Weapon Skill Icons

[Haldarn]

So firstly, I understand that many people will have weapon skills macrod in with equipsets (or a similar solution) and don't look at the menus at all.

But from the personal menu under Abilities > Weapon Skills is your list of currently usable weapon skills that you can activate from there if you choose. Each weapon skill has an icon next to it.

A few years ago (10?) these were changed from coloured icons with letters of the element on to coloured icons with instead a small graphic of the weapon type on, which was nice.

However, to me they feel inconsistent, even confusing, for a couple of reasons. I wanted to bring this up in a bug report, as it seems to be a quick fix of pointing a db flag to a similar graphic asset. First, I wanted to make sure that I hadn't misunderstood the reasons as to why they have the colours they do.

Now, I understand that the colour of the icon doesn't in any way reflect the skillchain properties. My expectation is that the colour represents the elemental property of the damage.

So my first issue is that around half of the weapon skills don't deal elemental damage at all. These weapon skills have a grey icon, which is absolutely fine. However, there are a number of weapon skills that do Light elemental damage. These weapon skills use exactly the same grey icon, making them indistinguishable. The list of Sword weapon skills is a prime example of this. It would be great if we could have a slightly whiter icon for Light element weapon skills.

My second issue is the inconsistency with some other weapon skills. Skills that Stun don't necessarily deal Lightning damage, but are coloured purple like Lightning elemental weapon skills. All of the Great Axe weapon skills are coloured grey, but do Ice, Wind, Water, Earth elemental damage dependent. Burning Blade and Red Lotus Blade are coloured red for the Fire elemental damage they deal, but so is Skullbreaker - which I assume is red because it lowers INT, which is a Fire debuff, and it doesn't deal Fire damage. Piercing Arrow is green (Wind), but neither deals Wind elemental damage, nor delivers a wind-associated debuff.

I think it would be nice if there was consistency; either only used coloured icons for elemental weapon skills (my preference), or use coloured icons for both elemental weapon skills and weapon skills that deliver a debuff. And add a white icon for Light.

[Alhanelem]

The color of the icons is the element of the WS, not the skillchain properties. Earth crusher is yellow and deals earth damage, etc. pretty straightforward to me.

[Haldarn]

The color of the icons is the element of the WS, not the skillchain properties. Earth crusher is yellow and deals earth damage, etc. pretty straightforward to me.

Yes but Skullbreaker is Red and doesn't deal Fire damage.
Piercing Arrow is Green and doesn't deal Wind damage.
The Great Axe weapon skills deal various different elemental damages, but are all Grey.

There are plenty of other examples.

[Alhanelem]

Yes but Skullbreaker is Red and doesn't deal Fire damage.
Piercing Arrow is Green and doesn't deal Wind damage.
The Great Axe weapon skills deal various different elemental damages, but are all Grey.

There are plenty of other examples.
Those WS inflict a status aliment which is associated with the element. WS that have a stun are purple.

[Alhanelem]

Yes but Skullbreaker is Red and doesn't deal Fire damage.
Piercing Arrow is Green and doesn't deal Wind damage.
The Great Axe weapon skills deal various different elemental damages, but are all Grey.

There are plenty of other examples.
Those WS inflict a status aliment which is associated with the element. WS that have a stun are purple.

Weapon skills often have more than one SC property, so it isn't feasible to use the icon for this purpose. The SC properties are included in help text.

[Haldarn]

Those WS inflict a status aliment which is associated with the element. WS that have a stun are purple.
Piercing Arrow doesn't have a status ailment. The Great Axe ones are all grey. Also, I literally wrote:
"Skills that Stun don't necessarily deal Lightning damage, but are coloured purple like Lightning elemental weapon skills."


Weapon skills often have more than one SC property, so it isn't feasible to use the icon for this purpose. The SC properties are included in help text.
I literally wrote:
"Now, I understand that the colour of the icon doesn't in any way reflect the skillchain properties."

Not sure why you keep responding without reading my OP, but I'm gathering you don't think that the icons consistently representing the elemental property of the weapon skill is a good idea.

[Alhanelem]

I literally wrote:
"Now, I understand that the colour of the icon doesn't in any way reflect the skillchain properties."
Not sure why you keep assuming "I didn't read," but I did. You seemed to me to be inferring that, while you understand it doesn't work this way, that this is the way you want it to work. Which is why I said that isn't feasible. You know, it really goes over a lot better if you don't insult the people who reply to you.

Yes, there is some inconsistency, I don't disagree with that. They should fix those inconsistencies. but obviously someone had to choose to put those colors on there, so there's a reason for them.