So can someone who has really enjoyed the game help me understand the core loop?
I bought the game day one and didn't care for it and decided to wait until the team had time to flesh out what they wanted to do. A year later, here we are.
I'm even coming as a person who considers Minecraft Survival mode to be among the greatest gaming experiences ever, so I'm fairly open-minded about a non linear structure.
What bothers me and STILL bothers me after all of these updates is that the actual loop action of being on the planet consists of mining materials to build a better spaceship so you can keep going to the next procedurally-generated planet where they may or may not be a few traces of benign lifeforms rolling about.
I don't care about multiplayer. I don't care about base-building. I don't even care about improved ship control. None of that matters if the purpose of the game - this narrative that keeps being bandied - about exploring strange new sci-fi worlds really amounts to a bunch of pretty but uninteresting worlds with no real life.
I've been waiting on the 'GTA Patch' or the "Far Cry Patch' forever, ie, basically, a patch that will put somewhat interesting animations and routines and lifeforms and ecosystems on various planets. I'm trying to understand what is interesting about going to a new planet if the potential for watching a new and strange eco-system just isn't there? or ANY ecosystem? I just want to enjoy passively (or disrupt) the circle of life on a strange new world. That, I imagine is the REWARD for playing. That's the whole purpose of going to new planets, right?
When you compare this to something like Minecraft or Elite: Dangerous, their loops and rewards are obvious. Minecraft, particularly survival mode, is about lasting each cycle as you build a more robust home for protection. You advance through exploration of world which you directly affect - which is rewarding. The building is rewarding. The combat is simplistic, but the atmosphere makes up for it as you struggle to make it to the dawn. Your skills grow, your creation becomes more complex, and the loop continues until you've evolved to create complex mechanisms (which are rewarding) and ultimately explore your way to the core of the universe.
Elite: Dangerous' entire game is about flight, which is complex, so the act of doing it successfully is the reward. Adding combat, complex exploration, and mining on top of that just builds on the core play.
What is NMS? It's not about the flying. Is it about collecting minerals? Fighting boring robots in the same caves? Flying off to the new landscape, and repeating the process so you can build a better ship to do the same thing?
Sorry for the rant, but i'm not one of those NMS haters. I never cared about all of the stuff that wasn't in the game because i figured it would get there eventually. I'm just hoping that some fan of the game can explain what I'm missing so that I can start playing it that way because I REALLY want to enjoy this game....
