How the Recycler killed all the fun in Rust

[Tyresia2]

This is not just a rant post. This is a fairly long thread that I'm writing because I REALLY hope that devs could see why Rust is slowing running downhill to a certain death because of a single, completely broken mechanic: the Recycler.
Let's see why.


I like Rust, really. I like it a lot. I like the basic farming mechanics, the ability to build a robust stronghold to keep enemies at bay, the trash weapons with huge recoils and terrible damage.

I like roaming around a map looking for scraps and components I cannot craft, and I like exploring new locations in search of that single thing I am missing to build what I want.

I like the idea of slowly starting from a naked bum with a cloth burlap to save myself from hypotermia, to a fully armed wanna-be mercenary with a rudimentary shovel-handled AK-47.


Too bad that Rust isn't that anymore.

Now Rust is just one thing - and we all know that very well - it's rushing to a few monuments (especially the Launch Site), grab some materials and recycle them all until you got an AK, a Thompson, a BAR with a scope and maybe even some rockets. Then, all you need to do is to roam a few spawns and kill and grief.

And that's it. Literally. What's the point of building a base? To stash those late-game stuff that you literally build within an hour since you logged? It's pointless. You need to invest hours to do so, and after all, it's not worth it. Not as much as just running to a monument and recycle the sh***t out of it.

Rush as soon as the server is wiped, establish yourself, and destroy everyone else. That's not even PvP, it's literally a no-more-than-3-hours-of-fun rush that's making the game utterly boring. Any activity other than recycling weapons is, for the most part, plainly pointless.


Simply put, the Recycler is what is killing the whole game and it's breaking its own internal rules.
Late game - that's the keyword here. Some stuff *must* be crafted LATER to make a game viable and balanced for everyone. If you can obtain end-game equipment in just 1-2 hours, then it's quite obvious that something is not working properly.

To farm 100 HQMs you need several hours, not to talk about the risk of roaming across a very large portion of the map to achieve all those minerals. Then you need to wait out till they're smelted and a safe place to do it with a significant risk of being attacked.

With a recycler, you just need a lucky run into a Large Docks or an Airfield, or a Hazmat to scout out the inner zones of a Military Tunnel or Power Plant. That's it. That's literally all you need to craft every weapon (including the ammunition) needed to raze anyone else and jump to the alleged "end-game."


We all saw it, we all know that. It's not a "survival" game anymore, it's not a game that gives you any reason to play more than just those 2-3 hours where a bunch of clans fight to control the area surrounding the launch site. And that's not because of the Twigs update or the blueprints or the xp. All those changes may be good or bad, but it's not up to me to decide that.

The only thing that single-handedly brought us Santa Claus during the summer season in the form of seemingly endless end-game resources, is that damn broken Recycler. 50 metal scraps for an empty propane tank? Really? What about the airfield Research Table + Recycler combo that literally lets you duplicate pipes and metal sheets to obtain -hundreds- of HQM in just a few minutes? How can this be seen as "balanced" "fun" or "playable"?

We're literally watching this game wane out and die because of a single broken thing. Please fix it, it's just that. Everything else is a matter of tastes but this -- how broken is this is just as obvious as it could be.

[TheRza]

Originally posted by tyresia2:

This is not just a rant post. This is a fairly long thread that I'm writing because I REALLY hope that devs could see why Rust is slowing running downhill to a certain death because of a single, completely broken mechanic: the Recycler.
Let's see why.


I like Rust, really. I like it a lot. I like the basic farming mechanics, the ability to build a robust stronghold to keep enemies at bay, the trash weapons with huge recoils and terrible damage.

I like roaming around a map looking for scraps and components I cannot craft, and I like exploring new locations in search of that single thing I am missing to build what I want.

I like the idea of slowly starting from a naked bum with a cloth burlap to save myself from hypotermia, to a fully armed wanna-be mercenary with a rudimentary shovel-handled AK-47.


Too bad that Rust isn't that anymore.

Now Rust is just one thing - and we all know that very well - it's rushing to a few monuments (especially the Launch Site), grab some materials and recycle them all until you got an AK, a Thompson, a BAR with a scope and maybe even some rockets. Then, all you need to do is to roam a few spawns and kill and grief.

And that's it. Literally. What's the point of building a base? To stash those late-game stuff that you literally build within an hour since you logged? It's pointless. You need to invest hours to do so, and after all, it's not worth it. Not as much as just running to a monument and recycle the sh***t out of it.

Rush as soon as the server is wiped, establish yourself, and destroy everyone else. That's not even PvP, it's literally a no-more-than-3-hours-of-fun rush that's making the game utterly boring. Any activity other than recycling weapons is, for the most part, plainly pointless.


Simply put, the Recycler is what is killing the whole game and it's breaking its own internal rules.
Late game - that's the keyword here. Some stuff *must* be crafted LATER to make a game viable and balanced for everyone. If you can obtain end-game equipment in just 1-2 hours, then it's quite obvious that something is not working properly.

To farm 100 HQMs you need several hours, not to talk about the risk of roaming across a very large portion of the map to achieve all those minerals. Then you need to wait out till they're smelted and a safe place to do it with a significant risk of being attacked.

With a recycler, you just need a lucky run into a Large Docks or an Airfield, or a Hazmat to scout out the inner zones of a Military Tunnel or Power Plant. That's it. That's literally all you need to craft every weapon (including the ammunition) needed to raze anyone else and jump to the alleged "end-game."


We all saw it, we all know that. It's not a "survival" game anymore, it's not a game that gives you any reason to play more than just those 2-3 hours where a bunch of clans fight to control the area surrounding the launch site. And that's not because of the Twigs update or the blueprints or the xp. All those changes may be good or bad, but it's not up to me to decide that.

The only thing that single-handedly brought us Santa Claus during the summer season in the form of seemingly endless end-game resources, is that damn broken Recycler. 50 metal scraps for an empty propane tank? Really? What about the airfield Research Table + Recycler combo that literally lets you duplicate pipes and metal sheets to obtain -hundreds- of HQM in just a few minutes? How can this be seen as "balanced" "fun" or "playable"?

We're literally watching this game wane out and die because of a single broken thing. Please fix it, it's just that. Everything else is a matter of tastes but this -- how broken is this is just as obvious as it could be.

was going to read it but then I saw 112 hours rofl just leave rust isnt for you apparently

[Mechanoid]

"AK47s require infrastructure to be built in order to be balanced."

"Recycler needs to return unrefined metal ores instead of refined ones"

"Add in more lethal hazards to prevent resource-rich locations from being camped and farmed"

"Absolutely prevent one radation town (launch site) from having all the necessary hardware AND resources for creating the best weapons in the game"

tl;dr 4 point suggestion

[BORG]

Originally posted by Mechanoid:

"AK47s require infrastructure to be built in order to be balanced."

"Recycler needs to return unrefined metal ores instead of refined ones"

"Add in more lethal hazards to prevent resource-rich locations from being camped and farmed"

"Absolutely prevent one radation town (launch site) from having all the necessary hardware AND resources for creating the best weapons in the game"

tl;dr 4 point suggestion

Yeah well that's not going to happen. None of them at Facepunch Studios have any clue about game balance and design. Rust is just a slapped together 'wing it and profit' type of game now.

This is how Facepunch Studios creates games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts

[ravioli]

People should not be getting ak's first day, it's ridiculous.

[BORG]

Originally posted by ravioli:

People should not be getting ak's first day, it's ridiculous.

Or many other various things. The balance of tech in Rust is laughable, but that's what you get when you're too cheap to invest in your company to further your products. Garry might think Facepunch Studios is doing just fine without a professional game designer, but he couldn't be more wrong. He thinks making no definite plans is a good thing? He couldn't be more wrong. If the company didn't need a professional game designer and project manager, they wouldn't have had to cancel all of their projects this year to only create new ones that will likely see the same fate.

[Mechanoid]

Originally posted by BORG:

Yeah well that's not going to happen. None of them at Facepunch Studios have any clue about game balance and design

The sad thing is, changing HQM from the refined bars to the unrefined ore could be as simple as editing a spreadsheet or a single string/name ID in the code... Assuming they've setup their code in a smart manner, to where an edit like that would be as quick a change to say as it is to do.

It would definitely push the "first AK47" back a ways on the time table, at least, and require some infrastructure to exist before people can produce THE BEST GUN IN THE ENTIRE GAME

[BORG]

Originally posted by Mechanoid:

Originally posted by BORG:

Yeah well that's not going to happen. None of them at Facepunch Studios have any clue about game balance and design

The sad thing is, changing HQM from the refined bars to the unrefined ore could be as simple as editing a spreadsheet or a single string/name ID in the code... Assuming they've setup their code in a smart manner, to where an edit like that would be as quick a change to say as it is to do.

It would definitely push the "first AK47" back a ways on the time table, at least, and require some infrastructure to exist before people can produce THE BEST GUN IN THE ENTIRE GAME

It can be done yeah. It's not extremely hard either. These are the sorts of ideas that they should be thinking about, but they just don't know game design. They might be able to program, but the team needs a project leader and game designer to oversee the project. Without it, Rust will forever be in a messy state. The code in Rust isn't that fantastic either to be honest. Some assets are old, the network engine is old and obsolete, it has many problems still to date that were never addressed and that alone is a huge problem for Rust. Sure Garry made a library so the game code can talk to the network engine (RakNet), but if that library isn't maintained constantly the networking in Rust breaks partially or completely. The design of this game is mess.

[Alamo]

Originally posted by BORG:

Originally posted by Rick Mason:

It wasn't physically possible for them to continue developing Legacy, that's why they restarted. It doesn't matter anyway because Rust 2.0 is much better.
It isn't dead lmao. Come on man, stop lying. It has tens of thousands of players per day.

You make it sound like Rust has a huge player base. Fact is, it doesn't. 14,839 were playing an hour ago and 23,269 in a 24-hour peak. That is only a couple ten thousand people. I saw the player count yesterday dip below 11k~. Player counts have also been dropping slowly and Rust has slipped from 4th to 19th~ position in the past year and a half or a little better than a year and a half. Looking over statistics for the past year, the trend shows that player numbers have become erratic and slowly dwindling. This is not only due to the state of the game, but the changes that have happened throughout the course of the past long while. Hype that never happened too has been another reason. Frame rate and performance issues for extended months at a time is yet another reason. There are more reasons than I honestly want to list, but Eventually people get tired of it all and see things for what they really are after supporting the project for a very long time.

Rust is dead, juste take a look back in 2014 when the game was one of the top seller and played. 10,20,30k is nothing for now, they choosed to create a new rust, i'm ok but since 5y they put some new stuff for change it in the next maj, they are like a dog who run after his tail. 5years of work and i can"t see any real big changement only the procedural map is something new and fresh. and rust 2.0 isnt better its to easy, way to easy now, you farm town for 40min then gather 1k sulfur and here you are, full stuff with ak and tons of ammos, everything was better in legacy, the aim, dynamic, farm, pvp etc..
give them 10 more years and maybe the game will be in beta, ahhh no they will just restart another "rust" from 0.

[Wolololo]

The recycler is not the problem the lanchsite is

[Tyresia2]

The fact that this same thread also became a flame in Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/playrust/comments/71bpux/how_the_recycler_killed_all_the_fun_in_rust/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=hot&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=playrust

Should tell us (and the devs) how urgently this problem needs to be addressed.

Regardless of the possible solution proposed (I read a lot of valid points and alternatives), if you can collect enough materials to get END-GAME GEAR WITHIN HOURS this means that the gamebalance is utterly and undeniably broken.

Also, you have a fact in front of everyone's eyes: servers die within 1-2 days since wipe. At day 3 you're lucky to find more than 30 players online on peak hours. What other symptom more than this one should tell the community that the game is dying.

[woksippaRanso]

Originally posted by BORG:

Though I do agree that the Recycler and Research Bench make a terrible combination to be abused because there is one thing that plagues Rust and that is imbalance. This has been a huge problem in many areas of Rust for a very, very long time and it is primarily due to this company not having a professional game designer and project manager to oversee the games development process, to steer it in the right directions it needs to go during each stage of development. As of now, Rust has no project manager, no project designer or coordinator or anything. Rust is just being slapped together to make 'something' and even Garry doesn't know what Rust is going to be because there are no plans. All there is, is a roadmap that changes more than I change my socks and underwear (which is quite often). You can't create projects on this sort of scale without some sort of solidified plan to make it all work and ensure it's working to the best of its ability.

Another huge problem is Facepunch Studios is cheap and people who have their face burried in fandom do not see this problem nor want to acknoledge it like many other problems surrounding the game and its developer. With all the years and all the millions of dollars this game has brought Garry profits (including skins). He hardly soaks any serious investment into Rust. He proved this with the network engine Rust is using and many other things over the years. Even Garry has admitted he spends wildly. All the company's past products (exception of two) have never been completed in the last thirteen years of the company's existence and almost every single project was cancelled this year except Chunks and Rust. The one product (Facewound) took so long to finish it didn't even sell because it was so dated. So, it's fairly obvious to see what's going on and going to happen with Rust eventually. Facepunch Studios' track record has proven nothing otherwise.

Oh my lord. ♥♥♥♥♥♥ is novelists now.

[BORG]

Originally posted by jomeSPapi{the_Zebris)XightS:

Originally posted by BORG:

Though I do agree that the Recycler and Research Bench make a terrible combination to be abused because there is one thing that plagues Rust and that is imbalance. This has been a huge problem in many areas of Rust for a very, very long time and it is primarily due to this company not having a professional game designer and project manager to oversee the games development process, to steer it in the right directions it needs to go during each stage of development. As of now, Rust has no project manager, no project designer or coordinator or anything. Rust is just being slapped together to make 'something' and even Garry doesn't know what Rust is going to be because there are no plans. All there is, is a roadmap that changes more than I change my socks and underwear (which is quite often). You can't create projects on this sort of scale without some sort of solidified plan to make it all work and ensure it's working to the best of its ability.

Another huge problem is Facepunch Studios is cheap and people who have their face burried in fandom do not see this problem nor want to acknoledge it like many other problems surrounding the game and its developer. With all the years and all the millions of dollars this game has brought Garry profits (including skins). He hardly soaks any serious investment into Rust. He proved this with the network engine Rust is using and many other things over the years. Even Garry has admitted he spends wildly. All the company's past products (exception of two) have never been completed in the last thirteen years of the company's existence and almost every single project was cancelled this year except Chunks and Rust. The one product (Facewound) took so long to finish it didn't even sell because it was so dated. So, it's fairly obvious to see what's going on and going to happen with Rust eventually. Facepunch Studios' track record has proven nothing otherwise.

Oh my lord. ♥♥♥♥♥♥ is novelists now.

Originally posted by jomeSPapi{the_Zebris)XightS:

Originally posted by BORG:

Though I do agree that the Recycler and Research Bench make a terrible combination to be abused because there is one thing that plagues Rust and that is imbalance. This has been a huge problem in many areas of Rust for a very, very long time and it is primarily due to this company not having a professional game designer and project manager to oversee the games development process, to steer it in the right directions it needs to go during each stage of development. As of now, Rust has no project manager, no project designer or coordinator or anything. Rust is just being slapped together to make 'something' and even Garry doesn't know what Rust is going to be because there are no plans. All there is, is a roadmap that changes more than I change my socks and underwear (which is quite often). You can't create projects on this sort of scale without some sort of solidified plan to make it all work and ensure it's working to the best of its ability.

Another huge problem is Facepunch Studios is cheap and people who have their face burried in fandom do not see this problem nor want to acknoledge it like many other problems surrounding the game and its developer. With all the years and all the millions of dollars this game has brought Garry profits (including skins). He hardly soaks any serious investment into Rust. He proved this with the network engine Rust is using and many other things over the years. Even Garry has admitted he spends wildly. All the company's past products (exception of two) have never been completed in the last thirteen years of the company's existence and almost every single project was cancelled this year except Chunks and Rust. The one product (Facewound) took so long to finish it didn't even sell because it was so dated. So, it's fairly obvious to see what's going on and going to happen with Rust eventually. Facepunch Studios' track record has proven nothing otherwise.

Oh my lord. ♥♥♥♥♥♥ is novelists now.

Not my problem. Your problem. heh

[MONKWORKS]

I have to add being kinda new, it didn't take me long to focus on the Recycler & Research Table. Once you learn that all components can be duplicated at a Research Table, its a different game. Now my base location is adjusted so i can be closer to the recycler/Rad towns. Just need one of each component... then scrap and you have it all!

[GoldenGun]

Sounds like someone with a brain but I'm too tired to read all of it so I thought I'd add my 2 cents in.