Author Topic: Regarding the transfer of stat topics  (Read 19611 times)

Shale

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #25 on: December 19, 2007, 06:51:13 AM »
Division separation is a really bad idea. It ties this to the DL design, when there's a growing impetus to move the supplementary site areas away from that, it would have to be updated with upgrades and downgrades, and it makes the pages harder to navigate for people who just want the stats for their own sake.
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Dark Holy Elf

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #26 on: December 19, 2007, 06:51:56 AM »
Oh hmm. Too used to thinking of things in a DL rather than RPGmon mold. With that in mind, sorting by division makes more sense than I had first considered.

Standing by page loading where not necessary = bad, though. I've read plenty of long pages on Wikipedia and never minded much. And I thought Wikis let you edit portions easily? I don't have much experience with them but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Man_2

Note the [ edit ] links. I click on one and I get to edit the piece of the article.

Though with a stat topic, I usually find myself editting the whole thing anyway. If I want to add some info I am often adding some for every character, etc.

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Cmdr_King

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #27 on: December 19, 2007, 07:14:11 AM »
I recall suggesting having a page in the old stat topic style (ie everything in one place) linked from the game's main page, while giving each character a separate, more detailed page as well, the idea being that you could have everything at once for comparison (or, in this case, reduced loads too) while having a cleaner page for only the key info in terms of averages and the like.

(I've never liked in-page anchors at all myself, so I'd never hype that as a solution.  Your experiences may vary.)

Also, in addition to RPGmon concerns, if we go to a Nyarlie's format (I know a few people really like this for some fairly good reasons, but that's for another topic >.>), so we might actually want to look into having divisions for unranked characters, although it's not absolutely needed by any stretch.
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AndrewRogue

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #28 on: December 19, 2007, 07:16:00 AM »
True Shale, but I believe one of the primary reasons for this is for ease of RPGmon statting as well. Although... I suppose I could list character rankings under a separate header on the same page? How would that sound?

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #29 on: December 19, 2007, 07:32:34 AM »
Like:

Godlike
Belial (link)
Lambda Zellweger (link)
Raquel Applegate (link)
Heavy
Arnaud G. Vasquez (link)
Jeremy Non (link)
Middle
Kresnik Ahtreide (link... etc.)
Jude Maverick
Scythe Riebauer
Tony
Yulie Ahtreide
Light
Augst Henriksen

In a small font / box near the top of the page? I think that could work decently, I suppose.

I'd have no problem with a bio-like page that includes both the stat topic entry and perhaps more detail like flavour, particularly if the wiki could be set up to show the same stat info on two pages. Actually that sounds pretty optimum. But I don't know how practical it is.

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Taishyr

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #30 on: December 19, 2007, 07:39:38 AM »
Would be a little more effort, but nothing too stressful.

Keep bringing out ideas, we can see what to do with them as we receive them!

Halbarad

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #31 on: December 19, 2007, 01:17:40 PM »
Mmm. Just glancing over this, and a few notes/suggestions.

Use tables for stats on the wiki, particularly when you're wanting to do a side-by-side breakdown for several characters at once. It makes the stats easier to compare, and cuts down on the need for the x > y > z lists.

Also, don't split a game out into twenty or thirty separate pages for all its characters/bosses. Like NEB said, having the extra step of loading yet another branch page is annoying (and poor web design); you want people to be able to find the information they want within 2 page loads or so, generally. If there's an unusually high number of characters or bosses for a given game, split the characters and bosses into two separate pages, but don't give each character their own page - the amount of information on the page really isn't going to justify having a completely separate page for them.

Plus you avoid the whole naming issue, for characters with similar names.

More information about tables in wiki and other formatting options can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit
Table-specific wiki markup is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Table
« Last Edit: December 19, 2007, 01:39:55 PM by Halbarad »
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Cmdr_King

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #32 on: December 19, 2007, 02:27:08 PM »
Well, I was thinking of something along the lines of having a basic version of the stat topic appear on the first page, with the characters in default setups, any relevant bosses, and averages.  Then, somewhere, a link to a fully deck out version, with more detailed mechanics info, alternate setups, and the like, but also giving each character their own page for their alternate setups, listing any boss forms, and depending on where we take the site, possibly more info that'll better suit those needs.  This is somewhat redundant, but a lot of times the stat topics as we do them now will have alternate equips listed separtely, as they're widespread in usage.  Suikoden V, for example, is horrible about this because it has a lot of elemental resist that a third of the cast can use, meaning a lot of cross referencing between one segment of the topic and another, and similar jumps between the character and averages.  Being able to access that for the character you need in one place would be a boon, as would cutting down on scrolling when you just need a quick refresher.

As a more personal bit of preference, I'll take a few smaller page loads over one monster one every day of hte week, especially when dealing with tables and images rather than raw text, but maybe that's just me.
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Talaysen

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #33 on: December 19, 2007, 04:24:16 PM »
Kind of agree with what CmdrKing said here.  Putting default setups on the main topic page and more detailed info on character pages.  If we do a Nyarlie's dungeon thing, we could put stats/skills/equipment setups for different areas of the game on the character page as well.  There's really so much info you could put on one character that putting them all on a single page can make it get very big very quickly.

For an example, take the Etrian Odyssey stat topic.  (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=29.0)  I had to split that into two posts just because each character had so many different skills and equipment, but could only use a subset of skills and equipment at one given time.  It was far more accessible to just put all of the raw info into one post and the default setups into another.  For the wiki, the default setups (post 2) could go on the main stat topic page, while all the details of each skill at each skill level along with various equipment choices could go on the specific character pages.

Also, take Pokemon.  Default skill setups on the front page, full skill listings on character pages, including TMs/HMs/whatever (illegal in the DL but still nice to put down, since this is starting to go beyond the DL now).

Also, pictures for character pages, so we don't clutter the main topic with a lot of those (hi Pokemon again).

I guess the point is, if we want to get a lot of info on this wiki for each character, we really should make seperate pages.  But on the other hand, keep default setups and basic stats on the main page for easy access.

P.S. Regarding naming issues, just put the character name and game in the title.  E.g. Ryu_(Breath_of_Fire_II).

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #34 on: December 20, 2007, 08:58:03 PM »
First off, agree with Tal that the naming issue is easily fixed by just doing something like that.  Granted, might it be better to abbreviate the name (so Ryu_BoF3) in some cases? Eh, guess that comes down to "How confusing will abbreviations get?" and that's a different story altogether.

Next off, agree that the main stat topic post should be on the main page.  Can't you do something like "Character Links, click this character, instant scroll to them" thing? Wouldn't be surprised if someone already noted that (I merely skimmed this topic, etc.)

Not...much else to say at this point.  But doing things in as few pages as possible tends to be a good idea.
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Cmdr_King

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #35 on: December 21, 2007, 03:40:20 AM »
Those're anchors, Meep.
The trouble with them, aside from the fact that the way the jump around a page is annoying and creates even more unlimited scrolling issues, is that you're still sacrificing readability for laziness.  While I'll conceed that yes, you probably shouldn't have your first page be nothing but links, if we're bothing with this wiki at all, we should actually use it to make reading and getting detailed information from the stat topics easier, and piling everything into one megapage of ultimate death is the exact opposite of that.
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Yakumo

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #36 on: December 21, 2007, 03:45:50 AM »
I would think that we should have a main page with basic stats for all the characters/bosses DL legally, then separate pages for different character options, perhaps?  Depending on how many different options there are, they can all be on one page or split up by character or type of character(like in Suikodens, the ones that wear different armor types, for example) or something.  If there's too many characters, like for a Suikoden, then split the main page up a bit more, but otherwise we don't want to overdo it on the pages, it's kinda a pain to navigate that way.

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #37 on: December 21, 2007, 04:31:26 AM »
Those're anchors, Meep.
The trouble with them, aside from the fact that the way the jump around a page is annoying and creates even more unlimited scrolling issues, is that you're still sacrificing readability for laziness.  While I'll conceed that yes, you probably shouldn't have your first page be nothing but links, if we're bothing with this wiki at all, we should actually use it to make reading and getting detailed information from the stat topics easier, and piling everything into one megapage of ultimate death is the exact opposite of that.

I'm a bit confused what you mean by scrolling issues. If you click on an anchor to get where you need, you... don't have to scroll. Unless the sight of a scrollbar on your screen is a mortal offence to you or something.

Anyway. The reason anchors are better than what you suggest (and why Wikipedia uses them, in particular) is because that if you want to click on links to get where you want to get to? You can do that. If you want to scroll there instead? You can do that too! And the clicking takes less time, to boot, since you don't have to make a query for a new web page.

Honestly, what you are proposing seems equivalent to proposing that we restructure the forums so that every post gets its own page. Less scrolling!

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Talaysen

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #38 on: December 21, 2007, 04:41:37 AM »
Those're anchors, Meep.
The trouble with them, aside from the fact that the way the jump around a page is annoying and creates even more unlimited scrolling issues, is that you're still sacrificing readability for laziness.  While I'll conceed that yes, you probably shouldn't have your first page be nothing but links, if we're bothing with this wiki at all, we should actually use it to make reading and getting detailed information from the stat topics easier, and piling everything into one megapage of ultimate death is the exact opposite of that.

I'm a bit confused what you mean by scrolling issues. If you click on an anchor to get where you need, you... don't have to scroll. Unless the sight of a scrollbar on your screen is a mortal offence to you or something.

Anyway. The reason anchors are better than what you suggest (and why Wikipedia uses them, in particular) is because that if you want to click on links to get where you want to get to? You can do that. If you want to scroll there instead? You can do that too! And the clicking takes less time, to boot, since you don't have to make a query for a new web page.

Honestly, what you are proposing seems equivalent to proposing that we restructure the forums so that every post gets its own page. Less scrolling!

Look at some Wikipedia pages for like games and anime and probably books/movie series as well.  They have sections on the main page with summaries, but subpages with more info on them.  I think that's what CK is trying to get at here.

I'll pick one that CK and Meeple would approve of:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Metal_Alchemist  Look under Characters.  Each character has a summary right there on the main page, but you can click on them to get even more information.

For stat topics, those "summaries" would be perhaps the default DL/RPGmon setup and basic stats, while the subpage would be all their different options, more in-depth information on their skills (maybe damage formulae, etc.), perhaps a character bio, different stats at different levels or stat growths, and whatever the hell else we decide to expand the wiki to.  I figure since we're not using this to focus only on the DL we'll have a lot more relevant info, and will need the extra pages to fit it all, otherwise, as CK said, we just get one huge page of DOOM.

I might make up a sample page in the next few days to show what I mean here if this wasn't clear.

Cmdr_King

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #39 on: December 21, 2007, 10:57:43 AM »
Okay, forget anchors, obviously everyone else loves them.  So going on to other arguments, now with examples.

Let's look at Ramza from FFT for a second.

Ramza Beoulve
Squire ("Uber-Squire")

Brave 70, Faith 70

HP 164 (394) [280] {284} <334>
MP 69 {106}
PA 9 [13] <11>
MA 9 (11) [11] {15} <11>
Sp 9 {10} <11>
PhysEvade 40 {10}
MagEvade 15 {50}

Can equip Swords, Knight Swords, Daggers, Flails, Shields, Hats, Helmets, Clothes, Heavy Armours, and Robes (o_O)

Rune Blade
Crystal Shield {Aegis Shield}
Crystal Helmet [Twist Headband] {Flash Hat} <Thief Hat>
Crystal Mail [Power Sleeve] {Wizard Robe} <Power Sleeve>
Battle Boots (+1 Move -_-)

Physical Attack: 126 [182] <154> damage.
GUTS:
* Ultima (10 MP): 106 {144} magic damage. (Ignore Reflect/Evade)
* Dash: 9 to 36 [13 to 52] <11 to 44> random damage. (Ignore Evade)
* Scream: +10 Brave (worthless), +1 PA, +1 MA, +1 Speed for rest of battle. Stackable. Self only.
* Heal: Remove Blind, Silence, and Poison.
* Wish: Ally only. Ramza loses 20% of his Max HP in HPs and gives double that number to an ally.

Special notes: Scream adds exactly 14 extra damage per physical attack, and 9-10 extra damage per Ultima, per use of Scream.

This is pretty good as a quick reference.  It quickly lists his optimal setup if he needs raw durability, physical damage, or magical damage and denotes them in  a way that's understandable if you look at it for a minute.
But, supposing you don't know FFT like the back of your hand, you might not know how potent that equip list is.  Fortunately, you can scroll up a bit and see a nice list.  This is fine, saves space and clutter by not having every single equip option by every single character.
On the whole, it works fine... if you're familiar with stat topic conventions and the game in question.

Now, suppose you gave Ramza his own page.  Rather than this condenced version you'd have in the main topic, you could give a few sample setups, noting when he might need each of them, list all his alternate equipment right there with him, so say an RPGmon ref can just go to one page and quickly know what options to account for, and possibly even explicitly note what all statuses and elements he can resist and to what degree, or even what doing that costs him.  Hell, you could put biographical data and the like on there  too.

Or for a completely different example, Fire Emblem.  You have the PCs in a big stat chart with averages listed at the bottom, then lists of weapons elsewhere in the topic.  Again, good for saving space and functional if you know how FE works, but it amounts to tossing your reader pieces of a puzzle and making them assemble it to get a complete picture of the character (plus the charts are so big they don't fit on a screen.  Whee scroll).  It gets the job done, but we can do better now that we're devoting an entire wiki to it, not just forum threads.

Nevermind that, and I honestly thought this would have been obvious, doing it this way gives you something to link to the character from the arena (or at least their record).
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Taishyr

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #40 on: December 21, 2007, 04:20:45 PM »
I am working on creating an example page with Chrono Trigger. Give me a bit of time to finish it up. Will begin work on it tonight after/while I do missing comments.

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #41 on: December 21, 2007, 05:09:46 PM »
Tal, CK:

I'm fine with linked sub-pages that go into greater detail. Elemental resistance available, status resistance available, alternate setups, bios, whatever we decide goes there, I don't mind. I just want to see the quick-reference version (like what CK just posted for Ramza) survive in a main page with everyone else, so if I want to quickly gather information about how a cast works in a duel, I can.

You might ask why I make a fuss if I support both, but since I consider the "quick reference" more important (we've been surviving on it alone without the other for years), that's the one I want to see implemented first. Further innovations are great if we have the time/energy.

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Talaysen

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #42 on: December 21, 2007, 05:18:59 PM »
Tal, CK:

I'm fine with linked sub-pages that go into greater detail. Elemental resistance available, status resistance available, alternate setups, bios, whatever we decide goes there, I don't mind. I just want to see the quick-reference version (like what CK just posted for Ramza) survive in a main page with everyone else, so if I want to quickly gather information about how a cast works in a duel, I can.

You might ask why I make a fuss if I support both, but since I consider the "quick reference" more important (we've been surviving on it alone without the other for years), that's the one I want to see implemented first. Further innovations are great if we have the time/energy.

Oh, so we don't seem to disagree at all.  >.>  I think the plan was to get the main page stuff up first since that's practically a simple copy/paste.  The other stuff can come later, yeah.

Besides, it's a wiki.  If you think a game needs its basic stuff up quickly, you can just always put it up there whenever you want.  (Not just you, but anyone here.)  Other people can fill in the subpages when they want/feel the need to.

In fact, I'd suggest that the person who created the stat topic in the first place port it to the wiki since they probably know the info better.  Not necessary, but just a thought.

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #43 on: December 21, 2007, 10:36:48 PM »
Is there anyway for those of us who are not staff to see the old stat topics ... or is it all gone ... forever? <_< It's just I had a lot of Peppita/S03 info in the S03 thread and I know the GameFAQs regs from that board were always quite interested in that thread >_>
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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #44 on: December 21, 2007, 10:42:54 PM »
"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself"- Count Aral Vorkosigan, A Civil Campaign
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Yakumo

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #45 on: December 21, 2007, 10:47:11 PM »
Uh, where did you think they were being transfered from? >_>

The old forums are still there, just locked.  You can go look at whatever you want.

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #46 on: December 21, 2007, 10:55:29 PM »
Thanks  :-[

Google led me here xD
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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #47 on: December 22, 2007, 08:02:48 PM »
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chrono_Trigger_Character_Stats

Please give feedback on page layout. I will address the rest of the sections later.

Talaysen

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #48 on: December 22, 2007, 08:15:03 PM »
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chrono_Trigger_Character_Stats

Please give feedback on page layout. I will address the rest of the sections later.

First:  Stat table, good.  Stats not being by the characters themselves, BAD BAD BAD.  The characters NEED to have their stats next to them skillset.  The stat table itself can replace the "averages" since you have the averages in the table anyways.  Also, put best damages up there.

I'd say put the characters' stats and skillsets all under a "Characters" header and make them subheaders of that (like the Weapons, Armor, etc. in Twink Options as of now).  Minor thing, but it's good for when we put bosses in and get more headers.  Cleaner.  (P.S. don't like the header names.  Just "Chrono" would be fine.)

Twink options is kind of a mess right now, BUT, if you added sub character pages, you could list all their options and different setups, so it's a good start.  I'd say it's a good thing to show on the front page, but maybe the format could be cleaned up a bit?  Maybe not.  No big deal.

Cast resistances need to go with their stats.  Again, we don't want to have people need to scroll up and down to see that people resist stuff.

That's about all I can see now.  I do have to say the table thing was a really good idea and should be used a lot (probably in every topic).  Just needs damage averages and we're set.

EDIT: http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=ChronoTriggerStats  Basic character stats should probably go on this page.  You're making everyone click twice to get ANYTHING useful, when they could only have to click once.

EDIT 2: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Sorting  There's a way to make the table sortable AND you can keep the "Averages" rot sortable.  Could be a neat feature for showing an ordering of characters in a stat (say HP) very easily.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2007, 08:31:53 PM by Talaysen »

Shale

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Re: Regarding the transfer of stat topics
« Reply #49 on: December 22, 2007, 08:50:53 PM »
Agree with the need for stats next to each character. Also, I'd like to see questionably legal setups split off from the generally useless gear that has situational applications; putting them together in a "twink" section doesn't make a whole lot of sense (plus you wouldn't have to keep restating "most people don't allow this" with the Haste Helm etc.)
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