I totally get the "it's always been like that, how could you possible change it" logic. And I'm no game designer. Still, I had hoped that after 22+ years in the MMORPG market there would be more innovation by a studio with a lot of money backing a game.
Open world survival games usually do it for me. Conan, Valheim et al. So one idea would be to integrate housing into the XP curve. Let me buy a piece of land for cheap somewhere outside a city. Let me build a hovel and plant potatoes or breed pigs. All the while everything I do gives XPs.
Or why would a milion people do the same kill quest in the same spot without it having some kind of imptact? "Oh, Moe's Farm is overrun with zombies. Someone do somthing!!!1". Once enough zombies are killed, the spot is saved and taken by the faction/city. With guards and NPCs and everything. Maybe at some point there is a disease or an attack and the place gets overtaken by enemies again. GW2 did something like this, although I wouldn't know how far they've gone since release.
My complaint is, that they have a lot of money and still only took the road most traveled instead of bringing new ideas or taking recent ideas to new levels.