Should No Man's Sky focus on quality instead of quantity?

[theicewind]

I've been thinking a lot of about this lately. There are so many areas in No Man's Sky and yet so many are lacking, like they are spread too thin. After playing expensively for over 2000 hours my conclusion is that the game is only fully, well-developed on 2 fronts: exploration and base-building. I am simply unable to critisize the game on these 2 aspects as they are done incredibly well for such a small, indie studio. The story is also well-done, but it's up tp debate.
Everything else is lacking. Combat, Variety of freighter interiors, interiors of space stations are all the same in shape(they even removed those rooms on the back and the design we had for like 6 years, why not keep all 3 in some way?) and so on and so forth. Take expeditions for example. There are 4 expeditions a year on top of other massive updates. Sounds great right? Except expedition steps are repetitive and are often the same for many expeditions. And because it's such a small team the expeditions are under-developed. Like, imagine if instead of just having abandoned space stations in the Adrift expedition we'd have ALL 4 types of space stations, but NPCs wouldn't be there and lights would be dimmed as there would be no one to service those stations, same with Space Anomaly, imagine lights were dimmed and it would feel truly empty and dead. The feeling would be way creepier than what we got.

Or having tons of rewards for expeditions as starships. There are so many of them, yet they are pretty much all the same and aside from visuals, lack unique features or abilities. Like imagine a starship could teleport a short distance, like behind a pirate dreadnought or something. These are just my ideas I quickly came up with, I'm not saying these specific things need to be in the game, but you get my point - instead of making tons of flash and content how about releasing less content, but much more interesting and higher quality? Like 2 expeditions per year, but way mroe interesting than what we get. Combine the most interesting stories for the expeditions, remove the mundane and boring tasks like "scan 10 plants" and add more interesting things to do, having less expeditions would allow for a better focus.

What do you guys think? Should the game have less, more developed features or is it fine as it is?

[theicewind]

I'd also like to add how the artists and designers are working their a**es off, it seems like those responsible for actually coming up with new game mechanics, adding new music(seriously please add more music in the game, since Next there was barely anything new) are doing almost nothing.
Take exocraft for example, sure they look REALLY nice, but they are barely different from one another and lack the abilities on-foot exploration has like scanning(seriously what the heck?) and starship's ability of flight. Or Settlements, sure they LOOK nice but there is pretty much nothing to do in them once it's built. I like the saying "work smarter, not harder" and I believe Hello Games should apply it to No Man's Sky.

[gNg]

TLDR Don't like it? Don't play it.

[theicewind]

Originally posted by gNg:

TLDR Don't like it? Don't play it.

are you a 5-year old? that's not remotely what I said. You think I would have played over 2000 hours if I didn't like the game? Or are you of an opinion that anybody who likes the game thinks it's perfect and doesn't need any improvement?

[Alexander The Great]

its a good shower thought

[theicewind]

Originally posted by Alexander The Great:

its a good shower thought

or if you play the game for enough time. The game has tons of visual content but lacks the gameplay mechanics to fully embrace that content and make it meaningful

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Your question assumes we get a choice in what Hello Games does. We don't.

The realities of the updates it they are quick to build and sell more units. They could spend two years to release a very sophisticated update of some feature, but the math does not work out- especially on an eight year old game. They could add programming staff, but they don't want to get big.

So accept their decisions or move along. You are not in control here.

[Atman]

This game is about quantity, not quality.

[theicewind]

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

Your question assumes we get a choice in what Hello Games does. We don't.

The realities of the updates it they are quick to build and sell more units. They could spend two years to release a very sophisticated update of some feature, but the math does not work out- especially on an eight year old game. They could add programming staff, but they don't want to get big.

So accept their decisions or move along. You are not in control here.

another one who presumes things about me. I never said I'm in control or even the whole community is. I was simply speculating, that's a big part of what discussions are for. One of reasons is - maybe people can come up with their own, interesting ideas on how the game could be improved, it's interesting to discuss even if we won't change anything.

EDIT: Example of me pretending to be in control would be "Ok guys I'm gonna fix this game and you are gonna help me" yet my tone is nothing like this throughout my posts.

[theicewind]

Originally posted by Atman:

This game is about quantity, not quality.

Yet exploration and base buillding are at an excellent quality right now. They could remain half-baked like they were in 2016, but Hello Games pretty much perfected them.
No Man's Sky is one of the best games in these 2 areas that I've ever seen

[Felis_Exploria]

Originally posted by theicewind:

What do you guys think? Should the game have less, more developed features or is it fine as it is?

I am happy with what they are providing. I know that although they love this creation and will continue working on it for at least a while, they are working harder on LNF. They are clearly using NMS updates to test some features for LNF. I am not expecting any further in-depth development for NMS. The only tweak I hope for with each update is more reasons to explore caves. I want to have getting lost in a cave meaningful because of the reward (whether item, FOMO widget, or NPC mission). However, I would consider this a minor change to the already dominant exploration theme of the game.

[lordoftheapes79]

NMS is limited by the algorithm. Any content it adds, needs to work with the way the game is structured.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Originally posted by theicewind:

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

Your question assumes we get a choice in what Hello Games does. We don't.

The realities of the updates it they are quick to build and sell more units. They could spend two years to release a very sophisticated update of some feature, but the math does not work out- especially on an eight year old game. They could add programming staff, but they don't want to get big.

So accept their decisions or move along. You are not in control here.

another one who presumes things about me. I never said I'm in control or even the whole community is. I was simply speculating, that's a big part of what discussions are for. One of reasons is - maybe people can come up with their own, interesting ideas on how the game could be improved, it's interesting to discuss even if we won't change anything.

EDIT: Example of me pretending to be in control would be "Ok guys I'm gonna fix this game and you are gonna help me" yet my tone is nothing like this throughout my posts.

Yeah, it is all about you. I just pointed out the question you pose assumes what we might talk about has any bearing on what Hello Games will and can do.

[theicewind]

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

Yeah, it is all about you. I just pointed out the question you pose assumes what we might talk about has any bearing on what Hello Games will and can do.

A direct quote from your first reply "You are not in control here."
I've made a screenshot so don't bother editing it. You started with "we" but ended with "you"

[theicewind]

Originally posted by lordoftheapes79:

NMS is limited by the algorithm. Any content it adds, needs to work with the way the game is structured.

both of my ideas work with the way the game is structured. Different-looking space stations? They already did it by re-painting the orginal stations we had back in 2016 as "abandoned" stations. Teleportation? we already have it in all sorts of ways in the game.
These things would take time, but making 4 expeditions per year also takes some time. So we could have 2, higher quality expeditions instead.
Another idea is - someone takes control over your starship and makes you pulse towards a certain spot of a star system(could be done in an expedition) we already have similar mechanics in the game.

See? I'm not suggesting anything revolutionary, the game already has mechanics which would allow for this.

[Chirico Cuvie]

Well, you have seen quality lately in triple A games? It's boring, why? They don't have much to do in terms of gameplay compared to NMS.
That's the main reason why triple A games are in a bad spot now. Yes beautifull, but boring as hell because everyone is lazy copying gameplay and DLC mechanics.
Also when graphics are getting near realistic, they look all the same and often not they just re-use an existing model asset from an unreal engine 3D library website, secondly they give you another reason to get new hardware for their lazyness.