The game should be offering the first upgrade at only the cost of natural gameplay. That should be the hook to go and explore more about what you need to do to level up further. You should naturally progress into lv2 weapons if you are just enjoying the missions & frontline solution stuff, but that doesn't happen. Even if you collect quite a bit of stuff at crash sites and settlements you need a very large range of upgrade mats and to specifically know what to find. The first one should be something you stumble upon shortly after having some fun and warming up.
The climb to that first upgrade is so steep and doesn't open up upgrades to the player in a natural way.
Agreed. Material grind is something that will not go away unfortunately, but i think it should be done in a smarter way.
For example it should be activity oriented.
Combat activites should include combat oriented drops. From corpses for example. They would provide you with all the materials you need to upgrade weapons and the combat suit.
Same could apply to exploration. You would get materials for exploring as a reward and it would provide more than enough materials to upgrade the suit.
This would end the irrational need of clothing Change in order to loot every closet for materials. And would give favourite activites a purpose.
Just my 2 cents.