New UI Update: Gameboard

turbomoose

been trying to play for about a few hours since the change 

The most annoying thing for me apart from the dark screen on the AI’s turn is that it’s very difficult to know when you have a power ready , yellow doesn’t seem to flash at all 

nice attempt at improving the game but sadly it just doesn’t work for so many reasons 

entrailbucket

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

If a video game you like to play is causing you physical pain/health issues...there are literally thousands of video games to play that are just as fun as this one that won't cause those problems for you. 

If a large number of people stop playing the game completely as a result of this change, it will be reverted or altered.  If you continue to play despite changes that cause you physical pain, all they will see is that player engagement is steady.  Vote with your feet.

This forum represents a tiny, tiny portion of the playerbase and is historically well-known for violently overreacting to minor changes, so feedback from here is going to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

But I play not with my feet but my hands.

Grain of salt? Gambit nerf, bishop nerf, pve tapping, maybe time slices a little. That's just what I remember without thinking about what the forum has been involved in changing. Anyone else remember some?

You honestly think this complete aesthetic change to the game board that we interact with 100% of the time when playing is a "minor" change? C'mon man!

Full disclosure - I did post that this change doesn't bother me and I'd be able to get used to it.

I didn't say this was a minor change. 

If it's causing you serious problems, the way to get that point across is to stop playing until it's fixed.  Posting feedback here may carry some weight but ultimately, continuing to engage with the game will outweigh any negative feedback here.

Tony_Foot

Even in shardpocalypse there wasn’t the new forum members showing up or infrequent posters like there is with this change. Not ranting but posting some well thought out issues/problems. 

Pleasing to see tbh the way this feedback has been given.

Yepyep

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

If a video game you like to play is causing you physical pain/health issues...there are literally thousands of video games to play that are just as fun as this one that won't cause those problems for you. 

If a large number of people stop playing the game completely as a result of this change, it will be reverted or altered.  If you continue to play despite changes that cause you physical pain, all they will see is that player engagement is steady.  Vote with your feet.

This forum represents a tiny, tiny portion of the playerbase and is historically well-known for violently overreacting to minor changes, so feedback from here is going to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

But I play not with my feet but my hands.

Grain of salt? Gambit nerf, bishop nerf, pve tapping, maybe time slices a little. That's just what I remember without thinking about what the forum has been involved in changing. Anyone else remember some?

You honestly think this complete aesthetic change to the game board that we interact with 100% of the time when playing is a "minor" change? C'mon man!

Full disclosure - I did post that this change doesn't bother me and I'd be able to get used to it.

I didn't say this was a minor change. 

If it's causing you serious problems, the way to get that point across is to stop playing until it's fixed.  Posting feedback here may carry some weight but ultimately, continuing to engage with the game will outweigh any negative feedback here. incorrect — and it’s counterproductive advice. 

Your comments in this vein are incorrect. You’ve been a member here long enough to know that if you’ve been even minimally active in keeping up since 2014. 

1. Why would they bother to sponsor a forum if there is no intention to monitor the valuable, free feedback volunteered here? 

2. While perhaps non-optimal in frequency, there are numerous well-known examples of developers responding to our feedback here. 

3. This thread is being actively monitored and moderated. Attention is obviously on it. 

4. It seems unlikely that encouraging quitting is your motivation, but it comes off that way. Why discourage player feedback in favor of quitting? Seems like a slow route to better placement for you, but your advice is illogical otherwise. 

Anyway, find another thread to promote your theories on productive player feedback. This thread is too important to sabotage. 

DAZ0273

Yepyep said:

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

If a video game you like to play is causing you physical pain/health issues...there are literally thousands of video games to play that are just as fun as this one that won't cause those problems for you. 

If a large number of people stop playing the game completely as a result of this change, it will be reverted or altered.  If you continue to play despite changes that cause you physical pain, all they will see is that player engagement is steady.  Vote with your feet.

This forum represents a tiny, tiny portion of the playerbase and is historically well-known for violently overreacting to minor changes, so feedback from here is going to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

But I play not with my feet but my hands.

Grain of salt? Gambit nerf, bishop nerf, pve tapping, maybe time slices a little. That's just what I remember without thinking about what the forum has been involved in changing. Anyone else remember some?

You honestly think this complete aesthetic change to the game board that we interact with 100% of the time when playing is a "minor" change? C'mon man!

Full disclosure - I did post that this change doesn't bother me and I'd be able to get used to it.

I didn't say this was a minor change. 

If it's causing you serious problems, the way to get that point across is to stop playing until it's fixed.  Posting feedback here may carry some weight but ultimately, continuing to engage with the game will outweigh any negative feedback here. incorrect — and it’s counterproductive advice. 

Your comments in this vein are incorrect. You’ve been a member here long enough to know that if you’ve been even minimally active in keeping up since 2014. 

1. Why would they bother to sponsor a forum if there is no intention to monitor the valuable, free feedback volunteered here? 

2. While perhaps non-optimal in frequency, there are numerous well-known examples of developers responding to our feedback here. 

3. This thread is being actively monitored and moderated. Attention is obviously on it. 

4. It seems unlikely that encouraging quitting is your motivation, but it comes off that way. Why discourage player feedback in favor of quitting? Seems like a slow route to better placement for you, but your advice is illogical otherwise. 

Anyway, find another thread to promote your theories on productive player feedback. This thread is too important to sabotage. 

I went back to Facebook and scrolled a bit more - it took 43 comments for somebody to say they liked the change. I then scrolled a further 57 comments and found 3 more positive comments. So from 100 comments, there are 4 positives ones in that sample. I mean I guess they could all be disgruntled Forumites but that seems a bit unlikely.

bobr

Registered on this forum just to post this comment. Dear developers, you have made a good and fun game. I have been playing this game for 2 years almost every day. I liked everything about her until the last update. But the latest update from March 15th is very bad. It became very difficult to play the game and perceive the game board. The colors of the dark tiles merge into one, uninformative school of heroes' abilities, the screen dims when the enemy moves. Please make it possible to select the old interface, because in the current state it is simply impossible to play. thank

entrailbucket

Yepyep said:

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

If a video game you like to play is causing you physical pain/health issues...there are literally thousands of video games to play that are just as fun as this one that won't cause those problems for you. 

If a large number of people stop playing the game completely as a result of this change, it will be reverted or altered.  If you continue to play despite changes that cause you physical pain, all they will see is that player engagement is steady.  Vote with your feet.

This forum represents a tiny, tiny portion of the playerbase and is historically well-known for violently overreacting to minor changes, so feedback from here is going to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

But I play not with my feet but my hands.

Grain of salt? Gambit nerf, bishop nerf, pve tapping, maybe time slices a little. That's just what I remember without thinking about what the forum has been involved in changing. Anyone else remember some?

You honestly think this complete aesthetic change to the game board that we interact with 100% of the time when playing is a "minor" change? C'mon man!

Full disclosure - I did post that this change doesn't bother me and I'd be able to get used to it.

I didn't say this was a minor change. 

If it's causing you serious problems, the way to get that point across is to stop playing until it's fixed.  Posting feedback here may carry some weight but ultimately, continuing to engage with the game will outweigh any negative feedback here. incorrect — and it’s counterproductive advice. 

Your comments in this vein are incorrect. You’ve been a member here long enough to know that if you’ve been even minimally active in keeping up since 2014. 

1. Why would they bother to sponsor a forum if there is no intention to monitor the valuable, free feedback volunteered here? 

2. While perhaps non-optimal in frequency, there are numerous well-known examples of developers responding to our feedback here. 

3. This thread is being actively monitored and moderated. Attention is obviously on it. 

4. It seems unlikely that encouraging quitting is your motivation, but it comes off that way. Why discourage player feedback in favor of quitting? Seems like a slow route to better placement for you, but your advice is illogical otherwise. 

Anyway, find another thread to promote your theories on productive player feedback. This thread is too important to sabotage. 

I wasn't talking about players who merely dislike the update.  For some players the change is apparently causing serious health consequences, including migraines and/or seizures. 

I don't think it's counterproductive to say that those players should stop playing unless/until it's changed.

DAZ0273

turbomoose said:

been trying to play for about a few hours since the change 

The most annoying thing for me apart from the dark screen on the AI’s turn is that it’s very difficult to know when you have a power ready , yellow doesn’t seem to flash at all 

nice attempt at improving the game but sadly it just doesn’t work for so many reasons 

The barely flashing Yellow AP bar is definitely messing with my game the most. The other ones are not so bad but definitely could do with a bit more contrast. The Special tiles are no longer special.

It is a shame but the whole game now feels slightly depressing, like we were playing it previously in a bright garden on a summer day and now we got locked in the basement with Morrissey and Robert Smith.

BlackBoltRocks

DAZ0273 said:

It is a shame but the whole game now feels slightly depressing, like we were playing it previously in a bright garden on a summer day and now we got locked in the basement with Morrissey and Robert Smith.

Robert Smith is fine. Morrissey though...

At least it isn't Piers Morgan.

Philby00

Hi, I registered an account just to complain sorry 
I have mild colour blindness so not to the extent of others already posting but this update literally makes my eyes hurt. It's actually a strain and uncomfortable to play.
And yes I know the tiles have shapes not just colours but my brain just doesn't work that way, this update just makes it difficult and confusing to see the board and what the tiles are. The way it darkens on the AI turn as well is really off putting. Please revert this change!
Thanks

welbot

Second day playing on the new board now, and I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks things are slower. The matching and tiles falling perhaps don't seem slower, but the actual animation of tiles getting highlighted/blown up/fortified etc, especially when the enemy puts like a timer on a tile and such.. seems to be painfully slow, and possibly other aspects I just can't pinpoint. I could probably live with the colour change if I absolutely had no other choice, but things need to be sped up significantly.  It just feels so terribly sluggish now. All teh sads..

IgrisBeru

From a person who is non colour blind, I can understand what it feels like to be colour blind. 

At some point I didn't know what colours were what and had to look at the symbols instead which just made the matter worse.

Like honest question, do you guys just think of ideas without testing? 

DAZ0273

entrailbucket said:

Yepyep said:

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

If a video game you like to play is causing you physical pain/health issues...there are literally thousands of video games to play that are just as fun as this one that won't cause those problems for you. 

If a large number of people stop playing the game completely as a result of this change, it will be reverted or altered.  If you continue to play despite changes that cause you physical pain, all they will see is that player engagement is steady.  Vote with your feet.

This forum represents a tiny, tiny portion of the playerbase and is historically well-known for violently overreacting to minor changes, so feedback from here is going to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

But I play not with my feet but my hands.

Grain of salt? Gambit nerf, bishop nerf, pve tapping, maybe time slices a little. That's just what I remember without thinking about what the forum has been involved in changing. Anyone else remember some?

You honestly think this complete aesthetic change to the game board that we interact with 100% of the time when playing is a "minor" change? C'mon man!

Full disclosure - I did post that this change doesn't bother me and I'd be able to get used to it.

I didn't say this was a minor change. 

If it's causing you serious problems, the way to get that point across is to stop playing until it's fixed.  Posting feedback here may carry some weight but ultimately, continuing to engage with the game will outweigh any negative feedback here. incorrect — and it’s counterproductive advice. 

Your comments in this vein are incorrect. You’ve been a member here long enough to know that if you’ve been even minimally active in keeping up since 2014. 

1. Why would they bother to sponsor a forum if there is no intention to monitor the valuable, free feedback volunteered here? 

2. While perhaps non-optimal in frequency, there are numerous well-known examples of developers responding to our feedback here. 

3. This thread is being actively monitored and moderated. Attention is obviously on it. 

4. It seems unlikely that encouraging quitting is your motivation, but it comes off that way. Why discourage player feedback in favor of quitting? Seems like a slow route to better placement for you, but your advice is illogical otherwise. 

Anyway, find another thread to promote your theories on productive player feedback. This thread is too important to sabotage. 

I wasn't talking about players who merely dislike the update.  For some players the change is apparently causing serious health consequences, including migraines and/or seizures. 

I don't think it's counterproductive to say that those players should stop playing unless/until it's changed.

It might have been even more prudent for the Devs to post some sort of warning about the dimming/brightening possibly triggering seizures or migraines before it went live (esecially forced update live). When I turn on my PS4 I get that warning before I even sign in. If there are going to be flashing/strobing lights on the news, they tell you beforehand. The fact that there wasn't suggests that possibly somebody dropped the ball on running these changes through those types of scenario's. For something that relies 100% on visual interaction that seems like a large error but hopefully they can fix things so that everybody is happy.

pheregas

whitecat31 said:

PLEASE  UPDATE THE GAME AND PLACE A WARNING THAT IT MAY CAUSE EPILEPTIC SEIZURES.   

I was legitimately worried that this change may affect some players this way.

I went so far as to try and report the app for inducing a migraine for me, but it seems Apple removed the ability to report apps a couple years ago.  All we can do is leave negative feedback.  Sigh.

Captain_Carlman

DAZ0273 said:

Yepyep said:

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

If a video game you like to play is causing you physical pain/health issues...there are literally thousands of video games to play that are just as fun as this one that won't cause those problems for you. 

If a large number of people stop playing the game completely as a result of this change, it will be reverted or altered.  If you continue to play despite changes that cause you physical pain, all they will see is that player engagement is steady.  Vote with your feet.

This forum represents a tiny, tiny portion of the playerbase and is historically well-known for violently overreacting to minor changes, so feedback from here is going to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

But I play not with my feet but my hands.

Grain of salt? Gambit nerf, bishop nerf, pve tapping, maybe time slices a little. That's just what I remember without thinking about what the forum has been involved in changing. Anyone else remember some?

You honestly think this complete aesthetic change to the game board that we interact with 100% of the time when playing is a "minor" change? C'mon man!

Full disclosure - I did post that this change doesn't bother me and I'd be able to get used to it.

I didn't say this was a minor change. 

If it's causing you serious problems, the way to get that point across is to stop playing until it's fixed.  Posting feedback here may carry some weight but ultimately, continuing to engage with the game will outweigh any negative feedback here. incorrect — and it’s counterproductive advice. 

Your comments in this vein are incorrect. You’ve been a member here long enough to know that if you’ve been even minimally active in keeping up since 2014. 

1. Why would they bother to sponsor a forum if there is no intention to monitor the valuable, free feedback volunteered here? 

2. While perhaps non-optimal in frequency, there are numerous well-known examples of developers responding to our feedback here. 

3. This thread is being actively monitored and moderated. Attention is obviously on it. 

4. It seems unlikely that encouraging quitting is your motivation, but it comes off that way. Why discourage player feedback in favor of quitting? Seems like a slow route to better placement for you, but your advice is illogical otherwise. 

Anyway, find another thread to promote your theories on productive player feedback. This thread is too important to sabotage. 

I went back to Facebook and scrolled a bit more - it took 43 comments for somebody to say they liked the change. I then scrolled a further 57 comments and found 3 more positive comments. So from 100 comments, there are 4 positives ones in that sample. I mean I guess they could all be disgruntled Forumites but that seems a bit unlikely.

I noticed this in their FB post about the new UI as well.  Many, many comments mentioning the same issues being reported in this thread.  

Also decided to look at Google Play reviews for the game and while the game still has a pretty high score, a number of recent reviews are mentioning the same issues with the UI and while there were certainly a number of 1-star ratings, a number of users have stated they are having issues with it but haven't lowered their review score yet because they're hopeful a fix is coming sooner than later.  So it's definitely not just here on this forum where people are having issues.

SaltnPeppa

Captain_Carlman said:

DAZ0273 said:

Yepyep said:

entrailbucket said:

acescracked said:

entrailbucket said:

If a video game you like to play is causing you physical pain/health issues...there are literally thousands of video games to play that are just as fun as this one that won't cause those problems for you. 

If a large number of people stop playing the game completely as a result of this change, it will be reverted or altered.  If you continue to play despite changes that cause you physical pain, all they will see is that player engagement is steady.  Vote with your feet.

This forum represents a tiny, tiny portion of the playerbase and is historically well-known for violently overreacting to minor changes, so feedback from here is going to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

But I play not with my feet but my hands.

Grain of salt? Gambit nerf, bishop nerf, pve tapping, maybe time slices a little. That's just what I remember without thinking about what the forum has been involved in changing. Anyone else remember some?

You honestly think this complete aesthetic change to the game board that we interact with 100% of the time when playing is a "minor" change? C'mon man!

Full disclosure - I did post that this change doesn't bother me and I'd be able to get used to it.

I didn't say this was a minor change. 

If it's causing you serious problems, the way to get that point across is to stop playing until it's fixed.  Posting feedback here may carry some weight but ultimately, continuing to engage with the game will outweigh any negative feedback here. incorrect — and it’s counterproductive advice. 

Your comments in this vein are incorrect. You’ve been a member here long enough to know that if you’ve been even minimally active in keeping up since 2014. 

1. Why would they bother to sponsor a forum if there is no intention to monitor the valuable, free feedback volunteered here? 

2. While perhaps non-optimal in frequency, there are numerous well-known examples of developers responding to our feedback here. 

3. This thread is being actively monitored and moderated. Attention is obviously on it. 

4. It seems unlikely that encouraging quitting is your motivation, but it comes off that way. Why discourage player feedback in favor of quitting? Seems like a slow route to better placement for you, but your advice is illogical otherwise. 

Anyway, find another thread to promote your theories on productive player feedback. This thread is too important to sabotage. 

I went back to Facebook and scrolled a bit more - it took 43 comments for somebody to say they liked the change. I then scrolled a further 57 comments and found 3 more positive comments. So from 100 comments, there are 4 positives ones in that sample. I mean I guess they could all be disgruntled Forumites but that seems a bit unlikely.

I noticed this in their FB post about the new UI as well.  Many, many comments mentioning the same issues being reported in this thread.  

Also decided to look at Google Play reviews for the game and while the game still has a pretty high score, a number of recent reviews are mentioning the same issues with the UI and while there were certainly a number of 1-star ratings, a number of users have stated they are having issues with it but haven't lowered their review score yet because they're hopeful a fix is coming sooner than later.  So it's definitely not just here on this forum where people are having issues.

I think the developers should make an in-game announcement since some people do not go to facebook or the forums or other social media sites due to various reasons.   Keep the announcement short, maybe one sentence, like you're looking into a fix as soon as possible.  

This will make sure you don't lose people out of frustration.  I don't want people to leave but if it's for their health, I will support them.

MalteseFalcn

I hate the new board. My alliance full of veteran players hates it.  We can't be the only ones.  Hopefully the dev's actually take note of this.  It's harder to distinguish colors, slows down play time, annoying dimming on opponent turn even further reduces visibility.  FAIL.   Give us option of 'classic' gameboard.

DAZ0273

BlackBoltRocks said:

DAZ0273 said:

It is a shame but the whole game now feels slightly depressing, like we were playing it previously in a bright garden on a summer day and now we got locked in the basement with Morrissey and Robert Smith.

Robert Smith is fine. Morrissey though...

At least it isn't Piers Morgan.

It appears that Piers Morgan might be an MPQ player...

ThaRoadWarrior

HoundofShadow said:

Interesting. How does other game developers accomodate to those three types of colourblindness? Is there some ISO standard for choices of colours or shades?

I see this got lost in the shuffle, but this seems a great opportunity to discuss the industry terms "User Interface (or UI)" and "User Experience (UX)." For a long time, it was fine to just have a User Interface, which at the most basic level is just the way users interact with your game. A User Interface just needs to be functional, and contain all the controls someone would need to do what your game is asking you to do. For a long time, interface design just meant laying things out in a way that was visually appealing, more akin to the type of graphic design you would see in print media for like Magazine layouts or whatever. You can see in older games more of an emphasis on ornate or elaborate UI widgets, for instance I've recently been playing Castlevania: Sympony of the Night, and that game has one of the most trash-tier interfaces functionally I've ever seen, but clearly they had some 2D artists spend a lot of time making it look like an illuminated manuscript.

At some point nearer the mid-late 2000s, you started to see a shift away from merely thinking about the Interface to thinking more holistically about the entire User Experience. So instead of saying "Where should I put this button?" you think about "How pleasing will it be for users to perform this action, and how can I maximize that?" People who cared began to challenge the assumptions of what make a good UX. One of the common thought experiments you see is that things you do often and repetitively should be big and obvious - so the "best" Elevator button panel layout would be to have the Lobby button as big and prominently placed as possible, with the word Lobby written directly on the button, because everyone in the building on every floor will need to go to the lobby, so you make it very big and obvious, put it at eye level, rather than putting it in the stack of numbers below 1 or 2 depending on what country you are in. In digital interfaces, you started to see people caring about your "mental map" of the controls, and reserving certain shapes and colors for game concepts. So the X is standardized for closing windows, and it's commonly in a standard place on every control that can be closed (this is why the overhaul to how saved covers were added in MPQ was so unpopular, because we all had years of muscle memory developed to click the screen quickly in a certain place, and it was suddenly moved to a new place - disrupting the mental map of your users should be done very sparingly, and for good reason if you want them to react positively to your changes). As always happens, the industry jargon shifted away from UI to UX, but that doesn't mean everybody shifted their thinking actually, or hired people as UX designers who were trained formally in User Experience. I don't know anyone who makes or works on MPQ so please don't assume I'm commenting on a person from this team specifically, I'm just discussing the industry at large here. 

Accessibility as a primary concern of games is a relatively new movement in game design, so I don't know that we have a standard method of doing things yet to be quite honest. The general rule of thumb we follow is to never rely exclusively on a color or sound to communicate an idea, but have redundant means of communicating what something is or does. Tools like the ones a few of us have shared to simulate color blindness exist, and should be used, and now accessibility consultants can be easily found and hired (assuming there is budget). In smaller or leaner outfits, it is probably a lot more common to follow along to what other bigger studios are doing on the premise they spent the money to figure it out for you. Again, I don't know if that's what's happened here, but I know I've done it for things involving reducing VR sickness - we couldn't afford to do any primary research on it, so we did what we could to reverse engineer some products from companies that did seem to us to be doing a good job of it. That was a case of "we care about this, but we aren't equipped to be industry leaders here" right? I have a feeling that a sizable percentage of mobile developers would land in this camp.

So the TL;DR to your question is: big studios who care and can afford it hire User Experience Designers, who do things like run the interface through color blindness filters etc, and/or make use of accessibility consultants and focus groups. Smaller studios who can't afford that do the best they can.

freakygeek

So here is my take on top of the zillion other hot takes in the preceding pages.

I like what they were trying to do.

But...

The new scheme makes hard for me to see 4 and 5 matches like I could before.  I think it is the muted colors plus losing track of the tiles every time the screen dims on enemy move. It is actually disorienting when the screen grays each move.

My wife starts getting a migraine on the new interface.  I have heard this a lot.  The new scheme triggers vision issues and headaches.  

For now, as the UI is tweaked to be easier to read and cause less neurological stress, a toggle to switch back is I think all that people are asking for.  We can switch off the physics, we can switch off the character animations and we can switch off seeing the enemy view each move so i can't imagine this would be much different.