It's limited to hell, sure, and in a very odd way - they left the Seasonal Renown battlepass-bullshit levelling speed the same, which is... So weird? Like, you think you'd want to encourage people to play the main version to level their FOMO-bar and want to pay for it... Or... You want to keep milking the PVE crowd for MTX?
Huh. If so, then why not ease up on the PVE restrictions more (which I believe they'll do over time), and push both game sales and MTX sales? There's no reason to restrict Athena's - aside from the Hourglass Battles (who cares), it's not a PVP-specific faction. Same with Trade Emissaries - if you want them to be more risky, make the existing Skeleton Ships actively hunt Emissaries they find, instead! Have them ignore the island safety zone! So many easy options.
Could even do that for Reaper's Bones. The game's fighting AI is fine, that's more than enough to literally excise every PVP-specific thing and put in PVE instead, and it'd do SO MUCH BETTER than it does now.
If you're determined to keep it online as some kind of GaaS, then make PVP an optional extra button like the Hourglass, with some PVP-only rewards. Easy. So much less convoluted than the split they've got going now.