Well I HAVE been playing for a long time, since the early early pre-alpha back in 2014, and I've stuck around through all the ups and downs. I agree with this poster completely - forcing players to have to do something in order to progress is not cool. The systems they established in the past few versions were good and didn't need overhauling. To me it looks pretty clear what the devs' goals are here - they want to force players to go through a "progression" in item tiers.
Why? Because they made all these nice new tiered weapons and tools, which is great. But oh no - the players can (if they want to) skip all the crappier tier ones if they focus their points. We can't be having that, our designers spent a lot of time making really nice looking primitive weapons and tools.
This is the kind of thinking that is implied by this new change, and it doesn't seem to keep the players' enjoyment as the top priority....
That said, I'm sure during the QC and experimental state of a20 they will balance this, and in a21 they will dial it back to where it doesn't limit the player too severely.
