Since I have joined the alpha and now beta forums, I don´t feel like any suggestion or feedback has really been taken into consideration too much and rather have been just “noticed”. I even suspect that devs are just looking for validation for what they are doing hoping to read that we like this or that, while not really giving much about if we don´t like some changes or developments. However, I like to share an idea that hopefully isn´t that old, and too much identic with all the other feedback. I also think that it´s too late for suggestions like that, considering the state of the game allready is in, but maybe something is usefull after all.
I was thinking about how mercs fit into an FPS, especially into comp play but also how they fit into pub plays. How they can make money and how much they let us identify with the game you want us to play. Also where long therm motivation could come from.
(when I am giving you numbers it´s just suggestions that I mostly don´t even know for the current build and which are probably far away from balanced - they are just place holders giving you a general idea! Names are pretty random as well :D)
General:
So here is what I was thinking about all this and I came up with something. Instead of having dozens of mercs you lead an elite merc organisation - consisting of 5 mercs that can be upgraded in terms of member size for money. Those mercs all have 50HP. Any other ammount of HP, will be added to this basic pool, while the character is being specialized. Specialization means to give him points for different class attributes that give you HP, do the classes main objectives as well as unlock weapons and abilities. 0 points in a specific specialization means you can´t do any of the class specific main objectives. There are 10 points you can invest. I don´t have an idea for a nice (or at least new) distribution of the class points so I will stick to the ones I know from ET:QW. Every single point you invest in those classes, would give you different benefits. With every class point you spend into an “objective” (everything besides Field ops and Medic) class, increases the speed of doing the class specific objective by 15%:
Soldier: +12 Health per point, ability to plant
Engineer: +5 Health, abilitiy to defuse/construct
Medic: +5 Health, ability to give med pacs (bonus heal for extra point)
Sniper: +5 Health, ability to hack objectives
Field ops : +5 Health, ability to give ammo packs (bonus amo supply for extra point) (+maybe more amo that he can take with him)
Ammo & health giving abilities are secondary abilities and only work if it´s the current main specialization. Main abilities can change up or even completely replace or be replaced by secondary abilities.
Main specialization:
Main specialization is the specialization/class you invested the most points in. In case you have invested them equally across the board you can pick one of those, which have the highest points invested. This pick then is locked. It will be undone when you reskill. Reskilling should be for free or at least almost. There are many ways to accomplish this - but the main point is no one shouldn´t be able to reskill who wants to, and reskilling shouldn´t be punished.
Professional specialization:
When you invest all of your points into one class point, you will become professional. As a pro you have a slight faster time of doing objectives, while the objectives you do are higher quality. The displayed name would have an “Dirty” in front of it - making every plant a “Dirty Bomb”. Higher quality means, they are little bit harder to defuse or destroy. Dirty objectives also do a little dmg to the defuser, unless it´s an pro as well. If you aren´t mainly specialized the dmg you take is 100% higher.
Assisting:
Once a pro touches a objective, even class noobs (0 points in a given specialization) can help building it. The reason for that, is that the pro tells the noob what he has to do. But the guy touching it really has to be a pro, and not only mainly specizalized. As soon as the pro dies, and is gibed, the noob has to stop doing the objective. Otherwise he will do mistakes while doing the objective, making all his progress vanish (the pros progress and from everyone who stopped stays!), and 50% of the original progress takes the opposite effect. This mechanic is activated 1 second after the pro died and and applied 4 seconds after, while also stopping the noob from doing the objective. If he keeps building after the mechanic activated, the opposite effect increases to 300%. Assisting also works with dirty objectives. However, when this mechanic on a Dirty objective is activated, the noob is contaminated, causing 20% of his max health to decay every second right after the mechanic is activated no matter if he finishes the objective or not (= dead after 5 seconds if full health ).
Leveling:
After thinking about this, leveling has no place in an FPS. If we aren´t talking about a playerbase like that of a game like Leauge of Legends, there is no way this is even close to work. And even then, not being able to jump on a rnd server, and play with everyone you want to play with, is probably like deathsentence for a FPS (in pub play). Competitive plays are organized anyways, so people know what´s coming at them, and Rankeds aren´t a place to lvl up anyways.
Competitive & Ranked:
You dont want to take noobs or just wishi washi players into your team when playing ranked or competitive? The biggest networks of mercnary organisations don´t want them either! That´s why only professionally specialized mercs are allowed in this modes. However, the Assisting mechanic still applies! So decide, do you want to risk your objective progress, or do you think you can do it. Or don´t you even ask them to help you in the frist place being afraid of them ruining your work? But maybe you have no choice because it´s only 3 seconds left…
Customization:
But where do you get the different weapons, and abilities from? The first main ability, as well as main weapon for every member of your “original” mercenary army will be given to you by default once you have locked in your points/specialization. This should be the ability and gun you usually associate with this class, and also be very viable. A 2nd gun and ability, can be purched for a fair amount of points you can earn in game by playing. All the other available guns and abilites are stored in your Arsenal & Library. You get the guns and abilities by buying them for a relativly high amount of points you can earn in game, or a fair amount of money. All the guns, as well as abilities can also be upgraded with certain skins, that are funny or better looking - having the same effect however! Those could be purchased for example by boxes that drop after every game and keys you can buy online (like CS:GO) or just straight forward. In Competitive matches (like cups and all that, not ranked!) all abilities and guns are unlocked and only gun skins are allowed. For ranked you can only use your Arsenal & Library while the ability skins can be turned off for you, so you don´t see any ability skins (not even your own!).
Pros and Cons:
+more money, by spliting the mercs individual abilities and guns into different, purchasable categories (the more you split it into parts, the more money you can get for every individual part, basic economics!)
+faking the feeling of customization, adding a lot of long therm motivation, can´t imagine how long it takes to play all the combinations possible…
+more money, people feel more connected to the mercs, cause they customized them and want to give them a nice looking gun now!
+doesn´t limit players who spent money for the game, they can still do every objective, if they just use the skillpoints in the right way
+playable characters, that are part of your own “elite merc organisation” is cooler then huge list of mercs
+building your own “elite merc organisation” can be used in the lore creating a little plot or story, that can be used to show new players the game and how it works by making an interesting tutorial
+giving us back the objective focused game play with all it´s tactics (on competitive level), making the objective feel like true objectives again and not places where you need to stand while holding a button in order to win a game
+allowing more different character combinations, then you could ever create, for example fully offensive mercs that can plant and hack only, while the defenders prefer healing engineers
+more room for a possible lore then with the current system
+giving the game some soul by for example making the “Dirty Bomb” a real part of the game (even tho no one would use dirty bombs to blow up some old containers)
-no draft mode possible, this actually really is big… but to be honest I don´t feel like enough satisfying and balanced mercs will be released that are worth a pick and ban phase, what actually is a good point, because then you would have to increase the power of the abilities to a lvl where we almost play a moba
-complication in game play… it will make the game a little bit more complicated, making a tutorial even more important - but yeah… I have played lol for more then 1500 hours and still don´t know everything about the game, obviously complicated games doesn´t automatically fail with a f2p model
Okay… that´s about it then… Hope you enjoyed the read 
cheers,
onYn
PS: can someone pls put this into the right forum section? Forgot that there is an own section for merc feedback 