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Lost in a sea of projects, formats, and debates? Look no further! These are the current hot topics, and you can find previous topics here. To begin a new topic on this page, use the "+" button at the top of the page. If logged in, you can also add this page to your watchlist to track any changes and stay on top of things! Old topics are archived to these subpages.

Moving skill statistics closer to the skill facts

One thing I've always found odd on the wiki is that skill "statistics" (cooldowns, activations, ammunition count, initative/energy cost) are shown all the way to the right side of the page, far away from the skill facts. I think it would make more sense to group them together to be more similar to the ingame tooltip. Grouping would also make it easier to compare skill differences between game modes. I have made an example of what it could look like in my sandbox. While it isn't the prettiest solution, it's functional and sort of replicates the ingame tooltip. Feel free to offer suggestions or improvements. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 20:11, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

As I said on the discord, I like it, explicitly because it replicates the ingame look -- we do not need to reinvent the wheel, and consistency with the game is good. ~Sime 17:54, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Implemented in preparation for tomorrow's balance update. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 16:04, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I actually thought it was a wiki bug as far as underwater icon and the target indicator moving to the left but then I tried on several browsers along with purging the page; good thing I checked here. The spacing seems sort of off since ingame it is justified formatting (and so is GW2skills). The one thing I would probably change is relocating back the underwater status and the target indicator. Cooldown and activation appear on the top left side of a tooltip so that looks fine. --Life Infusion «T» 17:22, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah I was a bit caught on the hop by this one. Looking ingame, the ground targeting indicator certainly doesn't have its own tooltip icon, so that's gotta go imo. Underwater icon is indeed on the left-hand side of the top-right of a tooltip, but perhaps we should reorder it a bit. I had a go at altering the CSS yesterday to make it prettier, but couldn't find anything that works. -Chieftain Alex 18:07, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I've moved the underwater and targeting icons back into the infobox in my sandbox, and also made the statistics text smaller. I agree the uw icon doesn't need to be on the left because we have the intro text for that. Let me know if it looks better now. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 18:21, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

It does indeed look better! I think ingame the underwater icon only shows in the build panel (or when swapping skills with the up arrow) with the icon on the left side if I am not mistaken. Whatever is decided I think that some spacing is required (justified text or whatnot) since a pile of 5 icons in a row seems more confusing than a column that we had before. I do not think ammo count has an icon ingame except for mantras but I am not ingame, if I remember correctly it just has a number on the skill icon.--Life Infusion «T» 18:35, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I've updated the skill infobox with the changes. The spacing can be changed but the icons were always in a row though, never a column. Some skills such as Jaunt use the icon in its skill facts. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 19:31, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

No offense, but how does this look visually appealing to anyone such that this got implemented in mainspace? This randomly floating left aligned icons look terrible out of position and it also introduces a weird and unnecessary line break which mismatches the position of the quoation marks with the description line start. The first time I saw this I thought this was some strange CSS error that incorrectly places the statistics div outside the infobox for whatever reason.

I'm voting to revert this to the previous format. However, if you really, really want to move the skill statistics outside of the skill infobox (in my opinion: why though?) then please properly mimic the in-game style by

• 1. Adding the skill name to the quotation block (probably increased font-size and bold).
• 2. Limiting the quotation block width (to something like 400px/30em).
• 3. Moving the icons to float on the right.

--Tolkyria (talk) 18:31, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

(Reset indent) When talking about visual stuff, probably some examples will help, let's take the skill Whirling Wrath:

Currently used variant	Mirroring in-game variant	Previously used variant
Skill statistic icons left-aligned directly above the skill description.	Skill name bold with increased font size on the right and skill statistic icons on the right. Also: increased icon number size by removing the "font-size: smaller", removed the "big" tags from fractions that always cause strange line height interactions.	Skill statistic icons placed in the infobox.
“ 0.75¾ 8 Spin in place and swing your greatsword while hurling powerful projectiles.   Damage (7x): 1,274 (3.15)?   Projectile Damage: 151 (0.375)?   Number of Impacts: 7   Number of Targets: 5   Radius: 130   Combo Finisher: Whirl   Range: 600 — In-game description	“ Whirling Wrath ¾ 8 Spin in place and swing your greatsword while hurling powerful projectiles.   Damage (7x): 1,274 (3.15)?   Projectile Damage: 151 (0.375)?   Number of Impacts: 7   Number of Targets: 5   Radius: 130   Combo Finisher: Whirl   Range: 600 — In-game description	“ Spin in place and swing your greatsword while hurling powerful projectiles.   Damage (7x): 1,274 (3.15)?   Projectile Damage: 151 (0.375)?   Number of Impacts: 7   Number of Targets: 5   Radius: 130   Combo Finisher: Whirl   Range: 600 — In-game description

It's a fair point to place the skill statistic icons closer to the in-game description, but with this comparison above, I highly doubt that the currently used variant is the best format, the visually best looking, the smoothest solution this wiki can provide. --Tolkyria (talk) 07:42, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

If we choose to do a "right align" on the statistics, what width of box would you pick? From the couple of fixed/max/min-width arrangements I tried, it quickly fouled on the longer skill fact variable text. -Chieftain Alex 17:16, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

In my browser one needs at least 46em to display all common skill facts in one line (except incredible long stability fact description). I'm not sure if you consider this as too much. Edit: Note that the max-width could also only affect the upper part, namely skill name+icons and skill description but not the skill facts. However restricting the width might not be even something bad, for example see:

• Extra long skill descriptions reaching from the left to the infobox on the right on larger monitors, those might be more readable with forced line-breaks.
• The new standard mediawiki skin vector2022.

Each solution has to make a payoff:

• The current solution has the terrible format.
• The previous solution has the inconvenience of placing the icons on the right in the infobox instead near the skill facts.
• The suggested solution with the skill name and the right-floating icons is somewhere inbetween these two plus the restriction on the description width which may cut some skills fact texts into half.

But in the end in my opinion a pleasing format is worth more than a slightly inconvenience. --Tolkyria (talk) 20:00, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

"Mirroring in-game variant" looks good. Better than what we currently have, that's for sure.

While we're at it, perhaps we could consider listing the cooldown and cast time while affected by alacrity/quickness in the infobox? But perhaps it would look too confusing for what little value it would add. Warming Hearth (talk) 21:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I like the "Mirroring in-game variant" as well. ~Sime 18:54, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I am in favor of improving the formatting by mirroring the ingame variant. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 15:52, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I have revised my sandbox for the mirrored the ingame variant. But instead of using a right align, I used a span with a margin of 10em separation between the statistics and the skill name. I also didn't apply Tolkyria's change to the font size and removal of the big tag. Removing the big tag would need edits to Template: 1/4, Template: 1/2, and Template: 3/4.--BuffsEverywhere (talk) 02:43, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

With your "margin-left" solution one gets weird spacing when reducing the browser window size (e.g. reduce browser window to exactly line break the statistics). Furthermore it would be user-friendlier to have a fixed skill statistics position where the wiki users have to look at rather than being dependent on the length of the skill name.

What about something like the following instead (feel free to adjust the widths), in my tests it looks quite promising even for extremely long skill names and/or smaller browser window sizes:

<div style="max-width: 30em;">
<div class="statistics" style="float: right; margin-left: 2em;"><!-- STATISTICS --></div>
<div style="min-width: 8em; font-weight:bold; font-size:115%;"><!-- NAME --></div>
</div>

--Tolkyria (talk) 16:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, let's use that. I've copied your code into my sandbox above. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 16:39, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Maybe a box outline would impove the visual grouping (instead of the quotes?). —Kvothe (talk) 21:47, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I've updated skill infobox but I am still not satisfied with how much empty space there is between the skill name and recharge, for example on Alliance Tactics. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 00:27, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Am I the only one who thinks that inserting the name in the description looks out of place? It's already in the page title which is right above it which looks very odd. I If the intent is to keep the name regardless, I strongly echo Kvothe's suggestion to put the whole thing in a box outline (and add a background) so it actually looks like the tooltips from ingame, similar to Template:Mail. --ItVictor (talk) 07:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, another change, I think it won't get better by stacking up different format changes (on live wiki every month), honestly keeping it simple might be the best solution. For example a box somehow needs a fixed width for the skill description which gets awkward for long skill facts like stability, furthermore it introduces even more tooltip inconsistencies between different infoboxes (e.g. skill vs. item infoboxes). Overall, I think it has good reason why we kept the skill statistics icons in the infobox for more than ten years, it's visually just the cleanest and least disturbing format.

I brought up the "mirroring in-game variant" to give a somehow constructive alternative to the "left aligned icon variant". The "left aligned icon variant" was live on the wiki for the last two month and as I initially said for me it looks even more out of place than the current one. Sure, the redundancy of the skill name (1x in the browser tab, 1x on the top of the page, 1x in the infobox header, 1x in the skill tooltip) is a thing, but that's the price that has to be paid for right aligned icons.

For me the initial design was the simplest, so, if there's still the option to revert to the "put the icons back in the infobox" variant, I'm still voting for that one. --Tolkyria (talk) 09:11, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

How to display a single Dye color?

How might I display a single dye color by name without having to find / lookup the associated color code? Had looked Template:Dye palette color but couldn't get it to work without the color code. Lady Elyssa.2469 11:01, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Assuming its for your userspace, make a new userspace subpage to use as a template, and then copy the important bit from Template:Dye palette. I've created User:Lady Elyssa/Templates/Template:Dye color for you. -Chieftain Alex 11:34, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

That is amazing, thank you, that is exactly what I needed Lady Elyssa.2469 14:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion: Add gw2fortune.com to list of fansites

Hey guys, making a request to add https://www.gw2fortune.com to the list of fansites page. What would it take to get this accomplished? Reborngeek (talk) 00:04, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

The criteria can be found here, which is also where you ask for being included (on the talk page). ~Sime 13:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

New Template:Mastery icon needed

think we need a mastery equivalent of Template:Achievement icon for use on pages which refer to a specific required mastery in the text. Genie (talk) 13:24, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I guess nobody stops me from using Template:Map icon for this. Genie (talk) 00:43, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I am not that knowledgeable in creating custom templates like this and not really sure either how much this would be needed/necessary, but yeah I think the Map icon template should be good enough. Though if someone were to create it I would not be opposed, especially if it makes linking masteries easier when required. ~Sime 01:08, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Strike Mission table overhaul

Heya, I have finished (hopefully) the overhaul of the Strike Mission table: it can be found here. The differences between what's there currently and the proposed version:

• The unlocking conditions are directly under the strike's name, so easier to spot.
• Currencies are formatted similarly to the Raid page.
• Reinstated unique drops, so players can at glance see what unique items can drop there (there was no reason to remove them in the first place, imho).
• Moved the release dates under Notes, it took a lot of space and is not particularly useful by itself, especially since many strikes do not have any notes at all.

I think the revised table offers more information than before. I am open for suggestions/tweaks. Thanks! ~Sime 15:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I vote for the revised table. As a nice byproduct of adding release to the Notes, headers take comparatively less space than the content. Adeira Tasharo (talk)

Looks good. Only potential issue is possible information overload but better too much info than not enough given common comments about the wiki on reddit, etc. Konig (talk) 21:59, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I get the worry about info overload but I do not think that's a big issue here. I was indeed working with some feedback from reddit which is why the unique drops and release dates are included, as people often wonder what cool stuff you can get from the strikes and when was the last release. It is an overview, so a lot of info is to be expected: still, I think what's included is iseful for the table. ~Sime 12:53, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me; it provides clear detail and is nicely divided into sections. As expected of the Mother of Choya! One slight tweak I would recommend is regarding the access mention about Old Lion's Court. Some players might get confused by the "Doesn't require any expansion to enter." note as it would imply that Arborstone is accessible to everyone too when it requires the End of Dragons expansion. I think that some sort of reference to the fact that only LA access to the strike is available to all players should appear somewhere to avoid potential confusion. --Kossage (talk) 13:53, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you all for the suggestions (even to those folks on discord who did not participate here), I implemented some slight tweaks based on the feedback. It's been over a week now so I updated the Strike page.~Sime 11:58, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Vista pages

→ moved from Talk:Lake Lutgardis Vista

Sime claims "Vistas do not get their own pages", and yet the question comes up, what's the point in cluttering other pages with instructions on how to reach a vista? The majority of reasons for going to a region's page are for finding other information about that region. What if that information could instead be self-contained on a page exclusively for that vista? Not all vistas need pages, certainly, but some of the more difficult to reach ones would be well served with having their own page, especially given that Points of Interest already get their own pages even when the lore and difficulty in access don't justify it. Arkevorkhat (talk) 21:17, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Sime and our 10+ years of handling it this way. My reasoning is: Why create inconstistency in how we handle vistas if it is only for a minor few. Readers should be somewhat aware at this point that vistas don't have their own page - not much information one can put there anyway. And by not having separate pages sometimes - it is clear that one goes to the zone or area page related to said vista and looks for information there. Sime added your map and a getting there explaination to Lake Lutgardis. In my opinion this is handles adequately. —Kvothe (talk) 09:27, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

By that metric then, why have POIs been getting pages for so long? The vast majority of POI pages have either zero content or minimal content. "<Name> is a Point of Interest located in <Location>. EOF" isn't much of a page. Are we going to just keep a decade of bloat because "we've always done it this way"? Arkevorkhat (talk) 21:22, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, No. It's fine. It's clear that more of my time here is going to be spent arguing with you over things that you guys only do because of nothing more than tradition, so it's better for me to simply not contribute anymore. Good luck, do what you want, but do it without me. Arkevorkhat (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Vistas don't even have names. At least with PoIs you can add some text about their significance or their lore. Look at waypoints too, those do have names but what even would be the point of making pages for them when you can just redirect to the area page (which we already do Temple of Kormir Waypoint). The way I see it, PoIs are lucky they have their own pages, and vistas shouldn't even dream of getting a page for each of them.

The wiki is very democratic. You proposed something, it didn't receive any support. Accept the truth, no need to get angry. Warming Hearth (talk) 10:30, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

"The wiki is very democratic" Really? 2, *maybe* 3 people constitutes democracy? Sounds more like plutocracy to me. This is the exact kind of problem with wiki culture I'm talking about. Y'all have dozens or maybe hundreds (hard to say, since nothing is documented) of editing standards that new editors are expected to already know by the time they make their first edit, and the response is immediate hostility when one of those unwritten rules is broken. How do you expect to grow the wiki when this is how you treat new editors? As for "vistas don't have names," that's BS and you know it, the wiki has been assigning names to vistas for as long as they've supposedly been prohibited from receiving pages according to Kvothe. TL;DR, if you want people to edit the wiki, don't be such a bitch about them breaking one of the rules you never told them about.

not having a name is a major stumbling block to creating a page. -31.94.0.14 12:55, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I fail to see hostility in being told that "It's usually not being done that way, and here's why." ? Inni (talk) 10:24, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Just want to add on about the "Y'all have dozens or maybe hundreds (hard to say, since nothing is documented) of editing standards that new editors are expected to already know" part. We do have documentation, see pages like Help:Editing and the Help:Contents section. You can also always see other pages as examples or even ask if you have questions. At the end of the day though it's not a big deal to edit and fix things after the fact and then you know for next time too. Also all the templates have info on them and examples, and we post about changes and suggestions. Lots to look at though so it's not really expected that you memorize it all. But it is there. --Dak393 (talk) 10:33, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Points of Interests used to contain npcs and dialogue but iirc since there is no boundaries to them it might be hard to decide what actually belongs in it or not + it was a repeat of the area, so it was decided to not have it there. All PoI pages though should have lore -- the fact that they do not is an entirely different matter. Walkthrougs and pics for vistas on the area pages is nothing new and no one had a problem with it so far as far as I am aware. I would not be against vistas having their own page per se but I do not think it is worth, and definitely not only for some of them. Also very nice of you to come the wiki, something does not go your way and you immediately throw a tantrum when a discussion starts and then you start insulting editors, a really friendly attitude. ~Sime 11:58, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Just my two cents, but if anything there have been complaints that the info on the wiki requires too many clicks to get anywhere. The area page is a suitable place to have this information and makes for an easier user experience. Myriada (talk) 12:23, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Relics - what template to use

Been some comments on this, so thought I'd ask the community formally.

Do we want to consider Relics...

1. as their own standalone thing (like back items which have their own Template:Back item infobox),
2. as trinkets (like amulets which use Template:Trinket infobox), or
3. as upgrade components (like runes which use Template:Upgrade component infobox).

Currently I've gone with "Trinket infobox" (the actual changes to get the infobox to work were small), but I did have to apply a bit of a kludge to get them to work, and you need to use uslot=no.

I'd be open to the idea of a separate infobox, but there's a fair bit of similarity with other infoboxes we already have.

I've noted there is a request on the wiki discord to add an effects parameter which is easy enough, I just want to finalise the decision on what infobox we're using first. -Chieftain Alex 19:27, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm open to options but still leaning towards having it's own template that we can work with and change. Being able to to set things like properties for them can help a lot in filtering and finding them too. Right now a lot of them cause a skill to happen and I think it would be nice to actually have those details set and not just on another hidden page like we did with runes. But flexible on options and we could just modify current templates to fit. --Dak393 (talk) 02:17, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

I am for them having their own template too, especially if it makes working with them easier. ~Sime 18:00, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Samarog identified?

In the mission Tower of Secrets, there's a statue of Samarog next to a statue of Deimos. We know Deimos is a Kryptis, but the statue's placement next to Deimos and message seem to imply some sort of relation. "Samarog was not our destiny to correct, but that of another. We must keep our eyes on the Obscure. The rest...will correct itself. -Isgarren". How do others read this? That Samarog was also a Kryptis or that he was just another kind of mist demon?

I read it as neither. We know that the Wizard's Court refuses to deal with internal threats to the world of Tyria unless absolutely necessary (like they mentioned they almost intervened with Soo-Won) and they have been relying on the Commander for a while now, as they protect the world from external, Mists threats. It also doesn't read to me that Deimos and Samarog are exactly related nor it confirms that Samarog is a demon either, just that the two were in the same prison (for different reasons). ~Sime 15:15, 7 September 2023 (UTC)