Profile of BlueKnight

Sorry guys, I couldn't reply for the last few days.

I suggest you actually read what BlueKnight has actually posted ...
It is actually crystal clear.

It is true that I mentioned going Infantry Company for access to Time On Target off-map artillery to destroy leFHs, however in my main post I suggested to rather make leFH a clone of ML20 as that would make it less obnoxious than it is now with the OP vet1 counter barrage ability. Spreading the anti-howitzer tools across different commanders would improve the variety though, so one could possibly swap TOT with other commander's off-map arty.

Fair. Though he does mention arty "pieces" in the first paragraph of his first post which is on map not off.
And actually the entire thrust of his second paragraph is about how some factions need to select artillery commanders because they lack non doc rocket arty. Honestly I'm still fairly sure his main issue is that artillery pieces are necessary for all factions but some are limited to only having them in specific commanders.

This is spot on, my main issue was not leFH and Infantry Company but rather current design of artillery that has always been one of the major issues of teamgames and meta commanders for large game modes.

I would like to see all arty nerfed across the board. Limit priest sexton ml20 lefh to one as well as all rocket arty. It wouldnt effect 1v1 much as generally your not going to make more than 1 of these units to begin with and would do wonders for team games. Less focus on arty more into armor and infantry battles. Im so sick of having to choose rocket or arty commanders as allies and spam them and so sick of axis players being able to just spam bunkers and lefhs.

100% agree. I am just as tired of having to play the same commanders to be able to compete in teamgames as you. This is why I started this thread, hoping that community feedback might lead to further game improvements.

How to you suggest axis counter Sexton/Priest/ML-20/B-4 if the Lefh becomes more inline with ML-20?

Sexton is underpriced imho. ML-20 and B-4 are countered the same as Lefh - with an offmap. Priest should lose some firing range to make it more similar to Sexton. As far as I remember Sexton's range is significantly shorter than the range of other howitzers and Priest already has to move fairly far forward to be able to barrage enemy Lefh position. On Across the Rhine 3v3 map you have to stand around the middle VP to barrage close to enemy base sector with Priest. If Priest had even shorter (Sexton's) range it would have to expose itself even more. It's still a mobile howitzer so it is going to be harder to kill than the immobile one, but you also pay more for it, so it should have some advantages while having shorter range.

TL;DR
Arty is essential in teamgames, therefore some factions have to choose from limited number of commanders if they want to compete. This leads to boring meta. On top of the changes planned for the winter patch I think that some arty pieces need changing to increase variety, but at the cost of asymmetry in the game balance, suggestions are described below.

I play mostly 2v2 and 3v3. In the gamemodes I play, arty is the king because every now and then it wipes a squad and gives a hard time to teamweapons, which are extremely useful to control enemy infantry and vehile play. 3/5 factions have stock access to rocket arty, the remaining 2 factions have to pick arty-themed commanders (or commandos who can use stealth and light gammon bomb to decrew teamweapons) to be competitive. With these factions you pick the commander to fill the gaps in your roster in 3 out of 4 gamemodes just to have the tools that are so essential that every other faction has them stock.

Royal Arty is bugged disabling sound for non-english voicelines with OP mass flare vision, Calliope in current state is OP too considering the rate of fire, it has great area saturation with high mortality rate for anything in the target zone. It's boring to have to go Priest commander as USF every game just to have a counter to leFH (especially vet1 counterbarrage which is OP due to 0 micro required) that in teamgames reliably counters USF if unchecked (ambulance targetting etc.) .

To stand a chance in competitive teamgame players have to have arty and players choose the same meta doctrines just because of that and it's all because of the artificial asymmetrical balance. How asymmetrical is it really if there is arty involved in every single match anyway?

Please make scott doctrinal like valentine and replace it with nerfed, less deadly version of Calliope so I don't throw up when selecting the same commanders over and over again. Make leFH more in line with ML20 (remove the counterbarrage) . I know that Brits have long range mortar barrage planned for the next patch so we'll see if that solves the problem, replace the bugged and OP mass-flare with recon plane dunno.

I can imagine people complaining about Calliope becoming stock tool, but tbh it's in every match already so nothing would change for the opponents really, meanwhile fans of sexy-looking tanks like E8 could finally pick a different doctrine.

Coh2 is an RTS game revolving around risk management. Every engagement is a gamble, but your odds are well known to you and your opponent, because stats of units are bound to veterancy and can be learned from various sources. Moreover, experienced players can tell an outcome of given engagement with high fidelity and without ever memorizing stats, based purely on their ingame experience.

When games involve very high or very low chances of success, that's a good design because it leads to predictable results of an engagement, so players can decide if they want or do not want to take the risk. What is a bad design, is when there are 50/50 odds for actions that carry significant consequences. A good example of a bad RNG handling by the game is Age of Wonders 3 with nets, entangling and shock having usually around 50% chance of having huge impact on an engagement with very little that can be done to improve the odds. Luckily, Coh2 main gun destroyed and abandon (criticals with big impact) have very low chance of happening or are gated behind some extra requirements like low health etc. They add to the game by making the engagement-gamble more complex and not just a simple equation based on which you can say "yeah, I can dive and will be fine".

I think that the RNG elements (except for plane crashes which are super random) are well implemented in current version of the game and punish close calls in vehicle combat. Abandons always surprise and can turn the game around. Let's not forget that it's not that easy to recover an abandoned vehicle. Abandoned vehicles can hardly move and are very fragile with their ultra-low health. Unexpected engagement outcomes can make one match feel different from others which makes the game more interesting in my opinion.

Imo there 2 separate issues here.

1) loiter planes are mess since the can be devastating if there not AA or a waster of munition if a single Quad is not the field. I assume that eventually this will be fixed.

2) Imo currently Tiger is strong vs mediums (other Super heavies also. Building enough mediums (or M10) imo should be a valid counter to Tigers. The AT loiter though can easily protect a Tiger and that imo is not good for diversity in the game since it makes TDs a far safer choice.

This sums it up pretty well. Very good topic to discuss.