These are also PvE balancing changes. I wasn’t around when these changes were made and it seems that they were good changes for the most part given my current experience.
Like,
Spears were nerfed…repeatedly!
Yet they still are the strongest weapon while mounted and quite possibly the best weapon to use with pets or when playing with other players. So before they must have been absolutely bonkers.
Captains and Bandit Leaders can no longer be captured
Probably a good thing; Thralls and pets are already overtly powerful.
Vitality 30 perk ‘Fierce Vitality’ was nerfed despite fierce opposition
Sounds nice. The current Fierce Vitality is still good and in my opinion worth taking. If it was stronger, I would have trouble seeing why every build should not take it.
Exotic flesh drop rates too high, they got nerfed and are no longer dropped some creatures
I like them as a rarer reward, it’s fun to hunt for that more prestigious creature to get something out of it.
Obsidian wespons nerfed
Flawless Obsidian Greatsword is still 45% more damage than a Flawless Hardened Greatsword and 13% more than a Flawless Star Metal Greatsword. I don’t want to feel like I must farm a lot of Obsidian for all my gear to be competitive in PvE with my mates.
Nerfed the EXP gained for discovering new locations
Typically, level 60 is hit before getting all the journey steps so this isn’t a big deal.
Its too easy to gather Brimstone, its nodes were nerfed
I like that, it’s nice that you have to fight a bit for Brimstone. Makes it feel more rewarding to get that steel.
Strength 2 perk ‘Salting the Wound’ nerfed from 25% down to 15%
Again this just gives more room for diversity in building your character on PvE servers. So it’s a good thing.
T4 spawn rates have been reduced time and again
Yet a small group of players on a dedicated PvE server will quickly have more named fighters than they know what to do with. And it doesn’t really take all too long to get the profession thralls either. We’ve put around 60 hours per person with half a dozen active players on our server to the current world. Got named taskmaster, alchemist and some others. Still missing armorer and blacksmith, notably, but that’s OK - something to look forward to.
I skipped on many changes you listed due to not having much experience with that particular thing. In any case, to me, it seems that many of those changes can be based just as much on PvE-balance as on PvP-balance. Why would e.g. nerfing a strength feat be only a PvP-based decision? Why would reducing EXP on discovering new locations be only a PvP-based decision?