I’m not against orbs, but i want thiis opinion be officially documented on forum (at least before PT section wiped):
As I said before, HUD with bars is a unique feature of Grim Dawn stile opposed to mainstream orbs.
Not unique though since TQ1 had them first. Still I agree with you; original should be the default and modern optional.
Sure, TQ1 was prior. And some other games have bars. But TQ1 is past generation game if it could be said, while current generation games have orbs much more often.
This was a discussion we had internally.
Ultimately we decided that returning players should see the new option before opting back to the original, instead of burying all the work that went into making the new HUD behind a setting someone might not even realize exists.
Ok. But how about make “Modern hud” option turned on by default on first start, instead of “Calssic hud” option turned off by default on first start.
I agree that bars were part of Grim Dawn’s unique style, but I think the modern HUD is better functionally. It’s not because of orbs per se, but because it has cleaned up all the extraneous buttons that were on the button bar and put them in a side menu, so that the only things on the button bar are skills and consumables. Possibly that could have been done while retaining bars for Health/Energy but, well, we’re not in that timeline.
Tldr, I think the modern HUD is a better default to put in front of new players. Obviously veterans will choose which they like.
But is it possible to make “Classic HUD” exact carbon copy of the classic hud? Right now it looks like a version of a classic hud but with new hud’s “shine”.
I wish companies could innovate more than just going orbs these days
Also potential new players probably expect orbs at this point so better give them that for a good first impression.
Is there anything to innovate left though. Do you have some idea? For it to be readable and relatively precise a figure which fills up / depletes seems like a must have. Probably a basic shape rather a more complicated one. This pretty much leaves us with circles and rectangles already implemented in GD unless you’d like a triangle 
Absolutely man, we just haven’t unlocked that in our brains yet.
Because everyone is making circles and rectangles, just placed differently but still the same. They got so used to that idea and maybe developed a brain block too. What if there isn’t any shape involved to these, but rather clear text of some sort. Yes, one could argue text is already over those shapes, but then one could ask, why that shapes?
Recently people even started asking for “hide” the UI in games because they don’t want to see it. I get that, i also get the visual perspective too. One doesn’t want to play a beautiful game, looking at a UI that looks like Donald Trump hair cut haha
Hello there,
Nah, orbs are nicer and visually “ergonomic”, appealing plus they provide a better view of the situation
To clarify once again.
There is no matter what better, the matter is perception.
In the current state we have “Classic HUD” checkbox in options. That mean when player enter game, he sees Orbs and this option. He decide that Bars is outdated, legacy HUD style (Like “Classic targeting”).
I guess “Modern HUD” checkbox must be in option instead. As variant - dropdown list. This automatically equate status of both styles, but Bars stay default. And Orbs could be still enabled when you first time run 1.3.
The orbs in this one is not bad, but the middle center section needs change
yeah, the top-centre part’s a bit confusing
They should scrap the center part entirely only leaving the “+” there. The rest should be distributed elsewhere. Think that will look visually beter.
