Its both... thats the problem.
Been on a lot of forums, and def MO playerbase has a lot of 'unique voices.' haha. Not only are there common themes, but, further, there are some really smart people here. There are some really smart unstable people (ahem,) and really smart more 'voice of reason' types. Someone always comes in with the WoW stuff, they come in with the U THINK U KNOW BETTER THAN THE DEVS? But honestly, they could MOSTLY fix the game in 1 patch. That's the eternal FURY of most of the 'whiners.'
At least 1 good faith patch to show they were moving truly in the right direction. Like I said (and people before me said, and Dracu said again,) they made butchery a 'fill circle' timer. Nothing changed. Prol why most people are in animats. The game is massive duped and you see fewer people in steel than you did MO1 pre TC haha. EVEN THO a lot of things changed, like Bakti having a furnace, etc... sab nodes sprinkled here and there, enough to get some powder at least. The game is easy mode, but it's turned into a grind fest.
For instance, all the shit my friend and I built is gonna fall TO TAXES because I don't have the energy to grind up the lores he had specced. I got stax in houses w/ no one to process them. It makes me nauseous to think of speccing back into extraction and then waiting it out. I have a little bit of pull to the game... like nooo it can't end like this, but... haha.
Again: yea, there is major wonk. It isn't fair w/ EU/NA. There is cheating. However, the core of the game (minus all the missing content) is 'good enough' to play for free. However, it's just a slog.
Tell me I'm wrong that they didn't turn MO into a grind fest. People who camped trinks day1 are still feasting. People who camped flux are feasting, etc.
*The one thing an open pvp sandbox should not be is grindy.* <--- my repeating thesis statement.
Sure, people need to mine, people need to gather, people need to farm, but grind on top of that? Grind locked content? Unbelievable. The single biggest waste... and the biggest mistake MO made was making the game more grindy. The grind is MENTAL: facing adversity and overcoming. Test of will. They added protections to make less 'will' required and tried to compensate for it with... grind.
PS: I'm not a red. I've never been red IN MY LIFE. I've def messed w/ people, rather thru words or actions tho, sandbox style... heh.
Again, the grind... the carrot on the end of a long stick will inspire some players for awhile. Eventually, it will defeat the player base. I, for one, do not want MO2 to 'die;' however, it would be breaking from theory and the history of games I've played and seen it happen for it to not collapse with this 'model.' And we're not even at sub yet. Haha, you really can run 3+ accts no worries, and that does kinda help.
I still think the goals in a sandbox should be influencing the world (some people call it control, but there are other ways to influence,) and involving yourself in the unfolding history of the game. That the goals are like... let's farm for this book or let's minmax our gold per hour... it's just bad mojo. Not to mention there are arguably already too many ways to make money, so they cannot properly be contested.
But ye, it's salty. The part I don't understand is, other than the people who put in the grind at the appropriate times (events, bugs,) who really likes this model? Who asked for this?