Are those flashes necessary or coincidental? Would be way cooler without them.
No Man's Sky [PS4, PS5, XO, XBSX|S, PC, NX, XGP]
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Tkumpathenurpahl
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He posted a follow-up tweet (x?) with a few further details, most pertinently: "The flashing jumps have nothing to do with LOD transitions, it’s just a “fixed” jump that we use to cover distance rather than waiting for the camera to accelerate!"
cheapchips
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Which is fair enough right. You just got a refund and will be wary of future Hello Games products.
It's not like it was the first or was last game to launch with poor performance, 'promised' features missing and just not being the game that people expected.
The level of harassment Hello Games received, with police needing to be involve, was totally disproportionate and grotesque. That ultimately adds a level of sweetness to where the game's reputation is today.
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Yes the harassment was uncalled for. The games reputation and hello games reputation to me is still trash. It has taken them almost a decade after release to get the game close to what they promised it would be on launch day.
I played through it a year ago. It's pretty good. But after a while the procedural stuff will make you feel dead inside. It's on gamepass btw. That's how I played it.
What's still missing for me, despite all the updates, is that the game still doesn't feel like a survival-crafting game. The survival element lasts at most 30 minutes or so until you get your ship mobile, at which point the difficulty in the game entirely evaporates. You're safe in your ship forever and can mine endlessly from within your ship. After a few hours or so the crafting/progression is no longer in service of your survival and extending functionality, but in service of completionist grind. Collecting vehicle types you'll never use, building bases on planets you'll never visit again, traveling to new systems that look and function the same as the one you were just in. You never feel lost because you're always a teleporter hop away from home, you're never at risk of dying because your ship can be ported to you where ever you are, you're never short of money because there's no scarcity of resources, and there's no economy or inflation simulation. It's probably the only game I can think of where even a perma-death mode doesn't really move the needle in terms of how big/scary/daunting the game world feels.
Indeed. Ends up so easy to make money, and trade whatever you want. It missed completely the 'lonely survival in space' vibe it launched on. The game really is just a lot of procedurally generated busywork going nowhere. Even the Expeditions didn't change this, but just accelerated your new-game progression with milestone rewards of resources.
It's been quite some time since I've played the launch period version, but back then I recall the main object of scarcity/desire was inventory space. Resource stacks were punishingly tiny and you only got a handful of slots at the start. Granted that having the ability to carry more types of rocks sounds like an absurd thing to have as your primary motivation for trudging forward, but it was at least something that always left you wanting for more. It's kind of concerning that for all the huge content updates they've had they've not been able to find a suitable replacement. Or maybe it's not that they can't, but rather they're just more focused on a casual-friendly, creative-mode-style game loop where people grind missions for cosmetics.
It's the one thing that has me a bit apprehensive about their next game. A huge part of what made games like Minecraft and Valheim work so well for me is the willingness and conviction by the developer to have the game environment be varying degrees of inhospitable, if not punishing. Resource nodes can't be farmed indefinitely, which means continued exploration and expansion is required, and traveling long distances costs time and carries risk which encourages you to build new outposts. The carrot that keeps you moving forward is an organic/systems-based game loop, and you get satisfaction from the act of taming the environment and bending it to your will. In that sense NMS's environment very quickly just starts to register as visual noise because the only obstacle mechanic that really matters is how fast your health/shield depletes. Even the type of damage is something you end up ignoring when you've got a well-stocked inventory. The terrain doesn't matter, the mobs/enemies don't matter, the biome doesn't matter -- 'survival' is a bar on your hud that you continually need to top-up with a couple clicks.
It's the one thing that has me a bit apprehensive about their next game. A huge part of what made games like Minecraft and Valheim work so well for me is the willingness and conviction by the developer to have the game environment be varying degrees of inhospitable, if not punishing. Resource nodes can't be farmed indefinitely, which means continued exploration and expansion is required, and traveling long distances costs time and carries risk which encourages you to build new outposts. The carrot that keeps you moving forward is an organic/systems-based game loop, and you get satisfaction from the act of taming the environment and bending it to your will. In that sense NMS's environment very quickly just starts to register as visual noise because the only obstacle mechanic that really matters is how fast your health/shield depletes. Even the type of damage is something you end up ignoring when you've got a well-stocked inventory. The terrain doesn't matter, the mobs/enemies don't matter, the biome doesn't matter -- 'survival' is a bar on your hud that you continually need to top-up with a couple clicks.
Inventory space was the scarcest, most valuable commodity. They blew that right out of the water with updates to make it quicker, easier and less frustrating.
I agree looking at their next game. If it's a survival game, Hello probably need to bring in some real survival-game expertise. They were great at what they could do, but lacking in what they couldn't and they haven't shown growth to improve in that area. It might be part of the reason for a new game, to start again from scratch and focus on the survival aspect. There have been plenty of survival games to play and learn from since NMS launched!
I agree looking at their next game. If it's a survival game, Hello probably need to bring in some real survival-game expertise. They were great at what they could do, but lacking in what they couldn't and they haven't shown growth to improve in that area. It might be part of the reason for a new game, to start again from scratch and focus on the survival aspect. There have been plenty of survival games to play and learn from since NMS launched!
The game loop and how you approach playing the game really doesn't change regardless of what game mode you're playing in, even if you max out all the difficulty sliders. If not for the save menu specifying what game mode each of my save files are I don't think I'd be able to distinguish which one is "normal" or "survival" just from playing them. You're still invulnerable and un-aggroable while inside your ship or base, and there's no difficulty associated with the process of landing and building a base on any type of planet.
You'll never have a circumstance where you say to yourself: "That planet looks too harsh, I'll need to gear up and prepare myself before landing there" or "I'd really like to make a base on this spot, but this area is too dangerous" or "I'll need to build walls/moats/fences to fortify this base." There's no anticipatory problem solving. The game uses the word "expedition" in various places, but I'd say the feeling of undertaking an expedition is precisely what the game is lacking.
You'll never have a circumstance where you say to yourself: "That planet looks too harsh, I'll need to gear up and prepare myself before landing there" or "I'd really like to make a base on this spot, but this area is too dangerous" or "I'll need to build walls/moats/fences to fortify this base." There's no anticipatory problem solving. The game uses the word "expedition" in various places, but I'd say the feeling of undertaking an expedition is precisely what the game is lacking.
Maybe a comparison of how this fares on PS4 would give some useful context on how impressive this is.
Update incoming ...
www.nomanssky.com
Aquarius Update - No Man's Sky
Hello Everyone! Today, we are very excited to introduce the Aquarius Update! This latest expansion to No Man’s Sky is free to download for existing players, and introduces something that felt like the perfect complement to the new water introduced in WORLDS PART I – fishing! Fishing Fishing...
www.nomanssky.com
5.10 Patch Notes
- Players can now install a Fishing Rig in their Multi-Tool, enabling them to cast their line into any body of water and begin fishing. Purchase Fishing Rig blueprints aboard the Space Anomaly.
- Over 160 varieties of fish are available to catch. Finding each fish will require exploration of different planets, fishing at different times of day and during different weather conditions, and trawling across a wide range of depths.
- Your catch history, including weight records, is recorded in the new Fishing section of the Wonders catalogue.
- Craft specialist bait and apply it to your Fishing Rig to lure in specific fish.
- In addition, any edible item can be deployed as bait. Experiment with different cooked products to find the most effective bait for your fishing feeds.
- A large range of new seafood recipes have been added for the Nutrient Processor.
- Those who do not wish to consume or sell their catch may release their fish back into the water.
- Occasionally, inanimate objects may be retrieved from the water instead of fish. Such objects include procedurally generated messages in bottles and water-damaged technology upgrades.
- Automated Traps are available to research in the Space Anomaly. These self-sustaining units are an alternative to manual angling, and will attract fish as appropriate for the water conditions in which they are placed.
- The Exo-Skiff is a new piece of deployable technology, summoned from the Quick Menu after its interface is installed in the Exosuit. Research the appropriate blueprints aboard the Space Anomaly.
- The Exo-Skiff hovers just above the surface of the water and reacts to wave movement to create the perfect deep-sea fishing platform for those looking for deep-water fish.
- The skiff comes with a dedicated Cold Storage inventory, allowing players to conveniently store their catches.
- The Exo-Skiff can be recoloured via its own internal customisation interface.
- Fishing is fully compatible with first and third person play, and has unique casting mechanics for VR players.
- New music tracks have been added to accompany the fishing experience.
- Expedition Fifteen, Aquarius, will begin shortly and run for approximately six weeks.
- Rewards include new posters, decals and titles; a deep-sea diving suit customisation set; the unique Lost Angler’s Rig fishing rod; and the exclusive Aquarius Flightpack.
- Water reflections are now enabled for PSVR2.
- PCVR now supports reflections on the water while running with reflections set to Ultra.
- Fixed an issue that could make it difficult to interact with some space station objects while in VR.
- The jetpack effects used while underwater have been improved.
- Fixed a number of rendering artefacts related to water.
- Fixed a number of issues that could allow ships to spawn with the wrong landing-gear state.
- Fixed a visual issue with icons when switching pages in the Catalogue.
- Fixed a minor visual issue with the Liquidator mech.
- Fixed a rare issue that could cause items to be transferred to a deprecated inventory when Quick Transferring to a full Exosuit inventory.
- Fixed an issue that could cause mineable objects to incorrectly display a STEEL label.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the Left / Right Handedness option from being immediately applied to the third person camera.
- Allowed the Multi-Tool to remain unholstered when in Photo Mode in a multiplayer game.
- Removed the deprecated Shutter Door base part from the Catalogue.
- Fixed a number of water rendering issues with some specific base parts.
- Fixed a number of water-smearing issues when playing in VR.
- Fixed an Xbox-specific texture rendering issue.
- Fixed an issue that could cause black speckling in depth-of-field effects while playing with screen-space shadows enabled.
- Fixed a rendering corruption issue with starship cockpit screens.
- Fixed an issue that could cause graininess on PS4.
- Fixed an issue that could cause ship juddering during warp.
- Fixed a crash related to dialogue interactions.
- Fixed a PS4-specific memory crash.
- Fixed a PS5-specific crash related to shader loading.
- Fixed a crash related to explosion effects.
- Fixed a number of issues related to the loading of freighters and frigates.
- The messaging around some Vulkan-based GPU compatibility issues has been improved.
- Fixed a stall/hitch when switching between inventory pages.
- Introduced a number of optimisations while accessing the inventory.
- Introduced a minor planetary rendering optimisation.
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