Help:Manual of Style

Manual of Style (MoS) refers to a style of writing intended for Dissidia Wiki. This style is considered a standard that editors should try to meet whenever possible. This is not to intimidate new editors, but to establish that not everything is deemed appropriate for this site. In most cases, the bureaucrats do not punish users for not following this style for every detail. People can make mistakes, especially when they're learning something new or practicing a skill.

With that being said, the administration reserves the right to remove access for a user if their violations are egregious and / or consistent.

Edit warring over style is not acceptable.

General Writing Style

Dissidia Wiki aims to be a community-driven source of information and education. In order to achieve trust with the readers, articles should be written with a degree of impartiality and professionalism. Proper punctuation, accurate and fair articulation are important. It is also worth noting, that many people of the site's audience may not speak English as their first language. The administration of this site asks that sentences are kept relatively simple when possible.

As a general rule of thumb:

• Try to be impartial and objective.
• Avoid excessively emotive language (e.g. "insanely oppressive offense", "abysmally awful defense", "very broken" or "so brain-dead").
• Avoid using swears.
• Avoid using slurs or other derogative terms under any circumstances.

Furthermore, Dissidia Wiki needs to be written agnostic to the skill of the reader. Do not assume a certain level of reader competence; Write such that even a beginner could understand it. This can be done by sticking to the descriptive nature of what the character can do as opposed to what the player can do. Instead of "you can block while in the air", write "X Character can block while in the air". Remember that readers may also need context for relevant game mechanics or strategies. Link to system mechanic pages or use the keyword template as necessary.

Text can refer to "players" passively as "players", but this should be reserved for pages with more elaborate and granular write-ups, such as character matchup pages. Casual language is acceptable, as long as it is kept in moderation. This is something that can be ironed out while iterating on written information.

In English

Dissidia Wiki is aimed at a broader, English speaking audience. Therefore all content on this site should be written in English. Until resources and volunteer staff can sustain multiple languages, Dissidia Wiki will prioritize English language.

Furthermore, English localization always takes priority. If the English and Japanese text for a game on this wiki differ, the official English localization takes priority. Original Japanese text may be documented and used as reference if needed, but it should support information written in English, and for English speaking audience.

If there is a community term or a word that's not normally part of English language, such as "abare", it should be used with a tooltip when it first appears on the page. This is so that readers can quickly learn relevant terminology. The {{Keyword}} template is used for many common terms related to the games.

For example:

Lightning's Thunder has a fast {{keyword|disjointed|disjoint=1}} {{keyword|hitbox|hitbox=1}} that can hit opponents reliably. It can be used as an {{keyword|abare|abare=1}} and a {{keyword|poke|poke=1}}.

Lightning's Thunder has a fast disjointed hitbox that can hit opponents reliably. It can be used as an abare and a poke.

Please refer to Keyword (Documentation) for more info on the keyword template.

Pronouns and Gendered Language

Administration recommends an approach adopted from the APA Style.

Use "They/Their/Them" when:

• If they/their/them are the official pronouns used
• The gender of the subject is irrelevant to the point being discussed
• The gender of the subject is unknown
• There are multiple subjects

Use official gendered pronouns when:

• The source material uses gendered pronouns for text that will be copied to the wiki
• The text needs the additional specification of gender to be clear

Captions

Cecil dives when he uses Sacred Cross from above.

The main purpose for captions is to clarify any visuals shown. There is no hard limit to how many captions are allowed. However, there is also no "minimum" number of captions necessary on a page, joke or not. Just because a page "looks empty without jokes" does not justify adding lazy jokes.

Criteria for captions on character moves:

• Explanations of what the moves do
• Noting different parts of a multi-stage attack (e.g. Cecil's Radiant Wings)
• Showing differences between different versions of a move (e.g. normal and charged, normal and EX Mode)
• References to the metagame
• Anything that attempts to be informative or educational
• Translated attack names (usually underneath the main caption)

Short captions may not always be possible, but they can be easier to read. Try to be concise if possible.

Examples of unwelcome captions:

• Jokes
• Unrelated references / quotes from YouTube / social media
• References / quotes to content unrelated to the source material
• Memes that you would expect to find on social media—such as TikTok, Vine, Snapchat, etc.
• Political content or hateful content

This list is not exhaustive, and everything you post is subject to the discretion of your peers and the moderation team. Arguing over captions is a waste of time and effort. The purpose of the site is not to be a platform for jokes, but instead to be informative and helpful.

Bullet Points

Bullet points are a form of writing which help communicate lists of information quickly and emphasize text on the page. It is, however, possible to poorly use bullet points and thus de-value them in writing.

For this reason, it is recommended that writers follow these guidelines for the use of bullet points as set by Miami University.

• Make sure all items in the list are related to each other
• Keep bullet points short, preferably no more than three lines long
• Emphasize the beginning of each bullet point to make the list skim-friendly
• Begin all items with the same part of speech (active verbs work well) and make sure they are in parallel form
• Make all bullet points approximately the same length if possible
• Use periods at the end of each line only if they are complete sentences

Bullet points can be useful for pointing out key differences between similar abilities, such as an attack's ground and midair versions. These differences can be incorporated into paragraphs though, so they are not considered a standard method.

Character Overviews

Character pages are expected to be the most commonly read articles on this site. As such, they will be held to the highest standard whenever possible.

The overview for a character should give a reader a basic understanding of what the character can do, their gameplan, crucial flaws, and key strengths. A reader should walk away from an overview with a baseline understanding of how a character works at a macro scale.

An overview should aim to be descriptive, detailed and accurate. It should also aim to be concise, so try avoid wasting time with flowery language. Overviews need to cover a lot of information in a relatively compact space, so it is recommended that editors avoid making excessive use of fluff phrases.

For good examples of a character overview, please refer to Cecil, Cloud and Prishe pages.

Pros and Cons

Pros and Cons, also known as Strengths and Weaknesses, are potentially very contentious and damaging to the site's reputation when handled without care. As such, these sections should be treated with consideration for accuracy and different interpretations.

Pros and Cons are currently under consideration for removal, or change to a different format. Some starter guide pages, such as Cloud and Tidus have an "At a Glance" table, which lists notable traits and aspects, but does not align them.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of guidelines to follow when editing this section. Administration reserves the right to make rulings on these sections on a per-case basis.

• Begin every bullet point with a bolded summary of the bullet point, followed by an un-bolded colon.
• Try to keep each bullet point to a maximum of 4 lines of text.
• Be specific. If a point depends on a specific set of moves or situations, list them.
• Be fair. It is natural to want to emphasize how weak a character's option may be, or how strong it may be. Keep these lists metered and avoid making absolute statements as to what is best and worst in the game.
• There is no need to have an equal amount of pros and cons.
• No jokes.

What Constitutes a Pro and a Con

This is constantly up for debate, and sometimes people's opinions will change with time. The goal with these lists should be to inform readers as to the following traits:

• What does this character excel at?
• What can I abuse as this character to gain an advantage?
• What flaws do I have to play around with this character?
• What about my character can opposing characters exploit to gain an advantage over me?

In most cases, it's best to compare the character to the average power level of their respective game. Comparing a character to a perceived stronger one or the "top tiers" is not always helpful in illustrating what kind of issues a player might encounter when picking up the character, or what can be exploited against them.

Let's take a look at some examples:

Character A doesn't have a ranged attack. In their game, only 30% of characters have any sort of ranged attacks. "Does not have a ranged attack" cannot be considered a Con for this character, since it's something shared by the majority of cast.

Character B does have a ranged attack. "Has a ranged attack" can be considered a Pro, but not necessarily so. It is certainly an advantage they have over the other 70%, but does this one tool make them stand out? Is ranged attack a major part of the metagame, or simply an added bonus that a player can do without? These should be taken into consideration when writing Pros/Cons, rather than listing out all the unique tools a character possesses.

Character C has a ranged attack, but it's extremely slow. It might be tempting to list "Worst ranged attack in the game" as a Con, but let's consider C's overall power level if they didn't have this awful ranged attack. Would they be essentially unchanged, or would they struggle against most of the cast? If the answer is the former, then C never needed it, and so "Worst ranged attack in the game" cannot be a Con. If the answer is the latter, then maybe the problem lies elsewhere, and their extremely slow ranged attack was merely a symptom. It might be better to reword the Con as "Terrible frame data" instead.

About Execution

High execution should only be a Con if the character loses something significant from execution mistakes. Think through these examples:

Example 1

Jecht drops a bravery combo. The opponent recovers.

Jecht's combo chains provide HP damage without assist or bravery damage comparable to an average bravery attack. If he fails to execute a combo, he gets neither of those benefits unless he uses assist to try again. This can be considered a Con, as it permeates his gameplay at all levels of play.

Example 2

Onion Knight goes for Thunder > Dodge Cancel > Turbo-Hit during EX Mode. He misses Turbo-Hit. The opponent recovers.

Onion Knight only has access to this combo in EX Mode, which he already struggles to reach without EX Cores. While this is a very powerful combo relative to Onion Knight's solo combos, it is not essential for him. Dropping this combo does not impact his overall consistency as a character, nor does he get punished heavily for dropping it. This is not considered a Con for Pros & Cons.

Bad VS Situational Moves

Sometimes characters have moves that are questionably helpful. In some cases, the community can come to the conclusion that the move is more risk than it's worth, and advise players to avoid using said move in most circumstances. In others, it's helpful in enough scenarios where the move is simply referred to as "situational." Despite this, it's rather common for writers to list many moves with considerable downsides as simply being situational, which is ill-advised due to its vague narrative, dishonesty, confusion to new players and potentially contradicting competitive expertise.

Ask yourself the following questions if you can't decide what a move should be described as:

• Does the move only become helpful in few, select situations?
• Does the move have reactable startup, punishable recovery, avoidable hitboxes, or otherwise high risk characteristics?
• Does the move give low reward for landing it?
• Does the move have a cost such as meter, cooldowns, health, or a character-specific resource?
• Does the move replace other moves? Is it possible to revert the replacement in the middle of the match?
• Does the move have an easy obvious counter, reducing the attack to a knowledge check?

There are also three simpler questions, but these are prone to more debate so handle these with care or use them as tiebreakers.

• Will top level players, or the community at large advise against using the move?
• Does the character have an objectively better choice for the same situation?
• Does the move invariably put you in a worse situation regardless of success?

If you find that too many of these can be checked off, you are likely staring at a bad move, not a situational one. It's important to differentiate the two, as you don't want readers to believe that a move is better or worse than it really is. But you also don't want readers to believe that a helpful move limited to certain scenarios is bad, simply because it's not all-purpose. Likewise, just because a move can be reacted to or has limited range does not make it bad on its own (e.g. Squall's Thunder Barret), unless these flaws are so pronounced it will never realistically be feasible to use the move.

The ultimate goal of the wiki is to educate and inform people. Therefore, even if an attack is generally bad or ill-advised, the reasons should always be listed fairly. A common way to do this is to say "a move is not prioritized in competitive play because of [reason 1] and [reason 2]". This is where comparison to a character's other moves can help communicate the point effectively. Hyperbolic language such as "completely useless" should be avoided whenever possible. An attack needs to truly earn it before it is fair to describe it as "useless".

Example of Situational Move

Warrior of Light's Rising Buckler

Does the move only become helpful in few, select situations?

Yes. Rising Buckler is designed to hit upwards, so it can only work whenever Warrior of Light is below his opponent, but while airborne

Does the move have reactable startup, punishable recovery, avoidable hitboxes, or otherwise high risk characteristics?

Yes. Rising Buckler has a 25-frame startup and stays in place for roughly a second before he can dodge cancel.

Does the move give low reward for landing it?

No. Rising Buckler leads to Bitter End HP link, which is an important source of damage for Warrior of Light.

Does the move have a cost such as meter, cooldowns, health, or a character-specific resource?

No. Warrior of Light can use Rising Buckler whenever he is in the air.

Does the move replace other moves? Is it possible to revert the replacement in the middle of the match?

No, mostly. Warrior of Light has Radiant Sword, which can hit above him, but it is much slower all around. In typical assist combos, Rising Buckler can be replaced with Shield Strike.

Does the move have an easy obvious counter, reducing the attack to a knowledge check?

Yes. Rising Buckler can be reacted to with a block or whiff punished after an air dodge.

Example of Bad Move

Squall's Blizzard Barret

Does the move only become helpful in few, select situations?

No. In situations where Blizzard Barret can be used, Fusillade and Thunder Barret are more consistent in performance and reward.

Does the move have reactable startup, punishable recovery, avoidable hitboxes, or otherwise high risk characteristics?

Blizzard Barret comes out at 33 frames while being Ranged Low priority. It can be dashed and attacked through, so it provides no coverage for Squall when used.

Does the move give low reward for landing it?

Yes. The base damage is low, so any assist combos are weaker compared to other combo starters. Converting into a combo requires sharp reactions, assist gauge and / or a wall. High requirements for less consistent reward.

Does the move have a cost such as meter, cooldowns, health, or a character-specific resource?

No. Squall can use Blizzard Barret whenever he is on the ground.

Does the move replace other moves? Is it possible to revert the replacement in the middle of the match?

No. Blizzard Barret is used on the ground, where Squall already has access to three other braveries which are reliable in competition. If Squall equips Blizzard Barret, he loses one of his key moves for the whole match.

Does the move have an easy obvious counter, reducing the attack to a knowledge check?

Yes, though the space control and damage potential are low enough to not really have a high impact even without prior knowledge.

Citations

Editors can add citations in the form of <ref>012</ref> references. These can be used to support information on various pages. This is not deemed mandatory, but citations can improve the site's credibility when used appropriately. Editors are encouraged to use online videos as proof for in-game behavior; Dissidia Wiki does not host videos at the time of writing this section. If you cite a source from an official book related to Dissidia games (e.g. Ultimania), you may only cite the book's name and the page the information is found on.

Just like text, citations are subject to review and may be deleted if they are irrelevant, inaccurate or illustrate the point inadequately.

For an example on citations, refer to Cloud's bravery attacks. Each citation can be found at the bottom of a character page under References.

This is an example citation. Cloud can use Firaga to add damage during Kuja ground BRV assist. <ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgabDr3brWc&t=68 Firaga adds damage during Kuja assist.]</ref>

This is an example citation. Cloud can use Firaga to add damage during Kuja ground BRV assist.