They may have tested to see if it works as designed but they surely did not do a usability test on it as there is no way in hell it would have passed and been approved.
For console this interface is likely ok.
For PC this interface is an abomination and never, ever should have been in the port to PC.
There is another theory though: The Devs are tired of this game and are looking to kill it to move on to something else. I feel like this is more and more likely.
You have got to be kidding. If they wanted to kill it, they could just stop supporting it. Or pull the plug entirely. Devoting 100% effort to port the entire codebase over to Unity is not something one does when one is tired of a game.
Yeah, they’re not trying to kill it. But it’s easy as a developer to lose track of what your end users think is important. The ui is complete, it’s just horrible to use. But if you’re just running down a checklist for functionality, it passes.
That is exactly correct. I was trying to make a point though in that even though the intent is not to kill but to continue to support and expand, their lack of planning and sound judgement with this specific interface (as well as with Chat) is leading to the same thing. People are going to get tired of fighting with this crappy UI and quit the game in frustration. Not just because of this, but because of months of neglect followed up by this slap in the face.
I think you’re being overly dramatic, but I do agree that the UI was a step backwards. Even on console, this latest update made it slightly worse than it was. They added text search (which no one who has to type using a controller with no predictive text is going to use) and ‘show unowned’, but remapped the buttons in an unintuitive way and made it more difficult to apply and clear filters.
Welcome to the ‘We hate our older players’ meme the developers have started. I’m sure they looked at the numbers and realized the only people giving them actual money are new players so the game seems far more weighted towards getting money from new players now.
I’m fairly certain the developers roadmap is all about griefing long time players into quitting so the game is more about early play. Why else would they do things like get rid of one troop defense and leave it so people have to set their guild wars defense in PvP instead of something nicer that gives snotgems. Even the fact that they haven’t bothered to fix how we buy Sentinel levels. It still takes me over 30 minutes to max my sentinels because the game runs so slowly on that screen.
I’m not in a position to comment with any authority on most of your post, but I found the Sentinel upgrade to go much more quickly this week after the 3.0.5 patch on PS4.
However, the idea that the devs would actively and deliberately grief long-time players is nonsense.
I can’t agree more, the search function on PC/Steam is almost unbearable. 1 click and the ability to scroll is all we need, clicking a 100+ times to get what we want is just piss poor programming skills.
I think most of us are going to extremes in our statements/examples to make the point easier to comprehend. I don’t think you are understanding that we are not trying to be literal, but instead we are purposefully being dramatic to attempt to get the point across.
I think when a person uses hyperbole to try to make a point that it genrerally undermines their argument. You run a very real risk of being seen as a toddler having a tantrum, not a reasonable person trying to make a valid point.
The original post was clear and has picked up 46 likes. What does accusing the developers of actively trying to sabotage the player experience accomplish?
It accomplishes conversation and keeping this topic a the top of the forums so more people see it, more people like it, more people comment their agreement to it and other points raised in the thread and maybe, just maybe, the Devs get some idea of how frustrating this entire situation is.
So thanks @Stan, you are helping keeping this at the forefront of the forum.
So you’re trolling, but for good? 
Anyway, I do agree wholeheartedly that the troop menu was a huge step backward for PC, a small step backward for console, and will probably be borderline unusable on a touchscreen mobile device. I can’t imagine using the trait filter on a phone.
trolling, venting, tomato, tamato (not sure how to infer that inflection in text).
Just as long as it gets attention is all I care about.
This reminds me of what happened to the clicker Realm Grinder. The devs did a complete graphical overhaul to the game and by doing so alienated a good half their player base.Went from nice vector graphics to pixel art. Along with a horrid pixelated font that made looking at it for long periods painful.
This thread started out great, but runs the risk of being ignored by the devs as it moves from highlighting a legitimate problem into conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated accusations of malicious intent. The devs made a mistake with the UI, so let’s try to criticize constructively and persuade them to invest the resources to fix it.
I agree (especially about how great my post was ) I know the devs are busy right now. I also don’t know much about how their development/testing process is set up. I think the player base would appreciate knowing if they intend to keep the troop chooser like this (because console requires it, and they want completely identical code bases) or if this is just a temporary situation in the rush to roll out the new client. The longer they’re silent, the more people worry it’s the former not the latter.
But you can imagine using it anywhere else?
There are well over 100 traits in the game and you’re scrolling them one by one. It is faster to just scroll the troops screen itself looking for what you want.
I can imagine using it on my PS4 because I have, and had no choice if I wanted to search for a particular trait. Introducing a trait filter of any kind was an upgrade for us, but I mostly use my brain as my trait filter due to how long it takes to scroll through the options to necromancy. Repeatedly tapping a tiny arrow on a phone screen would be too much, though. Now that we have text search, that might be a slightly better option, and would be clearly superior on PC and probably mobile.
I’m not sure what it’s even for, since you can type the name of a trait in the keywords box and it functions just fine. (Unless you were trying to browse for interesting traits, but this is a terrible UI for browsing.)
THIS. Devs, please? 
