What is this spell? Example of vague tooltips & poor UX writing + example fix

Sorcerer
1

This is one example of many vague or inconsistent tooltips throughout the game. I believe that the game needs an entire syntax overhall in regards to how skills tooltips are costructed. Here’s the example of the current tooltip for Blizzard, with advanced tooltips active.

Blizzard
[Mastery][Frost]
Mana cost: x
Lucky Hit Chance: x%
Summon a frigid blizzzard that deals X [x%] damage and continunally Chills enemies for 18% over 8 seconds.

There are a few reasons why this is vague.

The syntax for one. The sentence structure implies that it’s fontloaded with damage, and then chills for increments of 18% over 8 seconds. Also the lack of any tag to indicate what damage type it is (I believe if a skill is a direct damage skill, it needs a [Direct] tag as well).

Had it been the following, there would be no doubt as to it’s functionality:

Blizzard
[Mastery][Cold][Periodic]
Mana cost: x
Lucky Hit Chance: x%
Summon a frigid blizzard that persists for 8 seconds. Whilst inside the blizzard, enemies will suffer X [x%] Cold damage per second, and will be Chilled for 18% per second.

I’ve done four things above (and I’m sure it’s not perfect, it’s a spur-of-the-moment re-write):

  • Indicated that the spell is in fact perioidic damage by attaching a [Periodic] tag to the spell, allowing for it to be searched within the skill tree.
  • Included the damage type, and included the tag for it. Replaced [Frost] with [Cold] for clarity.
  • Indicated clearly how much damage and chill is applied each second with the user having to do as little guesswork or math of even the most basic level.
  • Stated that the effect only persists when the enemy is within that area.

The reason that caused me to bring this up, is that the fire bolt enchanment does not affect the Blizzard spell whatsoever — not even on the first hit — which has led me and others to believe that the entire spell is comprised of packets of periodic damage. This chokes out even more build options than it should.

I know you’re funneling people into specialising in one element — which I believe is a massive design mistake and will be a detriment to the game, and it is already (and I digress as it’s not the point of this post) — clarity in tooltips is paramount to ensure that players are getting the most out of their builds, and to get the most out of their builds in general.

P.S. If you need a good UX writer, HMU.
P.P.S: If anyone thinks this kind of content belongs in general, idk. It’s an overarching issue within the game, but I thought I’d start here as the post is specific to the Blizzard spell.

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2

incinerate doesn’t cause a “hit” either, so, it is not just blizzard. so yeah, incinerate, firewall, neither of them trigger the firebolt enchantment, which essentially forces you to use the firebolt enchantment with other elements.

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3

Oh this is a fantastic observation! Considering the lack of synergy between elements as well.

The chances of this being an oversight considering the track record currently are very high.

4

You’re doing a big mistake sir.
Chill is not a debuff like you think.
The writing in current tooltip is what exactly it does!
Chills (not chilled, chills) 18% each second.
This means when chill debuff cumulatively reach to 100%, that guy is frozen. So with this blizzard, an enemy is about in 5 second, gets frozen.
Many items, stats, paragons and passives, increases chill cumulative ratio. So let’s day if you can have 50% chill, this means in 2 second you can freeze them.
Your rewriting is wrong. “Chilled” is not a static debuff. It’s not something like slow. That percentage means something different than you want it to be.

5

I wouldn’t be doing a mistake, I’d be making one. And that, I’m not, sir. You’re misguided in too many places to pick apart here.

6

Increased “None physical” damage. What is none physical damage? The game doesn’t tell you. You might think, oh easy - lightning, cold and fire damage, right? Correct! However is for example Vuln damage none physical? Is Chill damage none physical? Is Burning damage none physical?

The game doesn’t tell you at all.

7

You are comparing apples with oranges.
Damage types are not equal to debuffs/conditions.
Vulnerable is a debuff.
Fortified, barrier is buff.
Burn is condition (like close, distant, injured, healthy)
On the other hand, physical is physical, and blood. Non physical is elements (cold, lightning and fire), poison and shadow. These are damage types. When you hit something with some kind of source, first thing calculated is type.

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8

Well English is not my first language sorry for that.

9

Funny enough: None Physical damage increases burn damage and fire damage separately xD, thus burn damage is double dipping.

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