New UI Update: Gameboard

jp1

Wow. Well, I’ll be the minority here and say that while I need time to adjust to it, I don’t dislike it. It seems a little more polished and my only real issue, which is minor, is the cut scenes, transitions, etc, weren’t changed to match the new dark aesthetic.

I do see how it could be difficult for those who play in bright light, have visual impairments, or just generally dislike change. Those are all valid points. I just don’t personally hate it.

sambrookjm

New tiles - Fine.
Color switching to dark when it's not your turn - Meh.
Speed - Seems even slower than before, even with both animations and tile physics turned off.  That was just on the Magik vs Colossus.

If the matches had been made faster, the new UI would be an improvement.  Since it slows things down, it's not.

Edit - Played a BRB/Kitty/Polaris match, and yeah, the enemy special tiles are harder to see as well.  Any way to change the gamma on the screen?

Omegased

So I was reserving judgement until this dropped, I didn't have a problem with the screenshots.

Having played it , I find it wild everyone agreed on it.

The colours are hard to distinguish with a blue light filter.

The gems almost look... Stretched?

The countdown tiles are really ugly.

The character icon on then is really heavy, which kinda makes it hard to quickly review where your attack/strike tiles are.

The dimming each turn is jarring.

Typically I've liked or been neutral with the UI changes so far. This one is wild, and think it needs a bit more refinement.

AlexR

I'm on Steam.

Impressions after a whole bunch of matches:


I really like the colors. The actual colors themselves look very pleasing to me. I think they could do with a smidge more contrast, though after a while my eyes adjusted enough that I even don't mind that.

The one criticism I do have is that the enemy strike/protect/attack tiles are very hard to see. The dark low-contrast shape on the darkest part of the tiles makes them blend almost completely into the tiles. Please give them some sort of stark outline to make them easier to see!

Especially because on Steam, we don't have this handy count of how many attack/protect/strike tiles the opponent has in summary. So if you do want an estimate, you have to count the tiles on the board and they're now harder to notice. (Since you're adjusting the UI, please give us that functionality on Steam too?)

Still, overall I enjoy the new colors.  Can definitely live with this.



Tried the tile physics too and turned them off immediately again; didn't like them. The falling effect feels harsh and rigid and just kinda unpleasant, idk. Thank you for making them optional!

Omegased

Also. The full power bars aren't as obvious.

This is really a shame. 

supergarv

this is a slap in our faces. The screen darkening cannot be a serious intentional change. Play that in a darker room (like I usually do)...

I just retired until this gets rolled back. I am serious. This is the straw that broke my back.

stef_focus

Just tried a half hour of play with the new look. And my main concern is the darkening of the board on enemy turns. While it is now clearer when I can make a move or still need to wait for the AI to do his after-move calculations, it is also giving me a massive headache (I have some light-sensitivity issues). I hope there will be a way to switch this off in future.

Phumade

DeNappa said:

Also, the character symbols on the tiles seem more pronounced, which make special tiles harder to notice.

This is a huge issue for me personally.  I’m having a hard time distinguishing special tiles and char symbols.  It’s all looks really jumbled

welbot

I swear I feel like I'm growing older every second I play this now... it just feels so sloooooooooow and sluggish... the faded colours are bad enough, but this speed change is just uuuuuuuugh... PLEASE ROLL IT BACK!!!!!

Omegased

When the screen dims on the opponents turn, I keep thinking my killmonger passive is going off.

It's not...

jp1

I’m in support of a rollback if this many people suffer ill effects from it. The old UI was hardly an inconvenience.

Maybe just take the blur out of the old setup and call it a day?

Thanos

Yes, these changes are terrible. At least give the option to keep the original look. I can't play like this.

AstaSyneri

Thanos said:

Yes, these changes are terrible. At least give the option to keep the original look. I can't play like this.

I absolutely agree. I was shocked when the UI change like that. It's much harder on the eyes (PC) and tiles on the lower left get hidden by character pictures.

An option to keep the original look would be absolutely needed. This terrible "new" look is a reason to go play something else with a better UI.

The rockett

I do not like these tiles or colors.   How dark it gets between moves just doesn’t make any sense why.  Heard of a player that is color blind having some big issues with this as well.   Please take a harder look at this. It is not working well.  

Warbringa

If the goal was to make the tiles easier to read then the update is a failure as I think they are actually more difficult to discern.  If the goal was to make the game more visually enhanced then I think the new tile UI upgrade does do that.  As far as speed, I haven't played enough with the new tile UI to discern any difference once or way or the other.  Steam player here btw.

Likes: 
The detail is greater and there is more visual effects
The tile character symbols, while different and needing to get used to, are bigger and allow for more detail than the old UI tiles
Purple tiles are now purple (and not pink)

Dislikes:
The shadow screen when the AI makes tile moves - useless, annoying and makes it more difficult for me to see what the AI just did
The colors actually seem less vibrant to me, which makes it harder compared to the older UI in which the colors were more vibrant - not sure if this was what they intended for anyone who has vision difficulties I don't know if this is actually a step back?
Green, black and blue now are all more pale and more difficult to discern with each other and I don't have any color blindness problems - green should have been made vibrant, black fully black and blue could have been left more pale in order to differentiate all three of these different colors

LHammer

Please give the payer the choice of using the old UI and tile set.

zonatahunt

I desperately want to find something positive to say about this update, as complaining usually gets you nowhere, but this change is horrible.  

First, I suffer from red-green colorblindness, and these changes make the board nearly unplayable.  Too many colors blend in to one another because the brighter background has been replaced with a dark one; there goes that important contrast.

Second, the dimming of the screen during the opponents moves actually hurts my eyes and bothers my head.  I find I’m straining to see what’s happening on a screen that’s no longer designed to convey the information I’m used to receiving.  This change is horrific and we should be given a choice to turn it off, much like animations and enemy AP gain.

Finally, this is a question as opposed to feedback...but do you guys ever play-test these changes?  Who on the development team played this and thought it was an improvement?  The big problem you guys are facing with your loyal player base is that we show up every day and give you our all, while changes like this feel very short-sighted and without care for how it’s going to affect us.  I think it’s moments like these that further the divide between player and developer because it really seems like what’s important to us (i.e., character respects, qol changes, etc.) are purposefully ignored in favor for changes that are two steps back for every step forward.

TheDude_Abides

JSP869

IceIX said:

Daredevil217 said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I assume that this has been thoroughly tested on iOS, but I do have a bit of concern that losing the padding on the tiles down at the bottom of the screen will result in accidentally swiping up the ap as if I were going to try changing apps when interacting with bottom-row matches. Right now there is a fairly decent margin/padding between that grab point provided by iOS, but the closer you put those in-game interaction points to OS-provided interaction points, the more opportunity to introduce unwanted behavior you're creating for users.

Very good point. I have an iPhone 12 mini (love texting/playing with one hand). The screen stretches to the very bottom of the phone.  Really hoping this doesn’t make the game unplayable. 

I also have an iPhone 12 and have been testing it on it. Definitely had a worry at first but in practice I haven't had any real issues with either swapping or selecting a tile on the bottom row. I could see a possible problem with a phone that had something like the size of an iPhone 5 with the same pullup bar, but there's more than enough room in my experience to play normally.

Thank you, IceIX.

I was always concerned that a lot of the testing was being done on PC via an android emulator using giant monitors so the testers never needed to worry about fat fingering tiles, or mistapping nodes when they were too close together, because they were just using a mouse.

I'm happy to know we have at least one person on the 'inside' playing the game on a phone.

JSP869

mbaren said:

Okay, now I've fought a couple of battles with it, and I have some feedback:

I don't love the change, but in terms of the shift in colors and style, I know I'll get used to it.  Not a fan of the tile physics, but since that can be turned off, great.  Leave it in or don't, doesn't bother me in the slightest.

The thing I don't like is the way the board dims on the enemy's turn.  I find this distracting, and if I'm watching what's going on it actually makes the action and predicting cascades harder to follow.  If there was a way to turn that off too, that'd be great.

I really hope we get the option to turn this off. I'm also very curious to know the argument behind not just implementing it but forcibly imposing it on the player.

I see this in the same vein as being able to turn off the enemy's AP gain during its turn. I get that some people like seeing this, but I don't care for it, and so I was happy when we were given the option to turn it off.

I do not like the screen dimming during the enemy's turn, and I would REALLY like to be able to turn off this new 'feature'.

If others do like this feature they should have the option to leave it 'on', but IMO this should have been a feature the individual user could set for themselves.

waywreth

Not a fan of the screen dimming as much as it does.  Typically at the speed I play the screen ends up dim more than it's lit up.

Also not a huge fan of the colors/style but that's probably because they're new.  I'll get used to it (not like there's a choice).  But the dimming is more of an issue for me.