I made a picture to demonstrate the readability of the new proportional stacked bars:
Can anyone quickly say which ones on the right side took armor damage?
I cannot.
Not at one glance. I’ll figure it out, but for a HUD that’s meant to give crucial information at a glance that is unacceptable.
Frankly, the readability of the new format is subpar. Please don’t continue with this and please return to our old normalized separate bars.
With separate bars on the left side I can quickly check if the middle bar took damage to see if armor needs repairing. Easy, quick, one glance.
In a game where we usually have one main important hitpoint layer and two less relevant layers I wish that layer to take the full range of motion, and to never get the chance to accidentally mistake one layer for another, which are two big issues of the new HUD.
In addition to that the choice to use proportional stacked bars means it is:
- by design inconsistent and confusing with targeted ship hitpoints, for which we cannot (and should not) know this proportional info
- an unnecessary cognitive overload which constantly reminds us of redundant information (ship fit) as a first step to mentally translate the current configuration to hitpoints instead of immediately showing hitpoints at a consistent place at a single glance
- a false illusion of information, because even with raw hitpoints known another layer may still be thicker depending on resistances and incoming damage types
It’s confusing for newbies, less readable for everyone, inconsistent by design and in my opinion a bad idea.
Please reconsider.