I see a couple issues concerning level gating at the moment:1. Initial hurdle to pass is level 20, the next being level 30. This means that you have to clench your teeth for the first 20 levels before you can make a smooth advance further. Ofcourse you have the first 2 levels of attributes without any restrictions, but the first restriction is pretty high compared to the next.
2. I would compare the shift between A16 to A17 to a situation where a person is meant to traverse a labirynth for a prize. At first the person runs off from the entrance to see there are ways to climb the rough, hedge walls and find the other end atop them. At some point though the hedge starts to grow rougher and it's impossible to climb the hedge walls. Suddenly the person has to move through the labyrinth the way it was meant. My point here: Most of us were used to having many things easier (like the forge day 1-4), but it doesn't mean it was meant to be that way and now many people feel discouraged, because "the easy way" was taken.
3. In A16 many things were locked behind recipies which you had to find. I think it was a good solution, but only if you had diversity. When you have 5 vehicles (like in A17) you can lock the best ones behind a recipe and that's fair, until you find it you got other vehicles to use. But in A16 you only had a minibike, which was a game changer and getting it was solely based on luck. This could be applied to many other perks/skills, which constitutes in overall to rebalancing everything.