If only they would of given us this option back when they changed the looks of things the 2nd time 
I just realized what’s wrong. I felt that something had changed, but I couldn’t figure out what. Just like the Mandella effect. Devs swapped the colors of half of the troops. 
It’s not a problem, but it’s just unusual and unclear for what.
8 Likes
That’s actually a good thing. Now the same 2 or 3 colours all have the same layout.
You know what’s crazy? It’s been 2 days, 2 new threads related to the new design (the most viewed threads too), and not a single reply from anyone on their team.
Your feedback matters.
8 Likes
Neat find. Now I’m curious…
For six-colored Troops:
- Previously, the colors were arranged (clockwise, starting from “1 o’clock”) as: Red, Brown, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple. (This version was also shown for any Campaign tasks involving specific Mana Colors)
- Now, they are arranged in their “canon” order: Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, Purple, Brown.
For 3-color Troops (e.g. most Mythics):
- The “first” color is always displayed in the top-left. The second color is located in the top-right; third color is placed at the bottom.
- The colors are always arranged in canonical order: Blue → Green → Red → Yellow → Purple → Brown.
- That is to say, Blue (if present) is always on the top-left and Brown (if present) is always on the bottom.
For 2-color Troops:
- Again, this follows the canonical order (from left to right): Blue → Green → Red → Yellow → Purple → Brown.
- Blue is always on the left side; Brown always on the right.
No, that’s actually not crazy. Remember there’s at least two levels of “telephone” between us and the people who actually make decisions and plans for the programmers to implement.
4 Likes
Finally!
1 Like
Not the place I was expecting it to happen but I’ll take it.
1 Like
This card design goes against every single UI design principle. Reading the patch notes where they say “we think it’s more aesthetically pleasing” showcased a level of ignorance I could not quite believe. The cards are now cluttered with important details so difficult to distinguish it literally sucks the fun out turn-by-turn. There was nothing wrong with the old card design, it was precise and easy to keep track of things. God I hope this gets reversed, and soon.
14 Likes
Thing is, the troops really LOOK more aesthetically pleasing, I actually like the design. However, it’s terrible to PLAY with them, because it’s incredibly difficult to see information relevant for playing. If Gems of War were a screensaver instead of a game I’d give the update a top score.
4 Likes
I would put this in a broader way and say, that it is difficult to read or concentrate on things.
While the small and displaced health/armour numbers are the main aspect, that is (rightfully) criticised, there are still as well the elements, that the spell and trait texts are given background colours matching the mana, and the very intensive flashing status effect markers. Two “improvements”, that can and do cause headaches or worse.
They may “fix” the update by increasing the size of the numbers somewhat (and most likely killing the card layout along the way), if the player and money flow numbers mirror the reactions. Let’s not let them get away with that.
There is so much wrong with this update, visually as well as feature-wise (the new event mechanics seem to be almost completely forgotten already), that an improvement on one end, even if it’s the worst, does not make it something worth celebrating.
1 Like
Pretty sure we’ll read more about that when they go live next week.
Add me to the list of people unhappy with the new design. Most importantly, I can barely see how much armor and life the troops have left. It was way to hard to see what effects troops currently have, whether they have full mana or not. Plus all the other listed problems. Just a complete fail.
3 Likes
Very simple, game is unplayable now so … DELETED IT
Am done with devs completely ignoring their gamebase
6 Likes
They’re not ignoring it. They dont care, so they dont bother looking at it.
You have to possess concern to ignore things.
3 Likes
I’ve given this a few days to make sure that I’m not just annoyed that they moved my cheese. The issues have been detailed above by others in this thread and the accessibility issues thread so I will keep my feedback simple.
Health and physical issues
- All the clutter and flashing makes me queasy after about 30 minutes of playing.
- I cannot read the mana counter and enemy stats during battle more than half the time.
- Having the enemy stats on the right and hero stats on the left during battle is triggering migraines after an hour of playing.
Recommended Fixes
- Put the mana counter back on the mana circle in white
- Set the Armor, attack and life counters to white text on all hero and enemy troops in battle
- Put the new ribbon for the enemy troops on the left during battle to be consistent with the hero troops.
- Make the spell indicator thinner and static to eliminate unnecessary flashing and movement
Things I like
- I like the blue indicator to show spell is ready to cast
- I like the mana ribbon
5 Likes
It doesn’t even look nice. There are “rules”, of a sort, for using color.
4 Likes
Wow do I beg to differ. They look like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddy Shack, now. A bunch of bright colors that, more often than not, would not normally be used together.
I tend to prefer muted colors, as bright colors give me a comic book vibe. But that is a much more subjective thing. I can live with them deciding to go bright. But dang, if you are going to go bright, at least make sure the colors don’t clash.
I have been playing for a long time, so I could even put up with the unicorn puke, tacky, design. The inability to see any important information? That’s going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people.
11 Likes
No, maybe put it on the ribbon. But it definitely needs to be in white, and not just for readability…
Because most Troops have two or more colors, the Mana Level is necessarily (and arbitrarily) shown using one of the Troop’s Mana Colors (and specifically in the canonical “color order” of: Blue > Green > Red > Yellow > Purple > Brown). To a new player, this might suggest that it is advantageous to match that color specifically, when that is often NOT the case. For example:
- Paladin shows a Green mana level, but its preferred color is actually Yellow (for “Air Link” trait)
- Basilisk shows a Blue mana level, but its preferred color is actually Brown (for “Petrification” trait)
- Diamantina shows a Blue mana level when its preferred color is … um, Skulls? (“Diamond Aura” trait).
Mana Level is just a number and is NOT tied to whatever color of Mana originally provided the energy (unlike Puzzle Quest) – that’s why (for example) Wraith can steal Mana from non-Blue enemy troops.
No, it definitely works better on the right side of an enemy card because it keeps the overall layout symmetric. (Now if you want to be pedantic, inspecting an enemy card should likewise be flipped, to match how the card is shown in the battle screen.)
I actually like it too. It’s neat to see some visual style actually ADDED back into the game for once, but it simply must not interfere with communicating important information.
5 Likes
Barely returning player after quitting for the winter…
Can I ever return to this game without devs actively destroying it?
Last time I returned the devs sank and cut the cables on the challenges I was in the middle of working towards -REPLACING- them and nuking player progress instead of just adding their “new” mode beside it…
And now this… trying to give me goddamn seizures with the flashing effects overkill and making it practically impossible for me to read ANYTHING due to the tiny font on the nigh hidden numbers.
Hardly anything here is readible… do you even WANT players at all?
Holy hell man… Really reconsidering returning to this game now.
-Wskill.
Just in case you missed it during your hiatus, there are plans to increase readability and accessibility and such supposedly for the next update. We’ll see how it turns out of course, but hopefully things will look at least a little better Soon ™.