On a fresh character in a fresh server I have a massive desire to explore. You check every little nook and cranny because everything is important. That by itself feels good but add on the fact that a random item on a ledge could turn out to be something game changing for you makes the world feel exciting.
When the crucible was introduced the game shrunk. We know from discussions the devs want an everything game not a crucible game so we needed a mechanic to bring us back out into the world. The solution was daily content. Daily content was fine along side the old crucible because we needed a motivator to break up the grind. Fun little tasks to change the pace before going back to the grind.
With making the crucible a mini game I have found myself with new problems. I don’t want to explore without dailies. I need to explore and gather to really get into the crucible. I don’t care enough about crucible rewards to explore without dailies.
My proposed solution. I believe it would be better for immersion and my will to grind if all combat tasks (especially “kill x with x”) were removed and instead random spawn those more difficult fights all over the map. I’d also suggest randomizing the frequency of gathering/crafting tasks and relocate them to their corresponding npc to better serve the purpose of teaching and item sinking.
With a more engaging world with baked in incentives it would be easier to accept the new crucible as it would better fulfill its function as something fun to go do for a bit and with combat challenges seeming random and endless I’d be more excited exploring.