Profile of Midconflict

the only thing the jackson needs is severability. I say give it some smoke or more health. Main thing is that it needs to be able to take more then two shot from a heavy.

With the inclusion of the US and the OKW I feel that we need to ask what a faction and its commanders should look like.

To start when we look at the OKW we get a well balanced core faction. They are the only faction with elite INF and a heavy tank in the core faction. They have good AT and AI without the need of a commander to fill the holes in the core faction and each tier has an AI and AT answer in them. While, their commander are based more on utility. They bring either other elite units (FJ and Fusalers), or abilities to make your units better. In the end I see the only real problem with the OKW design be the lack of a need for a commander. Will the commanders are good you only really need one or two things from it because of the well balanced core faction. At the end of the day OKW commanders only add flavor.

The USF on the other hand is a faction of based around another tier system that spreads out the factions answers. One only needs to look at the were the MG and the AT gun are at in the tier are. But, even with this the americans are all about their vehicles, and INf upgrades. They by far have the best light vehicles in the game IE the AA halftrack and M20. The USF are a ability faction. From their rifle men to the jackson. Almost every unit get better with their vet one ability. There officer also give them one of the most powerful tech system in the game. That one free unit you get for something you were going to get anyway is great, and makes bake teching more viable. The USF commanders on the other hand are more of a play still change then anything else. In the end the only units that are better the the USF core faction are the EZ8 and the Paratroopers. The commanders also bring a lot of off map support for the faction. They are the only faction that has a call in arty or air support in every commander.

The Sovs are a call in faction. Their tier structure forces them to only pick two of their 4 tier structures, which other then tier 2 only have either AI or AT focused units. This leads to them having to pick commanders that A. have and elite Inf (shock or guards) to get them thought to the late game. This is when they can call in the best of their tanks which can only be call in from a commander. This has lead to a meta were Sov spam a unit until they get the elite inf, make a few of them, and hold out for late game call ins. which are far better than anything else in the core faction.

The OST on the other hand have an ok core faction up to tier 3. Their grends are still great Inf with upgrades, and P4 are still the best core medium tank. Now I do agree with many that there is little to no reason to go to t4 because a tiger is better then anything in the commander. This leads to the OST being in the same bout as the sov where they need to choses a commander that has a tiger. OST have far less call in units them the SOV and have no real elite in (PG might be elite) the faction whatsoever. This leads to the OST having to rely heavily on their support weapons, which are some of the best in the game. the commander tend to provide abilities or upgrades to core units, and the majority of them have a heavy tank in them.


After looking at each faction I have come up with a few things that each faction should have. Along with home commander should influence the game.

A.Each faction needs to have a their best heavy tank and elite INF in the core faction.
When we look at the OKW we see this. In my eyes the Obers and the king Tiger are the two best units in the faction, and both of them are core units. This allows the OKW to pick any commander, and never have to worry about not having late game units. This is the only reason I need to justify calling the OKW the best faction in the game.

B.Each tier in a fact need to have both AT and AI answers in the tier.
At the end of the day you shouldn't have to go without and AT or AI option, if you don't chose a commander with one build into it.limits strategies immensely.

C.Every faction should get something for teching up.
Far is Far, and this is one of the main ways to reword back teching to lower tiers.

D.finally commander call-in units for the most part should never be better than the core units.
These units should either be just as strong, or a different take on a unit in the core faction. IE a Jagtiger just having a longer range then a king tiger, and better at killing tanks then inf. At the end of the day it is just a different heavy that with a different role.This again will allow players to play any commander they want rather them what is best. And, even if a commander is better then the rest it will only be by a slit amount. leaving more than enough room for skill to shine.

What are you guys thoughts on what a core faction and it commander need to look like. Please remember that we are talking about the set up of the commanders and the core faction in general. Leave the balance of units to other threads, and come into this discussion with the idea that each unit fills it role. Hard I know (Panels elite AI inf LOL)

For one how about not having to unlock a rack at all its bs anyways. Axis only have to be in there territory why cant we just do it that way. you know how annoying and unfair it is that i have to wait to unlock the zook then purposely retreat a guy or run back to base to then equip them. Or how about making the zook as good as the shrek???!?!? axis is always worried about our mgs being the same as theirs why cant our zook.

And also when I go elite riflemen commander the first vet rifles i call in handle the kubel pretty well unless the guy is really really smart as they can rifle nade it right away unless they have a strum with it repairing it faster than 3 squads can dps it but this of course require that doctrine from the very start which kinda sucks now as by the time your calling an e8 in they already have several tanks at least a panther maybe a tiger of sorts

I agree with the weapon rake to some degree. One good thing about the rak is that it allows any american inf to upgrade a weapon, in this sense it is great. Now if the weapons would be better I don't think any USF player would see a problem.

On the zook buff, yes they should be about the same strangth as shrecks. The fact is the allies need better In based AT, so tanks like the Jagelol, panthers, and pumas cant just walk all over allies armor. Which Inf AT should be the counter to these things.

Here is my idea for USF early AT problem. Why not give the RE a Bazooka standard. This would come with a Manpower increase and Wouldn't mean the Bazooka rack wouldn't need to be unlocked. This also wouldn't mean that one RE would just conture a Kubel, but it would A. give the americans something else to build other then Rifles, and B. give them a fighting chance vs the Kubel.(first unit having AT role could be cool) In the end I think this would give the american more options in 1v1s and make the RE have a role in the game. (Not to mention give a reason to upgrade the Bazooka rak to better upgrade your RE).

What do you all think? Any other ideas?

Relic also needs to work on their crisis management. We can see this with the Kubel problem. When a game braking balance issue is found they need to revert the unit back to its old stats right away when the problem is found out. If there was no game breaking problem before the patch. So it is easier, and faster to just change it back to its old stats.

This is far better than forcing your players to wait for weeks for a hot patch that man not even fixes the problem enough. Also when a unit is found to be game breaking Relic, you need to take it back to the closed balanced server and try to balance it again. People who paid for your game shouldn't have to test your game unless they are asked to (which if you did the majority of people would). They shouldn't have to give up rank or be forced to play against game braking balance for weeks, so you can see what is going on.That is you balance teams job along with those players you have asked to help.

I am not saying you have to do it alone relic, but you do need to poll more of the wight. CoH 2 is your product, you need to take responsibility for you product, employees and your mistakes.You need to make changes for the betterment of your product and its long term goal (Esports) not just the community.

Back on topic by making this change to your crises management, you will get a few positive changes to the balance processes. First, it will keep your player bases from having a complete and total melt down, like we have been having over the last week or 2. It is scary how lost and angry people are right now and this is not good for the game at all. If you need prof just look to the forums.

Second, it will keep you from just over nerfing the unit in question. A good example of this is the Katusha, which got over nerfed, when it would of been so much better if they just changed it back to it old stats.(PS, on paper and in practice are two different things.)

And, finally it would give your balance team a direction to balance, and what to what for in the future. Lessens to be learned from this patch. A. Mobile MGS are a pain to deal with "cofe" (Maxism had the same problem for a long time). B. USF lack early answers to strong and mobile MGS at the start of the game. C. large patches are a bad thing. Keep it small so you know what the problem is faster, rather than needing to make 2 hotfixes. The same effect of the last patch could of easily been done with small patch of a few weeks, and would of given you a better idea of how each change would effect the whole game first before the nexts game. (Any easy fixes is to just have a patch every thursday that makes one or two changes, or fixes)

Like the post said relic needs to change the balance process first, because the way in which it is done now does nothing then ruin the game, over and over again.In the end it will be up to you relic to change to the needs of your game.