Profile of The_Courier

Bit of a contradiction there, saying you think they should have a reason to "be kept alive", but then you propose a cannonfodder role, which is pretty much exactly the opposite of keeping them alive...

They infact already fulfill that role due to 6man nature and a 1/3 lower per man reinforce cost than for example Grens. They carry a full two mens worth more soak, and each of them cheaper to replace.

Furthermore they already fulfill the reinforce units role throughout with Merge, and AT support with AT-Nade, especially with Oorah speed which makes it that much more possible to land the ordnance.

Therefore I dont see any actual justification, based on the reasons you give, for the change you propose.

Some people seem to operate off an assumption that Cons "should" scale to lategame, but are ignoring the fact that Cons actually carry their scaling capacity from the start. One means to demonstrate that, is imagine if Cons only got Oorah/Merge once you built T3/4. That would constitute scaling, but instead, as is, Cons already actually get this native advantage right from the start, at no additional cost.

Cons are fine.
Penals are the missing link.

Conscripts do not break any reinforce rules, stop trying to pretend they do. Half the cost of the squads, same as almost every single infantry unit in the game. Hell it costs 100 mp to bring them back from 1 man, and 90 to bring grens back. Conscripts have nothing particularily meat shield-y considering their 6 men go down just as fast to Axis weapons fire than german 4 men squads from allies's generally lower dps weapons.

Ooorah and AT nades (that you pay for with fuel unlike any other faction) are not useful scaling, not anywhere near as effective as shrecks, LMG42s or BARs/1919s. The former allows you to punish an opponent's micro mistakes if you spend ammo and roll the RNG dice if your conscripts happen to be in the area. The latter means your infantry can either reliably damage vehicles for the rest of the game, or gets a big boost to anti-infantry damage. AT nades are in fact nothing special, and everyone save OKW (who have very strong non-doctrinal AT nevertheless) gets them for free, but somehow it's supposed to be a holy grail for Soviets because it's the one thing conscripts are semi good at after the 10 minute mark?

Penals need fixing more urgently, but that doesn't make conscripts fine.

Was there also that much complain when FJ's spawned in houses in CoH1?

They spawned with bolt action rifles and had to upgrade for 60 ammo to get their FG42s. CoH2 Falls (which I think are fine for cost) and Jaegers (which are not) come with their powerful weapons locked and loaded.

I don't have a problem with spawning in buidings, but those squads should require an upgrade for their high DPS weapons. Lower their MP cost to compensate. And Jaegers probably still need a nerf anyway, these guys are crazy good.

why do penal troops get svt40s anyways? they should be given basic rifles.

Never understood that one either. I'm pretty sure the Soviets never gave their cannon fodder troops modern semi-automaic rifles. They should have Mosins, SVTs seems much more like a conscript or Guards weapon.

At the beginning, I think penals should have been conceived as a frontline assault squad, and conscripts as an all-around unit that can scale to longer range (via an upgrade or vet). But somehow the Penals were given flamethrower and satchels... along with longer range rifles. All other infantry have pretty defined roles, the Penals are just there and don't really serve any purpose nor make any sense. It's like giving Obersoldaten an LMG34 and sticking MP40s to the rest of the squad.

Units changing into others isn't a really good design IMO. Conscripts should be given a role, rather than being changed into a useful units because the devs can't be arsed to give them one.

And no, AT grenade dispenser is not a valid role.

I still think being able to upgrade them with something (PPS43? RPD? DPs?) after T3 or T4 is built would be a solution. A much needed DPS boost for them, nothing too fancy but better thsn their Mosins and allowing your conscripts, if vetted, to actually contribute to the fight rather than just be slaughtered every time something scarier than Pios look in their general direction. Or maybe extra armor like Shocks for a bit more durability. Or lend-lease bazookas so they can become swarming tank hunters.

Something.

I know all statistics can be manipulated. That's why you corroborate the stats with what the pros actually have to say about balance (those who post at least). I've seen none state that USF is overpowered, to date at least. Some parts of it, yes, but it's never stated as the overall best faction that I recall.

Plus, the top ten only is a pretty small sample size. At least the top 100-200 cover more people.

And I agree with Kothre, the game's biggest issue at the moment is that all factions (some more than others) have very cookie cutter builds, deviating from which is often a bad idea against a good opponent. Many of said builds incorporate call-ins that are too easily accessible. As well, the bevy of powerful long-ranged infantry has led to an increase of blobbing, because your LMG grens/1919 rifles/any elite OKW infantry can simply wipe away from existence anything that's less ''leet'' than them just by a-moving.

Soviets and Ostheer also have prohibitive late-game teching costs for relatively lackluster units. Just an example: Soviets pay 120 fuel to the the M5 HT (barely used), the T-70 (overshadowed by...) and the T-34 (decent but not very good late game). USF pays 90 fuel to get the Sherman (more flexible, has smoke), the M8 (very good at its niche) and the Jackson (very valuable tank destroyer). OKW can access rocket artillery after a 40 fuel investment that they start with; Ostheer gets it at the very end of its tech tree, after investing 145 fuel to get there not counting the cost of any unit or building.