Talk:Effectiveness

Harpy

I once changed the Effectiveness of Shadow traps for the Harpy Mouse from Normal to Very Effective which is actually only an educated guess if not assumption. I just found the note at the bottom of the table stating: "Shadow traps have been noted to be of normal effectiveness against Harpy mice." which –together with the normal effectiveness of the ABT– makes me think there might be a point to this. Does anybody know more or for sure? If not I would be willing to throw some Gnarled on my Clock for a confirmation.... _____m. 13:07, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

So is it Normal or Very Effective? It is quite contradictory at the moment. Would be good to confirm either way, since the Harpy is only found in the Lagoon, so it can't be both. If it is confirmed shadow traps are of normal effectiveness against the Harpy, then the 1 liner under exceptions should be removed. Would probably be faster to just pose the question on the forums. I'm sure there are some players back there with a Shadow trap. :) Also, once confirmed, please update the Harpy Mouse article too. It currently lists shadow traps as being very effective. -- Grexx 15:07, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's the revision that marked Shadow against Harpy as Normal [1]. I'm thinking it should go back to Unknown/question mark, since it's being questioned. I tried asking on the forums, but no definitive answer yet. -- Camomiletea 20:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It's officially confirmed:

16:06 I sounded the Hunter's Horn. I was successful in my hunt! I caught a 12 oz. Harpy mouse from the Lagoon worth 11,089 points and 3,112 gold. My weapon was very effective against this mouse.

Caught with Clockapult/Tribal/Gnarled.

And this steal right afterwards with Spear/Tribal/Gnarled:

16:51 I sounded the Hunter's Horn, but my efforts were fruitless. A Harpy mouse ate a piece of cheese without setting off my trap. Additionally, the fiend pillaged 1,863 gold from me! My weapon was less effective against this mouse.

...fills the line for the Harpy except the Forgotten trap(s) of course. *blushes* _____m. 15:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Unknown Effectiveness Levels for new Mice

I think this issue is cropping up very often so I'll be listing down some guidance as to how to approach it. Firstly there are 2 types of new mice in general. Firstly new mice in new locations, and secondly new mice in existing locations.

New mice in new locations is pretty straightforward. Since no one knows anything about them, effectiveness should generally be unknowns, other than the general trend that trap types are always very effective against the corresponding mouse types (ie Tactical traps very effective vs Tactical mice), exception being for physical mice. Assumptions made in this case should be marked clearly with an asterisk (*) to denote that it is an assumption and not a confirmed effectiveness level.

One thing to note is that it is sometimes possible to extrapolate the effectiveness of a trap type to a certain mouse type from previous locations, but experience has shown that the developers toss in some odd attributes that make this a very unsafe choice. A good example would be that Physical traps are of normal effectiveness against most Tactical mice in the Training Grounds, except for the Assassin. A "best guess" that all Physical traps work against all Tactical mice in the location would thus be wrong. Most editors would agree, on the MH Wiki in general, we are quite firm about accuracy of information contained within. Thus unless you have personally confirmed the effectiveness either through your own profile or seen on others, avoid any best guesses. A history check will turn up many instances when this has been tried and thereafter reverted due to inaccuracy.

Next, new mice in existing locations. Mice added to existing locations tend to be of the same general type as most other mice in the location, and are mostly added for more flavour and variety in-game. They are typically not essential for game progress, and less likely to have unexpected resistances against non-related power types. Thus it is somewhat safer to make an educated guess on the effectiveness levels using the other similar mice in the location, although it is still not encouraged.

Finally, if you do not have the slightest idea what the location/article is about, but wish to partake in the excitement of entering new information "first", and are filling in effectiveness levels based on pure speculation, please stay far, far away from editing this page. When in doubt, leave it as an unknown (?) rather than filling in something that would very likely be 100% wrong. -- Grexx 10:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I can put reasonable estimates in for the effectiveness of most mice shortly after they come out, or I buy / craft the new trap type, it's just a simplified version of what I do for the analytics page / tools.

There would be a couple of gaps, but they'd be pretty easy to fill in, let me know if you'd want me to do this and if you're happy with the notation for estimates. -- Twentypence 15:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

That would be useful. Interim information would help. But estimated updates only about 2 to 4 weeks after any mice or locations are added would be best, since that will give time for players to fill in any blanks with first-hand information. Regardless, let's get the new tables up before filling in any blanks. -- Grexx 15:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Neglected to add why the 2-4 week delay before adding in estimates. The question mark '?' is much more useful in bringing attention to missing info vs a '*' beside an effectiveness level indicating estimates (and hence an unknown value). Thus estimates are less likely to be verified as compared to question marks '?' representing unknowns. Current experience is a good indicator, a sort of trial run of the idea. -- Grexx 00:57, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Colors

Hey, I looking at the chart, and I personally feel like it would be more useful to have the "Less Effective" / "Very Effective" / "Normal" messages colored than the mouse type. This would make it easier to differentiate, and the mouse type isn't as important when figuring out how to catch it when the other information is there. Chessmonkey 23:37, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I've made a modified version, and would greatly appreciate comments. It can be found here. Feel free to edit it (with edit summaries please!) if you can see anything that could be improved. I think it's overall much improved from the current version, and would like to roll it into the official page. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 07:37, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

When I created the chart I actually had a template with the addition of colors for the different effectiveness types, but decided it was a little too colorful. There's 2 ways to look at the chart, the current format is centered around the respective mice with 1 color, while adding shading to the effectiveness shifts the focus to trap effectiveness and merges both views into one.

The main reason why I avoided more colors, is that with the sorting ability, you can easily sort by mouse type and trap type to arrive at the desired information, so I was trying to avoid adding complexity to the chart.

That said, it doesn't really matter either way since the information essentially remains the same. If people find it easier to read with more colors, go ahead. But do watch out for mixing colors. When I did the chart I ran it through a color check site to make sure that it is colorblind friendly. Don't have the link at the moment but it would be a good idea to do a check. -- Grexx 09:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the table with the colors for effectiveness better than the one with mouse power types. Please do check your colors as Grexx commented. -- Camomiletea 14:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I put it through a color blindness checker and didn't see any problems due to the various types of colorblindness, so it does not appear that is something that needs to be adjusted. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 17:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to double check if you used Vischeck's colorblind checker, it doesn't seem to read properly certain types of color tags. You can have a look at User:Grexx/Sandbox, under the Color Test section and run it through http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php. I've got stored results here, not sure how long it will be up though. You might want to adjust the Yellow Red Orange Green colors to be more distinct.

What actually led me to do color testing was when I first canvassed for suggestions on the mixed colors, someone actually complained that the colors were the same. Not sure exactly how accurate the site is though, since I'm not colorblind myself. -- Grexx 19:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I actually used the checker at http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ , and it seems to have rendered the colorblind versions correctly... I can readily tell they are not the colors I can usually see. Anyway, all the colors seem quite distinct, and I think I'll be rolling out the changed version tomorrow, unless any objections come up. Also, should we be adding the calm clearing mice? DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 05:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm colour blind (partially, anyway) and the page seems fine to me. All colours easily differentiable to me. Also, I believe all hte CC mice have been added and the list is now effectively (pun? wow) complete. --Shinnok 06:42, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

So, I got really tired of the Hydro color, I changed it to a more 'actual' color. If one sees hydro they think water... which is blue. and changed the Shadow to the what used to be Hydro see for yourself (I've checked with the color blind site)

From	To	And	From	To
Hydro	Hydro		Shadow	Shadow

other colors for easier comparison

Arcane

Hydro

Tactical

Forgotten

Shadow

Very Effective

Less Effective

--Yandhand 1:49, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Draconic - some info

Draconic trap is very effective against Dragon, and normal effectiveness against Whelpling and Draconic Warden. Physical trap is less effective against Dragon mouse. -- Camomiletea 22:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Effectiveness in general

• There are so many ifs, buts and exceptions to the trap power type / mouse power type relationship now that users cannot always gain any value from this information. Instead, they have to use the mouse-by-mouse effectiveness chart, taking into account the exceptions at the end (how unwieldy is that?), or better still, the hunting strategy and the (truly excellent) trap setup option pages. Is showing the power type actually misleading, now? And while on the subject, is it better to incorporate the exceptions information into the mouse table itself, so for example, there would be two entries for the Ninja, one called Ninja (Dojo) and the other Ninja (except Dojo), or something like that? --Winelight 15:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I've seen the discussion taking place in Talk:Dragon Mouse, and I think it's time to make some painful but needed changes to this article. The article was started when there were only a total of 4 Trap Power Types available, Physical, Shadow, Tactical, Arcane. This has now expanded to 7. Coupled with the rapid increase in the type of Mice available in-game, it has made the chart difficult to use and navigate. Regarding Winelight's suggestion to incorporate the info into the mouse tables, it would just end up being a huge chunk of information being merged into another, so I don't think it will be any more useful (or useless lol) than the current format.

I'm proposing that the chart be split based on region, since effectiveness levels are more consistent that way, versus the global chart and exceptions list style that we have now. This will make it more useful in that players can go straight to a region and look it up. Providing location level breakdowns would be too detailed and repetitive and duplicate information in the location articles. However the difficulty is in splitting the table as the information contained within each cell has to be checked when migrating to a regional table to ensure that it is accurate. I won't have the time to carry this out due to various other commitments, but I'll list out the general steps that need to be done, and hopefully someone can take up this challenging task. I highly suggest that any missing information be requested from the community in general through the forums, rather than trying to gather the data individually, as that was how the information in the original table came about. Might be a good idea to do it region by region too, rather than as a whole large thread.

The interim work can be done on this talk page, and then moved to the article proper once it is completed.

1. Create regional tables of mice, based on the in-game drop-down lists. It would be useful to alphabetize the list using MS Excel. Tables will retain the same number of columns, but will have reduced number of rows. COMPLETE 16:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
2. Propagate the existing mouse information into the new regional tables, don't bother about checking accuracy for now. COMPLETE 16:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
3. Copy exceptions to the respective regions. COMPLETE 15:20, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
4. Go through the exceptions and modify cells accordingly. COMPLETE 15:20, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
5. Sort each column based on trap power type and see if any anomalies crop up, ie when most mice in a location are resistant to a power type but one is not. This way mistakes can be easily spotted, or discrepancies checked and if indeed the case, a remark can be added to further provide players with more information.
6. Once the tables are completed and introduced, checks should be done on the various other articles that link to this page, and any reference that should belong to a particular region's effectiveness table should be pointed to the correct region. The check can be done using the 'What links here' link under the toolbox area, below the search box.

-- Grexx 15:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Is the intention to end up with multiple pages, each called something like "Trap effectiveness in the Tribal Isles region", etc.? --Winelight 15:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see it retained on the Effectiveness article as sections rather than creating new pages with long titles. This is to make it easier to maintain consistency when new mice are introduced, as well as allowing any possible anomalies across regions to be spotted easily. -- Grexx 16:02, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be more useful to users to have this divided by location, it would give more clarity on which types of traps should not be used in certain locations, although it would require duplication of entries and wouldn't look as nice as an article. -- Twentypence 15:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

There'll be too much duplication if done location wise, especially considering that there are few differences between locations in a region. Updating itself carries a pretty high risk of inaccuracy/missing updates due to human error, so I'd like to cut down on the possibilities of that happening. Even right now there're many missing mice and it is taking up a lot of time to track and check each entry. -- Grexx 16:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Can this be elevated to the main page yet? --Winelight 07:58, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It'll take a while more, would like to check through everything throughly before introducing it. Another thing that needs doing is converting the existing estimates with an asterix '*' into the greenish blue shading. Holding off doing that for now until the estimates added by Twentypence are clarified, so as to avoid any confusion. -- Grexx 15:20, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm from the UK where we say "publish and be damned". We don't have "fact checkers"! --Winelight 17:54, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I started work on this then noticed the discrepancy with certain mice (such as the bat), when I check the difficulty of the bat mouse against the forgotten trap it comes in as "Overawing", personally, I have never seen a situation where that difficulty does not result in a "less effective" message. I'm perfectly happy to accept that it does, but if that's the case, then I'm no longer confident in putting in these estimates, as they wouldn't actually seem to relate to the difficulty in the way that I thought they did. -- Twentypence 07:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I tracked back the edit to this one by User:Stonegnome. I think checking the effectiveness using the difficulty level should be accurate at least for Less Effective ratings, so you might just have uncovered an inaccurate update. I guess the best way is still to test it once using the respective traps. -- Grexx 17:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)