I get the thing about bringing new players out of their ‘comfort zone’, but after a while (at least several hundreds of hours, if not thousands) after you get a hang of xp types and the mercs and maps, all missions really just becomes a chore, (in fact they always were, but for newbs it had a purpose: to encourage them via credit incentives to explore the game,) instead of fun, because you have to play the role you are told, instead of the role you want. Of course you could just ignore it, but you don’t want to miss out on the credits. So on a psychological level, the mission design, for me as a rather experienced player, makes the overall game less fun, simply because I feel obliged to do things I would rather not be doing, which is crazy. I mean if it had a purpose, okay, but it has no purpose any longer. And to add insult to injury, it actively encourages me to play suboptimally.
Perhaps just one ‘earn x amount of unspecified xp type in an unspecified gametype’ mission, after reaching a certain level…?