League of Legends Wiki talk:Discussions/Cost Efficiency Pt 2 Electric Boogaloo/@comment-1330314-20150120082714/@comment-1330314-20150120092144

Starting with the feedback on your questions: your questions are thorough and thought-provoking, so I think you've done a great job in trying to frame the discussion of gold value/efficiency. However, you might want to take another look at the phrasing, spelling and/or grammar: some of your sentences and questions (e.g. "if you agree with value it at 600g", "Does the foundation and base of how statistical value justify and provide adequate answers while making clear what it is ignoring?" or "Or how you in the camp that stat and an effect is the same?") are word salad, and the last thing you'd want here is to confuse people while they're thinking about gold value.

I think I've made my reasoning fairly clear in the above wall of text, but here goes for the protocol:


 * Protocol:
 * A stat is defined as an in-game numerical value with its own set of functions and properties. All in-game effects that have the exact same functions and properties so as to have no differences between them are considered to be the same stat.
 * The gold value of an item is defined as the amount of gold expected to pay for a stat on an item in the shop. If possible, the gold value of a stat is set using a baseline item, using the following rules in order of priority:
 * 1) The item must feature the stat in the simplest way possible, the simplest way possible being defined as the stat's permanent, non-conditional presence on the wielder or, failing that, the state with the least amount of conditions.
 * 2) The item must be in the most basic possible tier where the stat can be evaluated on its own, following rule 1.
 * 3) The item must be the least cost-efficient of its tier from which the stat can be derived using rule 2.
 * A stat is assumed to always have the same gold value per unit, regardless of item placement or further conditionality.
 * The gold value of an item is defined as the gold value of the sum of its stats that have assigned gold values.
 * The gold efficiency of an item is defined as the ratio of its gold value to its total price.
 * Not a definition, but the gold efficiency of an item has no relation to its effectiveness on any individual champion or build, and the two should not be confused even if they can sometimes overlap.
 * A cost analysis is defined as the evaluation of an item's gold value and efficiency, featuring:
 * 1) A stat-by-stat breakdown of the item's gold value.
 * 2) A listing of the item's gold value and efficiency.
 * 3) A listing of the item's uncountable effects, the gold value they are expected to fill, and the context they provide with respect to the item's gold value and efficiency. An uncountable effect is defined as a feature of an item that is not assigned a gold value.

The above is more of a hard set of definitions and assumptions than how-to guidelines, but I think they'd help in establishing those. Furthermore, I think that cost analyses may not even require guidelines: with a rigorous enough set of rules and assumptions, you could make the entire process automated, feeding in a template numbers and strings and have it provide a full cost analysis of the given item. You could even make the job simpler by using the same Data Templates used on champions for items, so that changing just one set of variables would change their display and their cost analysis across the entire wiki. Any change to an item's cost or build path, and just a few quick edits could change all there is to know about the item, its recipe and its gold value/efficiency.