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No Man’s Sky update adds ‘trillions’ of planets (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/games@sh.itjust.works

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[-] junkthief@lemmy.blahaj.zone 91 points 1 week ago

I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum, as the review scores keep improving so obviously folks are liking it, but you’re not alone if it still doesn’t click. They keep polishing it and piling on more stuff, but the base game is still rather disjointed and in my opinion, easy to burn out on. Procedural generation doesn’t mean any of the procedurally generated things are going to be interesting.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago

Yep, I had my fun on it, but without true PVE it's just another exploration/building game.

[-] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 week ago

You mean PVP? It's got Playter vs Environment in spades.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

No PvE. This being a coop game, it's missing real challenge for pve.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Which is? Admittedly I've only played the game for a couple of hours, but I remember there being PvE, so you're going to have to be more specific into what is it that you think is missing.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

It has no real pve. It's got a few things that might attack you on a planet or the pirates in space. But there is no real danger in the game. There aren't factions on planets trying to kill you or systems controlled by groups that require a lot of work to clear out. Planets feel lifeless and space feels like a walk in the park... add in 2 friends or more and it's a joke.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

By that definition Minecraft also doesn't have PvE. Factions are not required for a PvE, and lots of PvE games don't have them.

You could say that you wanted the PvE to be harder, or more unforgiven, or even more complex with factions. But to say the game has no PvE is just wrong.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Minecraft has no real PvE. It's literally not billed as a pve game, pve on Minecraft is a side thought. My example with factions is just that an example, it's not to say that the game lacks pve because it doesn't have them. I don't care how hello would implement more pve but I just want more of a challenge. NMS has no real challenge because it lacks real pve.

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[-] Tiefkuehlkost@feddit.org 13 points 1 week ago

True, i put something between 100 - 200 hours into it and while they repeatedly add "special stuff" i cant really motivate myself to go back, exploring feels boring after some time and the pve is ok but not good enough to be a motivation in it self, but to be fair im also not the collector type of guy and there may be a dedicated fanbase who enjoys this.

On the other hand not every game has to life for ever and if the average player has 50-100 hour of fun and than never again touches the game than that is also totally fine.

[-] Psythik@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Yeah seriously, no matter how much they tack on, it still doesn't make the base game fun to play. Nothing more boring than a game that feels like a job.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I love Factorio, and many other games some call "job simulators." Done well, games can feel like jobs and be good. The difference is when it feels grindy, or if it feels like you're doing novel things and actually accomishing things. NMS just feels grindy, and like you're doing the same thing over-and-over, without any reason to continue.

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[-] codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 66 points 1 week ago

Well that's good, I was just getting close to running out of the old planets.

[-] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 33 points 1 week ago

Kind of wild they keep going.

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago

To be fair, I think most of the more recent changes are just backporting engine upgrades and stuff from the new game they're working in. That's still a lot more effort than just saying that, but it's not like they're developing explicitly for NMS anymore.

It also let's them test the upgrades in a real environment before the new game launches, preventing another mess at launch. It's a smart use of resources, keeping people discussing how well you maintain the old game going into the new game. It's free press, along with probably more sales.

[-] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 2 points 6 days ago

Thanks for explaining this! :)

[-] barkingspiders@infosec.pub 23 points 1 week ago

if all it takes to keep a developer improving their game is to hype it to the moon and then turn it into a meme when it releases then maybe we should do that more often /s

forreal forreal though these game devs are the shit and I'm grateful for all the work they keep putting into this

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[-] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 31 points 1 week ago

When they say “trillions of new planets” they mean one new biome with the plants and rocks in a trillion different places.

[-] taladar@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 week ago

I wonder how many trillions of floors Diablo 1 had if they had used this weird way of marketing No Man's Sky uses.

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 17 points 1 week ago

Isn't the game's universe randomly generated and had nearly infinite worlds since launch? 🤨

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[-] Fades@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Just more procedurally generated and boring as fuck “new planets”

[-] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago

To be fair, what this really means is that it adds more options for proc-gen. This means planets will be more diverse, which is good. The actual number of them is totally pointless, but it's easier to report in than the tangible effect.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Why is trillions in quotes? Did they add them or not?

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago

I write a planet generator. All of the planets are the same to begin with, so realistically I can only generate "1" planet. Then I add one toggle which is random, if it's on the planet will be completely water. I now have "2" planets. Now I add another toggle for one huge mountain, I can now generate "4" planets (dry,water,dry-mountain,water-mountain). Keep adding toggles, sliders and parameters until you have "trillions" of possible planets and you're done.

The funny thing is that the changes are cumulative, so if I release a game that can generate X planets and I add a binary toggle I can now claim I added X planets to the game. If I add a slider from 0-9 then I added 10X planets. So since No Man's Sky already had a giant number of planets, adding trillions of them could mean something as stupid as they added a new resource to the game so now every planet can have that resource in different amounts.

[-] birbs@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

I thought I'd check which 2^N gets you to a trillion, it's N=40. So you can have 40 parameters per planet and add one more, then suddenly you've created an extra trillion planets.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

And that's assuming just toggles, if each parameter has 10 levels you only need 12, then add one toggle and you get trillions. Heck, I can name 12 parameters that have at least 10 different values off the top of my head:

Amount of water overall (oceans and lakes)
Amount of mountains
Amount of Forrest on the land
Amount of life forms
Temperature
Amount of moons/rings
Size
Amount of rivers
Whether the landmass is one big continent or multiple small islands
Amount of volcanoes
Amount of caves
Amount of iron (or any other resource)

Congrats, if you now add a does the planet rotate toggle you've created trillions of planets.

[-] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

It’s a procedurally generated universe(s). These systems haven’t all been pre-generated, but will rather be generated to explore when a player visits a system for the first time.

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[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 12 points 1 week ago

I'd trade that update for one that fixed the jank combat. I will continue to complain about the gun being auto-holstered after 2 seconds without firing as one of the worst parts of combat, so "line your shot" is a terrible strategy because by the time it's lined, you'll miss due to the animation creating a 1s lag between click and shot.

The almost random targeting of what you'll interact with when holding E is another big annoyance.

Capital ships are a total letdown, too. All they do is sit around motionless in space. Can't destroy anything bigger than a fighter.

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Hey, at least they added inventory sorting!

You know, after a decade of people asking for it. And without fixing the several fundamental design flaws that made the inventory a nightmare to use without sorting in the first place.

But at least they thinly papered over one of the game's most hated bits!

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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025

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