Should questions about different XP bonus types on Diablo 3 all be lumped together?

Question

A few months ago, I asked the question How does the Massacre bonus work?. I intended for it to be a fairly comprehensive question about the Massacre bonus mechanics, but I didn't lump other xp bonus types (such as destruction) into it because I couldn't be sure how similar the underlying mechanics were, though superficially destruction at least is similar.

Next came Nick T's question, How can I extend my Massacre (or Destruction) steaks?, which after I pointed out to him was a partial dupe, got edited into How can I extend my Destruction sprees? Then after some discussion in chat, it was proposed that all of these questions about various xp bonuses (massacre, destruction, mighty blow, pulverize) end up under a single question. NickT edited his post again, to now be What XP bonuses are there and what are their criteria??

OrigamiRobot also recently asked Do sustained skills count as one attack?, which is a question about the Mighty Blow, which may fall under the umbrella of NickT's question.

I'm bringing this up because I feel it's unclear on whether or not these questions should all be lumped together, or should be tackled separately. I'll keep my personal opinion out of the question itself and simply ask:

Should questions about different XP bonus types on Diablo 3 all be lumped together?

And if so, how? Should my original Massacre question be closed now as a dupe of NickT's later, more general question? Or should mine be edited to be more general and NickT's closed?

Answer 1

We can't be sure these are mechanically the same.

The problem that I find with making one inclusive question is that right now, we don't necessarily have enough info to know whether or not the mechanics are similar enough to warrant these questions all being collapsed into one. For example, superficially the Massacre and Destruction bonuses are similar, with one being for killing creatures and the other being for destroying objects, but I don't know if the underlying mechanics such as timing or experience point bonuses are the same.

Even if those two were exactly the same, we then add in something like Pulverize or Mighty Blow. If I remember right, Pulverize is for dropping things like chandeliers or wall sections on enemies. Mighty Blow is for getting a bunch of kills in a single attack (with some question about how channeled attacks behave). I feel those mechanics are pretty dissimilar from Massacre and Destruction, and grouping them together doesn't make sense.

A broad question that hits so many different systems discourages good answers and encourages piecemeal answers.

I think that a problem with combining so many different things into the one question is that for someone to leave a good answer, they have to be not just an expert on how one of the experience bonuses work, but they have to be an expert on how every experience bonus works. I believe this will discourage people from leaving good answers. Maybe I know exactly how Mighty Blow works, but I'd be unable to leave anything but a partial answer to NickT's question. OrigamiRobot will have to sit and wait for an answer while someone becomes an expert on all of the mentioned systems. Either that, or we need to encourage piecemeal answers, which does not seem like a good idea to me.

Let's keep the questions separate.

I'd rather see these start out separate and, if we insist, end up merged only if it turns out the answers are mechanically the same. I could forsee this being the case for Destruction and Massacre bonuses, where it might be a simple as changing the word "objects" with "creatures". But Mighty Blow and Pulverize are very different than those two, and lumping them all together makes no sense to me. And what if new experience bonus types are added in the future, all with their own unique mechanics?

Answer 2

These should be separate questions, even if the answers are the same. We should not be determining how to ask questions based on the answers. That defeats the purpose.

If they all work the same way, then we can duplicate and perhaps cross-link the answers for reference. If there are even minutiae of difference, then they deserve to be addressed separately anyway.

I can't really see any argument for keeping them together.

Answer 3

Split them up, maybe toss a little banner/info box on the top/bottom to hammer home their relatedness (yet distinctness) such as:

Part of a series of questions on Diablo III experience bonuses

Massacre — Mighty Blow — Destruction — Pulverized