Talk:Alpha Slot Abilities

Formatting

Yow. I'm thinking we need to take a look into alternate formatting options for those tables. --Eabrace 01:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

What about something like this. I imagine someone with more wiki-fu could cleanup the formatting but I think this illustrates the basic idea. CmdrAdeon 01:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Like I said in the edit comment, it was just a quickie. As in, for example. Just to get information in there for display. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 05:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Formatting Layout 1

Boost Name	ED Bypass	Level Shift	Endurance Reduction	Range	Resistance	Fear Duration	Sleep Duration	Intagibility Duration
Cardiac Boost	One-Sixth	No	33%
Cardiac Radial Boost	One-Third	No	33%		20%
Cardiac Radial Paragon	Two-Thirds	Yes	33%	20%	20%	33%	33%	33%

~ CmdrAdeon 01:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Formatting Layout 2

Hover over icons for more details.

	Boost	Core Boost	Radial Boost	Total Core Revamp	Partial Core Revamp	Partial Radial Revamp	Total Radial Revamp	Core Paragon	Radial Paragon
Rarity
Primary	33%	33%	33%	45%	33%	33%	33%	45%	33%
Secondary		20%	20%	20%	20% 20%	10% 20%	10% 20%	20% 20%	20% 20%
Tertiary						33%	33%		33% 33% 33%
ED Bypass	¹⁄₆	¹⁄₃	¹⁄₃	¹⁄₂	¹⁄₂	¹⁄₂	¹⁄₂	²⁄₃	²⁄₃
Level Shift

~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 19:36, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm a fan of this layout. It manages to incorporate all of the info in Layout 1 and provide it in an "at-a-glance" format. Just one question: are those icons extracted/copied from the web site or taken from screenshots (as in, do we need to grab cleaner versions when we we can?) --Eabrace

00:01, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I saved the Alpha Slot Boost images from the website, and then for rarity I photoshopped them into different colors. We need better images for the bases once they're available. I saved them from the website, which is built for a black background, so they look kind of trashy against a white background. The fraction pies and cross/check marks I made myself out of public domain clip-art. (Just noticed I forgot to give the fraction pies a transparent background...) ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 00:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I like it, it covers the basics and we can easily expand it to include the crafting requirements when those become known. My only quibble would by the ED bypass symbols. I can understand them since I know what the values already are but for someone not familiar with the system I think they'd be confusing. I would suggest just putting text there rather than pictures, I think it'll be less confusing. CmdrAdeon 00:40, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Added text to the images similar to the Pri/Sec/Ter trailing amounts. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 00:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I like a lot of things about the layout. It's clear and concise and I like some of the style choices you made (such as the checkboxes, which could potentially get good use elsewhere on the wiki as well). However, I do have two bits of feedback to consider:

The color coding for rarity needs to go. The game already color codes these icons for a different purpose. Adding a competing color coding on the same icons in the same context is just plain confusing. The game differentiates rarity with the style of the icon instead of its color. Use the set-appropriate icons, or perhaps use a grayscale version. Perhaps super-impose the text on top of them with a graphics program (ie. "Rare" overlaid on top of the icon) if you do not feel they differentiate well enough at that scale.
The fraction circles are ambiguous to interpret visually. You intend white to be treated as the foreground (filled in part). However, if the numeric fractions weren't alongside, I would have interpreted black as the foreground here since the page background is white. It sounds like you plan to remake these? If you do, consider a different color scheme. Perhaps use a primary color to represent the foreground, and a low-saturation color to represent the background? I'm not sure if that'd look good or not, just an idea.

Anyway, good job coming up with a clean tabular style for them. -- Sekoia 03:10, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Changed up the rarity code to use the implemented rarity icons. Not sure if they're visually different enough, but there is hover text on them, and they're displayed up top with text labels, so they should be good enough unless someone else can come up with a better idea. I was going with rarity color coding because it's easier "at a glance" telling between two colors instead of looking at the filigree on a 24px icon.

I am fiddling in Photoshop with the fraction pies still. I haven't come up with something I like yet.

~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 06:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Vertical Alignment

Arbitrary conversation break -Agge

Very nice work on the tables. :D It's a pity the numbers shift the icons out of vertical alignment though. Sera404 05:11, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

There's probably a way to "weight" that field to the right a little to center the icons and have the text be out of vertical alignment, but I have no idea how to do it. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 06:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Weighting it's not as easy as one might expect. I tried doing transparent text, but that doesn't work in MSIE. Instead, I did a weird trick with tables, but it'll only work if your browser width is pretty wide. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to hurt on narrower browser widths, so I applied it. -- Sekoia 01:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

It apparently didn't work at all. Not 100% sure what you were trying, but whatever it was doesn't show up in my FF3.6.3. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 06:38, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Darn! I checked MSIE and Chrome, but not Firefox. I assumed if Chrome worked, Firefox would -- guess that was a false assumption. I just checked in Firefox and it doesn't work in mine either. I have no idea why. I'm out of cross-browser fixes to try. Do we want to keep this since it works in Chrome & MSIE, or revert back so they're all consistent? -- Sekoia 17:19, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Consistency would probably be best, just so that if folks switch browsers they're not left wondering why the display is different in one vs the others. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 03:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. I reverted it back. -- Sekoia 03:44, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Aha! I found a solution that works in all three! And I created a template for it so it can be used elsewhere: {{CenterAlignIcon}} -- Sekoia 03:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Fraction Pies

Cut-and-pasted out of the above exchange. -Agge

The fraction circles are ambiguous to interpret visually. You intend white to be treated as the foreground (filled in part). However, if the numeric fractions weren't alongside, I would have interpreted black as the foreground here since the page background is white. It sounds like you plan to remake these? If you do, consider a different color scheme. Perhaps use a primary color to represent the foreground, and a low-saturation color to represent the background? I'm not sure if that'd look good or not, just an idea.

-- Sekoia 03:10, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I am fiddling in Photoshop with the fraction pies still. I haven't come up with something I like yet.

~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 06:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I twiddled around with the pies a little. Brought in transparency, light-yellow for the "foreground", dark-yellow for the "background". I tried one with a low saturation (making it whiter-but-not-white) but it looks very weird. Could possibly switch the two colors (dark-yellow for foreground, light-yellow for background). I'm also not "married" to having yellow by "THE" color. It was just the first color that clicked a little when I was fiddling. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 07:08, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Sixths-1.png GREEN means GO, RED means STOP

Sixths-2.png it's on a white background so the black stands out

Sixths-3.png saturated vs unsaturated

Sixths-4.png ParagonWiki's style colors :)

More twiddling. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 07:34, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

These all still seem ambiguous to me; none of them have a clear foreground versus background. (And red vs green fails for colorblind people.) Here's a thought: why not just omit the rest of the circle? So use something like the second style (black foreground, though perhaps a more wiki-friendly color) but omit the circle outline around the empty part. That way we're only seeing the relevant part of the pie and there's nothing to be ambiguous about. None of the ED bypass values are 0 or 1 so that shouldn't be an issue. -- Sekoia 15:14, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

test1.png ParagonWiki light blue wedge

test2.png ParagonWiki dark blue wedge

Probably the dark blue wedge would be better, though I really do like what I've been calling "ParagonWiki Blue" (haha). It just doesn't show up as well.

PS; The green/red one doesn't fail colorblind tests, as you claim - I made sure of that when I was testing colors. The green is a different saturation level and brightness vs the dark red, which according to Vischeck's colorblind checker shows up just fine - goldenrod for green and dark goldenrod for red. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 00:51, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I like these much better! Dark blue probably'll work better though I agree in finding the light blue generally more appealing. As for the PS, you missed my point on why the green/red one fails. Vischeck only tells you that a colorblind person can differentiate the two colors. That doesn't mean a colorblind person can identify them. "GREEN means GO, RED means STOP", but which one is green? I'm colorblind, and it fails my colorblindness test. :P -- Sekoia 01:17, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Images

Turns out, I uploaded the images back in August when the NDA on the beta was lifted.

--Eabrace 04:22, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Alpha Boost Recipes

Here are the components needed to craft the Alpha Boosts. I'll let someone else format it and place it accordingly since I don't know where it should go on the page.

Cardiac Boost (Common): Ancient Nictus Fragment (Common), Gr'ai Matter (Common), Hero 1 DNA Sample (Common)

Cardiac Core Boost (Uncommon): Cardiac Boost (Common), Dimensional Keystong (Common), Penumbra of Rularuu (Common), Vanguard DNA Metamatrix (Uncommon)

Cardiac Radial Boost (Uncommon): Cardiac Boost (Common), Gr'ai Matter (Common), Hero 1 DNA Sample (Common), Drop of the Well (Uncommon)

Musculature Boost (Common): Essence of the Incarnate (Common), Hero 1 DNA Sample (Common), Dimensional Keystone (Common)

Musculature Core Boost (Uncommon): Musculature Boost (Common), Gr'ai Matter (Common), Essence of the Incarnate (Common), Infinite Tessellation (Uncommon)

Musculature Radial Boost (Uncommon): Musculature Boost (Common), Penumbra of Rularuu (Common), Ancient Nictus Fragment (Common), Vanguard DNA Metamatrix (Uncommon)

Nerve Boost (Common): Dimensional Keystone (Common), Essence of the Incarnate (Common), Ancient Nictus Fragment (Common)

Nerve Core Boost (Uncommon): Nerve Boost (Common), Dimensional Keystone (Common), Hero 1 DNA Sample (Common), Incarnate Infused Nictus (Uncommon)

Nerve Radial Boost (Uncommon): Nerve Boost (Common), Essence of the Incarnate (Common), Penumbra of Rularuu (Common), Ifinite Tessellation (Uncommon)

Spiritual Boost (Common): Gr'ai Matter (Common), Ancient Nictus (Common), Essence of the Incarnate (Common)

Spiritual Core Boost (Uncommon): Spiritual Boost (Common), Ancient Nictus Fragment (Common), Penumbra of Rularuu (Common), Drop of the Well (Uncommon)

Spiritual Radial Boost (Uncommon): Spiritual Boost (Common), Hero 1 DNA Sample (Common), Dimensional Keystone (Common), Incarnate Infused Nictus (Uncommon)

--Riktasi 00:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Eabrace, are there special icons for these components? *nudge nudge wink wink* I couldn't find any in Category:Salvage Icons, but don't know if they're named differently (not beginning with Invention, or something like that). ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 00:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Ha! Well, that edit comment is certainly one way to get my attention. :)

There do appear to be a few salvage icons that aren't loaded onto the wiki, but they go back at least as far as I17's initial release. I don't know if they'll correspond to any of the Incarnate Components, but I'll upload them anyway. --Eabrace

01:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Here are the components that have been called out so far:

Ancient Nictus Fragment
Gr'ai Matter
Hero 1 DNA Sample
Dimensional Keystone
Penumbra of Rularuu
Vanguard DNA Metamatrix
Drop of the Well
Essence of the Incarnate
Infinite Tessellation
Incarnate Infused Nictus

--Eabrace

02:10, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's two options for the crafting table. I prefer the second table, as the first table is very squished and looks kind of messy. ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 06:19, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Formatting Table 1

	Boost	Core Boost	Radial Boost	Total Core Revamp	Partial Core Revamp	Partial Radial Revamp	Total Radial Revamp	Core Paragon	Radial Paragon
Rarity
etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.
Crafting	Ancient Nictus Fragment Gr'ai Matter Hero 1 DNA Sample	Cardiac Boost Dimensional Keystone Penumbra of Rularuu Vanguard DNA Metamatrix	Cardiac Boost Gr'ai Matter Hero 1 DNA Sample Drop of the Well

Formatting Table 2

	Boost	Core Boost	Radial Boost	Total Core Revamp	Partial Core Revamp	Partial Radial Revamp	Total Radial Revamp	Core Paragon	Radial Paragon
Rarity
etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.
Level Shift

	Crafting Requirements
Boost	Ancient Nictus Fragment Gr'ai Matter Hero 1 DNA Sample
Core Boost	Cardiac Boost Dimensional Keystone Penumbra of Rularuu Vanguard DNA Metamatrix
Radial Boost	Cardiac Boost Gr'ai Matter Hero 1 DNA Sample Drop of the Well

I agree. My preference was for the first format but now that I actually look at it it looks kinda funky. The only comment I have on the second one is that the tables are getting kinda big. Might we want to move them off onto separate pages? CmdrAdeon 17:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Formatting Table 3

	Boost	Core Boost	Radial Boost	Total Core Revamp	Partial Core Revamp	Partial Radial Revamp	Total Radial Revamp	Core Paragon	Radial Paragon
Rarity
etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.	etc.
Level Shift

Through DPL and templates, each boost has its own page with crafting requirements (and whether it's used in another boost (e.g. common)), and each component has its own page with what it's used in. I don't think the Alpha Slot article needs the crafting components in the page itself. Instead, just link to the boosts and put in a See Also for Incarnate Component and Incarnate Ability (non-existent pages as of this writing but created SOON™). ~ User:Aggelakis/Sig1 21:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Boost v. Ability

Because the Common and Uncommon abilities are named 'Boosts', 'boost' has been incorrectly used to describe the power that gets slotted into the Alpha Slot. 'Boost' only applies to the first two tiers. When the upper tiers become available, 'boost' will become antiquated. We should use the Devs' own term, "Abilities" for the powers that get slotted into the Alpha Slot. I've updated the language in the article to reflect that. Zombie Man 07:53, 3 January 2011 (UTC)