Profile of US3K

Copy pasting from a different thread:

My ideas for a volk rework/suppression fix

USF buys riflemen who will always function roughly the same with minor changes depending on how you equip them. The 'nature' of the squad doesn't change.

How about OKW you buy the cheap infantry squad - volks - then upgrade them in a way that fundamentally changes how the squad operates.

Basic volk squad would be a very cheap RE/Ostruppen deal with a merge ability, they can then be upgraded with an mg42 which gives them the ability to set up a suppression cone, but can't be fired on the move and needs a setup/teardown time. Effectively changing the squad from basic infantry to a support weapon.

Remove the panzershreck upgrade, another upgrade would be a raketenwerfer. You want a raketen? Buy volks, upgrade them to be a raketen squad - raketen can even already retreat like a normal support weapon.

Other upgrade could be mp40/stg44 upgrade turning them into assault troops, or a repair upgrade turning them into good vehicle support troops with maybe a Faust snare ability too.

Each of these upgrades could be tied to the deployment of a tech building that makes an interesting choice for the player.

If you want elite infantry you still need obers to fill the gap like paras or falls. Remove the suppression from kubel after this change, give pshreck to Sturm's with toggle ability same as minesweeper.

It would even make a sort of thematic sense as volks being a cheap basic unit that needs to be trained into a specialised dedicated role. They'd be a sort of glue holding the big building block units of OKW together.

Coh was originally designed as a game where all factions were balanced across all moments of the game. That is the best way to balance factions with wildly different unit compositions.

The idea was basically to have all factions with equal 'power' at all times, but with the aggressive advantage going to one side and the defensive advantage to the other for each game 'phase'.

Unfortunatly, with COH2, this design base was never solidified, and the game devolved into straight advantages for certain factions at certain times (okw, usf, ukf). The vanilla factions became purely defensive (ost) or offensive based with all the shock units (sovs).

Because of this issue, the game has become impossible to balance in the traditional coh way, due to the fact that both sides have advantages all over the place.

Short of perfect balance in terms of unit power with their cost, the game will always have balance issues, and even with perfect unit balance, some factions will still have the advantage based off of their ability to field "shock units" that give them the initiative (soviet t3, usf midgame).

I really don't know any simple solution to this besides a radical redesign of all factions, and since that is impossible, I also don't forsee balance ever really being perfect.

Not to say they shouldn't try, but i don't expect the game to become well balanced in any short range timeframe, especially when we have new factions and commanders arriving, and most certainly not with the synergies available in teamgames.

+1,000,000. Sums up my thoughts when relic did that faction overview graphic showing what factions they thought were strong at what phases in the game. Completely flawed design principle.

USF basically starts at t0.5, then goes t1.5, t2.5, t3.5, whereas Ost goes 0,1,2,3,4 - always a step behind until the very end which it can rarely get to and can exploit usf's own design flaw

Generally I use them as a stop-gap light AT if I've gone t1. OST will very likely go 222 if you've gone m3 which guards counter nicely. They also do well against all OKW vehicles up to the pIV which gives a huge window, but I do agree they're not as good against volk spam which is pretty prevalent. They aren't bad at all, just the units they work well with - sov t1 - and the units they counter aren't much used at the moment.

Steppes is particularly bad for volk blobs. Stick with t1-t2, get some shocks, don't spend fuel on vehicles and pic a doc with a nice call in. That's just the nature of 4v4's though

Think Team games are bad?

how about queuing 1v1s against USF as Osteer for 5 hours.

10 minutes of being constantly choked until you finally break.

"that's it I'm playing allies"
Axis 20%
Allies 80%

gardening come on.

But as everyone knows from a few patches ago 90%:10% matchmaking percentages aren't because one side is OP, it's because people enjoy playing one side more! Just flank and smoke! /s

The way I see it americans and ostheer will always have balance problems, as Ost starts at t0 then goes t1, t2, t3, t4,. USF starts at t0.5, then goes t1.5, t2.5, t3.5. Basically always a step ahead until late game