That's not right either tho. You're conflating. AHH forums, but check it.
The game needs to thrive on PLAYER INTERACTION. I legit had a dream about Mortal where I spawned into a town and ended up being in Fab w/ bugged guards and had to escape then I met this girl (girl avatar) that I was walking around and interacting with, she was doing things like... sitting at a table with other people, peeking thru a window at me, pretending to fall over... obviously some of this speaks to my own derangement LOL... but PvE is A RESOURCE in a sandbox. PvP is not the right word. It's P2P, the game needs to add player TO player content, not content v bots that requires more players. It needs to require players to interact as much as possible, and the more interactions they can do, the better. Legit RP content ( decorative/flavor crafting, sitting, eating at tables, having beds in houses as the only thing that would let you 10 sec log in them etc) would bring more than new mobs/new dungeons/new mats. That's just real.
You saw that Nave News vid? That shit was classic. That's the kind of content that needs to drive a sandbox. PvE will always be dogshit, tho dynamic spawns are cool. Just like people who want lawless zones, nah that's wack and contrived... unless the zone is EVERYWHERE OUTSIDE OF X DISTANCE from town.
So in SUMMARY, it doesn't need PvE, it needs simple ENVIRONMENT for the players to interact with and, more importantly IN, and more ways for them to do so. The game could survive without anything but rocks, pickables, and animals, if the pop was booming and there were the right tools. That's a visionary hot take, but it would. Please focus on building THE WORLD. Pvp v Pve is a false dichotomy imo. Make the world REAL. More dogshit mobs that drop diff things is not gonna change anything cept for a few days when people farm it for whatever new mat it gives.