I definitely would prefer they were anonymous and personalisable like classes in Battlefield 5.
That being said, if they do stick with the characters and don't cast Casper Van Dien for Wikus, the whole idea will be an abstract failure.
they had names but it was just like the name of the skin, they had diverse appearances so you could kinda customize your stuff, change gender, race etc.
If you are to keep the specialists to some degree and their exclusive abilities, at least have their abilities be exclusive to them because they finished a specialist training program at a secret military facility somewhere, but not because they are all named MacKay and always say "I'm not overconfident, just better than everyone else". Ridiculous game design and I told you in the original post in June, months before launch, that it would be. Now its even a meme.
The solution is to have them be more anonymous and customizable.
I know you copied the idea from COD, I don't play the game, but looking at COD specialists in videos, at least these characters are cool.
Have the team compositions be a puzzle where each class/specialist fullfill a certain role so that you feel that you bring value to the team and are a key asset. There is a value in the feeling of being appreciated by other players or the whole team because you play a certain role well or play in a certain way that contribute to the team.
And the whole tone of the game is so off. You need a total remake to tie it all together in a believable way so that it becomes meaningful and engaging. The voicelines are so disruptive to the realism. The soundtrack is way too artistic and tries way too much to be cool and "out there" so it becomes too much of an artistic piece. It fails to create the cool drive the Battlefield 4 soundtrack created which it tries to imitate or be a progression of. The appropriate cool uplifting drive and positive motivating feeling is missing in the 2042 soundtrack. I don't blame the composer here, but there is a failure in the process and initially from the one in contact with the composer following up on it and to convey the appropriate emotions and tone and then the iterations after mockups to point the composer in the right direction and finally approving the piece.
The ones that approves these choices have a very unclear mind and direction of where they want to take the game. You need to have dreams, a vision, a certain set of feelings you want to convey. You can't just pick and choose whatever ingredient you want on your pizza, in the end no one will eat it because it tastes everything and nothing.
You need a story that makes you feel engaged in following, like one would when following a series of books. You're qurious about whats over the horizon. What is the next chapter, any mysteries, choices I can make so that the way you play may affect somewhat the story with the seasons so that it becomes "your" story, you're actually a part of the story and lore progression.
I don't even know why I'm writing this, feels like you need a ton of help and a solid direction to take your game. Good luck.
