jdaster64
Goomba
Hi all, I've made a handful of contributions directly or indirectly to MarioWiki over the years, and appreciate a lot of the in-depth list articles, bestiary tables, etc. on the site.
I've also been an active member of a few communities that discuss a lot of challenge running and game mechanical stuff in various Mario RPGs, and some of the Wiki's articles are a bit unclear or inconsistent in how some of the data is presented. We've gotten by relying on secondary resources when necessary, but I thought I'd reach out here and see if there's interest in systematically changing up the way certain data is presented.
In particular, calculating item drop rates in The Thousand-Year Door is something that I think can't really be completely described with numbers in a table; the actual drop rate for an item varies based on the total weight of the items in an enemy's table, whether or not the battle takes place in the Pit, whether or not the player has an Item Hog badge (or multiple!) equipped, and in the case of the Switch release, exactly how many and which enemy types appear in a battle, since all enemies' drop tables are checked in sequence, rather than just the front.
I'm wondering if there's precedent for having an article that goes into item drop calculations in detail (similar to Bulbapedia's page on damage), which could be linked in a tooltip or in the header of an particular enemy's item table, with the table just containing the raw weights?
If that's not preferred, then it would probably be best to remove the numerical information entirely so it's not misleading (as the current values are incorrect in any case), and use a more abstract rarity scale instead. I know there's a Japanese strategy guide for the original game that presenting the information in a similar fashion (with circles and triangles for a scale of very common to very rare), but I can't find a screenshot.
I'm curious as to what other folks think would be best!
I've also been an active member of a few communities that discuss a lot of challenge running and game mechanical stuff in various Mario RPGs, and some of the Wiki's articles are a bit unclear or inconsistent in how some of the data is presented. We've gotten by relying on secondary resources when necessary, but I thought I'd reach out here and see if there's interest in systematically changing up the way certain data is presented.
In particular, calculating item drop rates in The Thousand-Year Door is something that I think can't really be completely described with numbers in a table; the actual drop rate for an item varies based on the total weight of the items in an enemy's table, whether or not the battle takes place in the Pit, whether or not the player has an Item Hog badge (or multiple!) equipped, and in the case of the Switch release, exactly how many and which enemy types appear in a battle, since all enemies' drop tables are checked in sequence, rather than just the front.
I'm wondering if there's precedent for having an article that goes into item drop calculations in detail (similar to Bulbapedia's page on damage), which could be linked in a tooltip or in the header of an particular enemy's item table, with the table just containing the raw weights?
If that's not preferred, then it would probably be best to remove the numerical information entirely so it's not misleading (as the current values are incorrect in any case), and use a more abstract rarity scale instead. I know there's a Japanese strategy guide for the original game that presenting the information in a similar fashion (with circles and triangles for a scale of very common to very rare), but I can't find a screenshot.
I'm curious as to what other folks think would be best!