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Tooltips that make sense and "de-cryptify" the game.
lordsteve1
Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
There's been a great deal of improvements to tooltips over the last few months, things like adding ranges to the Grav Well and Tykens Rift tooltips for example. These have made a nice difference as you can now see how your skills are affecting your abilities and get an idea of what to improve.
But there are still several that need some attention and some that have actually gone backwards from what they were initially.
Here's a couple of examples:
Secondary Deflectors
Their tooltips used to list what exact abilities caused their radiation attacks to proc. This was really great for planning a build. Now they only say mystical stuff like they work off abilities that control, debuff, heal or similar wording. Why change a clear and straightforward piece of info into something so well....cryptic?
Trying to work out what class an ability is not that simply in some cases. For example, debuff abilities - Viral Matrix?, Charged Particle Burst? That makes little sense. Surely they are controls, at least in the case of VM?
Fluidic Cocoon
The tooltip specifically states it DOES NOT stack yet it will happily stack up to 3 times.
Any chance we can get tooltips to start reflecting accurately what they actually do, rather than players having to go searching Google or run tests to work out the exact nature of what they are using resources on.
Some improvements have been made but there's still work to be done.
But there are still several that need some attention and some that have actually gone backwards from what they were initially.
Here's a couple of examples:
Secondary Deflectors
Their tooltips used to list what exact abilities caused their radiation attacks to proc. This was really great for planning a build. Now they only say mystical stuff like they work off abilities that control, debuff, heal or similar wording. Why change a clear and straightforward piece of info into something so well....cryptic?
Trying to work out what class an ability is not that simply in some cases. For example, debuff abilities - Viral Matrix?, Charged Particle Burst? That makes little sense. Surely they are controls, at least in the case of VM?
Fluidic Cocoon
The tooltip specifically states it DOES NOT stack yet it will happily stack up to 3 times.
Any chance we can get tooltips to start reflecting accurately what they actually do, rather than players having to go searching Google or run tests to work out the exact nature of what they are using resources on.
Some improvements have been made but there's still work to be done.
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I can add that while Spartan (I think it's him?) has done amazing job for adding word "bonus" before "damage" to most tooltips that give cat2 dmg buff (to distinguish them from cat1 buffs that simply say "+damage"), some still lack it.
For example, Omega Weapon Proficiency, Adaptive Emergency Systems or Deadly Response are clearly cat2 buffs, yet they all seem to lack the word "bonus".
Compared to those you mentioned in OP, that's minor problem, but still.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Anyway maybe that was specifically for the Skill Tree and not ability tool tips, but I remember them saying tool tips will be updated as well.
Guess only a handful of them were actually changed at the time.
In any event, I think it's well past overdo for them to review/rewrite many a'tooltip and "information" page.
They really need to normalize the wording and phrasing across the board on some of these.
Many of them are not clear and leave much to the imagination.
Also a huge pet peeve I have;
+Damage buff.. Every time we get a new console or trait that gives +damage, I'm always scratching my head at whether they are CAT1 Damage boosts or CAT2.
This info should be added to every +Damage console/trait/ and set bonus information page.
Yeah, most of the time if it says "+x % damage", it's cat1, and if "+x % bonus damage", it's cat2. As I said earlier, there are some tooltips that need updating though.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Well that's good to know.
But what do you mean most times ? Are there many exceptions to this rule ? Or only a handful of outliers ?
In any event, they should really normalize the language across the board.
1. there's things like the constriction anchor (also the Fleet tactical computer, the AP matrix console) that have level appropriate scaling buffs; they are often reported as being broken since they tooltips don't update until they bind to character, then scale to the bound characters level.
2. The only way to really tell if a console is bugged is to find out via testing. The disruption pulse emitter says 10s duration but only lasts 5, these are things that we have no idea if they are working until someone actually uses it
3. There are some legacy items which need better tooltips. Things that say damage which are actually "bonus damage" is a good example of this. Another would be Armour pen vs starship armour pen (there's a 1:10 ration between these two), and it's often expressed as a plus when in reality it's -DRR to target. Final here is the dual weapon procs (rom plas); there listed as two instances of 2.5% chance but they will always roll and proc together.
Some cat2 powers (I haven't compiled have the exact list, but 3 examples are in my earlier post) miss the "bonus" part. However, it seems that such cases are still in minority.
I haven't encountered anything in reverse though (as in, to my knowledge no cat1 buff says that it gives *bonus* damage).
Yep, totally agree.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Thanks that takes the guess work out. cheers
Whatever happened to Fluidic Cocoon? The tooltip used to say it stacked 3 times, now it says one max. Was it nerfed? No one even uses it anymore.
And you're right, the tooltips are incredibly confusing, especially since they made the change to the new skill point system. Before, everything was in percentages and was quite simple to understand. Now half of everything is in points and half are in percentages, and it's something like 10 points equals 1% or some TRIBBLE. You have traits like elusive saying 15 points in defense, whereas another trait like pattern recognition says it gives a stacking 1.5% defense. So which one is better? Ah who the hell knows.