As a reference, I think that one writer/novel that stayed incredibly consistent despite the hate and criticism is Primal Hunter
There are several levels of criticism in writing. It's hard to deconstruct the good criticism, and sometimes much harder when you want to get something from the bad criticism. One criterion that could help sort out this mess is to feel out your readers. Are they liking it? Well, you can ask them to rate your story and the aggregate should return decent numbers. Even Primal Hunter has an average rating of 4.55, which is quite high, even though it is one of the most criticized stories among the most famous LitRPGs. So, ratings, especially when you aggregate them with followers, can go beyond the vanity metrics they usually are.
This is one of the things I'm most interested in. I believe that narrative consistency is the reason why some of the novels we know are so popular. From Primal Hunter to Defiance of the Fall. Maybe, even to The Wandering Inn. But in PirateAba's case, I'd argue that the success is shared with the strength of their narrative devices.