It’s funny how I’m doing this considering I’ve never made a guide on these forums (but I have on others i.e WoW Forums), but it seems that a lot of beginners and even intermediate players are having trouble comprehending guides, and even ask for certain information to be made available to them that seems mandatory(to them).
This guide is not focused on how you should present your guide with all the bold/italics/color codes blah blah blah, but focuses more on what information you should put in your guide. I say should and not could, because should makes it a better guide(IMO), could makes it highly subjective and is almost impossible to satisfy. However I will include some pointers on how a guide should be presented, just not a very comprehensive perspective.
Of course, everyone is invited to offer feedback, and I will objectively look at them and change the guide if necessary.
Just as a disclaimer : I’ve played GD for about 2 years, and I haven’t dabbled with many builds, but I have played a lot and lurked a lot in forums reading up on various game mechanics and guides, and even trying to help players or clarify mechanics or troubleshoot guides. I’m no jajaja or Ceno or Most, but I do what I can. No offense to any guide writers that I didn’t give credit for, you guys are still awesome, keep up the good work.
General pointers
-> No wall of text. Write it using bullet points like I am, or make the paragraphs small and concise. Paragraphs that go too long distract people.
-> Always have a statement of purpose. Your guide needs to show what this build can do and how it does it. Make it brief. People look for a TL;DR, well this is your TL;DR. Alternatively, or additionally(best method) is to use a Summary at the end of your guide.
-> Color coding - I don’t particularly like it but play around with it if you wish. Don’t color code paragraphs, it’s annoying. Don’t use too many colors, and don’t use highly flagrant colors ex. Fluorescent, or hard to read colors like Peach. You have a black background, so use lighter colors or vivid ones(but not too vivid).
-> Use short sentences. Long sentences that go on forever and ever, without using any sort of punctuation i.e comma, colon, semicolon etc are impossible to understand.
-> Pictures are awesome. It’s a great form of advertising and using graphical clues to demonstrate viability and the fun factor are definitely going to attract people.
-> Always use links to refer to items. People are not always going to go back and check gracefuldusk all the time to see what an item does. Better for them to click links. Learn and use forum post code.
-> Brackets are awesome. They allow you to insert jokes, clarifications, snippets without disturbing the flow of the sentence (too much anyway). Also brackets help you emphasize certain parts of your sentence, you can do that using bold/italics/underline also though.
-> Videos showing your build in action - This is absolutely mandatory I feel, because it helps players see how you play your build, what skills are doing, when you’re casting them, etc.
-> Title of build - Quit the fucking clear times posting rubbish. Yeah only jajaja, and some other guy (Avatar of Dreeg, uberjager) is doing it right now, it’s highly flagrant. Post the title of your goddamn build, you can put the clear times and how powerful the build is inside. I’m not discounting how powerful jajaja’s, uber’s or Dreeg’s builds are, they are pretty powerful, but it’s just supremely egotistical. It’s not nice. That’s all.
What I’m trying to say is - if you look at the posts in these builds, half of them are newbies asking information about how to level, how the guides are supposed to work, how the skill setups don’t match up, etc etc. It’s because you’re catering to the elite few by posting such guides. Well you could benefit more by not posting such titles. Hell, we already know how good you guys are without posting your goddamn clear times.
Mandatory Information
-> Grimcalc with and without gear - I find so many people asking for this, and it’s easy to understand why. When people, especially beginners are looking at this guide, they want to understand why so many points are being put in a particular skill in addition to understanding what the skill does and what benefits it provides. It also allows them to understand skill breakpoints.
-> Leveling guide - So many people ask for this, like way too many. Some people are going to look at your guide and then immediately either try it out, and then find out they have no idea how to level it, even when following the skill build.
You can put grimcalc per 10 levels. This works extremely well and I’ve seen it in quite a few guides.
Yes, it’s hand holding, but do it, you’re the guide writer, you know what skills work best early game and late. Take jajaja’s recent guides for example for Warder and Conjurer, he says “Level with phys based Primal Strike”. And then come along questions on what skills to max first and why. It’s very generic, very easy information that could have been presented in an easy to understand form for the newbie, but had to be clarified across several pages and after several requests, and not all of them got answered.
No offense to jajaja, he’s one of the best guide writers(and innovative) on this forum, but he hopefully knows what I’m getting at.
-> Devotion pics and explanation on how to build it - This is especially important because constellations can be self sufficient. Ex. you invest one point in Blue Crossroads, max out Sailor’s Guide, and then respec the point in Crossroads. Say so, in your guide to Devotion.
Also explain what skills are bound to what, in this guide. People often have very rudimentary doubts about it, and yeah I know it’s stupid when people ask what something should be bound to ex. %chance on getting hit, when you could basically put any self buff there and it works, but make it simple and say exactly that.
-> Mechanical explanations - This is sort of annoying to do, but do it. It not only explains your abilities and how they work in synchronization, but it also demonstrates the work you put into the build and helps critics to improve it.
It also helps newbies to understand how your build works and how they can improve it on their own with some research on their end and how gear they get(if they play self found) can complement the build.
-> Number of pages don’t matter(kinda) - 2 pages, 3 pages what’s the big deal. Don’t go too long though.
-> Will add more when I think about it.
Summary(aka TL;DR) - Yeah, no this ain’t no TL;DR. Read the entire damn guide.
Yeah the guide doesn’t follow some(maybe most) of the principles I outlined, but I’ll tidy it up a bit later, right now is just the focus on the criticism of the guide itself.
Cheers, and if this is good enough to be stickied, go ahead, and I’ll make the necessary corrections later, or make a new post.
) use even after 500-600 hours of play (if they do it legit, ofc).