kwok wrote:Sorry I also don’t understand how this is a UI problem. Can you describe a solution? Maybe that will help
Well, I'll try again first to describe the problem, as I think understanding that is really what's needed, both in this specific case but also in the general case, for the mod.
Consider the COH/BKM UI.
It is a display of the map, so you can see what is happening and where.
The display however is only of *part* of the map and the reason for this is that if *all* of the map was shown, the units would be so small it would be impossible to see really what was going on, or to control them.
Showing only *part* of the display has however significant consqeuence : you can only see what's going on in the part of the map which you are looking at.
If some critical event occurs in some part of the map you are *not* looking at, you've got a problem - you cannot react to it during the period where it is clear it will happen but has not yet happened.
This is the problem with the Bren Wasp rolling up to a trench and using the flamethrower.
What you would do, if you happened to be watching that part of the map, is immediately move the men out of the trench.
This response is not available, by and large, because the nature of the UI. You only find out about the Bren Wasp *after* it has wiped the unit, with the "unit lost" audio.
There's nothing wrong with the Bren Wasp as such. Likewise, there's nothing wrong with moving men out of the trench in defence. Both are valid and reasonable in-game concepts - Bren with a flamethrower is a thing, units in a trench being hit with the flamethrower dying very quickly is a thing, units moving out of a trench to avoid this problem is a thing. This is all valid and reasonable, a priori.
The problem is that the UI in fact by showing only part of the map usually *does not allow* the defence of moving the squad out of the trench, and, further, by this, transforms the Bren into something it is not, and was not intended to be.
To be sure there are other forms of in-game defence but saying they are the solution to this problem *whle not fixing the problem that moving the squad out of the trench no longer works* is to ignore the problem that moving the squad out of the trench no longer works.
That's bad, because moving men out of the trench is a thing, a priori, a reasonable and realistic part of the game. (If we're going to make reasonable and realistic parts of the game invalid, I'd like my tank destroyers to be immune to gunfire, please
So what we see, because the UI has its limitation, is that there are in fact certain by themselves reasonable and realistic in-game mechanics which are not practicable. If you put them into the game, they interact with the limitations of the UI, and then those in-game mechanics in practise become very different to what they would really be or, I think I can reasonably suggest, were intended to be.
This has happened with the Bren Wasp. It exists, and it's deadly to a squad in a trench, because of this a squad in a trench sees one coming, and there's no AT, they would leave - it's leave or die - but this cannot normally happen in the game because of the UI showing only part of the screen.
So now the Bren goes from being a threat which causes trenches to empty (what it really is) to a squad killer, almost always, because the defence of moving the squad out of the trench isn't viable because of the UI.