EFE has turned into a great game.   However, we keep seeing quite of number of posts from people who disagree with the current balance and want one or more major changes made so the game will be more fun for them.   Some of those requests might be done at this point (while others are being suggested a bit too late in the process).    However in making key balance changes now to meet even the more reasonable requests would very likely cause other players to have less fun.

There is no easy way to make everyone happy.   However, one feature that has been incorperated pre beta 4 has helped a whole lot with that issue.    Allowing the player (before the game starts) to select things like the frequency of monsters or resources, size of the world, level of difficulty, etc helps a broader range of players to enjoy the game.

This is fairly obvious.    However, the underlying learning is interesting:    Don't  make a major change in some balance feature in a late beta game unless the change can be handled by giving players a pre game menu choice.  Otherwise there is a risk of optimizing the game for only one sub set of players.

Not everybody things the same gameplay features are fun.