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Talk:CR and color of monsters for each quest

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Forums: Index > Village pump > CR and color of monsters for each quest

The CR and color of a monster varies from quest to quest. For example, the Soulherd Drider which is a normal monster in the demonweb quests, is an orange named in Caught in the Web, which is shown here Monster Information/24#Caught in the Web.

Before the monster attribute in the Template:Quest was deprecated, this info could be edited for each quest. However, now the Quest template checks the Category:Monsters in <Quest_name> to add the monsters. The Category uses the Template:Monsters in quest to fetch the information of the monsters in the quest. This template looks at the monster's page for this information and in turn, the monster page uses the Template:Monster.

The monster template has some general information about the monster, but doesn't have any option to customize the monster for each quest like its CR and color.

I have 2 solutions for this:

  • Add this information in the habitat attribute of the monster template and change Template:Monsters in quest to either fetch specialized CR and color or get some universal values if specialized values are not available.
  • Add the monster attribute back in Template:Quest or use Monster Information to add the monsters in the Category:Monsters in <Quest_name> and then have Template:Monster and Template:Monsters in quest fetch the information (CR and color) about a monster from the quest page or from the monster information page.

I find the 2nd solution more elegant and easier for the editor. Not to mention that several monster pages have not been updated with habitats, while the monster information page seems pretty complete. ⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message) 10:13, January 4, 2018 (EST)

  • T:Monster allows for you to set "per instance" information in the |hnote#= parameter for each |habitat=. Your request here is the exact reason that parameter exists. CRs are the same for a monster in any quest, the only variable is the quest level... I'm still working on figuring out the base formula for that and will update once it is figured out.  👟 ShoeMaker (Contribs • Message) 👟 10:27, January 4, 2018 (EST)
    • I saw the hnote parameter, but I don't see where the T:Habitat phantom checks that parameter for CRs and color. Instead, it only checks boss, color and cr attributes. That's what I'm asking: A way to add the CR and color of a monster per quest and then have this show in the quest page (because right now the monsters in all quest pages are way incomplete). Also, how in the world do you know whether CRs are universal and only quest level changes? Because from what the devs have said over the years, it seems that those things are fine-tuned at quest creation. And what about my example about the Soulherd Drider? Is that universally yellow or orange? --⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message) 10:44, January 4, 2018 (EST)
      • There's a lot of backend coding. Put the information in the hnote for now and, when the rest is available, a bot will go through and put information in the appropriate parameters. Having a per quest |monsters= hasn't worked for years because no-one ever goes back and updates the information when the monster is added to a new quest or something changes about the monster. The result was badly outdated monster and quest pages and very inaccurate information everywhere. The current way forces an editor to update the monster page when the monster is added to a new quest. Yes, there are a few inaccuracies when there is a CR discrepancy or whatnot, but it's in a much better overall state than it was. I think I tried to add the hnote section of the template to the phantom and it didn't work out right for some reason (probably a table formatting/spacing/sorting issue). I would like the info there as well, so I'll likely revisit the idea before too long. I'm currently one of only about three people who actually do template work on the wiki, and there is a huge backlog of things to get done. If you'd like to try and make it work in a way that is agreeable for others, feel free to work up a sandbox and some testcases and I'll happily help by answering questions or tweeking it here and there as you go.  👟 ShoeMaker (Contribs • Message) 👟 11:48, January 4, 2018 (EST)

Ok, so I sat down and learned basic stuff about templates and DPL and worked with some examples. I cannot really test my thoughts because that would require creating a whole test environment since I can't toy with several key templates like T:Quest and T:Monster. So, here are my thoughts:

  • Following my 2nd solution, I propose that the T:Quest template gets a monster## attribute back for editors to fill out the monsters for each quest.
  • The monster## attribute will accept a new template called Monster_in_Quest or something shorter that will look something like this: Monster in Quest probably with more error checks and suitable for a table row so it will look exactly like the tables created by T:Monsters in quest and T:Habitat_phantom. Of course, if the monster page doesn't exist yet, the name will show red and the pic will say (No pic).
  • Now that we have our nice table of monsters in each quest, we will adjust T:Monster to use DPL and find out where this monster appears. (a DPL call below)
  • In the end, we will have all the information about a monster edited ONCE. When a Quest is created, the editor declares which monsters exist and their CR/color. When a monster page is created, the template automatically fills the Quests (and Wilderness areas) that this monster lives along with the CR and color it has in those places. Also, the monster page will have additional information about a monster like attacks, universal CR, Type, Image, etc.

The DPL code for the Monster template would be something like: 

{{#dpl:
  | category = Quests by name
  | linksto = Dretch <!-- This is used to trim the selection of pages and keep them under the limit -->
  | include = {Monster in Quest¦Formatting_template} <!-- Formatting template will be something that checks that the name attribute of the Monster in Quest template is the same as the monster in question (Dretch in our example) and print the CR and color of the monster if they exist -->
  | includematch= /\{\{Monster in Quest.*\{{!}}\s*name\s*=\s*Dretch/s <!-- This (almost, needs some more work) ensures that the pages selected do not simply link Dretch in some random place, but they contain it in a Monster in Quest template. -->
}}

So, how should I proceed with this? Continue working on it, or scrap the idea? The reason behind it is that I wanted to add some monsters to some quests and correct a lot of inaccuracies in other quests, but I hit a wall trying to figure out where the heck was that DPL taking the information from. And when I found out it was coming from the monster page, I stopped because I wanted to add CRs and colors to the quest page and I couldn't. You may say that I could add them to hnote, but the truth is I look at the quest page for existing monsters and at the monster/race page if I want to find out immunites/resistances. So if I'm not supposed to add the CRs to the quest page, I won't bother updating anything. ⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message) 10:28, January 5, 2018 (EST)

  • I've read only the first line of your TL;DR section here and while you can't edit {{Quest}} or {{Monster}}, you can edit T:Quest/sandbox and T:Monster/sandbox respectively. You can do your mockup, testing, etc with those very easily and they already exist for that very purpose. T:Quest will no be getting a usable |monster= back as that method has been tried, tested, and failed to be productive. The best option is to add them to the |hnote#= for each habitat and once I have the time/energy to go through and do the next pass of revision to the system, I'll pull in more of that information (in fact, the information will be very helpful in figuring out the CR calculation formula). If the monsters are different colors, chances are high that they're actually different monsters internally in the game and each one should have it's own section on the page with it's own {{Monster}} template.  👟 ShoeMaker (Contribs • Message) 👟 11:58, January 5, 2018 (EST)
    • I understand that you are probably busy enough with many wiki stuff that need updating/maintenance to be bothered by my idea. I just want to make sure that you fully understand what I'm proposing beofre nuking it from orbit. You say that a monster parameter has been tried and tested. However, the DPL tables appearing instead of a monsters section are pretty new (2017). What I'm suggesting is that you revert the dependency of the quest page from the monster page to a dependency of the monster page from the quest page. After all, monsters in a quest can be red links that need filling. However, a quest missing from a monster page is simply missing, without a red link.
      I've already replied to your argument of "no-one ever goes back and updates the information when the monster is added to a new quest or something changes about the monster" by saying that when a monster is added to a new quest, the page updates itself.
      After all, I could use the exact same argument. Right now, a number of quests large enough for me to notice have incomplete monster information when previously they had everything. With the change to remove the monster section, a large part of information about quest monsters was lost and I don't get how that is good for a wiki user.
      P.S. Can you point me to the discussion about the decision to make Quest pull the monsters out of the Category Monsters in Quest? ⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message) 13:06, January 5, 2018 (EST)
      • Nothing has been lost, the information is all still there. I even posted a YouTube video for how to retrieve the information and add new monsters if they're missing to the wiki. There are exactly 0 pages on the wiki that were complete and no longer are due to the change. If you don't want to do the work, that's fine. Discussions... Use the search feature... Too many to list.  👟 ShoeMaker (Contribs • Message) 👟 19:37, January 5, 2018 (EST)
        • The information is all in the code or in some page in the wiki, sure. But it is not in the quest page that is shown to the user. You say that 0 pages were complete and no longer are. Ok, I'll pick a quest level and list you the quests that a user would view as complete, but now no longer have their correct monsters:
          At level 30 The Mark of Death, Fire on Thunder Peak, Tavern Brawl. 3 out of 14 quests don't have the monsters they were supposed to have. Of the remaining 11 quests, none of them have the CRs they were supposed to have.
          Also, you say it's better to enforce editors to create/edit the monster page in order to add a monster to a quest, but Tavern Brawl doesn't have a single monster. Probably because the monster pages list "Tavern Brawl (Quest)". And how can a wiki editor that doesn't know the reason this happened can correct this mistake? They need to go to the history of the page and compare revisions to find a revision where the monsters were present. With my solution above, this wouldn't happen because the monster page would automatically update in the event of the quest being renamed. And what if the monster page was being renamed? Then all the links from the quest pages would provide either a red link or lead to a redirect making it easy to pinpoint the error and correct it.
          Finally, you still have the illusion that the monsters' CR scales with quest level when there are several occurences where monster CR is all over the place: Skeleton a level 2 quest has skeletons with higher CR than a level 3 quest? How will you explain that in your formula?
          I was willing to do a lot of work, but I need to know it will make a difference. I'm not going to update the hnote of monsters only to have it display in the monster page where NOONE will see it. ⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message) 08:20, January 6, 2018 (EST)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Tavern Brawl was due to an incomplete page move (on my part) and has be resolved (wasn't hard to fix). MoD and FoTP still have all of the information they previously had, and the big red banner at the top of the page indicates that some of it is in the page source that needs to be updated. There's a video on YouTube that explains how to update the page and remove the banner and it's not hard for anyone to get in touch with an experienced wiki editor if it is not something they want to tackle themselves. They can get us on the forums, on Discord, on IRC, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Twitch, on YouTube, via email, on wiki talk pages... It's not hard to do. Let's take you FoTP example... The code for that was: 

|monsters= 
* [[Nevalarich]]
* [[Tharaxata]]
* [[Volcanic Devastator]]
* [[Volcanic Annihilator]]
* [[Firebrand Ravager]]s
* [[Firebrand Piercer]]s
* [[Dwarf Skeleton]]s
* [[Cult of the Dragon Necromancer]]s
* [[Crag Hellhound]]s

...there's no CR info, no images of what the monsters look like, no type or race information... Just a list of links. I've gone through and created the pages that didn't exist with nothing more than {{Monster | habitat1 = Fire on Thunder Peak }} and they're all now listed in a way that makes it so that when someone sees "Information Missing" on the quest page, they're more likely to find the information and add it or inform someone who can add it. As far as your questions about skeletons goes, they're either different skeletons internally or the information posted to the wiki is incorrect for one of them. If they're different skeletons (most likely the difference between skeleton in a quest and one in an event or slayer area or even a difference between older content and newer), they'll like have a different sprite or environment and should have separate sections on the Skeleton page with separate {{Monster}} templates. I'll work on updating some more quest pages tomorrow on DDOwiki talk. Feel free to tune in and make suggestions of which quests need it more than others and we'll prioritize. :) Thanks for your feedback!  👟 ShoeMaker (Contribs • Message) 👟 22:14, January 8, 2018 (EST)

  • My point was that what you say "wasn't hard to fix" took me, an inexperienced wiki editor (with a background in programming), 2 days to figure out what and how things are happening. Also, even if it's not hard to fix, a wiki user that is not also an editor will see the quests with incomplete information and say "Ok, wiki is outdated".
    I also don't see how the words "Information missing" speak louder than a red link.
    At least, if you're not going to change it to a more user friendly edit process, add what an editor must do to add monsters to a quest to the quest template notes as well as the error message displayed when no monsters are found. Where you say "monsters" is deprecated, mention that to add a monster to a quest, you need to create the monster page and add the habitat.

Hello. Brainless editor here asking the question a year after this talk began -- Did this topic ever sort itself out? I am adding CR's on the |cr line, and also adding into the |hnote line for specific locations when different from the |cr line. Seems to me the DPL pulls just from |cr line. Is a wrong monster CR on a quest page better than no CR at all? Do I just keep doing what I am doing? Thanks! ⇒ meander (Contribs • Message) 18:30, February 3, 2019 (EST)

  • No, this topic died for 2 reasons: 1. I cannot communicate with ShoeMaker and noone else seemed to want to talk about it. 2. The Quest template can only be edited by administrators. I have 2 changes to the template pending in sandbox pages and while JJMC89 (Contribs • Message) agreed that at least one of them was good to go, nobody merged the code to the template. There's no point trying to work on protected templates when there's noone to follow up on that work.
    This also prevented me from filling the CRs I originally wanted to fill (Caught in the Web CRs). However, I do propose you keep adding the correct CRs at the hnote parameters. Maybe someone someday will see it. ⇒ Faltout (Contribs • Message) 18:42, February 3, 2019 (EST)
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