Profile of ZombiFrancis

Probably because tanks should usually not be isolated or the only unit capable of defending itself in an engagement.

Turret damaged and destroyed I think was more interesting/fun though.

Volks are meant to be potent frontline infantry, and the OKW is an offensive faction. Volks being retardedly efficient as assault units is fine.

However Volks efficient nature plus call-ins renders Obers largely redundant unless the OKW player is floating MP. I'll probably be laughed at, but what if Volks and Obers were swapped? (With Obers becoming cheaper/Faust and Volks coming out of the box with Stg44s.

Volks are indeed efficient. However, what if their weapon upgrade wasn't just a plain bonus, but a role change? If Volks got five MP40s instead of StGs, or had the remaining two rifles exchanged with MP40s, they'd actually see a real change in role. They wouldn't be able to sit in cover in an extended firefight and would be forced to close. But they'd become much more capable flankers.

I see no reason Obers shouldn't at least get panzerfaust with some kind of vet.

But IMO OKW infantry would function best with: Volks have x5 MP40/STG CQC weapon upgrade. Sturmpioneers exchange schrecks for smoke grenades. Obers get x2 panzerschreck.

Panzerfusiliers role remains strong, but cannot fill Volks' assault upgrade role or Obers AT upgrade role. Similar with Jaeger Light Infantry.

Fallschirmjager are kind of a unique ugly duckling. I've never really been able to use them effectively outside of alphastriking katyushas and ATG walls anyway.

However, it is worth noting that I still think it's ridiculous that Volks get a stock StG upgrade but there are zero stock PPsH upgrades for Soviets.

the way that man power is allocated to popcap, and how popcap/mp isn't affected by strategic points changes the core philosophy of the game and lessens the impact of strategic cut offs which vastly impacts things like tech structure, and power creep.

I don't disagree with you at all actually. Although I feel like diversity in territory points impact the game more than how pop cap works. IIRC the mechanics are unchanged, territory points don't provide any pop cap anymore. The value is just set to 0, but the components are all there.

I should just incorporate the pop cap stuff with my mod and be done with it. Interestingly enough the pop cap of vcoh is something I think a lot of people simultaneously didn't like or understand. It is one of those things people struggling with coh2 also say they didn't like about coh1, but may not realize how much it may have helped them before.

Bugspat

Feature that affects match result before it even beggins as well

So true...

Although I rarely have bugsplat... But then again I rarely play more than two or three games without restarting the game.

Over the last few months most discussion and debate on these forums have revolved around the Winter Balance Patch. That's all well and good to set priorities towards the most realistic route to having changes made. But at the same time I think it's caused a lot of components of CoH2 to be missed or ignored because of, well, "The Scope." CoH2 is a very intricate web of various mechanics, many of which can be highly dependent on choices players make outside of an actual match. I think the issues that lie therein should be paramount to most discussions of gameplay.

That said:

Loadouts:
Bulletins aren't a big problem, but they are often a tell of player's intended tactics. (IMO bulletins should be cleared for tournament play. They're just... unnecessary for actual gameplay: Negligible at best, tipping the scales of balance at worst.)

Commanders... Where to begin. The imbalances between commanders themselves, be it in design, or by volume for EFA, are probably the single most problematic aspect for CoH2's languid attempts at balance.

I think there are actually a lot of avenues that can remedy this situation. (I feel like I sound like I'm from 2013. ) Some outlandish, some, well, more outlandish. For tournament play I really think there should be a list of approved commanders for that event. That, and/or a pre-tourney draft or veto session between players to determine which commanders can be on the loadout.

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Map design:
The current limitations of map design prevent a high degree of dynamic gameplay. The importance of capping order is barely recognizable in CoH2, whereas it was a critical component of matchups in vCoH. Furthermore, the maps themselves suffer as there is a high degree of homogenization of territory. There are only so many combinations of three resource points that can be utilized before maps become pretty cookie cutter or clones of each other.

My signature links to my mod that addresses this issue directly. I urge you to play a game on Langres as it was designed in CoH1: very different gameplay, if only in the opening stages of the match.

'More' maps are unlikely to improve the situation until there is 'more' that maps can utilize.

Since tournament play doesn't take place in Automatch, I feel like maps themselves could eventually be modified/fixed in certain ways to promote more competitive or balanced games for a given event.

Faction Design itself:
Alright, we've made it past the loading screen! But now we are faced by the issues that have been extolled and debated on online forums, official or not.

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So the point of stating all this here is that I think it is important to really look at some of the components that go into making a balanced and competitive match of CoH2. This game is very complex and full of nuanced mechanics, and when scrutiny becomes too focused on specific units or abilities, I feel a lot of factors are missed/ignored.

A lot of things probably will never be officially changed, but I do think there's entirely the capacity for things like tournaments to be constructed in a fashion that mitigates many of these issues.

Anyway, this was all just my day-off-time blurb about the game.