There we go. I'm thinking the template could still use some streamlining (for example, not requiring duplicate rows to be entered for the synergy boosted section again if the target value isn't actually affected by any synergies) but for now it works.
If anyone's feeling suicidal, you can always try and create a page with it :sorcerer:
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I'm on a wide resolution and I think that the full width looks better still, so I guess that'll work. Would it be possible, though, to just make both the synergy and build boxes take up half the width so that they aren't different sizes?
That actually worked very well, automatically refits itself on lower resolutions, and gives us the extra width between the columns on higher resolutions.
Now, is there anything else that should be added to the design before I templatize it?
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.
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Hmm, see, I was thinking of like a whole separate box for it to the right of the synergy box. Not just adding another section, if you will, to the synergy box. That way it'll fill in more.
I tried that approach first. But it looked really off, since that way lines can't be on the same level if you know what I mean. They'd be two tables, and so cells get different dimensions depending on what we put into them. I figured it looked weird, and opted to combine them instead.
I added it to the sandbox, though I'd like to have a little bit of separation between the two tables, if that's do-able. But otherwise, this is more the way I was picturing it.
Ah, but that's not so bad. The previous issue is solved if the text is centered. The two tables are of a slightly different height, but that is easily solved. I think we'll go with this structure
So I fixed some issues, and we have two options. Either we stretch the build box to the edge for all resolutions. This forces the synergy box to to be as small as possible, so when adding links one had to add character instead of spaces on the longest pieces of text, or the box breaks.
Or, we keep the builds box at a minimum width, expanding only to fit more text. The first option looks kind of weird on bigger screens, but so does the second as well. Smaller resolutions will on the other hand benefit from the box covering the entire width, so perhaps we should pick that one.
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.
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.
Is there anything you all thinks needs to be changed regarding the template now then?
If not, then I know Kickin has expressed his distaste for the skill-tree designs, with colors all over the image. I can agree, but I think the colors do serve a purpose. Perhaps we can go wit ha design similar to what is used currently on the fire skills
The meteor highlight is much clearer than the glacial spike one.
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.
All synergies maxed. For FO, that's just icebolt. This of course means 20 hard points in all of them, since synergy bonuses are not conferred from soft points. Is that unclear you think?
EDIT: Removed the level req of prereqs, it was a little redundant I agree.
As for putting down 5 extra skill levels, that would look really weird. Better to just leave the blank space and add an extra 15 levels if that's the case.
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.
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What else could we use the space for then? I thought about putting up some damage calculations, but it's not that simple. That would work for skills that depend on weapon damage, but skill like Frozen Orb have a much different method of progression, it's basically static inscreases, but with changes at four different levels (9, 17, 23, 29) so it doesn't make much sense.
It is however, once again, a problem for high resolutions. If the page is scaled down, I think it looks very good, and fitting something else there will be problematic.
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.
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1.) The top part: For the most part I think it looks really good, but I have a few suggestions. First, I think the dividing lines between the spell name/description and the prerequisites should be removed. They're not really dividing anything that should be divided (i.e. "Prerequisites" from the prerequisites) and they won't line up neatly with the dividers on the bottom row. Right now, the divider between "Cold Spells" and the Required Level is just slightly misaligned with the divider above it, and it looks weird. Other skill trees that are longer will just make it look like a puzzle or something. Also, as I mentioned earlier, I don't think we should have the damage type in the top area. I think that should just be removed, and instead the table itself should say "[Type] Damage". Otherwise, I likes it.
Divider between name and description fits I think. The name is after all the "header", even though it's no longer on a row of it's own.
Moved damage type, worked better below, removed prereq divider.
2.) The skill progression tables look pretty good, but should we maybe look at doing alternating colors to improve readability? Also, a fairly minor thing, but maybe instead of "with maximum synergies" we should have "with all synergies maximized", since that's a little bit clearer.
It seems fine to me. If we were dealing with dozens of rows maybe, but it's rarely going to go past four. I think it works.
3.) The synergies box: instead of having "recieves from" and "provides for" in their own columns, I think we should have them in their own rows, with the synergies listed horizontally (essentially like the prereqs at the top), which would look more in line with the rest of the design.
Put both up there. It looks disorganized to me, I prefer the top-down list even though it isn't the same as the rest of the table. Also added some black background, in face it was that assymetry that caused it.
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.
Instead of adding the 1 point synergy, I instead added a table for how it develops with maximum synergies (in this case, only 20 in icebolt). We can also easily add an extra row between 30-45, and probably should, since many builds can and aim to get their skills up there.
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.
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.
If we are to have animations, it's going to be static on the page. A meteor animation wouldn't fall down over the page, it would just play it's animation within the 50x100 image (or whatever it takes up). If we manage to get animations.
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.
How are gifs made and who can make them for each skill?
The animations should be viewable through the "Dr Tester" program Kris was talking about earlier.
Well that's the problem. That will work for simple skills like ice bolt and fire bolt. But more complex skills are multiple instances that are pieces together (charged bolt, tornado, frozen orb), and some I have no idea how they would be converted to animations: chain lightning, strafe, volcano etc. So screenshots will have to be used in a lot of cases I suspect.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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If anyone's feeling suicidal, you can always try and create a page with it :sorcerer:
Now, is there anything else that should be added to the design before I templatize it?
http://www.diablowiki.com/User:PhrozenDragon/Sandbox3
Ah, but that's not so bad. The previous issue is solved if the text is centered. The two tables are of a slightly different height, but that is easily solved. I think we'll go with this structure
So I fixed some issues, and we have two options. Either we stretch the build box to the edge for all resolutions. This forces the synergy box to to be as small as possible, so when adding links one had to add character instead of spaces on the longest pieces of text, or the box breaks.
Or, we keep the builds box at a minimum width, expanding only to fit more text. The first option looks kind of weird on bigger screens, but so does the second as well. Smaller resolutions will on the other hand benefit from the box covering the entire width, so perhaps we should pick that one.
If not, then I know Kickin has expressed his distaste for the skill-tree designs, with colors all over the image. I can agree, but I think the colors do serve a purpose. Perhaps we can go wit ha design similar to what is used currently on the fire skills
The meteor highlight is much clearer than the glacial spike one.
EDIT: Removed the level req of prereqs, it was a little redundant I agree.
As for putting down 5 extra skill levels, that would look really weird. Better to just leave the blank space and add an extra 15 levels if that's the case.
It is however, once again, a problem for high resolutions. If the page is scaled down, I think it looks very good, and fitting something else there will be problematic.
Removed the black though, I agree.
Moved damage type, worked better below, removed prereq divider.
It seems fine to me. If we were dealing with dozens of rows maybe, but it's rarely going to go past four. I think it works.
Reworded synergy part.
Put both up there. It looks disorganized to me, I prefer the top-down list even though it isn't the same as the rest of the table. Also added some black background, in face it was that assymetry that caused it.
First draft of a skill template is up.
Instead of adding the 1 point synergy, I instead added a table for how it develops with maximum synergies (in this case, only 20 in icebolt). We can also easily add an extra row between 30-45, and probably should, since many builds can and aim to get their skills up there.
Thoughts?
True enough. I suppose we can do that.
I need to figure that out. It's the same thing for hit points in nightmare and hell, they're also controlled by some calculation somewhere.
Well that's the problem. That will work for simple skills like ice bolt and fire bolt. But more complex skills are multiple instances that are pieces together (charged bolt, tornado, frozen orb), and some I have no idea how they would be converted to animations: chain lightning, strafe, volcano etc. So screenshots will have to be used in a lot of cases I suspect.
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.
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.