I am relieved to read that you are working on simplifying the game. I fell in love with the vast world that can be explored in my living room without teleportation, but I felt like I was missing the point of the game because I didn't want to spend hours deciphering the UI and reading tutorial text.
If it is made much simpler to choose a loadout, upgrade tools and weapons, and customize your character, and if tutorials are integrated into the gameplay, then this game will be freakin' legendary!
I want to get rid of almost all the menus. Unlocks and weapon crafting are going to be a much simpler system that's possible to follow for a human being and I plan to place them in the game's world.
I am almost done with the current update, initial version of dynamic spawning system that will require some work when the new gameplay loop is implemented. But before that, the last missing element - the open world.