The Problem is, and that’s something which some other Peoples here pointed out many many times, that Crucible isn’t an seperate Mode on it’s own, but something which is bound to the Campaign. It’s something which is meant to spice up a bit the Gameplay from the Basegame and add something extra to do.
Think about Devotion-Points and than multiply it with x100 in terms how it affect it the Basegame. Devotionpoints in Crucible already devalue at certain dagree the shrines in the Base-Game because you can easily get the first 25 Devotion-Points in a short time-frame. Where Basegame Players have something extra to do, a different kind of Quest / World Mission, looking out for Shrines while exploring the World, (and if you know the Map - ran these shrines) the People who own Crucible get many Devotion-Points basically for free with standing / running around stupidly in a small arena.
I often tended in earlier days to complain about Grim Dawn’s “Endgame”, but compare it with other ARPG’s out there, i’d argue it’s one of the most varied ones, due there is so much stuff you can do, without interfering each other to much. People like the make it trying to sound like Crucible or SR should be more seperate and stand it’s own, while i’d argue the other way around, it should be nicely implemented (like it is now for most part) so there is a Synergy between the Basegame, the Expansions and the Crucible-DLC. You can / need to play with each character the Campaign atleast once (now thanks to the merits), you have Bountys / Reputation and Faction(items) which adds a layer of depth and give more variety / spice up the overall playthrough, you have Secret-Quests & Hidden Areas, you have Superbosses, Nemessies and stuff, you have Crucible and SR and Farming Routes. All bundled together gives overall a more varied and distinctive experience. And that’s where the OP Comes in, because he want strip of one of the Features for the sake to seperate Crucible and SR more to standing on it’s own. So no, it would affect the overall Experience for the Majority of players, because it would devalue Augments and the Faction-System because there would no unique Trait anymore to get them but rather give an optional, soulless and barebones way to get these, due People like OP complain about this but don’t see the real issue of having so much Time spent on a single Game, obviously at some Point you would burned out on the Game anyway. (Edit: It also leads the Playerbase into direction of using these System, because it might then be the most effective way to get these augments).
Even further i really dislike the why how he argue and trying to twist Arguments and his own Words, so he can try to standing on the High Ground, while it makes his whole Argumentation inconsistent. Newcomers shouldn’t be the Argument here, because he isn’t a newcomer and even more - not so wildly mixed in with his Arguments but rather more splitted so it’s better to follow for the most People here, for the mere sake of arguing. And even if we would go these “Route” i’d say it’s wrong, because for Newcomers it’s easier to work with the way it is now, because it’s more naturally progression without being completly overhelmed by the options they have. With the way it is handled it let’s the People actually work for a unique item-type and for that, get properly introduced to these, while also adds a unique flavor and twist for unlocking them and gives it a value for the Faction-Vendors as well Endgame Player as well… because “mere” Faction-Gear only is kinda meh for a Faction-Concept like this. Let’s not forget about the fact that there are some Faction where you need to decide if you stick with them or fight them, which with the suggestion above would give this decision way less of an impact.
Last but not Least it really hurts to read a Argument like the Merits / Skip-Tokens, because he clearly didn’t understood why most people who wished for that, actually did this. I was one (and i suppose if you dig enough you might find my old Posts) of these People who wished for something like that / reworking of the Difficulty-System, but it was never meant to downplay the amount of grinding and investment of time, but simply to not making the Campaign obsolete with replaying it with each Character for 3 Times. So doing the Campaign “once” for each Character is absolute no problem for me and i guess / argue the rest of the people who dislikes the 3-replay-difficulty-system. So his Argument compared with the Merits would’ve made only “sense” if you would’ve needed to do the reputation for each playthrough for each character so basically level up the reputation 3 Times from the scratch instead of carrying over. His idea / suggestions would’ve been than more comparable if there would be a Merit / Skip-Token which doe all three difficultys and level you up straight to 100.
I want to point out again, i don’t want to trashtalk Stuff in Ideas & Feedback area, because in the end it’s like everytime the decision is up to the Devs. But i’d still like to give some input on my side so Devs see, that there are different opinions about that.