The thing is that it’s really sad. If you look away from the hideous graphics, you can see that at the core, there are signs of actually good ideas in the UI. For example showing a troop and its skill on the loading screen is not a bad thing to do; that could be helpful especially to new players and it shows off the art. I actually feel like that idea has value (you know, when it’s not bugged and things turn into black boxes). But those little specks of good ideas get drowned in a world of cheap UI suck.
Cross-posting what I posted in another thread yesterday, I also noticed the following: https://community.gemsofwar.com/uploads/short-url/hRmRgqkxvBEm58qPre3xO7YhFlb.png
I tried to emulate the old button colors to show just how bad the new colors are on the eyes. Because they are. But if you look at my recolored button, you can instantly tell how cheap it looks. Because it’s not blinding you, because the text is readable and bordered, you can see that basically an idiot can make it in five minutes. The bright colors and unboardered text distract from that fact a bit on the old buttons. Because, let’s be honest, they don’t look modern. To the devs, “modern” meant 3D when it comes to currency and traitstones. So why did the buttons revert from 3D to 2D? Can anyone explain that to me? The buttons just look cheap.
And now imagine if I would recolor the big buttons on the worldmap. Can you imagine how cheap they would look? The black and white is not a color choice. They had to pick these colors with their new UI because otherwise everyone would see even more that it’s the work of an afternoon in MS Paint.
They’re not going to change those buttons as drawn. The blue you have there would need to be more brighter really. Too flat when compared to the green and yellow colors. Then again, they should let players customize these default settings. Like why not if we’re stuck with this modern look and they [the developers] have no desire to let players choose the previous UI? Doesn’t it make sense to you all? Let the players customize the colors and text.
I doubt that it will happen. Therefore, no more tips for you Gems. We deserve better service!
the most disturbing example of what they thinking is more detailed modern look is the loading icon xD they went from a detailed mana colors with a skull spinning over them to a blue friggin circle…bhahaha no words…
Hahaha I know it looks super-flat! But it’s not “more flat”. It’s just a recolor with a bucket tool of the green button. The green button consists exactly of two colors - green and white - and I changed those by colorpicking from the old button to blue and brown. And then tried to match font size and spacing and bordered the text. That’s all. The yellow button has a glow effect added to the edges, that takes literally ten seconds in Photoshop, which is why it looks different from the green one.
Also they cannot let us customize the UI; running two UI has already been out of the question as it would take coding for both of them (as explained by Lyya here: Serious question and conclusion on the New UI - #78 by Lyya). There’s no way customizing will ever be doable and this time it’s not a problem of the devs not wanting to do it but simply that it’s impossible, work-load wise.
I’m aware that they can’t revert to the old UI since there is a new template/ layout. But to allow players to choose from a palette of colors and to choose from a menu of certain text sizes could suffice where such things are applicable. The truth is: they won’t do that for free.
Personally, I don’t understand why people are so attached to the old UI. This comparison of old vs new buttons makes it clear to me that the old UI looks really old. It’s straight up from the Web 2.0 days in the early 00’s (i.e., 15 years ago!). The modern, so-called “flat design” is much nicer, for myriad reasons. Web design standards have changed over time for a reason.
For me, it’s all in the execution. The idea is nice but the execution is way off. I see all the “revert” calls as a bunch of old-timer, curmudgeonly “get off my lawn!” types. I think with a lot of polish it will be much better than it used to be. I just hope they’re committed to iterating and not going to say, “Good enough!” and move on.
If the new UI didn’t cause actual pain to some users, and eye strain/fatigue to a disappointingly large fraction of the player base, the “revert” calls would be a lot fewer in number. As was mentioned in a different thread, nobody likes being a forced unpaid beta tester for a bad product. This UI has flashes of brilliance, and the game genuinely feels smoother in 3.2 than it did in 3.1.5, but I would trade all of that to not have to deal with the frustration of the new UI.
Like, I had to open 17,000 gold chests with my eyes averted from the screen. Seriously. Looking at the screen made my eyes hurt. I still have 10,000 gold keys I am saving for Shentang in the hopes that maybe it will be a less painful experience by then.
List the reasons and how they apply to a game set in classic fantasy. You know what, forget about the classic fantasy part. Just list the “myriad” of reasons why this flat design works better for this game.
Oh, my God, yes, man. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Today was horrid for me. I mean how lucky can this AI get? Also, I don’t know about for you, but that Unique Defense incentive the devs put in is working just dandy for me (sarcasm). All week ive been still going up against the same 5 or so teams I faced last week, and the week before, and the week before that. Maybe one or two have been different.
Whoopie doo da. I’m having so much fun in GW, let me tell you. It’s about as much fun as a root canal or taking a sharp stick right in the eye. Ain’t it grand? Pfft.
I’m not a UI expert, but I know the move to flat design, in general, is for a bunch of reasons. I’m sure someone that has direct expertise could give more, but a couple I’m aware of that we are already benefiting from are (1) faster loading times and (2) more responsiveness to changes in size across different devices allowing for faster/easier on-going development.
Any design is not without its faults, and I know there are some critics of flat design, but there are a lot of advantages as well and obviously the best aspects should be used while the worst are avoided. Here’s a pretty good intro article on the promise of flat design: A Look at Flat Design and Why It's Significant - | UX Magazine
Gems being a fantasy genre is irrelevant to whether or not the flat UI should work. There are certainly fantasy games currently on the market that use flat design principles. As others have pointed out, the Skyrim UI does a great job of being a fantasy game and has many similarities to many design elements here. The LOTR Shadow of War mobile game is an incredibly recent example (just launched a few weeks ago) and in the quintessential fantasy setting. If LOTR can do it then Gems can too.
Like I said, it’s all about the execution. There are lots of good reasons to embrace recent UI design principles. It just can’t be at the expense of basic usability. Most of the people I’ve seen saying, “Revert!” have struck me as having a visceral reaction to any change. But I see this as a case where it’s a good change done poorly. Put differently, asking for a revert is 100% unhelpful and misguided. A revert is the worst idea. They’re on the right track but this UI wasn’t ready for prime time.
I agree that the old UI looked dated and could have used a loving rework. I also think you’re not giving people enough credit when they call for a revert; the new UI is jarring, inconsistent in its execution, and not task-oriented (literally no flow is faster), so why not call for a return to what worked (aside from the technical impossibility, which is of no concern to the average user).
In general, a flat UI works well for showcasing content, in that you can get out of the way and let the content speak for itself. That was one of the key principles behind the Metro design language that worked well for media devices (Zune, Windows Phone to some extent) and not so well in a more general sense (Windows, text-heavy applications with little content). There is an industry trend now away from pure flat design, with the “lifelessness” aspect sitting near the forefront.
I’m sure Gems will eventually return to form. I’m just saddened that the green light was given to a UI with so many obvious flaws. I applaud IP2 in their agility and willingness to take risks, but risks have to be gut-checked first. I thought the company reputation and game reception was of higher importance than this.
Usually it happens on my home kingdom, but sometimes it shows some backgrounds I don’t recognise… which are typically brown and make it impossible to see the bronze coins…
It seems to be completely and utterly random, from what I’ve seen. I actually tried to play a bit since it’s the only thing that’s still fun in the game but yeah, the outcome greatly depends on the background. =/ Really wish they would make the board solid. I find the most pleasant background to be one I also don’t recognize, it seems to be a shop of sorts, with crates at the side. My home kingdom kills my eyes, really. I wish we had the old background back… nothing better than a solid board with only the gems/coins to focus on.
For me it seemed to have a preference for Broken Spire, which is really meeeh. Better than my home kingdom (which is too light), but still.
I’m sure that this has been mentioned, but I scrolled through quickly and didn’t see it, so in case it hasn’t…stealthy is definitely broken, at least on my Iphone 7. I can target whomever I want whenever I want.
Absolutely. I opened THOUSANDS of keys for the new Kingdom and every batch was painful.
There are 3 things I would like to see brought in from the old UI to this one:
The way you open chests/it’s summary. Having a single image of a card pop up isnt so bad, but having that scrolling summary is horrible, especially, if you want to skip it. I do so, its goes all black and stales for a second then shows me all 50 cards. Horrid.
I would like to see a traitstone look similar to the old one. They were nice, pleasing to look at, and I could bloody tell them apart! Right now, I’m lucky if I can tell a Minor water from a Major magic, let alone anything fancy like the Arcanes.
This is a “piggyback” off of my #1. I would like to see a scroll-less summary for things like the Victory screen. It just looks bad and its horrible to use on console. I’m not sure about you PC and Mobile players, but I hate it and would like to see it changed
I get needing a new UI, but it should be a breeze to use, nice to look at, and not clunky/cluttered. The chests and traitstones are especially horrible, as I stated above. There’s so much more that needs to be done to this UI, I say let’s start with these. Then, maybe we can deal with the ugly (and uninformative) black kingdom name bars as well as the fact that I can’t read the Troop type on 75% of the cards I own (a lot of them are Mythic and it’s next to impossible to read if they’re Giant, Monster, Beast, whatever).
EDIT: Also, moving the Glory icon and amount on the Menu would be nice. It seems out of place. Maybe put in under the gold/soul/gem ones? All you would have to do is move the “Mail” and such down a bit.
That’s another thing, I think you should move the chat icon back to where it was and fix the order like it was on the old UI. Especially, the chat, it’s an eyesore in the center the way it is. So, if it goes back to the old way it’ll be: Chat, Mail, Event, Offer, all down the right side. I don’t understand why that needed to be changed, it was fine before.
And then tried to match font size and spacing and bordered the text. That’s all. The yellow button has a glow effect added to the edges, that takes literally ten seconds in Photoshop, which is why it looks different from the green one.
