suggestions regarding vehicles, combat & progress

[IAmRaykan 1]

So after playing quite a bit I started noticing a lack of vehicle diversity, as in it's all vans, vegas's, jerichos, starter car or the rare exceptional vehicle. However I also understand how simply adding more cars won't change this, so I thought: Why not motor bikes? Really nimble and fast, but low hp and you can hit the riders. Literally a high risk-high reward vehicle!

More interaction with NPC's. Basically, contacts are things to be grinded at this point. Or any other point. Which is a shame, apart from the emails they send you all you need from them are the items (Why do you need the emails? Well I don't, but it's fun reading them for me.) so maybe pledging to a contact could give you certain perks while active, or maybe asking for their help in a mission (Like a kill streak in CoD) Example: You get 3 kills in a row and he sends you a car at the closest possible location; You get 2 kills and he delivers you a flare gun, usable once only. Nothing too strong or game changing, just a bit more flavor to the mission. 
But the contacts aren't the only NPC's out there. There's lots of citizens and all you can is either rob them, kill them or ask politely for their car never to be returned. Imagine being able to use them as a spy, threatening them or asking them for help, or even asking them to do simple objectives like delivering stuff :v 

And combat you ask? Well, I've noticed while playing that sometimes you "miss count" how much you actually shot someone. I use Obir quite a lot, but any other rapid fire weapon suffers from the same. I know the red X is supposed to do that job but honestly it doesn't do it too well at times. What I'm getting at is getting audio feedback for each shot I connect. Like in Rust you hear that small sound. In case you think it's useless, believe me when I tell you it would save my arse a few times. Why? Well the visual feedback isn't perfect, so complimenting one with the other could make it better.
Loading range. I know how 100 meters is max range, and basically out of range for many guns. But I feel like increasing it to 200 would make tactical decisions a bit... safer... Or not... I'm not so sure about this one.

About progress. When you see the whole picture, it all fits rather nicely together. But I can't help but feel OVERWHELMED. I'm a casual player, and I bought premium to skip a lot of the grind, something I never did, in hopes of getting APB back in it's feet. Here's the issue: Casual players want to have fun, set an objective and complete it, or just PvP to your hearts content. These are perfect for APB! But as we all know there's a HUGE skill gap, so many casual players will simply leave the game to find entertainment in another one. Well for APB to get a bigger community you need these casuals, and the only way to make them stay is with "softer" progress. I've reached third tier contacts, with premium, and I'm already a bit scared. Not because of the third tier, but of the fourth, fifth and specialist contacts. How long will these take? How many months will I have to spend... How much time will I have to dedicate... These questions throw off any person with a full-time job that can't afford or doesn't want to buy premium. Long story short: Make grinding contacts more casual friendly by reducing the total amount of standing points needed, or make standing points earned scale with your current "level" so you can have a smooth progress. In any case, at this moment, it doesn't feel non-premium friendly at all. 

For example I have spent 50 hours on one character, I think, and I've reached third tier contacts. With premium it takes around 3-4 won missions to level up, around 1.5k standing points each mission I've won. But then looking at the specialist required standing points... 700k... Man, I just don't feel like grinding it out  In total I'd need 466 won missions to level it up to maximum, rounded numbers mind you. Each mission takes on average, what, 20 minutes or less? Let's say 10 minutes. In total, one specialist contact would take around 77 hours to max, with premium, which roughly doubles your won standing points, and this implies only won missions. So just imagine a casual: He won't. I need to be frank, no game can simply attract dedicated players or hardcore players and survive, so IMO you need to make this game friendlier towards casual people. BTW just because LO needs money doesn't mean they need to "soft" block in game content so people buy premium.