Simply put, Hello Games went for more realism in NEXT and here's the proof:
Conclusion: NEXT certainly has improved graphically, but it is lacking in color palette diversity when compared to AR.
EDIT: If anyone has seen anything just like in the AR images in NEXT, can you state how close to the center of the galaxy you are and/or which galaxy you're in?
Posted Aug 13, 2018, 3:27 AM UTC · edited
My biggest issue with the old color palette was that it always drenched the planet in two colors that looked awful. Like purple and orange. Sometimes that was cool, but other days I just wanted to find something with one solid color. And they were much harder to find in my experience.
But the radioactive ones did look cool. I found a lime green one and a pink one. They were the strangest looking radioactive ones I've seen.
Absolutely, and currently the two color palette exists although it makes sense. I would still love to have some planets with that kind of AR craziness, just not often. It provides incentive for continued play during the endgame. Currently all the planets are stupid beautiful. So endgame is somewhat shorter as it's always been about getting the best..
I honestly have to agree with you. I do wish it was an option. Planets with white/purple grass were super cool. Also wishI could find a black one. ;/
I honestly think it's a bug. HG mentioned that with Next there would be lots of new color schemes added, but instead most planets look the same and some even have what I would consider to be 'no color'. Something has happened when they tried to add in new colors or overhaul the way the color palette is procedurally generated. I'm betting in a future patch we'll see something like:
"Fixed an issue where environment color palettes would be lacking variety or be absent altogether"
My guess is that the use numbers generated by using a set of rules that define what colors can or cannot appear together. For a demonstration, try going to paletton.com and clicking 'Randomize' then 'Unlike colors, similar style'. I think that they've changed these rules to allow for more colors or more unique color combinations, but a simple error in logic somewhere in the code has probably instead reduced the possible color combinations, making the planets seem less interesting. It should just be a matter of fixing this error, if that's the case. There is a similar error in the procedural name generation for minerals - which is why every planet has up to three different minerals all named Yukovsite right now.
It's also possible the changes were entirely intentional, and it's disappointing if so. However, HG is very responsive to this community and a lot of people have been posting about wanting the old colors back, so I bet they'll change it anyway.
For any lush planet I discovered since NEXT theres literally only 4 distinct grass colors:
And considering the amount of planets it's kinda sad. The variation is the biggest flaw right now in no mans sky imo.
They just got more rare. Also that comparison is incredibly bad. 1.3 had green grass too, you know.
I would love to find more brightly colored planets. It seems like all worlds of the same type look more or less exactly the same, just with slightly different rocks and creatures.
I've seen planets since NEXT with similar over the top color pallets. They do still exist.
I have yet to see anything as wild (for lush/paradise/humid/etc planets) as what I posted from AR. I really do hope they exist still. Possibly, are you close to the center of the galaxy and/or are in another galaxy?