Forum:Page layout: Perks, stats, traits, skills

I think it's time to discuss a unified layout (or unified layouts) for perk, skill, stat (both primary and derived) as well as trait pages because a lot of these pages are rather messy. Currently, there is no such layout (or a related one), so we'll start with a blank slate.

I'm going to try a different type of discussion as usual to avoid the confusion/inconclusiveness which often plagues layout-related talks - basically I'll split it into stages, putting one topic up for discussion at a time, and once we've reached a consensus on a given topic we'll move on to the next. -- Porter21 (talk) 12:17, October 8, 2011 (UTC)


 * In the following, PSST is used as an abbreviation for perk, skill, stat, trait.

One page per game or one page for all games?
Currently each PSST page covers the incarnation of its subject (perk, stat etc) in all games. An alternative would be the model employed by item pages, i.e. the current page would be split into multiple articles, each of would cover the incarnation of the PSST in a given game (grouping games on one page only if sufficiently similar; e.g. FO1/FO2).

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using/keeping the "one page for all games" model? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of switching to the "one page per game" model? Which one would you prefer (and why)? -- Porter21 (talk) 12:17, October 8, 2011 (UTC)

Lol, you had to do this after I have spent the last few days redoing the skill pages to get a uniformed kind of layout amongst them (about half way through). But for starters, I would suggest a split to per game and use the overview page layout (similar to items such as Laser pistol) that has been successful in the past. This works quite well even outside of item pages (see The House Always Wins for an example of the format ported to a none item subject). It will generally help pages with large cross game content, that is a little more complex in nature to impart information to the reader. On the down side, it will create a lot of pages with very little content. But I don't see these as a negative (i don't know why people dislike stub topics so much), since the reader tends to only desire information for the relevant topic per game. And if there are any readers that want a cross reference of info for all games, they will be able to get this on the overview page also. User Avatar talk.png 19:16, October 9, 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I certainly didn't want to rain on your parade - your edits reminded me that creating a layout for these pages has been on my to-do list for ages, plus I need it settled because of the new infoboxes (the new infobox doesn't support as many rows as the current PSST infoboxes use; need to know whether I need to increase the number of rows, work on an infocard mode or do nothing at all).
 * Anyway, I'd also prefer the pages to be split. The current setup isn't very practical for readers as the current games are drowned somewhere in the middle of the page, the infoboxes are big walls of text and - especially on the skill and stat pages - there's usually too much stuff on a single page for my liking. In addition, having to use level 4 headings is never a good thing in my book. -- Porter21 (talk) 21:16, October 9, 2011 (UTC)


 * My vote is in line with GhostAvatar. Overview plus individual game pages works excellently for everything else, so why not roll it out to PSST? --Actreal 03:46, October 13, 2011 (UTC)

I'm also in favor of splitting the PSST pages into per game pages. The infoboxes are becoming too long and a future game would even make it even more so. We've done per game pages for creatures, robots and items and the overview of things has improved, making the relevant information easier accessible. Jspoel  19:37, October 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above comments, and for the same reasons. Splitting the pages would be much cleaner and more user-friendly. I am also not averse to the resultant sparse content on some pages. If there's only so much to be said about something on a page, then so be it. -- FourWayDiablo (talk) 20:07, October 14, 2011 (UTC)

Content of overview page?
Since there seems to be a consensus that the "one page per game" model should be used, the next step is figuring out what should be on the overview page. While certain elements (like Gamearticlelist) are a given, sections like "Variants" are less applicable to this kind of pages. Thoughts?

P.S. Apologies for the slow pace of this discussion; I got a little distracted by the infobox stuff. Going to speed it up now. -- Porter21 (talk) 19:13, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Overview page layout
Change 'Variants' to 'Games' or 'In games' with a (limited 1 paragraph) overview of the PSST for that game and respective image if it differs from game to game. User Avatar talk.png 11:36, October 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * The question for me is what the overview per game would contain. Overview pages are not supposed to contain actual stats or "hard numbers" in order to avoid duplication of info, and there's little to be written about e.g. a perk from an in-universe perspective. -- Porter21 (talk) 13:24, October 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * I always find it easier to visualise things with an example. I've made a concept of a Perk overview page in my sandbox, with split pages in the overview box here. Planning to make some examples for a stats, skill and trait. Feel free to change things for the better. Jspoel [[file:Speech Jspoel.png|10px|link=User talk:Jspoelstra]] 17:39, October 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * Added a skill example in my sandbox. Tried to get the overview page as compact as possible. Jspoel [[file:Speech Jspoel.png|10px|link=User talk:Jspoelstra]] 21:43, October 17, 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems it will just need some creative writing to avoid duplicating information. I think Jspoelstra's Science example works well. (Perhaps add a link to the Skill overview page in the Lead section for extra clarity.) Consciously avoiding stats in the text will shape the content, allowing the links to do the rest. If this leaves only a clear single sentence then that's all it needs. -- FourWayDiablo (talk) 17:58, October 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the example looks good. One little thing I'd change is the intro sentence; I'd rather have it say "XYZ is a perk/primary statistic/secondary statistics/skill/trait in the SPECIAL system". Just saying "is a perk (for example)" seems a bit... "unfinished" (for lack of a better term), and describing what the PSST does should only be in the game-specific sections in my opinion (for easier maintenance/improved consistency across pages).
 * I think it'd also be good to make the game sections sub-sections of "Incarnations" (just an example, basically a suitable replacement for "Variants"). This way we'd get a better structure in case a "Behind the scenes" or the aforementioned section for similar skills in other games is added to an overview page.
 * Otherwise, nice work :) -- Porter21 (talk) 12:20, October 24, 2011 (UTC)

"Similar" PSSTs
The thing that also need to be decided, is similar but different named PSST. For example VB's mechanics directs to repair. Should that still be included in the Repair overview page? User Avatar talk.png 11:36, October 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * Including similar skills with a different name or not is a tricky question. Personally, I'd lean towards not including them; I'd rather add a section called "similar skills in other games" and list them there. -- Porter21 (talk) 13:24, October 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * Just adding that there are some perks which are traits in other games (and vice versa), so we'd have to find a section name which suits these cases as well. -- Porter21 (talk) 12:26, October 24, 2011 (UTC)

JES, VB, LH, TORN
Think PSST's with very little information (like one sentence and one line in the infobox) can stay together on one page, even if they differ in stats, like Lionheart, JES, Van Buren. Has to be looked at on a per case base. Jspoel  21:43, October 17, 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been looking through the various Perk pages, and I came to the conclusion that some perks are also featured in Lionheart. Should they be split into their own pages, or be on the Fallout page? Personally, I think that they should be featured on their own pages, as they're in a different series of games entirely. Thoughts on this? Hugs [[file:MadeMan2.png|20px|link=User:Scarface11235]] "Say 'ello to my little friend!"


 * Well, I'm not all that fond of partial merges across completely different games because I think it's un-intuitive and hard to understand for readers ("Why does this not have its own page? The other games do..."). Plus I don't think it's really necessary. As I see it, there are primarily 4 games for which there's usually not that much actual content: J.E. Sawyer's RPG, Van Buren, Lionheart and TORN. Let's look at each of these individually:
 * JES: The info usually exists (see falloutpnp) but hasn't been filled in.
 * VB: The info usually doesn't exist. However, I don't see this as much different from VB items and other things which also get own pages.
 * LH/TORN: To be honest, I think it's time to discuss whether the TORN/Lionheart content is still relevant for the wiki at all. I know Ausir won't like it (-) ), but let's look at it logically:
 * These games are not Fallout games. And don't go quoting VA:CONTENT on me, the part about "incarnations of the SPECIAL system" was added specifically because of the LH/TORN content which already existed at the time the policy was written.
 * The reasoning for their content being here is/was that they 1) use the SPECIAL system, 2) were made by Black Isle and hence 3) may appear in slightly altered form in Fallout games later on (if I'm missing something, please say so).
 * In response to 1): While I know that the SPECIAL-system was invented for Fallout, I don't see that as a sufficient reason to include all later incarnations of it here.
 * In response to 2): Black Isle no longer exists. Obsidian (which is as close to an inofficial successor as it gets) did not re-use any LH- or TORN SPECIAL-content in FNV, nor did the available info for VB include any similarities.
 * In response to 3): They use completely different settings; those versions of SPECIAL are built around mechanics/races which do not exist in Fallout (for those unfamiliar with LH and TORN, they basically use medieval fantasy settings). For instance, magic is a central element for a lot of those skills/perks. The potential for re-usage seems minimal to me. If something would indeed be re-used in later Fallout games, an entry in an "Behind the scenes" section would be more than sufficient; no need to cover completely incompatible settings because of that.
 * In my opinion, there is little reader interest for these games.
 * Finally, it was fine for that content to be there as long as it was just an appendix on an otherwise FO-related page, but I really don't think it's important enough to warrant its own pages or twisting content structures around it which would work fine if it wasn't there.
 * So in summary, I don't think merging pages with little content is necessary, especially if we get rid of LH/TORN stuff. -- Porter21 (talk) 12:20, October 24, 2011 (UTC)

I agree to all your points there Porter, and I personally think that LH and TORN are an unnecessary part of the Wiki. It would also make the splitting of Perk pages a lot easier, I've discovered, if we could just drop all LH and TORN content entirely. As for merging (if we decide to remove LH and TORN) that leaves us with VB and JES, and those might as well get their own pages. On that I'm not even sure if JES deserves a place at all (Not sure on content policy there, though), it just happens to be developer made. So to summarise, this is what I think:

ADDENDUM Looking through VA:CONTENT I can't categorise JES as anything else than "fan" made, no matter if he was a developer, it was in no way official or supported by any entity such as Black Isles or Interplay. I'm quite inclined towards its removal. Hugs  "Say 'ello to my little friend!"
 * Drop LH and TORN entirely and focus on Fallout, not every little runaway cousin of the games statistical system. They might be similar, but they aren't part of the Fallout games franchise.
 * Van Buren perks have their own pages, everything else VB does.
 * Personally I want to drop the JES perks entirely, as they are featured on the Fallout PnP wiki even, and I see no point in them being here as they aren't featured, or meant to be featured, in any game at all.


 * I can agree on dropping Lionheart, JES and Torn as there as very little interest. Fallout 1, 2 and 3, Tactics, Van Buren and let's not forget Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 1 and 2 will then remain. We can move forward now I'd say. I've changed my examples a bit; removed the game headers from the overview page (I didn't like the 'double' game-listing) and added a divider line (is that good english?) to separate them. And it looks to me that the game appearance can move from below the infobox-image to above it, just like every other page with an infobox. So for a perk it would say: Fallout 1, Fallout 2 perk. Jspoel [[file:Speech Jspoel.png|10px|link=User talk:Jspoelstra]] 18:00, October 28, 2011 (UTC)


 * Could you post an example? I've actually been spending some free time of mine on pre-splitting some perk pages in separate documents, so if you could modify your sandbox appropriately and link it I could adapt my drafts as well. When is will this thing get "on the road", so to speak? Hugs [[file:MadeMan2.png|20px|link=User:Scarface11235]] "Say 'ello to my little friend!"


 * Not sure what you mean. I already added a perk example in this thread, see User:Jspoelstra/sandbox2. And where is your sandbox? I couldn't find something related to this topic. Jspoel [[file:Speech Jspoel.png|10px|link=User talk:Jspoelstra]] 22:01, October 28, 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, thank you, didn't see that you've already changed that. But no, I don't have it on the Wiki, I have it in normal textdocs on my computer since they run ever so much smoother than the wiki. I've split... 4 or 5 I think, disambiguations and all. I could paste one over into a sandbox to show you how I made them, but since mirrored them after your example there shouldn't be any problems. Hugs [[file:MadeMan2.png|20px|link=User:Scarface11235]] "Say 'ello to my little friend!"

What do you think of this as a replacement for the "Games" section in Jspoel's example (keep in mind that the images and icons would link to the game-specific perk page)? I agree with the double/triple game listing being unnecessary, but I'm not a huge fan of using either. Regarding the infobox, I was already planning to move the overview page links into the header when the split happens, but it's good to see we agree on that :)

Regarding JES, I'm fairly neutral regarding its removal. I understand Scarface's point of it being fan-made since JES wasn't a dev at the time, but on the other hand I also understand if people see it as different from other fan-made material due to him being a dev before and after he created JES. I'd be fine to go along with whatever the community decides. -- Porter21 (talk) 10:04, October 29, 2011 (UTC)


 * As for the disambiguation overhaul, I like it, streamlines the page nicely. As for JES, I stand by it being removed. As I see it it really doesn't matter if a developer does it independently from the game company. Only if he/she does it in any sort of "official manner", so to speak, should it be included. Otherwise it's just said person's free time, where he/she is a private person, not a Fallout developer. That's my opinion, anyway. Hugs [[file:MadeMan2.png|20px|link=User:Scarface11235]] "Say 'ello to my little friend!"


 * I disagree with dropping JES. It might not be official, but as long as it's marked as non-canon, I do think it's within the scope of the wiki, especially given that a lot of his work on the PnP influenced the development of New Vegas. It has historical significance for Fallout as something created by lead designer of both VB and FNV between these games. I think that any other unofficial projects created by major developers of Fallout games should also be covered. Ausir(talk) 09:03, October 30, 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is a solution. Include it in the overview page, but link it out to the PnP wiki. User avatar tag.gif Avatar talk.png 17:22, October 30, 2011 (UTC)
 * That, I think, would be the best solution. Hugs [[file:MadeMan2.png|20px|link=User:Scarface11235]] "Say 'ello to my little friend!"

I've added Porter's idea to my sandbox. Also adapted some links to the proper subpages. I've made it 3 columns instead of 4, otherwise it get too long with text. In the Fallout box, Fallout 2 and FOT appearance should also be added as it has the same info. Still, I don't know, it looks somewhat bulky and we would use a format that is different from other overview pages. My earlier version still isn't too bad I think. Also, giving VB its own page can cause some problems, in the Action Boy example it just has some stats and no textual information. Jspoel  01:42, October 31, 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm still not sure we need the descriptions at all - I guess the question is whether we're adding them because they're useful/needed or simply because we want to "pad" the page. As for using a format different from the other overview pages, I understand your concern but the PSST overview pages will end up looking different from the others either way (since the stuff which the current overview pages were created for, in-universe background info, simply doesn't exist for PSSTs). Plus with the number of pages we're looking at (roughly estimated ~300 overview pages) it's a large enough group that it can be different from the others in my opinion. I'll take another look when I get back. -- Porter21 (talk) 19:16, November 1, 2011 (UTC)

Layout for individual pages
What should go on the individual, game-specific pages? Going by the current content of the pages, we'll likely have to come up with separate layouts for perks/traits, stats and skills here; e.g. skills probably need a section about perks based on this skill which is naturally not needed on perk pages etc. So let's hear some suggestions :) -- Porter21 (talk) 19:16, November 1, 2011 (UTC)