^But for a detailed answer;
As a semi successful guide writer for almost 2 years now I can tell you this... A successful guide isn't about beauty or having every little detail covered. It's about finding that balance between content and ease of reading. People don't want to read massive walls of text, nor do they want to sift through pictures and videos to find your actual content. Also, fact checking your guide and always being willing to make changes for your reader leads you to a more successful guide. Make it your own thing, but be willing to accept when you have something wrong.
Hope this helps a bit. :p Atleast I think this is what you were asking..
As a semi successful guide writer for almost 2 years now I can tell you this... A successful guide isn't about beauty or having every little detail covered. It's about finding that balance between content and ease of reading. People don't want to read massive walls of text, nor do they want to sift through pictures and videos to find your actual content. Also, fact checking your guide and always being willing to make changes for your reader leads you to a more successful guide. Make it your own thing, but be willing to accept when you have something wrong.
Hope this helps a bit. :p Atleast I think this is what you were asking..
Aesthetics don't matter. They can be a nice bonus, but no one's ever really complained about lack of aesthetics in my guide. So long as you use proper grammar and use the "enter" button to seperate your text into lots of paragraphs rather than one massive wall of text, people honestly can't complain. Aesthetics don't help me read a guide, they make me think "how pretty".
The best guides are guides which go through the trouble of explaining what you're meant to be doing and how you're meant to be doing it. E.g.
Good Riven guide: "At level 2 you'll want to go aggressive and try to go for a kill on your lane opponent. If you succeed you'll have an easy time for the rest of the laning phase"
GREAT Riven guide: "At level 2 you should probably try and cheese a kill to snowball your lane. The way you do this is when your opponent comes to last-hit a minion, you activate your first cast of
Broken Wings, auto-attack once you have your passive up, stun them with Ki Burst, auto-attack them again, 2nd Broken Wings, auto-attack, 3rd Broken Wings, and auto-attack them again. If they haven't died yet, you're not playing riven try and stick to your enemy landing as many more auto-attacks as you can."
Give detailed explanations about everything they have to do. You want them to feel as if they have a lot of experience with a champ before they've even played it.
A good cheat-sheet is important, and it's the first thing I'll look at in a guide; if you don't have a good cheat-sheet, I don't need to read the rest, because your guide has already messed up the most basic part of a champion, so obviously it's pretty bad.
Between guides that all have a correct cheat-sheet though, it's how in depth the guide is that determines which guide is better.
In conclusion, the best guide is one with a correct cheat-sheet and in-depth explanation of everything. Leave nothing to guesswork.
Aesthetics are nice but not important. I dislike trying to make my guides "look good" because back when I tried to use coding that way, I often had to backspace information to make my guide look better; which was cutting out something that was actually USEFUL just to make the guide look more pleasing for the eye.
An example of this is how pros and cons always tend to have the exact same amount of pros as they do cons. Does it REALLY just happen to be that it's so, or did the author intentionally make the same amount of pros and cons to make it look more organized? In which case he must have left out either a few pros or cons just to make it look better, as opposed to presenting in-depth information.
So long as you don't make your guide just an explanation of your cheat-sheet, your guide will probably be good. But a lot of the current top guides on MOBAFire have the potential to be a lot better, except the authors don't make it as in-depth as they could.
The best guides are guides which go through the trouble of explaining what you're meant to be doing and how you're meant to be doing it. E.g.
Good Riven guide: "At level 2 you'll want to go aggressive and try to go for a kill on your lane opponent. If you succeed you'll have an easy time for the rest of the laning phase"
GREAT Riven guide: "At level 2 you should probably try and cheese a kill to snowball your lane. The way you do this is when your opponent comes to last-hit a minion, you activate your first cast of
Broken Wings, auto-attack once you have your passive up, stun them with Ki Burst, auto-attack them again, 2nd Broken Wings, auto-attack, 3rd Broken Wings, and auto-attack them again. If they haven't died yet, Give detailed explanations about everything they have to do. You want them to feel as if they have a lot of experience with a champ before they've even played it.
A good cheat-sheet is important, and it's the first thing I'll look at in a guide; if you don't have a good cheat-sheet, I don't need to read the rest, because your guide has already messed up the most basic part of a champion, so obviously it's pretty bad.
Between guides that all have a correct cheat-sheet though, it's how in depth the guide is that determines which guide is better.
In conclusion, the best guide is one with a correct cheat-sheet and in-depth explanation of everything. Leave nothing to guesswork.
Aesthetics are nice but not important. I dislike trying to make my guides "look good" because back when I tried to use coding that way, I often had to backspace information to make my guide look better; which was cutting out something that was actually USEFUL just to make the guide look more pleasing for the eye.
An example of this is how pros and cons always tend to have the exact same amount of pros as they do cons. Does it REALLY just happen to be that it's so, or did the author intentionally make the same amount of pros and cons to make it look more organized? In which case he must have left out either a few pros or cons just to make it look better, as opposed to presenting in-depth information.
So long as you don't make your guide just an explanation of your cheat-sheet, your guide will probably be good. But a lot of the current top guides on MOBAFire have the potential to be a lot better, except the authors don't make it as in-depth as they could.
I wouldn't say aesthetics don't matter, since paragraphing is still formatting and structuring AKA aesthetics. You've got to make the information readily accessible, so the bare minimum aesthetics should be in a clear structuring of the cheatsheet, which is why I suspect no one really complains about your guide's looks, because the majority don't read past the cheatsheet (and in all fairness, your guide doesn't look that bad).
Other than that, I suppose I'll give the cookie cutter answers.
1) Correct content - This is probably first and foremost. I don't care how pretty a guide is, if it's fatally wrong in at least some areas (perhaps even one fatal error will do), then I don't consider a guide successful. This probably the case 80% of the times I downvote a guide.
2) Delivery of Content - Can I read what you are saying? Is it structured in such a way that confuses me unless I read it all and/or repiece it in my mind? I mean, what someone could be saying is right, but if I don't understand it then it's no use to me nor anyone else.
3) Attitude - This probably another major reason I downvote, usually to be found alongside reason 1. In about 90% of the guides I downvote, it's usually some noob trying to defend what's clearly a stupid idea and in the process, disrespecting people who comment in his discussion section. Sorry, but I don't believe that there should be a single guide-writer who treats their readers with such disdain. If you treat your readers with respect, explain things in due time and also know when to just agree-to-disagree and simply ignore someone, your guide will be that much stronger.
4 Extra Effort - Writers who go the extra miles to create sections like 'matchups', 'game phases' and so on in addition to the core sections of a guide will definitely garner much more deserved respect. Of course, there needs to be a fine line for extra 'useless' chapters like 'Lore'.
I think those are the major points - mostly the first 3 but if you want to be even more successful and show off your expertise, point number 4 definitely does not go amiss.
Other than that, I suppose I'll give the cookie cutter answers.
1) Correct content - This is probably first and foremost. I don't care how pretty a guide is, if it's fatally wrong in at least some areas (perhaps even one fatal error will do), then I don't consider a guide successful. This probably the case 80% of the times I downvote a guide.
2) Delivery of Content - Can I read what you are saying? Is it structured in such a way that confuses me unless I read it all and/or repiece it in my mind? I mean, what someone could be saying is right, but if I don't understand it then it's no use to me nor anyone else.
3) Attitude - This probably another major reason I downvote, usually to be found alongside reason 1. In about 90% of the guides I downvote, it's usually some noob trying to defend what's clearly a stupid idea and in the process, disrespecting people who comment in his discussion section. Sorry, but I don't believe that there should be a single guide-writer who treats their readers with such disdain. If you treat your readers with respect, explain things in due time and also know when to just agree-to-disagree and simply ignore someone, your guide will be that much stronger.
4 Extra Effort - Writers who go the extra miles to create sections like 'matchups', 'game phases' and so on in addition to the core sections of a guide will definitely garner much more deserved respect. Of course, there needs to be a fine line for extra 'useless' chapters like 'Lore'.
I think those are the major points - mostly the first 3 but if you want to be even more successful and show off your expertise, point number 4 definitely does not go amiss.
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