Sadly I have seen an increase in recent years of people actually asking for this… that the leveling system be removed completely because it’s just, according to some, a waste of time before the “real” game starts.
Granted with scaled leveling in current expansions it sure feels pointless now, but surely the solution is not to remove it entirely.
It saddens me that so many people these days can’t appreciate the journey… they just want to skip from one destination to another, like some deranged game of drunken hop scotch.
Ahhhh… I’m maybe getting too old for all this.
grumble grumble
But anyway, I absolutely agree with you. While nobody likes artificially inflated content via maddening map designs, arbitrary time gates and RNG up the wazoo, that doesn’t mean that we can declare war on everything that increases our time played. It’s just not a black and white issue like that. Sometimes, more time is just what the doctor ordered! Sometimes more time is what makes things meaningful and fun. You really have to take it on a case by case basis… and in general, the death penalty absolutely is a valuable and worthwhile time sink in terms of making our adventures dangerous enough to be truly engaging!