A Wall of Text For Better Descriptions

[Borror0]

A large quantity of spell, item, feat, skill and enhancement in-game descriptions are incredibly vague and/or confusing to the point where a player cannot even know which between Rapid Shot and Rapid Reload is preferable to pick up on his crossbowman.

This is a problem for two reasons. First of all, unclear descriptions make it harder for new players to make informed build decisions and thus make it more likely to make a bad decisions putting them at a greater disadvantage compared to erudite veterans. Also, when your main forms of respecs are quite onerous, it is the very least to at least reduce chances of mistake to a minimum by having descriptions that competently describe each effect.

Secondly, since all the official entries in the DDO Compendium are imported from the in-game data, it is necessary for in-game descriptions to be of the most absolute clearness possible if Turbine intends for the Compendium to be used over other currently more complete and accurate unofficial sources.

The following are a series of suggestions to improve the current in-game descriptions.

1. Don't omit important information
To be honest, this one should go without saying yet it is the rule the less respected out of those I'll mention today. Whether it's a bonus missing like Jorgundal's Collar not mentioning it grants an Enhancement bonus to melee, Evasion not mentioning that it only works when wearing light or no armor or Shield Mastery not mentioning the amount of blocking DR it grants, all of it is unacceptable.

Usually, the omitted information falls into three categories:

1. Missing bonus type
2. Description not updated to reflect changes to the game
3. Missing numerical value

The missing bonus type on Jorgundal's Collar falls, of course, in the first category. Perhaps, at the time, the game designer felt it would be obvious that it was an Enhancement bonus since that was the only alacrity bonus type present at time. However, it was not that intuitive at the time and many players believed it was an untyped bonus only to be disappointed. That was then. Today, with Sacred, Competence and Insight alacrity bonuses in the game, it's even more likely one would believe the bonus on the collar is untyped.

This mistake is being made many times, using the very same logic that the designer might have used when creating the collar.

The reality is that every bonus should have a bonus type attached to it, at all times. Yes, this includes things like Defensive Stance's hate generation bonus or Paladin Hunter of the Dead I's healing amplification bonus - how else you expect us to know if different bonus stacks?

If it's an untyped bonus, tell us. If it stacks with some things but not others, create some bonus types so we can tell by reading the description.

Evasion not mentioning it does not work in medium or heavy armor is an example of description text not being updated to reflect changes being made to the game. Prior to Module 4.1, Evasion worked even when wearing heavy armor. Since then, it's been changed to work as per 3.5 D&D rules. However, that was two and a half years ago. I would suggest that as a part of your QA process that you go back and check for needed description changes any time any time there is a mechanics change, to avoid situations like this in the future.

Finally, Shield Mastery not mentioning the amount of blocking DR it grants falls into the last category. Formulations like "Increases the amount of damage you can absorb when defending with a shield" or "You can fire ranged attacks faster and reload faster when using a ranged weapon" do not tell us enough to make an informed decision.

2. Use the different terms for different things
On a few occasion, the same terms is used to refer to two different concept. In some cases, it is only slightly confusing but at other times it is outright misleading.

A particularly bad case of this are Dodge bonuses. If a Dodge bonus is found on an item, it stacks like Exceptional bonuses (ie bonuses of the same size don't stack); if a Dodge bonus comes from any other source such as a spell, a feat or a class ability, it stacks with all other Dodge bonuses even though they are of the same size and stack with Dodge bonuses from items. That's already particularly confusing but, just to make this slightly more confusing, if the Dodge bonus is on an item but comes from a Stone of Change ritual then it stacks with other bonuses of the same size.

Clearly, in that case, the two "Dodge bonuses" are in fact two different types of bonuses that stack differently and one of them should be renamed to avoid confusion. Preferably, the Dodge bonus that stacks like Exceptional bonuses should be renamed Exceptional Dodge bonus or something around those lines.

Another example of that include Enhancements vs Enhancement bonus. Considering that you can have a bonus from your enhancements, it may get very confusing in a discussion. Frequent forum poster have found ways around the issue but it can get more confusing for a newcomers who may not understand what is meant. It's certainly not an unsurmountable obstacle, in this case, but being cautious about not reusing terms already used in your game will avoid unnecessary confusions.

In fact, even similarly sounding terms can lead to unnecessary confusions as glancing blows and grazing hits have demonstrated.

3. Be clear about what is granted
What I mean here is best explained via examples, so that's what I'll do.

Fighter Armor Mastery I:
Gives you the ability to move better in armor, increasing the Maximum Dexterity Bonus on your armor by +1. You may still be restricted by your tower shield's max Dex bonus.

Fighter Armor Mastery II:
Gives you the ability to move better in armor, increasing the Maximum Dexterity Bonus on your armor by an additional +1. You may still be restricted by your tower shield's max Dex bonus

Ranger Tempest I:
Your training has greatly improved your ability to fight with two weapons at once, granting a 10% competence bonus to dual wield attack speed and a +2 shield bonus to armor class when two-weapon fighting. You may possess only one prestige enhancement line at a time for each class.

Ranger Tempest II:
Your training has continued to improve your two-weapon fighting abilities. You now gain a +3 shield bonus to armor class when two-weapon fighting, and your attack bonus penalty has been reduced by 1 for each hand.

If you take a look at how the two descriptions list their respective bonuses, you'll notice that one words increasing as "additional" while the other simply write the new value (+3 Shield bonus to AC) so say that the bonus is increased by 1. Now, this is an accurate way to describe what happens in each case if you happen to know the D&D rules. However, the inconsistency makes it harder for newbies (and some veterans) to grasp what is meant. "Do I gain +1 or +3 AC there?"

One solution would to get bonus type trigger-happy and literally type every single bonus but that would make some descriptions needlessly heavier when some things that don't require bonus types, such as extra turn attempts, and adds unnecessary complexity to each description.

The other, and better, solution is to further distinguish the two categories. The first category is being distinguished by being preceded with "additional" meaning that the bonus stacks with whatever other bonus a character might have received from previous bonus in the enhancement line. However, the second category is not accompanied with anything underlining the fact that this bonus does not stack with the bonuses granted by enhancements acquired earlier in the enhancement line.

This could be done by wording the improvement as "your [bonus type] has improved from a +X to a +Y [bonus type] bonus."

For example, Ranger Tempest II would become:

Your training has continued to improve your two-weapon fighting abilities, your Shield bonus to Armor Class has been improved from a +2 bonus to a +3 Shield bonus to armor class when two-weapon fighting, and your attack bonus penalty has been reduced by 1 for each hand.

4. Leave flavor text out of the rule text
The inclusion of flavor text that does not indicate how the feat works is harmful to the clarity of the message. First of all, in some cases like, the additional text can make the player wonder whether the additional text is meant to express an hidden effect or if it's just an added humorous line. A good example of this is Rogue Cheat Death where players were originally confused by what the last sentence meant. Secondly, it makes the description longer than necessary which is bad (see point #6 for more). Giving flavorful, non-rule text its own field like in-game items or Magic cards do would be a good compromise.

5. Avoid adding new rules that require the editing of several descriptions
I can only think of one such change but there might be more.

The way Heroic surge is to be implemented, several in-game descriptions can't ever reach the maximum duration given by the in-game tooltip. This is an issue because because, when evaluating the worth of a CC spell, one might decide of one over the other because of it lasts longer.

6. Be concise and aim for simplicity
Unlike this post, try to keep all descriptions as short as possible. Unnecessary verbosity and wordiness confuse the reader. DDO's character customization has so many moving parts that it can be complex even with very simple, to the point descriptions. A long list of effects loses its flavor and becomes an amorphous blob of abilities, anyway.

Pretty much all prestige enhancements are guilty of that one.

[Zenako]

+1 (like you need it...)

Long a pet peeve of many of us who actually read things in game...

[Borror0]

Talking about reading, Zenako, did you read it all? XD

[Missing_Minds]

The only possible issue I have is this.

4. Leave flavor text out of the rule text.

As a DM do you ALWAYS tell a player what the item does? No, you don't. And you certainly don't tell them if the item is cursed or not.

We do have that one ring that has 3 different setups that is vague on purpose. How better to explain such than with flavor?

The suggestions are solid, but nothing but number crunching gets boring.

[ddaedelus]

The only possible issue I have is this.

4. Leave flavor text out of the rule text.

As a DM do you ALWAYS tell a player what the item does? No, you don't. And you certainly don't tell them if the item is cursed or not.

We do have that one ring that has 3 different setups that is vague on purpose. How better to explain such than with flavor?

The suggestions are solid, but nothing but number crunching gets boring.

There is a big difference between withholding curse effects and similar things from players and withholding the type of info Borror0 is talking about.

Flavor text is fine. However, it should not be written to suggest that there are other powers if there are none (or vice versa).

Edit: Eh. What Borror0 said a few posts up.

[ddaedelus]

I read it all.

I know that the idea behind hiding the numbers in most games is so that new players will not be overwhelmed by information. The argument is that it is enough to say "makes it easier to hit enemies" rather than "adds 1.25% of the current value to hit chance" and that only the power gamer will complain otherwise.

That rationale fails in DDO (and in D&D in general). The system is simply too complicated to get away with glossing over the finer points of an feat or power. As you point out, all that results from such vagueness is players (new and old) who don't understand the rules.

All of which is a long way of saying /I agree.

[Zenako]

Talking about reading, Zenako, did you read it all? XD

Yup...while I don't always agree, I do pretty much always read entire posts...

you pointing to your mentioning of the upcoming HS feature ()...as something that not only affects in game affects but the descriptions of them as well. (which of course is complicated with the fact that the HS effect on spells is not uniform, but varies with external settings on the environment (Normal/Hard/Elite, etc) so trying to explain spell durations will now become a short paragraph for some...

[Borror0]

We do have that one ring that has 3 different setups that is vague on purpose. How better to explain such than with flavor?

The suggestions are solid, but nothing but number crunching gets boring.

Actually, I addressed that already, "Giving flavorful, non-rule text its own field like in-game items or Magic cards do would be a good compromise." Items already have their own field for flavor text. For example, Jinx Vexation reads "Maldetto's servant never grasped how to get the full power out of this mystical plate mail and never wondered why he always seemed to obey Maldetto's merest whim." which hints at the hidden -3 to Will saves effect.

[Gadget2775]

Exceptional post. Hope they look closely and have the time/resources to implement.

[Goldeneye]

Very well said. As a native English speaker, I often have to read a description twice. Especially with F2P I can't imagine the amount of confusion many descriptions could cause to someone who speaks english as a second language.

[Borror0]

Very well said. As a native English speaker, I often have to read a description twice. Especially with F2P I can't imagine the amount of confusion many descriptions could cause to someone who speaks english as a second language.

Heh. If you happen to remember a few particularly confusing ones, post them here.

I'm sure I could have found more examples for number 3, especially, but I figured that 1737 words was long enough for a post.

[FauxSho]

Exceptional post. Hope they look closely and have the time/resources to implement.

True, the insight bonuses from this post stack with other insight bonuses from other complete information sources, provided that they are not of the same magnitude.

[Borror0]

True, the insight bonuses from this post stack with other insight bonuses from other complete information sources, provided that they are not of the same magnitude.

That is the geekiest joke/compliment I have read in a long while. +rep

[Asketes]

bravo

[FauxSho]

bravo

Yeah, sure. Blame the guy who was cold and asked to turn up the heat by setting the thermostat to a slightly higher setting. It's surely his fault that some other people didn't actually listen but decided to burn down the house instead.

[Josh]

A great thread that has been completely ignored by the developers.

[Burtle]