I finally tried the playtest. Gotta say, the new UI is not doing it for me. The map has an issue where the UI elements jut into the center of it. The “zoom” and the “local map” buttons. We play on wide monitors that have the least amount of vertical space in the center. And the UI buttons take even more of that limited space. That’s just bad.
This also applies to the main UI, to a lesser extent. The health orbs have made it taller, and it’s in the middle of the screen where space is the most precious. I think health and mana should be flat bars in the bottom center of the screen, kinda like Skyrim, or like the old UI. All non essential buttons and doohickeys should be moved to the corners of the screen.
The thing I hate the most is the new color scheme. It’s way harder to see everything. I don’t know what it is, maybe the contrast? Everything looks blurry and dark and kinda glowy at the same time. It’s awful. Items look terrible in the inventory grid. I think item borders and background color should get a complete redesign. Now all items look like colored boxes to me, with the actual item art getting overpowered.
Despite loving the new UI, I could understand your valid frustration.
I think more minor tweaks could still take place to make the change bearable for you though, it is not yet set in stone, at least not completely.
I also didn’t really like the intrusive part of the map, especially the zoom which, in my opinion, takes up too much space, but it’s not something that really hinders gameplay (in my view) and I believe that small adjustments can still be made. As for the Orbs, you can go into the menu and return to the HUD similar to the old standard.
What I would really like is for the minimap to be floating (dragable) so you could place it anywhere on the screen, and also for the minimap to have an option similar to TL2 where it would become larger and translucent over the game; for me, that would be wonderful.
In addition to covering a large area where we can always see the main points, unlike GD where we need to get close to the location to start signaling, this floating translucent map could also be positioned in almost any location.
Grim Dawn is designed differently to Torchlight 2. Grim Dawn allows you to explore the game world on your own phase, whereby Torchlight 2 tells you exactly where to go, because the game is designed that way, and the maps/levels are allot smaller too.
i mentioned the map buttons in a different thread, seemed strange to deliberately reduce the available space like that.
then the other parts sorta popped in too, like it’s a general to theme make things less sleek and take up more space
the new quest tracker button becomes over twice as big just because of the decorative embroidery
and even the minimap button had to get a bit of gold shine bejewelled and get larger for it
those aren’t the only parts i find weird or off about the new UI (on classic ui setting )
and i’m sure it’s not possible for such complete separation, but i really wish the classic UI button actually did what it said, and returned the full OG ui, quest tracker, log, parchment texture/non dark-mode char sheet, instead of just being horizontal health/mana bars “with everything new” still
"old grump set in his way"aside, a lot of it doesn’t so much not look that good, but seems more, odd choice wise… like it clashes with itself not just from comparison to something used to, but it’s less clean/“functional”
(but i’m not gonna pretend i also dont’ find a lot of it less “game” fitting too ofc, think i’ve made preference for old parchment & rust theme voiced more than once)
i don’t know why you’re asking me, i have 0 power on what Crate does/decides, quite the opposite it seems
My guess is the UI is here to stay, and at best might get toned down in some places, i doubt they’d gone through all the work to make it and just totally scrap it because a couple people disagree with the scope of it
(and i’d suspect there is a huge technical limitation not being able to run/support 2 complete and separate UIs in the game with a toggle too)
now my reply just looks weird when the one it was referring to got removed
original reply:
difference of making a same topic/“new” topic on the same thing, vs posting in existing. eg 1 user making 5 separate threads asking to get wolves in zerker vs just keep posting in the original ;), or same user’s 3 different UI topic titles, still about the same thing
*the reason i haven’t made my own thread isn’t because of duplicate theme, but just good ol’ defeatism, i prefer the OG, and i don’t think new 1.3 is going to get tweaks/“enough”/the type of tweaks necessary to not prefer the OG
And as mentioned, i don’t think they are going to attempt to have complete separation trying to support 2 fully different UI options available in the game/new and “actual OG” at the same time
(i’d guess GD engine further complicates that which might already have been complicated to support for a diff game)
which means at most one can hope for is the gold shine and text blurryness on new background, and excessive decorative jewellery gets reduced a bit. (as you saw last update it doesn’t go away even if a spike gets shrunk )
If dark mode theme also was going to be redesigned, i’d suspect they’d have added the wood panel or whatever by now, making me think that’s sorta set in stone too, ie only readability/contrast fix pending if so.
While i disagree with the new location of the map button, “fixing” it so it’s slightly less intrusive or OCD inducing, still wont fix 1.3 ui as a whole to me. So while i appreciate people making these posts/“i’m not (entirely) alone”, i also don’t think there is anything in an OP i could write(hire someone with actual writing skills to formulate the words for me) or any argument defending old or addressing new that would impact or change that decision or design. Devs want one thing, i want another, so there’s nothing for me to do. “it is what it is”
This is at the forefront of why I typically don’t make threads. +1. Could write a lot on this but…defeatism so ——-> why? Anyways,
On topic: some of the concerns about various issues regarding the UI are legit. It seems blurry, can be viewed as over saturated, and others. Personally I am able to look past the extra bells and whistles (i.e. spikes and/or whatever else). At the end of the day, I was thinking that if the changes to the UI are really making players experience worse then it does need to be looked at…with the understanding that it’s still Crate’s game and their vision.
I know it might feel like they aren’t going to change it but it’s not like they can’t change it when they want to or when they have time to. I bet there is still a bunch of stuff that needs to be done before FoA ships and still the stuff post launch.
You know what annoys me more about it? The fact that arrow is slightly tilted and new UI just makes it more prominent. Crate, please fix this, I beg you
But just at a glance, it is so much better to look at and shows more of the actual game.
There’s some ornamental decorations, but it doesn’t protrude into the main view.
Idk, it is what it is.
I have seriously considered to take up modding to change the UI, but not sure that’s a good investment of my time.
There’s a mod on Nexus that changes the interface, called Grim UI. I’ve been using it for a few years now, and there are several options. I use the Malmuth-style interface, which is the darkest option and looks amazing. The mod’s author has promised to release a new version once the official 1.3 patch is released.
On the whole, I like the new UI. I assume that the decorative effects represent the style of Late Period Erulan and that they are not just random bits of fluff, and that they are part of the world that is being painted for us.
Of course, there are some issues and tweaks needed, which have been flagged up. There’s also a lot that’s unequivocally better than it used to be, such as a main menu that displays legible character names on a 4K screen, and a quest list that remembers whether it’s open or closed.
@HonorabruSudoku , that’s Darkhaven, I believe? I have to say that I really don’t like that layout. It’s as though they are embarrassed by the need to display health/mana and are trying to hide them in a corner.
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