I know I’m wilding but I actually liked the launch game more than what it became. But that says more about what I look for in a game than the quality of NMS. It objectively became a better game than it was at launch, but it pivoted to become more of a crafting and building thing than an exploration game…. And I’ve been done with crafting and building for a long time
For me, I’ve kind of figured out that I love the idea of the game more than the game itself. I played for the first time when the reviews for NMS first started becoming more positive.
On one level I kind of enjoyed it but not enough to keep me coming back regularly. Theres just too much to know when it comes to the knowledge base of the game. Felt like I was spending more time searching how to do everything rather than just playing the game.
I play it in bursts every few months when I feel that space exploration itch. Usually there’s a new feature or two whenever I pick it up. So yeah, fan of the game and the company behind it.
I like the variation in planets they’ve added and have always really wanted to like this game. I also like how they added a more casual mode that doesn’t require constant grinding.
The main issue is that it seems like every mission is fly to a planet, land, interact with one of a few things, then leave.
I remember seeing in the beginning credits one time how it’s based off of a novel and thinking “huh I wonder what its about?”
And then going back in to the bakery store and the woman was saying “its about the interpersonal conflicts of everyone living on the same street its very moving, nothing like this shite”
I enjoy the exploration and vibe of the game. Have a ton of hours on it, but I am always left wanting more end game. This is likely a situation where the game doesn’t want to offer what I am looking for, and that’s okay.
I play once a year, or so, to catch up on the updates and have a ton of fun every time.
Same, when it comes to games with vast scope and scale of a universe, it’s either this, Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen.
Elite Dangerous feels very “cockpitty” even with recent updates, it’s just not very pretty or engaging and I’ve tried several times to launch myself into it. VR was amazing for a little while, but still felt very “yellow cockpit” after a bit and a dark field of stars everywhere you look.
Star Citizen was very engaging for a bit, the open-world PVP, realistic scale, social, busy world and hyper-realism and absolutely beautiful environment have sooooo much potential, I log in annually and stand in a viewing area on a space station and just look out at the universe… but that’s it, I don’t like the janky, unpolished controls, the broken missions and lack of personalization/incentive to survive. I would even take very basic survival mechanics like base making, farming, upgrading skills and devices and places to loot and gather furnishings like No Man’s Sky. There should be a reason you want to get a crew together and hang out in a personalized ship.
No Man’s Sky feels a lot like “less intuitive minecraft” and I think I rather just play minecraft if I want to dig and build in a colorful, cartoonish world. The whole "harvest oxygen and swamp gas and process it with tungsten dust and then turn that dust into widgets which you refine into super widgets… it gets grindy and off-putting because it’s not comfortably accessible, it’s not intuitive, and that’s where my biggest beef with NMS is, the lack of an intuitive direction or goal and the feeling that there’s just too many lonely planets and not enough rewarding experience in spending so much time landing on each. Even if it was an actual MMO it would be more engaging.
It is definitely great for what it is, and I do jump in every new update. Plus, it’s one of those games I can just throw on when I’m not feeling a particular type of game to play, and it usually does help me get in the gaming mood. :)
i like nms but i wish each individual planet had more to do than just mining, scanning stuff, scavenging, and selling stuff. theres just no reason to do anything on any particular planet in your area unless you need resources it has and its a huge missed opportunity.
Don’t know, I really would like to love the game. Everytime a new update drops I try to pick up the game, but time and time again I struggle to find a game loop which really grabs my attention and keeps me playing. I either fall back into ressource grinding or trying to unlock all expedition rewards. Both getting repetitive and boring after some hours of playing. It’s really a shame as I love the aesthetic and somehow casual feel of the game.
If you guys have any recommendations how to make the game enjoyable again, please feel free to drop a comment, would love to hear from you how you play NMS.
That was my experience as well for the first couple of years. But with the drop of the update where you can build your own Corvette, I finally converted. Finally I could build my very own Serenity! Next step is to make my way as a smuggler across the universe!
Edit: this is built after another players YouTube-tutorial by the way.
That’s a sweet looking ship indeed! How was your experience collecting all the necessary ship parts to build this? Do you think it helped make it more enjoyable to follow a youtube guide?
Nowadays being over 30 and having a child I don’t find as much time playing games anymore. Which makes the grinding part of games so much less enjoying and worth while. So following a youtube tutorial sometimes helps me to get through the more grindier spects of a game if its not possible to circumnavigate them.
PS: Woulf you mind sharing the youtube tutorial you followed?
So, as I’m also an “older” gamer, it definitely helped with the time management 😉 How I did it was to first just look up which parts he used and try to find as many of them as possible, or otherwise trade for them in the Corvette parts shop. For some parts I also used alternatives until I had managed to collect all of the “original” parts. And when I had collected all the parts, I then followed the tutorial to do the actual build. And I enjoyed doing it this way 🙂
There are several different alternatives, but the youtube video I followed was this: youtu.be/WyxeEKAnlek
Hehe wonderful, thanks for going into a deeper explanation on how you did it! Definitely gonna give it a try the next time I decide to start up the game again 🚀
I would pay good money for a mod that has Jayne as a crewmember, and any time you ask him to do anything he just walks away murmuring “I’ll be in my bunk”.
I really would like to love the game. Everytime a new update drops I try to pick up the game
Are you me?
I have it installed right now, I logged in to play all this new, raved-over content and found myself on some planet with too much air-traffic making noise overhead, needing to collect minerals to power my ship, and a base with some minecraft-like chests of loot.
I know the game is vast and deep and full of surprises and such, but I have the hardest time connecting with it enough to feel like I want to explore several hundred hyper-colorful planets.
Who knows, in one way or the other we might be (hello parallel universe?!)
Haha yeah I played it back in the days before the game had a real multiplayer, where you only saw other players as floating lights. Back then the game had a more “lost in the stars” vibe, more so as the sphere was no multiplayer hub and no player made buildings you stumbled upon while exploring. To be fair it also felt somewhat more empty as well.
That may be it, I am expecting something more grand or epic or complicated to start uncovering, not really realizing that what I’m already doing is “it” and the rest is just exploring for the sake of exploring.
It’s fun for a while, but it’s a pretty shallow sandbox and after you’ve played in the sand for a bit, it’s all just sand.
If you’re not setting yourself a complex and/or grindy goal, like building a neat base, finding the perfect weapon or ship, filling out your reputations or lexicon, or learning all the crafting recipes to make the ultimate mcGuffin, then there is really not much to do. And, for me, once that goal is accomplished, I’m done for a while.
Each planet is just a collection of random tree/bush/rock/animal/color combinations that are mechanically identical (unless something’s changed. I haven’t played since they added VR). I’m also a gamer who likes mechanical complexity and interactions; I don’t tend to play a game for the actual ‘role playing’.
The hand-written “quests” were fun to do most of the time, but that content runs out quickly.
I have the same problems with Elite Dangerous (I have an explorer somewhere out a solid few hours away from civilized space) and unmodded Minecraft (I can only build so many houses/castles). I’ll pick all of these up every now and then, but the fun wears off more quickly each time.
I have high hopes that Light No Fire will learn the lessons from NMS and make a world that is both dynamic and interesting, but grounded enough in a single planet that it’s not such a slog to explore and it’s not just “Oh, neat, a green planet with blue worm aliens and purple trees, this is a color/creature combo I haven’t seen in hours.”
Also, imagine how nice it would be if they just drop it as a huge MMO and you just drop in somewhere and people start randomly finding each other and building communities. That would go so hard, and yet the studios capable of making that kind of experience are soooo scared of the 2% of players who will play that and whinge all over the forums that they’re “bored, lost and can’t find anyone.”
You hit the nail on the head with your explanation. And I fully agree, played alot of Elite Dangerous when it released but the game loop got boring really fast. I also don’t know how many times I’ve started a Minecraft server with friends, only for us to abandon it after playing on and off for a couple of days.
The same in NMS, tried to make the game more enjoyable by playing with friends, but just the same as with Minecraft. You really need to find or define your own goals you want to achieve. But nowadays with everyday life and a limited amount of time to spend gaming, I tend to gravitate more and more towards more linear/story based games and less sandboxy ones.
I find NMS a shallow sandbox. I have around 150 hrs in NMS, The activities do not appeal to me. I am 30 hours in playing Dwarf Fortress and I already have many self-made goals regarding child programs, fortification projects, military build-up, dam construction, production capacity, relocation of workshops…
If I just want to build something for aesthetics, I can always fire up SketchUp and other building games, instead of glitch building.
If I want shipbuilding, I have KSP and Children of a dead earth…
Every time i tried it i just wandered on the planet i spawned on for hours without making much progress. Last time i tried it i played in VR and i lost my ship in the tutorial and just looked for it for 2 hours going from top of mountains to other top of mountains thinking it should be around here somewhere XD
I enjoy it. It’s a relaxing, peaceful game. I just wish there were more objectives. The idea of just exploring and finding things doesn’t appeal to me all that much. The game has a lot of potential for combat, both in the spaceship and as a FPS, but both of these areas feel like they could be expanded a bit. Overall, I just wish that there were more combat-focused missions after completing the main storyline.
But it’s still pretty good and I enjoy it when I want to relax.
I think this is why it never quite clicked with me. It’s a gorgeous game and it’s really come such a long way, but personally I could use a bit more direction.
I found the combat frustratingly bland, and Hello Games don’t seem interested in improving it. The first time I played was several years after release, and I was surprised to learn the only two enemy encounters that were at all fun or interesting (the sentinel mech and capital ships) were only recently added. That was years ago, and I don’t think they’ve added any new major enemies since. Last I checked there were less than twenty enemy types in the entire galaxy and most are braindead “approach and shoot at the player until you die” types.
The on-foot weapons also feel anemic and sluggish - even your heavy weapons feel like shooting someone with a Nerf gun while whispering pew pew under your breath until they explode, and your actions will often be delayed waiting for an animation to complete (unstowing your weapon every few seconds being the main offender). Ship weapons are better by virtue of not having animations and being the same as every space game ever.
I hope Light No Fire has more enemy variety and a better-designed combat loop.
Its weird I know I shouldn’t but I kind of love NMS. Its such a broad but shallow game but I cant help but spend hours on it. Being able to just jet off to a new system and explore is excellent.
I think I’ve heard somewhere an opinion that someone preferred the original atmosphere of the game even if it was flawed. I do wonder if they have a mode for that.
I haven’t played the game so I don’t know, but that’s the first thing I think of for some reason
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