Contingent Documentation

[Doctornull]

I've got some talents in my addon which change what they display based on what other talents the character knows.

For example, if you know the Stealth talent, then my talent Sloth will tell you "This talent can never break Stealth."

Is this a desirable thing?
Is there a better trigger condition?

Alternatives could be ...
- Do you have the Stealth category unlocked?
- Do you have the Stealth category visible?

The latter means Adventurers would always see everything, but maybe that's fine, they may need to see everything to make an informed choice.

[Castler]

I guess whether or not contingent documentation is a good thing depends a bit on the details.

ToME's documentation is nearly always contingent to some extent, since it displays only the values at your current stats and talent level, rather than giving the details on the formulas involved. So, if the complexity of talents' descriptions is just too great, a little bit of conditional documentation might help clean it up a bit.

In general, though, ToME's design philosophy is to be transparent and give you as much information as you want up front. (For example, you can right-click -> Inspect creature to get full details on an opponent's stats and abilities. In many games, the only way to find out an opponent's abilities is by dying a few times.)

In particular, I believe a talent's tooltips should give enough information to let me make an informed decision. For example, if I don't know that Sloth doesn't break Stealth, I might never spend the category point to unlock Stealth.

[HousePet]

Contingent documentation means you are hiding things from players. They tend to resent it when you give them surprises.
It also means you need spoiler knowledge to build a character, which is never a good thing.

[Doctornull]

I guess whether or not contingent documentation is a good thing depends a bit on the details.

Absolutely agree. My addon should be easy to read, if you're interested in the specifics of what I do now.

In particular, I believe a talent's tooltips should give enough information to let me make an informed decision. For example, if I don't know that Sloth doesn't break Stealth, I might never spend the category point to unlock Stealth.

Makes sense. So, for class talent trees, the category being visible should be the determining factor.

Thanks!

Contingent documentation means you are hiding things from players. They tend to resent it when you give them surprises.
It also means you need spoiler knowledge to build a character, which is never a good thing.

Yep, so I want to give them enough info to make a good decision, but not clutter up the screen with irrelevant info.

The question is: can I determine what information is irrelevant?

[Nagyhal]

Do it.

In the addon I'm working on, bonus effects for a number of talents were not visible in the tooltip for the upgraded talent.

I've changed that, so in my case I'm moving from a lower level of information to a greater one. Nothing technically is hidden, as from the moment of character birth this information is given away in passive talent descriptions. The difference is that players can now view all active bonus effects from the convenient location of their action bars.

I think that if you understand that the loss of information you fear is actually the default state of most abilities in this game, then you'll feel a lot better about doing what you propose.

[PureQuestion]

ToME tends to lean towards telling the player absolutely everything, even things this particular character can't use. The idea of hiding irrelevant information is good in theory, but in practice players tend to only read it once, and then assume that they know what it says; if it says something else for their next character, they probably won't think to check.

[Doctornull]

ToME tends to lean towards telling the player absolutely everything, even things this particular character can't use. The idea of hiding irrelevant information is good in theory, but in practice players tend to only read it once, and then assume that they know what it says; if it says something else for their next character, they probably won't think to check.

This is a great point.

Thanks!