I recall my first 3 starts after NEXT. I felt lost and confused and I thought that was fitting. My only issue was that the first 2 planets were so toxic I was dying fast. The first cave I ducked into was full of the poison sac things and that was worse than the toxic storm outside. Then my ship was on the other side of a high and slippery slope that I could not climb and I slid back down it right into a Snappie patch. That finished off what little life I had. Dead.
I do not remember being confused on what to do though. My son has had several friends begin NMS for the first time and none of them complained about anything being too hard.
As for refiners having timers…well, it is a refiner. Having a timer is realistic. Instant refinement would just be weird. I don’t understand the issue he has with that, except that we live in a world where people want things now . No patience.
My only issue with the NMS since NEXT is that the base-building missions require so much mining and refining and I was working with a limited suit capacity and ship capacity and I still had no storage containers. I found that part of the missions to be very tiring. Once I got through it all, the whole game lightened up and became very enjoyable.
So yes, the game does throw you into a deadly situation and force you to learn on the run but, that is how many games begin these days. I have never really heard anyone complain about it before.
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