According to this article Senior Designer at DICE, Fredrik Thylander has mentioned that the time to unlock various weapons in Co-op will be reduced.

@Thylander was it your intention for us to grind the coop missions that get boring fast for all unlocks? I spammed the last for quick points
@edgeofsan1ty nope. And its getting nerfed.

For all of you who have been staying away from Co-op, this is great news.

For all us Obsessive compulsives who worked our asses off playing mind numbingly boring missions over and over until we all had eye strain and carpal tunnel syndrome, while memorizing the layout of every single co-op level with such detail that we could complete them in our sleep, this is seriously overdue. I can complete the Eleventh Hour in under 3 minutes in one window with one hand while typing up a blog on GB about how much I hate BF3 co-op with the other in a second window, I wish I was joking, but i'm doing it now, need to get that G3.

@Mikemcn said:

For all us Obsessive compulsives who worked our asses off playing mind numbingly boring missions over and over until we all had eye strain and carpal tunnel syndrome,

Outch, No unlock worth that.. don't ever ever play unfun shit you send the wrong message to developers.

@DonPixel said:

@Mikemcn said:

For all us Obsessive compulsives who worked our asses off playing mind numbingly boring missions over and over until we all had eye strain and carpal tunnel syndrome,

Outch, No unlock worth it.. don't ever ever play unfun shit you send the wrong message to developers.

I had to do it. I had to. It hurt.

Co-op missions are painfully bad in BF3. Worst of all? No in-game chatbox.

I think it could've been alright for 4 player co-op, but as it is right now, the enemies are way too accurate.

I normally love any kind of co op but BF3's I hate with a passion.
 
No checkpoints.
Your weapons switch to default after each scripted area (especially the humvee mission does this every area).
Enemies will stab you in the face constantly.
Player characters will re-use lines all the time (and I don't mean kill quotes or shit, every new area they repeat one of the I presume 3 recorded sounds).
 
Welcome to 2011.

@themangalist said:

Co-op missions are painfully bad in BF3. Worst of all? No in-game chatbox.

Ironic since the chat box in multiplayer is gigantic. Maybe multiplayer got both halves by mistake?

It seems a bit unfair they're going to nerf that, because getting those weapons 'legitimately' is unbelievably boring and long-winded. All I want is my G3A3 so I can shoot dudes with it, like I did in Bad Company 2. It's quite unfair they expect you to play the same six missions over and over. If you could finish all six on Hard and get all the weapons I think that would be fairer, truthfully. :/

I didn't find them that bad to be honest, I did a couple every time I got tired of multiplayer and I unlocked everything pretty fast, I would say that the best missions to keep playing again are the last 3, especially the last one since it gets that awesome bit of music at the end, although the first 3 aren't really fun, especially if you're learning to fly that helicopter and you crash into a house.

so they are going to make them all worth more? i just want to unlock the M39 EMR...

@Fistfulofmetal said:

so they are going to make them all worth more? i just want to unlock the M39 EMR...

Or pay $2 bucks to EA!

Just spent all of last night and a couple hours today unlocking everything.

@Mikemcn said:

Outch, No unlock worth that.. don't ever ever play unfun shit you send the wrong message to developers.

When playing carrot-dangling games, it's sometimes easy to slip into a mode where you forget you are not having fun. I realized this in Borderlands, where the actual combat is very dull, and you only keep playing to see bigger and bigger numbers pop up.

Not sure how to feel about the nerf, though. I kinda like that there are some rare weapons. In fact, let's fucking make it a TF2-hat-market style thing. OMG RARE GUN I WILL BUY FOR 900 USD.

@mosdl:

fuck i'll do that. who do i give my money too?