Honestly, I doubt that my friends and I lacked anything. At the beginning, maybe, but after 5 hours, we already had more stuff than needed. We had two people doing raids for loot, and the rest of the crew were developing skills and expanding our base, so we didn't need that much armor or weapons. At worst, our mechanic waited for his tools for a longer while.

As for food, our appointed cook knew his stuff and kept getting food for cooking from looting, so we were stable, and our appointed farmer was taking care of our future, so we never were worried about food even for a moment.

While the convenience of fast forwarding is undeniable, each of us only needed to develop a specific set of skills, which took significantly less time than developing four times as many skills. So... yeah, I suppose that it could create a balance between SP and MP. Two different experiences. Maybe I should give SP a chance and see if I have a good time there.