by Despayre on Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:00 am
Sorry guys, but I really dislike the new UI scheme, but mostly for (hopefully) simple and easy to fix reasons.
In general it looks really slick and it has a lot of personality and promise, but the numbers are really hard to read on most of the windows, and that's the most important part of the game. I seriously can't read a lot of the monster HP bars (level 4 goblins and level 5 warlocks are some prime examples), the text bleeds together so much on 3 6 8 and 9 that they're nigh indecipherable at times.
The grey/silver text on grey background for piety, coin, etc is really hard to read too. It's not as bad as the hp bars but I still have to look at it for a second or two to make sure I'm reading it right. All vital stats in the game have to be easy to identify and read. It doesn't matter how pretty the UI looks if it doesn't actually convey information to the user in an quickly digestible manner.
And I second the Mana over HP confusion. That almost did get me killed in my first game. Every computer rpg ever that has both health and mana has health over or in front of mana depending on layout, and any that don't are wrong. Sorry, it's a rule. Ok maybe it isnt, but it IS convention and that's just what my mind sees now, even when I know it's wrong, dont imagine I'm the only one either either.
The inventory panel looks so..dirty. I cant read what the text is under the splatters. *somthing* item *something*? That's bad.
I like the look and the style feels 'right', but as a functional UI, this fails almost completely for me. A lot of it is easy fixes, just needs lots more contrast between style elements and functional ones. Fonts need to be much cleaner and stand out more.