Forum:Merge Bloons TD 6 and Bloons TD 6 (mobile)
| This is a settled discussion about changing something about Blooncyclopedia. Do not modify it. Deadline: Wednesday, 19 February 2025 at 23:59 UTC Outcome: 4-0 in favor of merging. |
The purpose of the "title" pages like Bloons 2 and Bloons TD 5 is to compare and contrast different games that share the same name and general gameplay, but have substantial differences between each other, and also to simplify links. For example, it's easier and more concise to write "The Boomerang Bloon is a Bloon in Bloons and Bloons 2" than to write "The Boomerang Bloon is a Bloon in the Flash version of Bloons, More Bloons, Even More Bloons..." This is similar to the Minecraft Wiki having one page about Minecraft in general and then separate pages for Java, Bedrock, and other editions, or SmashWiki having one page for "Super Smash Bros. 4" and then separate pages for the Wii U and 3DS games.
However, BTD6 is different. All the versions of BTD6 are based directly on the mobile version and share the same code base, unlike the other "title" pages, which compare and contrast games made in different engines and by different teams. They even use the same version numbering (though the console and Chinese versions have their own minor versions), and the same balancing within each version. This has resulted in some confusion about what information needs to go where (for example, putting IAPs on the main article feels weird when they only exist in some versions), and in general, there's so much overlap between these two pages that it's hard to determine where content needs to go. (We do try to avoid being redundant, after all.) Ninja Kiwi certainly treats the mobile version as the "main" version, and the other versions are more like alternatives for other platforms/services. This is unlike BTD5, where you have the Flash version, the Flash version with different content (Deluxe), the mobile version that completely rebuilds the game from the ground up, and the console version with less content. The Flash and mobile/console games have substantially different balancing, graphics, and metagames, which means there's a lot more need for comparing and contrasting.
The main issue I see with merging these is that it would result in one very large article, though you could probably split the pre-release and development information into a separate article, similar to the Fandom wiki.
Support
- Per my proposal. po●la●vux 15:59, 5 February 2025 (UTC),
- I support the merge as is clear that the mobile version is the main version of the game an other ports are just derivatives of the mobile one. I think we can reduce the article size by moving a lot of the content to their own articles and keeping all sub sections to a similar length than the Legends section, specially with sections like Level, Maps (do we really need a link to the map list when the map list is just below?) and Bloons (just put the portraits like in the Boss Bloon and leave all the details in a separate article). And if the article still feels too bloated, there's the option of reducing it to just a list like the ones in events, or by simply linking the less important articles in the navigation template. Drgoku282 (talk) 02:01, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Unlike btd5 generation games the mobile version is nearly identical to its desktop counterparts so it makes sense for these to be merged. Overclockbtd (talk) 03:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
- Not gonna lie this doesn't feel like a proposal that many people would actively disagree with. I believe that the page bloat issue isn't really a factor provided we make proper headers to navigate to, as well as just being smart about how we lay out the information. --Planterror (talk) 15:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC)