Profile of Jae For Jett

It looks something like this: https://imgur.com/a/YJkVP6k

That image

COHO was actually where I first became acquainted with the franchise!

It was a free to play "version" of vcoh.

I believe it had some (all?) of the main campaign missions from vcoh.

COHO only included the american and wehrmacht forces, no brits or PE.

I think the maps were the standard vcoh map pool?

Yes there were microtransactions/p2w stuff (more on that later).

There was actually an insane degree of customization which involved "hero" units (again, more on that later).

So when first starting COHO, you were prompted to select a faction and a commander from that faction (same ones as vcoh). That commander started at level 1, and starting off you actually only got to select and use one ability from that commander. As you played, you gained experience for the commander you were playing, and as you leveled up you got to select more abilities and actually upgrade them (similar to the sort of upgrades you see for abilities in COH2's Ardennes Assault campaign). The commanders actually included more abilities than the ones in vcoh did (for example, wehrmact's terror doctrine could get a terror officer which wasn't present in vcoh). Honestly, there was actually some extremely cool and fun stuff. Once you upgraded your abilities enough, you could repurchase KTs after your first one gets destroyed, have two pershings on the field at once, and the terror officer could get an execution shot similar to recon tommies' snipe ability.

As you leveled (if I recall corectly), you were given "hero" (dont remember the actual name) units. These units could also be purchased through any of two currencies (one of which was earned through playing, the other of which was purchased with real money like most other f2p games). The hero units were special versions of units found in the base roster of the factions. Hero units were actually fairly unique and didn't gain veterancy in the normal sense... Their veterancy/levels were actually persistent through separate games and they had 5 levels. The unit would start at level 1(?) and would already have their first bonus, immediately differentiating them from their counterpart in the base roster. These hero units ranged from "basically the same as the base unit" to "this feels like an entirely new unit." Some examples include the American forces' charismatic engineers which could become as large as a 5 man squad at their highest level, and Whermacht's close combat volksgrenadiers which started with mp40s. Trust me, the variety was actually pretty insane.

I also recall some sort of bulletin system. I remember them being similar, but perhaps more impactful, than coh2's bulletin system. One bulletin that I remember in particular was one that armed Wehrmacht's pioneers with rifles instead of their usual mp40s.

Also IIRC, the game didn't have lobbies or a server browser.

With all of that variety, leveling up, purchasing of hero units with real life money, and players instantly being able to build "vet 5"/level 5 units if they played a lot, balance and the p2w aspect were fairly large issues - I'd like to think that this made it more fun...

Besides these things and the menus being different, COHO was the same as vcoh.

Where do CavRifles fall in this discussion, I wonder.

Assault engineer grease guns and ranger thompsons. So probably better than assault grenadiers and worse than rangers.

There is no point in comparing the actual stats between weapons with arbitrary profiles. Just compare the stats.

I agree as far as balance discussions are concerned. However, I believe describing weapons in terms of profile (when applicable) really helps the teaching/learning experience. Its much easier for players to learn how a few classes of weapons perform than to look up/ask about the stats for each indiviual weapon. Its also much quicker to write out and makes players that ask for help focus on the important stuff. It allows you to describe a weapons performance while keeping the focus on how a player pilots an engagement.

By the nature of the weapon, only when you are at close range you have a great DPS. A unit retreating will move out of your "comfort" zone.

A bolt action non sniper rifle, won't lose DPS because they close in and have much higher chances of doing anything when the unit starts to retreat.

I understand what you mean, but that's just ignoring the fact that theyre doing SIGNIFICANTLY more damage while in their effective range. The only way a rifle is going to do more damage than almost any smg is if the enemy retreats right at 10 units away, and at that point both the damage done and difference in damage done is insignificant. It's a similar thing for stgs vs smgs. Stgs are doing so little damage closing in that the smgs (the ones that dont suck) make up for it once they finally do close in. And, again, if the enemy retreats before the smgs overtake the stgs, then the damage damage done and difference in damage done are probably insignificant - especially since you've accomplished the goal of winning the engagement by forcing the retreat.

Of course rifles will do more damage in raw long range battles, but at that point it's just an unfair comparison. Rifles being more flexible - sure. Rifles doing more damage - hardly.