Character Planner - New Interface Ideas

[Xiadais]

Thank you very much for the Character Planner. It's helped me a lot. I'm a relatively new player just coming back after a few years away. I've gotten a couple characters to 20, run a few raids and have spent a little time on the forums - so my DDO "Wisdom" and "experience" are relatively low.

I was directed to this page by my forum search for a pre-made "character spreadsheet" (https://www.ddo.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2865157) planner.
Although I didn't find a character spreadsheet here (and had no luck with Google either), I thought that a "character spreadsheet" might be a nice and nifty "interface" or export idea for your Character Planner.

For my porpoise purposes (I'm a dolphin IRL, so I can make that pun) I am basically looking for a blank character template for use in spreadsheet programs. I considered making one myself but I wanted to see what was already out there first. The links in the most Promising Post: <Character Planner Spreadsheet> (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/96376-Character-Planner-spreadsheet) I found were dead.

"Last edited by binnsr; 11-09-2010 at 03:07 AM. Reason: v2.1 - fixed a few things and removed *.ods file link"

If someone could Raise Dead (http://ddowiki.com/page/Raise_Dead) that Thread or provide an alternative solution, that'd be awesome for me, but for the Character Planner, you could, please, consider (if you haven't already)...



An alternative spreadsheet interface that works and syncs with the current program. Drop down boxes for option selection would be excellent.
An export option either into a spreadsheet file for use in spreadsheet editing programs or a text export option that could be easily copy-and-pasted into a spreadsheet program.


Thanks for all your help and hard work DDO community. :)

For clarification, why do you specifically want a spreadsheet so bad?

[Feybrook]

For clarification, why do kids love cinnamon toast crunch?

Thinking more about it, I suppose in the grand scheme of possible Character Planner upgrades, time would probably be better spent elsewhere than on my spreadsheet suggestion.
But for me, speadsheets are familiar and easy to work with. I imagine a lot of theory-crafters would agree.
I thought it would be nice to have a premade one that would hopefully print nicely and import/export/sync easily with the current Character Planner interface.
I do feel the current "Character Print" feature is very nice and address many of my interests.

So please consider this more of just a throw-away brainstorming idea and a poorly placed request for a premade spreadsheet.

[Zistra]

Have you any screenshots we can see yet? How far out is the Alpha version? (Haven't seen anything new here or on your forums in a week or two). The anticipation is killing me. ;)

[Dragon.Star]

Evening All

Its been a pretty busy 2 weeks, so I havent' got much done lately. Here are some screenshots to tide you guys over.
Main Screen -
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg.html)

Edit Abilities Screen
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_03Sep221717_zpsa49bccaa.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_03Sep221717_zpsa49bccaa.jpg.html)

Edit Race/Class Screen
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_02Sep221716_zps46712000.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_02Sep221716_zps46712000.jpg.html)

[EllisDee37]

I love so much about that I can't even wrap my head around it.

The "levelups" section is the greatest thing ever. Fantastic!

The "tomes" screen, at first, seemed like it could be streamlined a bit, but as I sit here and brainstorm a "better" way I'm coming up empty. So my conclusion for that is well done. Tomes are just by their nature a bit cumbersome to implement in a planner. I think you've set it up as elegantly as it can be.

Big fan of the class level screen, unsurprisingly. Very nice. I like how options are disabled due to alignment restrictions. How much of a huge PITA would it be to use "dimmed" icons instead of removing them? The idea being they become unclickable, but if you hover the mouse over it you get a tooltip saying "Requires Lawful alignment" or whatever? Not really needed, just an idle question, really.

My only concern is when they inevitably introduce a new race, iconic or otherwise, your beautifully laid out race section will take a big hit. Same goes for the class area. But right now, I love love love the streamlined compactness of both areas on that screen. (EDIT: I just realized that screen shot fills up my 1920x1080 screen vertically. Will that screen support 1024x768?)

Another idle thought: Would it make sense to allow choosing 34 & 36 point builds in the stat screen? Obviously this would introduce the possibility of having unspecified past lives, so just tossing this out there as a rhetorical.

[Dragon.Star]

Big fan of the class level screen, unsurprisingly. Very nice. I like how options are disabled due to alignment restrictions. How much of a huge PITA would it be to use "dimmed" icons instead of removing them? The idea being they become unclickable, but if you hover the mouse over it you get a tooltip saying "Requires Lawful alignment" or whatever? Not really needed, just an idle question, really.
If a class is restricted by alignment, it will disable that class and become greyed out. It just happens that none of the classes selected restricted any of the classes in the screenshot. :).


My only concern is when they inevitably introduce a new race, iconic or otherwise, your beautifully laid out race section will take a big hit. Same goes for the class area. But right now, I love love love the streamlined compactness of both areas on that screen.

When new classes or races get added, those boxes will automatically become scrollable if needed. Yes it will lose its layout a bit, but they will still be functional.


(EDIT: I just realized that screen shot fills up my 1920x1080 screen vertically. Will that screen support 1024x768?)
Not sure why the screenshot is coming out that large for you. All of our screen are designed to fit a screen of (1024x768) which is the default size of the Main screen.


Another idle thought: Would it make sense to allow choosing 34 & 36 point builds in the stat screen? Obviously this would introduce the possibility of having unspecified past lives, so just tossing this out there as a rhetorical.

This would get done automatically when user chooses his past lives on the Reincarnation screen.

[Zistra]

That's a lot to digest, so .. preliminary thoughts.

Grammar stuff is just quibbles... but there are a few glitches.

I see you've stuck with the Tome axes you suggested. Given that you now have boxes with up to 30 possible entries (Ok, you can limit the minimum value based on tome value), might it be better to use a 'click to increment level, rclick to decrement level' system to make entry easier? Or if it can be supported, add mouse wheel roll to increment/decrement?

Actually, I really like the left-click to increase, right-click to reduce mechanism. It uses less screen space and allows the layout to look cleaner. You could also use it for the 'Ability Edit Panel - Creation' and skill selection and clean those screens up quite a bit.

For clean visual presentation, it would also look best if on the 'Ability Edit Panel's top 3 panes the stat labels lined up horizontally across the screen. It might make for a bit more whitespace at top or bottom of some of the panes, but it would look quite a bit less chaotic. Move 'Show Level' to the top of the first pane, and it the remainder would be trivial, I think.

[EllisDee37]

If a class is restricted by alignment, it will disable that class and become greyed out. It just happens that none of the classes selected restricted any of the classes in the screenshot. :).

Oh, right, now I get it. The blanks are the three selected classes. Perfect. At first I thought the blanks were paladin, monk and <unknown> because the alignment (from the first screenshot) is chaotic neutral. But, duh, I see paladin and monk icons right there, plain as day, now that I'm looking for them.

And good call on the scrollbars. Cool.


Not sure why the screenshot is coming out that large for you. All of our screen are designed to fit a screen of (1024x768) which is the default size of the Main screen.

Yeah that's all me. My eyes are shot, so I have firefox set to zoom in pretty far.


This would get done automatically when user chooses his past lives on the Reincarnation screen.

Right. I was thinking more along the lines of deciding to set up a new 36pt build and going straight to the stats screen to distribute the stats. Once there, you cannot set 36pt, but instead have to navigate to a different screen to add in past life info. Not a big issue either way.

[Zistra]

If a class is restricted by alignment, it will disable that class and become greyed out. It just happens that none of the classes selected restricted any of the classes in the screenshot. :).



If the example is all one toon, Paladin and Monk should be greyed out since the alignment is Chaotic Neutral.

[MadCookieQueen]

I'm trying to understand the Tomes area.

Wouldn't it be easier for the end user to simply just list the tome bonus once and let the planner apply it as needed?

Example:

Tomes

STR: [3] -- [] supreme tome (have this autofill the rest to match if the user clicks on it)
DEX: [5]
CON: [3]
INT: [3]
WIS [4]
CHA: [3]


Right now looking at it, I'm a bit unsure of what exactly it wants me to input.


If you streamed that down a bit you could bring down the Level ups and then you'll have a full right vertical column that you can use for other ability information.

Example:

Feat Ability Requirements

Heroic:
Combat Expertise: INT 13
Manyshot: DEX 13
Etc.

Epic:
Epic toughness: CON 21
Etc.

It'll actually provide a bit more information on one screen so that people can plan out their abilities a bit better. I personally can't tell you the number of times I had forgotten an ability requirement on a feat.

I can pull together a comp if you'd like.

[EllisDee37]

I'm trying to understand the Tomes area.

Wouldn't it be easier for the end user to simply just list the tome bonus once and let the planner apply it as needed?The planner is allowing tomes to be acquired at any level, not just the minimum level. As a quick example, on a couple of my new player melee builds, I list a +1 strength tome at level 23 to qualify for Overwhelming Critical at 24.

[Zistra]

I'm trying to understand the Tomes area.

Wouldn't it be easier for the end user to simply just list the tome bonus once and let the planner apply it as needed?


In short: No

There are 3 cases:

1. You ate the tome last life. Tome bonus applies at the beginning of the ML at which each + of the tome would be available, possibly affecting available skill points and feat prereqs.

2. You ate the tome this life at exactly its ML. Tome bonus applies AFTER levelup on the tome's ML.

3. You ate the tome this life at some level above its ML. Application is the same as for 2 above except for the level at which you ate it. This is the case your idea doesn't cover.

[Edit] You could also use more than one tome for the same stat on the same life.

[Ron]

The planner is allowing tomes to be acquired at any level, not just the minimum level. As a quick example, on a couple of my new player melee builds, I list a +1 strength tome at level 23 to qualify for Overwhelming Critical at 24.

Yes. Believe it or not, some people actually do use tomes at a level other than the minimum level for that tome :)

RE: The Ability Edit Screen
This screen was my baby, so let me answer your thoughts about it.

If you guys would prefer (and pending Dragon's approval) I will look into using a label for tomes, with a left click/right click and possible scroll wheel functionality control rather than using the number boxes. I probably can design a custom control for that (just a simple extension of the label control). The number boxes were put in as an alternative to drop-down (aka combo) boxes, which I personally despise. Also, I think we need some kind of label in the build section to let you know how many build points you are starting with. I'll add that.

The "Past Life" screen (which I'm working on now) will auto-effect your number of build points, and I think that's where it belongs. I would resist putting build point selectors for these in more than one place (too confusing). Especially given that the edit screens are capable of real-time updates on other screens, and I think in a lot of cases, people will routinely have multiple edit screens open at once (I know a lot of you have limited screen real-estate to work with, and of course there is no requirement that you have more than one screen open at a time, but they are being designed such that if you change something on one screen, all your open screens will update in real time).

[Zistra]

Yes. Believe it or not, some people actually do use tomes at a level other than the minimum level for that tome :)

RE: The Ability Edit Screen
This screen was my baby, so let me answer your thoughts about it.

If you guys would prefer (and pending Dragon's approval) I will look into using a label for tomes, with a left click/right click and possible scroll wheel functionality control rather than using the number boxes. I probably can design a custom control for that (just a simple extension of the label control). The number boxes were put in as an alternative to drop-down (aka combo) boxes, which I personally despise. Also, I think we need some kind of label in the build section to let you know how many build points you are starting with. I'll add that.

Obviously that would be my preference, since I suggested it. The number of clicks to set the level could get excessive with the current setup. The alternative I can envision would be to have a set of level buttons across the top or bottom; click to select level; click again to select the tome you're applying. But that seems much more cumbersome, even though it reduces to 2 clicks per tome. I guess third option would be to click on a tome bonus slot and pop up a window full of level buttons and click on the level to select. All-in-all, click/rclick seems cleanest in both appearance and usage, to me. If it is a consistent usage across the planner, people will only need to learn it once (its biggest potential flaw is UI: people could look at the box and not know how to change it).


The "Past Life" screen (which I'm working on now) will auto-effect your number of build points, and I think that's where it belongs. I would resist putting build point selectors for these in more than one place (too confusing). Especially given that the edit screens are capable of real-time updates on other screens, and I think in a lot of cases, people will routinely have multiple edit screens open at once (I know a lot of you have limited screen real-estate to work with, and of course there is no requirement that you have more than one screen open at a time, but they are being designed such that if you change something on one screen, all your open screens will update in real time).

You could include functionality to access the Past Life screen from the Ability panel somehow. That would maintain the current logical arrangement that you need to enter a past life(lives) to implement those stat points while still allowing 'chain of consciousness' character generation.

[Zistra]

Evening All

Its been a pretty busy 2 weeks, so I havent' got much done lately. Here are some screenshots to tide you guys over.
Main Screen -
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg.html)



In the Skills section at the bottom of the main page, which column gets the 'Epic Skills' automatic +1 to all skills/epic level bonus?

(And 'Tomb' s/be 'Tome', I think :) )

[Zistra]

Evening All

Edit Race/Class Screen
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_02Sep221716_zps46712000.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_02Sep221716_zps46712000.jpg.html)

When you drag a class to one of the boxes on the right, will it auto-select that class so you can immediately click level boxes below to change them to it, or will it require a drag followed by a click to select? Obviously for triple-class toons, you might drag all 3 before setting any levels, so click to select is necessary. However, on a 2-class toon it's likely you drag 1st, drag 2nd then start clicking to change levels to 2nd. Might be nice to avoid that click on the 2nd class after dragging it in that case.

[Zistra]

All-in-all, I'm quibbling. It looks really good. Can't wait to get my hands on it.

[Dragon.Star]

In the Skills section at the bottom of the main page, which column gets the 'Epic Skills' automatic +1 to all skills/epic level bonus?

(And 'Tomb' s/be 'Tome', I think :) )

It would fall under the Feats category since those are assigned by a feat that is automatically granted to you at each epic level.


When you drag a class to one of the boxes on the right, will it auto-select that class so you can immediately click level boxes below to change them to it, or will it require a drag followed by a click to select? Obviously for triple-class toons, you might drag all 3 before setting any levels, so click to select is necessary. However, on a 2-class toon it's likely you drag 1st, drag 2nd then start clicking to change levels to 2nd. Might be nice to avoid that click on the 2nd class after dragging it in that case.

Currently it doesn't autoselect it, I will add that to my todo list thought as its a good idea :)

[Zistra]

Main Screen -
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg.html)



On the Main Screen - Abilities pane, will it always be showing the L30 numbers and totals, or will it show the numbers and totals for the level selected on the left? In the blue banner area at the top, it might be nice to specify, e.g. 'Abilities (As of L23)' or something. [Edit] Likewise for skills in the bottom pane.

And since I pointed out the Tomb/Tome issue above, I'll mention that you use 'Enha' in the bottom pane and 'Enh' in the top one.

[Zistra]

It would fall under the Feats category since those are assigned by a feat that is automatically granted to you at each epic level.

Will there be a way to see which Feats and Enhancements contribute? More than once, I've seen a number in-game in the pop-up for skills and wondered that.


Currently it doesn't autoselect it, I will add that to my todo list thought as its a good idea :)

Glad to hear it. Clearly I'm posting a fair bit; if even a bit of it helps, hopefully it makes it worth wading thru the rest. ;)

[Zistra]

Main Screen -
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_04Sep221717_zps21a5bc79.jpg.html)

Additional Stats still needs BAB. Will we be getting AC breakdowns like in-game? And Spellpower/Attack speed (Melee & Ranged)/Doublestrike/Doubleshot, etc too?

[Psiandron]

Well, it sure is nice to see that the new planner is really coming together. The screenshots help to give a feel for it.

Things that I noticed were that there currently is no MRR section in defenses. Ofc, that hasn't been implemented yet and you probably have plans, but just thought I'd throw out a reminder.

Also in the defenses section it might be nice to have evasion and improved evasion either as words or an icon that light up if the character has one or both. I mean yeah, you could look in the feats, just to the right, but humans, lazy...

And, maybe I'm thick, but I don't really get how the skills section is going to function. I can see where you would have the totals of each available, but not sure about displaying how much of what taken at a given level.


All in all, I have to rate this current progress update as "spiffilicious"!

:)

[MadCookieQueen]

In short: No

There are 3 cases:

1. You ate the tome last life. Tome bonus applies at the beginning of the ML at which each + of the tome would be available, possibly affecting available skill points and feat prereqs.

2. You ate the tome this life at exactly its ML. Tome bonus applies AFTER levelup on the tome's ML.

3. You ate the tome this life at some level above its ML. Application is the same as for 2 above except for the level at which you ate it. This is the case your idea doesn't cover.

[Edit] You could also use more than one tome for the same stat on the same life.


But if I put in a tome at level 7 but I ate it last life, how does the planner know at which point to add it to the ability? There isn't a slot for that, as the Past Life column doesn't look as if it's editable. Which is why I figured that just letting the planner apply the points as it goes through is easier, than a player needing to constantly reference when the tomes apply and when they don't.

Of course the other side is that the user is planning on consuming a tome and then being upset when they miss their marks on when they get the point for selecting feats (in the game). Which would impact the end user experience with both the planner and DDO in general. The mechanic is persnickety.

Perhaps as part of the past life screen there could be a tome listing and it would auto fill in the areas on the Tomes list on this page and grey out the level boxes to avoid any confusion. If the player eats a larger tome later it could be added in a box that is still actionable. This way the planner knows which way to apply the points, because you're right it does make a difference.


Moving beyond just the tomes:


I also think that the assumption is planner's largest audience is new players who are designing and building as they first walk into the game. I'm not so sure that is the largest user base of the planner. I always figured the planner's main user were people who are preparing for their first TR (and most likely have acquired a tome or two) or players who are designing their own builds outside of things posted on the forums (in all likelihood new players are either winging it or just using a build they found).

Has there been any research on the actual user base? A poll or something so that it's design can serve the main target audience? User experience, especially for a specialized application like this, is all predicated on knowing the target audience; which allows the design and programming to be targeted for them. This allows for a more streamlined application and less fluff is always better for the user.

[Ron]

Perhaps as part of the past life screen there could be a tome listing and it would auto fill in the areas on the Tomes list on this page and grey out the level boxes to avoid any confusion. If the player eats a larger tome later it could be added in a box that is still actionable. This way the planner knows which way to apply the points, because you're right it does make a difference.

You've just described the exact mechanic we are using :) I'm working on the past-life edit screen now, but it's not really ready for a screenshot yet. It includes past-life tomes (as distinguished from the current-life tomes in the ability edit screen) as well as past-life skill tomes, and of course past-life class selectors.

[MadCookieQueen]

You've just described the exact mechanic we are using :) I'm working on the past-life edit screen now, but it's not really ready for a screenshot yet. It includes past-life tomes (as distinguished from the current-life tomes in the ability edit screen) as well as past-life skill tomes, and of course past-life class selectors.

all that can be said:


http://up.picr.de/18538975zu.jpg

[Dragon.Star]

That's a lot to digest, so .. preliminary thoughts.

Grammar stuff is just quibbles... but there are a few glitches.

I see you've stuck with the Tome axes you suggested. Given that you now have boxes with up to 30 possible entries (Ok, you can limit the minimum value based on tome value), might it be better to use a 'click to increment level, rclick to decrement level' system to make entry easier? Or if it can be supported, add mouse wheel roll to increment/decrement?

Actually, I really like the left-click to increase, right-click to reduce mechanism. It uses less screen space and allows the layout to look cleaner. You could also use it for the 'Ability Edit Panel - Creation' and skill selection and clean those screens up quite a bit.

For clean visual presentation, it would also look best if on the 'Ability Edit Panel's top 3 panes the stat labels lined up horizontally across the screen. It might make for a bit more whitespace at top or bottom of some of the panes, but it would look quite a bit less chaotic. Move 'Show Level' to the top of the first pane, and it the remainder would be trivial, I think.




RE: The Ability Edit Screen
This screen was my baby, so let me answer your thoughts about it.

If you guys would prefer (and pending Dragon's approval) I will look into using a label for tomes, with a left click/right click and possible scroll wheel functionality control rather than using the number boxes. I probably can design a custom control for that (just a simple extension of the label control). The number boxes were put in as an alternative to drop-down (aka combo) boxes, which I personally despise.

I don't really see a reason to change the number boxes to just labels, we really woundn't gain much space and the number boxes have the same functionality just by clicking the UP/Down arrows on them. We could add the Left/Right mouse click to the number controls though to give users the both options (totally up to you Ron).

Also the number boxes should be scrollable. Ron you many have to add code to trigger that since you've extended that control with the label cover.

[Dragon.Star]

I also think that the assumption is planner's largest audience is new players who are designing and building as they first walk into the game. I'm not so sure that is the largest user base of the planner. I always figured the planner's main user were people who are preparing for their first TR (and most likely have acquired a tome or two) or players who are designing their own builds outside of things posted on the forums (in all likelihood new players are either winging it or just using a build they found).

Has there been any research on the actual user base? A poll or something so that it's design can serve the main target audience? User experience, especially for a specialized application like this, is all predicated on knowing the target audience; which allows the design and programming to be targeted for them. This allows for a more streamlined application and less fluff is always better for the user.

There was no real research done to see overall who uses the planner. But our overall goals are to try and make the planner for all users to use no matter if they are brand new or an experienced end game player. In that regards we have been trying to set up everything as if a person is new and also putting stuff in for the experience builder. In fact this version of the planner really caters more to the experienced builders in that lets you choose stuff for all levels at one time in their respective screens, where Version 4 was more geared to newer players.

Of course in designing/developing anything its always a fine line that you keep crossing over to try and satisfy many individuals as you can :).

[Zistra]

I don't really see a reason to change the number boxes to just labels, we really woundn't gain much space and the number boxes have the same functionality just by clicking the UP/Down arrows on them. We could add the Left/Right mouse click to the number controls though to give users the both options (totally up to you Ron).

Also the number boxes should be scrollable. Ron you many have to add code to trigger that since you've extended that control with the label cover.

The big differences with just labels are visual (much less chaotic), space (even a little less may be important when you get to the skills screen), and the size of the click area (the entire label instead of just the tiny icons [beside] the number). [Edit] Also the lack of need to move the mouse at all when switching from incrementing to decrementing is a plus.

[Zistra]

There was no real research done to see overall who uses the planner. But our overall goals are to try and make the planner for all users to use no matter if they are brand new or an experienced end game player. In that regards we have been trying to set up everything as if a person is new and also putting stuff in for the experience builder. In fact this version of the planner really caters more to the experienced builders in that lets you choose stuff for all levels at one time in their respective screens, where Version 4 was more geared to newer players.

Of course in designing/developing anything its always a fine line that you keep crossing over to try and satisfy many individuals as you can :).

The old planner was clearly geared more to new players... the lack of much past life functionality beyond picking the feats and getting the stat points alone suggests that. I think the new planner will be better for both.. streamlined and with all the multi-life functionality that will make it quick and easy to use (and play with.. 'what if' scenarios) for experienced players as well as showing the outcomes of every choice as they are made for the newbies. The biggest thing I wonder about for newbies is flow.. is there a mechanism to make sure they've touched all the bases?

[Zistra]

Edit Abilities Screen
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_03Sep221717_zpsa49bccaa.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/ScreenHunter_03Sep221717_zpsa49bccaa.jpg.html)

I know this is pre-Alpha, but the numbers in the Creation panel look sketchy to me. How have you got 9 points spent on Con and Wis and have an even Stat? (s/be 10 spent for both for an Elf iirc). And why is the Cost at 2 for Wis with a 16 stat.. shouldn't that be 3 for an Elf? And the Cost for Str should be 2 with a stat of 14, not 1.

Also, as someone mentioned above, the Tomes section isn't clear. Adding something like (select the levels at which you ate/eat/intend to eat each tome) to the banner would help.

[Zistra]

And, maybe I'm thick, but I don't really get how the skills section is going to function. I can see where you would have the totals of each available, but not sure about displaying how much of what taken at a given level.



This is just a skills display panel. The skill input window hasn't been posted yet.

[Zistra]

But if I put in a tome at level 7 but I ate it last life, how does the planner know at which point to add it to the ability? There isn't a slot for that, as the Past Life column doesn't look as if it's editable. Which is why I figured that just letting the planner apply the points as it goes through is easier, than a player needing to constantly reference when the tomes apply and when they don't.


Ron touched on this, but in case it wasn't clear, past life tomes are entered on the Past Life screen rather than here (and displayed here). This area is solely for current life tome entry.

[Edit] Past life Tome application will be automatically handled by the planner (in specific contrast to the old planner). All you need do on the new version is indicate when you ate the tome. If it was in a past life, the planner will automatically increment the stat on each relevant level (At the beginning of L3, L7, L11, L15, L19 & L23) up to the value of the tome. Obviously for current life tomes, it applies the full bonus at the level you indicate that you ate the tome AFTER the levelup metrics (e.g. a +3 tome eaten at L12 doesn't affect feat prereqs until L13).

[Zistra]

Perhaps as part of the past life screen there could be a tome listing and it would auto fill in the areas on the Tomes list on this page and grey out the level boxes to avoid any confusion. If the player eats a larger tome later it could be added in a box that is still actionable. This way the planner knows which way to apply the points, because you're right it does make a difference.


Greying out the tome values superseded by past life tomes is a suggestion I hadn't seen elsewhere and seems like a good one.

[Dragon.Star]

The big differences with just labels are visual (much less chaotic), space (even a little less may be important when you get to the skills screen), and the size of the click area (the entire label instead of just the tiny icons on each side of the number). [Edit] Also the lack of need to move the mouse at all when switching from incrementing to decrementing is a plus.

Are we talking about the Tome Boxes or the Actual Ability Create left/right icons. I was mainly talking about the Tome Boxes?

[Zistra]

Are we talking about the Tome Boxes or the Actual Ability Create left/right icons. I was mainly talking about the Tome Boxes?

We were specifically talking about the 'Level you ate the tome' boxes. However, it seems to me that for consistency, the Ability and Skills input screens (and any other similar) should use the same system.

[Edit] I went back and corrected my post from 'on each side of' to 'beside' because I wasn't looking at the screen at the moment I made that post. Apparently I didn't fix it quick enough. Sorry.

[EllisDee37]

On a superficial note, I'm digging the new color scheme. I like it.

[Zistra]

On a superficial note, I'm digging the new color scheme. I like it.

They've suggested it will be customizable and that you will be able to save and trade 'skins'. :D

[Edit] Not necessarily on initial release.

[EllisDee37]

Yep, I remember.

Looking back at page 9 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435033-Character-Planner-New-Interface-Ideas/page9), I see it's not actually a new color scheme. It's technically the same colors as the original screen mock-ups.

However, the look now is much more polished, and the colors work much better now. Either way...pretty!

[EllisDee37]

Super minor point: On the feats summary area on the main form, at the bottom you have three buttons: All Known, Granted, and Selected. I would swap All Known and Selected, so that the order reads Selected, Granted, All Known. Then I'd default that to always show Selected unless manually changed by the user.

Not a big deal either way. In the many builds I've prepared using the planner, I've never once cared about granted feats. Some build rely on granted feats, of course, like getting the TWF line for free on the tempest trapmonkey. But in terms of putting it together in the planner, I've never found granted feats relevant.

[Zistra]

Super minor point: On the feats summary area on the main form, at the bottom you have three buttons: All Known, Granted, and Selected. I would swap All Known and Selected, so that the order reads Selected, Granted, All Known. Then I'd default that to always show Selected unless manually changed by the user.

Not a big deal either way. In the many builds I've prepared using the planner, I've never once cared about granted feats. Some build rely on granted feats, of course, like getting the TWF line for free on the tempest trapmonkey. But in terms of putting it together in the planner, I've never found granted feats relevant.

Lol.. I specifically disagree. Particularly for newbies, having it show all the feats they get as the default seems wise. Clicking to see the ones you picked is easy enough, and this isn't where you pick'em anyway.

[Ron]

They've suggested it will be customizable and that you will be able to save and trade 'skins'. :D

[Edit] Not necessarily on initial release.

Yes, this is all true. The majority of the work for the skinning system is done. Some of the screens you see in the screenshots are already using it (others are not, they need to be hooked into the system, the initial setup of which can be a bit tedious). At the moment, what you see is our default (what we are calling "Factory") skin. On top of that there will be a general skin setting you (as the users) can modify (so if you don't like the blue headers, you can change them to green or fusia or whatever all at once). Finally, on top of THAT, there will be specific settings you will be able to change (e.g. if you want to change the main screen "Feat" panel background to orange while leaving all the other feat panel background as default, you will be able to do so).

The first layer is operational now. The second we intend to have operational by late alpha or early beta. The final will be operational by late beta. At this point, implementing them is quite simple. All the hard work has been done already. Really, mostly it's going to be a matter of getting a UI for it put together, that's probably the hardest bit left to do.

My intent is actually to extend this to allow you guys to move/resize panels around, and even to the internals of the panels themselves (perhaps even extending to adding new fields and taking other out). Although that part of it will perhaps not be available until after we finish beta.

[Ron]

Additional Stats still needs BAB. Will we be getting AC breakdowns like in-game? And Spellpower/Attack speed (Melee & Ranged)/Doublestrike/Doubleshot, etc too?


Things that I noticed were that there currently is no MRR section in defenses. Ofc, that hasn't been implemented yet and you probably have plans, but just thought I'd throw out a reminder.

Yeah, the "Additional Stats" panel is completely unfinished right now. Much more will go in.


The old planner was clearly geared more to new players... the lack of much past life functionality beyond picking the feats and getting the stat points alone suggests that. I think the new planner will be better for both.. streamlined and with all the multi-life functionality that will make it quick and easy to use (and play with.. 'what if' scenarios) for experienced players as well as showing the outcomes of every choice as they are made for the newbies. The biggest thing I wonder about for newbies is flow.. is there a mechanism to make sure they've touched all the bases?

This is more of a function of the "Past Life" system didn't exist in DDO when the planner was first built than it was any attempt to make the planner "newbie" friendly. And trying to shoe-horn it in after the fact was **** near impossible given the way our classes were set up.

Now, don't get me wrong about this, I'm proud of all the versions of the planner, it's a good bit of code. But at the time it was first created (something like 8 years ago?), I was a relative newbie at OOD/OOP, and it shows in the codebase. The version you guys have now (4.xx) has had a LOT of stuff tacked onto it that it was never initially designed for, and because the classes weren't laid out in the best way (Object-wise), it was becoming increasingly fragile. One of the main reasons I personally was open to a full rebuild was to really future-proof the code, make it nice and robust and very Object oriented so that if something changed or needed to be added, we could do so with out breaking 3/4 of the systems. I hope we are accomplishing that goal. I think we are.

And also to tackle a few things that always bothered me (use of png files rather than bmp so we had true transparency in the graphics, moving away from text based data to something more robust, etc) that we couldn't fix in the 4.xx series. All this of course allows us to design the new planner with all the current systems of DDO in mind (past lives, proper handling of tomes, iconic classes, destinies, robust equipment lists, and so forth).

[EllisDee37]

Out of curiosity, they've already thrown you for the first big loop with the universal harper tree. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a total PITA would that have been to implement in the 4.x version, and how much of a PITA was it to implement in the new version?

[Ron]

I'm not going to say it is impossible in the old version. But you notice we aren't doing it. It's one of those things that would be a whole lot of work that would end up breaking a lot of code. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say the code was getting increasingly fragile.

We haven't started coding the enhancement system in the new version yet. But it really ought to be no big deal. If an enhancement is an object, and the trees themselves are objects, they really shouldn't care about what classes/races can use them. That's not their job (from an OOD point of view). Properly coded, even if this change hit us after we had finished the system, it would not be any problem at all. I'm not sure yet how Dragon is planning on implementing enhancements yet, but if it's anything like the systems we've set up so far (and there is no reason it shouldn't be), then what enhancement trees go to which classes would probably be embedded in the data itself, and handled through some sort of tree collection class to be fed to the UI classes.

[Ron]

Hey gang, doing some work on the past life screens, specifically with tomes, and I have a quick question

Do skill tomes have names in the same way that ability tomes do? E.G.

Tome of Gainful Exercise (Str)

Is there something equivelent for Jump, Swim, UMD, etc? And if so, is there a list of them? I'm not seeing anything on DDOWiki.

[Psiandron]

Hey gang, doing some work on the past life screens, specifically with tomes, and I have a quick question

Do skill tomes have names in the same way that ability tomes do? E.G.

Tome of Gainful Exercise (Str)

Is there something equivelent for Jump, Swim, UMD, etc? And if so, is there a list of them? I'm not seeing anything on DDOWiki.

The way that I remember it and the way that this chart from the wiki store page presents it, I think that it's just Tome of Skill X +1-5.

Skill Tomes



Item
×1
×6
Benefits


Tome of Skill (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tome_of_Skill) (+1 to Any Skill Except UMD)1
195 TP
895 TP


+1 min lvl 1; +2 min lvl 5; +3 min lvl 9; +4 min lvl 13
Bonuses from tomes persist through reincarnation.
You may use more than one tome, however only the highest bonus will count.

(Example) You buy a +1 at level 1, then a +2 at level 5, you would only get another +1 at level 5.



Applies to one of the following ability skills: Balance (http://ddowiki.com/page/Balance), Bluff (http://ddowiki.com/page/Bluff), Concentration (http://ddowiki.com/page/Concentration), Diplomacy (http://ddowiki.com/page/Diplomacy), Disable Device (http://ddowiki.com/page/Disable_Device), Haggle (http://ddowiki.com/page/Haggle), Heal (http://ddowiki.com/page/Heal), Hide (http://ddowiki.com/page/Hide), Intimidate (http://ddowiki.com/page/Intimidate), Jump (http://ddowiki.com/page/Jump), Listen (http://ddowiki.com/page/Listen), Move Silently (http://ddowiki.com/page/Move_Silently), Open Lock (http://ddowiki.com/page/Open_Lock), Perform (http://ddowiki.com/page/Perform), Repair (http://ddowiki.com/page/Repair), Search (http://ddowiki.com/page/Search), Spellcraft (http://ddowiki.com/page/Spellcraft), Spot (http://ddowiki.com/page/Spot), Swim (http://ddowiki.com/page/Swim), Tumble (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tumble)
Applies ONLY to Use Magic Device (http://ddowiki.com/page/Use_Magic_Device).




Tome of Skill (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tome_of_Skill) (+2 to Any Skill Except UMD) 1
295 TP
995 TP


Tome of Skill (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tome_of_Skill) (+3 to Any Skill Except UMD) 1
495 TP
1795 TP


Tome of Skill (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tome_of_Skill) (+4 to Any Skill Except UMD) 1
695 TP
2495 TP


Upgrade Tome of Skill (+1 to +2, No UMD)1
195 TP
695 TP


Upgrade Tome of Skill (+2 to +3, No UMD)1
295 TP
995 TP


Upgrade Tome of Skill (+3 to +4, No UMD)1
295 TP
995 TP


Tome of Skill (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tome_of_Skill) (+1 to Use Magic Device) 2
695 TP



Tome of Skill (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tome_of_Skill) (+2 to Use Magic Device) 2
895 TP



Upgrade Tome of Skill (+1 UMD to +2 UMD)2
495 TP





That's from the Wiki DDO Store page (http://ddowiki.com/page/DDO_Store#Character).

I hope that that helps.

Psi

Edit: Wow, that looked a lot better before I hit 'Submit'

[EllisDee37]

Not 100% positive, but I'm pretty sure that when my pally/rogue was collecting skill tomes from sagas last life, he got a Skill Tome of Open Lock +3, not a Skill Tome of Escape +3.

[Stoner81]

Skill Tomes have the exact same name as the skill that it applies to.

Stoner81.

[Ron]

Cool thanks guys. So I think we're gonna call them Skill Tome of Skill +X, (e.g. "Skill Tome of Open Lock + 3"). I think that ought to be sufficient.

I've run into a bit of a snafu with the ability tomes. **** Supreme tomes are throwing me off. We're trying to figure out how to represent those in the database. It's always something, lol.

[Tscheuss]

Cool thanks guys. So I think we're gonna call them Skill Tome of Skill +X, (e.g. "Skill Tome of Open Lock + 3"). I think that ought to be sufficient.

I've run into a bit of a snafu with the ability tomes. **** Supreme tomes are throwing me off. We're trying to figure out how to represent those in the database. It's always something, lol.

Can't you represent them as the six ability tomes? I mean, a Supreme tome is effectively just a bundle deal, right?

[EllisDee37]

Can't you represent them as the six ability tomes? I mean, a Supreme tome is effectively just a bundle deal, right?Agreed. Much like how a Supreme Update tome is really six separate upgrade tomes, I would just treat a Supreme Ability tome like six individual tomes. This "treatment" would be done in the background on the front end. As in, the user picks "Supreme Ability +5 tome" from the interface -- however that would work -- and then the logic applies six individual tomes to the character.

Unless you mean the user interface part where they actually select a "Supreme Ability tome." If that's the stumbling block, I wouldn't criticize you for just forcing the player to select six individual tomes in the interface to simulate a supreme tome.

[Ron]

Agreed. Much like how a Supreme Update tome is really six separate upgrade tomes, I would just treat a Supreme Ability tome like six individual tomes. This "treatment" would be done in the background on the front end. As in, the user picks "Supreme Ability +5 tome" from the interface -- however that would work -- and then the logic applies six individual tomes to the character.

Unless you mean the user interface part where they actually select a "Supreme Ability tome." If that's the stumbling block, I wouldn't criticize you for just forcing the player to select six individual tomes in the interface to simulate a supreme tome.

Yeah, we could do it that way. And it may be that's what we end up doing. Tomes are now coming out of the database (which is a change from what we were initially thinking), so if we go that way, supreme tomes wouldn't even exist. I kind of hate to do that, I really prefer to mimic the game as much as we can. The issue is, since they are now database driven, we only have one field for what a tome modifies, and a supreme tome would need six fields. I'm toying with the idea of putting a flag for it in the database, but it would require extra coding (not much, nothing particlarly difficult, but it complicates the code nevertheless).

[Tscheuss]

Yeah, we could do it that way. And it may be that's what we end up doing. Tomes are now coming out of the database (which is a change from what we were initially thinking), so if we go that way, supreme tomes wouldn't even exist. I kind of hate to do that, I really prefer to mimic the game as much as we can. The issue is, since they are now database driven, we only have one field for what a tome modifies, and a supreme tome would need six fields. I'm toying with the idea of putting a flag for it in the database, but it would require extra coding (not much, nothing particlarly difficult, but it complicates the code nevertheless).

This sounds like front end coding so that a selection of Supreme +x immediately converts to <ability> +x for all six abilities before being saved to the database. I recall one Supreme Tome purchase that actually arrived in inventory as six separate tomes. As far as the character sheet is concerned, it doesn't really matter whether the bonus came from one tome or six.

I suppose you could poll the users of your Character Planner. If the users don't see a need for that extra UI detail, then this may just be a touch of scope creep rearing its head. :)

[EllisDee37]

Yeah, we could do it that way. And it may be that's what we end up doing. Tomes are now coming out of the database (which is a change from what we were initially thinking), so if we go that way, supreme tomes wouldn't even exist. I kind of hate to do that, I really prefer to mimic the game as much as we can. The issue is, since they are now database driven, we only have one field for what a tome modifies, and a supreme tome would need six fields. I'm toying with the idea of putting a flag for it in the database, but it would require extra coding (not much, nothing particlarly difficult, but it complicates the code nevertheless).Is the idea that after a user sets a supreme tome, saves the character, quits, and then reloads it, the planner won't have any knowledge of the "supreme" part, only the individual tomes? And (of course) this is all purely display-only, as the character data will still reflect the correct tome bonuses.

If that's the only problem, I wouldn't worry about it. But still, a possible band-aid and duct-tape fix would be to add a single integer to the character level data: supreme tome. Then fill that integer with the highest + supreme tome they've eaten.

Thinking further, I'm not in love with displaying the supreme tome info to the user in the first place. It strikes me as needless clutter, and the tomes area will already be cluttered out of necessity. If it were me, I think I'd make the executive decision to just pretend that supreme tomes don't exist, and only support individual tomes. End users can easily simulate supreme tomes, so it wouldn't be an issue in terms of functionality.

[Stoner81]

If it were me, I think I'd make the executive decision to just pretend that supreme tomes don't exist, and only support individual tomes. End users can easily simulate supreme tomes, so it wouldn't be an issue in terms of functionality.

100% agree on this.

To the end user it makes little difference really, the current planner you select each tome individually and I don't see what the issue is with just doing that again. If it is going to make the code more complex then leave it out I say :)

Stoner81.

[Psiandron]

Thinking further, I'm not in love with displaying the supreme tome info to the user in the first place. It strikes me as needless clutter, and the tomes area will already be cluttered out of necessity. If it were me, I think I'd make the executive decision to just pretend that supreme tomes don't exist, and only support individual tomes. End users can easily simulate supreme tomes, so it wouldn't be an issue in terms of functionality.

^ Yup yup

You guys do great work that makes things better for us all. Don't beat yourself up over something like this.

[Zistra]

Yeah, we could do it that way. And it may be that's what we end up doing. Tomes are now coming out of the database (which is a change from what we were initially thinking), so if we go that way, supreme tomes wouldn't even exist. I kind of hate to do that, I really prefer to mimic the game as much as we can. The issue is, since they are now database driven, we only have one field for what a tome modifies, and a supreme tome would need six fields. I'm toying with the idea of putting a flag for it in the database, but it would require extra coding (not much, nothing particlarly difficult, but it complicates the code nevertheless).

Just don't go there. Anyone who needs that much handholding probably can't successfully use the planner anyway. Besides, are you then going to handle Upgrade Tomes of Ability and their logic? Allow input of them separately from just a tome increase and check that the person is validly able to use such a tome? How about Supreme Upgrade Tomes? Way too complex and outside of the scope of what we need the planner to do for us. A Supreme Tome is just a package deal on 6 tomes, and upgrade tomes are just tomes the player had best know they are eligible to use. Nobody will care after the tomes are eaten and the stats are raised which it was.

[LostGamer]

I see that I am very late to this party, having only just discovered this thread. :( So I realize that my input will have little impact now, but, ever hopeful, I offer my two cents anyway...

From quickly reading the past posts, I love the fact that I can tell the planner this is a TR and these tomes (Ability & Skill) were eaten in past live(s). I am lazy and very clumsy at clicking so I want you to accurately increment these stats for me. :) To be able to pick a skill and propagate it across all entire levels is very important to me (same reason as above).

The current planner makes it VERY difficult for me to know what skills have been changed at what levels. Critical to know if I want to tweak a progression, especially on an old build I am modifying. It is very difficult to see changes, so I hope your new interface always makes it easy to see.
If you use a table to show current life Tome usage, then please do grey out the table portions that do not apply (because that increase Tome has been previously read).

There was a suggestion early on to have the build UI show all levels on one page. I very much like that and in fact need it to plan. Please allow me to explain. When starting a build, I cannot use the current planner because I think in terms of the big view. I start with a Word file and a table. Starting abilities are at the top of the page, along with Tomes used if a TR. My builds are laid out in a table so I can see the critical selections and progression.
Column 1 is toon Level (1-28), Col 2 is class level if multi-classing (R1, F1, F2, etc). Col3 is BAB (bec it is a pre-req), next are the saves, then granted feats, then selected, then spell points & spells per level if a caster. This allows me to see if multi-classing how late things move and do I want to change the sequence. I generally show ability increases under the selected column (because it is a user selection).

I have made tables in Word for each class, so I start a new Word file and copy the primary class table to the file. Then to multi-class, I will insert rows from other tables. For me, text communicates faster than icons. Icons are nice, flashy but rarely necessary.

The current planner shoves selected feats in with granted feats, which drives me crazy for planning. I need to see granted feats separately. Probably a lot of the experienced players have no need to see granted feats any more, but it is useful for me as long as it does not clutter up the user selections.

Skills are notes across the top, especially if the same skills are propagated across all ranks. If there is a lot of variation, then I have added that info to the table (selected column of course), but most often it is easier read as a note at the top. Then I use the planner to fine tune skills, so I hope you make skill selection easily and quickly modifiable.

I would *love* to see this table in the planner, where I can drag & drop class changes and move feats. Details (description, pre-reqs, etc via a mouse over tool-tip, pop-up, or whole new window).
Spell selections would be elsewhere, but a UI could show me the selections when I move the mouse over the Spells per level column...

Enhancements would have to be a separate screen. This is the only time, imo, where icons are important simply because in game choices are made by selecting the icon picture, and text is just a tool-tip. I do use your planner at L28 to assign all 80 points. Rarely do I try to move selections to individual levels, because it is such a pain to make changes in the planner. What would be wonderful for choosing sequence would be a list of the points assigned (selected enhancements) that I could then manipulate, dragging critical ones higher. If I try to drag a selection too high, then the planner should drop it where it is first legal to actually select it (due to class or other pre-reqs). Both methods side-by-side would be ideal. Probably most folks will want to initially choose via the graphical tree, just like they see it in game, including me. But for sequencing, please give me a list where I can drag & drop the choices, that will check pre-reqs for me.

Oh, regarding Supreme tomes, I agree that the user should just put in 6 individual ability tomes. If you have help text (searchable or indexed) then put an entry under Supreme, and tell the new users that.

BTW, to me, a new window is on the same monitor screen but in a separate window that I can move with the mouse, even re-size. I multi-task ALOT on my single screen and have lots of windows. Sometimes, side-by-side, sometimes underneath. Using a new window vs. a frame or fixed tool-tip leaves the placement up to me and my screen real estate. Tool tips are GREAT for a quick confirmation, but if I will be referring back & forth a lot, a pop-up / new window may be more useful. For example, I want my table, but being able to bring up a side window that lists and explains the feats is perfect. (And maybe I can drag & drop from the side window to my table? oh, that might be too much to ask)

OK, this got a bit long. What can I say, once I have finally form an opinion, it can get pretty strong. :p
Thank you for a great tool and I am looking forward to trying out the new version!

[Ron]

Hey LG,

From a quick initial read-through of your requests, MUCH of what you are asking for (and perhaps ALL of it) will be available in the new version of the planner.

The enhancements in particular is one I feel strongly about and I agree with you 100%. Dragon is working on enhancements now (more at this point handing the data input side of it rather than the user interface side, since we are still working on the feats interface), and it's going to have the same interface screen as the original planner, but additionally it will also have a drag-able list of enhancements along one side (with "slots") so you can move around enhancements directly where you want them (I believe I'm the one coding up that part of it, but I don't know that for sure yet). We talked about that internally during the early planning stages. I think there is a similar thing going to happen with feats too.

In the new planner, we are utilizing pop-ups in a lot of places for information purposes, but there are a plethora of movable and sizable windows for character input. All of which can be opened at the same time (and we are taking pains to make sure if you make a change on one window, that change is propagated over to all the other open windows as well as appropriate. I had to design an entire messaging system for that to happen, lol). Personally I have two monitors, so I'm making sure the windows can be dropped onto the second monitor for reference, but even using a single monitor you should be able to have multiple windows open.

As for seeing "all levels" on one page, I don't think it's possible, there is way too much data for that (it just won't fit). But the input windows are being set up such that you can easily see all the level's information (we have a level bar system kind of similar to the old planner, but it's localized to each individual input window). We are aware that people need to see what happens on a level-by-level basis, and we are trying to accommodate that, while still giving an "overall" view of the character at each level. It's a bit of a tightrope walk to balance the two, but hopefully we are making progress on that front (and if we fall short in some area, we can always adjust, I feel pretty good about the OOD structure of the code which allows us to more easily make major changes where we need to, as opposed to the old version where even minor changes had a tendency to break large areas of the program, hehe.)

Things have been kind of slow lately (except for data-input, which BD has been going blazes on!), what can we say, it's a busy time of year. I hope to get back to coding soon (I STILL have to finish up tomes [which I'm very nearly done with] and then get to the past-life stuff). I think Dragon is in the same boat (I'll let him speak to that point). So it's hard to say when we'll have an Alpha version for you guys to play with. Hopefully it's not too much longer.

[LostGamer]

Thank you, Ron, for your feedback.

I think you had mentioned customizable report formats at some point? So as for seeing the tabular build, perhaps if one of the report formats understands the concept of one row per level, then I can create a report format with the data columns I want that looks like my table. Then if this window can be kept open while I am making changes in the planner, and changes propagate to other windows including this report window, then I will be able to get a big picture table view of all levels thru that window, and when done, print it for reference... This way, folks could layout whatever planner view they want in a report & use it on the fly when designing a build (if they have the screen space).

That would certainly work for me. :D
If it turns out to be possible, I hope you keep it in mind. Thank you!

Happy New Year!

[EllisDee37]

A minor request:

Add "dirty" logic, so that when you make changes to a build and then close the planner, it asks you "Save changes?" (Yes/No/Cancel) and if you choose "Cancel" the program doesn't exit.

[BOgre]

A minor request:

Add "dirty" logic, so that when you make changes to a build and then close the planner, it asks you "Save changes?" (Yes/No/Cancel) and if you choose "Cancel" the program doesn't exit.

In our house, we'd call that "Cat-Proofing" :)

[Nuclear_Elvis]

A few recommendations, of things I've caught during builds w/ the program, please update when/if possible:

- show Great Crossbow as learned Feat when the first core Rogue/Mech enhancement is taken.
- adjust baseline stats for SP if Elf or Half-Elf Arcane Archer tree added and Energy of the Wild is taken.
- remove the arrow on the half-elf racial tree between the Arcanum and Arcane Archer enhancements, as Arcanum is not a prerequisite (and it doesn't function this way but visually it is incorrect and may lead you to believe that).

[EllisDee37]

I spent the last couple weeks putting together my own build planner, just for personal use, that generates a forum output similar to this post (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453381-Completionist-Project?p=5504017&viewfull=1#post5504017). Mostly I just focused on class splits, stats, and skills because none of those require actual data. Feats, enhancements, spells and gear are a whole other story, so for that I'm thinking I'll put together the logic then add each class's relevant data when I start that life. I figure one life a month, so a year to finish out my data files.

Anyway, putting this little app together based on what amounts to all my suggestions to this thread, I've uncovered some issues to consider in the skills screen. First, the trivial one: you need logic to disallow adding ranks to Disable Device and Open Lock at any level before you take a rogue or artificer level. That took me all of 10 minutes. The real complexity is the "Max Ranks" logic, which I added to Left+Clicking the skill name. (Right+Click zeroes it out.)

My first thought on how to max skill ranks was very simple: At each level, apply the max ranks allowed. Sounds so simple, right? Sure, a cross-class skill ends up with 11.5 ranks, but the user can easily just remove that last half-rank at level 20 and call it good enough. But there's a more insidious issue in play.

Consider an 18/2 Cleric/Fighter build who takes the two fighter levels at 1 and 2, followed by 18 cleric levels. Consider if you want to max out Heal. What happens when you apply max ranks at every level? Level one get 2 ranks (cross class fighter), level 2 gets a half-rank for 2.5 total, then at level 3, when it forevermore becomes a native skill, instead of being able to raise it to the full max of 6, you're limited to 5.5 ranks. In fact, you can never correct that extra half rank applied at level 2. (Well, you can do it manually, but the "Max Ranks" logic has failed in this instance.)

So I decided that my "Max Ranks" logic would only increase a skill up to the highest full rank allowed. For this example, that means 4 points at level 1 (2 ranks), no points at level 2, 4 points at level 3 (up to 6 ranks total), then 1 rank per level after that.

This had a nice side-effect of treating permanently cross-class skill the way I prefer to do it. Consider the same build maxing UMD: 2 ranks @ 1, followed by one full rank every odd level. (3, 5, 7, etc...) This finishes with the full 11 ranks by level 19.

All happy with myself, I then started using it and immediately ran into my second "It would be nice if..." moment. Let's say I want to max two cross-class skills, say both Heal and UMD on a pure wizard. With my logic as written, I end up with four points spent on every odd level, zero points on every even level. That's not super helpful to me as a user of the utility.

So I added a second "Alternate Max" option to the middle mouse button. (Clicking the scroll wheel.) The alternate max logic is to add half the allowed ranks at level 1, then max ranks allowed at every even level, zero ranks at ever odd. This ends up being a nice, user-friendly, complementary interface to work with.

To help visualize, here's a screen shot of my kensei cleric's skill screen with dummy skills listed to illustrate the points. Concentration shows what it looks like to be maxed with my first logic, just maxing it every level. Perform shows how a cross-class skill looks when maxed using my revised logic. And search shows what it looks like to use the alternate max logic:

http://s26.postimg.org/dg0rv9a2h/Skills_Screen.jpg (http://postimage.org/)
how to screenshot on windows (http://postimage.org/app.php)

You'll note the red point totals for levels 3 and 4, where we spend more points than we have. Manually clicking individual cells limits you to the points you have to spend, but I intentionally coded both "Max Ranks" logics (normal and alternate) to ignore everything else and just perfectly apply max ranks to that skill. It's much easier to work with for the end user that way.

EDIT: If you're wondering about the weird order of the skills, this screen orders them as follows: Native class skills for the primary class, then native skills for any splash classes all together, then finally cross-class skills. Within the three different sort levels (primary, splash, cross-class) skills are sorted alphabetically. So in this example it's fighter skills, cleric skills, then all the rest.

[LostGamer]

I love EllisDee37's skill table for planning - being able to see the assignments in one view. I would also like the columns to show me how many skill points are available at that level & how many I have already assigned (or have left, even if negative)... Something I truly miss in the current planner. I can see some column sums going over balance, if a skill is propagated and not all classes have enough available. Being able to see this on a complete skill table will be very good for planning and deciding where to adjust. Being able to propagate skills across the board is important, though it must be possible to tweak skill assignments afterwards. Feel free to total those column sums at the end of the 20 levels as well :) just to see how many total skill points one has available to play.

I hope that you can improve inserting class choices, or make changing classes at certain levels much smoother. Today, modifying a plan to change a class can cause errors in skills and spells, class feats, etc which need not happen. If I have a pure build & then multi-class one level, then all the previous skills, spells, class specifics, etc must move with the old class into the next level (and the previous L20 choices fall off into the wind). I literally think of it as inserting a new class into a fixed length queue.
I like doing what-ifs and so hope tweaking builds will involve less error hunting. :D

My report for leveling in game would be in a completely different format than planning out of game. Speaking of which, another (lower priority) export request please: Thinking you will still have the enhancement selection icon trees, please allow me to export a png or jpg of my entire tree -- all the panels as I have filled them in across in one row. I do this today (in multiple steps obviously) because it makes it much easier and faster to update enhancements during game play. Please show more/all of the trees at a time on my wide screen (I think y'all may have said stretching the window was in the new plan already).

Thanks for a great planner, and for listening!

[EllisDee37]

Mostly I just focused on class splits, stats, and skills because none of those require actual data. Feats, enhancements, spells and gear are a whole other storyThis is no joke, btw, as I'm finding out yet again. Three times I've tried to build a planner: back on 2011, then a few months ago for the "Let's create new default build paths" thread, and now. In every case, feats kick my %#$%^ every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

For my needs, I put a high priority on feat consolidation. For example, I have one feat called "Skill Focus." This one feat is treated as a "Selector" feat, much like Improved Critical. There are a list of choices to pick which subtype you want (eg: Improved Crit: Slashing, Skill Focus: UMD) and you can take it multiple times as long as you pick a different choice each time. All good, right? It sure sounds simple, but good grief it is a nightmare to try and structure a data file and code logic to support this. Consider Exotic Weapon proficiency, where two of them (Dwarven Axe and Bastard Sword) have strength requirements, but the rest do not. So that adds ugly logic. Even worse, Artificers can take Bastard Sword and Dwarven Axe as bonus feats, but not the other ones. This is currently what I'm stuck at, and my initial thought is to simply ignore that, and rely on my own game understanding to not take, say, Khopesh proficiency as an artificer bonus feat.

Speaking of bonus feats, those are driving me nuts as well. Consider monk, where you get bonus feats at 1, 2 and 6. One of those bonus feats is not a normally selectable feat (Deflect Arrows) so I need a way to designate Deflect Arrows as a selectable monk bonus feat but that is also not a selectable normal feat. Okay, pretty sure I have that handled, but even worse, what about level 3, when monks choose either fist of light or fists of darkness? The level 3 monk feat is only between those two; you can't take any other monk bonus feat at that level. So now I need a special case in the datafiles to somehow flag a second kind of bonus feat. Or what about deity feats? They work fine as bonus feats, except that Clerics and Paladins can also take them as regular class feats while Favored Soul cannot. Gah!!!!

Anyway, with how much the feats screen is kicking my butt, I'd just like to extend another mad props to Ron and his team for putting together such a quality product. Kudos to you guys; it is no trivial amount of effort.

[EllisDee37]

This is no joke, btw, as I'm finding out yet again. Three times I've tried to build a planner: back on 2011, then a few months ago for the "Let's create new default build paths" thread, and now. In every case, feats kick my %#$%^ every day of the week and twice on Sundays.Finally finished the feat screen, which for me was like an epic odyssey. So many prereqs, so much complication. I ended up deciding to simply not enforce "subtype" prereqs since it introduces so much additional complexity.

Here's a demo video of my planner, which I have no intention of releasing into the wild to compete with yours. I'll still be using yours to verify that any builds I make satisfy all prereqs much like I always have. But this demo shows a real-world application of the design concepts I've advocated.

Note that my screen capture utility freaks out if I use a scrollbar, so I intentionally kept my scrollbar use to a minimum in this demo. You can see it freak out at the very end when I do scroll a little. Also, there's no sound, but I don't have a mic anyway. The video is full 1920x1080, so be sure to kick up the youtube resolution if it defaults to lower than that. (EDIT: Mouse click are represented as little red bubbles for left click, green bubbles for right. That's part of the video capture, not the planner.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5fhkDHd7NA

[Ron]

I like it Ellis. You should TOTALLY release that for people to use. I highly encourage you to put this out there!

If you do so, you have a bit of a choice to make. Right now it is suitable for experienced users. New users would be lost. For example, when you added the Cleave feats and they went red, there was no explanation given on what the problem was. New users would need some form of prompt on how to fix the issue. Whereas experienced users know that you need to have Power Attack. So if your target audience is people who would know this kind of thing already, then you're good. Otherwise, if you want to attract the less knowledgeable users, you need to add some kind of "error prompts". Which is the direction we've taken with our program(s). Of course, that is up to you.

That's good stuff, I'm impressed with how far you've taken it. What language did you use?

If you thought feats were hard to code (and they are!), wait until you get to enhancements, lol.

[EllisDee37]

Thanks much, I appreciate the kind words.

Agreed that it's not new user-friendly. At the most, I might offer it as a power user tool by request, taken as-is with no support offered. Coding is fun; support is...not. It's written in VB6 with pure native controls (lots of userdrawn pictureboxes) and API for everything else (like the "Open" and "Save As" dialogs, not shown in the demo), which means it runs on any Windows machine with XP or later without any installation required. (No references or components at all; just the VB6 runtime that's included with all versions of Windows.) I chose VB6 because I can code it up really fast. (I started coding this at Chrismas.) The datafiles are sort of similar to yours, though their concept and structure is different enough that I (probably foolishly) started my own from scratch. Over 50k worth of data entry and I haven't even started the enhancements! Oofa.

Mainly I posted because I couldn't think of a good way to articulate some of the design concepts, and showing is so much better than telling. Consider the feats screen: The user has two ways to select feats. You can either click a feat slot to highlight it, which will filter the feat list to only feats allowed in that slot. Then click a feat and it snaps into that slot. (You can see me do this for the deity feats and human bonus feat at the start.) Or you can filter the feat list by group, then drag the feats you want into whichever slot it could possibly fit. I put a high importance on being able to violate feat prereqs when dragging (since you can fix those errors right there in the same screen), but to rigidly enforce non-feat reqs: Class level, BAB, stat, skill, character level, "can cast spell level", "can cast healing spells", and feat type.

I'm also really happy with the dynamic output in the background of the main form. I particularly like how it only shows sections that are complete without errors. The same code generates output for display on the screen as well as exporting, so I end up getting the entire "export" functionality for free. heh.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I really like that holding down a mouse button on a +/- control, like for starting stats, tomes, and skills, "scrolls" the value without having to keep clicking.

[Ron]

I probably should say that in a lot of respects, enhancements are easier than feats. Feats have a lot of "rules" with subfeats and slots and classes that can take this but not that, and feats that lock out other feats and so on and so forth, and feats that give you other feats, and some "categories" of feats that you can take as a group, while other "categories" you have to take one at a time, and yadda yadda yadda, and all of that is difficult to translate into code, and even worse to debug :)

Enhancements on the other hand, while they do have quite a few rules to them, are at least very consistent. Once you get the base set of rules in, there are no real exceptions to them, they behave very consistently. The only real odd rule with enhancements is the unlocking of the arcane archer tree, which requires an enhancement to be taken beforehand.

So at least with enhancements, once you get one tree working, all the rest will pretty much work just fine. It does take a bit of coding to get those rules in, but there is much less debugging you will end up doing on them.

[EllisDee37]

I probably should say that in a lot of respects, enhancements are easier than feats. Feats have a lot of "rules" with subfeats and slots and classes that can take this but not that, and feats that lock out other feats and so on and so forth, and feats that give you other feats, and some "categories" of feats that you can take as a group, while other "categories" you have to take one at a time, and yadda yadda yadda, and all of that is difficult to translate into code, and even worse to debug :)Doh! That reminds me that while I actually coded feat antireq logic, I never actually added any antireqs to my datafile. I blame wiki! hehheh. (I see no antireqs in any feat's requirements section, though looking more closely I see it in the narrative description of SWF, for example.)


Enhancements on the other hand, [...] The only real odd rule with enhancements is the unlocking of the arcane archer tree, which requires an enhancement to be taken beforehand.My initial thought is to simply not support the elven AA tree. I know I personally will never use it, so...

[Ron]

My initial thought is to simply not support the elven AA tree. I know I personally will never use it, so...

Hehe, well yeah. This is where you have to make a decision. Is this a tool for your own use, or a tool for others to use? I'd like to see it become the latter, since you've designed quite a nice program there, and it could be quite useful for the community. But of course that is your decision. There is a fair bit of difference in workload between the two, of which the AA tree is just one example.

[LostGamer]

Here's a demo video of my planner, which I have no intention of releasing into the wild to compete with yours.

Wow, I like that. It does make some things much easier to lay out. I realize that you may not want the burden of releasing (or more accurately, supporting) it in the wild. It would make starting out much easier for me so I rather hope you do. I also very much hope that the new ("official") planner will pick up a lot (or all) of the ease of use and layout. :D

[Psiandron]

Well color me impressed!

That looked very cool Ellis. Seriously.

Whether you ever release it or not, that looked pretty sweet.

[EllisDee37]

Being intimidated by the enhancement screen, I decided to take a detour into the spells and destiny/twist screens first.

Spells ended up being surprisingly tricky, what with mandatory spells (cleric cures) and optional free spells (artificer repair/inflict and druid summon). But I did manage to come up with a concept I liked and implemented it successfully.

I knew going in destinies would be complicated; they're essentially a pared down enhancement system. In fact I ended up using the enhancement data structure (which I designed a couple weeks ago) unchanged, making the code reusable for enhancements. But oh man, the tree structure was even worse than feats. Speaking of feats, I finally came up with a design concept for feat exchanges and alternate feats: Instead of just clearing a slot, right-clicking will bring up a context menu:

- Clear slot
- Exchange feat
- Alternate feat

If you pick alternate, a new feat slot appears right next to it with all the same properties. If you pick exchange, a popup asks you what level you want to exchange that feat, and then a new slot pops up at that level.

Anyway, I'm cleaning up the finishing touches on the destiny screen now. Maybe I'll post a Part 2 of the planner demo showing off spells and destinies in the next day or so.

[Stoner81]

Really nice looking planner Ellis :) gj sir!

Stoner81.

[EllisDee37]

Here's Part 2 of the demo, continuing the same build from where part 1 left off, now adding spells and destiny. The spells screen help area is outdated; I'm taking away the double-click functionality and only supporting drag and drop. Speaking of spells, for free spells (artificer & druid), when you start dragging them, a new drop location appears at the top of the list and you can only drop them there. Similar to the destiny screen, where dragging anything creates a brand new drop location and that's the only place you can drop it.

I neglected to show the Up/Down functionality of the destiny abilities to change how many ranks you want to take, but that's already implemented and works.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06dGHadwm2U

This likely concludes my feedback on the user interface for the new planner, since I haven't even formulated a cohesive idea on how to design the enhancements screen. I'll start a new thread for my character builder, which may or may not end up being distributed.

EDIT: Thread created here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/455712-Character-Builder-Lite-%28in-development%29).

[Stoner81]

Small and cheeky request for moar updates please on the new planner :)

Stoner81.

PS - Pretty please :) :)

[Shoemaker]

Hey gang,

If you were to design a new interface for the Character Planner, what concepts would you put into it? How would you do it?

We're looking to brainstorm here, there are no wrong ideas... So tell us what you would do.

The first thing that needs to be updated and improved upon is tomes. They now survive through TR, and it would be good to be able to specify the entire tome value at level 1 and have it automatically apply the appropriate values at 3/7/11/15/19/23. Also, I see there is no current ability to mark skill tomes, and I think there should be. Other than that, there are a few minor GUI things that could be improved/fixed and there is a level cap increase coming before long.

[EllisDee37]

there is no current ability to mark skill tomes, and I think there should be.Out of curiosity, what value do you see with including skill tomes in a character planner? To my knowledge they do not help qualify for anything that requires a skill; all skill prereqs are based on trained ranks, not your skill value. (SWF feats, Epic Skill Focus destiny feat, bard songs, etc...)

[Shoemaker]

Out of curiosity, what value do you see with including skill tomes in a character planner? To my knowledge they do not help qualify for anything that requires a skill; all skill prereqs are based on trained ranks, not your skill value. (SWF feats, Epic Skill Focus destiny feat, bard songs, etc...)

Spot checking feasibility of trapper builds is first thing that comes to mind ("will I have the 82 search I need for every trap in the game" scenarios). I could also see it useful for print outs and forum posts for some people.

[EllisDee37]

Spot checking feasibility of trapper builds is first thing that comes to mind ("will I have the 82 search I need for every trap in the game" scenarios). I could also see it useful for print outs and forum posts for some people.But that opens the can of worms of having to maintain an up-to-date gear table, which IMO is untenable.

[Shoemaker]

But that opens the can of worms of having to maintain an up-to-date gear table, which IMO is untenable.

I disagree. Items are just a combination of effects, it should be possible to offer the ability to piece together the equivalent of a named item by putting all the effects on a blank for that spot.

[EllisDee37]

I disagree. Items are just a combination of effects, it should be possible to offer the ability to piece together the equivalent of a named item by putting all the effects on a blank for that spot.Yeah, that approach is definitely workable.

[Zistra]

But that opens the can of worms of having to maintain an up-to-date gear table, which IMO is untenable.

The old planner had a gear table (though it didn't get kept up toward the end) and Ron plans to eventually add one to the new one. He plans to include an input screen to add items for those who don't have the patience to wait for official updates of gear, as well. There was discussion about how to handle the merging of user-entered items with ones included in updates that hadn't reached a conclusion last I saw. Clearly the item planner 'module' will show up some time after the release of the core new planner and the ironing out of any bugs (i.e. Don't hold your breath :) ).

[EllisDee37]

Out of curiosity, what value do you see with including skill tomes in a character planner? To my knowledge they do not help qualify for anything that requires a skill; all skill prereqs are based on trained ranks, not your skill value. (SWF feats, Epic Skill Focus destiny feat, bard songs, etc...)Just an FYI that I am mistaken. Balance tomes do qualify for the SWF feat line.

[Stoner81]

Is the new planner still being worked on? Not heard anything about it for quite some time :(

Stoner81.

[Shoemaker]

Doh! That reminds me that while I actually coded feat antireq logic, I never actually added any antireqs to my datafile. I blame wiki! hehheh. (I see no antireqs in any feat's requirements section, though looking more closely I see it in the narrative description of SWF, for example.)

My initial thought is to simply not support the elven AA tree. I know I personally will never use it, so...

Don't blame the wiki! Just add the information to it and help it grow! :cool:

[Shoemaker]

Is the new planner still being worked on? Not heard anything about it for quite some time :(

Stoner81.

As a VB.NET programmer, I've been poking away at the v5 code that is written in C++. Please be patient, it is indeed being worked on, even if it is really slow.

[Stoner81]

Sad to read about Dragon leaving DDO :(

http://www.rjcyberware.com/forums/showthread.php?1139-How-goes-Version-5&p=7319#post7319

Stoner81.

[Sisma]

Aw, too bad!
Let's hope for the better, maybe Dragon's going to step back sooner than later...

[Tom.JonesJr]

I just wanted to pass the word out there for anyone that is still watching this thread. Version 5 has not died, but progress has slowed as real life has gotten in the way a bit. Also the new changes by DDO in regards to tomes will now require me to go in and modify some programming that I already did. My goal is to get an alpha out by the time the LVL 30 hits, but not sure if I will hit that deadline as there is still a lot of work I would like to see happen before I put it in your hands for the first time.

[Stoner81]

I just wanted to pass the word out there for anyone that is still watching this thread. Version 5 has not died, but progress has slowed as real life has gotten in the way a bit. Also the new changes by DDO in regards to tomes will now require me to go in and modify some programming that I already did. My goal is to get an alpha out by the time the LVL 30 hits, but not sure if I will hit that deadline as there is still a lot of work I would like to see happen before I put it in your hands for the first time.

Overflowing with epicness! :)

Stoner81.

[Shoemaker]

I just wanted to pass the word out there for anyone that is still watching this thread. Version 5 has not died, but progress has slowed as real life has gotten in the way a bit. Also the new changes by DDO in regards to tomes will now require me to go in and modify some programming that I already did. My goal is to get an alpha out by the time the LVL 30 hits, but not sure if I will hit that deadline as there is still a lot of work I would like to see happen before I put it in your hands for the first time.

I need to update my version of this in SVN. I might be able to get some of the U30 stuff in before it hits the live forums on my local revision, but no promises there. Most things I see first as a PC member are on the live forums in a week or two after I see them, which doesn't give me a lot of lead time to integrate those things.

I'm also interested in what the community interest for an Android mobile app version would be. Please comment on that HERE

[EllisDee37]

Last year I made a suggestion for the class screen that I eventually incorporated into my character builder lite:


I like Stoner's suggestion to grey out classes whose alignment restrictions don't allow the currently selected alignment.

The basic screen design is pretty solid, and if you go with comboboxes that will be fine. Certainly functional. Here's my alternative thought to remove the comboboxes, which as a general rule are super effective and easy to code, but clunky in terms of actual use. (Too many mouse clicks.)

- Instead of comboboxes, use labels to just display the class taken at each level. I'll call these "level labels."
- Make the "top three" class boxes into graphical option buttons, with a visual cue as to which is currently selected and all three are mutually exclusive selectables. (Clicking on one of the top three deselects the other two.)
- Left-click a "level label" to change it to the currently selected top three class.
- Right-click a "level label" to change it to the primary class.

It would be a non-standard UI element, so I understand if you want to stick with comboboxes, but the alternative label system would be so much more efficient from a user's perspective. Picture a 12-6-2 split using both setups, where you have to manually click 8 comboboxes and make choices from them. If you accidentally set one wrong, it's cumbersome (relatively; still very easy) to correct.

With the alternative design, it's efficient and easy to both set up a 12-6-2 but also much more fluid to to change levels on the fly as you change your mind.

The alternative design would also allow an elegant way to present class descriptions. Above or below the top three, display the description for the currently selected class.

EDIT: To clarify, the basic screen concept is absolute perfection. My alternative for comboboxes is minutia, really, but I hope you at least consider it.

EDIT 2: Either way, if you deselect a chosen top three class (by right-clicking it, I would hope) then any levels that were set for that class would logically revert to the primary class. Meaning it would take a grand total of two right-clicks to change a 12-6-2 into a pure 20 build.

After having now used it for the better part of a year, I find two things irritating about it. First, the "Apply" button mechanic is clunky. Second, there is no elegant way to "move" a level. Like, say, if you set up an 18/2 wizard rogue and want to move the second rogue level around.

Now, as I put the finishing touches on version 2.0, I have a whole new interface for selecting class levels. It's a 3-column grid, with the 3 classes at the top, and you click cells in the grid to choose that class for that level. Here's a sample screenshot:

http://s26.postimg.org/6yqqudn3t/Overview.png (http://postimage.org/)
upload pics (http://postimage.org/)

It's not super pretty to look at, but the functionality is superb. In addition to clicking grid cells to set class levels, you can also drag class names (in the second column) up and down to re-position splash levels.

Full disclosure: This interface was not my idea. My idea was the original clunky one. This idea was sent to me via PM in the early stages of working on my first release back in March.