I have now over 160 hours in the game, all classes maxed, all weapons maxed. I’m not a hardcore player (I spent about 1-2 houres a day bettwen 21:00 and 23:00, between work and family this is max i can get). I mostly play ruthless difficulty with occasional lethal. I wanted to address the frustration of some players whining about lower difficulties being too hard and not fun, as well as to point out some flaws I have noticed when I was grinding all the classes and weapons.

During my characters and weapons leveling I have noticed that current progression system creates a cycle where players are incentivized to avoid challenging content, disrupt their skill progression, and grind easier missions for efficiency. Here’s why:

Discrepancy in Experience Rewards by Difficulty

Higher difficulty missions have a poor time-to-reward ratio compared to lower difficulty missions. This is further intensified by issue of all missions providing the same base XP despite varying mission length. Each mission reward sums flat amount of XP per reached checkpoint + mission completion bonus + geen seed delivery bonus. The problem is that checkpoint XP is very low in comparision to mission compeletion bonus or geen seed bonus. Failing at the last checkpoint yields negligible XP despite significant time investment in longer missions. This incentivizes running short, easier missions with guaranteed success, since longer missions inherently increase the likelihood of failure due to greater risk. Higher difficulty further compounds the risk of mission failure. In the end players are discouraged from engaging with these missions, opting for shorter, easier ones instead. This is even further intensified by next point on this list. Based on the XP rewards and mission times, it’s clear that lower difficulty missions offer the best time-to-XP ratio. Average difficulty missions are quicker and provide a decent XP return, making them the most efficient for leveling weapons. Higher difficulty missions (ruthless and lethal) take significantly longer, but the XP rewards don't seem to justify the extra time investment, especially given that the XP curve for leveling weapons is so steep.

The large discrepancy in time and reward creates an imbalance where the intended challenge of higher difficulty missions is not adequately incentivized. This system could benefit from a reworked XP curve that better balances time spent and rewards earned, encouraging players to tackle higher difficulties for better rewards rather than opting for the quickest and easiest path.

Cosmetics Tied to Mission Count, Not Difficulty

Rare cosmetics are unlocked based on how many times a player successfully completes missions, not based on the difficulty level. This means players who grind lower difficulty missions will have an easier time unlocking cosmetics, while those who take on higher difficulty missions may struggle to unlock these rewards because they don’t increase the chances of obtaining cosmetics. This creates a situation where the game's reward system discourages players from taking on more difficult challenges, as those challenges don't directly improve the likelihood of obtaining rare cosmetics. Higher difficulty missions, which are typically more challenging and time-consuming, don’t provide additional rewards in terms of cosmetics, despite their increased difficulty (except lethal that provides very low number of cosmetics at the moment). 

The system doesn’t reward players who want to experience variety by taking on different difficulty levels. Instead, it rewards those who grind lower difficulty missions repetitively. Since higher difficulty missions don't offer better rewards in terms of cosmetics, players have less motivation to take on challenging content, which could lead to a more monotonous experience. To improve the system, cosmetics could be tied to mission difficulty or specific in-game achievements. This would reward players for engaging with challenging content and create a more rewarding progression system.

Division Between Character Leveling and Weapon Mastery

Weapon Mastery impacts both weapon perks and stats, which directly improve its effectiveness. This creates a significant advantage for higher-level weapons.

Character Leveling, on the other hand, only affects character perks that either enhance the team or the individual in certain gameplay situations. However, it doesn’t seem to modify the character’s base stats, making it less impactful compared to weapon leveling.

This is imbalanced in relation to difficulty. With an relic weapon player can stemroll difficulties up to ruthless no matter the character level. On the other hand easier difficulty feels much harder when You are running it with none upgraded weapon. Once you max out a weapon on a high-level character, you can use it on a low-level character to quickly level it up. This creates a situation where low-level characters can efficiently level up weapons by exploiting this imbalance, resulting in a faster progression than intended.

For example: leveling chainsword to runic unlocks it for up to 4 characters. Running low level with it becomes trivial and causes to automaticly level up equiped main weapon while running with chainsword even if You dont use main weapon at all. This open ups possibilities for various exploits and makes progression much faster than intended.

The current leveling system is imbalanced because it undervalues character progression. This discrepancy, particularly when paired with the experience rewards tied to difficulty levels, leads to situations where the leveling system feels out of sync with the intended progression curve.

My recommendation would be to strengthen character leveling's impact, making it more meaningful in high-difficulty missions and reducing the ability to exploit the weapon leveling system by pairing it with low-level characters or prevent the use of higher level weapon in lower difficulties.

Weapon Leveling Curve and Power Scaling

The current weapon damage scaling in Space Marine 2 creates an imbalance, with some weapons following exponential growth in power while others have erratic scaling. This inconsistency can lead to unpredictable gameplay experiences, where some weapons feel overpowered while others are lackluster until they reach an extreme damage boost. Ideally, weapon progression should feel satisfying and consistent, where each level provides a noticeable but balanced increase in power. The current damage scaling can feel either overpowered (with exponential increases) or disjointed (with sudden jumps in damage), which may not reward players in a fun or engaging way. A more linear and consistent damage scaling would likely make the progression feel more fair and satisfying. For instance, a smoother increase in damage across all levels (rather than dramatic jumps at specific levels) would provide a more predictable and balanced experience. This could also make weapons feel more consistent in performance as they level up, rather than having certain weapons feel drastically more powerful at certain points.

Resource Distribution and Accessibility

Resource types needed to upgrade weapons are locked behind mission difficulty levels.

Weapon upgrades require these resources, meaning that players who level up their weapons in high-difficulty missions (where they might already have maxed out weapons) will need to return to easier missions to obtain green and violet resources.

This creates a paradox: players with high skills and maxed characters will need to grind easier missions to obtain the resources they need to continue upgrading weapons, even though they are already capable of running higher difficulty levels with their honed skills. Skilled players who have maxed their character and weapons are essentially being penalized for their progression (they now need to revert to easier missions to obtain resources needed for further upgrades). The current system contradicts the logic of increasing difficulty. Ideally, players who tackle harder missions should be rewarded with resources needed for more powerful upgrades, but instead, the game again incentivizes grinding lower-level missions. This disincentivizes players from engaging with the game’s harder content, which goes against the intended design of rewarding skill and progression.

The uneven resource distribution creates an imbalance, where players can progress their weapons quickly in high-difficulty missions but are then required to backtrack to lower difficulties to continue their upgrades.

To resolve this issue, the resource allocation system could be adjusted to make it more aligned with the difficulty levels and progression of the game:

1. Match Resources with Difficulty: Players should earn resources proportional to the difficulty they are playing. For example:
• Green resources: Could be earned in the first and second difficulties, but also in higher difficulties, albeit at reduced rates.
• Violet and Orange resources: These should be rewarded more evenly across all difficulty levels, with higher rates given for higher difficulties. 
2. Reward High-Difficulty Missions: Players who tackle higher difficulty missions should be able to collect all the resources they need for weapon upgrades, ensuring they don't need to grind easier missions unnecessarily. This would align the resource rewards with the player's skill and encourage them to engage with harder content.
3. Alternative Resource Gaining Mechanism: Instead of requiring players to grind low-difficulty missions, introduce a resource transfer system or daily/weekly challenges that give players access to the needed resources from higher difficulties without having to revert to easier missions.

Player Skill Reduction

Switching to lower difficulty levels for resource farming can diminish player skill development and disrupt gameplay flow. The forced switch to easier content encourages repetitive, less challenging gameplay, which in turn can affect a player's focus and mastery of the more challenging aspects of the game. This leads to several unintended consequences:

• Skill Atrophy:

• Skill erosion occurs when players spend too much time in lower-difficulty missions, where strategy, tactics, and gameplay depth are less emphasized.
• The higher-difficulty missions are where players face the most complex and skill-demanding challenges, and by switching to easier missions, theymay become less adept at handling difficult encounters.

• Disrupts Focus and Flow:

• Players who are engaged in high-difficulty content are in a state of flow—focused, immersed, and constantly adapting to the game’s challenges. Switching to easier missions for resource farming breaks this focus, forcing players into a disconnected experience.
• The change from high-skill gameplay to low-skill, repetitive farming can feel jarring and interrupt the player’s sense of progression and mastery, especially for players who have already perfected their characters and weapons.

• Increases Frustration and Reduces Motivation:

• High-skill players who enjoy challenging missions may feel frustrated that they are forced to regress to easier missions, even if they have already proven their competence at higher levels. This can lower their overall motivation to continue improving and engaging with the game.
• The system forces players to focus less on improving their skills and more on grinding for resources, which detracts from the sense of achievement that comes from overcoming difficult challenges.