USF thoughts?

from the way you describe it sounds very ironic...

Relic has had an absolute terrible history with designing the allied factions. They made sure as hell to make sure everything was weak and vulnerable, but heavily overstated their benefits. It was even worse so in the alpha. With things like a 40 fuel M10 that could only take like 2 hits, a 135 fuel sherman that was worse at everything then it is now.

The soviets were even worse when they first came out, but atleast they didn't act like they were good at things they weren't.

Atleast they seemed to have learned their lesson with the brits. Thier design is pretty solid. Except for maybe their lack of any mobile indirect.

Good but repetetive and linear gameplay.

I’m going to go against the popular opinion of this thread. I think the USF are a repugnantly turgid, mediocre faction at best at the moment. Nothing excels or stands out, the units hardly perform to cost/expectation, nor do they scale particularly well, and that is running under the presumption that they might arrive on the field during a time when they haven’t been outmoded and instantly antiquated already. I’m looking at you Major tier.

I just went through the front page of the replay section pouring over OCF replays after winning 2 of my last 8 games. What I witnessed:

Barton getting pinned into a postage stamp on the map by Symbiosis for 20 minutes apparently means nothing. devm managed the same against jove, only a foolhardy mechreg/kubel opening was his undoing. I have no doubt if jove adopted a more traditional unit composition, devm would have endured the exact same outcome that Symbiosis suffered. It seemed he was the only one foolish enough to choose the USF, and against VindicareX, he never had an opportunity to even find his footing (presuming that the USF have an advantage during any stage of the game). A small glimmer of hope presented itself when he managed to hit a critical mass of light vehicles supported by vet3 rifles, but of course, that was chipped away by more a durable OKW force, which escalated, and with the PzV and vet, kicked Vindicare into another gear, and through to eventually face Aimstrong.

Then there was cruzz who got snoozed to death by Pauls 2 snipers and a grenadier wall... a Sherman which arrived by the time cruzz had grown a beard... couldn't even chase down 2 retreating snipers. devm suffered the same fate.

Even if a USF Commander somehow manages to get a chokehold on a game, let alone an advantage, it doesn’t mean much, ‘cos they can’t close, they haven’t got the tools to close out, create, or drive home an advantage at any stage of the game.

The USF feature no competitive edge... dare I say, competitive reasonability in, not only any stage of the game, but they also lack the tools for any tactical execution: flanking and swarming is only feasible on a handful of maps, and in the case of Paul, not even applicable, how do you flank grenadiers?

They can't dig in effectively, hardly even doctrinally.

They can't siege positions due to a lack of indirect fire, or HP.

You can't spearhead or drive any assault for exactly the same reason, and 'cos armour comes too late, against a very potent arsenal, the only reason the Sherman was effective before was its timing. The Major right now suffers from extreme inflation, the minute he hits the field, if you even manage to get there, the equity of the Sherman and even the Jackson, which is situational, declines faster than a piano's insurance policy when it’s falling off a cliff.

An opponent doesn't even have to think about making a single adaptation to defeat the USF, they are setup to fail from minute one.

stuff

While I did find myself agreeing with that sentiment last patch, I think the latest patch did a decent enough job leveling the playing field with the handful of buffs and fixing of the gren bug/buff. It is at times frustrating but also very rewarding to have the pressure to gain a big advantage in the first 10-15 minutes or pretty much accept you'll lose unless he makes a blunder. You absolutely have the burden of the outplay from minute 1 and I personally enjoy the ultra aggressive race against the clock style of gameplay.

While I did find myself agreeing with that sentiment last patch, I think the latest patch did a decent enough job leveling the playing field with the handful of buffs and fixing of the gren bug/buff. It is at times frustrating but also very rewarding to have the pressure to gain a big advantage in the first 10-15 minutes or pretty much accept you'll lose unless he makes a blunder. You absolutely have the burden of the outplay from minute 1 and I personally enjoy the ultra aggressive race against the clock style of gameplay.

I don't understand your masochistic argument. By your own account, how can the playing field be leveled, yet either one's opponent must "make a blunder", or one must play like a god and snuff out a game within the first quarter of an hour... somehow... which still as I think Symbiosis demonstrated, is not exactly a guarantee of victory: or accept agonizing, soul crushing defeat.

Every other faction, even the UKF at the moment, have some advantage, some edge, or unique facet to their design. The USF are in my opinion entirely toothless at every stage and facet of the game.

T0 or t1 mortar and a pen buff to the AT gun would make it better in defencive positions

i agree with turbotortoise.

in all my games of usf, i have never once felt that usf has enough oomph to their unit rooster, there are just so many loop holes for okw/ostheer to exploit. the lack of indirect fire tools, early suppression tools, garrison counter, awkward armor/AT and lack of non doctrinal heavy/rocket artillery.

their only strength is rifles which are well, okayish but suffers from all the weaknesses that infantry have, which is susceptibility to snipers and suppression, while every other department in the army suck donkey balls.

early game, a massed infantry tactic no longer work in this game. grenadiers and volks are significantly cheaper than rifles and pose a big threat to rifles, who do not have the models to take shots while closing in nor the dps to outgun and edge out other infantry squads at range. this leads to some rather awkward moments when rifles are completely outgunned by mg42s and grenadier combos, who can suppress and control rifles and still do large amounts of dps to the remaining squads.

then from then on it goes pretty much downhill from there. units in lieutenant or captain tier are more or less support for the rifles, desperately needed just to break up machine gun positions, while german factions are free to tech for tanks/armor/artillery to break up any form pathetic infantry based resistance that usf can come up with their very limited pool of manpower.

by the time usf can get up any form of medium tanks, okw/ost will already have p4, stugs or panthers to solidify their gains which usf armor has got no capability to deal with. jacksons being too fragile and require more resources to be dumped into AT support which are more problems by themselves.

tl;dr, usf is constantly on the backfoot from the getgo. there's really no reason to play the usf as of now, what they can do, soviets/brits can do it better.

oops double post.

I don't understand your masochistic argument. By your own account, how can the playing field be leveled, yet either one's opponent must "make a blunder", or one must play like a god and snuff out a game within the first quarter of an hour... somehow... which still as I think Symbiosis demonstrated, is not exactly a guarantee of victory: or accept agonizing, soul crushing defeat.

Every other faction, even the UKF at the moment, have some advantage, some edge, or unique facet to their design. The USF are in my opinion entirely toothless at every stage and facet of the game.

One thing I will say about the USF is the design of the faction makes them the best at snowballing a very slight advantage into a huge one: free officers, cheap teching, very early scalable light vehicles, weapon racks, high effectiveness of USF units chasing down repositioning units, and the fact that all vehicles except Jackson have some kind of get out of jail free card to further encourage super aggressive play.

If we are only talking about straight buffing the faction with no regards to flavor, I think giving USF a T0 Sniper/Kubel counter with high opportunity cost (WC51) and swapping smoke with AT rifle nades are the only needed changes.

One thing I will say about the USF is the design of the faction makes them the best at snowballing a very slight advantage into a huge one: free officers, cheap teching, very early scalable light vehicles, weapon racks, high effectiveness of USF units chasing down repositioning units, and the fact that all vehicles except Jackson have some kind of get out of jail free card to further encourage super aggressive play.

If we are only talking about straight buffing the faction with no regards to flavor, I think giving USF a T0 Sniper/Kubel counter with high opportunity cost (WC51) and swapping smoke with AT rifle nades are the only needed changes.

However; that snowball's critical mass is... never really too too threatening. I would argue during the days of Shock Rifle, the Soviets did it better with the IS2, maybe even now to a certain degree with Su76 walls. Sticking within that context, the way to beat USF as Ost was to hang on to dear life, and pray you sustained enough VPs for your opponents USF snowball to hit your proverbial Evergreen tree (Tiger tank + PaK wall) If it really was a true, scalable advantage, those delaying strategies would have failed to the overwhelming tide of cheeseburgers and thousands of rounds of freedom/minute.

I'll further disagree on the point of the light vehicles. They don't scale all that entirely well in the slightest. If anything, with the exception of the M20 as a mine layer, they have 0 equity other than their immediate impact when they hit the field. Every second that passes they become more and more antiquated by the raketen, PaK, or in some cases the 251/2, Puma et. all.

The M15 hasn't really got a joker, regarding survivability, and I would argue that the HP pools are so low, the opportunity to utilize such a joker, like Sherman smoke, isn't exactly a saving grace. The change for the M15 shooting forward is a good start, perhaps given more HP, much like the Ost sniper, they could pose more of a threat against an entrenched player, with the ability to tank more than a faust + PaK round.

Cheap teching certainly is not the case regarding the Major. At 170-90 fuel for... for argument sake, Ost T3, with other opportunity costs such as healing and the vaunted weapon racks, one is either on par, or actually behind in the tech race.

I say... and I curse myself in doing so, so I do so quietly... take inspiration from PE design and make vehicles in quantity an option to use as frontline units. IE an M20/M8 w.e, give them the combat ability and dps/hp+armor survivability of at least a rifle squad, if not more, for the more specialized and or powerful/more expensive units M15, Stuart. So that we may choose, if we want, to utilize vehicles either as we do now, as essentially mobile support and harassment or as a more monochromatic mechanized army. I think some of the proposed additions of support weapons make sense as well, but I think it should be introduced much like the WSC vs. Barracks in CoH1, The choice needs to be made and carry its own set of unique risks and rewards. A commander should be forced, early on, to either mechanize or play with foot infantry, and be given opportunities in the later stages to hybridize, and then, truly create a snowball of a force, as once one has effectively "tech swapped" it would be very difficult to field enough of a counter to deal with each attacking threat the USF could throw at an opponent.

USF right now is perfect, only pak howie needs a slight nerf.

The rest is perfect, oh wait, the half track from mechanised doctrine could get some love, just so that it survives 2 volk shrecks, but not 2 raketten hits.

The rest is perfect, loving USF right now.

However; that snowball's critical mass is... never really too too threatening. I would argue during the days of Shock Rifle, the Soviets did it better with the IS2, maybe even now to a certain degree with Su76 walls. Sticking within that context, the way to beat USF as Ost was to hang on to dear life, and pray you sustained enough VPs for your opponents USF snowball to hit your proverbial Evergreen tree (Tiger tank + PaK wall) If it really was a true, scalable advantage, those delaying strategies would have failed to the overwhelming tide of cheeseburgers and thousands of rounds of freedom/minute.

I'll further disagree on the point of the light vehicles. They don't scale all that entirely well in the slightest. If anything, with the exception of the M20 as a mine layer, they have 0 equity other than their immediate impact when they hit the field. Every second that passes they become more and more antiquated by the raketen, PaK, or in some cases the 251/2, Puma et. all.

The M15 hasn't really got a joker, regarding survivability, and I would argue that the HP pools are so low, the opportunity to utilize such a joker, like Sherman smoke, isn't exactly a saving grace. The change for the M15 shooting forward is a good start, perhaps given more HP, much like the Ost sniper, they could pose more of a threat against an entrenched player, with the ability to tank more than a faust + PaK round.

Cheap teching certainly is not the case regarding the Major. At 170-90 fuel for... for argument sake, Ost T3, with other opportunity costs such as healing and the vaunted weapon racks, one is either on par, or actually behind in the tech race.

I say... and I curse myself in doing so, so I do so quietly... take inspiration from PE design and make vehicles in quantity an option to use as frontline units. IE an M20/M8 w.e, give them the combat ability and dps/hp+armor survivability of at least a rifle squad, if not more, for the more specialized and or powerful/more expensive units M15, Stuart. So that we may choose, if we want, to utilize vehicles either as we do now, as essentially mobile support and harassment or as a more monochromatic mechanized army. I think some of the proposed additions of support weapons make sense as well, but I think it should be introduced much like the WSC vs. Barracks in CoH1, The choice needs to be made and carry its own set of unique risks and rewards. A commander should be forced, early on, to either mechanize or play with foot infantry, and be given opportunities in the later stages to hybridize, and then, truly create a snowball of a force, as once one has effectively "tech swapped" it would be very difficult to field enough of a counter to deal with each attacking threat the USF could throw at an opponent.

Omega Warrior has a thread focusing on reworking USF tech to work like the PE.

Anyway I agree for the most part with what your saying; making both officers 25 fuel each and making T0 research able to get light vehicles, and tank research at Major for say 50 fuel would help a lot.

Also swapping Pack Howie with M8 Scott, making M20 cheaper, and buffing garbage commander units. Without touching unit stats USF has suddenly gotten way more versatile and unpredictable.

I don't understand your masochistic argument. By your own account, how can the playing field be leveled, yet either one's opponent must "make a blunder", or one must play like a god and snuff out a game within the first quarter of an hour... somehow... which still as I think Symbiosis demonstrated, is not exactly a guarantee of victory: or accept agonizing, soul crushing defeat.

Every other faction, even the UKF at the moment, have some advantage, some edge, or unique facet to their design. The USF are in my opinion entirely toothless at every stage and facet of the game.

It is not really a masochistic argument though, you DO have an edge and the tools to have a stronger early game. For me personally it's a matter of enjoying the playstyle - there is no better way to win a coh2 game than to make the opponent rage quit in 7 minutes or after his desperation tiger gets hard countered by your two anticipating jacksons and a mine you layed 10 minutes prior. I play all factions but winning with USF is the most rewarding imo, specifically because of the lack of brute-force overpowering units. I'd even go as far as saying I'd rather have a M20 that can wreak havoc in the early game than tiger ace or croc or any other late game cop-out units like that. Again, this is all my personal opinion and preferences and I completely understand if people prefer playing a faction with linear tech and obvious counters like OH or late-game turtle factions like Brits or OKW.

When this commanders is already coming BibleThump.

why and how exactly can you judge on it? you have only been playing this faction exclusively, effectively missing 4/5 of the game and the needed knowledge and experience to judge on proper balance.

+1

This dude is so funny. All of his posts are directly related to something irrelevant about USF.
-"How's the weather today mate?"
-"Good, but USF could use a Pershing"
-"I was at the KFC last night, damn good chicken they have"
-"yea USF needs better tanks"



OP:
USF is on a good spot, although Rifle Company is a tad OP. Remove Flamers from rifles, give them to RETs. Buff ATG a bit.

It is not really a masochistic argument though, you DO have an edge and the tools to have a stronger early game. For me personally it's a matter of enjoying the playstyle - there is no better way to win a coh2 game than to make the opponent rage quit in 7 minutes or after his desperation tiger gets hard countered by your two anticipating jacksons and a mine you layed 10 minutes prior. I play all factions but winning with USF is the most rewarding imo, specifically because of the lack of brute-force overpowering units. I'd even go as far as saying I'd rather have a M20 that can wreak havoc in the early game than tiger ace or croc or any other late game cop-out units like that. Again, this is all my personal opinion and preferences and I completely understand if people prefer playing a faction with linear tech and obvious counters like OH or late-game turtle factions like Brits or OKW.

It is though! That frustration you feel is brought on entirely by the USF's deficiencies and your indulgences in them. It's like wanting to enjoy a hardy bowl of soup, but all you've got is a straw. It's not a matter of lacking "brute-force overpowering units" it's the generalists being toothless, and economically, the faction never being in a position to turn that into an advantage, what I exactly critiqued in my "anti-snowball" argument. If the units are generalist, then systematically the USF lack a "unique playstyle", and these anecdotal scenarios you build and present, in my experience, are fantastical. My argument isn't about preference, it's about competition, you may have fun with them, but surely you see that in a vast majority of tactical applications they just do not perform as well as the other factions do.

-"How's the weather today mate?"
-"Good, but USF could use a Pershing"