I agree, as much as I said above I dislike base building as a waste of time (and game dev) if it was actually properly integrated into the story, and gave you real gameplay benefits for time invested, then it would be welcome. For example, your home base should be able to be attacked if not fortified (imagine coming back to base and finding out everything was stolen... You could get it back with a side quest to beat a boss in a cave..
And if you invested in fortifications the odds of that go down)
It should also be a place where you can have healers and merchants but you need to complete quests for them to move in. Etc etc. If you're going to do it, make it WORTH SOMETHING
Studios have limited resources. Time spent building a base building system could instead be spent on either another storyline, or another game mechanic like vehicles or some other fighting mechanics. I'd rather have any of the latter... I never use base building. I play Elder Scolls games for the stories. If I want to do base building there's a bazillion other games that focus on that.
