balance Instability should be significantly more dangerous

[Byrnorthil]

Let me start off by clarifying: I haven't done any of the story yet (I am waiting for my friend group to play to do that) and I have no idea how my suggestion would impact any of that. With that being said:

For all the flashy and spooky effects instability gives you, the actual consequences are more or less a complete joke. I decided to be insanely greedy and commit to the mining trip I'd just started even though I'd just received a "temporal storm approaching" message. I also continued to be even more greedy picking up every single piece of ore I saw (a lot). Needless to say the storm hit while I was underground at <25% stability and I thought I was well and truly screwed. But I decided I was gonna try and escape anyway, so I boxed myself in and dug a hole straight up to the surface Minecraft style, taking damage the whole time. And I realized I'd be in way more danger if I was starving instead of unstable. I had the most basic reed-horsetail healing items possible and I was still able to outheal the damage with zero effort, and all the mobs that spawned near me were too slow to have a chance of catching me as I ran home. In the end I don't even think I used up my healing supply and was none the worse for wear when I returned home.

I feel like if the player is careless and/or greedy enough to let themselves hit zero stability they should be in very real danger of dying and should need very heads-up plays to survive. Honestly I don't see the point of taking damage from a temporal gear when the damage you're preventing by doing so isn't that much to begin with. There's a few ways I could see going about this. The most obvious would simply be to increase the damage taken, but you could also apply more debuffs to the player, reduce their healing or stop it completely, or spawn shivers in addition to the bowtorns (which would be capable of outrunning a fleeing player). Anything to make low stability an actual threat instead of an annoyance that messes with your screen.

[Rainbow Fresh]

I agree that the entirety of "temporal" stuff, in its current form, is rather short-lived and lackluster. Spawning fresh into the game for the first time and finding your first temporal rifts is a spooky moment, until you start ignoring them popping up every 5 meters on a high/apocalyptic rift activity day while out exploring and just get utterly annoyed anytime one spawns at home. Your first temporal storm will be a moment of awe about the funky effects and the dangers until you realize that is literally all there is to them, turning into just a wasted day everytime another storm approaches. And temporal stability is this looming mechanic that, to a beginner player, seems like a scary thing you need to always keep an eye on and making mining trips very dangerous and time limited - unless you realize how easy and basically consequence free it is to forget it even exists and accidentally getting to <25% stability or even to the damage dealing ranges. Flashy gimmicks that work once but still accompany you all game all the same.

That being said, I don't necessarily think making low temporal stability strictly more deadly (as in more deadly types of enemies spawn, you take more damage, ...) is the best fix. As has been discussed over in another thread specifically talking about temporal storms, I think a more mechanically in-depth approach to bringing meaning and variety to this entire side of mechanics could be better. As the wiki said something (probably implied through lore but not yet implemented?) about low temporal stability bringing the player "closer to the rust world", what I can only assume to be the world at the other end of the rifts that spawns the rust into our world. That could be acted upon more. Instead of bringing more rust specifically to a player with "low sanity", the player could be brought to the rust instead. I already suggested something along the lines of temporal storms introducing unique, temporary dungeons/structures from the rust world overlapping with our reality - high risk high reward unique opportunities to give storms meaning beyond "stay at home, kids". In the same way, the player could upon reaching low/0% tmeporal stability be teleported into a rust world type dungeon they need to escape from (or horribly die in). A salvagable situation, with additional late-game "voluntarily taking on the challenge for fancy loot" type potential; to the unprepared/early-game player, however, basically just a surefire way to lose all their items though.

[Helst_navngivet]

i agree, temporal instability just seems like its there to be a nuisance, and i definitely think it could be improved upon.

Rainbow Fresh's idea regarding the rustworld pretty much nails what i want temporal instability to be.

[Broccoli Clock]

I believe that both the storms and the temporal stability is to be reworked at some point. Might want to check out @Mongster as they did an interview with the devs and I think this was covered. I say "think" because I'm not sure, I didn't watch it to avoid spoilers.

 

[Tabbot95]

perhaps there should be another force other than just rust monsters? 

like the rustworld is just one of the dimensions/planes intersecting with the world and there are others?

[Rainbow Fresh]

27 minutes ago, Tabbot95 said:

perhaps there should be another force other than just rust monsters? 

like the rustworld is just one of the dimensions/planes intersecting with the world and there are others?

The lore being based on an alternate timeline or whatever the Rust pulls from invading our world because some schmuck messed with the space-time-continuum is already messed up enough that I don't think we need another foreign invader. All of this is also so expectedly alien that you can turn it off completely if you just want nature to be your enemy, as this is a "wilderness survival" experience.

Making the temporal mechanics we already have more developed should certainly be sufficient instead of slapping another low-level something on top.

[LadyWYT]

On 4/26/2026 at 6:55 PM, Byrnorthil said:

I feel like if the player is careless and/or greedy enough to let themselves hit zero stability they should be in very real danger of dying and should need very heads-up plays to survive. Honestly I don't see the point of taking damage from a temporal gear when the damage you're preventing by doing so isn't that much to begin with. There's a few ways I could see going about this. The most obvious would simply be to increase the damage taken, but you could also apply more debuffs to the player, reduce their healing or stop it completely, or spawn shivers in addition to the bowtorns (which would be capable of outrunning a fleeing player). Anything to make low stability an actual threat instead of an annoyance that messes with your screen.

I don't entirely disagree, but I think it's also important to keep in mind that players, especially newer players, need a chance to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it. Once a player learns how to manage the mechanic it's not all that dangerous, but I've also read plenty of posts on the forums about players who didn't have a clue about the mechanic, ran low on stability, and got frustrated because they didn't know how to solve it. Also worth noting that low stability can spawn higher tier monsters that can more easily kill a player as well; that might not be an issue if the player has enough space to kite/run away from the monsters, but it can turn deadly very fast in cramped conditions like the underground.

I also recall reporting a bug that monsters didn't seem to be spawning correctly at low stability, so if that bug hasn't been fixed yet that could also be contributing to why it doesn't feel as dangerous as it should. 

Personally, I think a status effect system will likely introduce some more serious consequences for remaining at low stability for too long and other temporal effects.

2 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

The lore being based on an alternate timeline or whatever the Rust pulls from invading our world because some schmuck messed with the space-time-continuum is already messed up enough that I don't think we need another foreign invader. All of this is also so expectedly alien that you can turn it off completely if you just want nature to be your enemy, as this is a "wilderness survival" experience.

Making the temporal mechanics we already have more developed should certainly be sufficient instead of slapping another low-level something on top.

Agreed. And the fact that players can turn off the mechanics entirely makes them difficult to balance as it is, because whatever gets added to flesh out those mechanics has to be something the player can turn off without hurting their progression or locking themselves out of entire portions of the game. It's one thing if they pick Homo Sapiens, because that's a deliberate choice to play only the realistic survival part, but if they're playing with lore enabled then they're gonna want to use all the cool gadgets and stuff.

[Tabbot95]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Agreed. And the fact that players can turn off the mechanics entirely makes them difficult to balance as it is, because whatever gets added to flesh out those mechanics has to be something the player can turn off without hurting their progression or locking themselves out of entire portions of the game. It's one thing if they pick Homo Sapiens, because that's a deliberate choice to play only the realistic survival part, but if they're playing with lore enabled then they're gonna want to use all the cool gadgets and stuff.

3 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

The lore being based on an alternate timeline or whatever the Rust pulls from invading our world because some schmuck messed with the space-time-continuum is already messed up enough that I don't think we need another foreign invader. All of this is also so expectedly alien that you can turn it off completely if you just want nature to be your enemy, as this is a "wilderness survival" experience.

 

my thought it's more "given existing lore what can be done?" (what additional effects can be created? additional enemies? what would they look like? is there aesthetic room for other things or would those clash too much with what presently exists?)

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Tabbot95 said:

my thought it's more "given existing lore what can be done?" (what additional effects can be created? additional enemies? what would they look like? is there aesthetic room for other things or would those clash too much with what presently exists?)

Oh there definitely is room for adding more, and I have a sneaking hunch that the devs have already teased one, as per my post here: 

That little figurine looks nothing like an animal; rather, it looks like a drifter that's been crossed with a shiver and given enormous scythe-like claws and powerful hind legs for jumping. I'm guessing it might fit the role of "climber", since the only enemy we have right now capable of actual climbing is locusts, and those aren't particularly dangerous unless there's several of them(or it's a sawblade). It might also be much more of an ambush-type enemy, given that front claws like that aren't very good for running. That's assuming, of course, that it can't just go sprinting around on two legs.