It always, always, always, was optional.

Really people liked to pretend it wasn’t because a meter filled up to trigger it.
But it depended on your actions to make it happen.

The only real difference is if someone wants the purge right now, it can be triggered with out running around actively trying to fill a meter.

It shows in the dev stream that they plain on the new purge to use trebuchets, and have a mage that will call a meteor storm. That should give you back the damage you’re wanting.

Truly the only difference between the new purge and the old is
RPers can’t pretend the new purge just happened, like they could with the meter.
And it’s early days of the new purge so it’s not fully implemented.