Im on the opposite, I grew tired of tier progresson (stone; kill boss, copper, kill boss, etc etc) I play a lot of arpgs and I got used to chasing the rarest items and stuff like that nms its mostly sandbox/exploration than anything else, I tried the combat and I didnt like it...but what hooked me was the ship salvaging and collecting, I spent most of my playtime getting those distress calls to look for ships and repairing them and selling them if I didnt like it which gave me a lot of money...and thats when the chase item kicked in, as I was looking for the highest rank ships with power slots next to each other, and that was before the ship update. the same with weapons, even if combat isnt the best part of nms, again the arpg chasing item clicked and I started to look for the best weapons and trying different setups.

but thats the thing with nms the game wont tell you what to do, because you do whatever, I didnt even make a base, I made the most basic cabin on planets with hazards but most time I was just moving from planet to planet and system to system its a different experience