While this is true, I think it’s a flawed way of thinking, depending on how you view the game and progression and success.
If the Devs and the Players, treat the game like an MMORPG, so like Archage, or SWG, where there are some creative bits, but the RPG Elements are the main focus, leveling, skills, and progressing to get higher things. Then of course Progression and Success at that progression matters. This is what’s happening right now, where people can get very frustrated with how hard it is to level up, and being forced to level up multiple alts. But there could be more.
The game is marketed as, and talked about by the community and devs, as a Creative Sandbox, more like Minecraft, Playstation Home, and Second Life. Where the ‘Progression’ and ‘Success’ is more in creating stuff for yourself and other people to enjoy, than bigger numbers, skills, and levels.
Boundless blends the two, having Levels, Skills required to do certain things, a very heavy focus on combat to ‘kill’ blocks to look them, and so on. It forces people to think about progression, skill, and being successful in the game. It focus on ‘Combat’ and grind, and thus makes me want more. More ‘combat’, aka things to hit and pick up. More grind. More activities.
Where as with a Creative Sandbox, it would be about more stuff to use to create. Take Minecraft for example. Even the basics when it started in Survival, people loved the heck out of it, even tho it was so simple. And when it updated over the years, got more and more complex, it didn’t add extra grind to the game, it added extra creative devices. Fences, Glass, Glass Panes, Stone Bricks, Netherworld, and so on.
The people didn’t go “Oh yes! More grinding to do to progress!” Cause other than the Materials for Tools, and how to get those materials, there is no ‘Progression’ in the game. Anything else can be mined and done with anything else, in any order, at all point in time. Compare that to Boundless, where you need certain skills and thus a certain level, with certain tools to be able to just get onto T6 worlds and able to break the resources and blocks there, and not get mobbed by the enemies.
Which ultimately, I think is what’s holding Boundless back. The excuse it needs an End Game, the excuse it’s an MMO and thus needs a grind. The excuse it needs to be hard, and not simple and easy. Some people like the grind, yes. But it’s been proven, again and again, that the majority of players don’t like grinding, and pointless repetition. It’s even been shown already, that the number of players since release and now, even in the middle of the game’s first major event, is halfed on the PC, and it wasn’t even that big to start with, compared to any other ‘MMO’ game.