First off, I want to say for the most part I like how the UI looks. It's much sharper and pleasant to look at, but that isn't to say that it's better than it was before because in actuality it's not for a game like this. I'm going to list the pros and cons overall from my experiences in PvE.
Pros:
-The UI looks much more sharper. Makes it pleasant to look at.
-I like the percentage health bars; I feel is more accurate than the bars we had before.
-Menus on the bottom left and right are nice. Being able to hide them is also nicer in combat.
-Being able to see our knights when we go up to haven is neat. Gives more personality.
-Chat scroll bar was much needed, great job on that.
-Monster health bars are great to have, but it's also nice to be able to disable the hovering ones if we choose to as it makes the game cluttered
Now this isn't a lot I realize, but that's really all there is to this update pro wise. Now the cons and what should happen.
Cons:
-Give our names our player colors again; remove titles on top of our names.
It's hard to read and differentiate knights at all. Sure, friends are have blue names and guildies have green names, but what if you're trying to trade with someone and all you see are just people bunched together? It's just a lot of text. I found it easier to find someone by seeing a pleasant and solid color. Added to that, the title isn't necessary. No one truly cares about being a Vanguard, I don't think I've ever heard anyone brag about being one either.
-Return our player colors back to our map icons.
Why is everyone the same transparent light blue circle? This bothers me in Haven much like the previous con's text issue, but this problem shines especially in combat. I will use FSC as an example, everyone does it right? In Depth 25, players regularly spread out to clear rooms. As you spread out, icons turn into arrows which are EVEN HARDER to see on the map and don't move noticeably enough to tell who is downed or still up and fighting. This is extremely vital to party survival. I don't want to run around with a 1/3 chance of finding that single member downed at each arrow.
-Remove the portrait in the upper left corner COMPLETELY.
The portrait is truly unnecessary by all means. It's huge and obnoxious. My rank is just as unnecessary as knowing if you're Vanguard or not and I'm definitely sure everyone know's their knight's name...at least I sure hope so cause that'd be sad.
-Remove the health bar and shield bar in haven.
It's unnecessary and makes me uncomfortable when I'm in Haven or any other place that doesn't have combat involved.
-Remove shield bar COMPLETELY.
We should be looking at our knights's shield, which may I add does a wonderful job already telling us our shield's health, to see if it's in danger of breaking. There's no reason to glance at the shield bar all the time if you can just look at the shield's color. If it must stay though, refine the shield bar. It looks really unpolished compared to everything else.
-Move the health bar to the bottom of the screen; return quickslots to the top of the screen.
What I liked about the health bar before was that it was at the bottom where I could easily see it. I took a Vana mace to the knee today and frantically looked up to see my health on the upper left to see if I should use a pill, which dangerously actually made me look completely away from my knight. If I had walked into any shadow fire trying to compulsively move out of the way of Vana glancing at my health, I would have died. Spiral Knights is a fast paced game, we don't have 3 seconds to look at how much health we have at the top left of the screen It NEEDS to be returned to the bottom of the screen. Quickslots should just be returned to the top.
-Return Death Mark on downed party member's health.
With our health before, party members that have been downed can easily be distinguished by looking at their health bar which would be replaced by the Death Mark. How it looks now is just a completely empty health bar. At a glance in the midst of combat, you would actually think the person with the empty health bar is still up and running because it's still there and not death marked, but now that it's gone I have to ask if a person is dead or not because my eyes could be fooling me considering our health is a percentage now.
-Vials look a tad bit weird.
Heavy opinion here, but I'm sure I spent a good 5 seconds trying to figure out the difference from a T1 sleep and freeze vial at a glance. It may be just me, but I think vials could be...redone again? They were so easily to tell from before; freeze was white, sleep was dark blue. Now it's freeze is white, sleep is...a weird very light olive green. I don't feel strong on this, but I really don't like the way they look at all.
-Allow us to disable the weapon scroll.
I've no doubt that this is useful, some people out there get lost in their arsenal of 4 weapons they carry. I do sometimes. But even if I do, I'd like to be able to disable the weapon scroll because it clutters up the screen. Before, I knew what weapon I was carrying because I had it in my hands. Now though, I feel compelled to look at the scroll because it's so huge...but that's the problem in itself, it makes it hard to see enemies covered by the scroll. It can be helpful at first, but it's going to be problematic later. I'm not sure if this was the cause, but the weapon scroll possibly made weapon switching slower.
-Return Crowns and CE to the general interface.
Regardless of Nick said; which was a perfectly valid point, I think it would be foolish to not be able to see our Crowns and CE on the general interface. Spiral Knights revolves heavily on Crowns and CE. There is no experience points to increase your knights health and attack power nor are there skills. Your gear IS your power...and to get gear, you need that you need Crowns and CE. Crowns is a staple, no, CE is a staple. You can't do a darned thing progression wise without it. Elevators, crafting, you name it. It's flat out needed. And it's needed on the interface so I don't have to keep checking every few minutes to see if my mist has recovered fully when I could have just glanced before.
Well, that's my whole opinion on the whole update. This was just a burst of what I thought, not all fact, there's plenty of opinion. I may be wrong on some things and right on others. I really hope you consider changing the UI again, I think it looks good, but there's a lot that's unnecessary and things that absolutely needs to be changed back, i.e Health Bar relocation. I thank OOO for creating this game, I love it to death and don't want to see it fail. It's only my most played game on Steam and I'd love to keep it that way.
I agree with most of the points you have presented here, but with some few, but minor divergencies.
Although you are able to hide the lower menus, I feel they should do an auto-closing move when menu block is triggered. I mean, if you won't use the menu by blocking it, there is no need to keep the tab open, blocking the player's view. Chat scroll bar is a nice add-on, but I feel they should do it more precise. Maybe it's just me, but as the chat fills up, it's hard to get newer mensages using the scroll bar, taking us back to the multi-click job on the arrows. A friend brought up the idea of placing the chat on another hiding tab like the lowers menu, but I don't feel that's really needed. And the monsters' HP at the top feels redundant when you already have the option of placing HP bars above enemies. I don't use auto-aim, so that isn't a main problem for me.
But well, I gotta admit I'm here for just one aspect we both hated: The player's health bar placement. Nothing is so annoying than that!
It's a freaking huge bar far way from the screen's center, making it way difficult to judge the use of pills, as you said. That got more noticeable (and annoying) on my first Vanaduke fight with the new UI. I died twice trying to know if it was a good time to use a pill or not and, as I was used to check my status' effect time on the bottom of the screen as well, I couldn't judge if a remedy was necessary or not to stop a fire or a stun. That makes me feel adrift and uncomfortable to see the HP bar on busy fights moment, where I need it the most. So yes, even the health percentage is a good deal, with few exceptions (someone didn't died and couldn't move at 0% for a few seconds on the same Vana boss fight), the health bar was a step back.
All said about the HP bar, they isn't much to add to what you said: Weapon scroll is a desnecessary view block, I miss the crowns and energy on the main UI (the access to energy trade menu got extended), and shield bar isn't necessary as well. Now my hopes someone can see this and actually do something about this... :/
[EDIT] Forgot to add: I couldn't barely see the Duke's HP bar, and it shows the same "fake empty" problem that appears on normal enemies. I think, since it's a boss fight, that was the case of placing a independent HP bar on the screen for that, instead of placing it inside on Vana's belly!