Query about IDEA'ing skill QOL improvements

Anette

I wasn't sure whether this would be kosher or not, so I thought I'd ask.  I've had a few quality-of-life type improvements in mind for Templar that I've considered tossing into the IDEA system and putting up on here, but I'm aware from seeing it mentioned before that many times adjustment to actual class skills are generally considered something for when you do classleads.  Where exactly is the line drawn on that?  Obviously, I don't want to waste people's time if it's not going to be something looked at outside of them, but of course I want to suggest improvements where I think they'd be received.

Khizan

Obviously not an admin here, but, as long as they're not combat-related, I'd just use the "Improving Imperian" forum thread. It has a pretty good track record with purely quality-of-life stuff.

Eoghan

First off, never worry about wasting our time with submitted ideas. If we don't feel that they're worth investing immediate time in, we'll defer them for later consideration, or remove them.

As far as class-specific quality of life improvements, there isn't a hard-and-fast line. Generally speaking (but not always) if it is entirely new functionality (such as a new skill), it will have to wait for classleads. If it is an improvement to existing functionality (such as reformatting the output of a skill, making it less painful to use from a coding perspective, etc), then the next consideration is any balance implication. Does modifying it make the overall value of the class higher? If so, it's probably a classlead issue.

If you have ideas to submit, you're always welcome to submit them. Just know that there's always a chance they'll sit in the idea queue for a long time, or that they may be marked as classlead issues and closed.

The biggest issue is that things that may not SEEM like balance considerations may be. More free/reduced cost defenses, for example, mean that your profession may require a lower overall investment in general skills for the same reward as another class, which while less important than overall PK ability is still a balance concern.

Basically, this is all just a long way of saying there's no specific guidelines here. Sorry!

Anette

Well, the thing that has me humming and hawing at present is Inspiration.  Let me expand.

Right now, pretty much every other devotional/blessing defence or buff will be raised, and then if you try it again, it will give you a message that you already have it.  Ie,

>bless anette earthshield
You call upon your faith and bestow the Earthshield blessing upon yourself.

>bless anette earthshield
You have already been blessed with that blessing.

Earthshield, thermalshield, frostshield, celerity, bliss, bracing all function like this. Inspiration doesn't. I don't really see there being a reason for the difference? So it'd make sense to me to bring it in line with the other abilities. Buuut, since mistakedly doing it a second (/third/fourth) time will consume the (shortish) EQ, it could be argued the change could affect balance in some way.

Eoghan

That would be the sort of thing likely to be implemented outside of a classlead cycle, yes. If you were to crosspost that request in Improving Imperian or submit it as an IDEA I'd go ahead and implement it.

That seems arbitrary, but I don't want to start a precedent or expectation that I (or other coders) will read every post in every thread and start implementing things from them.

Anette

That's fine, I'll make an idea with the same brief description as here

edit: Thank you. Your idea has been submitted in report #60882.

edit2: aaaand implemented