I mean even if they didn’t want to do the same thing there are plenty of ways to do long term progression that work for engaging players and providing incentives to return to earlier content. I made a post highlighting my favourite progression systems and what i liked out of them.
Brosgw also shared a lot of his as well:
There are ways to do long term progression system right but whatever Darktide is doing is not it.
As stated you need to actually give people the carrot eventually, if you just give them nothing but stick 90% of the time they are just going to go somewhere else.