Quickly listing all of the time gates that are not fun and will quickly annoy people:
-Mission board (bc not being able to chose where and what with which books/modifiers is fun)
-Shop (random random random hourly reset)
-Requisition missions (mobile game monetisation method: I know it I teach it)
-Requisition shop (wanted that gold weapon but missing 10 plasteel? too bad!)
-Leveling new characters (done it once, why again so slow?)
-Gearing new characters (loot/money not shared unlike VT)
I may be forgetting some, but those are 6 very annoying and core timegates designed to stretch player engagement
What really annoys me here, and why I haven’t bothered trying to level more than one character so far, is how exceptionally boring leveling is in Darktide. Leveling was slow in V2 as well, but at least we could swap between different careers as we leveled up. And every time you unlocked a new talent tier, you actually got three new talents, because it was the character who leveled up, not the career/class.
I don’t mind the shop as is, because it’s not that far off from the random drops of Vermintide 2 (Though without the level of equipments being tied to your current character level, incentivizing hoarding crates until you levelled up) and frustration with it’s randomness is mitigated by the Requisitions from Melk and will be further mitigated by weapon customization and crafting.
As for missions, there should really be a “Request Assignment” function, where you can pick any mission (+ conditions) you want while paying perhaps, 1/4th of it’s credit payout.
Quick play and the curated selection of maps should also pay out +5-10% XP and Credits.
So you’d rather cut the almost none existent rewards…
Why not reward playing the rotation instead? Give actual loot (not a once in a lifetime white item)
Hits very differently when you reward rather than penalise