No Man's Sky: Voyagers update releases today, introduces customizable "colossal, fully furnished, completely bespoke Corvette-class starships"
Voyagers Update - No Man's Sky
As someone who last tried No Man's Sky out about 5 years ago, it looks like it's time to give it another shot.
This game has added so many systems over the years, but it still just hasn’t really grown into anything of substance. It’s a game where the only real “thing to do” is mindless busywork. 200 new systems, all created to a standard of absolute minimum viability, none of them are very rewarding on their own, and none of them really create interesting interactions with each other. It’s like they every system was added with the idea that they’re optional, which makes them all feel unnecessary.
You can build bases now, but there’s no real reason to other than to do so. There are settlements you can become the leader of? But what that entails is essentially nothing. The game is designed from the ground up for you to move from planet to planet without lingering too long on any particular one, and yet they added a bunch of mechanics based around specific planets.
It’s a really bizarre product.
It isn’t a game I play. It’s a universe I visit from time to time. I fucking love it
thats the perfect game for some people.
would have liked to play this, but its just too much to jump into now. would have been nice if it was functional from the get go.
ill probably end up giving light no fire a try as theyre probably more in their element as developers in regards to a game of that scale
Eh, I picked it up last year and had no trouble hitting the ground running. I did make it harder on myself by skipping the storyline and just figured things out as I went, though.
To me, it's a similar game to animal crossing. Lots of things to do and customize, not alot of depth. But, some people enjoy that, and that's okay. And I gotta give them credit for adding so many updates over the years.
My dude, you sound like a south park character. I'm not even kidding. Just dont play the game if you dont understand how to create your own fun.
I don’t play the game, I prefer games that are fun on their own without me having to create my own.
This describes literally every single video game ever, though - there's never a reason to do literally anything beyond "I want to" because it's almost entirely time wasting entertainment anyway.
Now, these procedural games often fail to create much of a reason to 'want to'. But sometimes I prefer that to the transparent, skinner-box optimal game design in many other genres.
I just wish there was more to it. Every update adds more to do, but no reason to do it. Now we have a puddle as wide as an ocean.
There are two types of gamers:
Some see an open world sandbox and say "Wow, I can do anything!" and pick their own goals.
The other type says "WHAT it's pointless!" and wants some kind of arrow pointing at the next objective.
Cool false dilemma.
It's one thing to be given a sandbox, and another thing to be given a toy box. Maybe your imagination lets you take it as far as you need, but some people need more of a purpose to justify putting time into it as opposed to something more productive.
I was about to dispute this, but I think its essentially correct. I for sure fall into the second camp, and while I despise the minimap bloat of a lot of newer games, I do want something that is going to guide my actions a bit. I want to like No Man's Sky so much, but playing it feels like work. Endless tasks with no satisfaction except whatever personal pride you happen to glean from a job well done.
There's gotta be a sweet spot between "I dunno, do whatever" and "here's a map of everything interesting, do it all". I think Breath of the Wild had a okay balance, but still not great. Maybe something more like Morrowind's "here's verbal clues, now go figure it out" approach
There's two types of gamers.
People who like sandboxes with the understanding that there are some toys / structures to play with.
People who just like playing in sand and don't care if a sandbox is literally just a box of sand.
Unfortunately the “anything” is limited by what the game allows. If “anything” isn’t what you find interesting, then you’re gonna drop the game pretty quick.
Agreed. While it's still pretty cool and I definitely respect their continued updates, I really only play for a few days every update then move on to something else.
Aside from the creative aspect to it, there really isn't much keeping me engaged for long
Me too, pretty much, but I'm fine with that. Every couple of months we get a new content drop (for free!) and I go experience the new stuff, max out everything new there is to be maxed out, and then I can put it down and play something else. I appreciate that NMS doesn't try to make itself my full time job or require such an asinine time investment that it forces you not to play anything else.
I think the only FOMO aspect built in to NMS at all is the expeditions, and even then you can replay them any time you want with a third party tool (on PC, anyway).
Hah. Same complaint I had about Elite:Dangerous. Lightyears wide, one inch deep. Gotta hand it to FDev, though, they really try to keep community goals happening.
The combat and ship customization (parts, not cosmetics) keep me coming back to ED over NMS. The core gameplay is somewhat samey with your options being combat, mining, trading, or exploration, but there is a bit more incentive. Players can now colonize their own systems, and powerplay is some complex bullshit that I occasionally participate in.
NMS is kind of a chill vibe, which I don't mind, but I'm not creative enough to build ambitions bases so once I collected everything I was kinda burnt out. Also fuck fleet stuff.
My exact feeling!
I really don't know what to think about this game. It definitely has come a long way, but to this day, it feels... Shallow.
It's a sandbox game where building, crafting and trading are not great, not terrible. It's also an adventure game, but the story is overall very predictable and combat is again, not great, not terrible. It's a multiplayer game, except no, not really, since you don't share quest progesss and almost never meet random people (if you aren't close to the center of the galaxy).
I'm about 200h into it and still can't tell you if I like it or if it just keeps me busy. I have high hopes for Light No Fire tho.
Well, you've spent 200h on it, so clearly you must enjoy it.
Nothing bad with enjoying a shallow game.
That’s a really bold assumption lol.
I play it when I’m really depressed.
I would say that I enjoy the game and feel that the developers have invested a lot of effort into building a panacea of a game that is sort of low stress and maybe a little repetitive, but it gives me something to do, and I can set goals for myself that are… well, absolutely batshit.
My current goal(s) are to get my settlements to S tier (pretty close on this one), swap all my frigates over to supply ships (If you repeatedly assign the same ship to the same sorts of missions, it will level up just that stat, so you can have a supply ship that has a high combat stat, etc), and build resource bases so that I can automatically collect every kind of automatically collectible resource in the game. I’ve also visited about 20 universes, and think it might be fun to put a resource collection base in each universe (that I have the patience to visit) and then just go hang out at the anomaly so folks can use the teleporter to fling themselves to universes unknown.
During my first time playing it (not long ago), it was pretty obvious where new content was layered on top of old, mainly because none of it really works together all that well. It feels like there’s a lot of stuff to do, but none of it is all that cohesive
Also the building system is like pulling teeth (on console anyway). I can never get anything placed where I wanted it if my build was at all complex, particularly stairs as I can recall
First I'd heard of Light No Fire, wow yeah, that looks great. Honestly, I think their style lends itself more to fantasy than SciFi, this could be great.
Your mistake is thinking it's a sandbox game. In my opinion, it's barely even a survival game.
Sure, over the years they have added a lot of systems, but as you noticed, they're all pretty shallow, and on top of that, have basically no interaction with each other.
I go back to it like yearly, hoping it will stick and it never does. I dunno why. Too alien maybe? Too empty or soulless?
Someone about it just doesn't feel right and I can never stick it out
not great, not terrible
So, it's good?
It's okay. As the other comments pointed out, it kinda feels like a really cool tech demo. Lots of systems to look at, but everything is disconnected. That's what makes the game feel shallow. You can completely ignore most stuff without any consequence
ITT: people vaguely complaining about NMS but not pointing to anything that's wrong with it.
Y'all know you can not like a product without something being fundamentally and at-its-core wrong with it, right? It could just be not your cup of tea?
I personally have been having a blast making my Corvette and am excited for the new expedition. The fact that I got all this stuff for no added cost makes me feel even better about the time I'll have.
Mile wide, inch deep. I've no doubt (as excited for this update as I am) that this will be the same.
Basically they just add a framework for new features and then leaves it there without building it out.
I've read "Mile wide, inch deep" often enough in this thread that feels less like a problem and more like a thought-terminating cliche to me.
Is it a flaw to have a lot of smaller things you can do without them needing to be complete experiences themselves? They're not trying to make a different game out of these expansions (except Light no Fire I guess lol), it's still going to be NMS at the end of the day
I love NMS for what it is. A sandbox. Some people don’t like playing in one. That’s fine.
Totally! Not for everyone and certainly doesn't have to be.
But I did hope that people who are making the leap from "I don't like NMS" to "NMS isn't good" would offer more to consider than the vibes not being there.
I'll be honest with you for me personally I just don't have the patience for the game. I just want to build my ship with whatever parts are in the game and explore. that's it. I don't want to mine resources, I don't want to wait in some random station for some random ship to show up that MIGHT have the part I want. I don't want to do any of that.
I barely made it out of the tutorial and forced my way through it.
Nothing wrong with NMS but I didn't want to play it the way it made me play it. I just want to build in peace and explore.
That's fair! And for what it's worth, the game now offers a creative mode that alleviates the need to mine resources if that's not what you're looking for. That might be what you want out of it?
Fair enough. The creative modes are definitely worth considering, you can set build cost to zero, eliminating the waiting and farming. Survival aspects can also be tuned, so you can stand in storms and feel like a god.
But you just don't understand. Sean Murray personally lied to me nine years ago!!! Boycotted forevar!!!
(Edit: I thought the sarcasm in this was clear enough but maybe it's tough to get through to some people.)
My wife bought me the game and for years I didn't pick it up. Couple years ago I decided to finally give it a try.
I'm on my third playthrough and am making a sea base for fishing and deep sea exploration. All commanded from the bridge of my dreadnought. I haven't played in a couple months but am glad I get new things to do again. The amount of updates and changes absolutely amaze me.
I got 150 hours out of this game and I think that is very much all i will ever play.
For a good while it was even quite interesting because there were still a lot of new things to discover.
But then you started to do things just to get them done not because they were particularly fun or interesting.
If they don't implement some fundamental new way to play this game or combine existing mechanics better together I don't think anything could pull me back.
And i hope procedural generation starts to die very soon. Throwing the same basic ingredience into a mixer does not give you something new but more of the same. It's boring.
Couldn’t have phrased my NMS experience better. It was interesting at first then it got boring / repetitive
I mean if it was 150 hours (or close to) before it got repetitive, that's better than 98% of games.
I absolutely love the vibe of playing the game, but yeah a lot of the systems they add feel isolated and rather pointless. There's a settlement system where you can basically be the mayor of a settlement, developing it and managing its growth - but it doesn't really lead anywhere. They have fishing, crop growth, cooking - but it doesn't really support anything in particular. There's an extensive creature taming/breeding system, but creatures don't seem to do a lot afaik.
Yeah, i feel same-ish.
I used a save game modifier to unlock the cool stuff hidden behind the grind. Since then I spent some time building a base in a nice looking planet and flying around looking for a cool world.
Thing is, you are right: it gets old fast. Planets are boring. There are some cool combinations here and there, but 90% of them are just the same old same old. Seen them once, seen them all.
From time to time i still hop in, but it doesn't grab me more than a couple of hours every six months or so.
Honestly, i wonder if generative ai would work for a procedural game like this. Any 'errors' could just be written off as alien flora/fauna or a glitch in the simulation.
My biggest problem with exploration in NMS is how quickly it all becomes the same thing.
Hell if they just made planets multibiome that would go a long way to eliminating that cookie cutter feel.
I keep being enticed back to trying the game again with each new release but the gameplay just doesn't grab me and there's such a limited amount of story that it doesn't get its hooks in me. I guess I'm just not a crafting/survival type.
If they have an expedition then play that mode. I really do not understand why they do not keep an Expedition or two running at all times. They add exactly the amount of depth folks find missing and normally I can run one and then I still play and have fun for another 20 hours before the game gets repetitive and I quit for a bit again.
Expeditions are amazing, but I've only finished one because I'm usually out of the loop and start them way late. It would be amazing if they brought old ones back into rotation so people who are new or just missed them could earn the rewards eventually. I feel like they have enough now to make a pretty good rotation without feeling repetitive
I appreciate that the devs keep updating the game, but honestly I don't get it. Sure, there are a lot of planets. There's not any reason to one over another though. They're all procedurally generated with the same general stuff (yeah, you'll need to travel for specific resources). For me, it just feels like I'm wasting time, because it doesn't make you feel like you're doing anything meaningful. I can't be the only one who feels this way.
I don’t get how/why it’s still profitable for them to keep working on it - but I’m in full support.
It’s not to dissimilar to Minecraft in a number of ways, in a sense - there’s not really any drive to do anything in particular, it’s ultimately up to the player to do what they feel like.
It’s a literal sandbox, rather than a narrative experience. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s perfectly fine!
But in MC there is a drive. It's not an extrinsic goal though, rather entrinsic needs. You need better gear, you need food (and maybe you don't want to spend time doing it so you automate it), etc. NMS has a notion of this, but barely. It's enough to say there is progression, but it doesn't feel like you're progressing.
That said, I barely got into base building. Maybe that's where things get good, but it takes far to long to get to that point that I'm bored by the time it's a real option.
I'm glad people like it. I just don't understand why.
I played about 75 hours of it back in 2019. Most of the time I was driven by the same thing that drives me to spend dozens of hours in open world RPGs wandering and finding stuff before doing the main quest. It also helped that it had good VR support, and I had just played a ton of Skyrim VR that same year.
But of course in NMS, there is no main quest to return to when things on the open road get slow. And you do not have the same had designed locations and loot to stumble across.
In retrospect I can see parallels with f2p games that are just an infinite numbers-go-up grind. The game is designed such that you do the same shit forever. (If my info is out of date though, I welcome corrections)
From the trailer I get the sense that it’s not so much just for NMS players but pushing the engine forward with meaningful changes. Sounds like this update especially benefited from improving the engine that has the work of benefiting this game and the game they are releasing next.
While I wouldn't quite call it a Journey Game (a la Elite Dangerous), it is very much not about The Destination.
People play it because they like to play it. The idea isn't to build an endgame character who can do anything and everything. The idea is to build a lot of different characters that do a lot of different things and so forth.
And, grain of salt, but based on my own personal experience and non-rigorous polling of the discord and reddit, the vast majority of regulars are just playing it seasonally. A new update/season drops and a lot of folk hop on to play it.
But it speaks to the fundamental nature of live games/MMOs/whatevers. Some (probably most...) people want to work towards goals and check boxes off. Every single thing they do is a pop-up saying how amazing they are. Call of Duty is the most well known example but it is also very much why games like (ugh) Kingdom Come Deliverance do so well. Number go up and everything you do Matters because the game told you it does.
But there are the weirdos (yo) who... kind of just like playing games? We don't need a pop-up saying we are a good boy because we either make our own goals or... we just like the way it feels to play a game. The Elite Game genre (not to be confused with the Elite series... which are Elite Games) tends to be emblematic of this but it is also what made Arena Shooters so popular in the day.
I play a lot of Squad, which has no progression or anything that's tracked from match to match. I've also played a good bit of X4, which is a space sandbox game, where you mostly set your own goals. Factorio is also one of my favorite games. I'm fine with games where you set your own goals. I just don't get NMS.
I think part of it is that there's absolutely no friction when saying. For example, flying makes it impossible to crash. There's just nothing at stake and progression feels mostly pointless. If there was danger or a threat to defend against, I think that'd go a long way to making it feel like there's a reason to do what you're doing. As it is, it just feels like chores.
I want to like this game so bad. On paper it is exactly the kind of game that I love, but trying to play it multi-player with my partner is just an experience in frustration. It seems so perfect for multi-player, but so much of the interface just seems setup for one player only.
The UI design has always been a weak point in the game. Through all the revisions.
It really says something that like the first mod that was ever published after release was the one that eliminates the damn hold-to-confirm mechanic that is on every. Single. Stupid. Interaction. (At least this became an official feature and you can natively disable it on most interaction prompts now.)
The fact that basically none of the inventory and crafting screens are consistent with each other is one of the main things that still bugs the hell out of me with NMS. Especially when you're using refiners and so forth, because the dumb popup they give you that only shows you like four options at a time doesn't even arrange the items within it in the same order as they are in your main inventory. They should have just stolen the paradigm from Minecraft and used it for everything.
One of the best redemption arcs in recent video game story.
Maybe the only game that actually has a redemption arc?
I can't think of any other game that was so panned for so many things that turned it around like Hello Games did.
The only other games I can think of with any sort of redemption arc the main issues were because of bugs not swaths of missing features.
Cyberpunk 2077 would be another big one. A lot of the issue was bugs, but also a lot of missing content.
Elite Dangerous:
I fell off E:D a couple years back because of a lack of progress and how FDev treats the suckers who bought the lifetime expansion pass (also I am not entirely sure if my VKB+Thrustmaster mess will work in Linux and am procrastinating...). But apparently space legs are still restricted to basically the tie-in FPS from EVE?
But nah. Hello Games did a HORRIBLE job of marketing this but the game that should REALLY be angry is Starfield. Because the Corvette system is just their ship builder but in a game where you can actually fly them.
Might just be a bit burnt out on games like NMS and Elite. A whole universe of unique but equally irrelevant rocks.
What fun stuff is there to do at essentially an end game status? NMS probably does manage better than Elite though, at least you can build a house or something. Or make your freighter hangar pretty.
I gave up on Elite shortly after launch. However, I do keep tabs on it on occasion. The end game of Elite is basically choosing factions to support and helping them take over star systems. Honestly, it seems at least intriguing. I can't say the same for NMS.
I haven't played in a while, this is piquing my interest again! I love how vast this game is becoming, more major gaming studios need to follow their example when it comes to rehabbing a game that came out initially as the worst version of itself. Still haven't even gotten to the center of the universe, I might try again as the path is really weird.
This game and the developers deserve credit and support for what they created. I need to spend more time in that sandbox universe, I feel like I've only scratched the surface.
I hoped on lemmy to look up some news since I saw the steam artwork changed and here was this post at the top
Haven’t read the notes yet on what we get but I’m excited
Nooooo i cant play right now, the fomo is getting me
Have they changed up the flight physics in that game at all since like 3-4 years ago? Combat always felt like it was on rails compared to like Elite or x4. I like that there was a lot of other stuff you can do but that really took me out of it.
Nope, still the same as it always was. Still has the "easy mode" targeting where if you reverse the ship it will keep itself pointed at the baddies for you.
It reminds me a lot of Wing Commander: Privateer from back in the day. Games where your guns only point forward just devolve into spinning fights.
It doesn't really help, but I find NMS space combat feels a lot better to me in VR.
The added immersion really covers up the "on rails" feeling for me.
Look at these comments 🤣
Oh boy do people love hating NMS. I get it. But like it or not, there is literally no game out there doing what this game does for its players at absolutely no additional cost.
For those who aren't aware: The problem with this game has always been its fans. Not the players, but the fans.
"ThIs GaMe WaS aLl HyPe¡!” Then why did you hype it?
"iT wAsN't WoRtH tHe PrE-oRdEr!” Then why did you pre-order it?
"It'S nOt EvEn A gAmE" Murray literally said it wasn't a game, in 2015.
Not to mention it was a rag tag game dev studio who through that hype had their dream come true, did they’re best to deliver it, and have continued to work on it for over a decade now. People are human; and they’ve more than shown it wasn’t ever intended as a grift.
No doubt! I didn't really get into it until after update 4 or 5. But now it is just amazing that they keep going.
My biggest comfort game that just keeps getting more comfy! Been holding out on VR experience for Valve's VR device but it seems like it'll be far off - might as well jump back in.
When I tried it a few years back there was this really strange field of view and input lag that felt really clunky when moving around the world. Anyone knows if that's been fixed?
They've fixed the fov (although maybe I used a mod) input latency was better than before but still not perfect.
Cool, maybe I'll give it a shot again sometime
I've had it on my wishlist for years but my laptop would probably run it at like 20fps which is just low enough to be miserable
Roomscale VR when?
Okay but is the game fun yet? I hate all the procedurally generated bullshit. If you've seen one planet in this game, you've seen them all. NMS is somehow even more boring than Starfield. At least that game gives you something to do. A boring story is better than no story.
I started playing NMS a while back, but I had zero clue what I needed to do. I guess I need to go back and check if I skipped a tutorial.
I played it until I had a star destroyer thing and then I stepped away and now I come back and I don't even know how to fly my ship or do anything I don't know what's going on I'm in Old Man
can you rephrase this sentence
So far all my attempts have culminated in a freeze followed by a crash after one to five minutes of play during the tutorial sequence. Let's see if that update changes things
I've tried two times to get into No Man's Sky, because the concept is exactly something I would enjoy. Every single time I get stuck in the tutorial looking for some fucking broken ship on the other side of the planet and an inventory of random minerals.
I think I'd like this game if the art style wasn't so lame. But this I'm an old snobby sim player so I don't expect many people to agree.
Cool, when are they gonna patch all their bugs or is that just never gonna happen?
They've released a ton of content and game enhancements since 5 years ago. I just picked it up a couple of months ago and I'm floored by how good this game is. Yes, it's all randomized/procedurally generated and that's why it's so vast. The story is okay but not AAA amazing, but definitely check it out if it's been a while.
Might hop on with a few friends in a few days, I'm already excited to see the current state of the game!
Yes there's a story, and it's decent. At release you wouldn't have even experienced the full story, iirc. So if that interests you, you could try it out again.
Yeah, there's a couple now from what I've gathered. The different "path" storylines.