There are no newly imposed hard limits on NPC assignment here. But some previously optimal things will no longer be optimal.
OK, sure. But
should they? Why should the new "optimal" now become quite inconvenient for the player?
NPCs are a game mechanic; they're a mechanism that allows the player access to certain vital goods. You can hang whatever face you like off of them, but at the end of the day, they exist to give the player the ability to get stuff. Indeed, if you took NPCs out, money would basically be worthless.
It is most convenient for me as a player to be able to easily access NPCs to acquire those vital goods. Being able to recall home to a base and quickly reach the 4-6 important NPCs is incredibly convenient as a player.
So... why am I being inconvenienced by this game mechanic? What do I gain as a player by having a choice between making my access to a specific NPC much less convenient and making my money much less efficient?
Yes, the Pylon system makes this
tolerable, but it's still a two-stage teleport. I recall back to base, then pick the town I
really meant to go to. And I hope I remember which NPCs are in which towns.
The mechanic just seems so confused. NPCs exist to allow you to get stuff, but spreading them out makes getting stuff harder. That just doesn't make sense from a game design perspective.
I just don't understand what players gain by having this mechanic in the game. I mean yes, the game does offer rewards for following the rules, but the rewards are mainly an excuse to
justify the rules. This feature seems completely backwards.
It's not encouraging players to play in a fun way; it's encouraging players to play in an
inconvenient way.
So I don't buy the notion that this is like removing other forms of "optimization". Item duplication, for example, devalues collecting items, so removing it restores the value of finding more of a thing. These rules devalue player convenience... for what? A bunch of features you could have given us
anyway?