Profile of MarkedRaptor

The thing is, agressive light vehicle play is very dominant in high rank play, and that is not possible with the AEC. and bolster doesnt fully make up for that I guess.

Either buff the bolster power spike (but somehow maintain late game performace) or give AEC some anti infantry buff?

IDK someone who is good at the game should tell me if im being dumb

Well the UC is that light vehicle play. Which if micro'd right is unstoppable for 3 minutes until an appropriate counter appears. If it hits a twig and does donuts however it's the worst light vehicle ever. I'd agree a 20-30 fuel light vehicle would be ideal but changes would have to happen more then likely.

The TL;DR: version is that I agree the lack of toolkit is the problem here, but I don't think any of the Allied factions play in a similar manner, and any further patches should focus on adding more tools to their stock rosters while further emphasizing their different factional traits.

You have a point but let me sort of elaborate in my example. A Ryu has all of the basic tools to be a functional character. An Akuma not only has those basic tools but more, making it a far more attractive choice for experienced players.

If CoH2 were to fit in that, You'd argue old USF/OKW was a different character entirely (Some characters don't have Wake up options for example to make up for it elsewhere). Good or bad that got changed dramatically so USF and OKW had those tools, but lost their strengths. Ostheer/Soviets never lost their tools and I'd argue have only gotten more. So you are left with a basic somewhat functioning faction vs a completely realized one.

As far as similarities, to be honest all factions follow pretty same rules. Light vehicles of 05-30 fuel are for super early harassment, 50 fuel would "counter" that unit and can harass, and 70 fuel counters all light vehicles + more. All infantry fight over good pieces of cover more so then their effective ranges(Heavy cover op). In my opinion it becomes about what tools you want to use or moreso what you have access to.

Personal opinion here I find usf/soviets very similar, except as soviets you have plenty of tools that are not restricted by commander choice or faction.


Edit: I guess to put it in one way, soviets/ostheer are 100% of a fully realized faction (Maybe okw now to some extent). USF/Brits were 50% north, but 50% east. So realistically all this time spent "fixing and removing" removed 40% of the east, and added 20% of the north. So all of this time is spent just trying to make them closer and closer to a "functional faction".

I appreciate the long write up but I just can't agree to go back to the era of "if you cant win in 15 minutes as USF you deserve to lose" that this community and design had for atleast 2 years of the game. that was cancer.

I think the idea was that each faction is vastly different so that they didn't feel samey. The argument is "well people will just pick soviets because it's the most viable/less gimmicky then.", well people do that anyways because soviets still have tools and a good tech structure vs USF. If you pick USF now you are basically picking them for the crew repairs and a few outlying strategies which can be similar to soviets.

Ignoring top end play, factions are pretty samey with USF/Brit/Soviet skins thrown onto them.

As far as that playstyle being bad for the game, I look at fighting games and each character is an arch-type that plays differently. So if I'm a zoner and I'm up against a rushdown character, I need to be even more cautious then I normally am about defense. In this context it seems like every faction is a Ryu/Shoto clones with slightly different things. So people just pick Akuma because he has a gross kit compared to Ryu.

I think "healthy for the game" is up to personal opinion because at that point what is? Would come down to the underlying vision of the game that I don't think had ever been openly discussed.

Main issue with Brits is they rely on cheese to win...

I can see what you mean. In that way they have to over perform in the things they are good at but have to be kneecapped in order for it to be "fair". If you were to look at USF from back then to now at a basic level USF could always "function". So the end result is both players abuse the things that allows them to win. Such as a 222 or 221(okw) can teabag a british players face for 3-6 minutes until they get an AT gun or an AEC because of their extreme lack of snares.

If you ever played League it reminds me of Darius who is the ultimate lane bully but his weakness is getting ganked because he had no mobility. So the only way to win was to abuse his kneecap which isn't exactly fun for the person laning AGAINST him and I'm sure he doesn't enjoy getting camped.

I could see the idea of toning their stuff down and making the UC their "shock light vehicle" for cheap fuel and making it worth it's value thereby making them play like other factions. That thing has dooky ass pathing though and its stats in general would need to be changed. Or adding some kind of halftrack.

Though in the end your evaluation does make them sound like Ostheer with extra steps. Maybe people would just prefer an allied faction that plays like Ostheer if they wanted to play allies. Such as OKW/USF mirror each others aggression.

The rest of the factions are weirdly designed in my opinion and trying to forcefully be "different", as in the reason why we got both British Armies being focused around static defensive emplacement gameplay or both the PE and OKW being the "Elite" more vehicle focused factions.

What should have been done in my opinion was go for a theme and stick to it, for example I think it was well done in the original CoH with the US and Wehr representing their real life 1944 counterparts well while in this game the Ost is some sort of mish-mash 1943/1944 defensive Army while they should be an early war more mobile and aggressive Army with the OKW's trucks instead to represent the "Blitzkrieg" time of most of the Theater of War missions for example.

In CoH1 USF was early game Wermacht were late. It was usually up to the USF player to be offensive and attempt to shut out the game before it was too late. That was the "theme" of the game and I think plenty of people were fine with that.

I completely agree with you in that the base factions are not deprived but have "themes". CoH2 Soviets and Ostheer are pretty closely matched and commander choices allow you to decide what niche you end up wanting to fulfill. Such as Assault Grenadiers if you wanted early offensive power, or T85's if you wanted a heftier tank. Did Ostheer have a better late game? They did, but that doesn't mean Soviets couldn't compete.

In CoH2, USF were similarly designed around shutting out the game on a razors edge. They were on an invisible timer to lose the game. They lack units in their core army because Riflemen were designed to do everything. As you said when they removed smoke on rifles, this core design began compounding on itself until they turned into this weird faction we have now. We have units that constantly compete against itself or just "slight" variants of existing units.

as for OKW I think the idea was they were mimicking their "Battle of the Buldge" concept of striking hard and fast early on, then teetering out to retaliation, but if they COULD hold they finally get their big guns out, the ultimate late game if you will.

I protested a lot of the USF changes that turned into the current iteration we have today and I was not the only USF player to do so. I prefer the theme they were originally presented with, and instead of changing it would prefer reducing the impact of it. If the issue was "Well, USF didn't have a late game" that was a choice you made when you locked the faction. I'm not a fan of factions being slightly different flavors of ice cream.