When you get down to it, this game’s core design is basically “How would players react to a MMO that’s the exact contrary of other MMOs in every way?”.
Raid parties and separate instances? Let’s put everyone together.
Max level takes forever to grind? Set max lvl to 20 and make it reachable in a matter of minutes.
Death is a slap on the wrist and you can keep the same character forever? Permadeath.
Either make it a typical RPG or a hack’n slash? Bullet hell.
In the end, it failed. Players came en masse because of how addictive the formula is and because standards for the f2p market are abysmally low, but they didn’t react positively to the core design decisions and instead we get shit like leeching, ruining public dungeons, etc.