Forum:The Master and Crazy Hand pages are weird
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This discussion is in regards to a proposed change on SmashWiki. The discussion must first meet with a consensus before it is implemented. |
Hello! So for those unaware, I've been working on documenting the unplayables of the Smash series. I'm following up from this proposal, as I'm reaching a point where I'll inevitably start revamping the Master and Crazy Hand pages. I'll admit - while I did have something in mind for them, I never explicitly detailed it. I'm realising that I would likely change these pages completely, and I'm not about to step around these without gathering opinions on the topic, given they've existed for quite a long time.
Originally, I stated the following;
- So my proposal is this: should we expand upon the documentation of these characters in cases they can be played as through hacking? If so, should we design moveset pages for them that document their frame data and utility as if they were playable normally? I'm thinking to the degree of Master Hand and Crazy Hand's character pages, plus the moveset pages.
- Master Hand and Crazy Hand have their own "character" pages, which has strangely not been done for any other unplayable fighter. I consider their pages to be pretty great for this role and could even be expanded on.
Indeed, not very transparent of me - when the proposal was made, those pages were essentially my standards for how the unplayables should be covered. Being passed, I also got the groundwork down for moveset page coverage down the line. In practicality, the unplayables are now effectively treated with the same standards as Project M and Smash Remix characters, which is ideal, given they are played as much as, if not more, than those characters.
I have definitely succeeded in coverage so far, but the framing of the pages I've made is very different to the Master and Crazy Hand pages, and this is where I begin a head-on collision with the pages that sparked my proposal in the first place.
Here's the thing: I've been looking through the Master and Crazy Hand pages a lot more, and I'm realising that they...kind of suck. Let's go over each one. You'll (hopefully) see what I mean.
| Page | Notes |
|---|---|
| Master Hand (SSB) | Repeats the opening movie information from the main page. |
| Master Hand (SSBM) | Repeats the trophy, buffs/nerfs overview, and much general information. |
| Master Hand (SSBB) | Outright copypastes the Subspace information and puts it first; also places buffs/nerfs last contrary to the Melee and Smash 4 versions; repeats the trophy. |
| Master Hand (SSB4) | Probably the one that justifies itself the best, not repeating much information. Really just the trophy. |
| Master Hand (SSBU) | Repeats Classic and World of Light Mode information, including that...hideous "who fights this Ult boss" bloat for the former; repeats spirit |
| Crazy Hand (SSBM) | Repeats trophy and general information. |
| Crazy Hand (SSBB) | Repeats trophy. Probably one of the best of the pages as-is. |
| Crazy Hand (SSB4) | Repeats the trophy. |
| Crazy Hand (SSBU) | Repeats the spirit, World of Light, and Classic Mode information. |
- "So what's the issue, Plaguey?"
The issue is, these pages seem strictly made to store the movesets and attack patterns, and the rest of the page copypastes information from the mother page in what seems to be an attempt to post-hoc justify their existence. In doing this, they seem to actually make things worse, as it makes the mother pages much barer, scattering information and looking kind of incoherent. Looking at Galleom's page, along with the other Brawl bosses, they seem much...better? You'll see that those pages compress the attack pattern into the attack listing table, decreasing a significant amount of bloat that you could argue would occur if these pages were merged back with the mother pages. Even Giga Bowser seems to do this better - I see the Ultimate section as a gold standard.
I looked through the split proposals on Talk:Master_Hand and it seems to largely be Toomai who was looking for this, primarily because of the way the pages were structured making them very disorganised. Given this, my proposal here will be looking to supercede that previous one. This is another part of why I'm making this proposal - I will definitely be stepping on its toes, even if it is 9 years later.
I quickly got up the edits on the Master Hand page to find the problem, and here's what I found;
Immediately, I see that the movesets were bundled together, as were the appearances. Thus, my critique here will be this: Was there a better way to do this without scattering information?
A key difference between the split and now is that each appearance Master Hand and Crazy Hand have in the series now has its own section, where the trophies and such are slotted in, making them mini-character pages. I believe that this change has retroactively solved the issue that existed before, with Giga Bowser and Galleom being great examples of boss pages not needing splits. The movesets here are non-invasive, positioned in a way that is easily understandable, and compressed effectively. I believe that when the movesets are just tables in their appropriate sections, they become much less bothersome, as you're not just looking at tables, you're scrolling through standard-issue text and pictures as well.
I believe that splitting the movesets off immediately made the pages worse as boss resources. Perhaps that was the intent - have the mother page serve as an overview of the character, and have the "character" pages serve as individual boss resources. However, the amount of clicks to actually get to these pages makes them very inconvenient to access; I think most would seek the contents before the small disclaimer at the top. While I'm an advanced player and don't really need to access these, just from a web design perspective I don't think it's very good.
- "What's your solution, then?"
I have "graduated" characters from mother pages to unplayables before, with Giga Bowser (SSBU) from the Giga Bowser motherpage being my best examples. My methodology was as follows, though you can also look here;
- People generally aren't looking for buffs/nerfs to bosses unless they are looking to play as them, so I moved that to the unplayable page.
- Attacks were not removed from the perspective of someone potentially looking for details on how those work and how to avoid them. Boss sections should be framed as boss fights, after all.
And then, when making the unplayable page, I effectively just did what's done for like, Mario (SSBU). So far, this has made perfect sense and makes for solid resources, as I can also describe why the characters are banned in standard play, among other things.
I am having trouble seeing the justification for these pages existing as-is, and propose the following:
- Merge the moveset tables into the Master and Crazy Hand pages, compressing the attack pattern information in a way akin to the Brawl boss pages. The "bloat" is deceptively small in my opinion and is largely mitigated by the appearance sections - for such impactful characters in Smash as a franchise, I think they're actually quite short and don't do the characters justice at all.
- Repurpose the current pages into how I have been covering the unplayable characters, as in, covering them as if they were proper fighters with the appropriate notes. For those unfamiliar, they would look much like Galleom (SSBB) and Rayquaza (SSBB) here. This would preserve much of the repeats and compress the 1P mode information into the lower part of the page, as is seen with, again, Mario (SSBU).
Thank you for your time, and I hope this was all understandable. --
Plague von Karma 07:22, August 4, 2023 (EDT)
