Expeditions - How To Be Alone In The Crowd

[Endev]

Expedition is a community event and in theory you're doing that expedition with other players. But in practice, you have 30 players in the system with you, there is a crowd of people around you, and you're still alone. One of the most cooperative things you can do during expeditions is creating resource farms for other players. And if devs would now suddenly make it into a singleplayer mode, most of the players would only feel it through not having those twenty resource farms waiting for them in the systems with meeting points.

Ah, meeting points. Every expedition has them, they're are common for all players. I think that without them, players would just spread out all over the space and after few days you would have only few people in your system at most. And I bet that some people would on purpose move away as far as possible from the starting point just to be alone. It is possible that even now they do just that, quickly checking out all meeting points and then escaping far away to do the rest of the tasks there.

But there were also tasks that were an actual community effort, like killing huge amount of some creatures. It was one of the few moments when I felt like I need other people to do that with me. I believe that expeditions would profit from doing something like that more often and that it might be a correct way of cooperation between players in this game. Because I have doubts that forcing players to actively play with people that have faster/slower pace is a good idea, it is one of the reasons why people do Nexus missions alone.

As for right now, expeditions are just a bunch of tasks to do while other players are like ghosts that move around somewhere and trigger system messages on the chat, and you actually need their resource farms more than you need them. Maybe it is what expedition mode aims for... and I'm just trying to fix something that is not broken.

But I believe that it could be better, it could be a nice cooperative experience for the community to do together, one that feels like an effort done together with thousands of other players. To don't be alone despite the crowd around you.

[End of the Road]

i keep multiplayer off, always off. i dont like co-op with randoms unless its someone i know. and i like being alone.

i just like being alone, just me, enjoying the pace and still having fun in a way.

[zombygunner]

Ive tried muti player and its not fun. One warp and you and your friend are now separate. Unless you run together side by side this will happen. Imo the game is too big for muti player lol.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

The new Abandoned Mode is different and fun to try. Though as a new mode I think it's still early in its development cycle.

Cooperative missions are fun and building or generally aimlessly messing about together but most co-op play would benefit from a little more direction goal driven content. Nexus missions do that but can be a little short and not much different from general play. Expeditions can be done solo or multi play and are good with goals but co-op wise they are not dependent on other players to achieve things.

Co-op though can be a lot of fun when a small group has something to do together that can not be easily achieved alone. However everything can be completed solo. There's no real incentive to do things with others or randoms the majority of the time when choosing progress missions or secondary missions at space stations. Guild NPCs don't offer missions requiring players of lower tiers to request help from higher tier players.

When I think of multiplayer co-op missions I think of the fun kind of missions that Guild Wars games do so well. Timed or daily co-op gatherings or similar smaller scale missions dropping loot. In No Man's Sky it's very easy to simply use a map to find a minor outpost and collect a new multi-tool. It would be fun to actually arrive at a building like a manufacturing building and not only blow the door open cooperatively or sneak past patrolling guards together but once inside (like derelicts) actually search boxes or lockers for the weapons (or weapon parts). For now there are often simple number puzzles, clever but not very engaging and some intriguing questions. Every encounter could be so more engaging for solo players or a group.

Probably the only single mission that is fun to do with strangers is meeting up on Derelict Freighters. That is the only mission that creates a sense of anticipation of working together in an unexpected environment not knowing what might be lurking there. It's a pity that although the interiors are procedural and brilliantly done most often for the number of players present the difficulty does not scale appropriately.

I would like to see added missions that can only (or optionally) be completed with a small group. Perhaps with things like puzzle doors being opened together or items being carried by one player to a location while another protects them or something. Maybe one player sets timed charges to explode a door because they carry the explosives while other player carry healing kits or something so both players work together to solve puzzles for a common goal. Basically some more interesting challenges while being hunted by sentinels or other NPCs. Maybe even some minor bosses to get past on the way. Surprises!

[Geldric™]

When co-op Nexus missions were added, the announcement from HG/Sean (used the word "fireteam") was meant to promote this "community" style event, as you described. I honestly think they were trying to compare it to like "Rainbow Six" or some other FPS game.

The reality of it is, the few "a-holes" that build trap bases or the ones that stalk the community bases only to ambush unsuspecting new (PVP enabled) players so they can be killed repeatedly has, in my opinion, "soured" the entire community.

Here's a summation of my experiences; the few times I've had a player join my Nexus mission, which I always type "Hi" in chat once the mission starts, usually ends with the other player, sometimes not even leaving the Anomaly, or traveling to the location but not helping.

What I do now is just before I complete the mission, if the other player has not helped, I remove myself from the group, complete the mission and go back to the Anomaly.
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I usually (almost always) have my game open for anyone to join. While I'm playing an expedition or the weekend event; I will routinely wave to other players when I see them.

[Terico]

I think the last time I saw a milestone that forced group play in an expedition was when we had to visit another players freighter. I don't believe it went over well as something like that has not been repeated. I remember a lot of drama on the forums about that milestone, but I might not be remembering correctly.

[Emelio Lizardo]

Why isn't the default setting set to no PvP? And no base/terrain altering. These should be the defaults. And there's no notice that these setting exist.

There should be a bounty board for players who ambush other players. Their PvP kept open for a period of time and a mission available to go after them.

[End of the Road]

Цитата допису Emelio Lizardo:

There should be a bounty board for players who ambush other players. Their PvP kept open for a period of time and a mission available to go after them.

that would absolutely put off a lot of players.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Цитата допису Terico:

...we had to visit another players freighter...

That was an optional milestone I think.

Цитата допису Emelio Lizardo:

Why isn't the default setting set to no PvP? And no base/terrain altering. These should be the defaults. ...
There should be a bounty board for players who ambush other players. Their PvP kept open for a period of time and a mission available to go after them.

Multiplayer is not so exclusive as it used to be and many similar games today have it built in as default. New players or casual players would probably be more surprised a game does not have multi play features. With social media affecting all our lives it's probably easier than ever to find games with multiplayer. It just makes sense to turn it off if you don't want it, instead of having to figure out how to tediously enable multiplayer, which always ends up a chore in every game franchise, especially with cross-play development many players and their friends now have expectations of playing together. That's modern gaming.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2922321199
I like the bounty idea chasing players for their transport of illegal goods but it doesn't have to be tied to PvP explicitly. It could be their empty player freighter protected by their specialist NPCs or pilots on board that could be boarded by other players to battle NPcs and capture the illegal goods perhaps within a time limit. Maybe the freighter owner gets an alert another player is raiding their illegal goods and they can return to defend it for a reward. But they will not be excessively penalised if they do not.

Also could be fun to have our freighters sometimes over run with 'bugs' or something and players might return to restore our freighters before infestations happened. With multiple players in a group we can 'clean up' our freighters together a little quicker or perhaps engage pesky pirates or other players 'looting' our illegal goods.

Maybe we can jettison our storage crates to a planet surface to retrieve in the event of an attack. Would be a cool reason to land on planets and explore at the same time.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2857725580
Perhaps if our own freighters time out before we beat the clock and defend it successfully, we have to use an escape pod, like the ones we find on planets now to expand our inventories. It would be cool to jump into one of the pods just in time to survive a massive explosion of our freighter, that scatters our inventory across the planets in a system. Once we retrieve them everything is restored of course perhaps with minor damage to stored ships or freighter tech. In a group we would simply retrieve all 10 storage crates much quicker and can call our freighter again unscratched : D

[bennym]

With multiplayer off, you can still get to resource farms from other players

[Mr. Bufferlow]

I always have MP during an Expedition. Too many chuckle heads trying to show off or just randomly screw with other players. Bonus, the game runs better with MP turned off. Double bonus: MP is one of the few network settings that is retained on any new save so you don't have to rush to change your network settings from PVP and other aspects.

Multiplayer as developed for this game, is just too basic to really add any enjoyment. I guess if you like to yak with some other players while you do your own thing, it would be ok for that.

I am guessing a lot of players would not be fans of making Expedition cooperation mandatory. My few experiences with just the stupid Nexus missions is that you get some numbskull that races ahead and ruins your chances of actually completing the mission. Assume they don't, you have a slew of numbskulls trying to block objectives or just create mayhem. The chuckle heads enjoy that trash, but it kills the game mood for me.

[Foxglovez]

MP is problematic in our 2025 culture. It is one of the things that worries me greatly about LNF, how to get away from the nitwits, Rust escapees, mean spirited ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Gonna be interesting. Playing with friends is great fun - Randoms are by their very nature - Random, and it ain't always pretty.

[Lystent]

Цитата допису Foxglovez:

...Playing with friends is great fun - Randoms are by their very nature - Random, and it ain't always pretty. :steeped2024:

This is def MP across any game in general, in a nutshell AFAIK. Unfortunately though, in my experience, NMS MP with friends is still a tricky matter; best summary (IMO) I've read goes "Playing single player with friends".

[taniwhat]

To many griefers and I suspect fixing that aspect of MP is simply too hard,