Forum:Skill pages

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Other Notes

Some improvisation re: skill articles is already taking place, but if we are to add a segment to the MoS, our guidelines say it should happen through a project proposal. Since skills and powers are now designated a bit differently, our MoS should reflect this and provide a separate standard for ME:A skill pages. It should be a somewhat straightforward matter, but I'll take suggestions for improvements or other changes for a couple of days, then open voting. Elseweyr ^{talk • stalk} April 5, 2017, 08:02:00 (UTC)

Comments[]

Coincidentally, I had a few ideas bouncing in my head in regards to the layout of the skills page. Just haven't got around to it as I need to take a few screenshots of the rank icons first. You mind if I drop in a draft or two here for brainstorming too?  teugeneTalkContr 10:48, April 5, 2017 (UTC)

That would be very welcome. I realised it was probably better to wait until after a patch or two; turns out the stats are updated in the traditional way as of version 1.05. This means we should probably continue noting the different possibilies at each rank, depending on previously chosen upgrades. —Elseweyr ^{talk • stalk} April 13, 2017, 09:49:36 (UTC)

Whoops this almost fell off my radar (trying to play the game!). Hope to get a draft out real soon. Speaking of which, do you have a sample page of a skill based on your proposed guideline?  teugeneTalkContr 01:55, April 14, 2017 (UTC)

I found Elsewyer's sample format last night (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/User:Elseweyr/Sandbox/Skills), but have a realy hard time using the columns, and that was at the end of the night for me. I think I'm going to revamp the MEA section of the Incinerate page, and see what it looks like. You can see my progress here: ([1]). The main concern is that the ranks and abilities are different from Ryder, Squadmates, and Multiplayer characters.

The difference between Multipalyer and Ryder is easy to work with, as its just different values. The difference between Squadmates is tough, because they have different abilities in different ranks as well as different values.

We could createa skills page for each separate squadmate (ie a page titled "Nackmor Drack's Skills"), and link to it on the Skills page, Nackmor Drack's page, and Incinerate page.Fundastraz (talk) 18:50, April 15, 2017 (UTC)

So I finished the first test iteration. I must say... it takes a lot longer to do that than it does to set up the table, even with my cropping out each rank icon. I'd be perfectly happy with getting all the skills in this ([2]) chart format, but in the Incinerate's layout ([3]). Basically, just replace the 3.1.1 through 3.1.6 contents with a table format. My only concern is that neither format is perfect. I find the columns section format hard to read and separate ranks easily, while the table format columns can be too small, resulting in unnecessary line-breaks. I'd love to discuss this further, given the chance. Fundastraz (talk) 07:41, April 16, 2017 (UTC)

I understand your concerns as well. I personally prefer a table form as it is much easier to visualise. There are only two concerns though - I don't like how each choices for Ranks 4-6 are in separate rows. Secondly, on mobile, the table is wider than a phone's screen in portrait orientation (although as a compromise, it can be scrolled horizontally). I'm still working to see how this could be optimised for both desktop and mobile.  teugeneTalkContr 08:28, April 16, 2017 (UTC)

I've tried merging the rank values of 4, 5, and 6, but it kind of looks funny. I don't think that this website was built with mobile access in mind. I've tried accessing this wiki via mobile, and many of the workings are slower, and I much prefer the full site version. I know that I was fine with flipping my phone into landscape/horizontal mode, and trying it that way, but I know some people prefer portrait to see more detail.

Would removing the icon column help? I'm more of a visual person, and enjoy putting in the effort to get the icons (even the triangle-shaped ones), but removing that column could provide a lot of room.

Fundastraz (talk) 00:04, April 17, 2017 (UTC)

How do I create a sandbox page like Elsewyer's ([4]) and create a draft ([5])?

Fundastraz (talk) 17:59, April 19, 2017 (UTC)

It's the same as creating subpages. Go to your User page, then type /Sandbox after the URL and press the "Create" button (eg. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/User:Fundastraz/Sandbox). You can also then create additional subpages under your Sandbox (eg. http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/User:Fundastraz/Sandbox/Skills).

In addition, "Sandbox" is just an arbitrary term. You can name your sandbox in whichever way you like (eg. demo, test, etc)  teugeneTalkContr 08:49, April 20, 2017 (UTC)

I created a page for my format. How do I propose it, so that it can be torn in two? (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/User:Fundastraz/Sandbox/Skills) Fundastraz (talk) 18:12, April 21, 2017 (UTC)

This has been long time coming. Here's a few proposed layouts at Skills/Test_layout and Skills/Test layout 2.

To have some context, here's a brief explanation on my thought process while designing these layouts. I had two targets:

1. Be visually clear/distinct, especially where the power branches off.
2. Works mostly on mobile.

First, (1) is to ensure the section Skills branches off is visually clear, which I felt the trilogy pwer pages did poorly. Tables works best in this scenario, simply because its borders makes it easier to visually separate the branching skill info. Also its the only thing that works well on mobile, that brings us to point (2).

--Rant mode-- Now, mobile is an a-s to work with simply because Wikia strips almost every HTML tags and attributes, inline CSS down to the barebones. This means there's very little to work while trying not to have the layout look awful on mobile. That's where tables come - it is still somewhat usable at the very least, with borders (though barely visible) that could help segmentalizing the rank choices. My major gripe with the tables is Wikia won't even allow you to align vertically/horizontally the content in a cell or set the width (why Wikia why??).

I did not include the different possibilies at each rank depending on previously chosen upgrades, as Elseweyr suggested. Though it was previously done for ME3 powers but taking a closer look shows it was only added until rank 4. ME:A skills would have the same problem for reasons I will explain next. Take Charge (skill) for example: at rank 4 and 6, you have a choice of damage and another option. This means that between rank 4 and 6, an editor would have to note the various combinations depending on players' choices. This would be impractical to note and unnecessarily complicate the skill pages. I cannot see an elegant way to include this without look totally congested.

Lastly, for easy implementation, I suggest using a template for this. I will only have this done after the layout is chosen. You can see a draft of the Skill template parameters at User:Teugene/Sandbox/Skills

At the moment, I'm leaning towards layout 1a, with 1c closely behind. While the icons in 1c help to segment the ranks visually in mobile, my only gripe is the image can't be aligned to the top of the cell (see rant above), which makes it look a little disjointed. On top of that, getting the icons to be the same size and quality will be another issue if multiple users are involved.

tldr; I tried to make it as pretty and functional as possible while not looking like crap in mobile. I'll wait for suggestions before plopping these in for a vote.  teugeneTalkContr 22:15, May 5, 2017 (UTC)

Great ideas! I've been taking a haitus (unannounced, sorry), and would love to contribute towards this project. I really like the formats you submitted, especially 1c. I was looking at all this on mobile when I first saw your reply, and none of them looked great.

If we needed to get every icon in the game, I'd try my hardest to procure all of them for you. Thanks for trying out the icons I've come up with so far. I'm hoping they weren't too hard to find.

Fundastraz (talk) 08:19, May 6, 2017 (UTC)

It's worst without the use of tables. This is the best compromise I supposed. Anyhow, let's see if we can get more input for this project.

Oh and about the icons, don't go out of the way to get all of them just yet until we have a confirmation which kind of layout we will use.  teugeneTalkContr 14:39, May 6, 2017 (UTC)

Dangit. I had 1254 icons ready to be uploaded.

Yeah... I was waiting to see the decision before grabbing any more. I think I'll keep the primer/detonator icons, no matter what. Fundastraz (talk) 20:04, May 6, 2017 (UTC)

Lol, if you had already taken all of the skill icons, you might as well just upload it. I was assuming that you have not. :)  teugeneTalkContr 12:24, May 7, 2017 (UTC)

I haven't yet. Fundastraz (talk) 19:14, May 7, 2017 (UTC)