Guide: Selectable Entry in Guide Contents for each Stage in the Roadmap

[bladesoframen]

Summary of the problem:

Most games do not have their trophies in order of when they should be achieved, as a result, people playing the game with a guide will frequently have to jump between the roadmap and the description of the trophy to get next. However, if the guide writer want to make more specific steps or has a long game in general, the writer is going to use a lot of stages of sizable length, creating a very long and hard to reference roadmap.

 

Request:

Under Roadmap in the right guide contents sidebar, there should be a little tab for each stage dynamically generated and deleted upon the creation of each stage to help facilitate navigation.

[TheYuriG]

I remember suggesting to Sly on the chat to make the trophy order in guides selectable by guide writter's choice, I remember that whoever did the Contrast guide used his guide and the trophy list as suggestion to help with this. Don't remember what was the answer I got, but I'm pretty sure this will be possible on the next major update.

Edited November 4, 2016 by TheYuriG

[damon8r351]

I'd at one point suggested that there also be another variety of tag, located under the trophy image for each trophy description, that tells you what roadmap stage the trophy belongs to. Probably you could also click the tag and it would scroll you back up to the appropriate roadmap stage, making navigation easier.

 

All I got in response was a member of the guide team telling me how stupid he thought the idea was when it was plain he didn't completely understand it. I just locked the thread and gave up because I'm steadily losing my patience for dealing with other people.

[Andrea]

Good idea, this is a bit of a pain when writing guides too. I'd much prefer being able to order the trophies prior to writing, then just go through and not have to be jumping back and forth constantly. This is seriously slowing down my work on the Madden 12 guide as it is such a tremendous pain in the ass to keep going back and forth between related trophies to make sure everything is consistent. If we had what you're suggesting in place I could group all the similar sorts of trophies together and not have to try to remember which ones were which.

 

A tag for each stage isn't a bad idea, but given how many people use stages looking something like step 1. play the game and step 2. cleanup, I don't think it would be quite as helpful.

[damon8r351]

A tag for each stage isn't a bad idea, but given how many people use stages looking something like step 1. play the game and step 2. cleanup, I don't think it would be quite as helpful.

 

Depends on the game. The guide I did for Pier Solar would benefit from this because the game has multiple points where things become missable, so I divided the roadmap into stages equal to those points. On the other hand, I couldn't do that for Rebel Galaxy because it's a big sandbox that has nothing missable. Or the guide that inspired me to make the suggestion in the first place, Dishonored, whose writer suggested certain tasks be done during certain playthroughs. Found myself scrolling through the trophy list, pen and scrap paper in hand, asking myself "Which playthrough is this for?" and scrolling back to the roadmap on top, thinking "There's got to be a better fuckin' way." So yes, roadmaps in guides could stand for a bit more quality control (hint hint), but some games do not support multi-stage roadmaps. A lot do.

[Andrea]

Depends on the game. The guide I did for Pier Solar would benefit from this because the game has multiple points where things become missable, so I divided the roadmap into stages equal to those points. On the other hand, I couldn't do that for Rebel Galaxy because it's a big sandbox that has nothing missable. Or the guide that inspired me to make the suggestion in the first place, Dishonored, whose writer suggested certain tasks be done during certain playthroughs. Found myself scrolling through the trophy list, pen and scrap paper in hand, asking myself "Which playthrough is this for?" and scrolling back to the roadmap on top, thinking "There's got to be a better fuckin' way." So yes, roadmaps in guides could stand for a bit more quality control (hint hint), but some games do not support multi-stage roadmaps. A lot do.

 

That's a good point. For me with games like that I usually copy + paste the names to a word document for each playthrough (if it's truly something intricate and not just playthrough 1 no deaths playthrough 2 kill everything or something like that which could be easily remembered.) In this regard .org is much better because you can clear out all the filler/story related trophies so there's a little less clutter. I know a feature of that sort is coming to psnp with the next update so that will definitely be a step in the right direction.

 

I wasn't even implying that some guide writers are lazy in making the roadmap because there really are a ton of games with a large clean-up stage (most sport games probably fit this bill to a degree,) but yeah I guess I've seen some like that as well.

[Dragon-Archon]

I'd at one point suggested that there also be another variety of tag, located under the trophy image for each trophy description, that tells you what roadmap stage the trophy belongs to. Probably you could also click the tag and it would scroll you back up to the appropriate roadmap stage, making navigation easier.

 

All I got in response was a member of the guide team telling me how stupid he thought the idea was when it was plain he didn't completely understand it. I just locked the thread and gave up because I'm steadily losing my patience for dealing with other people.

So expressing my opinion isn't allowed? And please tell me where do you see me saying "how stupid the idea is when it's plain I don't completely understand it".

 

A tag for each stage isn't a bad idea, but given how many people use stages looking something like step 1. play the game and step 2. cleanup, I don't think it would be quite as helpful.

It's weird how you say something similar to me, but now damon writes a response to discuss it instead of taking it personal.

[bladesoframen]

I didn't expect such personal arguments to happen here.

 

While reordering of the trophies does fix most of the same issues, it doesn't exactly help if you have missables early on in the game but has the corresponding trophy pop much later in the game. You're forced to write such notes in either a summary like the roadmap or in the notes of a storyline trophy (usually both). As a result, having the roadmap be always accessible felt like a slightly better choice for me.

 

That's a good point. For me with games like that I usually copy + paste the names to a word document for each playthrough (if it's truly something intricate and not just playthrough 1 no deaths playthrough 2 kill everything or something like that which could be easily remembered.) In this regard .org is much better because you can clear out all the filler/story related trophies so there's a little less clutter. I know a feature of that sort is coming to psnp with the next update so that will definitely be a step in the right direction.

 

I wasn't even implying that some guide writers are lazy in making the roadmap because there really are a ton of games with a large clean-up stage (most sport games probably fit this bill to a degree,) but yeah I guess I've seen some like that as well.

 

As damon brought up with Pier Solar, multi stages mostly apply for games like RPGs that are extremely linear in nature and usually have more missables, or decisions on how to efficiently approach the order of things.

[damon8r351]

So expressing my opinion isn't allowed? And please tell me where do you see me saying "how stupid the idea is when it's plain I don't completely understand it".

 

It's weird how you say something similar to me, but now damon writes a response to discuss it instead of taking it personal.

 

Sometimes, it's all about how you frame a response. Yours was an outright rejection from the word go and how it wouldn't work. Hers was a "might work, but...". Like it or not, your position as something of a sort of staff and the opinion associated with it carries more of an implied weight than someone else, hence someone just saying "Fuck it" when the first reaction from such a person isn't somewhat akin to "I'm listening...".

 

Expressing your opinion is never disallowed. What I think of it is another story entirely.

Edited November 4, 2016 by damon8r351

[Andrea]

I guess it all comes down to adding more tools to the arsenal of a guide writer. I don't think it's applicable or helpful for 100% of guides but as long as it's just another option and it's something that is clearly explained I'm all for it (assuming it's feasible.)

 

Something like collectibles or multiple decisions throughout the game required to get a certain trophy at the end of a game would certainly complicate the ordering process, I suppose in that instance the best option would be to put it in the order where it first comes up, then trust the reader to either keep that tab open OR (and i don't think this is a good idea with tons of collectibles but maybe with something that would only require 3-4 more appearances) allow the same trophy to show up multiple times in the ordered list.