GuildWiki talk:Style and formatting/Skills


 * Old skill box stuff moved to /Archive 5.

Restarting Vote for Skill Box
The discussion over the options for the new skill box design has been going on for a long time and become quite confusing. To make things clearer a new page has been created at /Skill box.

Skill icon upload progress
moved to Community Portal

Categories for "Related Skills"
So far, we are maintaining all lists of "related" skills manually. See Index of Skill Lists. What about doing this with categories? I know, this would be a major change to the way we handle skills, and we'd have to do yet another crusade, going through all the skills, but I think it may be worth it. Considering we'll get about 200 new skills with every campaign and two new campaigns per year, we'll loose overview some day. And if we combine it with some other skill crusade (for example the upcoming landscape info box crusade) it may not be that much work after all. Thoughts? -- 20:07, 3 March 2006 (CST)
 * Fully agree. I think manually kept tables might still have some value (to see a short summary at a glance), but I realy think we should add categories for ease of maintainence. -PanSola 00:58, 4 March 2006 (CST)
 * I have some strong concerns:
 * I can't see a categorization scheme sustaining the info about the skills' general relation (currently given as subheaders like "Skills that profit from Deep wound"), nor profession, unless we resort to severe overclassification. This is a non-negligible loss in practical value IMO.
 * I worry about how well the category structure could deal with various complications I've come across; relations have a strong tendency to not be as cut and dry. (Example: How to deal with the relation between skills that cause healing and skills that cause health gain?  On one hand the distinction between the 2 mechanics has real implications; on the other hand, depending on the interpretation of the terminology, either set could be considered a subset of the other.)
 * I don't understand how there is any benefit of reduced long term maintenance. It seems like people consider categorization to be automatic/free while a list is manual/tedious.  But really...you have to edit in each relation either way!  The only reduced cost I see with categorization is the initial overhead in working out individual pages' layouts (and IMO this freedom of layout in lists is tied to benefits mentioned above).
 * --Rezyk 03:10, 4 March 2006 (CST)


 * I'm inclined to agree with Rezyk. If nothing else, the current format of, say, the Deep Wound page is quite good and helpful.  Any way I can imagine that being done with categories seems messier, uglier, and less immediately informative than having it manually laid out on one page.  The one compelling argument I could agree with is that if there are so many skills that the Deep Wound page needs to be broken up into separate pages, well, that's already like Categories, I guess, but it's not going to happen to all pages at the same time.  --JoDiamonds 04:03, 4 March 2006 (CST)

Skill Efficiency
This has been an idea I've been mulling over for awhile. I'd like to see a skill efficiency table in the skill articles. This would provide a quick reference by which to compare similar skills and their cost-vs-effectiveness ratio. This would likely be in the form of a 3-field table. Divine Healing has an energy cost of 10, an activation time of 2, and a recharge time of 30.
 * Example A:

Orison of Healing has an energy cost of 5, an activation time of 1, and a recharge time of 2.
 * Example B:

Heal Other has an energy cost of 10, an activation time of 3/4, and a recharge time of 3.
 * Example C:

Any thoughts on this? - Evil_Greven 16:47, 6 March 2006 (CST)


 * I like it - you can tack it onto the bottom of the skill page, under notes or something. Maybe slightly worried about people not reading the whole article and just getting confused by seeing two similar-looking tables.  Evan The Cursed (Talk) 11:53, 14 March 2006 (CST)


 * This is a good idea at a glance. For quite a while I've wanted to do something similar. But there are a few difficulties to keep in mind:
 * It works fine if you do it for a simple skill that heals or causes damage. But what about skills that inflict/remove conditions or hexes. Is a skill that heals 40 points more or less effective than a skill that heals only 30 points, but also removes one condition or hex?
 * What about skills that affect more than one target within an AoE? Is a skill that deals 40 damage to one foe more or less effective than a skill that deals only 30 damage, but to all foes "in the area"?
 * What about skills that prevent damage, like Reversal of Fortune?
 * many more problems ...
 * -- 01:32, 15 March 2006 (CST)
 * Take Divine Healing, which is listed here, for instance. Its effect is variable -- if it's one person getting healed, the effect is shown. If it's multiple people being healed, simply multiply the numbers by however many people.  My thoughts for this were a general comparison, and the description elaborates on what they do already.  I'd planned this for the skill pages (just the skill in question, not each related skill), not one page out by itself. - Evil_Greven 03:35, 15 March 2006 (CST)
 * I think it's a neat idea, but should be in a separate section, an efficiency comparison for example. Too many skills have variable efficiency rates - how do you possibly compared Heal Other and Healing Seed?  What about the skills/items typically used in conjuction with skills - you'd be foolish to not count Mantra of Inscriptions for some builds for example, as it's standard - the same is true of a 20% enchanting wrapping for example - since it's standard if you are using enchantments for your heals.  It's a complex topic, and while I think a page devoted to it is needed, I don't think it should be a main feature of most skill pages. --Epinephrine 04:59, 15 March 2006 (CST)
 * I think it's a neat idea, but should be in a separate section, an efficiency comparison for example. Too many skills have variable efficiency rates - how do you possibly compared Heal Other and Healing Seed?  What about the skills/items typically used in conjuction with skills - you'd be foolish to not count Mantra of Inscriptions for some builds for example, as it's standard - the same is true of a 20% enchanting wrapping for example - since it's standard if you are using enchantments for your heals.  It's a complex topic, and while I think a page devoted to it is needed, I don't think it should be a main feature of most skill pages. --Epinephrine 04:59, 15 March 2006 (CST)


 * See the thing is, I don't think the charts will show some definitive data. Like finally resolving which is better Healing Hands vs Word of Healing, since that would deserve discussion in another area (like the page I just linked).  I view it more as a simplified, generalized view of how the skill functions.  Not how "good" it is.  Just how effective it can be under certain circumstances.  Let the user/viewer decide -- but help him do so.  He knows what situation he's going to get into, but with those charts he can probably become a bit more keen on which skills will serve his purposes better.  Evan The Cursed (Talk) 12:49, 15 March 2006 (CST)


 * Presented as they are here, they seem interesting. Presented singly on different skill pages, they seem less useful.  The big win is when you can present information like this all on one page, and a page that compares Healing Efficiency seems quite useful.  I'm not sold on the idea that it's particularly helpful on individual skill pages, because the numbers are essentially meaningless in isolation.  Additionally, the things that are being compared aren't always interesting for all spells -- healing spells need to be grouped together, obviously, and direct damage too.  But what about Vampiric Gaze?  It should realistically be on both pages, even though it's effectively bad at both healing and damage output.
 * I'm not sure I have a completely coherent argument here, but it seems like seeing one of those charts on a skill page just isn't that interesting, while making individual pages comparing multiple skills is the better way to present this information.
 * --JoDiamonds 03:18, 16 March 2006 (CST)

Description Inconsistency
Currently, we have an inconsistency in the skill descriptions. Some of them are the same as the description in the game and list the skill type at the start as well as the "This is an elite skill" if applicable. Others are missing this information, since it's redundant with the skill box and categorization. I think we should get rid of this inconsistency and make one of the two systems the standard. Which one should it be, though? I should note that the in-game description also includes the attribute at the end, and that's almost never included in the description here. So I suppose we're already not following the in-game description exactly. Personally, I think we should also leave out the rest of the redundant information. --adeyke 18:31, 24 March 2006 (CST)
 * The "standing" policy is supposed to be "use identical text from in-game description", where the attribute part doesn't count as part of the descrition (cuz it's grey?).
 * On the basis that even the game does not consistently include "This is an elite BLAH" in the descriptions of elite skills, and we do have an alternate clear and obvious system marking elites, I agree with leaving out the redundant information. -SolaPan 19:30, 24 March 2006 (CST)
 * I've recently crusaded away both the "This is an elite skill" and the leading skill type labels. So that's fixed now.  However, there are some things I'm not quite sure about, and I don't want to accidentally crusade in the wrong direction.


 * Notes or Usage Notes? I'm thinking Notes.
 * 1/2, 1/2, or &#189;? I'm guessing &#189;.
 * Enchantment Spell or Enchantment? I'm thinking Enchantment.
 * Attribute: None or just no line for that?
 * I'm pretty sure the "... more to be added ..." lines should be removed.
 * Health sacrifice in skill box or no?
 * I also noticed that there's an exhaustion icon, but this isn't part of the skill info box, though it could be useful there. Is this something that's been considered?  That'd be a more significant change (instead of just cleanup), so it wouldn't be part of this crusade. --adeyke 23:10, 11 April 2006 (CDT)
 * We are getting a new skill box anyways, so don't worry about things beyond the description. Stabbot will take care of the rest. -PanSola 23:49, 11 April 2006 (CDT)