Daggerfall talk:Critical Strike

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Inaccurate Description[edit]

I strongly suggest the inaccurate and misleading game manual description not be included at the top of the page, but instead only in the Notes section at the bottom of the page. Although this would be an inconsistency in terms of formatting across the other skills pages, I would find that much more palatable than incorrect information being presented as fact. — Unsigned comment by 98.233.184.23 (talk) at 19:57 on 19 July 2019 UTC

When the skill pages were created, it was believed impossible to precisely know the DF skill formulas, as Bethesda lost all copies of the source code years ago and the game code itself was not accessible. I'm not sure where the values on this page came from, but if they can be verified, they should absolutely take precedence in the article. The manual/game text should remain in the article somewhere, however, as our goal is to "document everything".
Verification of the skill formula would be awesome, especially if the rest of the game's skill formulas can be determined as well. Echo (talk) 00:43, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, I should've referenced earlier - you may be familiar with the Daggerfall for Unity project, which has reverse-engineered virtually all of the original Daggerfall coding at this point. The project lead (Interkarma) and other devs on that project have confirmed the formula, copied into the Unity project, in the following forum discussion: https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2278#p26569.
Assuming this is sufficient evidence, again, I suggest (and agree) that the incorrect manual documentation remain referenced on the page, but only in the Notes section where it's already properly cited. Leaving it unexplained on the main Daggerfall:Skills page and at the top of the Daggerfall:Critical Strike page has already proven to be very misleading to many players.
Thanks very much for your attention!
98.233.184.23 05:05, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
I've also just reverse-engineered the relevant portions of the Daggerfall code, and can back that up, so between the two of us, I think we can call this confirmed. Robin Hood  (talk) 05:15, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
The description section is meant only for the official description, hence its italicised format. Similar with other skills transcluded to the Skills page I've included a note, which is unnecessary on this page. The actual effects of the skill should be the only one described, and the note at the top about it being contrary to its description makes a note duplicitous. The only thing that remains is for someone to properly explain how it works, as the bare code lacks clarity in its working. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 14:22, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

() I understand the formatting consistency reasoning, but the recent reversion including the "Description" (which is inaccurate) without further elaboration is still very misleading. I suggest a new sentence in that same section after the description indicating it's in fact inaccurate. Will post a suggested edit now.

Added the edit, which flows through to the main Daggerfall:Skills page. Note that this is consistent with several other explanatory comments added after the italicized "official" descriptions of many other skills already listed on that page, including language skills. Again, removing the caveat text I just added would revert to the original problem, where essentially anyone reading the page without additional knowledge would be left confused as to the apparent inconsistency between the sentence at the top of the Critical Strike page and the out-of-context italicized Description. — Unsigned comment by 98.233.184.23 (talk) at 15:28 on 20 July 2019‎

Stop changing the description section, it isn't going to happen. There are formatting, consistency, and transclusionary problems with what you are doing. The area above is the point to explain what is wrong with the description. It already states that the description is wrong so by the time you get to it you know what you are reading is incorrect. If you would focus your efforts on making the top part of the page better you wouldn't need to be so worried about something which is already been stated to be wrong on both pages that it is displayed. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 14:40, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
Again, my changes to the Description section are not in fact unique/inconsistent with other skills. See Daggerfall:Dragonish for just one example. I won't do any further edits without concurrence here, but it's already been proven that leaving things as is - even with the changes to the top of the page - will remain confusing and make the page much less useful for many users. Moreover, the main Skills page - unlike with many other skills that have added useful explanatory notes outside the italicized text - now again is very misleading and offers no context explaining what the skill actually does; many users will rely on this page without clicking through to the Critical Strike page for further details. No offense intended, but focusing on formatting/italics over accuracy doesn't seem helpful.
OK, I see the main Skills page at least has been fixed. I'll now add more clarity to the Critical Strike page's top sentence. However, the ideal solution is that found on the language skill pages - i.e. add the non-italic explanation right after the italics in the Description. I'm pretty OCD when it comes to formatting myself, but I simply don't understand why such a clarifying improvement would be a problem. Seems like the tail wagging the dog. — Unsigned comment by 98.233.184.23 (talk) at 15:45 on 20 July 2019
The statements after the descriptions on those other pages are clarifying statements. The description here is just plain wrong and needs far more than a simple clarification. Such an explanation is either better placed in the top section or will basically be a copy of the top section, which is the kind of duplication we try to avoid on wikis. The same issue goes for just stating its incorrectness, its already been stated, so there is no need to repeat that. Silence is GoldenBreak the Silence 14:59, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree as to the usefulness of leaving the "Description" on the Critical Strike page without further clarification (i.e. needing to find the clarification elsewhere on the page, which as I stated in the beginning has already been confusing to many readers who naturally assume an inconsistency, and will likely continue to do so). At least the page is clearer than it was before this started. Thanks to all who contributed. — Unsigned comment by 98.233.184.23 (talk) at 15:06 on 20 July 2019‎
I do see Silencer's point on this one. I hadn't clued in that the Description section was supposed to be the official description only, but it makes sense. I think with the clarification in the lead and in the transclusion, that's probably sufficient without duplicating the info openly in the Description section.. Robin Hood  (talk) 23:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
Sure, I can live with it. I did just make some minor grammatical and consistency edits to the transclusion text shown only on the Daggerfall:Skills page, as follows: "However, this description quoted from the manual does not reflect the actual implementation of the skill in the game: Critical Strike in fact gives a skill % chance to add skill / 10% to hit chance, and does not add to damage." Thanks again.— Unsigned comment by 98.233.184.23 (talk) at 00:27 on 22 July 2019‎ UTC

() When I first expanded the skills pages out from redirects, they were pretty much simple info dumps of whatever was available at the time. Given that the actual effects and formulas are now out there, I'd suggest opening the pages with those and moving the game manual description down near the in-game description. This would serve to get the most relevant and accurate info to the top of the page, while preserving the documentation that would be seen by players, and preventing unnecessary duplicate statements.

Edit: made some changes, as above. Open to suggestions though Echo (talk) 04:25, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

I made a couple of very minor changes to the transclusion for grammar/clarity, but thank you for the helpful changes to the Description titles - despite another user here insisting this wasn't going to happen, I'm very glad it did.