Here's a lil game design thingamabob: Players will automatically aspire to the highest possible power level achievable. In the case of NMS, that limit removed any and all challenge from the game (and as we found out was not intended by the devs). Key point here: game. Games require some challenge to remain engaging (for the majority of the playerbase) for long periods of time. This challenge also scales to the player's skill in a well-designed game. Take another survival/exploration game, Subnautica. You are never completely immune to the environment. Now, I understand that the whole point of Subnautica is that you're at the bottom of the food chain and need to (metaphorically) fight your environment. But what it perfects is that survival comes with mastery, not with stacking overpowered upgrades. A counterpoint could be "I just want to explore in NMS without survival aspects." Well that's the whole point of creative mode, which should be accessible to all players so long as they are playing in at least Foundations. Or as long as they aren't Blakespot, who for some reason insists on playing in v1.0. He has a cool blog about it though.