Greetings,
I would like to join the decay / cupboard update discussion with an issue that has, as far as I have seen, not been brought up yet. My contribution will get "a bit" longer, so I want to summarize it here quickly:
"ABSTRACT"
I would like to see changes to the new decay system that allows people to maintain non-defence "fun buildings" for lower repair costs. I think that buildings like labyrinths, churches, art galleries and so on - which often tend to be rather monument-like - are an important factor of the game, but are not compatible with the new system if it stays at it is or is adjusted only on a small scale. Determining a door frame to overall base size ratio could, so I hope, help to differentiate between regular and "fun" bases.
MAIN ISSUE
First of all I want to say that I do not reject the overall idea behind this patch's changes. In my opinion there is dire need for adjustments, but I kind of like the idea to let people pay "taxes" for their buildings that increase with the size of the base. Nevertheless, at the same time this change made some aspects of the game impossible that I enjoyed and that should be preserved.
The thing I want to discuss is something that people might look down on, but I think it is something that really adds to the fun factor and uniqueness of Rust. I am talking about buildings that have no worth in terms of housing players and keeping their possession safe, but were built for the purpose of entertainment, art, role playing or just random bullshittery. As an example, last month a friend and I built and maintained a considerably large church which would serve as the centre of some kind of bizarre GABEN cult we tried to establish - all this besides our efforts to keep up our "normal" base and play Rust as regular players at the same time and on the same server. I guess you all remember the labyrinths, museums for contemporary Rust art, casinos and all that kind of stuff you saw in the course of your Rust experiences. As you can imagine, those edifices were mostly large and costly, but also accessible to the public and had no value in terms of PVP actions. They were projects of individuals who wanted to delight, unsettle, entertain or maybe even educate people, who wanted to show their dedication, skills and sense of humour, who wanted to share, acquire or redistribute items and resources.
The recent patch does not allow this aspect of playing Rust anymore. While before even a rather small group of people could construct those buildings, now the maintenance costs can never ever be paid, even if the current resource amount was reduced by let's say illusionary 75%. But I think there should be a way of preserving the players' ability to build all those structures without them having not a single second left for regular gameplay or real life issues. I think that the unique Rust gameplay also thrives on the creative space it offers its players, a space that can be filled with art, memes, social interaction and random bullshit. You should not be forced to visit modded sandbox servers for those things. They should be integrated into everyday gameplay. They should persist among farming and fighting players, among crappy wood bases and armored strongholds, among zerg clans and lone wolves who fire bullets and rockets at each others' faces.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
I imagine it quite difficult to differentiate between regular bases and "fun buildings". One possibility that came to my mind could be to count the door frames of a building and put them in relation to the base's overall size. I'm no developer of course, so I did not think about a reasonable ratio of door frames to total size, but I would really like to see the maintenance costs be reduced by a large factor when the system recognizes the corresponding building as a "fun base" without any value in terms of defence. Allowing one or two doors would at least make it possible to defend the cupboard from being destroyed, the base from being griefed too easily and to keep at least some needed resources (entrance fees, fire wood, winners' prices) safe from easy access.
COMPLICATIONS
Why should a "fun base" decay slower than any other base? Does this make any sense? I guess it does not, at least when it comes to sense in a physical meaning. But if we speak of the new decay system as some kind of tax (as the official devblog actually did), the whole thing would make sense in my eyes. Art galleries and the like are, I would argue, public spaces that unlike regular bases do not serve individual players or groups, but are accessible to anyone and have a somewhat charitable non-profit purpose. Why should we not reduce taxes for this kind of "institutions" as it is usually done in real life?
A more severe problem will be that this whole idea might undermine this patch's idea to reduce overall building size and amount. Done in the right way, the changes I suggested would presumably allow people to build heli fight towers, furnace and refinery rooms and stuff like that for reduced maintenance costs. I have not found an answer to that issue yet. On the other hand I am not even sure if this would be a big problem after all. Maybe it could even add to the balancing of the new system in terms of overall base maintenance costs? I am open for discussion and your ideas, and I hope that FP is as well.
Thank you for reading (in case you did) and please do not think of me as some kind of deranged role player (which I think I am not). I just like doing some nonsense from time to time, and I would like to keep it this way.
no essays
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