Facepunch Studios’ sandbox MMO, Rust, continues to struggle with cementing its identity in the gaming space as once again the developers backtrack and remove a huge aspect of the game, this time opting to remove the experience points and leveling system entirely. When Rust originally released back in 2013 the game featured radiation zones and deadly zombie enemies, elements that helped define the game as more unique during a time when survival titles were flooding the Steam market. Since then the team removed both zombies and radiation areas from the game before removing further features in the latest update.
This isn’t necessarily a bad move however as the experience points and leveling components of Rust have been replaced. Radiation zones also make another appearance, for the first time in a long time. Developer Maurino Berry went into depth on a blog post detailing the reasons behind the huge changes and providing more information on the current direction of the game.
[quote cite=”Facepunch Studios, Maurino Berry”]The XP system mainly sucked because it completely changed the feel of Rust as a sandbox. It was no longer about new encounters and enjoying your time in the game world, but instead about how to level up as quickly as you can. And when that finally happened, the game immediately became boring. It was also unsustainable going forward. New items we haven’t even thought of yet would need to be hacked into certain levels, which would cause a never ending balance nightmare and item bloat (it was already ridiculous when you’d reach a level and have 12 things unlocked). Eventually we’d like to never have to wipe and just have decay and resource management take care of the server, and XP was not compatible with this goal without all kinds of workarounds and hacks forced in like some sort of prestige system. And lastly, it removed the “making lemonade out of lemons” feel Rust had, where you’d stumble across a bucket helmet and crossbow blueprint and that would be your load-out for the foreseeable future. [/quote]
The new feature, the Component system, removes blueprints and replaces many elements of crafting with components that can be found scattered throughout the game world.
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- Components are items which are uncraftable and only found in the world
- No more locked items, no more blueprints, everything craftable from the start
- Items beyond basics (bow/burlap/furnace/eoka etc) require some kind of component
[/list]
It’s early days but the initial response from the community is a positive one. Watch this space for more information on the evolution of Rust in the coming months.
Source: Official Website