked, resource boxes of the base gets locked (greyed) out and all you can do as a defender is gearing up, defending your base. When the attack timer is over, defenders get back the access to their resources. Or something like that.
Also, make difference between attacker beds/bags and home owner beds/bags so that home owners have a chance to defend themselves against the usually overnumbered attackers. It doesnt seem as if people have any imagination left for solutions these days, just poorly made decisions based of half developed ideas... Vision if everything but nothing if it doesnt get defined and brought into the reality of problems and solution. Thank you. ¤ drops the mic ¤
i hope you have rust life insurance !
[QUOTE=Datadawg;49550710]2196 hrs doesn't make me a wannabe, it makes me somebody who likes the good fight. So keep sneaking around after all the other players log off if that's the only way you know how to play.
There is a reason they have weapons and ammo because the way you play all you would need is C4 and picks.
Much more fun coming over a hill with 20-30 clans members and having the base owners soil their panties.
Oh yeah, it's a game. The loot doesn't come back into the real world with you and gets wiped every month anyway. Survive, Gather, Build, Raid.[/QUOTE]
If the base owners soil themselves, it must be because your 30-man troupe greatly outnumbers them. You and the sneak-thief both have a numbers disparity when raiding... theirs is just 1-to-0 instead of 6-to-1.
i disagree. why would i want to wait until you're online to raid you ? its hard enough to get a team together, when we are ready we raid regardless if your online or not.
plus, if you think griefing is a problem in rust then you are missing the point. we are raiding you for the fun of it, its not for profit. stealing the house and everything thats in it is the reward in itself. You know when a some guys kill you on sight, steal your stuff, when you were just trying to be friendly, it triggers a rage switch in your brain where the only thing you want is revenge. im going to raid them, destroy their bags, steal their cubpoards, despawn the rest of their loot, wall up the whole house, put up hate signs. then when all of thats is done, im going to roam on the beach looking for them when they spawn because they have no bags, and kill them again. thats how rage inducing rust is. Of course people are going to "grief" you if you kill them once.
What can you do about it? dont put your cubpoard in the dead center of your house, for example. hide it. if they find your cubpoard, its game over. i know the cupboard is temporary, but with the cupboard in the game its basically removing all grief. if you get walled its either because you need to learn how to use the cubpoard properly, or because the raiders won and found your cupboard. accept defeat.
ALSO, having the possibility of being offline raided is what i like in rust. it constantly push you to try new base design that will be hard to raid. remove offline raiding and you remove what make rust exciting.
So I recently got into this game with a bunch of friends I met through other games, college, work, etc. We were having a lot of fun getting into skirmishes with people, finding stuff, exploring, and just enjoying the wild west that is Rust. Then after about a week of great times, we got raided by rocket-wielding literal 12-14 year olds who had been harrassing us for days.
Knowing the kind of game this is we expected raids, asshats, and even the fact that we would lose everything we had at some point... but we didn't expect just how bad the game was about to become. We spent hours trying to resettle, only to be killed and completely destroyed every time. We tried damn near every corner of the island.
So where am I going with this? The game has two extremely large problems that need to be overcome or it will forever be just another cancer-filled DayZ game.
1. There needs to be some sort of counter-play to raiding that doesn't involve being on 24/7. The youngest guy in our group is 25; we have jobs, a lot of us are studying post-sec, some of us wives, some of us even have kids. Meanwhile these guys literally waited by each of our sleeping bodies for some time, just so they could kill us when we logged in and taunt us.
2. The beginning of the game (or restarting after being completely removed from the map) is absolutely horrible. So much content is locked behind the 'settlement' wall, but you spend a great deal of this early stage of settlement being incredibly vulnerable, and for well-equipped attackers there is virtually no risk in killing you and destroying everything. If some sniper in a skyscraper (or some clan scout) even gets a whiff of a naked moving around, you can expect an entire team of sperglordes on your position in 2 minutes or less. It doesn't matter how much or how little you have: you will die because you can.
There is currently no balancing mechanism to stop run-away advancement and it quickly becomes a few clan towers, the single-man huts they think are abandoned, and then any groups that lost their base doomed to die again and again until they just move on to another server/game.
In summary: getting raided sucks, but that's Rust. Getting completely destroyed in every way while never having had a chance to fight back, and then having to restart really fucking sucks, and this enters pretty irritating territory. But having all that happen and then being completely unable to get on your feet again no matter what you do just kills whatever magic the game had left in it.
I can't even get the other guys to log in now. I'm completely alone and I suspect the game will just collect dust because I don't really have other options.
I'm in a similar situation. I can't get my friends to play for similar reasons.
I play on a server with 200 people capacity and most of the time 100 plus is playing. Haven't been raided once since the wipe, have several comfortable bases with plenty of space and I'm playing alone. I have simple defences like making the area uncomfortable to walk in with lots of traps and spikes. I divide the loot (which is a lot now) between several rooms and bases should I get raided.
If you can't handle being offline raided, don't build anything that attracts raiders. Most players won't waste C4 on a small base, especially if several is on the same spot.
And seriously, you need to be stupid or a lot of people to go online raiding. There's a reason why burglars look for empty houses.
Yes, Rust is a demanding game and it's hard to play it casually. You can never compete with 15 year old kids or unemployed losers playing 24/7. But it's just a game and if it does not suit you play something different, don't expect the game to change just because you can't handle it or want to build huge castles and expect them to not attract interest.
OP - I had a similar complaint on here some months ago and someone changed my opinion. It's not necessarily griefing as such, but REMOVING your base from the area and stopping you from resettling.
Offline raiding is a pain in the ass, and I like your suggestion of increasing the HP of walls. However I think its unfair if you genuinely want to online raid, but the base owners are offline, especially when you're both in different time zones.
Try a less populated server, say 20-50 on at once. It's a completely different way to play (coming from a 250-300 slot, always full server!)
When the worst problem for me is, decay get my base down, i just can play weekends and this is terrify. Maybe a kind of cupboard or other item with some kind of fuel to block decay for more time like. Put 1k of wood in cupboard. 10 woods still like 1 hour. With this we can run out the game for 4 days, more the normal decay time... this really save me from be bored, when rust don't have decay and cupboard i enjoy easer because i now know to break defenses building but i can't build in target base and my go away. I play solo and never work good play with groups. i don't care if anyone raid in my base when i offline i do this with pleasure and i respect this action. Real life you take all advantages you can, in game need be igual
Edited: I don't understand how ridiculous are survive in this game. My last game, i start in middle of gameplay, because community server i start playing gone. So i born in beach with a lot of towers and castle really close, at first day i just did 2 HQ doors and put in stone abandoned small bases, after this first day i grow really fast, get weapons in loot points, get new 2 bases like the first ones, and at third day i build from scratch a monster base, and it been raided really fast, but without loot i laugh for hours, now i repear and grow more, and now is really difficult to been raided again... even it occurs i think the loot be save, i just put all divided in small box in small rooms all with metal wall and HQ doors. even they have C4 to raid in get some wood and stone here... more C4 to get iron ore, more C4 to get empty room!!! and all make alone. When i raid all loot is behind the first wall, playing alone i see this and think, i need do more and better bases if i will play this alone, because each wood is precious to me
[QUOTE=specialed;49547026]IDEA 1 - Timed Protection
After going offline, or perhaps through activation just before you go offline, you can activate a trigger which triples the hp of all your structures health. This would make it much harder and more costly to raid an offline player than an online one, and promote online raiding again. When you log back in this protection disappears. The protection is also on a timer, and will expire of too much time has passed before logging in again.
.[/QUOTE]
I like this idea. Similar to 7 days to die where building hardness increases when offline.
I think raiding should be made easier than it is at the moment when when a player is online with base protection increased more when you go offline. Or like you said having to activate it maybe before you log off, maybe via your tool cupboard.
[QUOTE=vachon644;49548137]This game is about offline raiding. You must be crazy to attempt an online raid. I have dumped many times my stuff when being raided and thus have made the raid unprofitable for everyone. I think you may play this game wrong if you reconnect to find yourself without a base. In my experience it is way easier to build a second base than a first and if you have 3+ bases you never get them all raided overnight.[/QUOTE]
Raids shouldnt be about profit a raid is the most enjoyable moment of rust when you attack an clan while they are there most likely you wont make profit but you ill promise you will have a lot more fun
i don't get it. comparing offline raids to online raids is like comparing apples and oranges. they are both legitimate ways to play, and enjoyable for entirely different reasons. do people really feel the need to choose one over the other as the "best" way to raid?
hell, half of the game is about [B]being[/B] raided, so each of these is less than a quarter of what you can do in the game.
Just play on a noob friendly not so populated (but not empty) small map server around. There is plenty and if someone steal your shit you can easily find who did it. Just search for noob in community.
well. i don't understand, all my 500 +/- hours of rust. I figure out how keep raider away, and how to be prepared to reborn if the raids come on. Online or Offline raids are equals a mess. And i prefer be raided offline, if i am raided and i see all noobs dropping all my stuff at ground, is just worst than back to game and see Wake UP at random spot. I raided a lot of offline folks, and a lot of online folks. to be fun i don't raid, raid for me is just a way to get more resources. if it make you more happy play in battle servers, i play vanilla and had fun with the game offers to me. Be a secret builder in fully servers is amazing. really rare my bases are raided until the get really giant and uncertain profitable. big clans don't want lose C4 for nothing and they never figure out where i put the loot, Muahahahahahahahahahahaha
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