I have a few questions before buying...

[Gelfan_Dothea]

I have been burned by so many games these past few years that I have become paranoid and distrusting of them. Literally hundreds of dollars sitting wasted in my steam library (Dying Light 2, Doom Eternal, Sons of the Forest, Satisfactory, etc.). Everything from needlessly complex controls, terrible interfaces, lack of keybinding, broken game mechanics, and games that have literally no purpose other than building crap for the sake of building crap. It's not like they list all these faults in their game descriptions. The Doom Eternal or Dying Light 2 Store page didn't say "this game is nothing like the original". The Satasfactory store page didn't say "There is no purpose in this game other than building for the sake of building with no end." And so this leads me to my first and most important question of all...

1. Story. Does this game have a fleshed out story and continuing objectives? I understand there's a lot freedom to build and explore (at own pace), but does it actually have an arc to follow and at least 20+ hours of objectives (go here-do this, go here-build this, etc.) to further said story?

2. Controls. Are the controls unnecessarily complex (Doom Eternal, Cyberpunk, etc.) where they ask you to bind 10 different buttons to actions that should have all been bound to a single button. For example, in Cyberpunk they have different buttons for enter car, exit car, primary interact, secondary interact, accept, etc.. where every one of these should have been bound to a single key. Granted there are varying acceptance parameters of what individuals consider "overly complex" but my limit is about 12 keys.

3. Keybinding. Can all the keys be rebound on keyboard and mouse? And I'm not talking about the WSAD users, I'm talking about the arrow key users. R-Shift, R-CTRL, Home, Enter, mouse wheel, etc..

4. UX design. Does the game have too many menus? Are they cumbersome and unnecessary? Can everything be accessed from one main menu or does each require their own key?

5. Population: Is the game lonely? Are there plenty of NPCs? Do NPCs populate the towns you build? Do NPCs float around in space? Does the game feel alive with people?

6. Perspective: All the gameplay I see is in third person, but I'm told the game also has first person. Does the game feel like it was designed for First Person or does it feel like an afterthought?

To give some perspective, I think Subnautica is the gold standard for simplicity vs complexity for open world exploration and builder type games. How close to subnautica are the overall mentioned mechanics in this game?


Appreciate the insight.

[Krash Megiddo]

Yes, no, yes, maybe, depends, I mostly use 1st person

Some of your questions are subjective

[Gerustroncio]

1 - Well, it does, you'll have plenty of stuff to follow up on, i'm not sure I would call it "fleshed out" necessarily. but there are plenty of objectives and whatnot, at times too many heh

2 - No, as simple as can be

3 - It's pretty configurable, you can use of course any key on your keyboard for anything, plus mouse buttons, not sure about the wheel though

4 - Fairly straight forward, for instance you open just one menu in which you can circle between your backpack, your ship, your multitool and freighter, there's another menu for building stuff, and there's a quick menu for ease of access to some things.

5 - Well, stations are full of NPCs. you do find some settlements on planets with NPCs on them, you'll also, potentially, have your own settlement where you serve as a manager of sorts, and there's plenty of them walking around (they don't do much else though)

You can also build a base and hire some NPCs to serve as "specialists" who will give you missions and technology, but they are fairly static

You'll also see ships flying in and out of stations and some planetary settlements, or doing fly-bys while you're walking around , so it's not barren, but at the same time the NPCs don't do much.

6 - I only play in first person myself, you can do everything in it, ship cockpits are modeled and all, you can even have a "split perspective", like if you set it to first person while you're walking around, and third person while in your ship, the game remembers it, and so every-time you get out of the ship it's first person, and it goes to third again when you hop in

[Gelfan_Dothea]

That's excellent feedback. Thank you.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Gelfan_Dothea:

The Satasfactory store page didn't say "There is no purpose in this game other than building for the sake of building with no end."

I have never tried satisfactory but it seems really obvious what the game is about from a few videos and screenshots ?

To answer quickly : controls and keybinds are wonky, lacking, bugged, bad. The game is lacking in the action department. However its relatively easy to use, assuming you don't expect engaging combat

Population : multiplayer is super bugged and just adds sync, render, mission progress and performance issues when you play with someone. Dont use multiplayer. As a result game is very lonely outside of the "hub". You can get some npcs to spawn in your base/settlement, they don't do anything sensible.

First person is fine on foot or in a starship (some cockpits obstruct the view a lot but its still fine). First person in ground vehicles is an abomination.

[Guyver8]

1) yes (3,300+hrs in and still luvin' it, some players have more than double that)
2) yes
3) yes, i believe so (i use KB+Mouse AND controller cos it works for me)
4) no (subjective some will disagree)
5) yes, by design (npcs are around in space stations, buildings, the settlement you can takeover but never in great numbers)
6) no, the game was released as first person, third person was added later due to it being a much requested playerbase wanted feature

never played subnautica, but here's some perspective in the last 2 years steam reports i've played NMS > 99.9% of my (retired) playtime on steam to the exclusion of everything else in my library

PS. watch some youtube vids of gameplay to see if it's your 'cup of tea' then if yes, buy it on sale (50% off, usually 4-5 sales a year)

[Lindy Bomber]

1. The storyline is effectively an extended tutorial leading you to various game mechanics and explaining the in game lore. You are not a hero, there is no princess to save or unspeakable evil to defeat. You are an observer, nothing you do changes anything.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Onarum:

3 - It's pretty configurable, you can use of course any key on your keyboard for anything, plus mouse buttons, not sure about the wheel though

No you can't, at least without mods. Keybinds have arbitrary limitations, work inconsistently and worse, they break upon reloading or swaping certain items

[Gelfan_Dothea]

Okay, there used to be a storyline that you were trying to reach the center of the galaxy, which I thought was an amazing motivator, but I keep getting conflicting information on this. Like it's now just an afterthought and not a real goal.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Gelfan_Dothea:

Okay, there used to be a storyline that you were trying to reach the center of the galaxy, which I thought was an amazing motivator, but I keep getting conflicting information on this. Like it's now just an afterthought and not a real goal.

Its no longer a mission objective, just something you can do on any of the 256 galaxies. It's just travelling for the sake of travelling, there's no story content tied to this

[Gerustroncio]

Originally posted by momopovich:

Originally posted by Onarum:

3 - It's pretty configurable, you can use of course any key on your keyboard for anything, plus mouse buttons, not sure about the wheel though

No you can't, at least without mods. Keybinds have arbitrary limitations, work inconsistently and worse, they break upon reloading or swaping certain items

The question was if controls could be rebound, and they can

I myself never ran into any of the problems you list, then again I never saw any reason to use something other than the default, which I find to be pretty good.

So to the OP, I really can't be sure of what this person says, but the controllers CAN be rebound, and you can, as far as I can tell, use any key on your keyboard, just tested it.

[cowinspace]

1) Yes, but more in the vein of Dark Souls where you learn incidental things about world (universe?) as you go. Expect vague allusions to the past/future and a thread to follow. Don't expect a sweeping story.

2+3) A lot of the controls can be re-bound, pretty sure it covers everything but never really had the need. The controls aren't particularly complex, remember this was developed as a controller game. A lot of controls are on the quick menu (x by default) but these can be assigned to the 0-9 keys.

4) There are three main menus. Esc (general menu with tabs for Discoveries, Achievements, Log, Options), Tab (inventories for suit, ship, exocraft, freighter), X (quick menu for lots of options). Watch a video on youtube for a more detailed overview. Again, this is a controller game first so menus are few and concentrated.

5) As long as you have multiplayer toggled on then the Anomaly (MP hub) is usually busy but you're basically never going to run into someone in the wild except for expeditions where everyone starts in the same place.

6) You have third and first person options for foot, ship, and exocraft. Exocraft are much easier to handle in third person. On foot and ship work in either though third person in the ship will give you a wider field of view.

You should know that this game has a lot more randomness than something as tightly scripted as Subnautica. You might never see the exact ship, tool, or freighter that you want.

[Zak]

1) Story missions are the weak component of the game that many people complain about. Yes, you should get 20h out of this but it's all text based, there is no voice acting so you just travel from a terminal to a terminal.

2-3) Controls are fairly complex, lots of keys to remember, keybindings are also the weak part. I use arrow keys and I can bind them to move but binding them to other things like menus, etc., is often problematic. A patch few days ago screwed up some of arrow key settings again. Keybinding conflicts are common too. Mouse wheel doesn't seem to be re-bindable in the GUI either. Movement controls for ground vehicles can't be set in the GUI, require text file editing, etc.

4) NMS is menu based basically, yes. Everything has a menu. Are they cumbersome? Not really, it's a matter of preference. Many people complain about UX design, but I don't have too many issues, some quirks yeah.

5) Does the game feel alive with people? Nope. First of all, there are no "people", no humans in the game. There are some stiff static NPCs around buildings and on stations, animations are stiff and repeatitive but the game feels empty for me, but it doesn't bother me.

6) Both first person and third person work well, you switch instantly with a press of a button. I play in 1st person almost exclusively, and it works as expected, no issues here at all.

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Onarum:

Originally posted by momopovich:

No you can't, at least without mods. Keybinds have arbitrary limitations, work inconsistently and worse, they break upon reloading or swaping certain items

The question was if controls could be rebound, and they can

I myself never ran into any of the problems you list, then again I never saw any reason to use something other than the default, which I find to be pretty good.

So to the OP, I really can't be sure of what this person says, but the controllers CAN be rebound, and you can, as far as I can tell, use any key on your keyboard, just tested it.

Simple. Try to recharge any tech with a hotckey. It will work poorly and break once you swap the ship or multitool you were using.

[Yebashenko ✅♿]

Another game will not change your gaming desire.
You are looking just to waste another 50 dollars.
You just burned out if you got such an amazing games like DY2, Doom Eternal, Satisfactory, Sons of the forest, and you are looking to play something else.
Sry but this is truth, no matter which game u will play, it will burn out sooner than later.

"Keybinding. Can all the keys be rebound on keyboard and mouse? And I'm not talking about the WSAD users, I'm talking about the arrow key users. R-Shift, R-CTRL, Home, Enter, mouse wheel, etc.." probably troll to get clown awards but yeah.

Imagine complaing about complex movement or keybindings.
2023 gaming.
Dont buy it, if you wrote something about perspective meantime having FOV slider in every game.

Obviously troll.

[Gelfan_Dothea]

Originally posted by Yebashenko:

Another game will not change your gaming desire.
You are looking just to waste another 50 dollars.
You just burned out if you got such an amazing games like DY2, Doom Eternal, Satisfactory, Sons of the forest, and you are looking to play something else.
Sry but this is truth, no matter which game u will play, it will burn out sooner than later.

"Keybinding. Can all the keys be rebound on keyboard and mouse? And I'm not talking about the WSAD users, I'm talking about the arrow key users. R-Shift, R-CTRL, Home, Enter, mouse wheel, etc.." probably troll to get clown awards but yeah.

Imagine complaing about complex movement or keybindings.
2023 gaming.
Dont buy it, if you wrote something about perspective meantime having FOV slider in every game.

Obviously troll.

Just blocked him. I swear there's at least one a$$hole in every thread. It's like they're mandatory.