I think this is comparing apples to oranges. NMS doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on its survival elements because it’s not trying to be a survival game, its emphasis is on exploration. The survival elements are there as constraints that let you differentiate your exploration experience (ex. Hey maybe put on some radiation shielding mods or else you’ll be constantly applying uranium and life support). Yeah, you can speedrun the main quest because the main quest isn’t really supposed to be a massive burden. You can land, collect all the Special Red Rock that you need, and then jet off. But why? You took the time to come out to this planet, why not explore it?
Odd to read your description of the side content as distractions. Beyond how there are systems acting as complements to exploration (exocraft for ex) or are there to explore themselves (ex fossils), which id say directly tie into the core loop, it’s just weird to me to view gameplay as distractions. Morrowind directly invited the player to go explore things besides the main quest, and it’s regarded as an excellent move for encouraging player freedom. This just seems like an analogue to that where the game is inviting you to explore other systems to see how you like their fit.
As for what is offered to you after the end game… You get to keep exploring, like you’ve been doing and the game has been encouraging you to do the whole time. I don’t know what else to say – you got a can of beans, why is it a problem that it didn’t come with any tomato and some salad at the bottom?
(Though I’ll grant you that NMS would be kick ass with some mods, id love to see that!)
But you end up “exploring” the same stuff over and over.
Theres no reason to actually explore a planet - pretty much everything you want to do/see is taken care of at any random spot you choose due to the single biome planets.
You’ve got like maybe 6 different versions of flora depending on the enviroment type. If your lucky they give you a color change too so instead of all green tree A you’ll get a red tree A .
Now I know it can be explained away by the games lore, but when the main goal of the game is to explore it doesnt really help.
It doesn’t even matter how many galaxies/universes you jump to - it’s all still the same limited number of assets with the same limited color wheel.
I think this is comparing apples to oranges. NMS doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on its survival elements because it’s not trying to be a survival game, its emphasis is on exploration. The survival elements are there as constraints that let you differentiate your exploration experience (ex. Hey maybe put on some radiation shielding mods or else you’ll be constantly applying uranium and life support). Yeah, you can speedrun the main quest because the main quest isn’t really supposed to be a massive burden. You can land, collect all the Special Red Rock that you need, and then jet off. But why? You took the time to come out to this planet, why not explore it?
Odd to read your description of the side content as distractions. Beyond how there are systems acting as complements to exploration (exocraft for ex) or are there to explore themselves (ex fossils), which id say directly tie into the core loop, it’s just weird to me to view gameplay as distractions. Morrowind directly invited the player to go explore things besides the main quest, and it’s regarded as an excellent move for encouraging player freedom. This just seems like an analogue to that where the game is inviting you to explore other systems to see how you like their fit.
As for what is offered to you after the end game… You get to keep exploring, like you’ve been doing and the game has been encouraging you to do the whole time. I don’t know what else to say – you got a can of beans, why is it a problem that it didn’t come with any tomato and some salad at the bottom?
(Though I’ll grant you that NMS would be kick ass with some mods, id love to see that!)
But you end up “exploring” the same stuff over and over.
Theres no reason to actually explore a planet - pretty much everything you want to do/see is taken care of at any random spot you choose due to the single biome planets.
You’ve got like maybe 6 different versions of flora depending on the enviroment type. If your lucky they give you a color change too so instead of all green tree A you’ll get a red tree A .
Now I know it can be explained away by the games lore, but when the main goal of the game is to explore it doesnt really help.
It doesn’t even matter how many galaxies/universes you jump to - it’s all still the same limited number of assets with the same limited color wheel.