As someone who gets no enjoyment from grinding the same content over and over zerging, dungeons, or group events but still managed to get 5 level 80’s I have to say…
I don’t know as I ever had 40g on my characters at any one time.
What this appears to amount to is a great big nerf to anyone who might be a tad introverted and doesn’t want to be surrounded by people all of the time. Which was the way I ‘play your own way’.
I have no problem with people who love being surrounded by a bunch of strangers all the time, but for me, I had 2 or 3 rl friends I played with or I solo played. So dungeons weren’t really on the cards and group events weren’t very fun for me.
I enjoyed the open world, I enjoyed the variance within which we could do our own thing. Get new gear by crafting, dungeons, random drops, zerg trains, it didn’t matter.
Now I won’t be able to even get all my traits. That’s not the game I purchased, it’s not the game I spent way too many gems buying character slots to play, and yea, I’m a little disappointed by this.
I hear that there are people in Orr again though, doing the events again, and I think that’s great. So i guess if you enjoy large group play, then this is a positive change, and I would never try to force you to play my play-style. If you’re someone like me, then this is a big downgrade.