Are there ever any considerations for how weighty or meaningful a reward should be? Should a mission reward inherently have more value than something you find in a box or buy in a store?
TL;DRReward value is a balancing act, with a mix of mission-only, mission-or-loot, and loot-only items, some kept visually distinct by how they're obtained, and value isn't just about UEC worth.
Yeah, it's a balancing act, right? Like most things. We always want to try for a mix of: here's a mission thing, it's really cool and you can only get it via missions, because obviously then it incentivizes the mission; and then we'll have some items that you can get via a mission or you could find as potentially a rare drop inside of loot boxes; or it's something that you can't get via mission, you can only get via loot. We try to achieve a nice mix of it all, but we always want to make sure that some items are visually distinct via the methods of getting them. This is so, say I'm walking around in my Stormbreaker uniform that I've got from Wikelo, right? And Nick Wardle, who obviously doesn't read very well and hasn't read the contract, comes up to me and goes, hey, I've put my glasses on and I really like the armor that you're wearing. Where do I get that from? And then I can slowly walk Nick through and be like, hey, you need to go do the Stormbreaker event. I know your reactions have degraded and have slowed down, but I'll come and help you a bit, and we'll go through it together, and I'll help you get the items you need.
So Elliot is absolutely right. And I think it's important to discuss what we mean by value, because something can have value to someone and it's nothing to do with UEC. So the mission rewards have value to people, not because they're worth UEC.