I'll never understand f95's hatred of sandbox.
I think when devs make a sandbox, there's no point in them just wasting time.
1. If devs add a sandbox with no interactions/side stuff, go here, click, and next scene, then go here, click next scene, etc.
2. When sandboxes are poorly designed and provide little to no help, what do you do next?
3. free roam, where, when talking to people, literally one choice.
4. devs hide sandboxes behind little content
If the sandbox is easy to follow, provide the necessary steps to the objective and enough content to explore. Avoid making it too short, you dont need 5-10 minutes of content with 5 minutes of clicking around.