National Identity - And Lack Thereof

The vet system is not really an issue as long as it is implemented correctly.
I was badly designed for VG because the shreck allowed to vet very fast and it was badly designed with ST44 before it made them VG too strong.
If give the MP-40s to VG or no weapon upgrade it would be fine.

It is the same exact problem with Penal veterancy or M4C which where fine when base stat where low but is problematic when base stat (or weapon upgrades in the case of VG) are available.

If Stg44 is replaced with something else like MP40. It would make them relatively weak since MP40 weapon profile in this game is pretty bad. I would not mind but it has to be similar to PPSH which is currently way worse.

Volks should stay with STG44. Something to maintain some sort of aggression. Without any upgrades would make them like worse off than Conscripts. Volks in irl had a higher proportion of submachine guns and light automatic weapons and thus relied more on short-range firepower. STG44 fits their profile. MP40 would most certainly too but it is unrealistically weak in this game. It is fine but their versatility is what needs adjustments.

Sturmpio should have firenade and sandbags maybe instead.

If people want no STG44 for Volks, then Sturmpio would have to become 5 guys in order to maintain some sort of aggression. Volks by default are terrible although survivable in the beginning only. I metioned on "Volksgrenadiers terms of Versatility". Perhaps more can be emphasised there instead of here.
Link> https://www.coh2.org/topic/88296/revamp-volksgrenadiers-terms-of-versatility-okw

If Stg44 is replaced with something else like MP40. It would make them relatively weak since MP40 weapon profile in this game is pretty bad. I would not mind but it has to be similar to PPSH which is currently way worse.

Volks should stay with STG44. Something to maintain some sort of aggression. Without any upgrades would make them like worse off than Conscripts. Volks in irl had a higher proportion of submachine guns and light automatic weapons and thus relied more on short-range firepower. STG44 fits their profile. MP40 would most certainly too but it is unrealistically weak in this game. It is fine but their versatility is what needs adjustments.

Sturmpio should have firenade and sandbags maybe instead.

If people want no STG44 for Volks, then Sturmpio would have to become 5 guys in order to maintain some sort of aggression. Volks by default are terrible although survivable in the beginning only. I metioned on "Volksgrenadiers terms of Versatility". Perhaps more can be emphasised there instead of here.
Link> https://www.coh2.org/topic/88296/revamp-volksgrenadiers-terms-of-versatility-okw

MP-40 is a bad upgrade on the other hand the idea behind it is that you upgrade 1-2 squad with it so that allied units can not simply charge one's K98 VG.

The ST44 upgrade is problematic. It creates a squad that can fight at all ranges. This has lead to number of changes like:
The nerf of the 5 vet bonuses
The redesigning of USF tech tree
The limited use of OKW doctrinal infatry
The buff of the allied infatry
The power allied infantry available before minute 1
The terrible state of Ostheer


If one removes the ST44 then one can nerf early allied infatry and the game will be in much better state.

The ST44 upgrade is problematic. It creates a squad that can fight at all ranges. This has lead to number of changes like:
The nerf of the 5 vet bonuses
The redesigning of USF tech tree
The terrible state of Ostheer

That's a nice theory you've got there, but its completely false.

Vet5 nerf is a direct result of redesigning OKW economy, so they no longer had an excuse to rely on powerful infantry to carry them through lesser armor presence.

You have a dev comment on why USF tech tree was redesigned, I gave you the quote, so you're 100% aware you're lying here.

"Terrible state of ost" is literally 3 units needing a little bit of love.

That's a nice theory you've got there, but its completely false.

Vet5 nerf is a direct result of redesigning OKW economy, so they no longer had an excuse to rely on powerful infantry to carry them through lesser armor presence.

You have a dev comment on why USF tech tree was redesigned, I gave you the quote, so you're 100% aware you're lying here.

"Terrible state of ost" is literally 3 units needing a little bit of love.

It have my opinion and you have yours. Try to show more respect to other people opinions.

Word of advice:
Before accusing someone of lying make sure you have your facts straight.

It is my opinion that USF had to be redesign because they performing poorly and that was a direct result of the OKW performance, this was not a simply redesign but a substantial buff to the faction also, so it in an opinion and not a lye.

Now PLS stop you personal attacks
Have a nice day.

Nice point, OKW from the start lacks identity.
And btw, Bunkers were an unique feature of wehr, pios and grens can build it everywhere with 3 options, MG/Medic/Reinforce.
Oh, and only soviets should have 6 man squads (maybe ostruppens). There are no reasons to Paratroopers and Fusiliers be 6 man

Nice point, OKW from the start lacks identity.
And btw, Bunkers were an unique feature of wehr, pios and grens can build it everywhere with 3 options, MG/Medic/Reinforce

Actually, OKW had pretty distinct identity at first.
It was then rebalanced into ostheer prime with minor differences.

It is my opinion that USF had to be redesign because they performing poorly and that was a direct result of the OKW performance, this was not a simply redesign but a substantial buff to the faction also, so it in an opinion and not a lye.

GCS2 Ostheer 61% win ratio versus USF would like to have a word.
USF had to be slightly redesigned because their incredibly limiting tech tree exclusitivity made them bad no matter which opponent they faced.

A good point on the bunkers. Something I overlooked posting.

They have some overlap with the UKF forward assembly and, more recently, the Soviet forward HQ. USF also get an MG nest.

But they are unique all the same, and they're both versatile and non-doctrinal.

GCS2 Ostheer 61% win ratio versus USF would like to have a word.
USF had to be slightly redesigned because their incredibly limiting tech tree exclusitivity made them bad no matter which opponent they faced.

The fact remain USF where UP vs OKW also.
The fact remains that the redesign was also buff.
The point remains what I wrote can not be characterized as lie.

It is fair to say that over the six years we've had to play with CoH2, the game has seen a lot of changes. Huge numbers of patches, tweaks and changes that have overhauled the game in a multitude of ways.

The design philosophy of the armies, at least when they launched, offered five unique ways to play CoH2. At some point, every army has been genuinely unique. Not so much any more. This thread is mostly self indulgence, but I would like to offer my opinions on where the identity of armies has gone both right and wrong, and see where the forum agrees or disagrees. I’ve dipped in and out of playing regularly, ridden in beta tests, and watched Katitof accumulate tens of thousands of posts. Lets do this.

Eastern Front
Soviets
The Soviet unique features were always pretty clear and pretty well managed, though we have seen some poorer choices scaled back for the better, and I think what remains is fairly decent.

Six Man squads – the big one. Rivalled only by Ostruppen and, for some reason, PanzerFusilliers and Paratroopers? This applies to almost everything. Infantry, team weapons, stolen team weapons, elite infantry. You name it, the soviets bring the manpower. They may not have the quality or the long range firepower of other armies to play with on their foot soldiers, but they’re Stalin’s Anvil. Handy, then, that they also brought Stlain’s Hammer – thanks, ISU-152.

These are occasionally contentious, but with the Soviets being what they are, I’ve always thought they work well and help define Soviet play style. Easy to bleed, difficult to kill. Some issues were had and have been addressed – the sniper teams, maxims at their peak being a better conscript squad. But the current state of soviet durability supports their play style and identity.

(Ostheer)
Ost have some problems. A lot of them were originally fixed in the early days before WFA even launched, and the erosion of their status of unique has been mostly cemented since the launch of WFA. Most of their national identity only exists when compared to OKW, but they hang onto something.

The nebulous concept of combined arms – Or how I learned to stop spamming inf blobs and use team weapons.
Ost grenadiers are not an elite infantry. Back in the day they stomped conscripts. Hell, they still do, but Ost gets by with the idea of combining their affordable mainline infantry with team weapons. Their MG and AT gun remain affordable and some of the best available, with veterancy abilities that make the soviets cry. What they lack in generalist duties they make up for with best of class in TWP, AP rounds and... no, not counterbattery.

Honourable mentions for Ost in weapon upgrades unlocking free for a wide variety of their units, and the prolific nature of their pintle MGs.

Intermission
That covered, I think this is the point to speak about something that distinguishes the EFA and WFA/UKF, and in a way that has diminished over time. Originally, the Ost had a unique feature over the Soviets in that their roster was complete out of the gate. No matter what commander the Ost picked, they had a full army ready to go, with no glaring holes in their unit list. This worked fine when stacked against the Soviets, who picked elite infantry and even late game armour from their commanders. Where it could have worked with WFA, and didn’t, was in those armies lacking units but having viable alternatives. That has never quite been realized, IMO, but more on that later.

EFA
MURRICA
A mix of good and bad. Still in a unique place, only Rivalling the soviets. Easily the better of the WFA offerings.

Vehicle Crews – Simple and clean. They get the vehicle crew mechanic. Its good!

Officers – They get officers as they tech. Contentious sometimes, though recently overhauled. These fed into the concept of USF being an army centred around versatile, and customizable, infantry cores. Pick your weapons and put them onto a very versatile Rifle squad! Something that filters into my next intermission.

Intermission – Missing units
USF had an incomplete roster at launch. This was originally compensated for with their rifle versatility. They had no mortars, but they could get smoke grenades on their rifle squads. This allowed their infantry to do the job of machine gun smoking, and clear their own approach on buildings or points.

And now they just have a mortar instead. Is this awful? No. But it does represent what, either by choice or necessity, has been happening with balance patches over time. Rather than allow the armies without a certain tool to compensate with what they do have, they have all been brought in line. Rather than let USF have a roster of units that can fill in the job of an on field mortar, they just moved smoke to RE and gave them a mortar.

And this is a good point to move onto the single worst offender in the game. The very unfortunate-

OberKommando Cheese
Well, pardon my opening the gate with a little bias. This isn’t about the OKW being overpowered, its not that kind of cheese. This is all about the huge flaws in their implementation and design. Lets start simple.

Don’t Do this – the original OKW. For those who don’t know, the original concept was meant to represent a resource starved, last ditch effort to defend the western front with a mix of hardened veterans and garbage. They attempted this... by trying to shoehorn in a totally different game into multiplayer?? A nation that was expected to only hold a tiny amount of the map with elite forces, only getting proper resources from sectors linked to your base via a chain of trucks that worked as your production buildings.

Needless to say this was an awful plan for 1v1. It was also totally unworkable in team games. It promptly failed. It was replaced with another iteration of OKW!

No caches, massive resource penalty, but scavenging and cheap super good units and... yeah that went away too. Good riddance! Sadly, these overhauls have left the OKW in a bad way, if not an OP one. Just badly designed. Lets keep going.

Scavenging – Not totally unique. The Soviets could briefly do this, and now the Brits can do it with one commander. Its decent! Sadly not unique, just like 6 man squads, but decent. Moving on.

5 levels of Vet – Ugh, this one. This was a part of OKW’s reigning champion of bad design period. The biggest, worst and most grim manifestation of the baffling design direction that used to exist in the Ost/Sov bad times. The perplexing ‘If Germans reach late game its a free win’. And it was a thing. Go trawl the forums if you don’t believe me. Ally early game OP/Germans cannot lose late game attrition was something people championed. Beats me as to why. It has been overhauled, but it still, to me, represents a bad unique trait. Vehicle crews and 6 man squads have their individual strengths, but 5 levels of vet is a universal army buff in the late game. Its not a single asset, but everything. Game keeps going without constant wipes? OKW keeps vetting. Not a good approach.

Does it make them OP? No. Patches have helped a lot. But only by making the vet 5 differences smaller and also having to overcompensate elsewhere. And I honestly think locking it to OKW was a mistake. That said – intermission time again.

Intermission – Lost Chances
This one is less about identity and more just a personal look at where OKW did it wrong alongside everyone else. Veterancy, IMO, spikes way too hard. A difference between vet 1 and 2 unit can be enormous. This is partially why vet 5 OKW was originally so broken. Imagine a world where everyone had five, gently scaling levels of veterancy..?

More generally, I think it is a sad lost opportunity. We all know the Axis fixated on the biggest most over-expensive and operationally crippling tanks. And rather than introduce parallels to the real allied advantages – resources, production, throttling the Axis – we just get prolific tank destroyers. Ah well. Global late game upgrades just never made it into CoH2. Nor did allied air superiority or a lengthy list of things. Symptomatic of rough times at Relic, I suppose.

Last on the list.

UKF
Quite the ugly duckling for the last army to be released.

Days gone by
The UKF was supposed to try and reflect a certain style of war. A grand battleplan. To accomplish this they focused on two distinct features. A defensive and limited army, coupled with commander abilities that offered ways for Brits to go on the offensive with very powerful bonuses, offering multiple ‘parts’ to support that push.

The latter no longer exist. The former no longer exists, as the brit army now functions more or less okay on its own. The new commander is set to offer brits early CQC squads so really they’re just Ost these days. What’s left..?

Emplacements. But not MG bunkers. These are frustrating to play against. These are frustrating to play with. I don’t get it. Why? Why, Relic?

Optional Teching – Skipping side tech lets UKF rush out a medium tank at some very impressive speeds. They get global infantry upgrades that are frankly mandatory to compete but they do get to choose when to pay for them. Mutually exclusive late game unlocks which, at least, are decent on both sides.

IMO that’s it. UKF lost any identity they had once the abilities got nerfed. They are not UP, but an army without. No mobile mortar and nothing to compensate. As a Brit, perhaps I am Biased, but while they have some individually very strong units the whole army just seems to lack a purpose. Ah well.

My two (hundred) cents. I’d love to bear everyone else’s opinions!

First off, it's WFA and not EFA.

Second, it's United States Forces. Disrespecting us and trying to be funny with "MURRICA" ain't gonna get you far in life I can tell you that much. You don't see me or any other American on here making fun of you or the Brits in game or at least as far as I can tell and see. Matter of fact my favorite Allied Army are the British Forces here and the Commonwealth in CoH.

Lastly, and this is just my opinion here but I can sum up each Army right now with a few words:

Soviet quantity over quality, also known as human wave tactics. Hampered by borderline useless mainline infantry units that are systematically being replaced by either the Maxim or Penal squads, heavily relies on strong commanders. People can forget to even choose a commander sometimes with the other Armies but not with the Soviets.

Ostheer's quality over quantity or at least that's what's written on the tin but life has taught me to never trust the cover of the book. Combined Arms tactics sounds all fine and dandy but the problem comes when you have non-survivable mainline infantry and are constantly fighting superior "premium" doctrinal tanks. Would explain why most people go for commanders that provide Grenadier alternatives or doctrinal Armor of their own.

USF's versatility comes at the cost of the inability to specialize or bring heavier Armor on the field. You're constantly asking yourself if you should go Armor or Infantry company with the rest of the commanders being no shows for most matches. Being stuck with the "versatile" riflemen squads and M4 Shermans sounds good but in reality promotes blobbing as time has proven and also you're nerve shaken by the constant micro management of your glass cannon units. Borderline useless in team games.

OKW is basically Ostheer's bigger and older brother that on paper does everything better however they are plagued by at least for the most part unreliable support weapons. Strong infantry and Armor are supposed to make up for that but again just promote blobbing in my opinion. 5 vet levels argument went out the window when they nerfed the last 2 levels to even out the field for the other Armies.

UKF is supposed to be this heavy and slow juggernaut being able to go toe to toe with the Axis in the late game provided they dig in and survive until then. Problem is being heavy and slow is one thing but relying on static gameplay is an entirely other. Relic learned from their mistakes from CoH and made emplacements bigger and better but much harder to get and thus spam however they still included them to play a large role in the British roaster for one reason or another instead of giving the option to the player if he wants to go that route or not, thus hampering him. Commanders mostly serve the role of plugging holes in the Army roaster and provide some more benefits from time to time but that's largely it from what I've noticed.

I would again like to point out that this is just my own personal opinion and does not mean in no way that it's right or correct or whatever you wanna call it. It's just my observations summed up without going too much in detail.

Snip

Your post is incomplete.

If we analyse the design of a faction based on how they were initially conceived or even when they release, you'll find that what you mention on your post has a lot of gaps.


Soviets
You mention 6 man as something iconic but i think SPAM a single type of unit to reflect reality better, which was caused by unit performance and teching cost.

Reminder that teching was so expensive that you were limited to use only 2 tiers on most games on top of been hard to give up map control to take eons buildings your first tier of choice (hence the old 5 con meta). On top of that, they were so restricted in what they offered that once you picked either of the 2 lower tiers, it was almost guaranteed which of the late tiers you would pick.
T1 was mostly paired with T4 and T2 with T3. Units were on different tiers as well. SU76 was in T4 and T34 on T3. You would either get snipers with Su85s or maxim spam/con spam with T70 rush/T34s.

And i'm not even mentioning doctrinal units. How many years of Guard Motor, IS2s and in teamgames ISu152s.
Semi trash non doctrinal units which only work well when spammed and commander choice holding the faction together made any "weak" commander inviable for years.


Ostheer

Biggest design issue has been: you eventually get access to all tools, but T4 will always be a premium tier which is hard to get in 1v1 but will roflstomp once you get access to it. BTW we didn't think how this applies to teamgames so don't quote us on that (Relic).
PD: if you get your units to vet2 you win. That is, if you can survive the soviet T70 rush and con/maxim/sniper spam and all the shit SU has to wipe your units out of existence.

It took time, but they eventually balance the match up, but it was a shame the design would no be able to hold when they released WFA.

PD2: so call combined arms design was brought to it's knees several times when the meta was gren spam or even pio spam. Teamgames saw also MG42 spam (specially with suppression bulletins).

You can somehow make heavy asymmetrical designs to work, when it's limited to a single match up. Throw more viables and the concepts is thrown away from the board. You can see this with the concept of comeback and factions been strong at different stages of the game. "Wait till i get my CPs and turn this game around with my commander" design.


You hit the head of the nail in the "intermission".


The problem with both WFA (mostly OKW) and UKF is that the initial design would never be able to hold any kind of playtesting. It sounds "exciting" on paper but when people start playing around with it, you see how broken it is, and you found yourself with little to no time before you have to release it and sell it to the public. It's impressive where we are now, despite the disaster each faction release brought to the game. Specially when we consider that the time between beta and release were so close in each case and how faction design has to be completely reworked with little to no play testing.


A few words on each faction.

USF: what you mention basically describes a faction which is design to zerg rush. End the game before the opponent has any chance to react. That's why we got Rifles into M20 - Sherman. This is also the reason USF would roflstomp in 1v1, specially OH, but would be utter shit on 3v3+.
USF got a mortar, because OH got a mp boost and an HMG42 at T0 because they wouldn't be able to hold ground against Rifles/RETs. Diversity was also a reason after we had to nerf the shit out of RET and other alternatives to just spamming Rifles.


OKW: it was basically the forbidden love child from SU and OH. It got all the cheese from soviets, while retaining the powerhouse of late game from OH.
There was basically no way to salvage the initial RELEASE design (to not confuse with beta design). Even if you have so many flaws and weakness early on, turtling and late game carried the faction. Which made them broken for 2v2 and onward for 99% of the playerbase.
This design made it so it was annoying to play it with and against in 1v1, specially in the SU vs OKW match up (clowncar/maxim spam).

UKF: was basically OKW release for allies, but learning SOME of their mistakes they made. They still made horrible decisions with sim city and lacking tools (which were only there in the form of cheese). They had to nerf them for teamgames (specially commanders) but they would initially suck on 1v1 (which then they added clutches as the AEC to make them viable).

Snip

You write very well. University level document.

Snip.

No disrespect intended. Corrected a typo and made the headings uniform for the WFA, wouldn’t want to distract from the thread’s intended topic.

Snip

Some wonderful additional comments. There was definitely a period of long past Soviet cheese that I glossed over. How easily we repress those memories. That said, the tech redesign wasn’t even that long ago. The days of 30 fuel ram-34’s may be behind us but the launch soviets certainly had a very different design philosophy to now.

The USF comment honestly made me more sympathetic to the mortar inclusion. Including it purely to offer more than one viable opening build (Rifle/Rifle/Rifle/Rifle) makes more sense now I think about it.

Wow it took a while to read the OP. I agree with almost all the points explained, Great post and PoV.
Clearly OKM implementation was the most radical and problematic. Indeed its continous fixing and iterations didnt solved the problem at all. As it is now its a mess of overpower and lack of originality.

I agree with the vet5 system being a problem too, or at least its another one in the long list of onverlooked overpowered aspects of OKM. Let me elaborate.
If a factions offers 5 vet ranks in exange of popcap costs (less units but more capable) this can become a snowball logic easly. As volks are right now they are on par/somewhat superior than other mainlines inf, adding on top of that they get 5 vets, thats a clear unbalance, since each vet only increases the gap of volks bulliying other infantries.
As a sidenote if the vet5 system were only on a special set of units, like the "commandos" (obers, panthers to name a few) these units should be designed with a clear disadvantage to begin the snowball (obers come late, panthers are expensive and so on) but only after the player solves the early weakness, these units become really strong, as the faction design ment.
The vet5 system trades the micro management of many squads into microing better options in fewer squads, the problem is that currently OKM have low amount of abilities to level par with other factions micro tax. What i mean is usf have to deal with 3+ squads to kill 3 volks in green cover, as OKM you sit and watch instead of forcing the assault out with abilities. I know is not that simple but its pretty much like that.

TL;DR
Only specific units should have vet5 and they must be really weak at the begining. It reduces the micro tax of many squads

With regars of UKF emplacements, I think AtomicRockets got the best idea, a sandbag toggle ability and to give them a little mobility as a heavy team weapons. Long setup times to stop them creeping towards the enemy base and maybe them to required to be set up in connected territory. I know this changes wont see the light of a patch tho.

I always looked after USF original aspects or faction design and i was wondered why logistics didnt showed up, i mean in CoH1 they had the fuel cache upgrades, stating that efficient logistics made troops cheaper and less upkeep, but in CoH2 that feature dissapeared. So many people have already noted how expensive riflemen are and they feel pretty vulnerable, mostly because they are constantly pushing. A tech to reduce their reinforce cost should be taken seriously to implement into the actual game.

Apart from that the other point i see USF suffering a lot is with tanks, as the game is currently each tank requires a lot of microing and they are somewhat pricey even the cheapest ones, because of cost/efficiency ratios. Its true that USF and SU can mass 4-5 tanks and thats a really strong push on teamgames but still microing well 5 tanks can be a hell difficult task to do.
I would love to see some "tank formation" dinamyc for a faction like USF, as tanks come into the battlefield they could choose to be merged into a formation, this should be implemented as a way to reduce micro tax of each tank and allow the faction of have an advantage istead of a difficulty to use its faction perks.

I hope this thread could give other people a good point of view of assimetrical game balance, even though its hard to do, it has a lot more of content and diversity and makes the game a lot more playable.

The ideas of an "elite but starving" OKW and "defensive" Brits are the most interesting aspects of COH design to me. Real efforts to bring aspects of history into a historical RTS game.

But as you say the way they were implemented was rushed and done poorly. I think in terms of unit design and tech choices these are where the issues lie. Like others have said British team weapons and infantry could have been more defensively focused than the entire emplacement cancer.

OKW could have been balanced with certain unit caps (eg only one Sturm or elite squad) but with cheap volksturm units effectively holding the line (tanks also mostly made up of assault guns with the odd elite panther or tiger). Good players would therefore have to be smart about using their powerful assets to firefight helping out weaker "bread and butter" ones. Rather than this trash spam of mainline stg volks into multiple tanks we have now or the old volk shrek blobs with double obers.

Or even some form of "elite veteren" choice that OKW could lock in for a team weapon of an elite vet inf squad. It would make much more sense than trying to balance every unit with five levels of veterency.