Right, I completely forgot about the skill pages. While I think they're better than monsters and items, I'm not opposed to an overhaul of them if we can come up with something good.
Here would be my suggestions for skill pages:
1. The skill tree that is on every page that shows the location of the skill is a good idea, obviously, but the little background highlight of it is gaudy as hell and changes for every skill tree, so it feels like there's no consistency to it and it's kind of just a random thing.
2. Increase the skill levels we show. Right now we go up to 20, which makes sense because that's the cap, but +Skills are such an important and prevalent part of gearing, I think we should increase it to around level 40, which should be more than enough for any given build.
3. Use the page space better. Right now the actual skill information uses only about half the width of the page, with the skill tree taking up the other half. That means that the table has to be twice as tall instead of twice as wide, and you can't fit the entire table on your screen at once. If we increase the skill levels on the table, this will become an even bigger issue. If we designed a table to use the entire width of the page, we could easily fit 40 skill levels on only two table levels. I'm sure we could come up with a way to make the tables sleeker/slimmer as well, which will just make things better and easier to see and read.
1. The skill tree that is on every page that shows the location of the skill is a good idea, obviously, but the little background highlight of it is gaudy as hell and changes for every skill tree, so it feels like there's no consistency to it and it's kind of just a random thing.
Really? I think the highlighting of the icons is good, especially the fact that they are different colors. Red for fire, blue for cold, green and white for poison and bone.
2. Increase the skill levels we show. Right now we go up to 20, which makes sense because that's the cap, but +Skills are such an important and prevalent part of gearing, I think we should increase it to around level 40, which should be more than enough for any given build.
Agreed, I don't rightly remember why we didn't push for 40 to begin with; there are very few builds that utilize skills that do not go past 20. Everyone wants to push them as far as possible, and the damage progression can change rapidly after 20 pts.
3. Use the page space better. Right now the actual skill information uses only about half the width of the page, with the skill tree taking up the other half. That means that the table has to be twice as tall instead of twice as wide, and you can't fit the entire table on your screen at once. If we increase the skill levels on the table, this will become an even bigger issue. If we designed a table to use the entire width of the page, we could easily fit 40 skill levels on only two table levels. I'm sure we could come up with a way to make the tables sleeker/slimmer as well, which will just make things better and easier to see and read.
Then we run into the problem of smaller resolutions. With the skill tree to the right, the space that can be utilized as 1024 pixels is often just about right. And the wider skills are greatly compressed on smaller resolutions.
A page-wide solution should be possible to achieve, especially given the success with the new monster template, but if we keep the skill tree image it might be a little tight. Unless we want to build on the height, but that generates weird pages for wide resolutions.
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at point 2 the arreat summit does not have the skill data to 40 and thus if we did do that we would have to do it by hand.
No, we will have to get it from the files. Will be much more time-consuming, as I don't know how all skills handle their damage progression. I know some are easy to figure out, but not if all are. It will take time to be sure.
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Really? I think the highlighting of the icons is good, especially the fact that they are different colors. Red for fire, blue for cold, green and white for poison and bone.
Yeah, like I said, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, I just think it could be done better. As it is, it's certainly eye-catching, but I just think it looks goofy and gaudy. Unfortunately, I haven't come up with much in the way of alternatives, except perhaps just dimming/dulling the rest of the tree and highlighting the skill in question, sort of like on the Skill calc. I also thing we could make the thing smaller regardless.
One thing that might be cool, though I don't know if it's possible, is to make the individual pictures in each tree link to that skill page, so the tree has a little more functionality and is a little bit less of just dead space (for the most part). I know that'll have to be a whole design thing and not just link to an image, but...
Then we run into the problem of smaller resolutions. With the skill tree to the right, the space that can be utilized as 1024 pixels is often just about right. And the wider skills are greatly compressed on smaller resolutions.
A page-wide solution should be possible to achieve, especially given the success with the new monster template, but if we keep the skill tree image it might be a little tight. Unless we want to build on the height, but that generates weird pages for wide resolutions.
Yes, that's something I thought of, but I figured I'd leave that to the people who know more about it to solve.
at point 2 the arreat summit does not have the skill data to 40 and thus if we did do that we would have to do it by hand.
No, we will have to get it from the files. Will be much more time-consuming, as I don't know how all skills handle their damage progression. I know some are easy to figure out, but not if all are. It will take time to be sure.
It could also be pulled from the skill calc, assuming that 1.) It gets fixed someday and 2.)The information on it is correct (which I'm not sure it is 100%...I've pointed out to Superceb that Poison Nova's minimum damage exceeds its maximum damage beginning at Level 29, for instance).
One thing that might be cool, though I don't know if it's possible, is to make the individual pictures in each tree link to that skill page, so the tree has a little more functionality and is a little bit less of just dead space (for the most part). I know that'll have to be a whole design thing and not just link to an image, but...
Oh, have we talked about this. zhuge, did you ever mention this? I can't recall :whistling:
There is an extension for mediawiki that allows it. it was uninstalled when Alexia was troubleshooting the wiki crashes. I don't know if it was the cause, but if not, we could get it back I think. We never actually implemented it on any pictures that I know though.
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Why don't we do a table that has the information needed and ease of use so the viewers can do the math themselves? To see what I mean, take a look at a sample skill table in the link.
Why don't we do a table that has the information needed and ease of use so the viewers can do the math themselves? To see what I mean, take a look at a sample skill table in the link.
I don't think that's a good idea. It's not user-friendly to make them draw the conclusion(s) themselves. If we know what the skill progression is, why wouldn't we just do the math for the user and then put the numbers in the table?
EDIT: Also, it's probably not wise to assume that any or all skills will follow a formula for their progression, diminishing returns or no. That could (and most likely would) lead to abundant misinformation. Unless it's an official "here's how it works" from a blue, speculation isn't a good idea.
Why don't we do a table that has the information needed and ease of use so the viewers can do the math themselves? To see what I mean, take a look at a sample skill table in the link.
While I wouldn't be opposed to including that on a skill page so people can know how it works (and for some crazy builds that may exceed 40 skill points) it should not be all that we include. A table with the information clear is preferable.
EDIT: Also, it's probably not wise to assume that any or all skills will follow a formula for their progression, diminishing returns or no. That could (and most likely would) lead to abundant misinformation. Unless it's an official "here's how it works" from a blue, speculation isn't a good idea.
Ha. I just checked skills.txt, and it's all there.
where par7 and par8 are two fields that determine the synergy boost. So not too hard to figure out. The AR bonus is also handled by a separate field and is a numerical value that increases with each level.
For Holy Freeze it gets a bit harder
exms*par5/256
That's the formula for the max damage. I don't really know what exms is, but I'm sure there's some way to figure that out.
Haven't checked all skills, but since they are all in mathematical formular, just with some confusing variables, we can figure it all out straight from the game files.
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I haven't checked, but I figured Matt would know the answer real quickly. He told me that exms could most likely be inferred by the description of what par5 is pointing to in that case, Kris.
Ha. I just checked skills.txt, and it's all there.
Wonderful :thumbsup: I was going to say something else about "or if it's directly from the game files," but I forgot.
Anyway, I can't seem to find any skill.txt in my D2 folder, but if we're able to figure out what all those variables mean and get all the formulae out, I'd be happy to crunch some numbers. :wallbash:
I haven't checked, but I figured Matt would know the answer real quickly. He told me that exms could most likely be inferred by the description of what par5 is pointing to in that case, Kris.
Anyway, I can't seem to find any skill.txt in my D2 folder, but if we're able to figure out what all those variables mean and get all the formulae out, I'd be happy to crunch some numbers. :wallbash:
They're all stored in patch_d2.mpq (and those few files that have never been patched are in d2exp.mpq and d2data.mpq). You need an mpq extractor to get them, and a listfile. Usually you can find them at the phrozen keep, but I don't know that they have the 1.13 files uploaded. I can just upload them here somewhere as well though I think.
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So a couple more points that I've come up with on this:
1.) I'm thinking it should be pretty easy to modify the monster design to accommodate the skills, though when I tried, it became clear that I'm not the man to do it. I'll start with the picture cell: I think we should keep that and add a screenshot of the skill in action (for active skills) and maybe just the skill icon for passive skills. For the rest, basically what I'm thinking is to have the top row of cells divided horizontally in two (sort of like the resistances area is now) with the top division being "Skill Level" and the bottom division subdivided (again, as with the different types of resistances) and numbered for each skill level. Then on the left side, to the right of the picture cell, we have the applicable stats (mana cost, damage, duration, life, what have you), each on their own row, with the stats obviously entered across under the skill level number. For prereqs and synergies, I'm thinking either their own cell on the bottom of the table or along the right side of it, or just completely outside of the table. Hope that wasn't too difficult to follow. :rolleyes:
2.) How are we planning to treat synergies? I'm assuming the files will treat the spells as though they have no points in any synergy, but I think that we should include the 1-point synergy bonus for all synergies that are also prereqs, since the spell will naturally have at least one point in its prereq(s) at all spell levels.
3.) This might start to get a little tricky, but I think for all spells that scale with difficulty (i.e. Golems, Bone Wall/Prison, etc.) we should have Normal/NM/Hell subdivisions for each skill level, so they will show accurate numbers for each difficulty level.
4.) If we decide to keep the skill tree image, I think a good idea for that would be to float:right it at the bottom of the page, underneath the skill tables, where the Description/Lore/References headers are. That way it won't interfere with the tables or force us to make the tables shorter, but will still be on the page.
1.) I'm thinking it should be pretty easy to modify the monster design to accommodate the skills, though when I tried, it became clear that I'm not the man to do it. I'll start with the picture cell: I think we should keep that and add a screenshot of the skill in action (for active skills) and maybe just the skill icon for passive skills.
We should be consistent withthe layout of the pages. All skills should have their skill icons is the same places, maybe inside the template but not necessarily.
A screenshot of the skill, or better yet an animation of it, could just as well fit below the actual template like the skill tree image.
For the rest, basically what I'm thinking is to have the top row of cells divided horizontally in two (sort of like the resistances area is now) with the top division being "Skill Level" and the bottom division subdivided (again, as with the different types of resistances) and numbered for each skill level. Then on the left side, to the right of the picture cell, we have the applicable stats (mana cost, damage, duration, life, what have you), each on their own row, with the stats obviously entered across under the skill level number. For prereqs and synergies, I'm thinking either their own cell on the bottom of the table or along the right side of it, or just completely outside of the table. Hope that wasn't too difficult to follow. :rolleyes:
That sounds like a good idea. I'll whip something up (maybe not today, depends on how much time I have) and we can work from there.
2.) How are we planning to treat synergies? I'm assuming the files will treat the spells as though they have no points in any synergy, but I think that we should include the 1-point synergy bonus for all synergies that are also prereqs, since the spell will naturally have at least one point in its prereq(s) at all spell levels.
Right, the files will treat skill progression as if no prereqs have been acquired, but this may be overly complicated to incorporate.
3.) This might start to get a little tricky, but I think for all spells that scale with difficulty (i.e. Golems, Bone Wall/Prison, etc.) we should have Normal/NM/Hell subdivisions for each skill level, so they will show accurate numbers for each difficulty level.
That sounds like a great idea, which I think we should incorporate. I don't know how increased skill stats are calculated though, so unless anyone else does, this will have to be a future feature to incorporate at a later date.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
PlugY for Diablo II allows you to reset skills and stats, transfer items between characters in singleplayer, obtain all ladder runewords and do all Uberquests while offline. It is the only way to do all of the above. Please use it.
Supporting big shoulderpads and flashy armor since 2004.
We should be consistent with the layout of the pages. All skills should have their skill icons in the same places, maybe inside the template but not necessarily.
Yeah, I suppose; maybe we could just have the skill icon above the screenshot in the picture cell for actives, and then obviously just the icon for passives.
A screenshot of the skill, or better yet an animation of it, could just as well fit below the actual template like the skill tree image.
An animation is something I thought of too, my only concern with it is that it might be too obnoxious/distracting. Otherwise, I would totally be down for it. For some skills, like Inferno, I think it would be fine, but things like projectiles and other skills that produce a lot of movement in one way or another I think would be annoying.
Right, the files will treat skill progression as if no prereqs have been acquired, but this may be overly complicated to incorporate.
Don't the equations in the files have expressions for synergy bonuses in them though? And if not, I'm sure we could do it manually. I mean it's not too difficult...if something has a 7% damage synergy bonus, for example, you just take the base damage and multiply it by 1.07. Cake.
That sounds like a great idea, which I think we should incorporate. I don't know how increased skill stats are calculated though, so unless anyone else does, this will have to be a future feature to incorporate at a later date.
I was hoping that could be found in the equations as well. <_<
I think it's a good idea (which is why I suggested it obviously :tongue:), but I'm a little concerned with it making the template cluttered. Do you think you'd be able to come up with something that'll look nice and not be too confusing to read for this?
Oh, also, the other thing I was thinking of was general information for each skill. Here's my take on what we have presently:
Class: I'm not sure this is entirely necessary. It should be pretty obvious.
Skill Tree: Fine with this.
Required Level: Fine with this.
Damage Type: Should be in the table. Currently, skills just say "Damage" and then list the damage of each skill level. We should just enter "[Type] Damage" in the cell to begin with (i.e. Magic Damage or Physical Damage, etc.)
Cast Delay: Should only be included on spells that actually have one.
Prerequisites: Already covered.
I think this info would look good in a cell that sits on top of the table and spans the entire length, or else outside the table entirely.
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Here would be my suggestions for skill pages:
1. The skill tree that is on every page that shows the location of the skill is a good idea, obviously, but the little background highlight of it is gaudy as hell and changes for every skill tree, so it feels like there's no consistency to it and it's kind of just a random thing.
2. Increase the skill levels we show. Right now we go up to 20, which makes sense because that's the cap, but +Skills are such an important and prevalent part of gearing, I think we should increase it to around level 40, which should be more than enough for any given build.
3. Use the page space better. Right now the actual skill information uses only about half the width of the page, with the skill tree taking up the other half. That means that the table has to be twice as tall instead of twice as wide, and you can't fit the entire table on your screen at once. If we increase the skill levels on the table, this will become an even bigger issue. If we designed a table to use the entire width of the page, we could easily fit 40 skill levels on only two table levels. I'm sure we could come up with a way to make the tables sleeker/slimmer as well, which will just make things better and easier to see and read.
Anyway, that's my take.
Agreed, I don't rightly remember why we didn't push for 40 to begin with; there are very few builds that utilize skills that do not go past 20. Everyone wants to push them as far as possible, and the damage progression can change rapidly after 20 pts.
Then we run into the problem of smaller resolutions. With the skill tree to the right, the space that can be utilized as 1024 pixels is often just about right. And the wider skills are greatly compressed on smaller resolutions.
A page-wide solution should be possible to achieve, especially given the success with the new monster template, but if we keep the skill tree image it might be a little tight. Unless we want to build on the height, but that generates weird pages for wide resolutions.
Yeah, like I said, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, I just think it could be done better. As it is, it's certainly eye-catching, but I just think it looks goofy and gaudy. Unfortunately, I haven't come up with much in the way of alternatives, except perhaps just dimming/dulling the rest of the tree and highlighting the skill in question, sort of like on the Skill calc. I also thing we could make the thing smaller regardless.
One thing that might be cool, though I don't know if it's possible, is to make the individual pictures in each tree link to that skill page, so the tree has a little more functionality and is a little bit less of just dead space (for the most part). I know that'll have to be a whole design thing and not just link to an image, but...
Yes, that's something I thought of, but I figured I'd leave that to the people who know more about it to solve.
It could also be pulled from the skill calc, assuming that 1.) It gets fixed someday and 2.)The information on it is correct (which I'm not sure it is 100%...I've pointed out to Superceb that Poison Nova's minimum damage exceeds its maximum damage beginning at Level 29, for instance).
There is an extension for mediawiki that allows it. it was uninstalled when Alexia was troubleshooting the wiki crashes. I don't know if it was the cause, but if not, we could get it back I think. We never actually implemented it on any pictures that I know though.
Great. Just give me the work will you?
This is where Huck needs to come in with as solution...
http://miyoshino.la.coocan.jp/eswiki/?Shadow Disciplines#bfee3ce2
if we knew that the skill lvls werent dimished at that lvl ie 5->4->2->1.66->1.5 etc
I can probably come up with a few simple formulas that work for the skills but will be tough due to diminishing returns.
I don't think that's a good idea. It's not user-friendly to make them draw the conclusion(s) themselves. If we know what the skill progression is, why wouldn't we just do the math for the user and then put the numbers in the table?
EDIT: Also, it's probably not wise to assume that any or all skills will follow a formula for their progression, diminishing returns or no. That could (and most likely would) lead to abundant misinformation. Unless it's an official "here's how it works" from a blue, speculation isn't a good idea.
Ha. I just checked skills.txt, and it's all there.
Vengeance damage:
where par7 and par8 are two fields that determine the synergy boost. So not too hard to figure out. The AR bonus is also handled by a separate field and is a numerical value that increases with each level.
For Holy Freeze it gets a bit harder
That's the formula for the max damage. I don't really know what exms is, but I'm sure there's some way to figure that out.
Haven't checked all skills, but since they are all in mathematical formular, just with some confusing variables, we can figure it all out straight from the game files.
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Wonderful :thumbsup: I was going to say something else about "or if it's directly from the game files," but I forgot.
Anyway, I can't seem to find any skill.txt in my D2 folder, but if we're able to figure out what all those variables mean and get all the formulae out, I'd be happy to crunch some numbers. :wallbash:
Well, that's a problem for laterr anyway.
They're all stored in patch_d2.mpq (and those few files that have never been patched are in d2exp.mpq and d2data.mpq). You need an mpq extractor to get them, and a listfile. Usually you can find them at the phrozen keep, but I don't know that they have the 1.13 files uploaded. I can just upload them here somewhere as well though I think.
1.) I'm thinking it should be pretty easy to modify the monster design to accommodate the skills, though when I tried, it became clear that I'm not the man to do it. I'll start with the picture cell: I think we should keep that and add a screenshot of the skill in action (for active skills) and maybe just the skill icon for passive skills. For the rest, basically what I'm thinking is to have the top row of cells divided horizontally in two (sort of like the resistances area is now) with the top division being "Skill Level" and the bottom division subdivided (again, as with the different types of resistances) and numbered for each skill level. Then on the left side, to the right of the picture cell, we have the applicable stats (mana cost, damage, duration, life, what have you), each on their own row, with the stats obviously entered across under the skill level number. For prereqs and synergies, I'm thinking either their own cell on the bottom of the table or along the right side of it, or just completely outside of the table. Hope that wasn't too difficult to follow. :rolleyes:
2.) How are we planning to treat synergies? I'm assuming the files will treat the spells as though they have no points in any synergy, but I think that we should include the 1-point synergy bonus for all synergies that are also prereqs, since the spell will naturally have at least one point in its prereq(s) at all spell levels.
3.) This might start to get a little tricky, but I think for all spells that scale with difficulty (i.e. Golems, Bone Wall/Prison, etc.) we should have Normal/NM/Hell subdivisions for each skill level, so they will show accurate numbers for each difficulty level.
4.) If we decide to keep the skill tree image, I think a good idea for that would be to float:right it at the bottom of the page, underneath the skill tables, where the Description/Lore/References headers are. That way it won't interfere with the tables or force us to make the tables shorter, but will still be on the page.
We should be consistent withthe layout of the pages. All skills should have their skill icons is the same places, maybe inside the template but not necessarily.
A screenshot of the skill, or better yet an animation of it, could just as well fit below the actual template like the skill tree image.
That sounds like a good idea. I'll whip something up (maybe not today, depends on how much time I have) and we can work from there.
Right, the files will treat skill progression as if no prereqs have been acquired, but this may be overly complicated to incorporate.
That sounds like a great idea, which I think we should incorporate. I don't know how increased skill stats are calculated though, so unless anyone else does, this will have to be a future feature to incorporate at a later date.
Yeah, I suppose; maybe we could just have the skill icon above the screenshot in the picture cell for actives, and then obviously just the icon for passives.
An animation is something I thought of too, my only concern with it is that it might be too obnoxious/distracting. Otherwise, I would totally be down for it. For some skills, like Inferno, I think it would be fine, but things like projectiles and other skills that produce a lot of movement in one way or another I think would be annoying.
Don't the equations in the files have expressions for synergy bonuses in them though? And if not, I'm sure we could do it manually. I mean it's not too difficult...if something has a 7% damage synergy bonus, for example, you just take the base damage and multiply it by 1.07. Cake.
I was hoping that could be found in the equations as well. <_<
I think it's a good idea (which is why I suggested it obviously :tongue:), but I'm a little concerned with it making the template cluttered. Do you think you'd be able to come up with something that'll look nice and not be too confusing to read for this?
Oh, also, the other thing I was thinking of was general information for each skill. Here's my take on what we have presently:
I think this info would look good in a cell that sits on top of the table and spans the entire length, or else outside the table entirely.