Easy 8 is still trash and finds no play in 2on2s. It gets countered by anything axis without problem, and it cannot counter anything. It found no play in the mod, the feedback was ignored, and the commander is still trash. I would have loved playing against more e8 commanders and more ukf but all I get now is soviet spam. Soviets everywhere. Incredibly useless balance decisions by the balance team, the changes to the e8 commander did nothing. Even worse that people still argue that e8 its good when it's just trash. I love my Ost buffs and changes but the state of the game me as axis versus Soviets now doing the same stuff every game but now against b4. That's all the patch did. Added b4 to Soviets. That's what we get as an axis driven community.
I don't think the balance team is very biased in terms of axis/allies. They do however, seem to make a lot of balance decisions based on how something does in 1v1's (maybe 2v2's also?). If you doubt this, look at the win rates for 1v1's. They're really close to 50% for everything except UKF. IMO, the problem is that they don't play random in larger game modes and often don't listen to the feedback that their changes are going to screw up balance in the larger modes.
In this case, the E8 is maybe a little better than it was, but still won't replace a Jackson. Even worse, when you compare this commander and the E8 to your choices as Soviet, it is trash. The E8 costs about the same as a KV1 or T34/85, but the AI is much worse. If you had access to either of those in this doctrine, you'd never buy an E8.
It gets worse when you compare the commander. Rifle company has no rocket arty, no long range arty, and nothing to destroy on-map howitzers. This makes it inferior to any Soviet commander with a KV1 or T34/85, and vastly inferior to something like Shock Army or Counter Attack.
If they buffed the AI of the main gun to match the T34/85, the E8 would be okay. This would be an ok-ish 1v1 commander. They would need to replace the half track with time-on-target to make it viable in larger games. Advanced Infantry equipment is underwhelming also. It'd be a lot better if it made either RE's or rifle squads into bazooka experts.
It would be nice to have an option to playing infantry company every time in 4v4's when you see LEFH's in the other team's loadout. That monotony is a large part of why I stopped playing USF.
Relic Entertainment
