Template talk:Infobox ability/doc

croald proposal

ability

Name of the ability

image

Image filename for the ability

eligibility

How to gain this ability: Warrior, Hunter, Mystic, General, Transform, Pet, or Event (I'm not sure if events grant any Abilities that aren't Transforms or Pets)

usage

Usage type: Passive, Active, or Passive/Active

cost

Free Action, Regular Action, Ends Turn, or N/A (for passive abilities). Use the game diamond symbols along with the words for maximum clarity.

frequency

Unlimited, Alternate Turn, 1/Mission, 2/Mission, or N/A (for passive abilities)

effect

List as many of the following as apply:

• Physical Damage (e.g. Backslam, Humanist, Through Shot)
• Magic Damage (e.g. Mythweaver, Indignance)
• Active Buff (Hero has to do something to have this happen. e.g. Aid, Stalwart)
• Passive Buff (these are on all the time, no matter what. e.g. Viciousness, Hardiness)
• Active Triggered (hero has to "turn them on" before an action will happen. e.g. Vigilance, Ambush)
• Passive Triggered (provides an action that's always waiting to happen. e.g. Riposte, Rogue)
• Debuff (e.g. Phantomflare, Shieldshear)
• Creation (e.g. Arches, Raider)

examples: Foxflight (Passive Buff, Active Buff), Earthscribe (Active Buff, Creation), Spiritblade (Active Buff, Physical Damage, Creation), Arches (Creation, Debuff), Flashcone (Debuff, Active Buff)

target

Self, Ally Only, Single Target, Multiple Target, AoE, Line, or Cross. ("Multiple Target" is for abilities like Through Shot or Discus. Radius of the AoE can be mentioned as a single number like "AoE 2", or just left for the body of the article if complicated.)

range

Number of tiles, or N/A:

My comments

Croald's proposal definitely covers a lot of things we hadn't considered. Very useful, thanks!

I want to start by suggesting that we try to stick more closely to in-game terminology, and try to minimize coming up with our own terms.

One of the biggest issues that this Infobox faces is that all actions are abilities, but not all abilities are actions. As Croald pointed out, cost and frequency don't apply for passive abilities. One option is to hide that information, rather than displaying N/A. Either possibility works for me.

class

There are only three classes at present. Transform, Pet, and Event aren't classes, but a transformed limb or pet is available to any class. Suggest [ Hunter | Mystic | Warrior | Any]

cost

What about using the icon and text that appears in the tooltip when hovering over the action:

• (single action, ends turn)
• (single action)
• (free action)

effect

usage has already shown whether ability is active or passive. How about not repeating Active and Passive here?

• Tooltip uses Damage or Magic Damage. Suggest omitting Physical, to match game tooltip.
• Instead of Active Buff, Passive Buff, perhaps make both of them Buff? The (1) Infobox usage, the (2) page content, and the (3) absence of the ability from the (action?) bar will already convey whether it is passive or not.
• Triggered seems to be a term we're coming up with. The tooltip uses "Immediate" for Guardian, Sentinel, Foxflight, Withdraw. I don't have any other actions I can check to see if Vigilance, Ambush, Riposte, Rogue say something different. Without further in-game knowledge , I'd speculate [ Immediate Action | Targetable Action ] (and let the page content spell out the exact details)? Or ask the devs directly for their input?
• I have no experience with Creation, or using a torch to light the environment on fire. Could this be generalized to [ Environment(al) ], and let the content spell out the details?

target

What do the tooltips actually say? Unless the game spells it out, I'd lean towards Self rather than User Only. Ally or Other Hero, rather than Ally Only. I would omit Line, or Cross since those are specific AoE patterns that can be described/shown elsewhere. The Cone of Fire tooltip just says "3-5 magic damage, 5 range" without mentioning AoE or a pattern. Are we trying to get too specific/detailed for target?

range

AoE range varies based on other Abilities, like Long Reach?

Thanks again, Croald, for sharing what you know, and maintaining the Abilities and Interfusions!

Anyone is obviously welcome to join this discussion, and share their suggestions and comments. Thanks! FeralKitty (talk) 01:31, 25 November 2019 (PST)

Comment

I'm never sure the best way to handle comment threads in a wiki. I've made a couple changes above following FeralKitty's ideas, and changed the title to "current proposal".

Inline indentation, or new section, depending on what works best. FeralKitty (talk) 08:55, 25 November 2019 (PST)

Using the in-game icons is great. I'd love to do things the way Paradox wikis handle resources with a small icon inline before every mention of an action type or a resource. They have an encoding for that that looks like {{iconify|food}}, not sure what's under the cover with that. See eg. https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Economy

It's merely a template that inserts the corresponding icon in front of specific text. I think it would be an excellent fit for overworld map banners (e.g., job, lair, build, opportunity), so people could relate what they see, with what the wiki describes! Are there other cases besides overworld that would also benefit from inline images? FeralKitty (talk) 08:55, 25 November 2019 (PST)

Resources would be cool. Croald (talk) 21:20, 25 November 2019 (PST)

I've changed "class" to "eligibility" to better describe the field. The information I think people care about is who can get the ability, or how. Class abilities are never available as transforms, and transforms are never available as classes, so there's no need to have separate fields for that information.

The main issue with overloading a field to show either "who" or "how," is that there is no guarantee that abilities will always exclusively remain one case or the other. Since how to get the ability requires a lot of detail in the content, why not simply have a section which explains the "how," since a word in the Infobox won't come close to answering that. FeralKitty (talk) 08:55, 25 November 2019 (PST)

Dropping "Active" & "Passive" from effect is fine. I'm still not convinced the whole field is useful at all, since you're going to have to read the article to figure out what it means, anyway. I consider what's above to be a first stab at figuring out what plausible information could be condensed to fit in an infobox.

We probably won't know what we like until we see an actual ability Infobox with the content we're discussing. FeralKitty (talk) 08:55, 25 November 2019 (PST)

One advantage of changing "Creation" to "Environmental" is that it would include Raider's otherwise left-out oddball scenery destruction effect. But I'm not sure people will understand what "Environmental" means as quickly as "Creation". )

"Matching what the game says" is a fair argument re "Damage" vs "Physical Damage". However, in this case I happen to think that what the game says is not completely clear, and one of the things people might want to check the wiki for is to clarify if "Damage" is always physical damage or what, especially if the "damage" is being caused by an interfusion effect where people might expect it to be magical.

I'd suggest that we raise clarity issues like that with the developer, let them fix what they choose, then we adopt their new wording. If there are cases where it says "Damage," but turns out to do "Magic Damage," that's a bug that they would need to know about and fix. I'm not convinced we should second-guess them, and get into situations where the wiki says one thing, but the game says something else. FeralKitty (talk) 08:55, 25 November 2019 (PST)

"Triggered" is a term I came up with to express a difference that didn't seem to have a name in the game. If I missed something, happy to go with that.

I'm okay with "Self" instead of "User Only". I'm not sure what "Ally or Other Hero" adds that "Ally Only" doesn't, and it's shorter. As for AoE patterns, I know the tooltips don't say, and I promise that one of the first things I actually opened the wiki to figure out is: what are the ranges and AoE patterns on these abilities that don't say? It actually took me a while to get around to trying out Fire Arm since it seemed weaker than my crossbow and the tooltip doesn't hint that it's an AoE effect. I'm not worried that "Line" and "Cross" are not totally self-explanatory, since they can be described and illustrated in more detail elsewhere. But having a concise reminder in the infobox is a big part of what I think an infobox is for.

I meant "Ally" or "Other hero," not "Ally or Other Hero." As for patterns, I'd still like to see every pattern (including single target) in the box. It would show the pattern, and radius, as well as the range. FeralKitty (talk) 08:55, 25 November 2019 (PST)

Is there a difference between "Ally" and "Other hero"? Is there any ability that would act on party members but not temporary allies?

Yes, Range can be modified by Long Reach, but I don't think it makes sense to put an asterisk in every infobox that just says "+1 with Long Reach". Also, the developers could add a new ability at any time that turns physical damage to magic or adds AoE effects to abilities that don't normally have them or whatever. I think in a game like this, each Ability should document what it provides on its own, and let the player work out the combinations. If there are non-obvious interactions, like "this effect does/doesn't count as an attack for flanking", they can be mentioned in the text of the article.

Agreed. We just have to be careful that when we add these tooltip details to the wiki, that they represent the base damage, base range, and base radius. FeralKitty (talk) 08:55, 25 November 2019 (PST)

Croald (talk) 07:47, 25 November 2019 (PST)