From 2016-2023 = me.
I only started with Voyagers (Expedition 11).

It's a sandbox game. If you don't want to have goals pre-determined by devs - you're free to do so.

Expeditions are fine to have. Even considering that you can get all stuff from it without playing every one of them.

Yep. I started back in 2016 as well. Haven't played in more than a year, but unless something has changed the expeditions are voluntary. You could just start a new game and go 'rogue'. Read that many players like to do that.

I have a feeling most players do the expeditions. They are a very short romp through a small area of the galaxy and you get to change your normal play style to just focus on the tasks of the expedition.

It did take me a while to remember to stop trying to play an expedition as a normal game. If it is not required for the expedition, just don't do it.

I know that is easy to say, but once you can make the mental shift they are fun. They usually introduce some kind of special conditions not found in the normal game and getting actual useful rewards for completing segments feels great.

I think the longest I ever spent on an expedition was 30 hours...but that was when I was still thinking I needed to do things not required to complete the expedition. I take my time, and they usually are 20 hours or less to complete.

Originally posted by earlyPlanet:

I don't play Expeditions because following a fixed path feels too restrictive and suffocating. Honestly, I wish NMS had no goals or objectives at all. That would be the most fun for me.

I have never played an expedition and never will. It annoys me they are spending time on that instead of improving what's in the game. Like more resources for the procedurally-generated worlds to draw from.

I really like them. Well, I didn't like the Haloween one. That one was annoying.

All the others I loved 😁

I usually don't. They tend to highlight the parts of both the game and the player base that I absolutely hate about this game.

For example, in the current one there's an objective to find 8 undiscovered systems.
1, I hate the people who freighter warp into a system, scan it & move on without ever touching a planet's surface. The objective encouraged players to do just that & not explore anything.
2. There were tons of whiny little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who expect everything to just be handed to them & there were countless threads from those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ whining that they couldn't find 8 systems out of how many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ quintillion systems that will never be found.

Those are just 2 examples about a single objective in a single expedition. There were just as many people whining about the fishing objective because apparently they learned to read from a Teletubbies coloring book.

I made an exception & did the current one, just hoping to prove myself wrong. I had the idea on the last one but all the rewards were trash so I skipped it. The current rewards aren't much better, but at least they're not a goofy looking participation trophy of a ship or retarded head gear.

To each their own & if that's how people want to enjoy their game, so be it. There's plenty of unexplored systems to give them plenty of berth, but it doesn't make me hate them any less.

[edit]fixed a typo - the keyboard on my 'new' refurbished laptop doesn't have a working capital T or Y anymore[/edit]

I tried one, got griefed and said the hell with it.

I generally like expeditions. They provide some welcome variety.

I imagine there are plenty of people who don't do expeditions. They don't offer any new gameplay, and they are a curated, led-by-the nose experience, which kind of goes against the grain of the game itself in terms of the reasons many people play it.

I personally like expeditions, mainly because I like having an excuse to start the game back at 0. My favorite part of the game is the early game where I have no technology and just a crappy multi-tool and starship and I have to labour to get-better stuff. Expeditions offer a shortened version of that experience, which appeals to me.

But for people who don't like that early game experience and don't care about entirely non-essential cosmetics, or at least don't care about getting them legitimately, there's not really anything positive about expeditions when you think about it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to decide what color to make these teletubbies in the book I'm reading.

You have over 1600 hours in the game so you pretty much have to know that you don't have to do diddly you don't want to. So many settings have been added to the game. HG dunna care and one else should. There are ways around most everything and personal goals are a thing. There will be that list hounding you but if you have been married any length of time or work in a bureaucratic institution you know how to tune out nagging, errrrr white noise...

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Originally posted by earlyPlanet:

I don't play Expeditions because following a fixed path feels too restrictive and suffocating. Honestly, I wish NMS had no goals or objectives at all. That would be the most fun for me.

I have never played an expedition and never will. It annoys me they are spending time on that instead of improving what's in the game. Like more resources for the procedurally-generated worlds to draw from.

In fairness, expeditions are pretty fast and easy for them to create and they have a lot more resources available now. Plus some things created for expeditions, like the Hungering Tendrils, do eventually get added to the base game. The cursed was probably a beta for Worlds 2 content.

I love the expeditions, personally. NMS is a great sandbox game, but if you've been playing a while (I've played on and off since launch, but only have around 300 hours) it's sort of refreshing to have some sort of structured adventure from time to time. I like "starting over" without having to start another save. I don't want to run multiple saves so I get a quick fix through the expeditions. After a while you sort of hit a kind of limbo (at least I do) where I simply don't know what I should be focusing on. Especially if I haven't played in a while and forget what I was even doing lol. Usually i'm just base building or Farming for S class ships/frigates/freighters

Plus, the expeditions almost always have a few really cool rewards ships/armor sets/companions/etc. None of it is essential to the game, but neat none the less. The first few tiers of objectives can be a bore sometimes though since they're trying to use it as a tutorial for new player. You can whip through that quick though if you're familiar with the game. I do wish they'd drop a really challenging expedition though for people that have logged the hours.

I also play them with multiplayer disabled. less shenanigans to deal with that way.

Originally posted by Ozwald:

I usually don't. They tend to highlight the parts of both the game and the player base that I absolutely hate about this game.

For example, in the current one there's an objective to find 8 undiscovered systems.
1, I hate the people who freighter warp into a system, scan it & move on without ever touching a planet's surface. The objective encouraged players to do just that & not explore anything.
2. There were tons of whiny little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who expect everything to just be handed to them & there were countless threads from those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ whining that they couldn't find 8 systems out of how many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ quintillion systems that will never be found.

Those are just 2 examples about a single objective in a single expedition. There were just as many people whining about the fishing objective because apparently they learned to read from a Teletubbies coloring book.

I made an exception & did the current one, just hoping to prove myself wrong. I had the idea on the last one but all the rewards were trash so I skipped it. The current rewards aren't much better, but at least they're not a goofy looking participation trophy of a ship or retarded head gear.

To each their own & if that's how people want to enjoy their game, so be it. There's plenty of unexplored systems to give them plenty of berth, but it doesn't make me hate them any less.

[edit]fixed a typo - the keyboard on my 'new' refurbished laptop doesn't have a working capital T or Y anymore[/edit]

I can enjoy something even if there are no rewards, as long as the process is fun. But I absolutely can't stand enduring something uninteresting just for the sake of a reward.

'I dislike air travel, why do we have air travel, they should just dismantle all air vehicles to suit my likes/dislikes'