To get right to it, I was a little put off by all the new UI in matches. I am definitely part of the "less is more" group when it comes to GOIO. From the new hit indicators to the achievement popup flashing in my face, it just didn't feel as clean. The small white dot for my "targeting" even annoyed me. I haven't hopped on to guns yet to see those changes, so I can't comment there. The biggest space waster to me was the rectangle in the lower right corner telling me my team color. Third match of the night, and a new player was asking which team he was on.
I'm on the fence. I love being able to see the distinction between my hits and my allies hits, but I'll admit this is mainly because the tracer rounds on the Whirlwind are super funky, and I like knowing when I'm leading properly. On other weapons I really don't care much. I do very much like the hull hits registering though, as it's a nice (and fairly low-key, being just a color change) way of telling when you've actually breached a hull.
My reason for liking that change is that as a captain I'm often occupied with the explosions, ship positioning, and captain chat all going on on screen, and sometimes I either forget or don't have time to look at the text in the upper left. Getting a clean visualization of a breached hull is really important, and I think it's the one change that was really well implemented.
The rest of it I can take or leave. I'm not fond of the white dot all the time: I understand it's really helpful for spotting ships, but I'd almost rather have a telescopic circle with some sort of marking on the lens: I feel it would be more in-theme with the rest of the game.
The team color bar is alright, but I haven't seen anyone realize what it's for yet. I HAVE, however, had at least 5 crewmates ask me what it was for. Maybe this could be better implemented somehow? I'll have to think about it.
The gun change seems fine, but I can't say I really like it. The circle seems to indicate a certain damage zone, which the spread and falloff of certain weapons doesn't exactly hold true to, so I almost find it more confusing than helpful. It's also a very obviously game-style indicator in a game generally free of those (with only ship spotting, hit indicators, and damage indicators), so it seems a bit out of place.
They're all helpful changes for new players, definitely. Yet I, for one, would love the option to turn some of these features off (namely the gun circle).
PS: The achievement box is problematic. Would it be possible for us to deselect certain achievements from being tracked? I hate getting distracted by an "Extinguish 300 fires" achievement every 1.5 seconds as my crew fights a Hades/Incendiary Whirlwind Mobula, but I'd love to see updates when, say, I successfully break a ship's part via Ramming on Dunes (man do I hate that achievement!)
