Team Fortress Wiki:Discussion/Archive 34

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Suggestion: Redundant Categories Bot

I'm not sure how hard or easy it'd be to do this, but I think there should be a bot that trawls the wiki for categories, files, and pages that are part of both a category and a sub-category, then removes them from the redundant super-categories. For example, an image of the Spy doesn't need to be in both [[Category:Images]] and [[Category:Spy images]], because "Spy images" are categorized as "Images" -- it already effectively is an "Image" by virtue of being a "Spy image." So the bot would remove the [[Category:Images]] markup from the page. Kestrelguy (talk) 22:08, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

 Yes. Solid idea. I'd like to work on it. — Tark lm(pt-br) 00:02, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Zombies

The wiki main page now shows the zombie versions of the mercs. Error? Mikere (talk) 09:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

It's full moon. Please use the talk page for the main page next time.
GrampaSwood (talk) 09:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

adding a Rewards item section

This section would cover items like the Professor Speks, or Mann Co. Cap. Items that are not unlocked through achievements, but rather though tasks that a player would happen to do. By doing this it would not only give newer players another reason to play, (completing tasks in exchange for a reward), but it would also let older player who might not know about certain things a chance to learn about something new. (not to mention the fact that to get the Professor Speks, you need to be upgrading your account to premium and you will have to be recommended by a friend, the player might hear about this and want to get the hat themselves, then telling THEIR friends about TF2, making more and more people know about TF2).

I feel like this could be a good addition, and I already wrote some of the hats down! (even though I accidentally did it on the main page lol).

Regards, Ears4you107 (talk) 20:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)Ears4you107

These are already listed on the promotional items page, don't really see a need for a separate page unless there are a significant amount of items.
GrampaSwood (talk) 23:02, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Topics to get you a wiki cap?

What do you do that gets a high moderator to notice your profile and start a pole on whether or not a user can get a wiki cap? Ears4you107 (talk) 17:48, 12 March 2021 (UTC)Ears4you107

See this page for more information.
GrampaSwood (talk) 17:54, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Subclasses in the community strategy pages?

I think some "subclasses" deviate a lot from the standard style of play (E.g. Ninjaneer) and have many different combinations of weapons that they can't be put inside of the weapon combo section without an unreasonably long paragraph next to it. Something similar perhaps to Demoknight?
GrampaSwood (talk) 16:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I think that this should happen, there are definitely certain subclasses such as: the "Ninjaneer", or the Trolldier..., all of these subclasses deviate significantly from there original class, so giving them they're own sunsection in the community strategy for them is justifiable?Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 16:51, 20 March 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

 Support I also like this idea. Kestrelguy (talk) 22:17, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Do we do anything for April Fools?

Like maybe changing all the text to the comic sans font and changing the logo to a horribly made recreation in ms paint? Danimations (talk) 18:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

We did that back in 2019, actually. See TFW:April Fools' Day/2019/Main Page. You may take a look at User:GrampaSwood/AprilFools2021 for further details on our latest preparations. We do have some behind-the-scenes changes in the works, but that won't be revealed to the public until release.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 19:12, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

That's even better then I expected it to be. Danimations (talk) 20:00, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

KoTH Slaughter?

Custom maps are a pretty tricky topic to cover, but would Slaughter be a good candidate for a page? After all, it's what Laughter is based on and is favorable among players in Creators.tf. ShadowMan44 (talk) 00:40, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Sure, if its Halloween map was already added in my opinion · Ashe (talk) 02:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Weapons' Shot Type and Damage Type

In the recent zh-hans project, we solved multiple translation problems and improved translation accuracy of the zh-hans side of TF Wiki. A pretty big problem was found in this project by User_talk:ApertureLab and can not be solved only through that project, I reworded and rearranged them in English and put it here for discussion:

• All kind of Flame Throwers' Shot Type is currently "Particle", but the Projectiles page have a "Flames" sections. Flame Throwers indeed throws "particles" but technically they are just "Projectiles". The Shot Type of all Flame Throwers should be changed to "Projectiles".

• Short Circuit's Primary Fire Shot Type is listed "Area of Effect", which is false, it is actually "Hitscan" but with limited range.

• Short Circuit's Secondary Fire Damage type is "Projectiles", which is false. "Projectiles" is not Damage Type, it is Short Circuit's Shot Type. And this leads to a bigger problem: Short Circuit is a dual Shot Type weapon, it is both "Projectiles" and "Area of Effect". Is there anything look alike? Flames from Flame Throwers? Rockets from Rocket Launcher? Furthermore, in the Projectiles page there is a "List of projectiles"; The Short Circuit's Secondary Fire electricity orb is not included in the list, and it should be.

• Along with the above questions, we do not have a page that talks about the whole thing of "Area of Effect". The Mad Milk, Gas Passer and Jarate all has a "Area of Effect" Effect. The baubles from Wrap Assassin can also deal "Area of Effect" damage. And heck, What about the Compression blast? It is also a kind of "Area of Effect" but with limited angles. Also the explosion of Rockets from Rocket Launchers that can deal "Area of Effect" splash damage. Maybe some taunts can deal "Area of Effect" damage like Gas Blast. We don't have a "Area of Effect" page that talks about their affect range or "How big exactly is the area of 'Area of Effect'?", their effects or "Is there any difference about the Rocket explosion and Sticky explosion?", and things like effect fall-off factors of different "Area of Effect", etc.

I have a extra question:

• Flying Guillotine have a "Untyped" Damage Type. What is it exactly? Isn't it like Sandman's baseball that cause 0 damage and just gives effects? Why the obvious ranged baseball is listed in "Ranged or Melee damage?" as "Melee" damage?

These are some serious problems that can take significant amount of times to fix and affects lots of the weapons pages. For reference, I put a list of all Shot Types and Damage Types currently used in the TF Wiki here:

Shot Types	Example Page
Projectile	Rocket Launcher
Hitscan	Shotgun
Melee	Bat
Impact	Thermal Thruster
Untyped	Flying Guillotine
Area of effect	Huo-Long Heater
Particle	Flame Thrower

Damage Types	Example Page
Bullet	Shotgun
Explosive	Rocket Launcher
Fire	Flame Thrower
Dual-type (fire and bullet)	Flare Gun
Projectile	Short Circuit
Falling	Thermal Thruster

---

Alex┋T 17:33, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Add Falling to the Damage Types list, fix typos. Alex┋T 02:44, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm just going to paste what I said in IRC here: as far as I recall this is a problem we've had in english even and I'm not personally sure how to deal with it. Especially because I'm more code oriented and don't do loc. There's not much we can do about it besides try to be contextually appropriate when discussing engine-behavior versus user-facing behavior. (i.e. when dealing with users, you want to describe particle effects that behave as projectiles as projectiles, and use the full technical term when dealing with documentation relating to Source). Sorry if I'm not understanding the issue fully. I saw someone note this in IRC and was annoyed no one else responded. -- Lagg 22:30, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Maybe we should do this:

• Make a clear line on the damage caused by the "weapon" itself and the "projectile from the weapon":

• If the weapon itself causes damage, like hitscan, melee, impact, don't change "Damage and function times" template.
• If the projectile from the weapon causes damage, break the template to 2 parts:

• The weapon itself part: Shot type is projectile, and include the projectile it shoot, the initial speed, the attack interval and reload time etc.
• The projectile part: The damage type, the damage it causes, the area of effect it causes, maybe the effect it give.
• Here are some concepts:[1]

• If we doing above, then most of the problem can be solved easily:

• No more Flame Throwers' problem. Flame Throwers' Shot type will be Projectile, and the damage type of the Projectile "fire particle" will be Fire.
• Short Circuit's Primary Fire Shot Type is "Hitscan" but with very limited range.
• Short Circuit's Secondary Fire Shot Type is "Projectiles". The damage type of the Projectile "electricity orb" will be something to discover, the "electricity orb" has an Area of Effect to destroy some Projectiles.
• All other projectile weapons can be listed the same way as above: Cleaver from Flying Guillotine, Baseball from Sandman etc.

• A "Area of Effect" Page is something still need to be discussed. Do we really need it?

--Alex┋T 05:52, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Updated the concept link. If this solution is OK, maybe I can make a new template and replace the Template:Damage table in all the pages.--Alex┋T 06:08, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Again really testing the limits of my specialization here. But I *personally* like the concepts. So long as we make sure to verify that it's in line with the actual behavior. Also we'll want to make sure to standardize it so that the damage / particle types match how many of each there are in the engine. As far as AoE goes. I'm not sure what would go on such a page. Valve's own docs don't even go into that much detail on projectiles (or much detail at all really, which is annoying). Keep in mind though the sort of behavior being documented is super-subtle and very often irrelevant to the user.

Before trying to add a whole new system of categorization, I'd suggest first making sure there's no way to localize this stuff such that it fits your lang taking into account that developers tend to make puns and informal language in engine code/docs. I sure as heck appreciate the desire to be precise, but we're not doing technical documentation on the related pages. It's okay for example if there's a degree of ambiguity for what "particles" mean as related to the game-development concept versus "particles and debris from fire" sort of particle. Because as far as the **end user** - who is the main reading audience of the wiki - is concerned. Particles mean the visual effects from the game model. -- Lagg 11:19, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

On the Fire page, the "particle" is the name for the projectile produced by flamethrowers, and the visual effects is not connected to it directly. This can be easily observed by using sv_cheats and tf_debug_flamethrower commands. For end users of this wiki, these are just not the same thing. And I do know that on VDC the flame entity uses a different name called tf_flame which is different from the other projectiles entities; however, just as you say, the end users of this wiki, which I think are common players, will still feel the flame particles are similar to the traditional projectiles. ApertureLab (talk) 15:05, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

to make things more complicated, check out the patch notes for the October 14, 2021 Patch. specifically, the third change for Erebus: "Changed damage type from shock to bullet in underworld." I don't know what to derive from this. Kestrelguy (talk) 00:57, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Please don't use quotation on talk pages, it messes up the layout of the rest of the page. What this means is that the damage you receive in the underworld is affected by vulnerabilities and resistances. I.e. vaccinator bullet resistant means you take less damage.
GrampaSwood (talk) 10:20, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

"Helpful overview" not fitting with the wiki

I've seen a good addition to the map articles: the helpful overviews. However, they look confusing and doesn't fit with the Wiki style in my opinion. So, i'm proposing using this template from comp.tf to the overviews, with some additions (color of the marker for specific locations, etc). Also, this will require some changes on these images (removing lines and replacing them with coloured areas only for bases and etc). This would need a change in the common.css page.
This is an example of how it would look like · Ashe (talk) 02:45, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Dereko strongly support your idea, Ashe. The template would provide a better overview, also make it easier to apply changes.

The current way we present is not flexible at all (imagine one should remake and reupload an overview image only to make changes for one location). 13:24, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

 Support Solid idea! I'll set some time aside and work on it sometime next month if this is what we're going with. I'll probably make some improvements to the visuals as well. Also, on a little side note, I'd advise you to link large images instead of embedding them into the page as it take up quite a lot of space and can be somewhat distracting. I'd suggest merging the two images together and link them as one.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 19:30, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

 Oppose Come one man...I've spent the whole previous week just studying the layout of the maps, drawing the lines and making them as accurate as they could be and then uploading the images, categorizing them and finnaly inserting them into the article they were supposed to be in (And also adding all the neccesary details which come with the image such as that peice of text next to the image which explains everything on the overview) Who now has the time to go back to those 70+ maps I just finished with and do the whole process again!? Look, I can understand that the overviews aren't...perfect. They look a bit...janky, but still, give them a try atleast and see how they work out insted of immidiently removing them after they're fresh out of my gallery. I think that they are quit fine, they show everything that needs to be shown, spawn locations and how they change, objectives, key locations and etc, and they are quit consistent too! Spawns are always marked in diagonal lines correlating to the teams colour, objectives are marked in coulurful circles and key locations are encirceled in white or red (depending on the background) doted lines which are marked by a number. This means that you can quickly find what your looking for. Looking for the location of the objective? Simply search for the coulered circles on the map. Want to know the position of each teams spawn and how they change? Red/Blue diagonal lines are all you need to keep an eye out and ignore the rest.Now, I might be a bit biased considering that these helpful overviews are my creations but still, I don't see anything seriously flawed about them. They are simple to understand and also simple to update. If someone wants to add another location to the map article, all they have to do would be to take the map overview with lines of that map, go to the ms paint with it, and add another series of white/red doted lines with a big number.Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Dereko appreciates your good work, Lolimsogreat. But Dereko insists the flexibility is not so satisfactory. An easy way of editing shouldn't include off-site work, like editing and reuploading the image. Also, if there are other people who are willing to cooperate with you on this project, the style, line, colour combination of his/her image may be different with yours, which is not helpful to maintain the consistency between map pages. 09:41, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for appreciation, I do admit that these overviews aren't the most flexible ones in the world, and that having to "do offsite" work isn't very convenient. But one advantage that my types of Helpful overviews would have over the ones Ashe demonstrated would be reader friendliness. Lets take a look at on of my Helpful overviews, the Upward Helpful overview to be specific: (Click on the small image to enlarge it.) As you can see, the C hut on Upward (or how Uncle Dane calls it: the shithouse) is marked by the number 16, now this is isn't shown here but on the actual Upward page there is a small line of text near the image which explains all the numbers, circles etc... Now, if a reader were to want to search for the C hut (shithouse) all he would have to would be to take a look at that line of text which is displayed next to the image, see under which number is the C hut listed (number 16 in this case), and then take a quick glance at the Upward overview itself and easily spot the number 16 standing out in its own encirciled area. Now, lets see how would Ashe's Helpful overview work out, In her overview, locations aren't marked by numbers which are encirceled by markers, but by "waypoints" which you have to hover over or click in order to display the name of the location they sit upon. Now, i do admit that marking the locations with waypoints makes it look a lot more "cleaner" and professional then using markers to mark the area in a rather crude and janky way I did it, but here is the problem with Ashes overview: If the Reader wants to see where is the position of an area he, mind you, has no idea about, he would have to basically click on every single waypoint marker until he finds where the area he is searching for is. If the reader is lucky, the first marker he clicks on will display the area he is looking for, in this case, the C hut of Upward, however, if he is unlucky, he will need to go throughout the entire map, relentlessly clicking on every single marker until he finally finds that one marker which displays the area he is looking for...after wasting how much time exactly? Unlike in my overview where the reader simply needs to find a number which I always make sure to make as outstanding against the background as I can, in the Ashes overview, the Reader is forced to play a game of "treasure hunt" just so that he can find whatever he is looking for. Now I might be just exaggerating this problem, maybe the Reader being forced to put a bit more effort into finding what he desires isn't that big of a deal and is worth sacrificing "reader friendliness" for more flexibility but im still sure that the Ashes overview will lead to at least some users being frustrated or annoyed at having to torture there mouse 1 button and the finger which rest on it. This isn't too bad considering what we are getting in return with Ashe's overview (more flexibility and consequently more consistency) but the problems don't stop here. Another problem is that the Ashe's overview has no borders which mark the limits of the area, there's just a waypoint thus leaving the reader to decide where a location begins and where it ends, this can lead to a lot more serious issue of confusing the Reader who, mind you is using this overview in the first place because he doesn't know anything about that specific map and trusts the Helpful overview to help him and not confuse him even further. The way to fix this issue would be to add borders, but if you add borders to the Ashe's overview, do our overviews become even that much different? Look, im not saying that my overview is better, I can clearly see its problems, but neither is the overview made by Ashe any more perfect then mine. Now, we will have to decide, what to sacrfifice: Reader friendliness or Editor friendliness... — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lolimsogreat21 (talk) • (contribs)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  Info To note it on here as well, comp.tf staff has previously given us permission to use this template and an example can be found on User:TidB/Map locations though the CSS for it isn't yet activated. Also, while colored markers could be a good idea for some cases, we could also just use the {{tabs}} template to put all those markers on different pages. An example can be found on User:TidB/Community_strategy#Callouts (again, you need the custom CSS from the template page to display it at the moment) { TidB | t | c } 06:43, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Alright, i wouldn't like to scrap entirely the work of Lolimsogreat, so i'm proposing this overview, that is a merge between the editor and the reader friendliness. It will require a bit more of work to implement. Now, for the border areas (that i think is a good idea), with more complex implement (maybe), this should happen. It should overlap the image of the overview with the overview with lines · Ashe (talk) 20:51, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Lolimsogreat21 I can perfectly understand why this is upsetting to you, but please do not see this as an attempt to discard the work you've been doing so far — your contributions are appreciated and this has merely been brought to our attention after so long. Do note that this idea has been proposed before (as stated by TidB above) and was simply cast aside, until now. Now, I'll openly admit, that map overviews as well as competitive guides aren't exactly my area of expertise. However, I do see your points in regards to easier readability, but even so, some of these issues can be fixed or worked around. For instance, a fix for the 'treasure hunt game' as you described it as could be something as simple as adding a parameter which sets a number with the marker along with a color such as black/white for specific scenarios. We won't be able to add borders around specific areas as that would be too complex (circles would be possible, however) though one could argue that such markings be necessary in the first place. Being met with an image of all these markings, lines and whatnot could be overwhelming to some readers, and even somewhat 'intimidating', I guess you could say. Knowing the exact zones and limitations of an area is irrelevant; we should really just be focusing on displaying the locations of certain areas with most relevance, for the sake of simplicity. What Ashe just proposed is pretty much what I had in mind: It's simplistic and clean yet still somewhat retain the current style format.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 21:28, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Alright guys, you managed to get me on board with this idea. To be honest Ashe, I was sceptical of you finding the solution to the two previously mentioned problem i brought up, but you managed to did it. What you did is really good, not only does it solve the problem of borders but it also does a good job of making a compromise between reader friendliness and editor friendliness. And as hard as it is to admit, your work looks a lot better then my ms paint sposored map overviews. Only question now would be: How do you plan to implement this "interactive map overvies" in the Tf2 Wiki and how can i help with scrapping my... well, outdated work?Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 21:43, 13 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

How should we make these new helpful overviews? - Danimations (talk) 21:54, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Well Dan, we two better get to learning on how to do what Ashe did because it seems to me that Microsoft Paint ain't gona cut it this time around :D Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 22:58, 13 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Dan attempting to say "Ok" - Danimations (talk) 23:06, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Lolimsogreat21 The images will be deleted once they have been replaced. If you'd like, I can move them to your user space instead. You guys don't need to worry about the implementation process as I'll be taking care of that part since the styling need to be inserted into the wiki's global CSS, which only administrators can do. I'll start working on it by the end of the month or sometime next month and then report back once it's ready for use.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 20:00, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

(In Demoman voice) Ay, thanks! hahaha :D. Anyway, thanks Wookipan for helping us by finding the way to insert these "Images" into the Wiki. Also, thanks for offering me help in moving my "old" overviews to my user space but there's no need, I don't want them now that i realize how crappy they truly are. Also, no haste, you don't need to get the implementation process ready so fast, I first have to teach myself how to actually make map overviews the way Ashe did them, and then replace every single map overview with the new one which will take two months at least, (This is assuming that Ashe doesn't help me which would be weird since she kick started this New Helpful overview project by herself.) But thanks for the help and having understanding, I do admit that I aren't proud of my first discussion edit on this section, it just sounds like I was to bitter for there being a possibility that my work could be replaced by something else which turns out to be way better. Anyway, good night.Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 21:02, 14 April 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Sorry for the long wait, but I've now created the map overview template and added the global CSS. It is currently in my user space, and I've yet to do some more testing and improve the documentation before I'd consider it fully ready for public usage, and maybe add some more features. I'd also like to optimize the code sometime as it's quite clunky right now, but MediaWiki is not exactly making that an easy task with its limitations.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 23:21, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Hallelujah! The CSS implementation is finally done. Thank you very much Wookipan for the effort of yours, its greatly appreciated :D. The template looks amazing! Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 08:45, 12 July 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21

Glad to hear it. Mind you, this wasn't just a simple CSS implementation, and coding the CSS was probably the easiest part I'd say. The template was actually a lot easier to make than I thought, but I still ended up spending almost an entire day on it, and yet it's still incomplete.  Wookipan (talk | contribs) 19:51, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Number format for templates

I've seen a problem with number format in the templates, the number needs to be changed for every language the template needs and in their correct local format, i.e. the decimal separator (e.g. "1.5" is 1.5 in english, and "1,5" in spanish). I've tried to create a template but i think is kinda complex for my understanding, so i looked in internet and there's a extension for mediawiki. Wit this, it will be more editor-friendly, mainly for new editors · Ashe (talk) 03:33, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Use {{Dec}}. — Tark lm(pt-br) 05:10, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Improving pages that haven't been edited for years

I have seen many Items descriptions that are out of date (too many to say)

Reasoning

Like stat changes not added to the description and lack of detail and it will be up to everyone to really try to improve the quality of the descriptions of Items and improve the website

Furthermore a few subjects have been neglected and unedited for years and I would like to fix that

Request

So I would like to request to help improve the quality of page descriptions

Final Message

Thank you

Hoping the best for the longevity of the wiki,

CodingIsFun

Donor medals and Category:Tournament Medal images

Should images of donor medals for charity tournaments (such as Tournament_Medal_-_Heals_for_Reals) be included in Category:Tournament Medal images or not? Memayz (talk) 17:46, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I think so, yeah, it might be an idea to make a "Medal images" category and turn that into a subcategory and add "Charity medals" to it. If you wanna link to categories btw do it like this [[:Category:Tournament Medal images]].
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:20, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Got it. Category:Medal images already exists, so adding a sub-category won't be too hard. The question is now if the charity medal images should be categorized as both tournament and charity medal images? Memayz (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Just charity.
GrampaSwood (talk) 18:29, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

See ya'll

Been fun contributing while it lasted, it's weird how there's no way to deactivate your account. ShadowMan44 (talk) 23:10, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Goodbye, Pardner. I wish you luck and a merry life.

Lolimsogreat21 (talk) 09:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)Lolimsogreat21