Talk:List of Star Point amounts in Paper Mario

Necessity
Is this page necessary? Don't get me wrong it's not bad, in fact it includes a good piece of information about the star points formula. But aside from that, it's a very long page that includes space-inefficient tables. Those tables include so much unneeded info, if you have the formula, you should be able to get all these info yourself. Which brings up my question.. Can we merge the "introduction" for this article into the Star Points article (if it doesn't already contain this info) and then delete this list?-- 08:53, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * I do agree it looks like a bunch of clutter, but I think we could keep the page if we had smaller tables. 09:11, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * It's because some people may not be interested in calculating the formula themselves and can look at the tables for quick reference -- even for those reasons you mentioned above, Megadardery. If there's a better way to make the tables smaller and more efficient, we should still keep this page. --Zootalo (talk) 09:20, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * The formula is not complicated enough to consider this a "quick reference". I'm sorry, but I don't see any way on how this might stay. Perhaps the most important reason is that it doesn't contain information for every single combination of enemies that can be found in the game, and if it did, it will be much much worse. And the fact that it contains information for combinations that cannot be found in the game at any point.-- 09:31, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * So it's basically a no-win situation? 09:37, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * It's too early to declare this as a "no-win" situation. I'm trying to hear some basic arguments that I could have missed before I do a proposal, and even after that, there is never a "no-win" situation.-- 09:39, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * The only other thing I can think of is shortening the tables, but even then it'll still be rather long. A lot of these tables could be merged to their main articles. I don't think there are any other things because it's stuffed full of clutter, just like I said. 09:44, 26 December 2015 (EST)

One way that this article can be improved upon is if we listed the Star Point Level of each enemy in a table, and provided a much cleared formulae using tags. I don't know if tags are supported on this place, though, but if they aren't then implementing them for one article seems a bit much. That way you can easily insert the values in the tables for each battle formation you may come across. 10:03, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * so use if they are supported rather than simply putting the number of points received?  10:07, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * My idea of using is to simplify looking at the formulae. The information about the formulae can also be moved after the TOC according to me. It's extremely clunky to read out a formulae in plain text, proper mathematical notation should be used instead.  10:11, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * I'm confused. Instead of reading a plain text formula we'd be using ?  10:16, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * Yes, since those are easier to understand and introduce less ambiguity. Ambiguity in a mathematical formulae is bad. 10:19, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * Could I see a comparison of plain text and ?  10:21, 26 December 2015 (EST)

In plain text, you could say the following, "Take 1 and divide that by x plus 1". What does this mean? Does this mean 1/x+1 or does that mean 1/(x+1)? They yield different results but both are acceptable interpretations of the text. This is the ambiguity that needs to be removed. Plus, it looks so much nicer to have proper mathematical expressions for the formulae anyway. 10:26, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * So let me see: "Multiply 3 times a - 2" could be 3a - 2 or 3(a - 2), right? Are you saying the tag would remove the difference? I don't see how it could decide between 3A - 2 and 3(A - 2).  10:31, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * It would be nice to have it with indeed, but it's not supported, and regarding your example, it actually implies 1/(x+1), because if it meant otherwise it would have said "Take 1 and divide that by x and add 1". But I get your point. Regardless, I don't feel like the formula is that complicated to begin with, like I said, it could simply be stated in the Star Points article and left for the reader to calculate it if he wanted, instead of shoving a mile long list in their face.-- 10:33, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * Ok, the formula is E - M/2. Now that you make that point, I agree would not be that great.  10:36, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * "[...] by taking the enemy's level, subtracting Mario's current level, then dividing by two." (E-M)/2, and that's not what I meant by formula, I meant the text formula, clearer if you read it carefully.-- 10:48, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * ugh parentheses. I tend to be a skimmer, that's pr'y why I missed it. So according to the formula, if the enemy is level 5, and Mario is 3, that would be (5 - 3)/2, or 1. 10:50, 26 December 2015 (EST)
 * I think this page is indeed useful. However, if it were possible to make a more efficient use of space this could be better, but without losing the easiness of navigation, since most users would be using the TOC. -- 20:53, 27 December 2015 (EST)