When comparing Rust vs ARK: Survival Evolved, the Slant community recommends ARK: Survival Evolved for most people. In the question“What are the best survival games on PC?” ARK: Survival Evolved is ranked 22nd while Rust is ranked 26th. The most important reason people chose ARK: Survival Evolved is:
Ark has hundreds, if not thousands, of great custom servers. You can control things such as PvP, experience, gathering, and taming rates, set things up so there's no griefing (constantly bullying a player or group of players), and the difficulty of the creatures.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Non-PvP servers are available
If worrying that another player might kill you and loot your corpse is not your thing, or if you don't want to deal with someone constantly harassing your base, there are servers available that take away the risk of other player's malicious behavior.
Pro Building system is simple, efficient and intuitive
Hold a key while holding a hammer, and with your cursor, select the piece you want to build.
Upgrading a piece of building is done in the same fashion.
Pro Game's multiplayer nature creates psychological tension
While there's obviously potential for working together with other players towards achieving certain goals, the more likely scenario is someone trying to kill you to get your stuff. Or even worse, deceiving you in working together to achieve a particularly difficult goal only to stab you in the back when you're not needed anymore. It's easier to take stuff from someone else than gather it yourself. And since your base is a the perfect bullseye to other players, there is constant threat of griefing.
Pro Lots of variety in ways to die
Fauna, including bears and wolves, is trying to kill you, radiation, that's ever-present, is trying to kill you, zombies, in a multitude of colors, are trying to kill you, other players on the server, equipped with guns, are most definitely trying to kill you, and you, yourself, if you don't find food, will die.
Pro Base building allows for less punishing gameplay
Because you can build your base that you respawn back to when killed, losing only what you had on you at the time of death, it allows getting back to where you left off quickly.
Pro Increased customization thanks to player-created servers
Ark has hundreds, if not thousands, of great custom servers. You can control things such as PvP, experience, gathering, and taming rates, set things up so there's no griefing (constantly bullying a player or group of players), and the difficulty of the creatures.
Pro You can share materials, dinosaurs, and structures by forming (or joining!) a tribe with your friends
Users can form a tribe with other online users to for a community. This community can now band together in order to build and grow as well as team up against other tribes. This makes for a fun experience with friends and other players as it requires teamwork in order to be successful.
Pro You can tame and mount nearly every creature in the game
From the small, quick raptor to the massive, vicious giganotosaurus, you can mount nearly any dinosaur in the game. There's huge, flying dinosaurs, aquatic dinosaurs, some that are like walking fortresses, and others that can take those down.
Pro The game makes you want to explore, craft, and fight to make the most of its progressive crafting system
Ark is unlike many survival games in that you attain levels as you progress. As you level higher and higher, you gain access to more craftable items. Some are just more powerful versions of lower-tier items (such as leather armor vs. cloth armor), but most are brand new (such as firearms, scuba gear, and saddles for more powerful dinosaurs). This really drives you to explore more areas to find rarer resources and fight stronger dinosaurs.
Pro An absolutely fantastic community
The community for Ark is simply great. Whether you're talking about custom servers, the modding community, or just the playerbase in general, there's always people around to help out with any questions you might have.
Pro Stunningly beautiful
The landscape, creatures, structures, even other players are all gorgeous. The textures are seamless, and the character/dinosaur models are just great. The environment ranges from lush green forests, to snowcapped mountains, to incredible coastal views. When you combine all of these things, it adds up to being simply breathtaking.
Pro Good character creation
When starting a new game the player is allowed to choose between a man or woman, from there is a plethora of options for making a character with a personalized look.
Cons
Con Hard to play solo
Rust is all about clans fighting for territory and loots. Solo players (or ones with a couple friends) can easily be killed by bigger clans.
Con Not yet finished (buggy)
Since it's a Steam Early Access game it still has lots of glitches, placeholder text and unreliable infrastructure. But for all its unfinished nature, it's surprisingly playable.
Con Anti-cheat issues
ARk has started using an anti-cheat tool called Battleye, this has so far broken Linux and Mac support for using official servers. Battleye has also had some issues with banning legit users and does not have a very good reputation. These issues add up to many angry players who paid for the game but now can not play it.
Con No more Early access, still buggy
Ark has been fully released on August 2017, but bugs are still easily found and many areas of the game lack polish.
Con The game can become a grind
At the higher levels, it begins to take a very, very long time to level up (unless you're playing on a custom server). This can make the game tedious to play for some people.
Con Hard for some PCs to run
Ark is kind of a resource hog - it's not very well optimized and that can cause many players to experience slow graphics.