GCU Grey Area wrote:
Tend to spend a bit more time than that at each location. Like to wander around, see what's on the other side of nearby hills or in the caves, visit other nearby structures, scan lifeforms (got a pair of S class scanner upgrades - animals are generally worth at least 200k, plants 40k, scanning everything on a planet can be worth a couple of million or more), identify local mineral resources, decide if it's a good location for a permanent mining base, and so on. Not at all unusual for my exploration of a single location to take an hour or more.
If you're only doing smash & grab raids on outposts (as it sounds from your post) think you're missing out on a huge chunk of the game.
Things is ... that's how I first started playing it. I mentioned 82 hours on the clock, most of it probably spent on the first 20 systems or so. I went after everything, I checked the data log to make sure I have collected most if not all the species on that planet, I flied around to find that last 1 species I'm missing, I went into caves to find that one last missing fauna. I tried to search for as many ruins as I can find. I did all that for the first planet I landed in a system, that I did the same for the next planet, and the next one, before jumping to the next system.The problem is ... there is so much interest I can only hold after scanning the 100th rock and realizing it looks oddly familiar to the 1st rock I scanned 20 systems away. Sure, specie #ABC123456778 have a different name, but I found that as I was scanning, I'm more interested in the progress bar on the scanner than how the specie looks, and the moment I turned away I don't even remember what that creatures looks like. Seeing a cave? Go over that hill? Why? Spending more than 3 minutes checking factory #20 after grabbing the blue-print? Why? There is nothing compel me to do it, because I don't expect to see anything different than what I had seen dozens or hundred times before. That's the problem I have with procedural contents, and the gameplay of NMS doesn't have enough depth for me to get my creative rolling. (And the fact I don't have lot of that doesn't help mind you
)
There are two other games that I played:
- Empyrion - Galactic Survival: this game feels almost like a budgeted copy cat of NMS, but despite it looks far worse than NSM, still in Alpha, I already have way more fun with it than NMS. It has an interesting approach of combining procedural and handcrafted contents. The story planets are handcrafted, while the other planets are procedural generated. But even as the planet geographical data is procedural generated, the surface itself is populated with handcrafted content. And the POI (point of interest) is far more interesting than NSM. For example, exploring an Abandon factory in NMS is a quick land and grab, an abandon factory in Empyrion is a dungeon, that can be approached in different way:
+ The normal/rambo style: load up gun, ammo, health pack and crawl through the infested building, clearing one hall way at a time. And prepare to die a lot if you're by yourself.
+ Some players after dying so many times, got pissed enough they leave ... but not without a plan. They go back to the base, grind out resource, then hours or even days later come back in a loaded spaceship and nuke the whole building down. Some decided to come back in a tank loaded with artillery and level the place, one way to vent your anger I guess.
+ My prefer method is to use a mining vessel and dig a tunnel all the way to the foundation of the structure, blow it up and see the place crumbling section by section.
+ Some still prefer to clear it the traditional way, but load themselves with C4. Instead of moving by the established path, they blow up wall and floor to carve out their own shortcut through the building.
+ And none of this has anything to do with the building side of the game, which make the base building in NMS feel severely restrictive. And again, this is a game in Alpha.
- Subnautica: as mentioned people call it the NMS under water ... and I can't see why.
+ When I see a cave, or a open with a strange light coming out, it got me curious. I went into it and was like "wow, didn't think there is a place like this". I tried to go deeper but than my tin-can can't handle the pressure, so I had to go back with plan to come back one day with a better tin can.
+ I was scouring the sea floor for resource, moving in the open as if I owned the place. Than suddenly my camera shake up side down, then I heard a scream. In panic I eject, and crawl under the nearest rock (literally speaking), I saw something massive grab my little tin can and smash it onto the sea floor. As the creature move away, I looked at the piece of my tin can and sigh "welp, there go the last one hour worth of resource", and then swim all the way back to my base. I feel shaken, but at the same time oddly satisfied.
+ I remember another player was talking how he was innocently explore the space, and he saw "something" ... his reaction was "yeah, I gonna log off the game right now".
+ I got a bigger tin can, the kind that make you feel safe to be inside. As I was cruising, looking through the camera to map the seafloor, my radar lit up with 2 red dots. I got back to helm, hit flank speed. The next seconds the AI told me I'm under attack, I was like "crap, emergency float!!". As I tried to run away, the camera shake as the submarine was being ram, water start leaking all over the ship, even right at my face. The damn AI told me my engine is overheating. 6 seconds later it reports the engine room is on fire, and I haven't installed a fire fighting system. The next 20 seconds was a race for surface while my internal monologue was "this is not happening, this is not happening!!". The ship broke surface, I get off helm, grab the fire extinguisher, rush to the engine room to put out the fire. After the fire was put out, as I repair the breaches on the hull, I thought "damn that was close."
+ And different players have different way to address situation like that in the game. Some becomes more sneaky, other bulk up, and some decide to conquer their fear ... in the most literal manner.
See, these are what I'm seeking in an exploration games. The dynamic, the creativeness, the anxiety, and the occasional thrill. Above all, it must compel a sense of curiosity. I explore a cave because I wonder what inside, I step in a building because I'm interested in its content. It doesn't help with motivation when my main feeling was simply "oh look, it's just another cave". It maybe true I play NMS very mechanically, but I think it's because it doesn't offer much beyond that.