April 3 Update - Discussion

I'm going to take a stab on this question (which I have seen more than once):

why was this (HUD) shipped out when it was rather painfully obvious that it wasn't ready by any stretch of the imagination?

Because this new HUD is paving path for future updates, like Battle Sprites. If BS are to have charge abilities, where would you put that ability bar on the old HUD? The bottom would become too clustered if it stays with the Health bar at the bottom. OK, so they have to figure out where to put that Health Bar in the new HUD (which is now at the upper left corner). But that would cluster up with the icons at the upper left corner, so they moved some of these buttons to the lower left (because it looks empty). But wait, wouldn't that block the chat window? What to do? Well, move the chat window up a bit. OK, but wait, this would create an asymmetry with the buttons on the upper right. Fine, we move those to the bottom too.

No we can't do that. The CE gauge is in the way. Hmm.. Good point, let's stuff it into Inventory for now. How about that CR gauge? It looks lonely. Well move it together with CE gauge. Now that utility belt looks lonely at the top, want to move it to the bottom too? Sure, but where? Silly, there is only one spot left (/point at where Health bar used to be). BINGO!

OK here is a suggestion. If what I said is sort of what really happened with the HUD design (BS ability charge bar is the culprit). Have you guys considered building a circular gauge that surround the old heat meter (like an odometer)?

I hope OOO either makes some drastic changes fairly soon, or comes up with a really [redacted] good reason not to. And no, "we like it the way it was changed to" is not a good enough reason. You have close to two hundred detailed, angry posts about how this update was rushed and the many reasons it should be changed. And that's just in this thread, this opinion is all over the chat evrrywhere you go in-game. I hope to Vog and Firestorm that's enough reason to make you guys realize this was a bad decision.

/sigh

..and if anyone has a problem with it, well, too bad, there's are a lot of little kiddies with mum's credit cards that will keep playing our game. WIN.

But hei.. what about veterans, players that are supporting us from the beggining? The core of SK community? Eeeeh, to hell with em, they all just rant, demand new content.. Who cares from them. We are freeeeeee! WIN.

Hmm.. It all reminds me.. of a company.. doing the same things.. not listening, ignoring their fans and supporters.. meh, doesn't matter..

@Klip
Ah, Miyamoto. You magnificent god of a man.
Nice find there, Klip. I'll have to remember that quote for later.

@Eltia
While I may agree that adding more things to the old UI may have made it a little clunkier (we'll never know now, though), I stand by my point that completely updating the graphic styling of the entire UI and by extension the game itself, was NOT the answer. Moving around every piece of vital information that the player base has become accustomed to, sizing them up, and adding in quite a few other "useful" features was NOT the answer. How this new UI format even leaves room for the Battle Sprite information is baffling with how utterly cluttered it already is.
I honestly feel bad for players that have smaller monitors with this update...

Actually, I have an urge to go into Photoshop and make my own take on a new UI. I'm going to utilize the color scheme, graphics, and style of the old one. I will show OOO that changing the UI so drastically and breaking the established style of the game was a damn stupid move.
Hopefully I have enough time to get it done tomorrow. If not I'll try and have it up for the weekend.

Because this new HUD is paving path for future updates, like Battle Sprites

Then they should have saved it till then while working on some polish for it a long with the BS, instead of releasing an unfinished buggy HUD.

If BS are to have charge abilities, where would you put that ability bar on the old HUD?

Where would you put it in the new UI that wont clutter it even more? Most of the borders are already occupied and the free spaces are in awkward places to put a gauge in. If you say they will figure it out when it's ready, there's absolutely no reason they couldnt have done it in the old one.

I'm guessing they will put the BS charge bar right under the shield bar.

Clutter? Yes. But you only need to check one spot (upper left) to get an idea of your Health, your shield and when your BS can bite.

Ewwww, it's too square.

A little part of spiral knights has died.

Good UI does not need "checking" the upper left corner or any other for that matter. With the old UI, i was looking at the "battlefield" and was still able to see my HP without looking at it!

That is the point of UI. Helpful, slick, not intrusive. While the new one is..

Also, this game is a grind. Grind. Grind. Grind. That in mind, why, oh why did they hide CR? So many stupid decisions, while i can't come up with one good reason for any of it.

-I like the new damage effects on enemies a lot. Good change here.
-I noticed that the tooltips when mousing over materials and consumables on the floor is gone. They were annoying as hell, so I like this.
-Player facing updates correctly when mousing over the UI while locked now. Thanks for squishing that bug.
-Missions updates don't cause the mission tab to pop back out anymore. Quite nice.

-The new HP meter feels a lot clumsier than the old one. I liked the way it squished around as you gained and lost HP. I especially dislike how the percentage shown doesn't update until the lifebar animation completes, and how you can't tell if you're at max HP with a quick glance..
-The UI as a whole is very hard on the eyes, especially at lower resolutions. Please go back to using flat colors. I especially hate the faux glass highlighting, it's tacky.
-The appearance of enemy HP bars seem oddly inconsistent - sometimes one wouldn't show on an enemy I was trying to gun down.
-Consumables are uglier, and freeze/shock vials are harder to tell apart to boot. The abstract icons were a better fit IMO.
-People mentioned the weapon switch popup being annoying, but they didn't say anything about that sound. Plink plink plink plink UGH MAKE IT STOP.
-You can click on the lock in the UI to unlock it, which seems counterintuitive to say the least. I noticed a couple of times my HUD had come unlocked without me realizing it, probably from franticly clicking around that area while gunning.
-I have no clue where to look to see how long the duration of any status effects on me are. Probably because I kept glancing to the bottom of the screen instead of wherever they are now. I'm not 100% sure they're even still shown.
-Having to drop consumables to rearrange them sucks. I try to keep pills and remedies on buttons 1 and 2 so I can hit them on reflex. This makes it harder to arrange my stuff without it getting swiped by an unscrupulous teammate.
-Someone invited me to a lobby and it took me a couple minutes to even realize it because I'm prone to missing small details. As annoying as some people found the popups, I much prefer them.

Any chance of hiding the closed window tabs and shifting the chat window down a bit when the UI is locked? Also, if you're changing consumable mechanics around a bit, how about having teammates who leave a party on the elevator drop their stuff on the next floor?

I hate to advertise...but this opportunity can't be skipped.

Because so many players seem to, overall, be able to make good decisions in where things should go....does anyone want to help me with my fangame?

Oh, and please, please, either revert the HUD or let us change back to the old one. Or atleast do what Google does, which is make a new interface, wait a few weeks or so to work out the kinks, and then forces it upon users. During this period, the new and old HUDs can be freely switched between. I mean, even if they are making room for BSs, WHY DIDN'T YOU WAIT UNTIL THE TESTING SERVER CLOSED TO RELEASE THE HUD? (Testing server is beta content. Beta content suddenly jumping into the main game? That's SNIPES OVERBOARD.)

Actually, while I'm fond of some features of the HUD, such as the weapon wheel(in a bad place, that's all), percentage of HP, and visibility at a glance of your party member's statuses, I want to be able to switch between the two, so I can ease into the new change. This was far too jarring. Testing server junkies only got a day extra to try it...

The only thing I'm afraid of is that more swift, unplanned decisions like this one will follow. I mean, if this game did a few more things to fix some obviously glaring issues, it would probably be up there with WoW at this point. I'm not kidding. I believe that much in this game.

This generally follows one of the worst ever technique for game making: When behind schedule, release it now and finish it in patches. Gives a bad reputation and makes people leave.

And all it takes is a second to glance at your health, heat, shield, and pet charge bar, right? More like 1.5 probably. And that's more than enough time spent not looking at your knight to kill you in several different ways.

Another thing I noticed: the vials still use the old "shine" animation, which is made to go over a circle. So the shine is an arc of light over thin air. And did I mention that the art style of the vials/pills is completely different from the rest of the game?

EDIT:

@Autofire

The UI is now more important than the game. It takes up too much space, and a ton of information that isn't needed is all over the place.
Names now have 'rank' (who cares, you could look it up in their profile) but no colors? It's how most of us have learned to find people in crowds. Haven is now a dead colorless place of creepy white dots and intersecting words that are impossible to pick apart. The shield meter is intrusive and a repetition of information available already. The annoying retractable buttons on the bottom are not only irritating (what if I want to see my energy but not a bunch of social data?) but they raise the chat higher into the screen thus reducing the functional play area. In the auction house on some screen sizes you not only get just 3 lines of chat, but you can't scroll up or down without leaving the auction house, because they're so high up now.
And speaking of chat, why the heck does this game not have some sort of chat log?

The UI is sharp, intrusive and generally not of the same world as all the other art. It might look great on Dr Who WIT, but in SK it looks highly out of place.
The buttons are brighter than nearly anything else in game so they force your eye to them, and generally make me feel like instead of being my character, I'm playing a game, interacting through an old arcade console screen.

In short, 3 thumbs down.

Oh...and happy birthday, Spiral Knights....I'm sorry you're so sick...

/cry

Putting everything in one corner is good and dandy for single player games that dont utilize chargeable skills. Ever wonder why games like DOTA 2 or LoL have the cooldown skills in the middle bottom edge of the screen? (the same place the vials and pills are) Because not only is your vision usually focused in the middle of the screen, it's also important, time based information that can be crucial to winning or losing a game. Taking the time to glance can be very distracting, another reason why those games have your hp and mana bar above you characters as well.

I wouldnt mind if OOO makes the vial and pill buttons smaller and easier to distinguished to but the 3 BS command buttons there beside them and making them flash when ready to use or give them a timer and grey them out when charging. Not to mention the useless giant character portrait on the upper left making things even more cluttered.

i agree with most of what has been said, so there's no point in repeating, however, I have a little more feedback which is for a few smaller things, and I'm too lazy to look if anyone's said anything.

"- Art for unbreakable blocks in the Clockworks has been updated."
This was complete unnecessary, the old blocks fit well, these ones look completely out of place and make no sense whatsoever, it feels as if though they made these blocks to add to the game's environments, they do seem like they might add to the game if they randomly appeared here and there to add variety, but completely replace blocks with this one, no. The advanced training hall shows this perfectly, having the blocks used as walls, and with the new ones it makes no sense.

"- Monster and player damage flash effects have been revamped for better clarity in combat."
The old flash effects where subtle yet still worked, they were clear enough and without being in the way. The new ones are less light effects, and add what seems like and image flashing in, it doesn't look as good, and it adds more to the list of clutter this update brought.

Lastly, one thing that bothers me most is the amount of hand-holding and constant display of info we don't require. We don't need to see NPC's names, we don't need arrows around every interact-able thing to indicate they're interact-able, the little bubble above our heads indicated that easily. Why do we need that bubble at the top that also gives the information? On enemies it only appears if auto aim is on, which goes to show the game is pushing towards being easy for the new players. I think that's what this update was made for, for the minority 12 year old new players, to strip sk of more challenge by giving even more info and nerfing the last challenging monsters.

I'm not saying my guess is a good guess (nor a good decision for that matter). I'm just saying that with the current HUD, that's the most obvious place they can stuff the BS charge bar.

Are any of you familiar with Dragon Quest Monster Battle Road Victory? I always like their HUD. You can Youtube the gameplay and take a look yourself. If it's up to me I would make SK's HUD similar to that game's HUD. No health bar though, but everything are clear and you can have parties too.

And you know what, maybe the whole problem is that the Dev insists of using a bar representation for Health. Use a jar representation like Diablo, stuff it in a corner and you already clear up a lot of room. Then you use the room you spare for shiny, blinky attack related gauges, like weapon charge bar, BS charge bar, and even shield recharge bar. And yes, they will all be in the bottom, just like the many other games suggested.

When OOO comes in to their office tomorrow morning, I think I am not alone in pleading that they will at least ADMIT THAT THEIR NEW $@&&!@$ UI WAS NOT $@&&!@$ FINISHED.

Last year this time, I was on hiatus from SK. And I was like, "Darn I missed an anniversary event". Little I would expect one year later, I'm spending this anniversary on suggesting fixes to the UI of this game.

This, doesn't sound right, at all.

(I'm reposting this from the testing forum just to make sure this helps in the effort to change the UI!)

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.
[EDIT]: This was changed with the second patch, at least while in the depths. The icon player colors have been returned back to their original state.

-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.

There are only a couple things I don't like about the new UI. One, is the shaking of the screen when you get hit in LD. Two, all the stuff that's blocking my screen :(.

i dont think so, ooo never admited they did something wrong. prolly they would make a change here and there and said "its done!" but about admit they did a mistake we never going to see that. (remember when they saw the obvious error that was giving shadow keys only in lockboxes and featured ah? well they never admited their error as far i remember, they only made them be able to be purchase with energy).

I'm banging my head against a wall, but I can't seem to wake up from this horrifying nightmare.

I don't know... a "mistake" of this magnitude. It seems they are corned. They won't have time and resources to redo the whole HUD (which seems to be what is needed) and they would lose face (and maybe their heads) if they rollback to the old HUD.

I think most likely they would do is fix up some urgent UI issues in the new HUD and move on. So before you go to sleep, pray that the issues they are going to fix are the ones that are offending you the most right now.

NO. just NO.

Don't even bother describing what is good and what is not about the new UI. The fact is, at least 80% of players are very dissapointed and angry about it. Don't even bother fixing it, don't even bother.. Bring back the old one and improve the game where it needs the most attention- CONTENT!!!

Bug: When switching weapons with only three equipped, the weapon wheel is displaying the switched-to weapon twice in the wheel, once in the middle position and again in the upper position. (I have not checked this bug with two or four weapons equipped.)

Also, see all my previous gripes on the new UI earlier in the thread.

Anyways, last post before I go to sleep, it's getting late.

So I logged in, tried the new UI and I played around with it (including going through Compound 42). It feels weird but I thought, I would get used to it. Then I played the anniversary prestige mission. I was like "That's it?" Then I looked at the prizes.. "Do I want to look like a pie? Nope" Then I look at that extra long shield bar (5x longer than my health bar, I was using Omega Shell) at the upper left corner. I feel like watching some college movie projects with gmask censorship. Then I looked at my mug shot... the pipe smoke isn't animated and it feels dead, like a funeral picture. Maybe it would make it more lively if there are some serial numbers under my mug shot... (Prisons don't jail dead people.)

After my guildie got unstuck from his elevator ride. I was thinking maybe I should do a FSC run with him. Then somehow I couldn't find the motivation anymore.

"Anniversary and this is what we got? I mean, you are kidding, right?" I put in 100 bids on CE at a cheap price and logged off.

I'm not one to dare. I'm not one to challenge. I respect OOO and the SK team. But...I must ask....

When they started making games, did they feel the same way I do? Truthfully, it is how I feel. Games are meant to be relaxing. Something you spend your recreational time playing. It's not recreational when you can't enjoy it. I want to make things which you can enjoy. To put the "Fun" back into "Videogames" which so many huge companies somehow seemed to have removed.

@eltia: Losing face for rolling back a broken, unfinished, and flawed update is much better than losing face AND customers for staying with the broken one and refusing to admit it is broken. And I bet, though I'm not sure about this, the OOO team can find a way to split their development between this and new content. They have to realize that a mistake this big will affect their future updates and current playerbase. No point of leaving it and forging ahead to Sprites and Horde enemies, if they do that there won't be anyone left to play them.

@Sweet: I only half believe that'll actually happen, but you can't argue that it shouldn't.

@Dae: constructive criticism is always good, we don't want OOO fixing the wrong things. A rollback might be nice, even though the chances of that are minimal, but trust me when I say they won't forget this and leave it to rot. And they shouldn't, changing the UI from the original could be beneficial. Content is important, but it's not the only thing that matters.

One thing I really don't like about the new UI is the fact that when you're playing on a higher resolution, the health bar is really out the way. I was blazing through the clockworks earlier today and taking occaisional hits, then I thought to glance at the hp bar and went 'oh [bucket] I've only got 5% health left'. When the bar was down the bottom this was never a problem, however.
Also I miss my ce and crowns meter showing all the time. I liked boosting my ego by seeing lots of numbers there.
Also, in case people didn't know you can disable the ranks of people showing up in the options menu. I already have :)

I like the new update, I do not think the UI is clutered, just something new to get used to. I find it quite refreshing and appealing to look at.

Only thing I do not like is the devilite nerf.

I really like a lot of things about the new UI. I think however you should be customize and turn on or off the text pop ups, health bars, etc. these things are good for beginners but as a more experienced player, i don't need to be told what materia I'm picking up. I think being able to customize the UI would be great. If you could make it so it helps beginners, but as they grow they need less information on the screen, they can remove certain things. And there are other things you can add to the UI as optional additions that can be turned on, like showing hit boxes, or swing radius and stuff like that.

The character stills between levels and at the end of missions are tacky and reminiscent of 90's playstation games. It's pretty much become popcap in here. Things bounce in and out, which is also a style I had hoped was dead.
The giant portrait in the top left takes up screen real estate for no reason.

The only thing that isn't too bright in the UI is my potions. I can't tell them apart.

Why exactly did OOO feel that this update was necessary? Was it for battle sprites as Eltia guessed, or just because they felt the game needed a new look? If so, why was it released so soon? An answer to these questions would go a long way towards calming everyone down, as long it makes sense.

I made a topic about it already, but I would like to say next:

Idea of new UI is great, but realisation is bad, there was no need to change graphical part of it.
I hope you will change your mind and keep the old graphics with new features, that would be great.

Alright, so I guess I sort of want to be heard too (implying I'll be heard). I was rather surprised/shocked to see that they implemented this so quickly. We've had how many balancing threads without as much as a Iron Slug/Callahan buff (which they already sort of promised...)?

So yea, why they would do this is truly beyond me, but I decided I'd take notes from the very beginning, making a small sentence (up to a small paragraph) on what I like and don't like as they appeared. Some things have been mentioned up to several times before and some things are just personal preferences, I won't care to elaborate here in this post.

This is what my notes looked like in the end:

WHYYYY?

Light / white gradient over miniature pictures in parties makes it hard to see who's who when they're wearing almost the same equipment (or equipment that looks alike). Makes you HAVE to read the name, hard to recognize by colour too since it's practically hidden behind the character portrait.

Health bar is far away from the center of the screen, where the action is taking place.

Portrait up in left corner hides menus that should have been a lot easier to access.

Horrible and confusing colouring on the inventory tabs. COLOUR BATTLE TO DEATH. SURVIVAL OF THE COLOURESTTTTT. Feels like the old UI had a lot more unity.

Picture at elevators asking to go down or up is just ridiculous...

Can't move vials and pills into slots I want without having more things to replace it with... What the hell...

Screen shakes while getting hit, what is this? An FPS?

Screen shakes every time you get hurt by fire.

Two numbers at the vials... I mixed up the numbers thinking I had two (it was on slot number 2) shock vials in missile puppy room... I mean, why would the number tag be the biggest clearest number?

I'd prefer my HUD to be rather static. Shield bar moving over the health bar? Why? They don't want me to see my health? I'd prefer not to have my health bar go into hiding in the middle of a battle.

I can already tell how my shield is doing by using it, why would I need an extra shield-meter that is completely obsolete and just covers my health so it is harder to tell if I'm dying or not... Not only that, but it is still far away from the middle of the screen where the action is taking place.

Weapon switching animation is a bit big? And is text really necessary?

Can't drop vita pods...

Can no longer see if anyone in the party is low on energy?

Why change the UI when there's so much else that could be done.

White names makes it harder to read the names in groups.

Combination of colours on names (guildies and friends).

Only having the personal colour on the rank emblem? And people with no rank emblem gets no personal colour on their name at all.

Three lines for every name? Really? You sure you shouldn't have four or five (more)? No?

What is up with the autotarget markers? (For instance:) Constant autotarget on the auction house? I KNOW what the freaking auction house is and what it looks like...

Minimap is useless, can't tell regular people apart. Hell, can hardly tell people apart from the minimap background itself...

Minimap hides people under other icons. Can't see if there is anyone in the guildhalls for example.

New graphic when you get on elevator makes it unable to see if someone leaves before you've clicked one of the buttons.

PLUS:

No more random invites/trades pop ups in the middle of the screen. Yay.

I have a few points to make too....

The Bad
1) WHY THE SHAKE IN LOWDOWN WHEN YOU GET HIT I MEAN LIKE COME ON! REALLY???

2) What is the point of having a health and shield bar in haven and its not like monsters will pop up out of bushes and attack you

3) When I walk in haven all I see is white names! That is very lame.(Apart from guild members and friends). I can now long live up to my name too Q_Q

The Good
1) Health bars on monsters is usefull

2) I like the interface when your enter a elevator. REALLY COOL

3) (Suggestion) The weapon switch HUD is kinda good because I get to see what weapon is next, but if they could move it to the side a little will be awsome

4) Clickable buttons look fancy

So overall 5.5/10

~Eman

Health bar on top left is a bad idea, when it was on bottom center it was easy to control health level and status - now it's almost impossible during fight.

First off, for the love of all that is good on Cradle, PUT THE HEALTH BAR BACK IN THE CENTER OF THE SCREEN.
I'm using a wide-screen monitor. I should not have to turn my head just to see something as fundamentally important as how much health I have left! In the first run playing with the new UI, my party suffered multiple deaths because they just couldn't keep track of how little health they had. I do like the taller health pips, and the percentage meter. And while the slider effect makes it finally possible to see if I'm down by a quarter of a pip, they're rather narrow. Perhaps combine the old and new, and have taller health pips that can be broken into fourths? [2/1] -> [4/3|2/1]

The shield bar! Now this is a nice idea. Being able to watch my shield regenerate even when it's not raised was nice. But the fact the bar gets taller when I raise my shield, and smaller when I lower it, and also changes the size of the health bar? Ugh, horrible distracting visual noise! Especially when faced with a swarm of tier three turrets spamming bullet-hell at me, and I have to rapidly toggle my shield to both block and dodge at full speed, I don't need my health bar pulsating. Plus it's enormously long when you've got a five-star Aegis equipped, tiny with a Proto Shield. Since there aren't any actual numbers being shown for shield health, why not just pick a specific length for all shield bars and display the damage as percentages?

Also, please return the energy/mist meter to being always on. It was nice being able to watch my mist regenerate, and provided quick and easy access to the energy market. (Which is the primary revenue stream for this free-to-play game, isn't it?) Similarly, being able to see my crowns at a glance was handy. Now, I have to open my inventory to check any of these.

When you reach an elevator, it now shows a picture of your party, and asks if you wish to "Proceed" or return to Haven. While the action poses are impressive, it also obscures the thematic element of exploring DOWN into the depths of the Clockworks. I would suggest moving the "Return to Haven" button back to the top of the panel, which would also make it less likely to accidentally click the wrong button. Right now they're rather close to each other. Maybe add back a nice big down arrow to a relabeled "Proceed Deeper" button as well.

The weapon changing wheel. I don't really see any need for it, as it just adds to the visual clutter that plagues this new UI. And I've been told that if you have three weapons equipped, it actually displays your current weapon in the slot above itself. Buggy.

Large portrait of the character in the upper left. Again, unnecessary visual clutter. I know what my character looks like, he's right there in the center of the screen. The slightly larger pictures of party members is nice, as we can finally see their full health when above 20 pips of max health. Unfortunately, long character names are being truncated.

New health capsules and status vials. You've fixed something that wasn't broken. The older ones were better. Because they no longer have a background disk, the white frost vial and bright green sleep vial are much harder to distinguish between at a glance. One can be useful for crowd control and can cause damage, and the other can undo your hard work by actually healing the monsters. It's kind of important to know which is which. Maybe it's time to look into polygonal models for caps and vials, like crowns use.

Name colors in Haven. To be honest, I can see both sides of this issue. On the one hand, it actually reduces some visual clutter and lets you more easily distinguish friends and guildmates. But on the other hand, it also reduces the importance of a player's choice of their Personal Color. I rather like my blue, and I'm sure there are some out there that are proud to be pink, or gratefully green.

One last suggestion, as this change was actually made a while back. When you finish a tier, the rewards collected by the party are displayed for fifteen seconds, where they used to be shown for sixty. While this might be reasonable for transitioning from tier one to tier two, or two to three, could we return to having a full sixty seconds to review our rewards after completing a tier three run? I rather liked that victory music, and now we don't even get to hear the full length, let alone a loop of the track. And my guildmates and I like to compare who found any five-star materials, or were so unlucky they didn't even get any four-star items.

It's been said before. It will be said again. The new UI is a step back from the old.
Before I go step by step through the analysis of the new UI, I'd like to take a note and acknowledge the work OOO did on this.

It was bad.
While developers clearly spent some finite, nonzero amount of time on this UI update, they clearly did not use their resources correctly. Why a UI? Why so soon? Where are those swarming mobs, those grave scarabs, that Iron Slug buff you promised us, Nick? Where is the buff for Mad Bomber? Why did we change something perfectly functional into something... weird?
The change in UI was, in my opinion, largely a waste of time and effort; time and effort that could have been spent developing Sprites, balancing armor, creating new content, the list goes on and on...

Now that the elephant in the room has been indentified as an African Elephant and named Donnald, we can continue to the actual changes that came through this patch.

Roll the clip!

1. The item of highest concern is the Mist and Crowns being hidden from the HUD, tucked away in the inventory. Players have discussed theories of why this has happened, and I beleive Nick has mentioned that it makes the game less money-energy driven. I'll cut right to the chase.
Hiding the energy and crowns appears to be an underhanded way for F2P players to overspend energy, thus breaking into their CE reserves. This prompts them to buy more CE from the market with crowns, enlargening the crown sink.
The simple fact of the matter is that everything in SK is energy-driven (unless OOO would like to make elevators free forever, and make crafting use crowns instead of CE, but then Donnald might as well dance whiel playing the piano with his unicycle. Ofc he has a unicycle)
Hiding the energy is a HUGE no-no. Every soul I hve met so far has hated the implementation and concept.

2. Health is important, but not in Haven. But when time comes to glance at it, players have to look to the top corner of the screen now, to look at a slowly-draining health bar. Part of the problem may be most players being accustomed to a bottom-screen health bar. I think the problem runs deeper. The new pixeel-by-pixel system, as opposed to the pip or half-pip system, makes loss of health less numeric. Sure, analysts can use the new bar to figure out precicely how much damage we're doing, but for all intensive purposes, half-pips and pips were simpler and almost as informative.
Needless to say, we don't need health in Haven either.

3. Pips pips pips pippins. You know what's fun in clockworks? Wearing weak armor that grants you with no health bonus, running the hardest levels you know (HoI, LoA, GitM, C42, FSC, etc etc) with 5 pips. You know what feels awesome? Your party gawking at you as you carry them through the level. Now, what has changed about that now, you ask?
Simple; we can only see our own pips. Everyone else is a little red Pokemon bar to us. I can't see who needs a vitapod; I can't see who has trinkets. They can't see me either.
We also can't drop vitapods, meaning if I want to run something "hero mode", I have to avoid those +15 vitas in FSC like fire traps.
I can't pass vitas to a friend who wants them;
Oh did I mention LD? I need to mention LD. Donnald, why didn't you remind me about LD? Say what? you did? I ignored you and threw those ugly vials at you? Well I'm sorry mate. Here we go.
I can't analyze my team. I can't tell if they'll die in 4 hits, 3 hits, or 0.6 hits. I can't even remember if I can tell what class they're playing; the UI was too confusing for me to bear more than 3 games. When i take a hit now, I can't even tell. I don't drop pips or make that "bang" sound like before, or if I do, it's covered up by the newly added flashiness.

4. Vile Vials. Those things look like stickers for children, labled "Science for Kids! Throw beakers and tubes at monsters!" They. Look. Terrible.

5. General design. I'm sure it's been said before, but I think my first website in HTML has prettier buttons than this UI. The buttons are showy, gaudy, clutterd. No right-minded knight would use something this... badly lavished.

There are more minor things, such as weapon wheel and shield bar, but I think I'd be beating a dead horse by bringing those up again. What's that Donnald? That horse was your friend? Oh jeez I am so sorry... we'll put him to rest and give him a proper Greek burial, a Drachma under his long horse tongue.

Back to a more somber note.
This update really doesn't cut it for me, and many other players. The new UI is intrusive and annoying, and OOO's lack of regard for the Testing Server comments is making me reconsider my stake in this game. Admittedly I am purely F2P, so my quittling wouldn't lose you a cent, but for now...

I'll give it a week. If I return and find everything as it is now, you might not be seeing me again.
I'd urge any players with similar opinions to join me.

The ex-T2 LD Fiend,
Breaker-Xd

I could list virtually everything wrong with the UI but i've done that on a few threads already, and spent a good 40 minutes chatting away about it in game..

so i will simply say it absolutely does not fit spiral knights at all it looks generic and cheap.

its not intuitive at all. its probably the most redundant system i've seen implemented on a game ever.

WHY SO CLUTTERED!

just about everything done for pve purposes with this new UI and update is like a drunken horse on roller-skates during a lightning storm. entirely broken and the system as a whole literally made me put the game down and play something else due to its horrible design and functionality.

I know a lot of people thought the new elevator idea was cool. BUT COME ON i loved watching my party descend on the elevator it was cool! and simple and connected more with the game then a picture of my knights racing......

its not a bad idea i suppose..but its just not nearly as unique or cool as it was originally.

i honestly have found 0 appreciable things about this UI or update

i like move vials

@Klipik: I also don't believe they will bring back the old UI.

I just did a FSC run (I gave it one more chance), and there are no words that could describe my feelings about new UI and everything that they have changed. There is not a single thing I like. I cannot understand, even if I try to think about every possibility on why they did what they did.. There is no excuse, and the only way out is to go back, to old UI.

Idk, maybe they have a new designer or something, that is from another world compared to original one? I just can't see the person who "made" the SK look, remaking it into this?

True, content is not the only thing that matters. Having fun playing.. enjoyin the game.. That matters the most. And they took that away from me.

@Weedalot: You nailed it!

@Hideousfox: Yep, agreed. Elevators should also stay as they were.

In any case.. It has been a long, dissapointing night.. Time for bed.. Maybe things will look better when I sleep it over? Maybe.. If not, I think I'll go find my next adventure somewhere else..

Guys, just leave this game, say OOO "[scrap] you!" and go play dota 2. I am good supp xD

Or other good games and this peace of disapoints. I hope they all die young.

where can i see which weapon i have equipped`?

cursed weapon has very little icon in the top left corner how am i supposed to know that the equipped weapon is cursed just in time before releasing a charge attack :l

You're swearing.

Swearing is not allowable in this forums.

* The health bar should be closer to the center of the view so we can actually see our health.
* the health and shield bar should be of equal length.
* Vitapods should be near the healthbar.
* the self portrait and party member portraits should be of equal size.
* the health bar should be an actual bar, the current can falsely show full health when you're hurt.
* the old items (vials etc) looked much better.
* the gatemap needs a shortcut.
* the energy (crystal and mist) needs to be able to show/hide manually.
* The advance to next level window shouldnt have quit and advance at the same position (it was better when quit was "up" and advance was "down").
* Enemies healthbar should flash or something when they die (now they can show empty and not die).
* Item slots numbers and quantity numbers is too confusing.

i wont know why your complaining about it its gonna get new things added to it like were you ccan see your money all the time like before.its a new thing they cant add a load of things to the game or the game would just crash all the time .wait for the time being and wait and see!

I dislike 5 things currently:
1. The new pills icons, they changed it so confetti uses the new pill icon and now it clashes with all the other items in my inventory which have a very flat but consistant look
2. I don't like the new indestructable blocks, I think they look like motors
3. I think the menus on the bottom of the UI are this deeper blue and the frame for the minimap and character portrait is sky blue, kind of clashes imo
4. If you've done a t1 cake nest there are small ckaes that look very flat and have terrible animation, I'll probably stick to t3 cake runs for the entire event.
5. I also want to have my CR and ce displayed onscreen
Positives:
I like the weapon wheel.
I like how your freinds and guildies are color coded on the minimap
I like the new explosive effect on attacks
I love the health bars
I like the new elevator screens
I love zoom in mode
Meh:
I'm okay with NPC names and the gigantic shield health bar and the menus being at the bottom of the UI
Getting an invite could be a little bit more noticable but it's an improvment over the old system where an invite would pop up in the middle of the screen and interupt everything

I think it's a pretty resonable UI and it's not going to make me quit playing spiral knights. OOO is pretty good about doing things players want so I'm sure we'll see minor changes to it in the future.

P.S. I would like the option to do something with knight names in town. Disable rank above the names. Change the font size of names. Display knight personal color instead of white.