Commanders ballance

I think that most sensible people here can agree that with changes to volks, penals and scott we have seen in patch preview core units of all factions are ballanced enough and every single unit has its purpouse on the battlefield.

What should be adressed now is the differences in ballance of commanders. And I don't even mean ballancing commanders between factions. Commanders are greatly imballanced within factions. It is mostly visible in original 2 factions but in fact all 5 of them suffer from the issue.

Most used "meta" commanders should get some nerfs to stop the power creep, while the old forgotten ones like german infantry, both defencive doctrines, conscript support, nkvd, recon, artillery and many, many more should get buffs.

I made this thread to bring some attention to the problem and give the place where you, members of community, can give your ideas on changing commanders to acheive ballance within faction. The inside-of-faction context is important for me, I don't want any derails and fanboy wars in this thread.

I belive that with the introduction of new, uniform pricing on commanders it is possible that relic will read through that thead and implement some changes, as there is no reason to keep some commanders worse (becouse they were cheaper) and other better (becouse they were more expensive).

Waiting for your ideas

I think, that only way, that could make all doctrines and commanders in game viable is either:

1. Make more additional gamecontent, which could be added in those doctrines, for to make them more attractive or

2. Clear and delete half of vanila faction doctrines and 2-3 of each of new factions.

I think, that it's just impossible to make SO many doctrines, and make them all worthy. We didn't have such problems in CoH 1, because - only 3 commanders for each faction, and each ability or unit were really useful, just as commanders themself in general. Here we have more commanders but... not so many content for to fill them with something. So, they become similar, boring or useless, when Relic starting to fill them with abilities like "Recon plane for USF", when I have same recon plane in Major without any doctrines...

I think more realistic would be to clear up commanders pool, cos... Relic won't make new content for CoH 2, obviously.

If you're talking vanila factions, then there is close to zero possibilities of any doc changes to the oldest docs.

The only good thing is, they used to be crippling, but are vanity/hipster options now, well, picking them does not equal to auto-loss any longer.

Some "meta" commanders keep some factions afloat.
IMO it is quite fragile thing. Change that and you will change win rates of factions in next big tournament.

Soviets have special relationship with commanders. IIRC Relic confirmed that Soviet reliance on commanders was intended.
It would be great to get conscensus among community on next things first:
1) Should Soviets still be dependent on doctinal units? It was intended before, should it be changed now?
2) Would changes to penals remove Soviet dependence on doctrinal infantry?
3) Would changes to T-34 and SU-85 remove Soviet dependence on doctrinal tanks?

Its not really about adding new content or deleting anything from the game. Most of these doctrines doesn't need any redesign. It's mostly about tweaking numbers on some abilities that are commonly known to be worthless so that they really start being a gamechanger, instead of fancy toy for nonmeta players.

For example the M-42 light AT gun cries for buffs. It is cheap and shouldn't overshadow the zis, so my proposition would be giving it universal rounds with same effectivness vs vehicles it has now, but additionally about the effectivness of KV-8 second gun against infantry. That way the unit not only acts like real field gun did, but also becomes quite potent. It still has disadvantages ofc, it is easy to flank and has problems with medium vehicles but overall should be worth the price and commander pick with such change.

Some "meta" commanders keep some factions afloat.
IMO it is quite fragile thing. Change that and you will change win rates of factions in next big tournament.

Soviets have special relationship with commanders. IIRC Relic confirmed that Soviet reliance on commanders was intended.
It would be great to get conscensus among community on next things first:
1) Should Soviets still be dependent on doctinal units? It was intended before, should it be changed now?
2) Would changes to penals remove Soviet dependence on doctrinal infantry?
3) Would changes to T-34 and SU-85 remove Soviet dependence on doctrinal tanks?

Yeah, this is important issue. I think that it is possible that with all recent changes, the 2 most doctrine reliant factions, sov and okw, will be freed from choosing only the doctrines that have some callin infantry. But it is only my opinion and it needs more playtesting when the patch hits.

Kappagasm

What do you think about making faction doctrines... assymetrical?

For example - one faction will have not 5 but 6 doc-slots, other will have mostly passive abilities in doctrines, but pretty powerful, which will improve some specific units and their stats/abilities (would work nice with UKF, for example)...

I don't really know, how to make doctrines system assymetrical, but for me it sounds like very perspective thing. Just like making assymetrical veterancy system again.

P.S. Such assymetry may also be tool of balancing doctrines inside one faction. Those doctrines, which are obviously out of meta or simply not enough useful may have same additional ability/unit slots or whatever else, that would make them more attractive.

An additional thing to keep in mind is that Commanders often ebb and flow with the current patch/meta - for example German Mechanized recently became popular after more or less total obscurity. I suspect a lot of that has to do with people realizing how good the PZ4 Command Tank is - will that change after the patch? Who knows. Likewise buffed Soviet T4 means less reliance on call-in armor (in theory).

I agree that many commanders could be "fixed" just be addressing longstanding balance issues with certain units (Greyhound, Valentine, Etc.) Other commanders are mostly a complete lost cause because of overlap IE NKVD is a lesser version of Anti-Infantry Tactics for the most part (Better Off-Map and Call-In Tank) and if you want to use it for Radio Intercept or Rapid Conscription there are better Commanders that have those abilities.