Personally I prefer this new route - Elsweyr was the last real chapter I really enjoyed but the chapters all just felt essentially like a template with a bit of story:
- 6 WB and delves
- 2 PD with something you had to collect inside
- Trial (my highlight)
- some returning character
- collect stuff to make a random collectable
- kill the BBEG or (depending on the year), his no. 1 guy

And if you weren't a fan of the theme then 🤷
I like that we get (mostly the same probably) but not in a forced tired way and the potential for more

I miss the chapters too. I don’t think the lesser quality of the writing in more recent chapters is a reason to drop them completely. I’ll never understand the problem with the zone being formulaic either. I enjoyed doing the delves, public dungeons, world bosses, side quests, and exploring the zone. If you think the quality will improve by giving us smaller content, I’m afraid you are likely to be disappointed. I can appreciate the optimism but I do not share it. Let’s see where we are at the end of the year. I suspect it will be just like the year of improvements.

So far all I have now is a book with chores in it. I have to do a lot of them just to get to the point where I can buy something. Not an improvement in my opinion.

I think I'll be contrarian here. For me, "chapter" means (1) three new craftable sets, (2) three new overland sets, (3) two new public dungeons (which I'll do once for the skill points and then forget about them), (4) three new motifs, (5) six new delves, (6) six new WBs, (7) an incursion event of some kind, (8) dailies to match #5-#7, (9) a Trial, (10) a zone story (maybe well written, maybe not-so-much) which is worth 3 skill points, (11) 12 fish to catch, and so forth. Nick was pretty clear that they were moving away from chapters, at least in part because they had become formulaic. You know what you're going to get (quality can vary) and when you're going to get it. Predictable and bordering on blase because of that. I'm pretty much OK with stepping outside of the chapter box and seeing what else can be done in smaller, bite-sized piece spread across multiple updates. Not gonna lie: predictability is comfortable, but I'm OK with stepping out of that comfort zone. Take a walk on the wild side (grow eyes in the back of your head because some of this stuff is going to unexpectedly smack you and maybe not in a good way).

Chapters were nice because you knew roughly what you were getting. A new zone with the same checklist and some small features. While that did get stale, it set player expectations. We didn't need to be constantly informed, checking roadmaps and other official communications, to know when XYZ feature is coming out.

Now that we're in a seasonal model - the only takeaway I want is more packaging. So for this season, the features are being spread out in a confusing way. For instance, the art for the Season is focused around the Night Market, which isn't out yet. It's the flagship feature of the reason - right? - and didn't launch with the season opening. That's an odd choice.

There's a balance to be had and I think they're still figuring that out in yet another transition year. Season flagships should launch with the season. I'm fine with the class reworks releasing independently of that.