Heyo! Long time player here and before anyone says anything; yes I do have some pretty "pay to win" guns such as a Patroller. That being said; I made a new criminal character to play with two friends who had played the game very limitedly if at all before, and upon entry into the Bronze District, we got completely decimated by URSUS users who dethreated to reach the "newbie" levels of play. I don't have any account wide weapons aside from the special ones from spending too much money on the game, so it was super demoralizing and they both promptly uninstalled the game. Instead of relying on the whales who throw money at Joker boxes and get weapons that really should be nerfed to begin with, I would like to recommend something.
Restrict the available weapons/mods per district depending on the threat level. I.e; Bronze should only be allowed up to Tier 1 mods, Silver 2, and Gold is free for all. Joker Box weapons should be restricted to Silver+ so you don't have a completely ruined new player experience just because some people want to troll the new players. I feel like this would drastically change the new player experience, letting players actually have a chance to learn and understand the game instead of dying every two seconds to weapons like the Volcano and URSUS. These are just my thoughts on the topic though, and seeing as we have little to no new players despite the hype that is the updated engine, I feel like we need a change.