Worlds 2 is the first good No Man Sky update in my opinion

[chancan]

Because it's the first time there's a worthwhile content unlock beyond the first couple hours of the game. This helps makes the new planet types feel extra special to interact with. I actually earned engaging with new content for the first time.

I think in general this game suffers a bit from lack of worthwhile progression and unlocking. It's a big sandbox with a whole lot of dead end non-progression.

There's a whole questline revolving base building and recruiting specialists for your base stations with linear tech unlock rewards where the dialogue insists that you're stuck on the planet where you're doing these missions, rendered pointless by the fact all these unlocks can be gotten on the Space Anomaly much easier. The exocraft station part of this questline is fully in character revolving the concept that your only mode of transport is the exocraft and you need to urgently reach a destination, against rendered obsolete because you can hop into your ship and be there in 10 seconds despite a 1 hour urgency timer.

I enjoy the game a lot, I just think it could be a lot better if it had more restrictions and worthwhile progression in place. Most of No Man Sky feels like it's mostly a lite-creative mode.

[ignis]

Gating behind quests is bad, because NMS quests are bad. They are long, boring and meaningless. They are basically very long tutorials, introducing mechanics that don't exist in the rest of game.

First few hours are the most interesting part of the run, and spending a day doing those quests just to unlock a new biome, which knowing NMS wouild be pretty much cosmetic? Nah, not interested.

[✨ZV✨]

After 20+ updates this is the only good one? Are you sure?

[stvlepore]

Originally posted by ignis:

Gating behind quests is bad, because NMS quests are bad. They are long, boring and meaningless. They are basically very long tutorials, introducing mechanics that don't exist in the rest of game.

First few hours are the most interesting part of the run, and spending a day doing those quests just to unlock a new biome, which knowing NMS wouild be pretty much cosmetic? Nah, not interested.

This. I have no intrest in doing the Artimis quest again. It was boring the first time.

[UNBREAKABLE]

Originally posted by stvlepore:

Originally posted by ignis:

Gating behind quests is bad, because NMS quests are bad. They are long, boring and meaningless. They are basically very long tutorials, introducing mechanics that don't exist in the rest of game.

First few hours are the most interesting part of the run, and spending a day doing those quests just to unlock a new biome, which knowing NMS wouild be pretty much cosmetic? Nah, not interested.

This. I have no intrest in doing the Artimis quest again. It was boring the first time.

I don't think you're supposed to keep repeating it, hence why I think it's silly that some people restart constantly after every update.

[ignis]

Originally posted by UNBREAKABLE:

Originally posted by stvlepore:

This. I have no intrest in doing the Artimis quest again. It was boring the first time.

I don't think you're supposed to keep repeating it, hence why I think it's silly that some people restart constantly after every update.

Because the stat is the best part of the run? Struggling with resources, hazards, feeling a progression with every find...

Once you've got enough tech and resources, the game turns into a walking simulator, since there is nothing you may want anymore. Especially in the current state with building being totally broken.

And boring, artificially prolonged quests thet drip-feed you with a bits of content at best and are absolutely pointless at worst are just making the game worse.

[UNBREAKABLE]

Originally posted by ignis:

Originally posted by UNBREAKABLE:

I don't think you're supposed to keep repeating it, hence why I think it's silly that some people restart constantly after every update.

Because the stat is the best part of the run? Struggling with resources, hazards, feeling a progression with every find...

Once you've got enough tech and resources, the game turns into a walking simulator, since there is nothing you may want anymore. Especially in the current state with building being totally broken.

And boring, artificially prolonged quests thet drip-feed you with a bits of content at best and are absolutely pointless at worst are just making the game worse.

Sounds like a lot of good reasons not to constantly restart.

If the constant struggle is appealing though then may I suggest playing abandoned mode with difficulty settings cranked up?

[ignis]

Originally posted by UNBREAKABLE:

Originally posted by ignis:

Because the stat is the best part of the run? Struggling with resources, hazards, feeling a progression with every find...

Once you've got enough tech and resources, the game turns into a walking simulator, since there is nothing you may want anymore. Especially in the current state with building being totally broken.

And boring, artificially prolonged quests thet drip-feed you with a bits of content at best and are absolutely pointless at worst are just making the game worse.

Sounds like a lot of good reasons not to constantly restart.

If the constant struggle is appealing though then may I suggest playing abandoned mode with difficulty settings cranked up?

Abandoned mode has a potential, but it relies on a currently broken base building even more, and overall lacks the means to progress.

You can't get a freighter, you can't get upgrades (the only source is from buried stashes which rarely gives them and only has a limited list of stuff you can get from them), you can't get to the purple systems (because no way to get necessary drive upgrade), you can't even apply multi-tool or ship upgrades. It just strips the game down to the bones, getting rid of many things that make it bad, but also removing the already quite barebone progression system.

The best you can get is to build a base safe from hazards, and it pretty much ends there.

[UNBREAKABLE]

Originally posted by ignis:

Originally posted by UNBREAKABLE:

Sounds like a lot of good reasons not to constantly restart.

If the constant struggle is appealing though then may I suggest playing abandoned mode with difficulty settings cranked up?

Abandoned mode has a potential, but it relies on a currently broken base building even more, and overall lacks the means to progress.

You can't get a freighter, you can't get upgrades (the only source is from buried stashes which rarely gives them and only has a limited list of stuff you can get from them), you can't get to the purple systems (because no way to get necessary drive upgrade), you can't even apply multi-tool or ship upgrades. It just strips the game down to the bones, getting rid of many things that make it bad, but also removing the already quite barebone progression system.

The best you can get is to build a base safe from hazards, and it pretty much ends there.

Regardless though the game will be boring eventually no matter how much progression there is. It's not something that can just be smoothed out in a patch, it's a core issue with the game.

Gotta make your own goals and use your imagination.

[Flash Hendricks]

I also like the purple stars being something you have to work for. In an earlier version of the game, you got some key tech upgrade from Polo after reaching a particular milestone; a serious jetpack boost, if memory serves (which, tbh, it increasingly doesn't...). But they dropped that ages ago and the Milestones have become pointless.

I wish they would offer a Milestone mode (purely optional, of course), with no Tech shop in the Anomaly and no story missions. The only way to get advanced tech (including all the different drives, etc.) would be to complete milestones. There would have to be a lot more, and they'd have to be more challenging and varied (they could be versions of some of the expeditions, perhaps), but it would give the whole game more shape and a sense of real progress.

Not for everyone, of course, but I think it would be a more interesting notion than Abandoned mode, which seems a bit underwhelming.

[chancan]

Originally posted by ignis:

Gating behind quests is bad, because NMS quests are bad. They are long, boring and meaningless. They are basically very long tutorials, introducing mechanics that don't exist in the rest of game.

First few hours are the most interesting part of the run, and spending a day doing those quests just to unlock a new biome, which knowing NMS wouild be pretty much cosmetic? Nah, not interested.

I don't think you're wrong about a lot of your points. Most questions/lore/writing is all the same super vague meta stuff being retold over and over. Even in expeditions. It's not very creative.

But I have to give it to Worlds 2 update that SEEING a new star being created, followed by all of them becoming visible, even made this over and over retold story seem engaging.

When there's an actual tangible reward to the time you put into this game, anything can feel worthwhile, and I wish more content could be like that.

Originally posted by ✨ZV✨:

After 20+ updates this is the only good one? Are you sure?

They've all been very inconsequential and don't address the main problem of No Man Sky in that it's a Creative Mode Sandbox where nothing really matters and there's no fail states of any kind.
It doesn't matter if you travel for an hour straight on the galaxy map. At literally any point a station is 2 minutes away for you to teleport back home.
It doesn't matter that you used your resources to build an Exocraft station on a distant planet, at any point you can call in your Freighter and beam your exocraft down on your current planet.
And I could go on forever. That's practically all the content. The "endgame" is reached within a couple hours, and that's prefab basebuilding, pointlessly grinding resources, or doing time limited expeditions/daily missions for quicksilver for cosmetics to do more basebuilding.

This is the first update that gives a tangible reward for your time investment.

[stvlepore]

Originally posted by UNBREAKABLE:

Originally posted by ignis:

Because the stat is the best part of the run? Struggling with resources, hazards, feeling a progression with every find...

Once you've got enough tech and resources, the game turns into a walking simulator, since there is nothing you may want anymore. Especially in the current state with building being totally broken.

And boring, artificially prolonged quests thet drip-feed you with a bits of content at best and are absolutely pointless at worst are just making the game worse.

Sounds like a lot of good reasons not to constantly restart.

If the constant struggle is appealing though then may I suggest playing abandoned mode with difficulty settings cranked up?

I like to have goals. Once I have an S class tool, ship, freighter and a couple hundred million in $$ there's not much point to the game for me. At that point, I start a new game.

[UNBREAKABLE]

Originally posted by stvlepore:

Originally posted by UNBREAKABLE:

Sounds like a lot of good reasons not to constantly restart.

If the constant struggle is appealing though then may I suggest playing abandoned mode with difficulty settings cranked up?

I like to have goals. Once I have an S class tool, ship, freighter and a couple hundred million in $$ there's not much point to the game for me. At that point, I start a new game.

The game is pretty much built with the idea that you'll make your own goals though. It's to a fault, but restarting over and over won't change that fact - you just do the same checklist on repeat until you run out things to do.