... Then you MUST do something about animals and resources.

Any new players that you drum up with the advertising you are going to do, will ultimately just leave feeling a bit ripped off when they spend 40 bucks, and cant even get started because of all the 150-270 HP marmots and coons constantly killing them.

It is beyond silly, it is bad game design.

If you had a lot of folks playing right now this would not be much of a problem. folks would band together and group up to keep an area clear so that players could build and have fun together.

BUT... as it is now, animals, even ones that are supposed to be small, have HP and damage abilities much better than most vets. ( "Marmots hits you with 26.3 damage from 12.6 meters away" )

How do you expect any new solo players to feel anything but frustration from this?

I really hope that you fix this before you advertise. If you don't, you will lose most of those that you draw in. When an animal can hit you for 3 times the damage you can dish out and also has twice the HP it seems apparent that you want grouping. Alas you don't have enough players for that.

Why don't you drop them back down to where they were before, then advertise and get new players then later slowly raise them back up as folks level.

I am not chattering here. I am alerting you to a real problem that has been mentioned many times by almost all your active players.

Please fix this asap.