Ostheer is the obvious choice. The two vanilla factions are the best designed, but Soviet has got a bunch of useless core units and you get pigeonholed into a few necessary doctrines. With Ostheer you get some more freedom.
I really dislike the WFA factions in the way they were designed. I don't think either promotes very interesting gameplay, and I have haaaaated OKW since they first came out. They are getting better though.
UKf is kinda meh. Really similar to Ostheer, but missing some core units in exchange for emplacements. Bleh.
I'm not sure how the cons would perform, but seems alright.
Soviets NEED penals to matter though. There is a reason that any commander without call ins is a piece of crap. They need some form of stock elite infantry. The penals right now serve no clear purpose, besides being cons with better anti building things. Con already have molotovs, making penals fairly lackluster.
They need to be made into something like what you said, but I would go further and make them more expensive. Maybe 340 manpower, but strong enough to justify the price. By going T1 and going for stronger infantry it needs to but a real drain on resources and squads on the field to give axis some sort of counterplay. Make T1 more fuel expensive to make it less attractive to go T1 and T2.
With some sort of light vehicle buff to Ostheer that everybody is hoping for, I think this could give clear bonuses to Soviets and make non-meta doctrines far more attractive, and give the Axis factions some good ways to counter it.
I disagree about the AT gun point, I think people just complain about those because they are different and don't try to use it to the advantages, because they are pretty good.
Otherwise, these are some great points. Factions need to have both short and long range squads in the future in the core army to promote unit diversity. I wish they would have done something like this with the US weapon racks, but there is no reason to ever unlock more than one weapon type or to not kit all your units out with identical weapons. This is one point I actually like about OKW, the volks have a clear long range focus while the Sturmpios have a clear close-mid range design. It promotes flanking and thinking tactically to support your other kinds of units better. (OKW is blobby and doesn't accomplish this for other reasons, but I think you understand what I mean.)
Most of the faction asymmetry should come from things like tech differences, different upgrades, and different forms of veterancy.
375 or 350? Which one seems better in terms of balance, and in use?
325 maybe, to make it a somewhat axis equivalent to the Brit bombing strike. Honestly I don't think this would fit in the game well, CoH2 is a lot different from CoH1 with the V1 strike.
It's not practical to make some abilities so expensive. Anything costing 400 muni especially on Ostheer will never be used in 80% of games with the commander.
Thanks I really needed that. All hope is lost now.
Here's hoping all our CoH 2 talent transfers over to DoW III because I AINT LEARNING THAT SHIT AGAIN NOPE. Invested way too much time in this game for it to go to waste.
If CoH 2 dies, I'mma die with Kappa
Actually I still have hope. I still think they will at the Land Mattress at some point.