New UI Update: Gameboard

RhetroAktive

I get what they were trying to do. I just think it needs some fixes and tweaks. The dimming is annoying and  makes it hard to plan out your next move. The notifications for when a power is full is almost invisible. I don't know how many times I missed having a power ready to fire already.

ImmortalZodd

this is serious bad. Like to the point where I want to start an online petition.

Since the hero icons on tiles are much more defined, it makes all the tiles alot busier, to the point where its hard to distinguish between empty and special tiles.

the contrast is a lot lower now- they made the green from a bright forrest into a drab olive, and changed the board background to black.  Even worse, enemy tile icons are now black, so black strike tiles on black AP tiles against a black background look terrible, and are easy to miss because of the hero icons on blank tiles.  

They also took the silver AP bar area, and colored it blue purple, which adds to the darker overall scheme, and blends too closely with the blue and purple AP. 

Most of the UI changes they've made I'm okay with, except the terrible colors for the token/vault buy/open buttons, but this is by far the most ill advised change they've made. The color palette looks like sometime made by a rookie designer. I seriously want them to create a "classic" mode option to restore what they broke.

TheRiddler

Will throw my hat in and repeat what has probably been said constantly throughout 7 pages.

I hate the dimming on the enemy turn. 

For some reason it seems slower, maybe because I'm having to look harder to differentiate the icons?

But worst of all it is now harder to tell special tiles apart from character icons.

Kross

I will echo many others. I don't mind the colors or the tiles.

I hate the dimming on the enemy's turn, and it's hard to tell if I have a power available.

Get rid of the dimming and make the power bars more noticeable and I'll be good.

Daredevil217

Daredevil217 said:

First impression is I like it a lot. Hoping it’s as good in practice as it seems in the screenshot. 

I’m curious if any improvements to saved teams (more slots, save 2-person teams, etc.) are part of the UI revamp pipeline. 

Very interested in the main menu one where poor poor Prologue takes up so much real estate. 

Unfortunately way worse in practice than in the screen shot. All the reasons have been stated repeatedly, so rather than re-state I’ll just rank them from most annoying to least annoying. 

1. The AP bar issue- I think this is overall the worst part of the change. Having an indicator to know when my powers are ready to fire is huge, and I didn’t realize how important it is to my day to day until it was essentially taken away. Please please fix this if you fix nothing else. 

2. The dimming issue- This actually causes me headaches as my eyes have to adjust each turn to try and track what the AI is doing while also trying to scan my next move. Then adjust back when it’s time to swipe. Painful and overall a huge downgrade. 

3. The enemy special tile issue- This one is particularly bad due to the dark icons on dark tiles. As others have said, enemy specials on black are almost invisible and it’s also hard to find them amongst all the busyness. 

4. The friendly tile/ character icon issue. Sort of the opposite issue here. Where enemy’s sort of fade into the dark murkiness, the friendly special tiles pop in the same way the more pronounced character icons do, often making them hard to distinguish.

5. The color issue- This one is further down on my list, and like others have stated, it’s something I can live with. But I definitely appreciated the old color scheme more, where the colors had better contrast and were more easily differentiated. 

[I would’ve added slower gameplay to the list but believe that if the above issues were fixed, the game would be faster. While all of the above will slow you down, I believe the biggest issue likely slowing the game down is number 2. Where we’re used to swiping as soon as the enemy makes their match, we now have to wait for the lighting to “switch” which causes a delay.]

Daredevil217 said:

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.

Is yours a mini? The mini has a body size close to a 5, but screen size close to an 8. So, fingers crossed! 

This is luckily fine. No issues swiping on the mini. I actually like the bigger tiles. But what does it matter when the game is so unenjoyable with this new UI. I appreciate all the hard work, but PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK!

lilshir

Honestly it's just too dark and too hard to watch. I definitely feel my eyes straining more to make out the matches. Haven't tried a PVE grind on it yet, here's to hoping I won't get a massive headache.

DAZ0273

I really like the highlighted match damage.

Everything else, not so much.

HoundofShadow

They must have someone who's into Gothic stuff in the team. That explains the colour theme used for the past UI changes. It will take some time to get used to it.

acescracked

After playing with the update for a good amount of time to me it's fine. The initial shock was intense for sure.

There's been many times playing on autopilot thought it was my turn when it was the AI and trying to move tiles, heh. The turn differentiation idea is fine, just the full blacking out too drastic.  Maybe a clearer graying out would work better.

Jexy

I hate this. Others have already said why. It makes me feel sick to play on account of the screen dimming.

Bzhai

Jexy said:

I hate this. Others have already said why. It makes me feel sick to play on account of the screen dimming.

I think one easy solution is to only darken the opposing team when it's not their turn. Like chess only the clock is toggled to indicate whose turn it is. The board is never messed with so both players get to strategise without disruption.

(I know in MPQ it's technically player vs AI but you know what I mean)

pheregas

Came back to add that in addition to everything else, it seems that there may be some team dependent issues as well.

I was using Britty in PVP and I almost couldn’t tell the difference between green/blue or red/purple.

I strained so hard I induced a migraine. This is not hyperbole. A literal nausea inducing, head splitting, light sensitive migraine.

Maybe it will be better for PVE grind since I use a different team for that. Regardless, I sent in a ticket to CS that at least one game mode is now 100% a health hazard for me now.

hipUK

I really love this game. I play religiously, and I've spent more (happily) on this game than any other game I've played... by a mile.

But this update makes the game borderline unplayable.  I'm not exaggerating: I'm reading a book while I play now. The visuals are all wrong, but it's the gameplay slowing down that makes it terrible to me - it's slowed down by a factor of 3 now that every animation aspect is unskippable.  

In Steam, at least you could skip some aspects of the animations that helped the speed of the game, but having to sit through every single element (each power used, each passive applied, foe downed, here's the next foe, etc) makes the majority of playing the game watching those strings of text rather than playing the game.

There is SO much repetition in the game that we shouldn't be forced to see a superfluous action over and over (probably millions of times for veteran players), and like 'Character Effects' we should have the option to shut all that off... at this point, it really does feel almost unplayable and for the first time in over a year of playing I'm not enthusiastic about playing today, it feels like a chore.

swongch

my eyes hurt......please let us choose if we can change it back....

I am a 8-year veteran....and the new tile design is not my cup of tea.....the tiles are no longer sharp and solid....making it very easy to mix up with special tiles since the special effect icons are now MUCH smaller than before.....and the enemy turn dimming is ANNOYING......

I am now very upset to see such an update after a long day of work......


I have not been very active on this forum.....but I feel like I must say something this time.

Freddy

* screen dimming causes eye strain!!
* power bars harder to see
* new colors, while pleasant, makes it harder to distinguish between them especially in powers
* charge tiles are harder to see
* special tiles are easier and harder to recognize

please consider using beta testers from the player base!!

Personally I’d prefer flat style over jelly tiles. Also pick shapes that evoke the colors’ themes.  These feel random. 

BlixTheFrog

Ok, I thought this was going to trigger some reaction. 😬
My thought is it will get some time getting used to, but I’m starting to like it for different reasons. Curiously I kind of like the dimming effect because the countdown enemy tiles become more visible (I often missed one in the previous version).
I do find it harder to know when someone has a power ready to fire, but actually, I was always bugged that you can’t immediately see which enemy is ready to strike during your turn (to know who to paralyze, for instance).
It’s not the trainwreck that is described, imo, but we’re so often playing without thinking that such a change was bound to be controversial.
I play on an iPad Pro, for the record.

TML

Colorblind player chiming in and echoing the opinion of other users, the game is borderline unplayable for me.  Green looks like black, blue looks like purple.  Cannot tell what powers I'm firing.  It's going to take forever to do a battle, the shapes aren't as obvious at first glance.  Just about all bad.

BlixTheFrog

TML said:

Colorblind player chiming in and echoing the opinion of other users, the game is borderline unplayable for me.  Green looks like black, blue looks like purple.  Cannot tell what powers I'm firing.  It's going to take forever to do a battle, the shapes aren't as obvious at first glance.  Just about all bad.

Yeah I do understand that this new layout can be tough on colorblind people. 😕

Xair

the board looked good before this change, now it looks bad. 
this is just the latest of bad decisions the game has made: the recent store look, recent poor design with 5*, etc

design suggestions:
1. don't fix what no one is complaining about.
2. make sure u get more than 1 opinion before you do anything.
3. try to fix the thing that people are actually complaining about.
4. hire a color expert, cause who ever does your colors is clueless.

Mymkllr

Hi all. Played this game daily for around 4 years and this would be my first time posting. Out of all the UI changes I've seen, this is by far the most unwelcomed design. It is so disappointing it has brought me here to make my first post! 

Now, to be fair, I don't play the game for the PvP or treat it as a competition type league, but to pass an hour or two with a game that has successfully managed to capture not just my time and attention, but my wallet. Not an easy feat for me! I've managed to adapt to previous changes, however this one is a tough pill to swallow.

For one thing, it has slowed my gameplay down significantly. It's very difficult to distinguish between certain colors as they are all a dark shade of their respective colors. Part of what keeps me engaged is the fast game play which is hampered because of this change. Granted, some change takes time to get used to, however I have a hard time convincing myself of that in this case.

I implore the dev team to consider an alternative, or at least a way to revert the gameboard back to "classic" mode. I've really enjoyed the game and all the effort that has been put into it's development over the years. I can only hope that our voices will be heard and a compromise can be reached.

Thanks for reading.