User talk:Roland of Gilead

Hi Roland, I noticed you've been creating manual tables for skill pages, take a look at Style and formatting, there are some good examples you can use to build most kinds of pages there :) 06:29, 18 Jul 2005 (EST)

I want to commend you on your deep knowledge of the political leadership of the Grawl. Quite fascinating! :) --Karlos 08:02, 18 Jul 2005 (EST)

LordBiro: Sorry, I don't follow, what skill tables do you mean? Before your post, I haven't edited any Skill articles. Roland of Gilead 05:32, 19 Jul 2005 (EST)

Well, regarding your recent skill edits, take a look at the link and the skill section (the example article especially). Thanks for your work in the wiki. --Fyren 06:35, 19 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Ditto. :) I cleaned up a few of your tables (they had an extra empty row that displayed a single empty box in the leftmost column) and organized the 'Strength by Linked Attribute Level' underneath the section 'Usage Notes'. I'm not overly fond of the term 'Strength by Linked Attribute Level' for those various skills (Ice Spear, Ice Spikes, etc) as it seems a little wordy and not very descriptive. What do you think of 'Damage by Magic Level' or 'Damage and Duration by Magic Level' as appropriate? Also since the upper bounds of your charts show damage and duration variues above what is listed as the max values in the Description of each skill, I'm assuming those should change as well? I didn't make the changes there, though, since there seemed to be some uncertainty in your charts about the upper levels, but the charts and descriptive values should probably be sync'd MartinLightbringer 07:47, 21 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * First of all, hello to everyone! I really hope we can move this GWiki thing forward together, I will do my best. An introduction of myself might follow soon, but first, down to business...
 * On the paragraph naming: I like neither "Damage by Magic Level" nor "Damage and Duration by Magic Level" too much because they are a) inaccurate (opinion) and b) too restrictive (matter of fact).
 * As for a): I would really like to see a certain rigour in naming things the way they are to be named. Case in point, why name it "Magic Level" when "Attribute Level" is almost as short and by far clearer, because it is the official key word as used in the game? Let's just avoid made-up identifiers when the existing ones are perfectly applicable. However, I'm always open for logical arguments as to why we should ignore the existing vocabulary that everybody already knows, so bring 'em on ;)
 * As for b): There are, as you know, far more effects than just Damage and Duration; for example there is health de/regeneration, energy, and quite a few more I can think of off the top of my head. We can easily see that the effects have to be condensed into some short one-word term. Strength, therefore, is supposed to encompass all of these effects, which are then further specified in the table itself. Granted, coming to think of it, "Strength" is not the most fortunate choice because it is a reserved key word (Strength), so we best search for another term. But we definitely have to put it into 1 word for brevity.
 * How about "Skill Effects by Attribute Level" or, "Effects by Linked Attribute Level"? The inclusion of 'Linked' would make it totally unambiguous, but probably were overkill, so we could go with the first one. Probably even the minimal "Effects by Attribute Level" would suffice, since we know which effects (the featured skill's) we're talking about. What do you say?


 * Regarding sync of description with effect table: We should either keep the official wording, which features attribute levels 0..12, or we combine them to the range 0..12..16, as for example the Guild Hall does. I vote for the latter, because it combines minimum, unmodified maximum, and the reasonable absolute maximum for most skills. Remember that Awaken the Blood and Glyph of Elemental Power can boost an attribute to 18, and there are items that give +1 with a certain % chance, reaching a max level of insane 19 for some attributes. Everything above 16 is highly tedious to document, though, because it has to happen in-game, even in-fight most of the time.
 * Note: For those of you that know how to compile and run java code, I want to share with you the code for Table.java, my small hacked-together programm that creates skill tables of the kind I made. Please take it and make it into something more useful. Hm, Gwiki doesn't seem to let me upload a non-media file, so I made an article of it. If you think that's inappropriate, please tell me how to upload this thing. Thanks for the feedback. Roland of Gilead 11:34, 21 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * Allow me to intrude on your personal spcae and offer my 2 doubloons on the matter: "Effect" is the right word and the best sounding one. "Effect relative to controlling attribute." We need to define the term "controlling attribute" because I have read the entire manual over and over and ArenaNet doesn't have a term for it, though it seems blatantly obvious that these attributes control those skills. --Karlos 14:20, 21 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * According to the Online Manual, the best I can come up with is the vague "Most skills are tied to an attribute from your chosen professions, and raising that attribute improves the skillâ€™s effectiveness." So I think Tied or Linked Attribute might be 'more official'.
 * I cannot stress enough that I think the Manual was written for a different game and then shipped with this one. :) The emphasis on Devona and Mhenlo would make you think they were actually significant. :) In any case. I believe "tied" and "linked" are too vague and unclear. A skill like Backfire is directly proportional (not tied, not linked) to how high your Domination Magic is. I know that ArenaNet has not come up with a name for this, but my suggestion is that we have to. Controlling Attirubte, Master Attribute, Source Attribute... I don't know. --Karlos 05:51, 22 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * I like "linked attribute." It's the term I saw used often on fan sites and so it's what I use myself.  --Fyren 07:07, 22 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * But it's a clear misnomer. The attribute is not "linked" to the Skill. The skill is linked to the attribute. And it is rather tedious to type "The attribute the skill is linked to." In addition, "link" does not describe the true relation between the skill and the attribute. Link implies there is "some kind" of corelation, but for each skill there is one (or none for a few exceptions) and only ONE attribute that controls its effectiveness. --Karlos 08:17, 22 Jul 2005 (EST)
 * I think of linked as "connected" and not a one way reference. I disagree that it's a misnomer.  --Fyren 12:37, 22 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Let's just vote on it, I doubt further discussion will bring more insight into this matter, because of apparent lack of an official ANet term. Everybody can submit any number of attributes and exactly 1 vote on his/her favorite. The phrase is Effect by Attribute, if we can agree on this already.


 * So far we have
 * Controlling
 * Master
 * Source
 * Connected
 * Tied
 * Linked
 * Roland of Gilead 03:50, 24 Jul 2005 (EST)


 * Just edit this post and extend the list with your proposal and/or vote. Roland of Gilead 03:50, 24 Jul 2005 (EST)