Forum:Displaying cosmetic changes separately from gameplay changes in updates

Forums: Index → Proposals → Displaying cosmetic changes separately from gameplay changes in updates

This is an ongoing discussion about changing something about Blooncyclopedia. It must reach a consensus before being implemented. Deadline: Thursday, 6 August 2026 at 23:59 UTC

When I say "cosmetic changes", I mean any and all changes that don't affect the gameplay function of the subject. Visual bugs/bug fixes, cosmetic items, name/description changes, audio, buff icons/indicators, et cetera. "Gameplay changes" means anything else.

Currently, on the wiki's update articles and update history sections, we list both gameplay and cosmetic changes together for the most part. It's especially noticeable on Hero update histories where description changes are awkwardly interleaved with the actual stat changes. What I want to change is displaying gameplay changes and cosmetic changes separately for both update articles and update histories. We already have separate update history sub-sections for heroes and bosses in BTD6 for things like Legends and Boss Rush, so all the cosmetic changes would be moved under a new subsection. For update histories of regular towers and upgrades, we would split them into subsections for gameplay and cosmetic changes as well. (This won't apply to BCS update history sections, since they're all short, but will apply to the update articles.)

Current:

• Update history
  • General
  • Rogue Legends
  • Frontier Legends

New:

• Update history
  • Gameplay changes
    • General
    • Rogue Legends
    • Frontier Legends
  • Cosmetic changes

I don't think this idea is controversial, but I'm not sure how to separate gameplay and cosmetic changes in the update articles. I've created diagrams of three options, where the rows represent section headers (with the leftmost rows being equivalent to level 2 headers, the ones that you always start with). I'm open to adding more options or using different terminology if anyone can come up with a better way. I should clarify that not every header used in these examples needs to be a real header, they can just use <dl> tags to separate them instead (like how this section uses it to separate crosspath changes for the sake of readability without adding even more rows to the table of contents).

In this example, Dart Monkey and Bloonarius have both gameplay and cosmetic changes, Tack Shooter and Dreadbloon only have cosmetic changes, and Druid and Phayze only have gameplay changes.

Current

• Additions
• Changes
  • Towers
    • Dart Monkey
      [table of gameplay and cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Tack Shooter
      [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Druid
      [table of gameplay changes goes here]
  • Boss Bloons
    • Bloonarius
      [table of general and cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Dreadbloon
      [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Phayze
      [table of gameplay changes goes here]

Option A

"Gameplay changes" and "cosmetic changes" as subheaders of each subject they apply to

• Additions
• Changes
  • Towers
    • Dart Monkey
      • Gameplay changes
        [table of gameplay changes goes here]
      • Cosmetic changes
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Tack Shooter
      • Cosmetic changes
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Druid
      • Gameplay changes
        [table of gameplay changes goes here]
  • Boss Bloons
    • Bloonarius
      • Gameplay changes
        [table of general changes goes here]
      • Cosmetic changes
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Dreadbloon
      • Cosmetic changes
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Phayze
      • Gameplay changes
        [table of gameplay changes goes here]

Option B

"Gameplay changes" and "cosmetic changes" as subheaders of "changes"

• Additions
• Changes
  • Gameplay changes
    • Towers
      • Dart Monkey
        [table of gameplay changes goes here]
      • Druid
        [table of gameplay changes goes here]
    • Boss Bloons
      • Bloonarius
        [table of gameplay changes goes here]
      • Phayze
        [table of gameplay changes goes here]
  • Cosmetic changes
    • Towers
      • Dart Monkey
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
      • Tack Shooter
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Boss Bloons
      • Bloonarius
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
      • Dreadbloon
        [table of cosmetic changes goes here]

Option C

"Gameplay changes" and "cosmetic changes" as level 2 headers

• Additions
• Gameplay changes
  • Towers
    • Dart Monkey
      [table of gameplay changes goes here]
    • Druid
      [table of gameplay changes goes here]
  • Boss Bloons
    • Bloonarius
      [table of gameplay changes goes here]
    • Phayze
      [table of gameplay changes goes here]
• Cosmetic changes
  • Towers
    • Dart Monkey
      [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Tack Shooter
      [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
  • Boss Bloons
    • Bloonarius
      [table of cosmetic changes goes here]
    • Dreadbloon
      [table of cosmetic changes goes here]

Support option C

1. I like this one the most. It avoids the problem of having too many nested subheaders, which is especially bad on mobile and results in headers that are so small they can't be distinguished from <dl> tags. (At some point, I'd also like to cover "technical changes" under its own level 2 header...) Polavux (talk) 10:13, 16 July 2026 (UTC)
2. I prefer gameplay and cosmetic to be separate, and thus should be the main separators. Besides, you can't do much with cosmetic changes anyway and it'd just clutter everywhere... Qwertyxp2000 (talk) 10:26, 16 July 2026 (UTC)
3. My preference. --Planterror (talk) 06:48, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Oppose

Admin note: most of the text in Max's vote was transplanted to the comments section for the sake of keeping this section more readable.

1. I don't strictly oppose, I just don't think the distinction between Gameplay changes and Cosmetic changes should necessarily be added as (sub-)sections. --Max (talk) 09:36, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Comments

I don't strictly oppose, I just don't think the distinction between Gameplay changes and Cosmetic changes should necessarily be added as (sub-)sections. Could these changes be instead separated into two distinctly captioned tables that -in my opinion- should be put where all changes are currently listed? I created a quick example below using the mw-collapsible class :

Gameplay changes

Tiers	Changes
Gameplay changes would	be detailed here

Cosmetic changes

Tiers	Changes
Cosmetic changes would	be detailed here

--Max (talk) 09:36, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Isn't this just option B where gameplay changes and cosmetic changes both appear under a changes header, or am I missing something else you're opposing? Planterror (talk) 09:38, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Not really, I think it is closest to option A. Just without any additional header because the distinction would be shown as a table caption. Max (talk) 09:47, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Re-using the example of Option A, I envision something like this :

• Additions
• Changes
  • Towers
    • Dart Monkey
      • [table with "gameplay changes" caption goes here]
      • [table with "cosmetic changes" caption goes here]
    • Tack Shooter
      • [table with "cosmetic changes" caption goes here]
    • Druid
      • [table with "gameplay changes" caption goes here]
  • Boss Bloons
    • Bloonarius
      • [table with "gameplay changes" caption goes here]
      • [table with "cosmetic changes" caption goes here]
    • Dreadbloon
      • [table with "cosmetic changes" caption goes here]
    • Phayze
      • [table with "gameplay changes" caption goes here]

The fourth level dot would not be seen in any way in the table of content or in the text body, as it instead a table caption. Max (talk) 09:51, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

There's no need for cosmetic changes to have section headers under any of these formats. To quote myself in the proposal: "I should clarify that not every header used in these examples needs to be a real header, they can just use <dl> tags to separate them instead (like how this section uses it to separate crosspath changes for the sake of readability without adding even more rows to the table of contents)." Polavux (talk) 10:35, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I understand that, I just don't really like there being a title in the body of the text that would explicitly say "Gameplay changes" and "Cosmetic changes".

I just like the difference to be shown as a table caption because the way I see it, even a <dl> tag would give text that is the same size as body text. Max (talk) 19:04, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

dl tags display as bold and have more spacing between lines, so they still look different from regular text. I don't think it's an issue that they have the same font size as paragraph text.

The issue I have with keeping both tables under one section is that it causes problems with navigation on mobile. Having a separate level 2 header for cosmetic changes is easier to scroll through. You could make the cosmetic change tables collapsed by default, but then you can't CTRL+F search those unless you manually expand them first.

Also, I don't think I mentioned this in the proposal, but at some point I'd like to have another level 2 section for technical changes (changes that aren't visible in-game, but still affect the code of the game, since that's important for modders and dataminers to know). I'm worried that keeping so much documentation under a single "Changes" header is cumbersome to navigate, even on desktop, since the large size and underlining of level 2 headers is important for keeping different sections of an article identifiable while you're scrolling through it. Polavux (talk) 01:11, 3 August 2026 (UTC)