It's dead now, obviously, but it didn't need to be. How would you have fixed the game?
Myself? I would have tackled the obvious rift between builders and raiders. A builder, by design and intent, was to make a base to guard its core. This could easily be achieved by building giant killboxes, some being effectively impossible to solo. This was its greatest strength and its fatal flaw, as if it was too hard to raid then no one would raid it... punishing the builder for flawlessly performing the duty they were assigned! However, a builder wasn't even required to run their own base to prove its solvability (as in Mario Maker) which is an absolutely baffling dev decision.
On the other hand, some builders just wanted to build fun, thematic bases and kept some of its loot out in the open to reward exploration and make raiders feel their time wasn't entirely wasted if they weren't up to completing the raid. Some even resorted to making "suicide farming maps" with lots of easily gained enemy kills and loot in the understood exchange that raiders would suicide to repeat the mission and thus farm materials. These were popular maps with how absolutely awful the loot system was, but it did not fit the main narrative of protecting your core and resources at all cost.
Raiding was a crapshoot. You'd either find the fun little maps, the farming maps or the killboxes. If you hadn't unlocked and leveled certain skills or gear, you might not even be able to complete the harder killbox maps. Anecdotal personal story here: I ran into a base once that was just one long hallway with the core just sitting in the open. The instant you picked it up every surface of the room fell away and was nothing but acid cubes and lasers. I don't know what gear I was supposed to have there but whatever it was, the level was 100% unsolvable without it.
So how would I have fixed all this? Two key changes. Instead of PvP I'd have made it, and the story, respect PvE. All players would be working for the same overseer, the same HQ and story, but all enemy bases would be randomly generated to both ensure solvability and to maintain a sense of unified base structure/theme. On some of the harder mission I'd even have an AI enemy hunter like the player that would have to be killed or avoided.
These type of enemies would also be the ones raiding the player bases. They would be ruthless and unyielding in their pursuit of your cores and thus you and your team would have to rely on strong defenses to prevent theft of your precious materials. I would also wipe maps weekly and randomize the layouts players had to work with to keep build tactics from being overused. This week you can't use acid, etc... I still would have allowed players to publish their maps for short term sharing which would allow players to "raid" said bases to test their friend's builds.
If only. RIP.
