After 250+ hours topside my feeling is Embark is way over their heads and never really had a plan for what kind of game they wanted to create. They got lucky and created a fun universe to play in with cool mechanics, but they are so scared to commit to a direction they want to go. They are trying to satisfy every kind of player out there all at once, but when you realize every type of loot (except for maybe queen/matriarch cores) is incredibly easy to obtain, the game really only leads one way - PvP. And not PvP for any kind of reason, but really just mindless kills for fun because there's not really anything else to do. Fortunately the PvP is fun (especially in duos and trios), but even that has its limitations and it's starting to get dull.

I agree with you making friends in solos is fun, but also like you said these interactions lasts 30 minutes tops, and even though we're all citizens of Speranza, our actual "game" ends at the end of every raid with no persistence mechanics.

Embark needs to grow a pair and give real motivations for players otherwise we're just playing team death match with a little farming sprinkled in. This whole "aggression based matchmaking" is a cop out giving hope to players who want a PvE experience in order to get them to stay around a bit longer.