When the very possibility of a single patch is in question, making large changes to the game is extremely unwise. Missteps are unlikely to be reverted as there is little to no chance of a wait-and-see approach.
While swapping commander abilities is a big change gameplay wise, I am not sure if there are that many things that can go wrong. Sometimes fiddling with abilities like zis-3 or Su76 barrage can have larger consequences making units underused due to timing, cooldown, cost or range and this affects the entire faction and not just 1 commander.
The modification of popular doctrines to make them worse so that somehow bad ones can see more use will not end well. These doctrines have been fine since their launch and so many years later now they're COH2's #1 issue? Removing off maps or otherwise nerfing popular commanders is not going to do anything to encourage the use of the numerous terrible commanders. It will simply make the game worse.
Other commanders are not "terrible", they just can't compete with no-brainer commanders who have meta abilities and key units like ISU-152 or Elefant. This is particularly true for teamgames.
If there's a new balance/content patch for COH2, attention needs to be turned to polish and cleanup. It is as balanced as it will ever be and thinking that the removal of some off maps (which are very, very fun to use and a big part of COH2's spectacle I might add) is going to change something for the better is misguided. Commander abilities such as this should at most be modified quantitatively (stats, costs) without changing the core principles rather than qualitatively (different abilities).
If some commanders are significantly better than other, the meta forms and each match turns into Royal Arty, Jaeger Armor, ISU152. It's just as if you ate the same dinner every single day for the last few years. At some point it just loses the flavor. Currently, if you want to try something else, you get punished. Current system lowers replayability factor.
The meta as the term implies, is created by the players themselves. If people want to play in a specific way and think this is the only so-called correct way, nothing can stop them. To turn the tables on the meta, one needs to go out there and do it in practice by actually playing the game and defeating those obsessed with following the current flavor of the month in new and creative ways.
In case of a 2v2 scene this is not a flavor of the month, but a flavor of the last few years (briefly interrupted by Tiger meta when Tiger gun profile was unintentionally changed to better than intended). Meta makes the game uninteresting. Imagine playing rock, paper, scissors if going rock was always the best option. Game is great but lack of variety makes meta boring.
Frankly speaking it's a huge amount of work to fix the underused commanders across all the armies and it was Relic themselves that created this situation with too many commanders that lacked a clear focus. SOV and OST rosters are the biggest offenders, of course.
I don't agree. Currently it's not a matter of having 5 useless commanders in a faction, but rather 1-2 meta commanders per faction that get picked 90% of the time. I think that if top 4-5 commanders per faction were at about the same power level, that would be enough not to have ISU-152 and Elefant in every single 2v2 match. Experience shows that this could be done. OKW is seeing about equal play of Breakthrough, Elite Armor, Overwatch, Grand Offensive, Fallschirmjaeger and even post-nerf Special Operations (which is why changing the cancer flare might not be the best idea), with only Scavenge doctrine being less useful in all gamemodes (Feuersturm is mostly featured in 3v3 and 4v4).
Not every commander needs to be viable in every game mode, but every gamemode should have at least a few viable commanders that don't fall short of the meta standards.
The work done so far by the balance team in the past few years is outstanding.
Yes, they have done great job so far.
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
Heartless Jäger 
