Shields Pages

I'll be taking all shields up so I'll learn eventually.

Hey, I wasn't paying much attention to the actual shields page before (the main one), I would just use it as a way to get to the shields, but I see now it needs work too.

For one, the tables are different from "Small Shields" to "Standard Shields" and "Greatshields". I prefer the small shields one, but either one is fine. Could use some homogeneity though.

The thing that annoys me, though, is the last column. On the small shields it says "Acquired From", which is useful, but the other shield sizes say "Description", and that's the one that annoys me. This page is supposed to list useful information at a glance. Knowing the shield's in-game description isn't really necessary information! That's the kind of thing you go to the actual shield's page for--you know, where you go to get detailed information.

But since this is a big portal page, and removing information isn't what we do on the Wiki, I'll hold off on making that change myself before I get the "go ahead" from some mods.

What I'm proposing is (on the main portal page):
1. Homogenize the tables.
2. Remove in-game description, put in-game location instead.

Yeah I've noticed that too but wasn't going to touch it yet, I completely agree with you that it could use work. I've run dry on souls and green shards... Fair warning to all, don't buy them from the Giant, he's a freaking tool :evil:

I almost have them done though, just got the greatshields left really.

Giant is the cheapest, though, isn't he? I think he charges less on all titanites than others.

Definitely don't go the douche Crestfallen merchant if you can avoid it!

I'm pretty sure and the wiki lists that the crestfallen sells at 4000, the wiki listed Giant as 2000 but it's actually 4800 and I changed it to that.

Thank god for my secret stash of souls, bumped myself up to 200,000 should be plenty to finish fire and start on magic a bit.

BLA1NE wrote:The thing that annoys me, though, is the last column. On the small shields it says "Acquired From", which is useful, but the other shield sizes say "Description", and that's the one that annoys me. This page is supposed to list useful information at a glance. Knowing the shield's in-game description isn't really necessary information! That's the kind of thing you go to the actual shield's page for--you know, where you go to get detailed information.

But since this is a big portal page, and removing information isn't what
we do on the Wiki, I'll hold off on making that change myself before I
get the "go ahead" from some mods.

What I'm proposing is (on the main portal page):
1. Homogenize the tables.
2. Remove in-game description, put in-game location instead.

I always planned on moving the descriptions and other detailed information to the individual pages, descriptions in particular is kind of 'special interest' so it shouldn't matter. I actually moved all the small shield descriptions last weekend, so that's why they show 'location' only now. I'm mostly focused on getting information onto the pages, and then do the formatting later, even though it's twice the amount of work..

I also have a question: The 'Aux Effects' of shields. Is it really needed? Only the Spiked Shield and Divine upgraded shields have any kind of auxillary effects. There will be more room for Deflection, Location and other information if that coloumn is removed. Poison and Occult could at least be removed.

Don't see it as needed, if it doesn't really exist. If it was redundant that would be a different story but since it is mostly non-existent I'm of the same mind. The Spike Shield bleed can just be called out in the last column.

ublug wrote:I always planned on moving the descriptions and other detailed information to the individual pages, descriptions in particular is kind of 'special interest' so it shouldn't matter. I actually moved all the small shield descriptions last weekend, so that's why they show 'location' only now. I'm mostly focused on getting information onto the pages, and then do the formatting later, even though it's twice the amount of work..

I also have a question: The 'Aux Effects' of shields. Is it really needed? Only the Spiked Shield and Divine upgraded shields have any kind of auxillary effects. There will be more room for Deflection, Location and other information if that coloumn is removed. Poison and Occult could at least be removed.

Oh, because they didn't all have individual pages before a few days ago, gotcha!

For Auxiliary Effects, on the individual pages' tables, we could remove all of them but Divine. Leave that one there since every shield can have that one if upgraded along that path. But for Bleed, we'll just put a note somewhere on the Spiked Shield's page. On the main page, we can remove the Aux Effects altogether, and the last column can become "location and notes". There we'll put info where to acquire the shield, and notes like a special R2 function (Crystal Ring and Havel's) and Bleed for Spiked.

BLA1NE wrote:

ublug wrote:I always planned on moving the descriptions and other detailed information to the individual pages, descriptions in particular is kind of 'special interest' so it shouldn't matter. I actually moved all the small shield descriptions last weekend, so that's why they show 'location' only now. I'm mostly focused on getting information onto the pages, and then do the formatting later, even though it's twice the amount of work..

I also have a question: The 'Aux Effects' of shields. Is it really needed? Only the Spiked Shield and Divine upgraded shields have any kind of auxillary effects. There will be more room for Deflection, Location and other information if that coloumn is removed. Poison and Occult could at least be removed.

Oh, because they didn't all have individual pages before a few days ago, gotcha!

For Auxiliary Effects, on the individual pages' tables, we could remove all of them but Divine. Leave that one there since every shield can have that one if upgraded along that path. But for Bleed, we'll just put a note somewhere on the Spiked Shield's page. On the main page, we can remove the Aux Effects altogether, and the last column can become "location and notes". There we'll put info where to acquire the shield, and notes like a special R2 function (Crystal Ring and Havel's) and Bleed for Spiked.

That summation is going to be the best course of action imo. It'll clear up all of that white space and give us the flexibility to expound other features like deflection.

Done and done! (I noticed a bit late that I didn't color the text blue for the damage reduction numbers... Sorry, but I'm not gonna do that!)

I think tomorrow I'll take a crack at editing the text up top. It's way too wordy, not all useful, and missing some information.

And maybe put the key at the bottom of the page.

As it is, there's way too many things at the top of the page before you get to the actual shields...

Sounds like good changes, and I agree also with the aux effects, they are rather pointless for shields and not really needed. I won't start editing yet but I can in the morning while I'm finishing fire / starting magic, if I'm given the go ahead.

Regarding the formatting of the shields page:

I started working on getting the nice layout with the icons and then discovered that, for some reason, the page was displaying all screwed up in 1280x720 resolution monitors.

I have tried everything I can think of to fix it with no luck, so if anyone wants to jump in and see if they get more luck please do. I can afterwards update the other 2 columns to be in the icon format.

I did just the small shield so we can see and decide if it's better this way, or we can easily revert it:

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Small+Leather+Shield

Just removed the other 3 auxiliary columns.


@Fex

What's the problem when you're 1280x720? I'm in 1280x800 and the pages look fine to me.

It looks cleaner, what about crit damage? We could leave it on Pierce/Spiked/Bonewheel as they are really the only 'attack' based shields. I'm also curious on removing the 0's in the attack column and replace them with dashes. It does clutter it up and would look much nicer in my opinion.

As for resolution I just swapped over and at least Small Leather looked fine.

Do shields even do crit damage? I think they can't backstab, let alone riposte, no?

And personally I prefer dashes to 0s. Makes it easier to read without all those 0s everywhere.

Better now?

http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Small+Leather+Shield

Or were 0s better?

I don't really know, I imagine they could and if you're using say pierce shield with hornet ring give someone a nasty surpise with a backstab. In any case every shield has crit damage at 100 so could we note that on the main page perhaps if it seems worthwhile?

That looks way more appealing and easy to my eyes, doing it that way leaving crit damage on the first row than dashing it out on the rest wouldn't be bad at all.

That could be misleading though.

I'd really like confirmation on the backstabbing though, because I'm pretty sure they can't. Then we could take out that column completely, since it'd be irrelevant.

Yeah, it also begins to look pretty empty without it, but taking out the 0's and unneeded auxiliary did alot of good. I'm going to head to bed and tomorrow I'll start formating pages like that.

It seems the problem has minimized since the update to wikispaces overall formatting. Yay. It's still not perfect as the table is supposed to be wider but its readable unlike before.

Shields can't backstab or riposte, I don't know if critical affects falling attacks and counter damage (if those can even be done with a shield). But all shields have 100 critical, and that info is on the main shields page, so it shouldn't need a special note.
For dashes vs 0s just do what you prefer, dashes looks fine to me. I usually just do like it's done on the in-game menu. 0s are used for the attack values and dashes for param bonus and aux? It shouldn't cause any confusion either way.

I did a quick test, one without critical and one without critical and auxillary:
http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/test+page

I moved the detailed shields text to a separate page: http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Shields+Explained
I'll rename it if someone has a better name for the page than 'Shields Explained'.

Also moved the key and formatting sample to the bottom of the page: http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Shields

No critical for shields, I tried both in PVE and PVP without luck.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Critical column? Gone! (Yes?)