Profile of StringBean

There are a lot of great things that have been posted in this discussion.

Ciez nailed the discussion of balance between the top and bottom so I wont comment further on that.

I think a lot of us have fallen in love with Coh2 because its not a mirror match game. I personally love the unique factions and having some factions specialize late and early game. I think the problem is that relic focuses too much on these faction specializations (sort of what Ciez touched on). The coh1 Wehrmacht vs USF was the perfect example of achieving balance with factions having advantages late and early game. USF had the early game advantage, but the Wehrmacht had tools to compete with them (mgs and snipers). Wehrmacht however had the late game advantage, but keeping your units alive rewarded USF players by allowing them to still have a chance to win late game with veterancy (I miss the "ohh yeah" moments of seeing vet 3 rifles in coh1, in coh2 vet 3 is no big deal). So I think it is possible to achieve balance when there are unique factions, its just harder and takes more effort.

Quick note on 1v1 and team games: When a faction is designed to not have caches (OKW) and then all of a sudden is granted those excess resources through teammates, you will never achieve balance in both 1v1s and team games until you decide to balance them separately (topic for different thread).

Now for more of my personal opinion:

I totally agree 1v1 is in one of the most balanced states it has ever seen. However, I believe Ostheer needs some help (and probably UKF, but I haven't played with them much so I wont post my opinion about that). Being in college I don't have the time to play often. Typically what I do is play the faction I am lowest rank with to try and improve my skill overall in the game. Over Christmas break I have taken up the challenge with the Ostheer and have learned some stuff in the process.

Ostheer is currently very much a pay to win faction in my opinion. I have not spent a cent on any commanders in this game (I think they are way over priced because usually you can get away without them). If you don't have mechanized or the Ostruppen commanders (like me) you are in trouble since I believe these commanders make up for what the faction currently lacks. Ostruppen gives you enough infantry to keep up with the hordes you face when playing against USF and Soviets. With their cheap reinforcement costs they don't drain MP either. They are also ideal for capturing team weapons with their larger squad sizes and less vulnerable to demos and mines. Mechanized gives Ostheer access to early game vehicles that allow them to go keep up with USF and Soviets. Pgrens in a half track gives Ostheer the light vehicle that can chase down and eliminate retreating squads (a little too effectively in my opinion) and also provides the stug A early on.

Ideas for fixing the faction: I would love to see some health improvements for grens. They seem really squishy to me. This combined with a squad size of only 4 gives them a large disadvantage vs soviets and usf. Mines and demos are nightmares (yes I use sweepers, but when you are trying to take back as much of the map as possible with the tiny windows you are given you cant have them everywhere) and if your crew weapons get caught out of position in the slightest and you lose them they are almost impossible to recrew. I also think the 222 could use some kind of health buff. It is easily one of, if not the, worst light vehicle option in the game and without it the Ostheer have no light vehicles to contribute to the light vehicle heavy mid game. I would also love to see the pgrens receive some attention. For what you get for their cost and the timing they hit the field (you always need a pak first) they are disappointingly ineffective. Something else that would be interesting to implement is demo charges for the Ostheer (I know this is highly unlikely and I am sure the allied fan boys gasp at the thought), but for a faction that only has s mines for AI mines it would be nice to have something that required sweepers to find (s-mines have nice big warning signs) and provides a huge threat to those allied blobs

Anyways sorry for the long post. I have been pondering these ideas for a few weeks and when I saw this thread I just had to chime in!

Purpose of this replay is to give those struggling against OKW as Britts some ideas in 1v1.

Steam Alias: String Bean
Steam ID#: 76561198062409826

Yeah you too. It was a fun game and unfortunate that you had internet problems.

String Bean vs Onnanita Game 2