I remember there being a huge uproar against this new UI after it was implemented, but it's still here.
Are there any plans of it going away? it really of makes the game less enjoyable for me and my friends.
Does anyone else feel that way? is there any chance of any feedback from the devs on the subject?
how about the ability to, like, I dunno, switch back to the old UI in the menu?
Crowns and energy.
I don't know why Energy isn't visible any more, given that you use energy all the time, and you can only see it in your menu. same with crowns.
also the portrait feels a little silly.
I dunno, I just want to start a big fuss because I'm bothered.
Don't you use energy for crafting, elevators and activating doors and stuff?
or did they change that?
"Energy Changes
- Elevators no longer require any energy to operate. Explore the Clockworks as much and as often as you wish!
- Elevator passes are no longer for sale
- Player-owned Elevator Passes have been replaced with 10 Radiant Fire Crystals and energy deposited into the player's account at a conversion rate of 2625 energy for each month of time left on your energy pass, rounded up.
- Mist energy and mist tank items have been removed
- Player-owned mist tanks have been replaced with 10 Sparks of Life (bound)
- Player-owned mini mist tanks have been replaced with 1 Spark of Life (bound)
- ‘Crystal Energy’ is now simply called ‘Energy’
- Mist Wells have been renamed 'Energy Wells' and no longer provide a 25% bonus on deposit.
- Mist within Mist Wells has been converted to energy and may be withdrawn at 100 energy per day
Alchemy Changes
Energy is no longer required to use alchemy. A new type of item, ‘Orbs of Alchemy,’ have replaced energy associated with alchemy. There are five orbs of alchemy in all:
- Flawed Orb of Alchemy
- Simple Orb of Alchemy
- Advanced Orb of Alchemy
- Elite Orb of Alchemy
- Eternal Orb of Alchemy
Orbs of alchemy may be purchased in unbound stacks from the Supply Depot, acquired via missions or as rare loot in treasure blocks."
Most people already left and OOO did not respond to any suggestion we made... so yeah... there's your answer...
Fun fact: An old friend of mine keeps visiting SK each updates and does not play after seeing no UI changes or no UI adaptation... After a hot debate the conclusion remain: Try playing SK on a 13' monitor... and not swear against the UI and graphic options
I personally quite like the portraits, however I don't like that your own portrait is insanely huge and covers a quarter of the screen.
But being able to quickly check on each person via looking at what they're wearing is much easier and faster than trying to read names, which I like.
Well, at least it would be if the portrait's didn't bug out all the time and show weird pictures unless a knight changes their equipment or picks up a vitapod/mineral.
Well, the ORIGINAL UI showed your allies' portraits, but not yours - it's completely unecessary to show your own portrait (especially so big) because you already know who you are, given that you are always centered.
Also it used to show their health bars in their primary color, so if your team had unique colors, it was easy to pick them apart.
The new health bar doesn't even use pips - it's just a bar with a pip skin over it. also, the shield bar is really ugly.
The energy thing is nice, though, since anyone playing without paying money can't craft anything without crazy tons of money using the old system.
and yeah, even on my 15 inch monitor it's pretty bad - my party portraits cover up the chat.
It was simple, toony, and modern with a nostalgic retro feel. This one has bezels and gradients everywhere.
I hope they do something with the shield bar sticking out like a sore thumb, hiss.
But it works. That's all you can ask for. It's a little detracting from the game for me since I know they are capable of something so much sleeker that they started the game with, even; but it works.
(I liked the former lack of a shield bar. You had to rely on visual cues to know how much damage it could take.)
Why you hiss? Why you filled with so much hissdain? Is your hisstory that bad? Or are you having your regular hissyfit?
xD
yeah, I didn't see the need for a shield bar either, the color ring around your character worked really well.
The placement of the old UI elements was better, too. it felt unique, and optimized.
this new UI feels like they were just trying to make it look more like other MMOs.
I don't mind the colors of the new UI but I hate almost everything about it. *searches old screenshots to satisfy nostalgia*
*Plays a danger room with the green slime minis*
Nostalgia NOSTALGIA EVERYWHERE!
The shield bar's a bit of a weird appendage.
I think it's probably due to the shield bash skill, since you can use it if you have at least 50% of your shield, I think? Too bad I don't ever actually use that move.
Being colorblind, I can't really tell the intermediate shield colors too well so I appreciate the idea, but I also don't really look at the upper left corner of the screen much as a player so it goes unnoticed.
Good effort though :3
Could just:
Bring the HP bar back to the bottom center where it was:
Add a shield bar on top or bottom of it.
I liked how we could see how many pips allies had. Now, you don't know if they got hit by something or picked up a vita.
"I liked how we could see how many pips allies had. Now, you don't know if they got hit by something or picked up a vita."
Yes a huge oversight and downgrade. I've noticed this too. Even a fraction would be better than the current layout.
Yeah, I think this needs some serious revision, I just hope someone from the dev team actually takes this stuff into account.
I can only hope that the reason nothing has changed concerning it is because they're evaluating and trying to figure out a compromise.
The new UI attempted to "modernize" the UI's graphics and make the layout more similar to other games.
It's a shame nobody noticed that that kind of UI doesn't work with Spiral Knights and that it was a total downgrade compared to the old UI.
Sure, the old UI was minimalist and had very simple graphics, but they did their job. Now, we have a shield bar that obnoxiously grows and shrinks as we use our shields; a massive portrait accompanied by a Sprite portrait that, together, blocks the top-left corner of the screen and is totally useless for all but a menu shortcut; extremely vague health bars for party members; the health bar has been moved to the top left as opposed to the middle-center where it was best fitted...
A simple change in graphics as opposed to a whole redesign would have been much more fitting. All it really needed to do was match the graphics of the newer UI bits, namely, the Mission and Supply Depot interfaces.
In my eyes, this is very similar to the Shard Bomb issues, where the community somehow knows how to make the game better than the developers at OOO do with massive approval from all kinds of players, and yet they still do whatever they want without a care in the world for player feedback. It's like they selectively listen to player feedback- guild hall expansions, "classes" and abilities in the form of Sprites, a toggle for the on-hit effects (the "YOU'VE BEEN JAMMED" red tints), a new free-roam level (Apocrea), making Acheron's base stats better than the other Brandishes are all instances of them listening to player feedback. And then we have shards, the rest of the UI changes, sprite issues, and Acheron getting BUFFED instead of all Brandishes getting nerfed with Acheron hit the least... there are more examples for both that I could list, but I think you get the point.
Ugh..ar most people on forums are noobs that are complaining. Where have YOU been? You are like a year late for everything.
Is there any age-old thing that the community WON'T complain about?
Nerf DA and GF! Nerf skolver and chaos! Nerf AT! No remove it!(all people who say that can die in a hole for all I care. ) Remove polaris! Remove mist! Elevators cost too much! Stop the lag! Remove the weapon cycle! I can't see I die and can't rez!!! Remove the new UI! Remove forge! My battle sprite isn't stronger than my weapon! It is completely useless!(battle sprites.are for utility and support they aren't weapons.) Iwaantradiantzkthxbai. Jempire are ce rev AT spamming guild-farming noobs!(Just cause they are better doesn't mean you have to cry about it.)
Yay, let's get immature!
If you like the way the game is, go ahead and ignore this thread.
Ardent-Light, you can't seriously believe that Sprites were MADE purely for utility. As it turns out, they just don't deal enough damage *most of the time* to be worth anything other than for utility.
Drakon was obviously INTENDED to be the 'biggest flat damage' Sprite, but ended up being... well... yeah.
Cue complaints using "they're worth little more than utility".
Cue complaints using "they're worth little more than utility".
Don't know about all those Drakon users, but I lovingly use my Maskeraith's quills and increase my DPS by about 200.
Quills are probably the only reasonably powerful damage-based Sprite ability, maybe Hexing Haze too. Excluding that nasty bug with Haunted Haze, anyway.
I'd even argue that Flame Barrier, commonly seen as the most powerful Drakon attack, could some changing. Too much work for too little effect. Reminds me too much of Catalyzers compared to Pulsars.
Honestly, though I don't like the new UI for its art style, I got used to using it and have (mostly) stopped caring. The thing that I REALLY hate about the new UI is that ever since it came into the game, everything has been a constant rubber-bandy and framerate-droppy lag fest for me.
I'd much rather a sprite that attacks within a radius around you automatically and perhaps 1 power.
...on topic...Old UI layout needs to come back.
"'d much rather a sprite that attacks within a radius around you automatically and perhaps 1 power."
2 words:
Hexing Haze.
Just check how clean this is...
You can see that someone is dead, I got on "feu" (fire in french), ce and cr visible, I got a polaris equipped that isn't cursed, got 7 seconds to react before dying too!
And I had 3 mist for my next elevator!
So clean... so.. WANT... *throws money at the screen*
Edit: Also now my portrait is almost as big as all the players infos on the left o.O
The size of your portrait varies by screen size. I hate the new UI (I can't see my cr and ce -.-), but the portrait doesn't bother me. That's likely because I play on an oversized 32" screen, but I used to have a 15" screen, so I understand. It took up like a 1/4 of my screen. The least OOO could do is add an option to switch between UIs. The new UI really needs to show us what weps are Cursed without having the weapon wheel active, though it usually doesn't bug me, seeing as I'm a Chaos Clone.
@Shamanalah
Let me one up that. Old HUD with all the info of the new one.
I made that when the new UI first came out and before Battle Sprites came out, so we had no idea how they'd function and I had to take a guess on their UI.
Even then, I think the positions I put them in are easier to read than mixing them entirely with the usable items. How it is now, there is practically no distinction between your Sprite's abilities and items you can use except for three little dots trying to be a divider.
The old HUD just did everything better and cleaner. People's names rarely got cut off, the chat didn't overlap horribly in LD, everything was round and colored subtly so as to be soft on the eyes, and fit so much better with SK's overall simple aesthetic.
The new one fits in better with the new promo items that OOO has been releasing. Shinier, excessively detailed, and full of gradients. Basically it doesn't fit the rest of the game.
But the sad thing is that only the people who were around before the UI update will really notice the disconnect. Having it given to you right from the start, you would never really notice......
My preference is to have some kind of actual substance in texture to the UI not just blatantly the plain and flat old ui or the unoriginal overused gradients of the new ui.
The texture of the old UI WAS actually substantive - it was all designed to look like what the Spiral Knights' technology looks like - clean round shapes and flat colors that make it easy on the eyes and easy to read - all of the icons were simple and distinct so you could tell at a glance the difference between items you've picked up, weapon icons and armor icons.
now everything is all shiny and stuff and competing for attention.
but my biggest problem is that they moved things that were better where they originally were, just to make them more like other MMOs.
1) You can still see if people are dead or on fire
2) You still have that same sweet 7 secs to extinguish yourself
3) Complaining about everyday on-screen things is like dressing up a TF2 character in a way you don't like and never playing that character ever again.
With TF2, I can just change my character's outfit.
It'd be like if Valve changed the default skins of all TF2 characters to have flickering, flashing lights all over them and a giant painting of themselves on their back, and they removed the ability to customize your appearance any.
@ Tweeter
1) Yes you can. It's nowhere near as visually apparent as the old UI however.
Old UI had a skull appear and changed its color, really letting you know that something went wrong.
New UI? The player's health bar is just at zero. That's it. No color change. No symbol. You have to actually look at it and assess it, unlike the old HUD where you could glance and understand just from colors or lack of pips displayed.
All in all, from a purely design perspective, the new UI's display of team health is inferior.
2) Nothing changed about statuses, so that isn't really relevant. What you should have focused on was Shamanalah's other statement within that same sentence.
"I got a polaris equipped that isn't cursed"
With the new UI, unless you have the completely obstructive Weapon Wheel on, you CAN'T tell which of your weapons are Cursed.
3) Your comparison is way off and whatever you were aiming at, you missed it by a couple solar systems.
Dressing your character in TF2? You have complete control over that. If you don't like how YOU dressed YOUR character, you can change that. Unequip your hats and misc items, put on new duds, or trade them away. YOU HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL.
Spiral Knight's HUD is something that the players have no control over. NONE. If you don't like it, you're stuck with it. This isn't TF2 or a game where modding is allowed. You CAN'T change it. YOU HAVE NO CONTROL.
*cries tears of joy*
Oh my, that custom UI is beautiful! The only thing I don't like that much is the HP bar, it looks a little cluttered. Other than that it looks awesome.
Requesting permission to "photoshop" your UI in a current screenshot, please?
@ Wavara
Yea, feel free to mess around with it.
Sorry the HP bar is a bit cluttered since I was trying to squeeze everything down there. I was also trying to make the Heat gauge actually tell you how much Heat you have instead of having to take a wild guess from the fire display.
If I had the patience to redo it again, I'd try to make room for all the buffs OOO added and the dash cooldown. Probably try to keep it down at the bottom to condense all battle relevant information into one area. Maybe try to move the Sprite UI down there as well and move the Heat Gauge over with the Energy since it's not as readily important to your Knight as equipped weapons, Sprites, buffs, and statuses.
The biggest problem that I see with making the HUD is finding a way to make the Dash cooldown apparent and fitting. It's the only thing completely Knight related to have a cooldown and so doesn't really fit in anywhere. If I could, I'd make it something that was visual on the Knight itself, sort of like the Shield color gauge. If OOO adds more abilities that have a cooldown it'd fit in a little better, but for the time being it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, even in the new HUD.
Pretty good, but where's the Forge?
Also, what's the circle at the bottom-right of the minimap for? Is that the server select screen?
I don't think I really like the fact that the statuses aren't all centered, though. I have OCD, and it kinda makes me want everything "balanced". That way, everything could be shown; boosts and dash meters. It's highly unlikely you'll have more than two statuses inflicted on you at any point in time, and it's plain impossible for all six, as I think Fire negates Freeze or vice versa, forgot which. I'd suggest making the temporary statuses smaller, like the size of the shield portrait.
Other than that, it looks great; nice feel, and good on space.
"Also, what's the circle at the bottom-right of the minimap for? Is that the server select screen?"
It's the old Difficult indicator, that thing that changed from cyan to a purple eye based on your gear.
I still wonder why did they remove that.
Probably because they realized that nothing was actually difficult! :D
But honestly probably because it was something that was pretty inconsequential. Players generally knew what they were getting into based on Tier and Stratum, so it was a bit redundant and wasn't even that noticeable. It was also very small with no real explanation as to its function, so it was probably better to just remove it.
@Sandwich
Forge isn't there because there wasn't a Forge back when the UI first came out which is when I made this. Even then I wouldn't add a Forge button, since it's something that's accessed via the Arsenal. It's kind of redundant to have a button for it.
But to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't add it in even now because the Forge is a poorly contrived way to try to monetize the game and to slow player leveling. The number of Crystals for Heating equipment is a bit too much, especially for only a chance on two out of three options. To make it even worse, they add the Forge Prize Boxes on the 100% option, making it more enticing to go for that option, which in turn makes players spend Energy on buying Crystals or spending more time playing to grind those Crystals. If anything, it should always be a 100% chance to heat your equipment with the more Crystals you add, the better your chances at getting the Box and bonuses.
That's not even getting into how the new Heating/Forge process breaks the link between the player's sense of achievement at "gaining a level" and experiencing the gameplay.
But this isn't a thread about the Forge, so I'll stop there.
Anyways, I'm glad you like its design.
No.
If you're suggesting that we can toggle it, then this belongs in suggestions.
Only thing I dislike about the new UI is that we can't see our crowns without going through the lagsplosion it takes to open up our arsenal.