The difficulty for the balance team is that it is impossible to properly balance and fix the various issues because the faction design is so flawed. (A lot of it stemming from non-linear teching)
A good example is the recent changes to timing of OKW vehicles. Previously the Panzer 2 and Flak Half Track arrived too early, so in order to balance them, they now have a huge build time. The Panzer 2 takes 75 seconds to build, which is 20 seconds longer than a Panzer 4. It is such a contrived change to have light vehicles with a significantly longer build time than a Medium Tank. Having such a weird change being neccesary to balance the timing of it shows just how flawed OKW's design is, but short of fully reworking OKW teching, simple & intuitive balance changes are not enough.
The same issues with Penals, where they have to basically be OP in order for them to ever be useful over Conscripts because then the player is denying themselves of HMG's, Mortars and AT guns. The only way Penals could have worked is removing non linear teching and shifting around tier 1 & Tier 2 units, or if Penals were made into Elite Infantry from the Tier 3, which makes no sense given the nature of the squad, so instead Penals could be exchanged for Shocks or Guards which are then Tier 3 elite infantry.
These are huge changes that would never get approved, how else is it possible to properly balance Penals without making them gimicky/cheesy or never used? It's basically impossible to balance Company of Heroes 2 without fully reworking stuff, which will be very divisive and too much for the Relic Scope Police. In a sense, balance patches are destined to fall short given the limitations of what they can do and the extent of which Coh2's poor faction design ruins the ability for minor balance changes to be a viable fix to things.
As Shadowlink pointed out, the biggest problems with Coh2 are so underlying and not merely balance, such as cover clumping frequently resulting in RNG wipes, Abandon/Main gun Crits, vet5 being a mess, some factions lacking access to core tools and mechanics such as flamers, mortars, some factions having forward bases etc.
However, it's certainly the case that Company of Heroes 2 continues to get better, more balanced and enjoyable every patch, so I certainly appreciate all the time and effort that has gone into it and it is giving the game more and more longevity.
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Quicksilver
Jesulin
GGTheMachine
Relic Entertainment
