"The game is excellent, but it's boring"

[Torv]

How do these fit in the same sentence? I'm seeing videos of how they've updated graphics, immersion, combat... excellent reviews, but then you see comments like "I love the game but it's so boring"? Huh?

How boring is this game? Are there activities? Is there matchmaking? Objectives? Or is it just go around farming random stuff and making bases that no one will ever see?

[Guybrush]

No. "excellent reviews"? So? Banana also has amazing reviews. Means nothing.

[Chirico Cuvie]

Well, usually some people are not getting used to sandbox environment where they need to actively choose a path in the game, but instead told by the game what they should do.
I admit it is not for all people. Some people like the freedom in for example Minecraft, some don't.

[Daedrius]

Why not buy and play for yourself to find out? Now would be a good time since there's a -60% sale right now. $23.99

[Strat Man]

Is there any multiplayer?

[Dirak2012]

Originally posted by Strat Man:

Is there any multiplayer?

Yes, it's very barebones, but it works, sometimes.

The game is a sandbox, so it can be boring if you need guided content.

[Camael]

Originally posted by Strat Man:

Is there any multiplayer?

Yes, actually, the game is so massive you may only meet people once in potentially 500 hours.

[caseyas435943]

A sandbox that really has nothing in it. Making the sandbox look prettier doesn't fix that the sandbox is almost empty.

The update was great don't get me wrong two thumbs up! It makes the sandbox looking prettier. But didn't address it being so empty.

Explore for what? Nothing.

Build a base for what? Nothing.

Neither matter. Even a sandbox things have to matter. You should have to explore or build a base. But you don't. Which are the only two things in the game to do.

Ships? You can build your ship anyway you want it to look. Ship hunting is worthless. There os zero reason to hunt ships. Parts? You already have your ship making part hunting worthless.

The Quest line helps fill a game of well empty sandbox play.

Most games are really only sandboxes. Whether the game is good hinges on what's in the sandbox.

City builders are sandboxes. You don't tell you how to build. But they give you things you need to build. The more things the more to do. It up to you when and where. Do you want it pretty or just throw it down and move on.

[medledan16]

Originally posted by caseyas435943:

A sandbox that really has nothing in it. Making the sandbox look prettier doesn't fix that the sandbox is almost empty.

The update was great don't get me wrong two thumbs up! It makes the sandbox looking prettier. But didn't address it being so empty.

Explore for what? Nothing.

Build a base for what? Nothing.

Neither matter. Even a sandbox things have to matter. You should have to explore or build a base. But you don't. Which are the only two things in the game to do.

Ships? You can build your ship anyway you want it to look. Ship hunting is worthless. There os zero reason to hunt ships. Parts? You already have your ship making part hunting worthless.

The Quest line helps fill a game of well empty sandbox play.

Most games are really only sandboxes. Whether the game is good hinges on what's in the sandbox.

City builders are sandboxes. You don't tell you how to build. But they give you things you need to build. The more things the more to do. It up to you when and where. Do you want it pretty or just throw it down and move on.

I have tried this game every year for 8 years. I get bored within 1 hour every single time. Uninstalled for another year.

[+VLFBERHT+]

Originally posted by caseyas435943:

A sandbox that really has nothing in it. Making the sandbox look prettier doesn't fix that the sandbox is almost empty.

The update was great don't get me wrong two thumbs up! It makes the sandbox looking prettier. But didn't address it being so empty.

Explore for what? Nothing.

Build a base for what? Nothing.

Neither matter. Even a sandbox things have to matter. You should have to explore or build a base. But you don't. Which are the only two things in the game to do.

Ships? You can build your ship anyway you want it to look. Ship hunting is worthless. There os zero reason to hunt ships. Parts? You already have your ship making part hunting worthless.

The Quest line helps fill a game of well empty sandbox play.

Most games are really only sandboxes. Whether the game is good hinges on what's in the sandbox.

City builders are sandboxes. You don't tell you how to build. But they give you things you need to build. The more things the more to do. It up to you when and where. Do you want it pretty or just throw it down and move on.

Just like stars in the sky, what does not "matter" to you, becomes a fun and fulfilling experience to many, many others...

Tell me again how THESE NMS'ers are NOT having FUN...

"Build for what?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl3QMOoa_P4

"Explore for what?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvPUKB5H2x4

Not to mention the story-line & lore missions, quests & encounter-missions and Expeditions.

You and 'os10' comments remain somewhat trapped inside a bubble, on one NMS bubble planet, somewhere among the 18-quintillion planets... now THAT is boring :)

[derSanitoeter]

Yeah i mean... bought on day 1 back then. Played like 60h or so and hoped for something better. All planets, systems, creatures and flora looked mostly the same with different color palette and some randomized features.

This really sucked and guess what - it still is like that.
Everything feels and look so damn generic, i can't even find words for it.

You can basically travel to 100 different planets and a lot look the same with different colors. Variety is there but the planet itself is shallow and boring all the time. Some are lush and eye-pleasing but in the end... nothing of interest there at all. No big cities, no NPCs despite those in stations or trade hubs etc..

Every now and then i install it and take a look but uninstall it 2-3h later again because the shallow and boring generic world never got sorted out.

No matter what great features are in there, if the planets are extremly repetitive and boring it is not fun at all.

[MrReaperofDead]

I love how the game is still being updated.
However the entire mechanic of the game is just boring. No Man's Sky just can't address the issue with meaninglessness. It's not like Red Dead Redemption 2, where character interaction is meaningful. You can't really go into a store in the game, or an alien saloon and play mini games. You mean to tell me all these alien races, and none of them play games? None of them go to bars or hang out? They ALL just treat space like its a farming simulator, or a library?
Where's the games? Wheres the games within a game, or the ability to even have npc followers?

No Man's Sky almost feels like a desktop wallpaper simulator, where the bests things are you just fly around space for the looks. That's the only point to no man's sky is the ship flight and seamless planet traversal. I know we got that brand new 2024 update, but the issues in terms of the player's ability to interact just aren't enough to justify binging hours and hours of this game. Also the building is kinda confusing, where my ADHD kinda struggles to make heads or tails of how to make a building, and even when I do, what's the point?

[M0LE]

Originally posted by caseyas435943:

Explore for what? Nothing.
Build a base for what? Nothing.
Neither matter. Even a sandbox things have to matter. You should have to explore or build a base. But you don't. Which are the only two things in the game to do.

Nailed it. Sadly.

[CardinalFang]

I downloaded again for this update and once I managed to fix all the crashes and created a new game - I'll slog through the intro which is probably the most engaging part of the game and then it's back to the same old, I imagine. Building a base. The story-line, lore missions, quests, encounter-missions and Expeditions are just strings of words which don't mean anything because the boredom kicks in before any of that. I was excited to fly around a nice planet looking at all the new effects - and then I realised that it's the only reason I'm actually playing this.

No disrespect to HG - I know they've put a lot of work into it since launch but... it's difficult to explain a game that has a lot of content but still feels completely empty.

[Zarquon]

Do you find walking simulators, like Death Stranding, boring? It's the same response.
Lots of people do, but lots of people also really enjoy the chill of roaming endless planets.

An excellent walking sim can be a boring game.

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

Originally posted by Strat Man:

Is there any multiplayer?

Yes, it's very barebones, but it works, sometimes.

The game is a sandbox, so it can be boring if you need guided content.

It is not a sandbox. A sandbox has far more things you can mess with to affect the game world. X4 Foundations is a sandbox. NMS is not. I'm not sure what NMS is, beyond a collect-athon. There was a good exploration game here at launch, but they focused on so many other things that had nothing to do with the core of the game. As such it has tried to do a ton of things, and it does, just none of them very well or very deep.

I cannot fault HG for their support for the game. However, the core problem remains. There is no reason to do anything at anytime and when you do finally do 'something' the reward is simply not worth it. The exploration issues come down to pre-set biomes and one biome per planet. Until those are resolved and we get dynamic biomes that you cannot list on a Wikipedia article, the static nature of the game will remain. NMS does not have quintillion planets. It has billions of copies of about 40 templates of planets thrown everywhere haphazardly. The galaxies don't even look realistic and we don't have spirals, rather just sphericals. The galaxy map makes little sense and the galaxies have almost zero structure to them. The same issues happen with the proc gen on planets. A forest is not a bunch of tree assets thrown around haphazardly. That is a mess. A forest has structure, varying densities, etc. Starfield proc gen on one map is better than the proc gen here. At least there a swamp planet, looks like swamp. The forests look like forests. Say what you want about the rest of the game, but the proc gen tech is just better. Elite Dangerous also produces much better planets than NMS. NMS's scale works against itself. There is no varying gravity on planets. There is too much life. There are too many identical POIs thrown all over the planets and they are the same all over the galaxy and in every galaxy within the game.

NMS could take place in a few solar systems with planets that had all the biomes needed to craft everything you need in the game, and the game wouldn't feel any different at all. More stuff doesn't mean more engaging or more fun or more interesting. Its just more stuff thrown about.

I don't think it can be fixed and if this was HG's original design goal then I guess they met it. But somewhere, the idea they were selling to start with and the ideas they have now have drastically changed. NMS has still not met any of its exploration goals. Worlds 1 helps a bit, but far far more has to be done to make this more dynamic and interesting and less of a collectathon to build this or that, that in the end doesn't matter or change the game at all.

I've seen people build huge bases. Cool. But for what? I need more of a reason than b/c we can. There is no functional reason to build them.