I never liked mining throughout beta. I would spend the least amount of time doing it as possible--I hated it. It was boring. Stand in one place and whack on a rock over and over again. Oooh, fun <sarcasm>.
After the co-op mining rewards were recently increased to the point of making group mining actually worthwhile, I tried out Ajaya Bliss and loved it! It was like a party in there with everyone having so much fun, and the mining was no longer repetitive and boring because a single rock would be finished off in one whack, and then I could go bouncing around, searching for the next rock, or chatting with the rest of the party-goers.
A new style of mining has emerged today, because someone figured out the order in which the sparkly rocks regenerate. This means that everyone knows exactly which rock will spawn next, and there is no longer any reason to jump around and be on the look-out in between rocks. The place doesn't seem like a party any more--the "leader", who has the list on hand, tells everyone which rock to go to next. Everyone goes to that area. Then, they all stand there and wait, motionless, until the rock regenerates. They are then told which rock to move on to next, and off they go. If you go to a different rock, you are chastised. It seems alot less fun now--I liked it better when it was more chaotic. Now, it is once again just a bunch more of the same: stand in one spot mining for a little bit, then stand in another pre-ordained spot waiting. No thought involved--just go where the leader tells you to and stand there, and don't go out of line or you'll be yelled at.
I was disturbed by something someone said to me today, which is what prompted me to write this: I am a level 2 miner. I mine VERY slowly. I tried doing the follow-the-leader thing properly many times. I went where I was told. I waited... but it was hard to see exactly when the rock regenerated because a huge number of people were all standing right in front of where the rock appeared, blocking my view... The best sign that it was there was when others started to mine. So, I frantically try to hit the rock, succeeding towards the end when most everyone had already started. I got 1 to maybe 10 bonus chunks with around 30 people mining. This is pitiful. Even more pitiful is that my slow mining time meant that I was still mining that first rock after everyone else had finished it, moved on to the next rock, and finished that one off too. So, I get one whack in on the first rock, get a handful of bonus chunks out of it, and everyone else gets to finish off 2 rocks in the same time. I realized this was a waste of my time, so whenever 2 rocks spawned next to eachother I would move to the second one (which the group would be moving to in a few seconds), and start there so I could begin my excruciatingly slow mining in time to actually get some benefit from the other players when they arrived and helped me. Still, I only got one whack in while everyone else finished off two whole rocks, but at least I could get 50 bonus chunks instead of 1 to 10.
I was yelled at for doing this (along with around 2 other people that were doing the same). When I explained why I was doing it, I was told that low level miners should go mine somewhere else! Unbelievable! As a history lesson to everyone: these new high co-op benefits were implemented specifically to benefit low level miners, because people were complaining that it was unfair for a high level miner to come by and finish off a whole rock that a lower level miner was slowly working on, only giving the low level miner 1 bonus chunk in the process, but depleting the whole rock before they could even get their second swing in. The bonuses are higher for low level miners: it makes sense for them to want to co-mine, and no one should tell them that they should mine by themselves if they can't keep up with the "big-boys". This is not the welcoming and inclusive atmosphere of Glitch that I'm used to.
I can't wait until I get through Better Learning V so I can learn the other mining skills and be able to mine a decent amount of rock by myself, without having to rely on the help of people with that attitude.
Tl;dr: Sheep following a leader around to specific regions where rocks are pre-known to respawn is less fun, and the draconian rule of "play my way or the highway" will turn off alot of players, especially low level ones that aren't benefiting unless they are one of the first to start a rock.