Now, the game seems to be shaping up rather well. But there's one thing that needs to be considered. Time. Time is something lots of players do not have. Many players work or have other obligations.
So there's a really easy solution that would work without imbalance in the game: the ability to pay real money to get glimmer. This way players could instead focus on playing the game instead of farming like the rest of players and wasting their time. You can't buy gear with real money so you're still at the mercy of loot drops, allowing there to be no real imbalance between players.
Example:
Bob spends 100 quid on glimmer.
Bill spends his time farming that glimmer for free.
No big deal in a game mostly focused on cooperation and strictly balanced PvP sans Iron banner.
What could possibly go wrong? People already pay over ten times the price for Ghost Editions. There's no difference here except how much you love the game and value your time. Being options, this should fit perfectly into everyone's opinions.
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And why is it that you want to take a shortcut through the game? You are just going to reduce the number of hours you get out of it. Besides it would just start a arms race since there would also be people playing 10 hours a day doing this, and soon people playing the honest way would be left in the dust. The game currently rewards those who put some effort into it, lets us keep it that way.