Character Planner - New Interface Ideas

[Ron]

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.

[Potatofasf]

Hey Ron!

Have you fixed the new Iconics TRs?
And the problem with no-monks and monk splits with feat selections following the Adept of Forms/Master of Forms/Grandmaster of Forms?

[Dragon.Star]

Have you fixed the new Iconics TRs? We have had several fixes to Iconics, you will need to elaborate more on what exactly is broken.


And the problem with no-monks and monk splits with feat selections following the Adept of Forms/Master of Forms/Grandmaster of Forms?

This one should be fixed and in the current live version 4.20.01

[Potatofasf]

We have had several fixes to Iconics, you will need to elaborate more on what exactly is broken.

Uhmmm... The fact that we can't planning a build on Iconics with past lifes. Now with new TR system we could have Iconics with past lifes and Iconic past lifes, but in the planner when we are planning a Iconic character we can't choose how many past lifes we have like when planning no-iconic characters!

[Dragon.Star]

Uhmmm... The fact that we can't planning a build on Iconics with past lifes. Now with new TR system we could have Iconics with past lifes and Iconic past lifes, but in the planner when we are planning a Iconic character we can't choose how many past lifes we have like when planning no-iconic characters!

With version 5.20.02 you will be able to select Heroic Past lives for Iconics (No timeframe for its release yet). There is a workaround you can use to do it now, just choose a normal Race and select your past lives and then switch to your Iconic Race.

As for Iconic and Epic Past lives, that is still in the works and scheduled to be added after the Destinies are in place.

[Teh_Troll]

What about options to NOT start with an iconic's first level?

[Potatofasf]

Great great to read that will be improved...

I was exploring the current version 4.20.01 and saw the Destiny option. I tried to use but every time something strange occurred, freezed the screen and shutdown the Planner.
It is the planner or some incompatibility with Win 7?

[Dragon.Star]

I was exploring the current version 4.20.01 and saw the Destiny option. I tried to use but every time something strange occurred, freezed the screen and shutdown the Planner.
It is the planner or some incompatibility with Win 7?

That is an issue with the planner, the destiny button wasn't supposed to be in that release as it is unfinished. That particular bug caused me quite a few hours of frustration to track down as it was a memory leak issue. As long as you don't mess with the destinies, you should encounter any issues that relate to that part of the planner.

[Dragon.Star]

What about options to NOT start with an iconic's first level?

This is going to be addressed with the update that we do the Iconic/Epic past lives on.

[Ron]

Okay guys, whilst I appreciate the bug reports and queries into further features, there is a thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/427100-Character-Planner-Series-4-xx)for that kind of stuff.

What I'm looking for here is thoughts on how to improve the UI. We're gonna be overhauling it soon(ish), so now would be the time to get in any ideas you might have on this subject, while we are in the planning phase.

[Cordovan]

Exciting! Thank you as always to the folks who volunteer their time to do this.

[Hathorian]

Please make it as quick to build/plan a character as possible. Put everything on one screen so you can click, click, click done not have to go through 3-8 menus each level. Not sure if that is possible but hopefully there is a way to speed things up....

[Kalevor]

Hey Ron and Co, as always ty for your hardwork and dedication!

Ideas?
Well, i think the forum report tool may have some adjustments... i see the enhacements list too large, i would like to see them more compact. It's hard to follow a build with the list type you actually use. They are not listed by tiers and don't shows the last tier chose, it shows all tiers ( ex: haste tier1, haste tier 2, haste tier 3... I think this is not necessary and sometimes confusing)

Example:


Character Plan by DDO Character Planner Version 04.19.01
DDO Character Planner Home Page (http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO)

Level 28 Lawful Good Human Male
(20 Fighter \ 8 Epic)
Hit Points: 279
Spell Points: 0
BAB: 20\20\25\30\30
Fortitude: 11
Reflex: 5
Will: 5

Starting Feat/Enhancement
Abilities Base Stats Modified Stats
(28 Point) (Level 1) (Level 28)
Strength 8 10
Dexterity 8 8
Constitution 8 9
Intelligence 8 9
Wisdom 8 8
Charisma 8 8

Starting Feat/Enhancement
Base Skills Modified Skills
Skills (Level 1) (Level 28)
Balance -1 7
Bluff -1 7
Concentration -1 7
Diplomacy -1 7
Disable Device n/a n/a
Haggle -1 7
Heal -1 7
Hide -1 7
Intimidate -1 7
Jump -1 8
Listen -1 7
Move Silently -1 7
Open Lock n/a n/a
Perform n/a n/a
Repair -1 7
Search -1 7
Spellcraft -1 7
Spot -1 7
Swim n/a n/a
Tumble n/a n/a
Use Magic Device -1 7

Level 1 (Fighter)


Level 2 (Fighter)


Level 3 (Fighter)


Level 4 (Fighter)


Level 5 (Fighter)


Level 6 (Fighter)


Level 7 (Fighter)


Level 8 (Fighter)


Level 9 (Fighter)


Level 10 (Fighter)


Level 11 (Fighter)


Level 12 (Fighter)


Level 13 (Fighter)


Level 14 (Fighter)


Level 15 (Fighter)


Level 16 (Fighter)


Level 17 (Fighter)


Level 18 (Fighter)


Level 19 (Fighter)


Level 20 (Fighter)


Level 21 (Fighter)


Level 22 (Fighter)


Level 23 (Fighter)


Level 24 (Fighter)


Level 25 (Fighter)


Level 26 (Fighter)


Level 27 (Fighter)


Level 28 (Fighter)
Enhancement: Human - Human Versatility: Spell Power Boost (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Human - Human Adaptability: Intelligence (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Human - Human Versatility: Defense Boost (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Human - Human Adaptability: Constitution (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Human - Human Versatility: Skill Boost (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Kensei Focus: Druidic Weapons (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Spiritual Bond (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Strike With No Thought (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Power Surge (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - One Cut (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Alacrity (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Extra Action Boost (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Extra Action Boost (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Extra Action Boost (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Kensei Weapon Specialization: Druidic Weapons (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Haste Boost (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Haste Boost (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Haste Boost (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Reed in the Wind (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Reed in the Wind (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Reed in the Wind (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Tactics (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Tactics (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Tactics (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Weapon Meditation (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Weapon Meditation (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Weapon Meditation (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Conditioning (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Conditioning (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Conditioning (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Critical Accuracy (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Critical Accuracy (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Critical Accuracy (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Shattering Strike (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Strength (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Critical Damage (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Critical Damage (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Critical Damage (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Strength (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - A Good Death (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Kensei (Ftr) - Deadly Strike (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Toughness (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Item Defense (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Item Defense (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Item Defense (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Resilient Defense (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Resilient Defense (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Resilient Defense (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Stalwart Defensive Mastery (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Inciting Defense (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Inciting Defense (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Inciting Defense (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Durable Defense (Rank 1)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Durable Defense (Rank 2)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Durable Defense (Rank 3)
Enhancement: Stalwart Defender (Ftr) - Tenacious Defense (Rank 1)




I think it will be easier if was something like:
ENHACEMENTS:
HUMAN TREE:
Core:
Human Versatility: Spell Power Boost (Rank 1)
Human Adaptability: Intelligence
Human Versatility: Defense Boost
Human Adaptability: Constitution
Human Versatility: Skill Boost

FIGHTER TREE(kensai):
Core: as above
Tier1:
Extra Action Boost (Rank 3)
Haste Boost (Rank 3)

and so...

As always it's only my opinion,

Kal

[fool101]

Please make it as quick to build/plan a character as possible. Put everything on one screen so you can click, click, click done not have to go through 3-8 menus each level. Not sure if that is possible but hopefully there is a way to speed things up....

I agree. I build a lot of characters (with few translating to an in-game toon). It would be nice if, after doing starting stats, there was a way of telling it which class you are going to take at each level. From there some things could be streamlined such as maybe an option to put all level ups into a single stat (str or int for instance). Skills could be done in a similar fashion, so that, for instance concentration was increased at every level without further input. The remaining skill points would still be distributed as before. Then it would take you to a feat screen where it lays out which levels you get feats and you would click that feat slot and select a feat. This would make switching the feat order quicker if you change your mind.

Basically, I'm suggesting moving away from level-by-level selections and moving toward categorical selection (feat, skills, etc) kind of like enhancements are now in the planner.

I love what you're team has done and appreciate the continued effort to improve and expand its function.

[Spoonwelder]

Please make it as quick to build/plan a character as possible. Put everything on one screen so you can click, click, click done not have to go through 3-8 menus each level. Not sure if that is possible but hopefully there is a way to speed things up....
For skills - have an auto select or order of preference - ie. set concentration, spellcraft and umd on a wizard say....and have it know I want that at each level - then I could also say as Int goes up 4th preference is bluff, 5th is diplo.....etc....so I don't have to fill in skills each level and scroll through the whole list. Worst case sort the list so ones I have added points to in past levels are at top of list.

For Feats - let me plan out all 28 levels in one spot....I guess that needs more explanation - before I crack the planner open I have an idea for my build

Say 15/3/2 FVS/Fi/Rogu I want to


Set race,gender
Set starting stats - and set levelups in one spot
Set Leveling path (ie. Ro/Fi/Fvsx12/Ro/Fi/FVS/Ro/FVS2)
Set Feats - this would depend on the leveling pattern and may require me to flip back and forth from level path to feats to get everything I want but to me this is the core of the planner - making sure I can get the feats I want and in what order.
Set enhancements - to me it doesnt matter what my enhancements are at level 2,4,6,11 etc... since i can just pay to fix those with ingame plat.


I think this would be faster overall but its my style so it makes sense to me. Probably a major overhaul but ....it just my thoughts.

[Theolin]

Couple of questions

Are you planning on having the icons scale as the window changes size?
What size window would be the default?

[danotmano1998]

Well, i think the forum report tool may have some adjustments... i see the enhacements list too large, i would like to see them more compact. It's hard to follow a build with the list type you actually use. They are not listed by tiers and don't shows the last tier chose, it shows all tiers ( ex: haste tier1, haste tier 2, haste tier 3... I think this is not necessary and sometimes confusing)


I completely agree...

Instead of grabbing all that stuff as text, I typically just screenshot the enhancement trees for clarity.


As always, sincere thanks to ALL the folks that work on this. DDO would NOT be the same without it. This tool is of critical importance in planning builds.

[Ron]

Okay, so what I'm seeing (so far) is a request for a move away from level-by-level building, and more toward a system based leveling, similar to what we are doing now for enhancements (and soon destinies).

Fair enough. What if we remove the level bars and instruction box, and instead, you would click directly on the box you want to change? (e.g. clicking on the Abilities box would bring up a subscreen that allows you to set your abilities). Of course, within that subscreen you would probably need to specify the level you are changing at (level 1, level 4, etc). That way, all at once, you have set your abilities from 1-28 on one screen (and for abilities, we'd probably incorporate tomes onto that same screen).

For Skills: I agree there needs to be some sort of "copy" function, so you only have to set it once and then pull it down to subsequent levels, as that is what the majority of people end up doing anyway. We will incorporate that in some fashion.

As for Menus: We will try to keep everything on one page, but keep in mind, we have limited screen real estate to work with, and a lot of information to pass on to the user (and if we go with a system based level up method, it's going to get even more crowded!!). Some stuff we may have to tuck into menus simply because we won't have room. But we will try keep those limited to minor subsystems (pets, printing, forum stuff, etc). The actual building of characters we will keep on the main screen as much as we possibly can.

The Forum Export Tool: I swear, I will be working on this soon. There will come a point in the not too distant future when you will be able to customize the forum export to your liking rather than having to live with what we have coded for you. I will certainly give you the commands you need to create a template that sorts the enhancements in the way you are asking for.

[Chaimberland]

Okay guys, whilst I appreciate the bug reports and queries into further features, there is a thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/427100-Character-Planner-Series-4-xx)for that kind of stuff.

What I'm looking for here is thoughts on how to improve the UI. We're gonna be overhauling it soon(ish), so now would be the time to get in any ideas you might have on this subject, while we are in the planning phase.

First of all, you and your team are awesome! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

A feature that I really liked in the old planner that isn't in the newer version is that it use to show what level we selected our feats. Now it just shows the feats we selected but not the order we selected them in. Not a major thing but it was nice to have.

[AZgreentea]

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.

Just me personally, I like it to match what is in game. That way when I go to build my character I dont have to think about how to translate it from the planer to the game. That would risk a data entry error.

I've always liked the way the forum output has looked. It makes a lot of sense when you look at it in that format in the forums.

It might also be helpful to have a section/tab that links you to well respected data sources. Things like Sig's old Request a build thread, the wiki, ect. So that you can find help if you need it without already having the data bookmarked. Maybe you could build a page on the wiki to link to for the planner, so people can update it there instead of having to change your planner all the time?

[Chaimberland]

First of all, you and your team are awesome! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

A feature that I really liked in the old planner that isn't in the newer version is that it use to show what level we selected our feats. Now it just shows the feats we selected but not the order we selected them in. Not a major thing but it was nice to have.

To clarify a little bit, when the finished product is printed off it no longer shows what level feats where selected.

[Ron]

Couple of questions

Are you planning on having the icons scale as the window changes size?

Yeah, we could do that. Currently the planner uses .bmp files for graphics, and due to some limitations with that format, we couldn't scale them (I really shouldn't say "couldn't", we COULD, but it would look terrible, and actually you can see this in the race/class selection graphics, which we did in fact scale, as kind of an experiment on how it worked). We are looking at converting the whole system to using .png files instead, which gives us a number of advantages. However, it is VERY non-trivial to make this conversion (it deals with aspect of the planner code that were put into place practically on day one, very old code). But I consider this to be a pretty high priority item, so it will happen in the near future.


What size window would be the default?
The current default is 1024x768, but of course that is overridable using the command line arguments (or even dragging the window border once you are running).

[RaidMR]

Hi Ron (and team)!

While I think a UI polish might be in order (as the game has changed and I know your team has had to 'shoe-horn' in new levels and systems), can you provide us a little more insight as to the direction you'd like to take and scope? For example, do you want the UI to be based on more what we see when leveling in DDO... do you want feature suggestions?

There are things you can consider that might save tons of space for the UI and for the changing level cap in the future, like a slider (maybe linked with a number box) to select a level rather than a series of numbered buttons... but that might change how you display build errors...

For features I would suggest considering the following:

A "spend skill points as last level" feature (might need a check for under and overspent skillpoints)
A text searchbar on the feat selection to quickly find the feat you're looking for.
The ability to hide feats and skills (by toon) even though the toon is eligible.
"Yellow" and "Red" build warnings to distinguish between cautionary build problems, like unassigned points for yellow warnings, and red warnings for prereq violations. Oh and a check for skill levels with a remainder at level 20 (cause with int tomes I've had it happent to me twice) :)




Really the character planner is the one of the best community resources out there for DDO and you guys can't be thanked enough for keeping this thing alive and running with all the changes.

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

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.

Thank you Ron, you and everyone that helps you helps me help myself and help others (my request a build page)

I generally copy the actual text and paste it into a paste bin.

There seems to be a bug with +5 tomes being applied at level 18 (for the case of TRs) sometimes causes it to crash

For new UI, yes I do believe there should be some way to copy the skills so I don't need to click 13 times at lvl 2 on a rogue that probably wont get full use out of all the skills anyways.

Feats: I don't know if its a bug or not but all feats that should only be able to be selected at certain levels (half elf dilly, fvs elemental resist, ranger favored enemy and the like) can be selected as soon as you have met the requirements once, not only at the levels they are select able. This is pretty confusing for newer people, I got my dad to try to create a build and his ranger had 8 favored enemies before EDs and enhancements...

Skill focus and Spell focus pictures could all use actual pictures so that they don't confuse someone looking at the planner and not the text that the planner produces (maybe take the icons from archmage)


Ability Scores work fine at the moment


I know its not operational yet, but the Destinies portion from the little that I could see before it would crash looks decent

Equipment: something that I haven't used in ages due to the constant change and increase in equipment options; I think you should see if you can team up with ddowiki on that one, if you use the huge library of items that they have over there instead of trying to implement it directly in the planner might help things, but that's just some guys view who can't see anything really. ^_^


All in all, I am glad that you asked for idea's, not because I have terribly many, but because it shows that you guys really care about this tool!

[Ron]

Hi Ron (and team)!

While I think a UI polish might be in order (as the game has changed and I know your team has had to 'shoe-horn' in new levels and systems), can you provide us a little more insight as to the direction you'd like to take and scope? For example, do you want the UI to be based on more what we see when leveling in DDO... do you want feature suggestions?

Well, the initial intent of the planner, all those years ago, was to mimic building your character in the same way you do in the game. The "Instruction box" where you select the line of text that fills in the selection box was built to follow the same order you do stuff in the game when creating and leveling a character (I don't actually know if we followed that 100% later on, but that was the initial design).

However, in reality, I'm not sure how really necessary that is. If we went to a system based creation system rather than level based, that whole thing goes out the window. We wouldn't have any relationship to what actually happens at the character creation/trainer screens in the game anymore. But do we really need to?

Of course, we'd still have the printout, which gives you, level by level, a laundry list of what to do at the trainer. That would be your leveling guide while you are in-game, which is all you really need, I think. For the actual build planning, we don't necessarily have to keep to that strategy. Unless you guys want to. And so far, I'm seeing a bit of a split between people asking for a system based planner and a level based planner. But for those of you asking to keep to a level based system, keeping in mind you have the printout for use at the trainer, would you be okay with a more system based planner?

The UI/functionality suggestions you made are good, we'll put them on the list.

[Dragon.Star]

Hi Ron (and team)!

While I think a UI polish might be in order (as the game has changed and I know your team has had to 'shoe-horn' in new levels and systems), can you provide us a little more insight as to the direction you'd like to take and scope? For example, do you want the UI to be based on more what we see when leveling in DDO... do you want feature suggestions?

Basically we are looking for Ideas and Suggestions of all types.

Our goals are:

1. A Main screen that provides more information to the user than what is currently there.
2. With the way the game has evolved and the fact the planner is just as old :). There is a lot of code that we want/need to redo and streamline.
3. I will also like to see the planner grow in other areas besides just character planner. Let your imagination run here......


Overall we are looking to redesign the look and interaction of the overall program and figured we would look here for suggestions and ideas before we do any coding/groundwork for the New Version 5.0.

[memloch]

Hey Ron,

First thank you for all the work. I have used the planner a bit but not a lot.

If you could just load for example a +4 tome of INt and then have it apply the increases as you progress through the levels that would make it easier as will as skill tomes.

Keep up the good work.

[mikarddo]

Picking a feat is currently cumbersome. At the very least only show the possible choices but also put in a search field.
Tomes - should just type in once and auto-apply levelwise.

A system approach sounds really great. I would definitely support that. The current level by level approach works semi-ok until you try to change things and everything goes up in smoke.

Thank you for the great work you are doing for the rest of us.

[Seikojin]

Hi Ron and team!

I love the tool and use it very often!

I think icons should be a fixed size. This way they do not force full ui redraws as you resize the main window. Also from what I see on 4.20.01, they resize with the window (and it does get ugly).

I think it would be cool if it had a 3.5 character sheet skin, or just skinnable period. :)

I would like it if you could 'lock' a skill. So every point you get on a new level is dedicated to those skills. Essentially auto raising skills with max ranks each level you take.

I also think that there should be 3 or 4 panes that are static in location, but get data in different ways.
The leftmost would be updated statistics. So your stat block, spellpower, hp, saves, spellpoints, AC (total), Attack bonus, and defense breakdowns are all here.

The middle should be broken into 2 panes. The top portion should be the active tab pane and the bottom should be selected object detail pane (kind of the detail pane in the lower right currently). I would think the detail pane should span the middle to the far right.

The far right should be the actions pane. This should have several tabs down the right side that bring up various actions that can modify what is in the middle action pane. You can have all the current options available there. System (sets the action pane to show the save, export, load, print, and a few other character planner options), Creation, Levels, Enhancements, destinies, items, equipment, etc.

The idea here being that your far left pane will give the most combat intensive information. That the middle pane could show a breakdown of most things you want per subsystem, and the right pane could do all the pushing. When you select the levels tab, the right pane could put up a single item that allows level increase or decrease (number box and up and down arrows). It could have all the sub actions for the level in the right pane; selecting should update the middle pane with the options in that system/action. The bottom right pane could be made larger compared to now, and offer more visibility per line. I think doing it this way could also push towards having less redraw, so things will be easier when you click on destinies and or enhancements.

[Seikojin]

Basically we are looking for Ideas and Suggestions of all types.

Our goals are:

1. A Main screen that provides more information to the user than what is currently there.
2. With the way the game has evolved and the fact the planner is just as old :). There is a lot of code that we want/need to redo and streamline.
3. I will also like to see the planner grow in other areas besides just character planner. Let your imagination run here......


Overall we are looking to redesign the look and interaction of the overall program and figured we would look here for suggestions and ideas before we do any coding/groundwork for the New Version 5.0.

Outside of character planning; It could have a quest log.

Or a path to completionist log. Something where you start off as a 28 point build, and then choose quests to run, number of times, difficulty, etc, and it makes a list for you based on wikiable information on where that will take you level wise. Then you can simulate taking that path. Include a banking option? So you can maximize the exp you gain at level to help shorten the path to cap. Could include wiki links for the quests and allow the quest files to be modified from the tool so various changes that come along can be integrated for the user. So they can change base exp when the game changes it. Also have checkbox options for the various percentage bonuses people get and aim for. Then have a tr button that will roll you back to level 1 (or 16 or 20 depending on the tr you do), and auto apply tomes at the right level.

Maybe include an inventory management system? Something where you build and drop items, save them to a loadout file, and then it is called from the character file. So you can manage bank space like you would have to do in game. This would also cut down on making and saving template loadouts like you do now.

Skill tomes is needed too iirc.

Maybe a test item mode. Where you can build items with the various properties one by one, without restrictions. This would allow players to figure out what is missing in the game and offer feedback both in general and in proper places.

[Theolin]

An Idea.

Most things are on just one display, the only exception is you would have to choose between feats & enhancements, I did not mock the enhancements just replace the feat box with them & use what you already have, should be able to put 2 at a time in there.

Its defiantly not pretty, I hope the idea gets across.

Not really happy with the skills part that needs ... something ....
The feats would just be a table with a drag and drop selector but you could see them all (or at least 20 levels) at once, icons smaller, hopefully it would all fit without scrolls on what you choose (choices would have to scroll). The feat choice list would have 5 selectors to filter what you could see & grey out ones your not qualified for.
Have a selector above the feats to switch that area to enhancements instead, I think 2 would fit, or maybe 4 if its 2x2
highlight the class chosen for the level seen above
drop down for race you can only choose one anyway
under each class have a past life selector for how many
epic & iconic past lives probably something similar ... probably below classes then move the ability scores down & shrink the skills box
could use the levels on the feats as a level selector instead of the one next to race
the info box could go under the skill box, that would give more room for feats



http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/801/uzsj.jpg

[ReaperAlexEU]

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.

i'd love a way to expand on the section i am working with. eg blow the feats list up to full screen, or the skills list. was so pleased to see the new enhancement system popped out so i could see the whole thing!

also the up/down clickers on attributes always irritate me as you can't spam them like you can in game to hit the max stat asap. if the controls give you a headache a quick and dirty would to put a max out button next to each stat to ramp it up to full. same goes for the skills up/down clickers, it doesn't increment as fast as you can click, or start to increment itself if you hold down the click. might be a hand coded control you got working but it would be a great quality of life tweak to get them responding as other up/down clickers respond in Windows (no idea how they behave in other OS's)

i see some of the art assets are giving you gip with regards to scaling. one trick i found in the windows GDI is interpolation. that worked magic on a project i was working with that showed you a scaled down preview of a document to print. the text went from unreadable blocks of gibberish to smooth text leaving it readable to a much smaller size than the default method. makes me wonder why MS didn't use that as their default for the next OS they released. so if you find your language of choice's interpolation calls then it fixes that problem for all art and makes it much easier to dynamically scale things.

i guess a lot of the display area could be reclaimed as i seldom find myself looking at the stats and hit points etc when building. i'm far more focused on the level up process, getting the right feats, making sure i've not skipped a level, juggling skills vs INT tomes to get best use of them by cap. so all that area devoted to keeping track of stats could be pulled away and added to an overview screen. so that's attributes, known feats, hit point/spell point etc, known spells, known enhancements, skills. all of that lot could be put on an overview page leaving space to work with the levels and each choice inside the level.

the forum export is great for guiding you through leveling up, but it's not in a format i find easy to digest to see the essence of a build. when i write up my own builds i tend to break them down into sections. for feats i'll have those broken down by level, for skills i'll just have an overview of how many ranks each has with maybe a note on when to start pumping them if i'm fiddling about. when i see a newbie on the forum post a build and ask for advice it takes a lot of scrolling up and down to see what feats they have grabbed and if they are focusing on raising one stat.

when flitting back and forth it would be handy to have some visual clue as to what has been filled in. eg inside a level you have the white list of areas you can work on from feats to skills. yellow is the active section, maybe have another colour for partially filled in (some attribute points left to spend, maybe you didn't decide where those last few skill points should go yet etc) and a different colour to show all choices for that section have been made. a similar approach could be used on the level selector, it's blue to click on or red if there is an error, add in colours for levels that have been worked on so we can be sure we've not skipped one by mistake.

there is a very good reason the DDO planner is the de facto one for the entire player base, you and your team have done a wonderful job of keeping it up to date and as functional as possible. great to see you're planning to give the UI an overhaul as it's a job that often gets pushed to the back when you're trying to keep up with an ever changing set of design goals :)

[Lauf]

I constantly go up and down the levels changing feats and class splits while planning builds, so a system based planner would be a serious downgrade for me.
as for a level based planner, would be nice to have the option of selecting multiple levels (with the usual ctrl/shift options) and change the class for all of them at once, rather than have to go through each one by one.
might be minor for some people, but I tend to do that a lot (swap out one class for another)


if you're looking for a real overhaul suggestion, I would split it into steps. i.e. choose abilities and ability raises, classes for levels 1-20, feats, spells and skills, each as a separate screen (one leading to the other and back, like the new reincarnation interface).
this will allow you to change spell selection easily until you have them figured out and have an outcome you're happy with, as it'll all be in one screen.
the same ofcourse goes for feats, skills and all the rest. whichever aspect you wish to plan, can be focused on and planned separately (or skipped altogether).

[Razahe]

Hey there, here are my ideas:

1. An additional tab at lvl 1 that allows you to set the tomes you have (stat and skills), and the planner applies them automatically when you meet the level Prereqs. So you put your precious +5 STR tome in that list and get your +1 at 3, +2 at 7 and so on.

2. I like the level based system, simply because i can track down prereq problems easier. I don't meet the BAB prereq for improved crit at 9? Oh sure, i have to swap out a my 5th monk with a 5th ranger here. In a system based well... system, where i select my classes first and do all feats after it, i basically have to rearrange all classes again after i thought i was done with it, but realise i dont meet prereqs. (I hope you get what i mean here ^^).

3. Apply completionist feat statbonus like you do it with enhancements (value in brackets), a bit easier to see what stats you have to meet prerequisites.

Basically i like the planner because you can easily see how you have to plan your build to meet your prereqs to get all feats in. How ever you want to change the planner, keep this key feature in mind ;)

[Bear01]

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.

How I use the planner is to go thru and chose what class for all levels first, add my +1 to +5 tomes to see what my stats come out as, then do level ups stat points. Edit Initial stats/levelups as required. next do feats checking to ensure prerequs are met and finally do the skills. I have had to make trades in level up stats vs initial stats to get the desired end
It would be nice if somewhere there could be an input for equipment stat enhancments added in to see the net result at key levels ie at 9 I have crafted gear that adds +6 to each stat and at 18 and 20 again gear changes and final gear loadout at 28

[EllisDee37]

I have definite thoughts on this, so much so that I tried to write one for my own personal use back in 2011 but failed miserably, and I'm a competent programmer. (Mad respect to you guys for the planner, it's an impressive piece of code.) Since then I do most of my build planning using spreadsheets, and only when the build is finished do I plug it into the character planner for verification that I didn't violate any prereqs. I also use the character planner for the "raw" forum output, but a quick look at any of my build threads shows that I do a *massive* amount of editing by hand to get the output in the format I like.

Here's how I'd like to see the logical flow:

1) Identity. Pick name, race, alignment and gender. For gender, allow "any" as a choice and if any is selected, don't include a gender in the forum output. For alignment, be able to choose a specific alignment or part of one, also with an "any" option on both the neutral/good choice and the lawful/chaotic/neutral choice. So, for example, my heroic challenge farmer right now would show as "Lawful Human Male." Male because great cleave is bugged (soon to be fixed!) on female humans, and lawful because, obviously, monk. Note that it doesn't say "Lawful Good" or "Lawful Neutral." Just "Lawful." In other words, show only the required aspects, none of the optional flavor ones.

2) Class. In a single screen let me manipulate the classes for all 20 heroic levels at once. I envision something as simple as 3 comboboxes to choose your heroic classes and a list of 20 class levels on the side. The first combobox is the "primary" class; as soon as you pick it, all 20 levels get set to that class. When you pick a second class, you can then change whichever of the 20 levels you like to the second class. Ditto for the 3rd class. So for, say, a pale trapper, on a single screen I'd choose "wizard", then "rogue", then I'd set the level 1 and level 9 dropdowns to "rogue" and be done.

Ideally the 20 levels on the right would not be combo boxes. Better would be to have them set to whichever of the three classes was "highlighted" (checkbox/optionbutton?) when you single click that level. So I'd pick wizard, then rogue, and then since rogue is highlighted I'd just left click 1 and 9 and be done. Consider an 8/6/6 build and how tedious it would be to have to make 12 combobox selections.

3) Stats. Select your build points (28, 32, 34, 36) and ALL stats. In one single screen, with no tabs or anything hidden, show and be able to manipulate all of the following data in a single place: Starting stats
Levelups
Tomes
4) Feats. Choose all feats for the whole build in a single screen.

5) Skills. I'd really like an interface essentially identical to the spreadsheet I set up for skills. I'd be happy to email you the spreadsheet so you can play around with it to get a feel for the "ease of use." In the meantime, here's a screenshot using my pale trapper build. Those totals at the bottom are calculated automatically for me, so I can see at a glance how many ranks in any given level I've spent. The calculations are "smart" in that they know if each skill is native or not for the class taken at that level.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/689/wlu8.png (https://imageshack.com/i/j5wlu8p)

6) Enhancements pretty much exactly as they are now in the planner. That's a perfect implementation.

7) Destinies. A straight duplication of the destiny trees (complete with a twist section) would be ideal, similar to how you did a duplication of the enhancement trees.

Using this approach, instead of having 28 primary choices in the planner (any change begins by clicking on the level you want to change) there are now only seven primary choices. Want to change your level 3 feat? Instead of clicking "Level 3", you click "Feats." etc...

I'm pretty sure you already grasp the complications that caused me to fail miserably when I tried to implement this approach. It can be done, but with the inter-related prereqs and variable potential skills based on build points it rapidly becomes highly complex.

[Dragon.Star]

Excellent suggestions and ideas so far all.

Keep them coming..............

[Rhysem]

Raising skills point by point is pointless. I want to give priorities, with an option of saying "max skill ranks X" (tumble, open lock) and have the builder allocate points in an optimal way. Possibly give options of "maximal ranks" vs "keep first priority maxxed even cross-class, rather than waiting for a later class level to raise it".

Feats, similar. I don't care what level the feats come at most of the time. I want this set, go allocate them in the sanest possible way (ie: at the lowest level they fit, generally).

Picking counts of each class and then drag-and-drop to reorder would be nice.

In an ideal world, it'd be a web app.

[Marcus-Hawkeye]

Set race,gender
Set starting stats - and set levelups in one spot
Set Leveling path (ie. Ro/Fi/Fvsx12/Ro/Fi/FVS/Ro/FVS2)
Set Feats - this would depend on the leveling pattern and may require me to flip back and forth from level path to feats to get everything I want but to me this is the core of the planner - making sure I can get the feats I want and in what order.
Set enhancements - to me it doesnt matter what my enhancements are at level 2,4,6,11 etc... since i can just pay to fix those with ingame plat.


I think this would be faster overall but its my style so it makes sense to me. Probably a major overhaul but ....it just my thoughts.

yeah something like this would be far easier to work with and see how stuff works.

And thanks for all your hard work!

[Drakos]

I think it would be nice if the look and feel of the planner was more like the way the game looks and feels. Sort of like a +20 LR (but not having to open a dialog between levels).

[Drakos]

The Forum Export Tool: I swear, I will be working on this soon. There will come a point in the not too distant future when you will be able to customize the forum export to your liking rather than having to live with what we have coded for you. I will certainly give you the commands you need to create a template that sorts the enhancements in the way you are asking for.

In this vain, I would really love to see an import tool as well. Copy the planner output from a forum post into the clipboard and the program parse the data into the planner.

[Drakos]

In an ideal world, it'd be a web app.

Not in my ideal world it wouldn't. I prefer it as a stand alone app.

[Ron]

well, plus there are some serious limitations on what you can do with a web app regarding save files. It's not impossible to get around, but it's pretty hacky. And the size of our input files might also be a problem for a web app as well (it already takes forever to load them as a standalone, I'd hate to think of a web browser trying to load all that data!). I think we are just too complex to work as a web app at this point.

[Hjarki]

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

I'd uncouple the building from the leveling process. While the current methodology mimics how the game actually works, it doesn't really match how people think about characters.

So instead of going through class -> stat raise -> feats -> skills -> etc. level-by-level, break out each step into it's own category and display it by level.

Start with race/alignment - these are invariant over leveling. Just toss them up top somewhere.

You'd have class on the left - 20 slots for class. You can probably just have three dropdowns and three columns of radio buttons. If you change alignment, wipe out all levels that depended on the old alignment.

Then you'd have stat raises (these are unaffected by anything else). Tomes could be handled by a control off to the side somewhere that merely asked what level of tome you had for each stat and then this level could be automatically added into stats at the appropriate level (+1 @ 4, +2 @ 7, etc.). I suppose there could be some sort of 'advanced' tag for those rare characters who applied a +1 tome @ level 18.

Then do feats. Everyone is going to have a feat at 1,3,6,9,12,15,18 and then some people are going to have specialized feats at various other levels. When you change anything to the left (class or stat raises) or above (the previous feat changes), the feat selection re-calculates and invalid selections get wiped out (this adds a bit of complexity, but it's not really all that tough to iterate through "is this valid?" function). So if you swap out your Fighter levels, you may no longer have the BAB to get GTHF at level 12. Swap out your stat bonuses and Improved Precise Shot might disappear. Change out Shield Mastery and Improved Shield Mastery below it goes *poof*. You don't really need a 'red text to indicate error' because people tend to think of feat chains in terms of the result rather than the process.

Lastly, do skills. On the horizontal header, have drop boxes to select a skill for that column. Then have boxes where you can adjust the investment for each of 20 levels. Whenever you increase a skill, you also decrease any of the boxes below it that would become invalid. If you originally invested 0 points in level 1 - 4 then 8 points in level 5, adding +1 skill point at level 3 would reduce the level 5 investment to 7 points (since otherwise you'd be investing more than 1 point/level). Over on the right you could show "X/Y" where X is the number of points spent and Y is the number available for a given class level. If class/intelligence changes to reduce X below Y, then simply start with the right-most skill at that level, proceeding backwards to wipe out skill investments until you hit the point where X = Y. (Note: you could even have an 'automate' button that allocated skill points as efficiently as possible by giving preference to the left-most skills and just giving the right-most skills the dregs).

The existing interface for enhancements would work well.

What you'd end up with is an interface that more closely mimic'd the player's thought process. No one is thinking "I want to play a character who spends 3 points on Disable Device at level 5". They're thinking "I want to play a character with at least 12 levels of Barbarian who can also use Intelligence to damage with repeating-crossbows and has maximum Haggle skill" (or at least something more practical with a similar level of detail).

[Rhysem]

well, plus there are some serious limitations on what you can do with a web app regarding save files. It's not impossible to get around, but it's pretty hacky. And the size of our input files might also be a problem for a web app as well (it already takes forever to load them as a standalone, I'd hate to think of a web browser trying to load all that data!). I think we are just too complex to work as a web app at this point.

There were hero planner web apps for CoX that carried a substantial majority of the complexity that the ddo builder does, and they worked fine. They supported both saves and easy linking either to the character save or to the literal string that defined what had been picked/slotted/etc.

I thought about building one myself, actually, but what holds me back is I don't feel like wasting time duplicating all the prereqs data.

[gDra]

- where it is possible make the window big enough to avoid scrolling (skills selection)
- where scrolling can't be avoided add a search filter (feats)
- keep information that is barely important (spells) or too complex (enhancements) away from the main menu (accessable through an extra tab or button)
- less clicks to speed up the building process: e.g. after selecting a class let the planner go to the next step automatically

For fast system based building I would like to see something like this:
after basic build information input (race, classes, abilities, alignment, pastlifes, tomes) you are presented a table to make choices like ability increases and feats.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29737057/table.png

[Bart_D]

First, I love the Planner ...and I also think it's awesome that you plan to update it.

After reading the first page I went and made a quick mock-up in Excel and now I see it's basically the same as gDra has posted above here. On the right of it, I'd like to add a (transposed) skill planner like what EllisDee37 illustretes; it could be with all skills or selected skills only.

The main thing I would love to see is all (important) choices for all levels on one screen. I'd probably leave out things like selected spells and enhancements to a seperate screen. But it would be really nice to be able to see and edit Class/Stat/Feats/Skills for all levels at the same time.

[Rhaphael]

How about a Forum Import Tool? Like a way to get forum exports back into the planner so we can change someone else's build to suit our needs without having to manually build it up first.

[Munkenmo]

But for those of you asking to keep to a level based system, keeping in mind you have the printout for use at the trainer, would you be okay with a more system based planner?

The UI/functionality suggestions you made are good, we'll put them on the list.

Im ok with a system based planner, my concern is it will have issues on multiclasses, where i need to maximise skill efficiency by letting skills lag in cross class skills, then pump them as class skills.

Example here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434659-Need-advice-on-2-builds?p=5227768&viewfull=1#post5227768)

[MeliCat]

First up... thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Also... it's always bugged me how little screen real estate you give feats. Feats are probably the things that I spend the most time fussing about after level 1. I need space to think. I need to be able to see and compare options. I want to see the ones that are not available to me and understand why.

So... all very well to have space for all the other important stuff... but after level 1 there is a bunch of things you don't need to tuck them right up top on one line out of the way and not take up so much space. Eg race, gender, alignment. etc.

I need feat playspace. I need to have a place I can grab a feat and look at it's description (I usually do this with a bunch of snipits and paint - crude but it works as a scratch pad). I want to have a place where I can stick a feat in and set it up properly. And then I want a playspace for feats that I'm thinking about but not sure of yet. And they can stay visible for the whole build if I haven't got around to using them yet. That way I know I have a bunch of feats I want. I stick them in the playspace. I do my build and as I go I use these up. If I have to change something around I put it in my playspace to apply later. Or I might decide to dump it and bin it. Or leave it there just for future reference on the build of the feats I didn't use if I ever revisit and want to try something else. I can see that others have ideas as to how these feats should be displayed once they're set in the build and there are some good ones. My problem is just looking and comparing what I want with what I am allowed easily.

The other bit is stats level up as it affects pre-reqs. What about having that as a tree or something to one side? So you have your initial stats... and then as the levels go you can see what they change to. So a simple display might literally be straight down the R or LHS. So it's check at a glance while your looking at feats.

_____S__D__C__I__W__C__
lev 1_13_15_16_8_17_8
lev 2_13_15_16_8_17_8
lev 3_14_16_17_9_19_9 (tomes have kicked in plus a level up)

[EllisDee37]

For more context in how I actually make builds (not that I'm so special, just a datapoint) here's the feat worksheet from mny kensei cleric build. One key element for melee builds is having a clearly visible and easily referenced BAB column:

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/19/6i22.png (https://imageshack.com/i/0j6i22p)

Here's the same build's skill worksheet, which illustrates the concern fTdOmen discusses (quoted below.) In this specific example, I hit heal and concentration pretty hard but try to limit those skill raises to only the cleric levels.

I have two skill grids; the first one is without an int tome for posting on the forums, the second is with a +2 int tome from a past life, which is what my actual character has:

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/534/8ib5.png (https://imageshack.com/i/eu8ib5p)


Im ok with a system based planner, my concern is it will have issues on multiclasses, where i need to maximise skill efficiency by letting skills lag in cross class skills, then pump them as class skills.

[Kalevor]

Im ok with a system based planner, my concern is it will have issues on multiclasses, where i need to maximise skill efficiency by letting skills lag in cross class skills, then pump them as class skills.

Example here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/434659-Need-advice-on-2-builds?p=5227768&viewfull=1#post5227768)

I like it, very visual

[Humungazoid]

Great ideas here, love the ideas for system based levelling, skill copy/pre-assign and tome auto-stat in particular. Here's a couple of things I haven't noticed (hopefully they're not in an update I missed):

Brighter toggle buttons for things like skill and stat adjusters. I sometimes have trouble making them out.
Buttons for TR, LR and IR. These would start a new character at the appropriate stage, retaining and increment appropriate attributes like past lives, tomes and name.
MeliCat got in before me with the feat workspace idea, so I'd like to give that a thumbs-up with the following addition: another workspace that's automatically populated with missing prerequisite feats. So if I place GTWF at level 18 TWF and ITWF appear here ready for me to try and fit them in at earlier levels.

[Humungazoid]

Edit button's on the blink, so to clarify:

Brighter toggle buttons for things like skill and stat adjusters. I sometimes have trouble making them out.
I actually mean a larger difference in appearance between the increment buttons that have been used and those that have not.

[spectroum]

I've been using the planner for a long time and i find the level-by-level buld up very usefull because this way

a) i can always see what i should get at each level when i have to level up in live
b) i can always remember my class progression when i need to LR and respec my classes so i can't mess up with my LR
c) it gives me a good idea of my character progression at each level and how it can handle the associated content


i really don't think you should change the build up but add/fix some stuff on the current


so to fix

- iconics in general (class breakdown,PLs, etc) which you are doing but i'm just pointing out still
- some enh pres like in angel of vengeance, Inquisition is no longer a pre for Angelic Resistance (even in wiki the AoV tree screenshot is wrong but the text is correct)
- certain class feats like favored enemies not to be available at any level (mentioned above too)
- tomes applied to skills at their ML, since they changed it at live a long time ago and now they apply at the tome ML instead of the next lvl (a +2 int tome at lvl 7 wil grant the extra skill point at lvl 7 not at lvl 8)


things to add

+ spell power list at each level and at cap or if its too much work just add it at cap
+ dodge
+ skill tomes
+ PRR
+ doublestrike
+ tactical,spell DCs
+ a way to add equipment since they contribute to the above listed


now i'll just share my insight on the equipment workaround

since we have tons of equipment to choose from and thus can be hard and/or take huge amount of time to code into the planner it would be enough if you can just add ML20-28 equipment

- see if you can team up with ddowiki and use their database on named equipment and release a data expansion on your planner in the future that will contain all of the equipment and will load only when someone actually wants to add equipment to their builds. You can make that available at heroic-epic caps or just at epic cap since this can be usefull at cap mostly anyway.
- if the above is too much work then try creating something like a gear generator which will provide us all the available effects and we just edit the numbers. For example offer 4-5 editable slots at a blank belt that we can add our own effects like

1st effect: tactical DCs (insight bonus) +5
2nd effect: doublestrike % (morale bonus) +3
3rd effect: skill: use magic device (competence bonus) +3
4th effect: skill: open lock (competence bonus) +15
5th effect: skill: disable device (competence bonus) +15

(in case you didn't notice yet...thats an epic spare hand t3)

- with lootgen items just do the above since the possible combinations are way too many

- add an augment slot generator at the equipment section. Like a panel where we can add our total augment slots (lets say 2) and we can choose from an augment list or edit the associated augments with effects

e.g (blue,colorless slots from the epic spare hand)
Number of slots:2
Augment 1: physical resistance rating (enhancement bonus) +14
Augment 2: charisma (insight bonus) +2


that's just a basic idea of some suggestions...i'm sure these can blossom in your hands if you want to ;)



atm the only thing really missing from the planner is the option to add end game gear so we can see our future builds at their top potential :D


thanks for the time you spent in reading this and keep up the good work


EDIT: i think i got carried away with many ideas that aren't that much UI-related, but once i started typing there was no way to contain some thoughts but express them

[EllisDee37]

Personally I'd remove the items component altogether and never look back. Items change much too frequently (new items every update) to have any hope of keeping up.

Related to that, I'd remove any "final number" stats that would normally include items. (eg: Hit Points, Spell Points, etc...)

[Ron]

Personally I'd remove the items component altogether and never look back. Items change much too frequently (new items every update) to have any hope of keeping up.

Related to that, I'd remove any "final number" stats that would normally include items. (eg: Hit Points, Spell Points, etc...)

We're talking about eventually having a tool for you guys that will allow you to directly (from within the character planner itself) modify the text files. Which means you will be able to input new equipment yourself with all of its stats, rather than having you have to wait for us to update the files. We haven't yet worked out the details (e.g. what happens to your modifications when we release an update to the planner?). What I am thinking is having a way for you guys to "Send Report" once you have finished inputting something, which will simply email me what you changed, so we can then drop those changes back into the master version of the planner, or something along those lines. We haven't really figured that part out yet.

[Munkenmo]

Rather than keeping up with every item turbine will ever make, (and rely on us to update them with proper naming schemes)

Would it be simpler to group all different item effects, into drop down trees, and have us fill in the stats on our items.

Ie helmet:

Stats:
Enhancment:
str
Dex
Etc.
Exceptional:
Str
Dex
Etc.
Insight:
Str
Dex
Etc

Hitpoints:
Spell points:
Dc boosts:


So long as things are collapsible the main list wouldnt be that overwhelming, im not sure how hard it would be to add to the lists as turbine introduce new effects though.

[Seikojin]

We're talking about eventually having a tool for you guys that will allow you to directly (from within the character planner itself) modify the text files. Which means you will be able to input new equipment yourself with all of its stats, rather than having you have to wait for us to update the files. We haven't yet worked out the details (e.g. what happens to your modifications when we release an update to the planner?). What I am thinking is having a way for you guys to "Send Report" once you have finished inputting something, which will simply email me what you changed, so we can then drop those changes back into the master version of the planner, or something along those lines. We haven't really figured that part out yet.

That would be good. Like something that you just enter values in boxes? Or maybe something with dropdowns and a name box to add entries into your own file? I think that would help people build or maintain item management pretty well. I think doing something to have players manage their items is a step in a better direction; getting rid of it altogether would suck.

[Seikojin]

An Idea.

...snip...


http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/801/uzsj.jpg

I like this to a degree, and it kind of illustrates the minimalist pane idea I was talking about above. I think the area where you have feats should be considered the active pane, and it should be surrounded by tabs that change its view to suit the thing you are working on. So skills tab would bring up skills, feats for feats, levels for the level based options you are on (for said level in the upper right). I think level 1 should include all the past life setup stuff. You could even have a statistics tab that shows breakdowns of spellpower and ac, prr, etc.

[Dragon.Star]

Hey all

First I want to thank everyone for the feed back in this thread, it has been invaluable to myself and Ron as we design this new Interface.

As everyone knows, trying to satisfy everyone's needs is a extremely hard task. I've tried to pull everyone suggestion and idea into these Mock-ups and we are still developing more stuff. Hope you guys enjoy and please don't hesitate to continue providing ideas, suggestion or even complaints about the user interface; we are still very much in just the planning stages of this version.

Main Character Screen.
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/Photo015_zps9911d00b.jpg

Most of the buttons are obvious I'll describe each one for clarity.

Level Buttons: These work just like they do in Version 4. They show the relevant Character information for that level and previous levels.

The following buttons will be useable at any level. These buttons will open up a separate window to handle their own routines.


Reincarnation: This allows the user to enter any relevant Past Life Info, this includes Tomes before any type of Reincarnation.
Alignment: Obviously lets you choose your alignment.
Race: Lets you choose the race of your toon.
Current Class: This button show the class chosen at current level. when a user clicks it, they can change just that level or any level below that.
Spellbook - user can select spells from his book.
Companion- This will be for Artificer and Druid Pets (I have no clue what to do here yet).



Edit Buttons: These buttons will allow the user to edit these panels for that level or all levels below it.


Abilities - The user can set base, tomes and level up here.
Skills - the user can set level ups and tomes here.
Feats - the user can select feats here, This panel also can filter the known feats (All, Granted or Selected)
Enhancements - We can still use the Version 4.0 interface with some changes.
Destiny - Same as Enhancements


Edit Abilities Screen:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/Photo017_zps5e8b9ce7.jpg

This is screen is missing the obvious Plus/Minus graphics, but essentially for the Starting stat and Level up you just increment them where you want.

For tomes its a bit trickier as we need to cover all ways that tomes are used. So you basically need to choose what level you at the tome or plan to eat the tome. This table doesn't not get used for any tomes that were eaten in a previous life or before a Lesser Reincarnation. They will be handled in the Reincarnation tab.

Edit Classes Screen:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/Photo016_zps72e012c5.jpg

This screen idea was taken directly from someone's suggestion, sorry don't remember who atm.

Basically drag the icons on the left to the 3 class slots available, the Primary will auto-populate the drop-downs, you will have to change the levels for the other 2 classes if you use them.

Please remember that these Mock - ups are rough draft.

[whereispowderedsilve]

Looks awesome so far/initially! Keep up the great work! WOOHOO! :P! :)! :D! Cheers!

[EllisDee37]

I rather like the mockups. Especially the class screen, heh.

If it were me, I'd probably do a tabbed interface, with each tab getting the full screen to work with as opposed to what appears to be popup windows in the mockups. (The actual game uses a tabbed interface for the character sheet, so it'd be consistent.) Those tabs might be:

Overview......Identity.....Stats.....Skills....Fea ts....Enhancements.....Spells.....Destiny....Items

The overview tab would be display only, and would include the forum export. The mockup of the main screen is kind of laid out like this already, but I would condense the detail information down; only show the final numbers on the overview screen. Meaning skills would only get one number (the total) instead of Ability Ranks Tome Feat Enh Dest Gear. All that detail information would only be displayed on the skills tab, which would also be where you modify it. Same deal for stats, etc...

This would make the overview tab quite roomy, allowing maybe larger fonts with a more old-school P&P character sheet feel to it.

[Humungazoid]

We're talking about eventually having a tool for you guys that will allow you to directly (from within the character planner itself) modify the text files. Which means you will be able to input new equipment yourself with all of its stats, rather than having you have to wait for us to update the files. We haven't yet worked out the details (e.g. what happens to your modifications when we release an update to the planner?). What I am thinking is having a way for you guys to "Send Report" once you have finished inputting something, which will simply email me what you changed, so we can then drop those changes back into the master version of the planner, or something along those lines. We haven't really figured that part out yet.

Would it be possible for the user to provide a link to the DDOWiki and have the planner parse out the required details? The template there seems fairly standardised from a bystander's perspective.

+1 to EllisDee's tab idea.

[spectroum]

just keep in mind to use darker colors in the background

bright colors can be a ***** :D

[Ron]

just keep in mind to use darker colors in the background

bright colors can be a ***** :D

These are mockups. We're most likely going to be using the same general color scheme we use now.

[MeliCat]

Not the best builder but I enjoy the exercise of trying to improve an interface. From my own experiences in using this planner I am suggesting the following trying to address my personal points of frustration and incorporating some of the fantastic ideas above. My mockups are quite different from what has been just posted but I have reasons for this.

Basic front end:
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l141/msnjunk2006-Catmosphere/CharPlan4.png (http://s95.photobucket.com/user/msnjunk2006-Catmosphere/media/CharPlan4.png.html)

(note nothing is filled out very completely but if you use the builder you mentally know how you would. it's also a really really rough mock up so i'm hoping people can use their imaginations as to the final finish and just grab at the UI suggestions I am making here)

Aims:
-I want to have everything on display for a whole character for the things I want to play with at one time that require me to plan from 1 to 28 : eg feats.
-The display of changes needs to be logical and clear to see.
-I want to minimize the number of drill downs I have to do to see what I want.

Notes on the first page of the mockup and generally:
- The setup green button has everything you would have for setup right now. A lot of that doesn't change so can be neatly tucked up the top.
- The tomes green button. Tomes are interesting. They are either either applied before TR or else eaten later. If they are before TR then the stat point kicks in at level 3 but if they are after TR then it kicks in at level 4. The Tomes button would have the following:
Add a tome
Tomes eaten list
+4 wis before TR
+3 str before TR
I guess you could add a "after level X" instead too. It is a point of exasperation for me that the planner doesn't model this. Mostly I want the planner to apply at 3 or whatever because I need to know this.
-Gear I haven't done a mock up for but guessing you'll just set it to add and say 'apply at 28' or something.
- pink lines on the stats column are where the stat increases are chosen - I propose that the input be directly into this line. Here I have chosen wisdom for all my level ups and therefore it has become outlined and made green. You can see where the tome increases have kicked in but there is no need to highlight this. Tomes are eaten once and they apply. You don't need to specially pick them out again.
- there are 3 tabs to this display: feats, skills and other stuff (which I've called Saves Tracking because I can't think of what else to call it). This mock up is just the first of those tabs for the feats.

Feats Tab:
As has been suggested colour code a Slot on autogrants, class, dilis, and normal selected feats. To the RHS is a scratch pad of feats I eventually want to toss in this build - I suggest taking the orginal planners scroll list to just select a bunch of things but a neater see everything is generated from this. I couldn't show it easily here but if possible, when you select a line which is your level (say 15 for example) it could make it clear which remaining feats left over on your scratch pad were valid from your stats, pre req feats, bab etc and which of your scratch pad feats still didn't apply as greyed out. Maybe a mouseover or something to give a full feat description so you could work out why.

Skills Tab:
- the 2nd tab is the skills with class skills highlighted (here in purple) and unspent points. you left click to add points and right click to remove points to the column to the right of the skill column and it will add to the skill. (most likely the added skill points are smaller and of a different font) It sums for you as you go including in ability bonuses etc. I separated this off as a different tab because I usually think of it separately although it's dependant on class etc. I want to see skills over a whole character not drilling in level by level where it's hard to see and tedious to add or change.
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l141/msnjunk2006-Catmosphere/CharPlan5.png (http://s95.photobucket.com/user/msnjunk2006-Catmosphere/media/CharPlan5.png.html)

Saves Tracking Tab:
- the third tab is the running totals. I rarely look at this stuff and just want a final total - which is the top RHS of the screen all visible and would update as you build down the levels. But include here for interest and any other things that you want to track the build of or change of by class or stat change throughout the build.
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l141/msnjunk2006-Catmosphere/CharPlan3.png (http://s95.photobucket.com/user/msnjunk2006-Catmosphere/media/CharPlan3.png.html)


Hoping people have the patience to interpret what I'm trying to suggest. It's late and I shouldn't have stayed up but it's been interesting :)

[CThruTheEgo]

Good stuff. I won't repeat what others have already suggested so I'll just say I like the changes being discussed as well as the mock ups.

I did want to mention one problem I see with the current planner. When you take a class with an extra feat, select the extra feat, and then decide to change that class, the planner still recognizes that you have the feat but you don't see it anywhere and have to reselect the class at that level to swap it out. So for example, you take your first monk level at level 4 and choose power attack, then decide you don't want the monk level and change it. The planner still thinks you took power attack at level 4 and registers it as an error but it doesn't show up anywhere and the only way to remove it is to change back to monk at level 4 then remove the feat. Perhaps if it would still show that you had the feat, but as an error, and allow you to remove it without switching classes. This has caused me problems in the past when I couldn't figure out why a feat wasn't available for me to take because I already had it but didn't know I did since it didn't show up anywhere.

[EllisDee37]

Mockups are fun; I might throw some together this afternoon just for s#!^s and giggles. My color choices will be horrible; 90s gray. Fair warning. heh.

[Battlehawke]

Probably already been mentioned, but any chance you could make the planner an App for Droids and I Phones? Or at least have access to a server with the builder through our phones. I'm not home much and when I am I try to maximize that time between family and play time. I am on the road a lot and would love to be able to plan out my toons while on the move...

Keep up the work! You guys are Awesome!

[Seikojin]

I really love the mockup and the additions of more detailed information per component.

I also think a tabbed interface may work better. Like Ellis said; more room to display the goods. However I can also see how it could disrupt the flow of building your character.

[EllisDee37]

Here's a mockup for the skills tab as I envision it with godawful colors and sizing issues:

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/833/q5sa.png (https://imageshack.com/i/n5q5sap)

Without control arrays I would most likely implement the grid as a userdrawn picturebox. Better one picturebox you write a class for than trying to manage 420 labels. I say this because doing the mockup I used actual labels, and it was an utter nightmare trying to wrangle them all.

Either way, in addition to the left/right click functionality of the boxes, I'd have the grid auto-identify the "active" box the cursor is over as you move the mouse around, likely with a unique border color for that box. Probably red. Such a "cursor" function would greatly aid the user in clicking on all those boxes.

The color contrast needs to be toned way down, especially the interior grid borders. (I would have done that for the mockup but I couldn't seem to locate the "border color" property for labels.)

[Ron]

So I've seen a couple of suggestions now for tabs.

I'm not against tabs per se, but I'm not sure that I really see the advantage either. I think the first page, the summary page, should always be up (for reference), with secondary screens just a click away. With tabs, you don't get that, you'd have to flip back and forth. Using secondary screens, you could even drag them off to a second monitor to work on them, having the primary screen up on the first monitor (or visa versa). Given the interconnected nature of some of this stuff (e.g. why can't I take that feat? Oh, because I need to have an 18 Dex, do I have an 18 Dex? No.), I think you really do need to have a summary screen showing at all times.

[Munkenmo]

So I've seen a couple of suggestions now for tabs.

I'm not against tabs per se, but I'm not sure that I really see the advantage either. I think the first page, the summary page, should always be up (for reference), with secondary screens just a click away. With tabs, you don't get that, you'd have to flip back and forth. Using secondary screens, you could even drag them off to a second monitor to work on them, having the primary screen up on the first monitor (or visa versa). Given the interconnected nature of some of this stuff (e.g. why can't I take that feat? Oh, because I need to have an 18 Dex, do I have an 18 Dex? No.), I think you really do need to have a summary screen showing at all times.

I think your right for beginners ron, but once we have a good idea of what were doing, a tabbed interface like what ellisee has shown would be much quicker to put together builds with.

I like many others have resorted to using spreadsheets for my builds now, as its faster to put things together in groups,(ie, stats, skills, feats) than it is by levels.

Fwiw, your planner was invaluable when I was new, I know I wouldnt be the builder I am now without it.

Would it be feasible to have an advanced interface that uses tabs, and a more beginner friendly ui similar to the existing version?

[Stoner81]

I think your right for beginners ron

That right there is the problem.

Effective character building takes time and lots of practice for somebody to learn all the nuances of toon building, players new to the game don't have that and need things laid out in a simple and easy way to understand (the current planner for the most part). The best course of action imo is not to over complicate the building process with more options than you can shake a stick at it will only confuse people, the current planner is a massive hit and that is because it is simple and effective and not complicated to use.

Advanced players who make toons a lot know what can go where etc and can usually come up with a build in seconds "off the cuff" so to speak without ever using the planner.


Would it be feasible to have an advanced interface that uses tabs, and a more beginner friendly ui similar to the existing version?

You took the words right off my keyboard :D, having an "Advanced" section would then please everybody but it would basically mean 2 planners in to one application?

Stoner81.

[Ron]

I think your right for beginners ron, but once we have a good idea of what were doing, a tabbed interface like what ellisee has shown would be much quicker to put together builds with.

I like many others have resorted to using spreadsheets for my builds now, as its faster to put things together in groups,(ie, stats, skills, feats) than it is by levels.
The current mockups are all showing a methodology where you create your character by systems (stats, skills, feats), not by level. We still have "level bars", but that is simply to show what your stats would be at any given level, you won't be using them to create your build. With the new interface as we've designed it, you are still using a "system" based approach rather than a "level" based one. So I think you are getting what you are asking for, the only difference is you hit an "Edit" button to get to a particular system rather than a tab button, with the advantage that you always get to see the primary (summary) screen. Why would you want a system that gives you less information? I simply am not seeing the advantage to using a tab interface.

[EllisDee37]

I think the first page, the summary page, should always be up (for reference)I disagree for a couple reasons. First and foremost, that reference info is almost never needed. Second is because the more information on the screen the more confusing the interface is.


With tabs, you don't get that, you'd have to flip back and forth.Flipping back and forth between smaller chunks of information is why a tabbed interface is better. The usability is much higher. A secondary benefit -- apart from making the interface more streamlined and easier to process mentally -- is that you get much a bigger area to work with. Consider the feats section on the current planner, how very small it is, and then consider all the screen real estate taken up on the left side of the screen that I have never once referred to in all the builds I've made. Essentially, the entire left half of the current builder doesn't exist for me.


Using secondary screens, you could even drag them off to a second monitor to work on themThat's a niche benefit at best. What percentage of the userbase has two monitors?


Given the interconnected nature of some of this stuff (e.g. why can't I take that feat? Oh, because I need to have an 18 Dex, do I have an 18 Dex? No.), I think you really do need to have a summary screen showing at all times.I think this example supports my position more than yours. What level do you have 18 dex? Now you have to start clicking the level buttons to figure it out, so it's not even on the screen anyway.

Besides which, my vision for an ideal planner would have an "error condition" multi-line textbox similar to how it works for feats in the current planner. You'd see at a glance why you can't take feats without having to clutter up the screen with huge info dump areas that use up most of the screen for every section. (Why do I need screen space taken up with a stats box when I'm selecting my skills? Or a skills display while I'm selecting...pretty much anything other than skills?)


A tabbed interface is much easier to figure out for a beginner, and much faster to use for a seasoned vet.

[EllisDee37]

I just remembered one of the existing issues with the planner is the enhancement order. This is much less of an issue since the enhancement pass, but it still happens. The planner's forum export can show you a list of enhancements in a disallowed order, meaning you need to take the second enhancement in the list for a given level before you can take the first one in the list. (Due to "points in tree" prereqs.)

Related to this, I'd love to be able to set a "reset x tree" for a given level without blowing out all the enhancements for every level before it. Two simple examples would be a kotc paladin, who goes Hunter of the Dead through level 17 then at 18 resets the tree to go KotC. Another example is a wizard who goes conjuration in the AM tree for web until switching to enchantment at 15 for dball. Neither of these is possible in the current planner.

Many builds will reset enhancements at level 20, but doing so in the planner will remove all the enhancement info for leveling from 1 to 20.

[Ron]

I disagree for a couple reasons. First and foremost, that reference info is almost never needed. Second is because the more information on the screen the more confusing the interface is.

Flipping back and forth between smaller chunks of information is why a tabbed interface is better. The usability is much higher. A secondary benefit -- apart from making the interface more streamlined and easier to process mentally -- is that you get much a bigger area to work with. Consider the feats section on the current planner, how very small it is, and then consider all the screen real estate taken up on the left side of the screen that I have never once referred to in all the builds I've made. Essentially, the entire left half of the current builder doesn't exist for me.
Hmmm, perhaps I see the issue here. I think you may be misunderstanding what we are doing. As we are (currently) envisioning the interface, when you hit any given "edit" button, a whole new screen will pop up. You aren't going to be working in that small area, you will have a large screen devoted entirely to that system (much like we are doing now for the enhancements in the current version of the planner). So screen real-estate is not an issue here, like it is in the current planner iteration.

So if you really feel like you don't need to use the main screen, feel free to cover it up with the system screen you are working with at the time. Although personally I'm going to keep both up. I like to have summary information viewable as I'm working on any given system. (but then I'm one of those people that has multiple monitors, so I have the luxury of a lot of screen real-estate)


I think this example supports my position more than yours. What level do you have 18 dex? Now you have to start clicking the level buttons to figure it out, so it's not even on the screen anyway.
How is that different from what you would have to do with tabs? Only with tabs you would have an extra click to get back to the main screen, whereas with separate screens, both can be up at the same time.



Besides which, my vision for an ideal planner would have an "error condition" multi-line textbox similar to how it works for feats in the current planner. You'd see at a glance why you can't take feats without having to clutter up the screen with huge info dump areas that use up most of the screen for every section. (Why do I need screen space taken up with a stats box when I'm selecting my skills? Or a skills display while I'm selecting...pretty much anything other than skills?)
Well, for feats in particular, we're thinking along the lines of a table showing all the levels from 1-30 (someone posted a rough mockup on page 2 of this thread that I liked quite a bit), so you can see all your slots at once. And there would be a list of the class/race available feats on one side (with various filters). When you grab one (grab and drop), we would then gray-out all slots that don't fulfill any prereqs (so if you grabbed a feat that needed say a 15 Dex, and you didn't get a 15 Dex until level 8, all slots from 1-7 would gray as soon as you picked up that feat, does that make sense?).

Oh, and we aren't going to use informational multi-line textboxes like we have in the planner now. Too much screen space being chewed up. Instead we are going to use our tooltip-popup system that I created for the Enhancement screen.

I realize you were just using that as an example, but it came to mind as you mentioned it, so I thought I would describe what we are thinking for that, since Dragon (or I) hadn't yet done an official mock-up for that screen.


A tabbed interface is much easier to figure out for a beginner, and much faster to use for a seasoned vet.
The only difference between a tabbed interface and the "Edit" buttons we are talking about is whether or not that summary screen is visible at all times or only at specific times (i.e. when that first tab is selected). Otherwise, there is NO difference that I can see. (In fact, I don't see why, if you wanted to, you couldn't simply open up ALL the secondary windows at once [by hitting all of the "Edit" buttons], if you have the monitor screen space to do it). Then you could just flip through the various windows, and it would be much the same as your tabbed interface :)

I get your point about too much information being confusing to the user. On the other hand, there is also a point where too little information would also be a problem. I guess I prefer to err on the side of giving more information to the user rather than less.

[Dragon.Star]

I just remembered one of the existing issues with the planner is the enhancement order. This is much less of an issue since the enhancement pass, but it still happens. The planner's forum export can show you a list of enhancements in a disallowed order, meaning you need to take the second enhancement in the list for a given level before you can take the first one in the list. (Due to "points in tree" prereqs.)

First i've heard of this and I think i see what is happening and will see what we can do to fix this issue.


Related to this, I'd love to be able to set a "reset x tree" for a given level without blowing out all the enhancements for every level before it. Two simple examples would be a kotc paladin, who goes Hunter of the Dead through level 17 then at 18 resets the tree to go KotC. Another example is a wizard who goes conjuration in the AM tree for web until switching to enchantment at 15 for dball. Neither of these is possible in the current planner.

Many builds will reset enhancements at level 20, but doing so in the planner will remove all the enhancement info for leveling from 1 to 20.

When building the Enhancement System, I actually debated this function and what we do now. As you know I went the other way from your suggestion for several reasons (The main one which is paramount in my eyes is that would probably confuse new players as Each level would end up showing its own set of enhancements, you would end up with a lot of duplication in the export and the save files.) We can always take another look at this in the future if there is enough requests for it.

[Ron]

Speaking of enhancements, there is another twist to that I'd like to bring up in terms of the new interface.

We're keeping our same basic system that we have now, I think it is nearly perfect as is (we WILL be removing that lock thing that happens once you hit "Accept" once we have figured out how to make that work with the AA trees).

But I'd like to make an addition to it. Dragon and I have discussed this briefly, but not in depth. What is missing from our current system is any kind of ability to "order" the enhancements in the way you prefer. I was working on an "auto distribute" system, but that's fairly limited in what it can do (the planner has no idea what enhancements are important to you as the user, and thus should get priority, it can only sort by prereq requirments).

So what I would propose is, in addition to our current enhancement UI, we add (probably along the left side) a display that shows all 20 levels with four slots for each level (so 80 slots in total). As you select enhancements in the normal way, the icon for that enhancement fills in, in the bottom most available slot where it is legal to take that enhancement (I'm envisioning level 1 being at the bottom and 20 at the top, with the fields filling it from bottom to top, so it kind of mimics the direction the trees go in, from bottom to top).

The purpose of this is to show you, at what level, the planner thinks you will be taking that enhancement. But wait, there's more! If you disagree with the planner's assignment, you can actually drag-drop from this list into a different slot than what the planner assigned. Of course, you would still be limited to what is legal in terms of pre-reqs (I'm thinking again, that when you pick up an enhancement icon from one of these slots, we would gray out any illegal slots so you know you can't place the enhancement there).

This is somewhat complicated by the fact that some enhancements will take up more than one slot, but we can work through that. This would eliminate the need for any kind of "auto distribute" function that we have now. What do you guys think? Useful? Not? Any suggestions for improvement?

[-Zephyr-]

What do you guys think? Useful? Not? Any suggestions for improvement?

I know that'd be very useful for the Leveller if/when we update it to be able to fill enhancements! :P
Aside from that, I think it'd be useful to keep the ability to detail characters levels by levels, especially in forum export and print outputs, to make build reproductability easier.

[Devilteck]

Would it be possible to have pinned tabs that can be opened on mouse over and also pinned when needed but still have the main screen for the basic info. So say on the main screen you have the basic layout that you are talking about ron, but on one side or the other have tabs that can be opened and closed at will and pinned also? If you need an example I might be able to get something mocked up in VS express but if you have any newer programming software just use it as an example.

[EllisDee37]

Hmmm, perhaps I see the issue here. I think you may be misunderstanding what we are doing. As we are (currently) envisioning the interface, when you hit any given "edit" button, a whole new screen will pop up. You aren't going to be working in that small area, you will have a large screen devoted entirely to that system (much like we are doing now for the enhancements in the current version of the planner). So screen real-estate is not an issue here, like it is in the current planner iteration.The confusion is because you're thinking of multiple monitors where I'm thinking of a single monitor. When you say "always visible on the screen," you mean on another screen, with the entire main screen's viewable area devoted to whichever dialog/tab you have open.

With only my single screen, the information tab will NOT be "always visible." It will likely almost never be visible, with whatever dialog/tab I'm working on covering it up. I was concerned that you were going in a direction where half my screen would be taken up with unnecessary overview info, like in the current planner. But as you clarified, that won't be the case so it's fine.

A tabbed interface is much cleaner for a single-monitor setup, while the windowed version is the only way to make use out of a second monitor. I get why you want to make it work for your personal setup. The downside of it being more cluttered for us single-monitor users is an acceptable price to pay.


Well, for feats in particular, we're thinking along the lines of a table showing all the levels from 1-30 (someone posted a rough mockup on page 2 of this thread that I liked quite a bit), so you can see all your slots at once. And there would be a list of the class/race available feats on one side (with various filters). When you grab one (grab and drop), we would then gray-out all slots that don't fulfill any prereqs (so if you grabbed a feat that needed say a 15 Dex, and you didn't get a 15 Dex until level 8, all slots from 1-7 would gray as soon as you picked up that feat, does that make sense?).Yes, this makes sense, and sounds ideal. I also rather liked that mockup from page 2. I'd try to squeeze a BAB column in the feat screen just because it's such a common prereq and it's not intuitively knowable that it'd be nice to just have it on the screen in front of you.


Oh, and we aren't going to use informational multi-line textboxes like we have in the planner now. Too much screen space being chewed up. Instead we are going to use our tooltip-popup system that I created for the Enhancement screen.Nice.


I get your point about too much information being confusing to the user. On the other hand, there is also a point where too little information would also be a problem. I guess I prefer to err on the side of giving more information to the user rather than less.Both give the same amount of information. The difference is that in one you only get one window on your taskbar, whereas the other you get a window for each "tab." Tabbed is cleaner but doesn't support multiple monitors. (Which to me is an extremely niche audience in general, but since you as the actual developer have multiple monitors that changes the equation.)

Consider from a single monitor perspective: To see the overview, I have to either close the window I'm currently working with, or resize it, or minimize it, or click the overview window on my taskbar. With a tabbed interface all I have to do is click the tab. That's arguably less work. The "more or less information on the screen" is moot; the same information is available (on a single monitor) either way.

[EllisDee37]

First i've heard of this and I think i see what is happening and will see what we can do to fix this issue.It's a result of the way the save file is structured. Because each enhancement is saved a single time with the corresponding level at which it's taken, we lose both the information of what order the user took them (within a single level) and also the ability to intentionally reset and redo a tree mid-life.

I'd switch the save logic to level-based instead of enhancement-based. A little extra code to signify a tree reset and it's good to go. Each time you open the enhancement screen to edit enhancements for whatever level, you could then (behind the scenes) reconstruct the trees in the user's order from level one through the currently selected level.


When building the Enhancement System, I actually debated this function and what we do now. As you know I went the other way from your suggestion for several reasons (The main one which is paramount in my eyes is that would probably confuse new players as Each level would end up showing its own set of enhancements, you would end up with a lot of duplication in the export and the save files.) We can always take another look at this in the future if there is enough requests for it.New players will never open and look at the save files. I definitely wouldn't worry about making the save file intuitive. Which, in terms of the enhancement section, isn't intuitive anyway. Is a new player really going to see "Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-3-6]," (part of my epic farmer's save file) and intuitively know that means I take rank 3 at level 6?

Duplication in the export and save files is a non-issue, IMO. If the save files go from 6k to 10k, will that really matter? Looking more closely at the save file, the enhancements are already duplicated anyway. In that same save file I have:

Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1-2],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-2-5],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-3-6],

That's three lines you're already spending, and switching it to level based would mean it would still take the same (or a similar) three lines. The only actual duplication would be if you reset a tree and then restock it differently in the middle of a life, but that's not duplication, that's actual data.

I'd argue it would be more intuitive to have the save file structured like:

Level 1 Enhancements
Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration I: Grease [0-0-2-1],
Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-1],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Reaping [0-0-0-1],
Level 2 Enhancements
Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-2-2],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1-2],
Level 3 Enhancements
...etc...

EDIT: Alternately, for easier parsing, maybe:

Enh1: Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration I: Grease [0-0-2-1],
Enh1: Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-1],
Enh1: Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Reaping [0-0-0-1],
Enh2: Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-2-2],
Enh2: Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1-2],
Enh3: ...etc...

[EllisDee37]

Speaking of enhancements, there is another twist to that I'd like to bring up in terms of the new interface.

We're keeping our same basic system that we have now, I think it is nearly perfect as is (we WILL be removing that lock thing that happens once you hit "Accept" once we have figured out how to make that work with the AA trees).

But I'd like to make an addition to it. Dragon and I have discussed this briefly, but not in depth. What is missing from our current system is any kind of ability to "order" the enhancements in the way you prefer. I was working on an "auto distribute" system, but that's fairly limited in what it can do (the planner has no idea what enhancements are important to you as the user, and thus should get priority, it can only sort by prereq requirments).

So what I would propose is, in addition to our current enhancement UI, we add (probably along the left side) a display that shows all 20 levels with four slots for each level (so 80 slots in total). As you select enhancements in the normal way, the icon for that enhancement fills in, in the bottom most available slot where it is legal to take that enhancement (I'm envisioning level 1 being at the bottom and 20 at the top, with the fields filling it from bottom to top, so it kind of mimics the direction the trees go in, from bottom to top).

The purpose of this is to show you, at what level, the planner thinks you will be taking that enhancement. But wait, there's more! If you disagree with the planner's assignment, you can actually drag-drop from this list into a different slot than what the planner assigned. Of course, you would still be limited to what is legal in terms of pre-reqs (I'm thinking again, that when you pick up an enhancement icon from one of these slots, we would gray out any illegal slots so you know you can't place the enhancement there).

This is somewhat complicated by the fact that some enhancements will take up more than one slot, but we can work through that. This would eliminate the need for any kind of "auto distribute" function that we have now. What do you guys think? Useful? Not? Any suggestions for improvement?I'm not really following this. The planner can easily know when I want to take an enhancement: When I actually take it. Let's say I just spent 8 AP on levels 1 and 2 and now click level 3. The first enhancement I take is the one I want taken first. The second enhancement I take is the one I want second. etc...

To support the right+click remove functionality, use a stack to hold the enhancements for the current level that the user is currently modifying. Push and pop to/from the stack, removing any add/drops that cancel each other out. Once you've "cleaned" the list by removing the add/drops, save those enhancements in the order they're in in the stack. (Or reverse order, depending how you code the stack.)

In any case, I wouldn't set a limit or try to make any predictions on the number of enhancements taken in any given level. Consider my pale trapper, which takes no enhancements at all on level 1 because he's a rogue, and then on level 2 spends all 8 AP on wizard enhancements. That could end up being eight different enhancements taken at level 2. (It isn't, of course, but theoretically it could be.)

[Dragon.Star]

It's a result of the way the save file is structured. Because each enhancement is saved a single time with the corresponding level at which it's taken, we lose both the information of what order the user took them (within a single level) and also the ability to intentionally reset and redo a tree mid-life. Actually the save file structure does exactly what it is supposed to do. It just doesn't keep track in what specific order you took an enhancement. That was something that was overlooked and really only affected the export option of someone did all enhancement at Lvl 20 per say. Either way you can still use the export guide to level your toon. It shows what enhancement are take at what level, just not in what order for that level.

This is something I will add in with the new version.


New players will never open and look at the save files. I definitely wouldn't worry about making the save file intuitive. Which, in terms of the enhancement section, isn't intuitive anyway. Is a new player really going to see "Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-3-6]," (part of my epic farmer's save file) and intuitively know that means I take rank 3 at level 6? I believe you are wrong here, new players will open the save files, its what I actually did when first using the planner to fix a bug before I joined the team.


Duplication in the export and save files is a non-issue, IMO. If the save files go from 6k to 10k, will that really matter? Looking more closely at the save file, the enhancements are already duplicated anyway. In that same save file I have: As programmers we are always looking for ways to cut down on duplication where we can. its all about the small footprint.


Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1-2],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-2-5],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-3-6],

That's three lines you're already spending, and switching it to level based would mean it would still take the same (or a similar) three lines. The only actual duplication would be if you reset a tree and then restock it differently in the middle of a life, but that's not duplication, that's actual data.

I'd argue it would be more intuitive to have the save file structured like:

Level 1 Enhancements
Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration I: Grease [0-0-2-1],
Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-1],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Reaping [0-0-0-1],
Level 2 Enhancements
Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-2-2],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1-2],
Level 3 Enhancements
...etc...

EDIT: Alternately, for easier parsing, maybe:

Enh1: Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration I: Grease [0-0-2-1],
Enh1: Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-1],
Enh1: Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Reaping [0-0-0-1],
Enh2: Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-2-2],
Enh2: Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1-2],
Enh3: ...etc...

Both your examples all ready are more than 3 lines, the level for the enhancement is already in the block. Why add it again.

Either way let move the topics back to UI design and we will worry about the coding needed afterwards.

[Ron]

In any case, I wouldn't set a limit or try to make any predictions on the number of enhancements taken in any given level. Consider my pale trapper, which takes no enhancements at all on level 1 because he's a rogue, and then on level 2 spends all 8 AP on wizard enhancements. That could end up being eight different enhancements taken at level 2. (It isn't, of course, but theoretically it could be.)

Ahh, good point, I hadn't considered that scenario. Interesting... Hmmmmm. Okay let me give it some thought. I'd still like the user to be able to override the planner in terms of when to take enhancements.

What you've described is in fact what the planner does (or it used to anyway, it may not now with the new system come to think of it). However, in my experience, people don't actually take enhancements in the order they actually want to take them in game when designing characters. Generally enhancements are designed at level 20 all at once (not level by level), and they are done by tree (the user will fill in an entire tree before going on to the next tree), which is not at all the order or levels you would actually take them in game. So I do think there is some importance in letting the user specify the actual order they want to use (if that is in fact important to them at all, I realize a certain portion of the user base is content to just leave them all at level 20 on the printout, and in game, pick from this master list as they level up).

I still feel like some sort of list of icons, from bottom to top, gives us the best (ie the most intuitive) interface for this, which can be dragged up or down as desired. Perhaps on one side of the icons we list the level taken (and this would have to be dynamic rather than static in order to cover cases like you say, where class changes might delay selections, such as taking 8 enhancements at level 2 rather than 4/4 at level 1/2). I dunno, I'm just brainstorming some ideas for it.

[Thumbed_Servant]

Thank you to Ron and any and all who have helped to craft the Character Planner program. I use it, and it is immensely helpful.

Sincerely,

[Ayseifn]

Haven't been running windows for years now and and have been stuck making builds in text documents, Wine compatibility would have been awesome for a UI rewrite but it seems you're probably too far along for that. So the only thing I'd like to see is a web interface, platform neutral and people can check things out on the go.

[Chaimberland]

I was just wondering if there was an ETA on the new planner? I'm actually more excited for this than I am for the new update. And I'm very excited for the new update!

[Ron]

I was just wondering if there was an ETA on the new planner? I'm actually more excited for this than I am for the new update. And I'm very excited for the new update!

With the new interface? No. It may take us a while. A lot of the code in the planner is years old now, and is in desperate need of clean up (and to make it more synergistic with the newer classes). We're going to be revamping huge sections of it. Not only the interface but a lot of other internal code as well (e.g. we're gonna switch to using png graphics rather than bmps, which internally is a huge change to some very old code). We haven't even started coding yet (we're still in design mode).

In other words, this is a HUGE revamp of the planner, so it's going to take us a bit of time :)

Having said that, there is a new version coming imminently, with the old interface (04.20.02) that fixes a few bugs, but mostly we're releasing it to fix a resource leak associated with the enhancement screen that could potentially cause a program crash.

[Chaimberland]

With the new interface? No. It may take us a while. A lot of the code in the planner is years old now, and is in desperate need of clean up (and to make it more synergistic with the newer classes). We're going to be revamping huge sections of it. Not only the interface but a lot of other internal code as well (e.g. we're gonna switch to using png graphics rather than bmps, which internally is a huge change to some very old code). We haven't even started coding yet (we're still in design mode).

In other words, this is a HUGE revamp of the planner, so it's going to take us a bit of time :)

Having said that, there is a new version coming imminently, with the old interface (04.20.02) that fixes a few bugs, but mostly we're releasing it to fix a resource leak associated with the enhancement screen that could potentially cause a program crash.

Thanks for the response Ron! I will patiently wait for it. You and your team do a great job!

[raeslys]

I do not know if you know the e-Tools, a character planner for D20 (I used its for D&D 3.5 mostly). That application had a very simple interface.

Other idea could be a ribbon-like interface (I guess you will have discussed it, but I have not want to look at the 93 comments that you have :P):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_%28computing%29

Each ribbon-tab could represent an aspect of the player sheet, stats, feats, enhancements, etc.

[EllisDee37]

in my experience, people don't actually take enhancements in the order they actually want to take them in game when designing characters. Generally enhancements are designed at level 20 all at once (not level by level), and they are done by tree (the user will fill in an entire tree before going on to the next tree), which is not at all the order or levels you would actually take them in game.I agree that's how many people probably use it.


So I do think there is some importance in letting the user specify the actual order they want to use (if that is in fact important to them at all, I realize a certain portion of the user base is content to just leave them all at level 20 on the printout, and in game, pick from this master list as they level up).I think the group of people who select them all at 20 is the same group that doesn't care about order. It's only logical; if you care about order (like I do) then you assign them level by level. And you choose them in the order you want. And then pull out your hair when the planner changes that order. hehheh.


I still feel like some sort of list of icons, from bottom to top, gives us the best (ie the most intuitive) interface for this, which can be dragged up or down as desired. Perhaps on one side of the icons we list the level taken (and this would have to be dynamic rather than static in order to cover cases like you say, where class changes might delay selections, such as taking 8 enhancements at level 2 rather than 4/4 at level 1/2). I dunno, I'm just brainstorming some ideas for it.I don't object to such an interface; I think it's superfluous but fine. Just please have that interface auto-fill based on the order you actually take the enhancements in the trees. As opposed to leaving it blank and having to be manually filled, which would end up meaning you'd have to select every enhancement twice if you care about order.

[EllisDee37]

I don't object to such an interface; I think it's superfluous but fine. Just please have that interface auto-fill based on the order you actually take the enhancements in the trees. As opposed to leaving it blank and having to be manually filled, which would end up meaning you'd have to select every enhancement twice if you care about order.Actually, it occurs to me that any kind of separate UI for the enhancement order would pretty much make resetting a tree mid-build unsupportable. That would be a shame, IMO.

If you store enhancements taken by level in the data file, in the order they're actually selected in the tree interface, then you could easily support resetting a tree mid-build. Examples where this would be useful:

- Wizards often change their AM SLAs mid-life. A typical example would be going conjuration for web until you get high enough level to switch to necromancy for enervation.
- Paladins typically will go hunter of the dead until around 17 or 18, and then switch to fiendslayer.
- Kenseis may switch up their weapon focus as they level. Maybe greataxes at 4 (carnifex) then greatswords at 10 (sos).

One example I'm getting ready to start on is a 15/5 paladin/rogue who uses falchion from 1-22, then switches to sireth at 23. With the way the datafile works now, I will need two separate save files to manage my enhancements for that one life. This will be an extensive enhancement change, going from mostly kotc from 1-22 then switching to mostly acrobat at 23. With the current logic of "one line per enhancement" there is simply no way to support tree resets. If you switch it to saving enhancements as they're selected, you can support both the order taken and tree resets in one fell swoop.

Resetting a tree and re-selecting many of the same enhancements is not duplicate data. That's new, unique data.

[Ron]

I'm not seeing the advantage or disadvantage to either method with regards to having multiple enhancement sets. Seems like two entirely separate issues to me.

Keeping enhancements in the selection order is one way we could do it, sure. However, what if you decide (after filling in all your enhancements) that the enhancement you took way down at level 2 need to move one slot behind the one you took next? The only way to do so with your method would be to reset all your trees and start over.

Whereas if there is a drag-and-drop interface for moving them, you just pick it up and move it. No need to reset any trees at all. [And just to be clear, the initial selections from the tree would drop into the slots in selection order, as per your method, the only difference really is we have a way to change that order directly on the screen if the user wishes to do so].

As for the multiple enhancement sets, let me give that a bit of thought. We have never supported that in the planner. And it presents a lot of difficulties in terms of calculations and whatnot. It's not impossible, but it is very problematic. We'd need to give the user some kind of interface that tells the planner "I want to use this set of enhancements through level 5, then I'm going to clear them out and use an entirely different set from level 6 through 12, then I want to clear those out and use THIS set for 13-19, and finally here is a totally new set for levels 20-30". I mean, what would such an interface even look like? How would we present it such that it is not totally confusing to a new user? How would we present that data in the forum export? And what about the paper printout? What would that look like?

There is a reason we've never supported that functionality. It is very complicated in terms of interface and output (as far as programming goes, it adds a level of complexity to an already very complex system, but it's nothing we couldn't handle with an additional array).

[Munkenmo]

As for the multiple enhancement sets, let me give that a bit of thought. We have never supported that in the planner. And it presents a lot of difficulties in terms of calculations and whatnot. It's not impossible, but it is very problematic. We'd need to give the user some kind of interface that tells the planner "I want to use this set of enhancements through level 5, then I'm going to clear them out and use an entirely different set from level 6 through 12, then I want to clear those out and use THIS set for 13-19, and finally here is a totally new set for levels 20-30". I mean, what would such an interface even look like? How would we present it such that it is not totally confusing to a new user? How would we present that data in the forum export? And what about the paper printout? What would that look like?

There is a reason we've never supported that functionality. It is very complicated in terms of interface and output (as far as programming goes, it adds a level of complexity to an already very complex system, but it's nothing we couldn't handle with an additional array).

It would be a nifty feature when trying to help people with leveling builds. As it stands though, I can quickly and easily copy paste my save files in order to have different sets of enhancements.

I would push for linux support ;)

[RD2play]

don't know if mentioned yet, but I would like to see a "reset all skills" button .

sometimes I find out that playing the build doesn't quite work out at lower levels and have to redistribute when I pick certain classes this usually totally messes up the skills an it is a pain to reset them one skill point at the time , Thanks

[EllisDee37]

I'm not seeing the advantage or disadvantage to either method with regards to having multiple enhancement sets. Seems like two entirely separate issues to me.Fair enough. I was thinking of some sort of "maximium # of enhancements taken in a given level" setup, which would struggle to handle a level 18 respec with 30+ enhancements taken in a single level.


Keeping enhancements in the selection order is one way we could do it, sure. However, what if you decide (after filling in all your enhancements) that the enhancement you took way down at level 2 need to move one slot behind the one you took next? The only way to do so with your method would be to reset all your trees and start over.

Whereas if there is a drag-and-drop interface for moving them, you just pick it up and move it. No need to reset any trees at all. [And just to be clear, the initial selections from the tree would drop into the slots in selection order, as per your method, the only difference really is we have a way to change that order directly on the screen if the user wishes to do so].A drag and drop to manipulate the order does sound VERY cool; you have me intrigued. There is certainly some complexity involved with that, but not insurmountable. Quick example:

All my points go to a single class tree. Level 1 spends one on the first core, three in tier 1. Level 2 spends one (5th spent) in tier 1 then one in tier 2. Right now, those two enhancements taken on level 2 cannot swap spots due to "points in tree" prereqs, so the drag n drop interface will need to check that kind of thing.


As for the multiple enhancement sets, let me give that a bit of thought. We have never supported that in the planner. And it presents a lot of difficulties in terms of calculations and whatnot. It's not impossible, but it is very problematic. We'd need to give the user some kind of interface that tells the planner "I want to use this set of enhancements through level 5, then I'm going to clear them out and use an entirely different set from level 6 through 12, then I want to clear those out and use THIS set for 13-19, and finally here is a totally new set for levels 20-30". I mean, what would such an interface even look like? How would we present it such that it is not totally confusing to a new user? How would we present that data in the forum export? And what about the paper printout? What would that look like?I have a clear vision in my head of how to implement it, seemingly easily. In terms of output, see my epic challenge farmer link in signature, level 13 for an example. Continuing with that example, here's how that build's current save file looks: (Just the enhancement section.)
ENHANCEMENTLIST:
Drow::Spell Resistance [0-0-0-1-18],
Drow::Drow Intelligence [0-1-3-1-19],
Drow::Spell Resistance [0-2-0-1-19],
Drow::Drow Intelligence [0-3-3-1-19],
Drow::Enchantment Lore [2-0-0-1-20],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Reaping [0-0-0-1-1],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Zombie [0-1-0-1-5],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Vampire [0-2-0-1-11],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Wraith [0-3-0-1-12],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Lich [0-4-0-1-18],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Master of Death [0-5-0-1-20],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Negative Energy I [1-2-0-1-17],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1-2],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-2-5],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-3-6],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Negative Energy Conduit [1-4-0-1-13],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Negative Energy Conduit [1-4-0-2-18],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Efficient Maximize [2-1-3-1-9],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Efficient Maximize [2-1-3-2-9],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Efficient Maximize [2-1-3-3-10],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Negative Energy II [2-2-0-1-17],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Corpsecrafter [2-3-0-1-6],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Corpsecrafter [2-3-0-2-6],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Corpsecrafter [2-3-0-3-7],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Eternal Servitude [3-3-0-1-7],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Eternal Servitude [3-3-0-2-7],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Eternal Servitude [3-3-0-3-7],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Intelligence [3-4-2-1-8],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Furor [4-3-0-1-13],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Furor [4-3-0-2-13],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Furor [4-3-0-3-13],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Intelligence [4-4-2-1-12],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Necromantic Focus [5-2-0-1-14],
Pale Master (Wiz)::Improved Shrouding [5-4-0-1-14],
Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration I: Grease [0-0-2-1-1],
Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration II: Web [0-1-2-1-5],
Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration III: Stinking Cloud [0-2-2-1-11],
Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration IV: Dimension Door [0-3-2-1-12],
Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-1-1],
Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-2-2],
Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force I [1-3-0-1-8],
Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-1-3],
Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-2-3],
Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-3-4],
Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force II [2-3-0-1-10],
Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force III [3-3-0-1-11],
Archmage (Wiz)::Intelligence [3-4-0-1-4],
Archmage (Wiz)::Efficient Heightening [4-1-0-1-15],
Archmage (Wiz)::Efficient Heightening [4-1-0-2-16],
Archmage (Wiz)::Primary Spell Focus: Conjuration [4-2-2-1-15],
Archmage (Wiz)::Intelligence [4-4-0-1-16],I would pull the level info out of the (#-#-#-#-#) section and move it to the front of the line, adding in the order data. I'd also add a keyword for tree resets, which happens on level 13 in this example:
ENHANCEMENTLIST:
1-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Reaping [0-0-0-1],
1-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration I: Grease [0-0-2-1],
1-3::Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-1],
2-1::Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-2],
2-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-1],
3-1::Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-1],
3-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-2],
4-1::Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-3],
4-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Intelligence [3-4-0-1],
5-1::Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration II: Web [0-1-2-1],
5-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-2],
5-3::Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Zombie [0-1-0-1],
6-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Skeletal Knight [1-3-0-3],
6-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Corpsecrafter [2-3-0-1],
6-3::Pale Master (Wiz)::Corpsecrafter [2-3-0-2],
7-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Corpsecrafter [2-3-0-3],
7-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Eternal Servitude [3-3-0-1],
7-3::Pale Master (Wiz)::Eternal Servitude [3-3-0-2],
7-4::Pale Master (Wiz)::Eternal Servitude [3-3-0-3],
8-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Intelligence [3-4-2-1],
8-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force I [1-3-0-1],
9-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Efficient Maximize [2-1-3-1],
9-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Efficient Maximize [2-1-3-2],
10-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Efficient Maximize [2-1-3-3],
10-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force II [2-3-0-1],
11-1::Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force III [3-3-0-1],
11-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration III: Stinking Cloud [0-2-2-1],
11-3::Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Vampire [0-2-0-1],
12-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Wraith [0-3-0-1],
12-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Conjuration IV: Dimension Door [0-3-2-1],
12-3::Pale Master (Wiz)::Intelligence [4-4-2-1],
13-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Furor [4-3-0-1],
13-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Furor [4-3-0-2],
13-3::Pale Master (Wiz)::Dark Furor [4-3-0-3],
13-4::Pale Master (Wiz)::Negative Energy Conduit [1-4-0-1],
13-5::Archmage (Wiz)::Tree Reset
13-6::Archmage (Wiz)::Necromancy I: Chill Touch [0-0-6-1],
13-7::Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-1],
13-8::Archmage (Wiz)::Energy of the Scholar [1-1-0-2],
13-9::Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-1],
13-10::Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-2],
13-11::Archmage (Wiz)::Improved Empowering [2-1-1-3],
13-12::Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force I [1-3-0-1],
13-13::Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force II [2-3-0-1],
13-14::Archmage (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Elemental and Force III [3-3-0-1],
13-15::Archmage (Wiz)::Intelligence [3-4-0-1],
13-16::Archmage (Wiz)::Necromancy II: Command Undead [0-1-6-1],
13-17::Archmage (Wiz)::Necromancy III: Halt Undead [0-2-6-1],
13-18::Archmage (Wiz)::Necromancy IV: Enervation [0-3-6-1],
14-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Necromantic Focus [5-2-0-1],
14-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Improved Shrouding [5-4-0-1],
15-1::Archmage (Wiz)::Primary Spell Focus: Necromancy [4-2-6-1],
15-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Efficient Heightening [4-1-0-1],
16-1::Archmage (Wiz)::Intelligence [4-4-0-1],
16-2::Archmage (Wiz)::Efficient Heightening [4-1-0-2],
17-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Negative Energy I [1-2-0-1],
17-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Spell Critical: Negative Energy II [2-2-0-1],
18-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Shroud of the Lich [0-4-0-1],
18-2::Pale Master (Wiz)::Negative Energy Conduit [1-4-0-2],
18-3::Drow::Spell Resistance [0-0-0-1],
19-1::Drow::Drow Intelligence [0-1-3-1],
19-2::Drow::Spell Resistance [0-2-0-1],
19-3::Drow::Drow Intelligence [0-3-3-1],
20-1::Pale Master (Wiz)::Master of Death [0-5-0-1],
20-2::Drow::Enchantment Lore [2-0-0-1],
20-3::Drow::Enchantment Lore [2-0-0-2],
20-4::Drow::Enchantment Lore [2-0-0-3],In terms of user interface, I envision no changes to the current setup. I would reconstruct the tree from level 1 through the current level based on the above data whenever they open the enhancement section. So if I went into this build and opened, say, level 15 enhancements, the program would internally erase all trees, spend all the points based on the above data from level 1 to level 15 (including the tree reset), and then display the result to the user.

EDIT: One thing to keep in mind regarding a secondary interface to set the order is screen space. For us poor souls running 1024x768 there isn't a whole lot of room left over when the tree is on the screen:

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/560/cbtr.jpg (https://imageshack.com/i/fkcbtrj)

[Ron]

All my points go to a single class tree. Level 1 spends one on the first core, three in tier 1. Level 2 spends one (5th spent) in tier 1 then one in tier 2. Right now, those two enhancements taken on level 2 cannot swap spots due to "points in tree" prereqs, so the drag n drop interface will need to check that kind of thing.
Yes, we'd have to check prereqs. My thought is, when the user grabs a particular enhancement, to check the prereqs on it and grey out any slots where it would be illegal to put it, due to either prereqs on that enhancement, or prereqs on enhancements that rely on that enhancement.

I'm not too concerned with the save file, actually. And even the printout is not such a big deal (in one case, it's a snapshot of a particular level, so there are actually no concerns about changing enhancements, and in the second case it's a step-by-step leveling guide, and for that we can simply list when to reset the trees and what new enhancements to take). The one that concerns me the most is the forum export, and how we'd represent multiple enhancement sets at various levels without it becoming completely incomprehensible to anyone reading it.



EDIT: One thing to keep in mind regarding a secondary interface to set the order is screen space. For us poor souls running 1024x768 there isn't a whole lot of room left over when the tree is on the screen:

Yeah, good point, I'll keep that in mind. We will keep the default size of the screens to 1024x768. We will just have to work within that limitation.

[EllisDee37]

Yes, we'd have to check prereqs. My thought is, when the user grabs a particular enhancement, to check the prereqs on it and grey out any slots where it would be illegal to put it, due to either prereqs on that enhancement, or prereqs on enhancements that rely on that enhancement.That's nice and elegant. I like it.


I'm not too concerned with the save file [..] And [..] printout [...] The one that concerns me the most is the forum export, and how we'd represent multiple enhancement sets at various levels without it becoming completely incomprehensible to anyone reading it.I'm not sure I follow this. I don't see multiple enhancement sets, but rather one single unified set. Many of the builds I've posted to the forums include a tree reset, and it doesn't seem overly cluttered to me. For examples in the builds linked in my signature:

Evasion Paladin level 18
Pale Trapper level 15
Epic Challenge Farmer level 13

EDIT: My guess is that for enhancements, internally you're saving a static array populated with all possible enhancements the build could ever take, filling in the level each is taken as they get taken. This is essentially a snapshot of all enhancements taken by the build. And this structure would indeed require multiple separate snapshots to support tree resets.

I would go a different way with how the enhancements are stored internally. I would switch to a dynamic array, and grow it as each enhancement is taken. Think of it like a series of instructions, sort of like a clipboard buffer. As each enhancement is taken, you add a new entry to the dynamic array. A tree reset is simply another instruction to add to the end of the list, and then the subsequent re-selections get added after that. And so on. One single unified list of enhancements for the entire build regardless how many tree resets there are.

[Ron]

EDIT: My guess is that for enhancements, internally you're saving a static array populated with all possible enhancements the build could ever take, filling in the level each is taken as they get taken.
Your guess is incorrect :)


I would go a different way with how the enhancements are stored internally. I would switch to a dynamic array, and grow it as each enhancement is taken.
This is already how we handle it.

[Ron]

Another change we are seriously considering. Right now, it takes quite a while to load in the data files. We've done about all we can to speed that up using the flat file system we have (i.e. text files). And the thing is it's just going to continually get worse as we add more and more data to the files. So we are considering converting the whole thing over to a sql style database. I'm looking into the technical specifics right now.

The advantage is there would be no more loading. We would pull entries out of the database on the fly, when they are needed. Also, this would drastically cut down on syntax bugs in the files (no more missing semi-colons or misspelled keywords, and the like).

The disadvantage is you guys would no longer be able to (easily) edit the files yourselves (it wouldn't be impossible, but you'd probably need a database editor, such as sql-lite, to do it). And I think there are still a few programs out there that rely on the text files we create to work. Those programs would have to be modified by their creators to use the new database system (or they'd have to start maintaining their own flat files).

The caveat is I want to make sure there are no extra requirements for you guys to load entries out of the database tables. In other words, no special programs required to be installed by the end users. I THINK that is the case, but in all honesty, I don't have a ton of experience with databases (it just doesn't come up in my normal day to day programming, the sort of stuff I do doesn't usually deal with large amounts of data that need to be randomly accessed). But I'm looking into it.

So what do you guys think? Any thoughts one way or the other?

[EllisDee37]

This is already how we handle it.Then I don't understand this:

The one that concerns me the most is the forum export, and how we'd represent multiple enhancement sets at various levels without it becoming completely incomprehensible to anyone reading it.In what sense are there multiple enhancement sets?




Another change we are seriously considering. Right now, it takes quite a while to load in the data files. We've done about all we can to speed that up using the flat file system we have (i.e. text files).I'd bet money that the text files load almost instantaneously; it's loading all the graphics that slows things down. As for a no-dependency SQL engine where the user never has to install anything, I'd bet money you won't find one.

I could be out money twice on those bets, but that's my initial reaction.

For the graphics, is it possible to roll them all into a single resource file so you don't have to distribute the bitmap files themselves? I count almost 2800 bitmaps.

For online hobbyist applications like this -- as opposed to professional development environments -- I generally go for the no-install approach as well. Typically I'll use UDT arrays as a poor man's database engine since no install is required. Sorting and searching is pretty easy to implement, as are relationships. (Actually, you can build the relationships into the core structure, which in some ways is superior to a SQL database engine. In many ways worse, of course. heh.)

[Dragon.Star]

Then I don't understand this:
In what sense are there multiple enhancement sets?
In the current planner there isn't, but with version 5.0, we have had talks about allowing the planner to have multiple sets of enhancements. It is something we have been discussing but not coded yet.

[Ron]

I'd bet money that the text files load almost instantaneously; it's loading all the graphics that slows things down. As for a no-dependency SQL engine where the user never has to install anything, I'd bet money you won't find one.
Well, last time I profiled it (and granted it's been a while) reading through and parsing all that data did take a good amount of time. Remember, we're not just loading those files, we're loading and parsing them, pulling all the data therein and converting it and storing it into the internal data structures of the program. And it's tens of thousands of lines of text we're talking about (the enhancement file alone is 27,000 lines of text). So yeah, it takes a while.

Having said that, yes, loading the icons is also not a quick process. We are going to (in the 5.0 version) change the code to load icons on the fly (or at least we are going to experiment with it). That might cause us issues with the enhancement screen, where you have to load about 100 icons (or so) to display three trees, so we will just have to see how it works out. So yeah, we are both going to be eliminating the text parsing AND eliminating the up-front icon loads, which means the planner should start up pretty instantly. At least, that's the hope.

As for the database, .NET has some built in sql table access functions (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) that might help us out with that. In fact, we are going to build a data editor right into the planner itself at some point, so we will need both read and write functionality. Reading through those functions, I don't see why we would need anything external (besides .NET of course). But I could be wrong, as I said, my experience with databases are pretty limited.



For the graphics, is it possible to roll them all into a single resource file so you don't have to distribute the bitmap files themselves? I count almost 2800 bitmaps.

Probably not worth the trouble. We're switching over to .png files rather than bmps for the next version, which will reduce the download size considerably. Rolling them into a resource file would mean we'd have to come up with some kind of indexing system, and probably our own compression scheme. Using .pngs seems a lot easier to me :)


In the current planner there isn't, but with version 5.0, we have had talks about allowing the planner to have multiple sets of enhancements. It is something we have been discussing but not coded yet.
Yep. All this talk of multiple enhancements is all theoretical at this point. Right now the planner only supports a single enhancement set.

[EllisDee37]

Yep. All this talk of multiple enhancements is all theoretical at this point. Right now the planner only supports a single enhancement set.May I ask what the idea is behind multiple enhancement sets? I'm not sure I even understand the concept.

Regardling the .NET SQL engine, yeah that should work fine. It might cause headaches for XP users, but they lose Microsoft support in a few weeks anyway, so XP is officially obsolete and not your problem. hehheh. (I switched from XP to 7 about 3 months ago solely because XP support is going away.)

[Ron]

May I ask what the idea is behind multiple enhancement sets? I'm not sure I even understand the concept.
See post 96 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435033-Character-Planner-New-Interface-Ideas?p=5251295&viewfull=1#post5251295)
and 97 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435033-Character-Planner-New-Interface-Ideas?p=5253122&viewfull=1#post5253122)

By "multiple" I mean, having the ability to take enhancements, reset a tree, and take different enhancements, saving the old data, so that the planner is aware that the player may want to change their enhancement sets at various points throughout their life. Which as you correctly pointed out, a lot of people do.

I make no guarantees that we are going to support it at this point, I'm just throwing around ideas for it. It would be nice to have, but it does present some difficulties.


Regardling the .NET SQL engine, yeah that should work fine. It might cause headaches for XP users, but they lose Microsoft support in a few weeks anyway, so XP is officially obsolete and not your problem. hehheh. (I switched from XP to 7 about 3 months ago solely because XP support is going away.)
We are going to be using .NET 4.0, which, if I am not mistaken, supports XP. I'm not going to use 4.5 (or 4.5.1). I know MS is giving up on XP, but I'm not there quite yet :)

[DemonStorm333]

See post 96 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435033-Character-Planner-New-Interface-Ideas?p=5251295&viewfull=1#post5251295)
and 97 (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/435033-Character-Planner-New-Interface-Ideas?p=5253122&viewfull=1#post5253122)

By "multiple" I mean, having the ability to take enhancements, reset a tree, and take different enhancements, saving the old data, so that the planner is aware that the player may want to change their enhancement sets at various points throughout their life. Which as you correctly pointed out, a lot of people do.

I make no guarantees that we are going to support it at this point, I'm just throwing around ideas for it. It would be nice to have, but it does present some difficulties.


We are going to be using .NET 4.0, which, if I am not mistaken, supports XP. I'm not going to use 4.5 (or 4.5.1). I know MS is giving up on XP, but I'm not there quite yet :)

jw is there and eta on the new planner??

[sebastianosmith]

As for the database, .NET has some built in sql table access functions (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient%28v=vs.110%29.aspx) that might help us out with that. In fact, we are going to build a data editor right into the planner itself at some point, so we will need both read and write functionality. Reading through those functions, I don't see why we would need anything external (besides .NET of course). But I could be wrong, as I said, my experience with databases are pretty limited.

Hey Ron,

A full-blow SQL engine is probably overkill. You might want to investigate using XML persisted DataSets or just XML with Schema as your main data storage. You can load either of those very quickly and access them like an in-memory DB using Lambda or LINQ queries, provided your schema are correct. I'd still recommend a rudimentary ORM layer to isolate your object and data models, but I'm picky.

I really looking forward to what you guys come up with.

[Ron]

Well, I thought about XML, but to me, that's just a flat file with a lot of tags :) Our 27,000 line file would hit 100K in XML, I'm sure :) And if it is just a flat file, would we gain anything over our current system by using it? Can you random access an XML file with any degree of performance? Probably not.

And at what point does a database become not overkill? I think right now we are somewhere between 50 and 60K lines of text for the data. And once we redo the equipment files, I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 100K. Isn't that enough to say a database table is needed?

I'd say not only is it not overkill, we are probably long overdue for it, hehe. And I'm not suggesting we are going to implement a full on SQL database engine into the planner. We are just going to use SQL tables and the built in .NET functions to access them.

[sebastianosmith]

Well, I thought about XML, but to me, that's just a flat file with a lot of tags :) Our 27,000 line file would hit 100K in XML, I'm sure :) And if it is just a flat file, would we gain anything over our current system by using it? Can you random access an XML file with any degree of performance? Probably not.

You are correct in that XML is just text, but it can be segmented hierarchically with schema - Kind of like a database. Once the ADO engine loads any file-based, persistable data source, it's all in memory. There's no waiting on data queries, reads or writes until the data are persisted again. Additionally, if there's a problem with the data the only tool required to fix it is a text editor.



And at what point does a database become not overkill? I think right now we are somewhere between 50 and 60K lines of text for the data. And once we redo the equipment files, I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 100K. Isn't that enough to say a database table is needed?

I can tell you are an old-school bit twiddler par excellence. :)


I'd say not only is it not overkill, we are probably long overdue for it, hehe. And I'm not suggesting we are going to implement a full on SQL database engine into the planner. We are just going to use SQL tables and the built in .NET functions to access them.

OK. I think we have a basic misunderstanding of terminologies. ADO and all its constituent components (like those SQL table objects) knows absolutely nothing about the underlying engine. If the data provider is MS-SQL, Oracle, XML or CSV text, ADO don't know and don't care. ADO is an abstraction layer which allows you to treat any data provider the same way (although MS has a few "special" extensions for SQL).

My suggestion for using XML was based on two stated desires; that the data are easy to edit without specific tools and can be used with ADO. ADO will treat an XML source in the same ACID manner as any other data source and you can modify XML with a text editor. It's a win-win combination using nothing more than .Net which provides everything you want.

[Ron]

OK. I think we have a basic misunderstanding of terminologies. ADO and all its constituent components (like those SQL table objects) knows absolutely nothing about the underlying engine. If the data provider is MS-SQL, Oracle, XML or CSV text, ADO don't know and don't care. ADO is an abstraction layer which allows you to treat any data provider the same way (although MS has a few "special" extensions for SQL).

My suggestion for using XML was based on two stated desires; that the data are easy to edit without specific tools and can be used with ADO. ADO will treat an XML source in the same ACID manner as any other data source and you can modify XML with a text editor. It's a win-win combination using nothing more than .Net which provides everything you want.

Ah, okay, I see. I'll google and see what I can learn. This is a very new area for me :)

I'll take a look at it. I do think we need to get away from straight flat files with sequential access. I think we've about done all we can with that kind of system.

[DagazUlf]

I've recently worked on projects at the office using both xml and a mysql database on what started out as small projects.

Going the xml route is nice and is definitely faster than plain text. And it does have that advantage of being editable by notepad. ;)

That said, the results we got from using mysql were just spectacular. It really doesn't even compare if you are at all concerned about performance. But as far as being easily editable/customizable by users, it would definitely lack the simplicity of plain text.

I would say that's not really a bad thing, though. You could for instance just quickly whip-up a form with a grid and have the data be editable that way, from right within the planner. You could display only the data that should be editable, and even have rules and validation on the data entry.

Both approaches would work for the planner. Personally, I'd pick whichever sounds more interesting to put together or would let you mess with something you've not done before. :)

[EllisDee37]

By "multiple" I mean, having the ability to take enhancements, reset a tree, and take different enhancements, saving the old data, so that the planner is aware that the player may want to change their enhancement sets at various points throughout their life. Which as you correctly pointed out, a lot of people do.That's where I was confused. My suggested implementation results in a single, unified set of enhancements that happen to support the ability to reset trees mid-build. It is distinctly not multiple sets, but rather one single list. At any point in the build, there is exactly one list of enhancements taken to that point. The core change is that instead of the enhancement name being the primary key, the order becomes the primary key. The same enhancement can be in the single list any number of times. The sample data file I posted on the previous page shows an example of this unified structure. Note that saving the order the enhancements are taken is required in this setup. (It's the primary key.)

I thought of another "standard" example of tree resets mid-build: Sorcerers who go fire savant for the first half of heroic leveling then switch to water savant.


Well, I thought about XML, but to me, that's just a flat file with a lot of tags :) Our 27,000 line file would hit 100K in XML, I'm sure :) And if it is just a flat file, would we gain anything over our current system by using it? Can you random access an XML file with any degree of performance? Probably not.

And at what point does a database become not overkill? I think right now we are somewhere between 50 and 60K lines of text for the data. And once we redo the equipment files, I wouldn't be surprised if we hit 100K. Isn't that enough to say a database table is needed?

I'd say not only is it not overkill, we are probably long overdue for it, hehe. And I'm not suggesting we are going to implement a full on SQL database engine into the planner. We are just going to use SQL tables and the built in .NET functions to access them.I'm a database programmer for small businesses, specializing in legacy code. I do way more work in VB6 than is healthy, heh. The amount of data involved in the planner is tiny. A database engine would be fine, but is not particularly required.

When I design hobbyist apps similar to the planner I typically use binary data files, but occasionally I'll use text-based data. My experience is that you can load in several megabytes of text data into a string variable in a fraction of a second, and then parse that millions-bytes-long string variable into whatever arbitrary structure you like in maybe 1 or 2 seconds.

It is very easy to get poor performance when parsing strings in VB, to be sure, but VB has the ability to parse text data extremely fast if you know the right techniques.

My feeling is that a database is not needed because you can comfortably load all the data for the entire planner into memory and keep it there for the duration the program runs.

[Ron]

Well, I guess I suck then, because ours definitely takes longer than 1 or 2 seconds to load in the data, even without the icons loading.

Anyway, we will figure it out. I kinda like the idea of a database simply because it eliminates all those errors we get from wrong keywords and missing delimiters and weirdness from having commas in the names of spells and whatnot. That has always been a big source of bugs for us that would instantly be banished.

I tell you though, I AM going to write a small utility to convert our current flat files into whatever we end up using. No WAY am I going to re-input all that stuff, lol.

[sebastianosmith]

Well, I guess I suck then, because ours definitely takes longer than 1 or 2 seconds to load in the data, even without the icons loading.

No you don't and stop saying that you do.



Anyway, we will figure it out. I kinda like the idea of a database simply because it eliminates all those errors we get from wrong keywords and missing delimiters and weirdness from having commas in the names of spells and whatnot. That has always been a big source of bugs for us that would instantly be banished.

If you are going to use an external DB engine, I can highly recommend SQLite (http://www.sqlite.org/index.html). There are binaries available (http://system.data.sqlite.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/downloads.wiki) for every version of .Net from 2.0 to 4.5.1. It's very easy to use and install (basically put the binaries in the same directory as your app), has a tiny memory footprint, is frequently maintained and 100% open-source. Also, as DagazUlf suggested, MySQL is also a good choice is you want a more robust option.



I tell you though, I AM going to write a small utility to convert our current flat files into whatever we end up using. No WAY am I going to re-input all that stuff, lol.

That is going to be more of a challenge than you think. There's a good deal of business logic embedded in the existing data files. RDBs frequently don't like that sort of thing. I think you'll be heavily refactoring your schema before any migration path can be finalized. But, a fresh start is not always a bad thing.

Although I've been mostly retired for a while, I still know a thing or two about this sort of thing. Please feel free to call upon me as a resource if you so desire.

[EllisDee37]

I tell you though, I AM going to write a small utility to convert our current flat files into whatever we end up using. No WAY am I going to re-input all that stuff, lol.I wrote most of one back in 2011, it likely still works well enough. I'd need to take a closer look at it to verify, but it would be easy enough to adapt it to create tab delimited text files. (ie: csv, but tabs instead of commas.) Those csv files could then be imported directly into tables, to be massaged into their final structure.

[Theolin]

I tell you though, I AM going to write a small utility to convert our current flat files into whatever we end up using. No WAY am I going to re-input all that stuff, lol.

Excel is your friend, there is a great little thing called text to columns, I use it all the time for DB data conversions, well along with some of the other ways of splitting up the 'row' that excel offers.

[Nightmanis]

An Idea.

Most things are on just one display, the only exception is you would have to choose between feats & enhancements, I did not mock the enhancements just replace the feat box with them & use what you already have, should be able to put 2 at a time in there.

Its defiantly not pretty, I hope the idea gets across.

Not really happy with the skills part that needs ... something ....
The feats would just be a table with a drag and drop selector but you could see them all (or at least 20 levels) at once, icons smaller, hopefully it would all fit without scrolls on what you choose (choices would have to scroll). The feat choice list would have 5 selectors to filter what you could see & grey out ones your not qualified for.
Have a selector above the feats to switch that area to enhancements instead, I think 2 would fit, or maybe 4 if its 2x2
highlight the class chosen for the level seen above
drop down for race you can only choose one anyway
under each class have a past life selector for how many
epic & iconic past lives probably something similar ... probably below classes then move the ability scores down & shrink the skills box
could use the levels on the feats as a level selector instead of the one next to race
the info box could go under the skill box, that would give more room for feats



http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/801/uzsj.jpg

I kind of like the idea he has here with the feats. Just a screen with the boxes next to each level, with additional boxes for when you get another feat (Fighters, wizards, you get the point)

[Ron]

Just to let you guys know, we started actual work on this version as of about two weeks ago. This is a complete rebuild of the program from the ground up to solve a lot of issues with the current version we really can't solve in any other way. Also, we are coding in C# instead of C++. Now, I'm not super fluent in C# yet (my native language is C++), but it is close enough to C++ that I'm not having too many troubles diving into it.

There is not a whole lot there yet. We have the ability to load and draw icons (pngs) in both color and monochrome. We can load class data out of a database (and can now easily add and load from more database tables), and use the data. And we have a very rough outline of the main screen. That's it for the moment :) We are doing a lot of database table design work currently.

But, we have begun. I will keep you guys up to date. Once we have the main screen a little more put together, I'll show you guys a screenshot.

[Seikojin]

Just to let you guys know, we started actual work on this version as of about two weeks ago. This is a complete rebuild of the program from the ground up to solve a lot of issues with the current version we really can't solve in any other way. Also, we are coding in C# instead of C++. Now, I'm not super fluent in C# yet (my native language is C++), but it is close enough to C++ that I'm not having too many troubles diving into it.

There is not a whole lot there yet. We have the ability to load and draw icons (pngs) in both color and monochrome. We can load class data out of a database (and can now easily add and load from more database tables), and use the data. And we have a very rough outline of the main screen. That's it for the moment :) We are doing a lot of database table design work currently.

But, we have begun. I will keep you guys up to date. Once we have the main screen a little more put together, I'll show you guys a screenshot.

Thank You for the update! I can't wait to dig into the new planner! :)

[Stoner81]

Just to let you guys know, we started actual work on this version as of about two weeks ago. This is a complete rebuild of the program from the ground up to solve a lot of issues with the current version we really can't solve in any other way. Also, we are coding in C# instead of C++. Now, I'm not super fluent in C# yet (my native language is C++), but it is close enough to C++ that I'm not having too many troubles diving into it.

There is not a whole lot there yet. We have the ability to load and draw icons (pngs) in both color and monochrome. We can load class data out of a database (and can now easily add and load from more database tables), and use the data. And we have a very rough outline of the main screen. That's it for the moment :) We are doing a lot of database table design work currently.

But, we have begun. I will keep you guys up to date. Once we have the main screen a little more put together, I'll show you guys a screenshot.

<3 I think I just had a crisis :)

Super excited for the new planner guys!

Stoner81.

[Ron]

Hehe, don't get too excited yet. It's gonna be a while before we have much to show you. But I'm already super happy with how things are going. The new data system is gong to be WAY more flexible and much less error prone than the flat file stuff we had before. Not to mention faster.

So I will introduce the team as it stands right now.

Greantun: Our resident C# and database expert. He has put together all of our classes to pull data out of the database and get it into memory (into the database classes).
Dragonstar: Has done a lot of database table design work. We've all input on this to some extent, but he has taken the lead on it. He's also designed the various screens we will have (at least some of them, others haven't been designed just yet).
Me: I got the icons working and worked on the interface to get data from the database classes into the data classes. Between me and Greantun, we worked out a method for loading data on demand rather than doing it all up front, which should make the planner much faster to start up.
BlackDae: She is waiting patiently for me to get the data input screens put together so she can start inputting data (I'm getting there BD!). She doesn't know it yet <eg> but I'm going to have her take lead on the design of all the data input screens. Of course, we will all be inputting data (there is far far too much of it for one person to do).

I can't speak for everyone else, but my next job will be to argue with the compiler about how I want the User Interface classes to be set up (the compiler's form designer wants the forms (aka screens) to be global classes, whereas I do not, and in fact want various parts of each screen to have their own classes, which I'm sure the form designer will complain vehemently about. So we are going to fight it out and see who wins that argument).

So yeah, we're going full ahead now.

[EllisDee37]

Just to let you guys know, we started actual work on this version as of about two weeks ago. This is a complete rebuild of the program from the ground up to solve a lot of issues with the current version we really can't solve in any other way. Also, we are coding in C# instead of C++. Now, I'm not super fluent in C# yet (my native language is C++), but it is close enough to C++ that I'm not having too many troubles diving into it.

There is not a whole lot there yet. We have the ability to load and draw icons (pngs) in both color and monochrome. We can load class data out of a database (and can now easily add and load from more database tables), and use the data. And we have a very rough outline of the main screen. That's it for the moment :) We are doing a lot of database table design work currently.

But, we have begun. I will keep you guys up to date. Once we have the main screen a little more put together, I'll show you guys a screenshot.That's a slice of win smothered in awesome sauce.

Great to hear, and hope it goes smoothly.

[Seikojin]

Oh I know, development takes time. :)

I am just excited it is being put forward and moving forward.

[Stoner81]

That's a slice of win smothered in awesome sauce.

Great to hear, and hope it goes smoothly.

You forgot to mention "dripping with epicness!" :D

Stoner81.

[Stoner81]

Hey Ron and gang hows it all going it has been a while since we heard anything so was wondering if you had any tidbits you can throw us all *nudge nudge wink wink* :)

Stoner81.

[Ron]

Hey Ron and gang hows it all going it has been a while since we heard anything so was wondering if you had any tidbits you can throw us all *nudge nudge wink wink* :)

Stoner81.

Sure, I've been meaning to do it. Give me a few minutes to put together some screenshots

[Ron]

Okay, here we go. I'll show you guys where we are at at the moment. Really, the only reason I haven't shown you guys this stuff up to now is we are heavily focused on getting the database stuff put together, which includes the interface for modifying the database records. We have essentially already put together almost all the database tables we will need for a while, and are now working on screens to get data records into that database. We need this stuff first because before we can really do anything, we need actual data.

In reality, this is kinda dry stuff, not that exciting, so I haven't really been too quick to post what we've been up to. But if you are interested, by all means, take a look :)

First off, the main screen.

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/MainScreen.png

Nothing here is really all that functional yet. This is almost all decorative. Because, again, before we can do much here we need to have data. I have the menu open to show where you would go to update the various types of data we have so far (more will be added). We, as the designers, will be using this part of the menu quite a lot (especially until we reach Alpha) to actually input all our records. You guys as the users probably wouldn't come here too often unless there was a bug in the data, or the game is updated and you wanted to update some records in your personal copy of the planner.

So I will show you the data input screens. Some are more complete than others. First the Character data input screen:

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/CharacterDataInput.png

This one is for input of data that affects all characters regardless or race or class. So for instance, all characters get general feats at level 1 and every 3 levels thereafter. You can see we've actually put in the data for that here. Additionally, all characters get autogranted certain feats (Heroic Durability et al). So this screen provides us with a place to input that data (in this case, the actual data hasn't been filled in because we don't have the feats table filled with feats yet (other than a couple of test feats), so we can't yet assign any feats here, but I assure you that feat panel works).

I should say, the HP/Fort/Reflex/Will/BAB boxes for levels 1-20 are greyed out here (only levels 21-30 are actually changable on this screen). That's because, of course, those fields are not general to characters, they are actually set on the class data page. I was advocating taking these fields out entirely, but Dragon wants to keep them in and simply disabled, just in case they become relevant in the future. So they may or may not appear in the beta version when you guys see it :)

Okay, on to the race data input screen

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/RaceDataInput.png

This one isn't quite finished, although I think we have most of the elements in now. There is a little bit of functionality we still have to add in. You will see on the left side the list of all races from the database (I should point out, this and everything you see on these screens is entirely functional, it's all coming from the database, we aren't manually putting these things on the screen. So when it says "Human", that's because the program has pulled the "Human" record out of the database and is showing you the actual data). Below the race selection box is our filter, which simply allows you to filter the above box by some string (not so important with the race or class screens, but when you get into feats and enhancements, you will be using this filter, I would imagine!). Beyond that, we have all the data input boxes and pulldowns we need to handle race data (I just noticed there is no place to actually display the icons, I'll have to go in and fix that, hehe). Anyway, I'd say this screen is about 80% done right now.

[Ron]

Okay, moving on to the next screen, which is my baby :) This is the Class Input screen. I'll show you two shots of it

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/ClassInput1.png

So this screen is probably the most functional of the data inputs we have so far (in fact, other than one bug, it's done, as far as I can think of). Now, before you guys wig out on me, I should say, the data we've put in is test data, and in a lot of cases it's wrong. I'm aware that fighters do not have 3 Hit Die or 7 Skill Points and whatnot :) Really, this is just temp data. Once the screen is done, we're gonna wipe the tables associated with this screen to start inputting data in earnest (and as I said, we're about there for this particular data type).

You can see I just modified this record this morning (I just finished up killing some bugs in the feat panel and was testing to make sure it worked).

So this is what happens if you select the second record (wizard), just to show you guys the database is indeed working to pull up records:

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/ClassInput2.png

Obviously we haven't put any actual data into this record yet. Mostly it was originally added so we could test the "Add new record" functionality (and also later on the Display Order stuff).

Alight, final screen, which I just started this morning:

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/FeatInput.png

Not much here yet, really we just have the skeleton stuff put in. But you can see it is pulling the names of our two test feats out of the database table, so we have the basics working. Next up is adding fields for the data input.

Why this is all exciting to me is because using this method, we will be MUCH less error prone with the data. No more will be be subject to missing commas or semicolons, or misspelled keywords and stuff like that, things that really gave us headaches in the text files we had in the prior versions. And yet we still keep it nice and easy for you guys to edit when needed. Really gives us the best of both worlds.

So yeah, that's where things are at. We should, in the very near future, be at a point where actual data will be going in (at least race, class, and feats). And while that's happening we will be putting together the next set of data input screens (probably enhancements and destinies). Now that we have a couple of them up and running, adding new ones is actually not really all that difficult (all the basic database functionality took a while to get up and running, now we're just accessing and displaying and saving, basically).

And once we have a certain amount of data in the records, we can start to drop back out to that main screen and get its functionality revved up.

[whereispowderedsilve]

That's hot! Very sexy! :P! :)! :D! Hehe! Love it!

[EllisDee37]

I'm really liking where this is going. It's looking like I may finally be able to put my spreadsheets away for good; kudos! (Well, I'll still need them for gear, but there's really no helping that with how frequently gear changes.)

EDIT: Is that description area a richtextbox?

[Ron]

EDIT: Is that description area a richtextbox?

No, it's actually an HTML box. When you hit "Edit" you get a subform that allows you to edit the raw HTML code (it would be super nice if we could set up a WYSIWYG editor for this like this forum has, but it may not happen right away, as that's quite a bit of work to then translate all that into HTML code and whatnot).

[dunklezhan]

This is going to sound petty and ungrateful but... Do uyou think you'd be able to write an interface to change the colour scheme? EG so I can make all the bars currently blue a shade I find more appealing but could keep the black background and yellow labels if I like? I realise you are far more concerned with real functions at the moment but one for future development maybe?

[Ron]

This is going to sound petty and ungrateful but... Do uyou think you'd be able to write an interface to change the colour scheme? EG so I can make all the bars currently blue a shade I find more appealing but could keep the black background and yellow labels if I like? I realise you are far more concerned with real functions at the moment but one for future development maybe?

Feature requests are neither petty nor ungrateful! We appreciate them, trust me.

Yeah, should be doable. We're already going to have an ini file for other stuff, and maybe we can stick values in there for colors and such. Shouldn't be that hard.

[Stoner81]

Holy epic screen shots Batman! Looking awesome Ron :) will it be easy to actually build a character using the UI by this I mean that one of the big pluses for the current planner is the ease of use since everything is right, from the screen shots it "seems" like a lot of screens for pretty much everything so was just wondering if it flows from one screen to the next for ease of use (I'm thinking of newer players new to the planner).

Overall though super excited for your next update and thanks for the new screenies and info :)

Stoner81.

[Ron]

Holy epic screen shots Batman! Looking awesome Ron :) will it be easy to actually build a character using the UI by this I mean that one of the big pluses for the current planner is the ease of use since everything is right, from the screen shots it "seems" like a lot of screens for pretty much everything so was just wondering if it flows from one screen to the next for ease of use (I'm thinking of newer players new to the planner).

Overall though super excited for your next update and thanks for the new screenies and info :)

Stoner81.

Just about everything that is summary should be on the front page. With a couple of exceptions. The only time you will go into sub-windows is when you hit the "Edit" button on any given system (like skills or abilities), in which case a window will pop up that allows you to edit that system for your character.

That being said, we do have a limited amount of screen real estate, so some stuff might get shoved into sub-screens. But that would be lesser stuff that doesn't really affect your build. Pets, for example. Also the spell book in our current design is on a sub-screen (I may try to change that and get it on the main screen, we just have to find space for it).

[Stoner81]

Ah righto OK that makes sense it was just hard to see exactly from the screen shots :) looking forward to seeing your next update :)

Stoner81.

[EllisDee37]

Just please maintain support for 1024x768.

I'm using Windows 7, 1024x768, and in Windows 7 if you right click the desktop and choose Screen Resolution => Make text and other items larger or smaller => Medium (125%), that's the setting I use. So I humbly submit my entirely selfish request to support that screen size. heh.

[Stoner81]

I think the new planner will support a far bigger range or resolutions since it can use (afaik) much higher resolution images and various things, so with a bit of luck everybody should have support no matter what screen they run on.

Stoner81.

[Ron]

Right now we are coding the main screen at 1024x768 native, with the child screens being smaller.

In the old version, we put a great deal of effort into making the screens scalable, and it took some coding since we had to do it manually. I'm sure C# has some helper libraries that we could leverage, but I haven't yet looked into them to see what's involved.

[Ron]

Hey gang,

Question on spell icon graphics.

If two different classes use the same spell, is it ever the case where the spell has different icons for those two classes? And I don't really care about the little (I, II, III) thingy at the top left of the spell icon, but rather do they ever use completely different graphics for the same spell?

I ask because this will affect how we set up the database entries for spells (which I'm working on now).

[BOgre]

Right now we are coding the main screen at 1024x768 native, with the child screens being smaller.

In the old version, we put a great deal of effort into making the screens scalable, and it took some coding since we had to do it manually. I'm sure C# has some helper libraries that we could leverage, but I haven't yet looked into them to see what's involved.

Setting the vertical rez to 768 can be trouble for lappy users like me. My lappys native rez is 1366x768 and I don't set my Taskbar to autohide. That makes the planner's UI not fit quite right, which is usually a pain for hitting any buttons that are across the bottom of the window. Scalable would be great, or a height of 760 would be good too.

[Seikojin]

Hey gang,

Question on spell icon graphics.

If two different classes use the same spell, is it ever the case where the spell has different icons for those two classes? And I don't really care about the little (I, II, III) thingy at the top left of the spell icon, but rather do they ever use completely different graphics for the same spell?

I ask because this will affect how we set up the database entries for spells (which I'm working on now).

No, I have yet to see the same spell with two different icons in the game (sans the level part).

[Ron]

Setting the vertical rez to 768 can be trouble for lappy users like me. My lappys native rez is 1366x768 and I don't set my Taskbar to autohide. That makes the planner's UI not fit quite right, which is usually a pain for hitting any buttons that are across the bottom of the window. Scalable would be great, or a height of 760 would be good too.

We will do something for you :) I know we are planning on having an ini file, and likely we will save some scaling information in here, so you can customize your screen size. Like I said, I haven't yet looked into how we are going to scale the UI, but I'm sure we will have some sort of ability to do so.


No, I have yet to see the same spell with two different icons in the game (sans the level part).
Good, this is the answer I'm hoping for. I have it set up this way now. Changing it would not be overly difficult, but it would make the spell input screen more complicated :)

[Stoner81]

Hey gang,

Question on spell icon graphics.

If two different classes use the same spell, is it ever the case where the spell has different icons for those two classes? And I don't really care about the little (I, II, III) thingy at the top left of the spell icon, but rather do they ever use completely different graphics for the same spell?

I ask because this will affect how we set up the database entries for spells (which I'm working on now).

I don't know if this would qualify for what you are after but the FvS Leap of Faith and the version you can get from Exalted Angel have two different icons but one is from ED's and the other is a auto grant at lvl 17 for FvS. Other than that though I can't think of anything else.

Stoner81.

[EllisDee37]

Good, this is the answer I'm hoping for. I have it set up this way now. Changing it would not be overly difficult, but it would make the spell input screen more complicated :)In that case, even if there are spells that use different icons, ignore them. Always err on the side of easier input. heh.



That non-auto-hide taskbar issue also touches on what I was getting at upthread, about how I use a lower DPI to make fonts bigger on my screen. So while I'm running 1024x768, I have fewer twips per pixel than a standard 1024x768 would. (There's normally 15; I have 12.) The current/old planner does not scale particularly well* on my screen, but it scales infinitely better than most things. (Most things do not scale at all.)

So kudos for taking variable screen size into account at all. I should also point out that the older versions of the planner were terrible; the 4-series is far better about scaling. It looks like the export screen didn't get the same scaling overhaul that almost the entire main screen got. Here's some screenshots:


http://s26.postimg.org/llobxzxh5/Scaling1.jpg (http://postimage.org/)
uploading pictures (http://postimage.org/)

http://s26.postimg.org/3k9sdxsu1/Scaling2.jpg (http://postimage.org/)
imgurl (http://postimage.org/)


* Actually, I'm really mainly talking about the forum export screen. The main screen scales very well. The crazy text description of tomes is a trivial issue, and that's really the only one I can find. The enhancement screen buttons don't scale well, similar to forum export, but the main screen proper is tight.

[Ron]

Hey gang,

We're still working on data input screens (although we may soon be coming to the end of that). Dragon, right now, is working on the enhancement input screen, which is pretty neat stuff. I did the spell input screen. And I think that's about it for the input screens, at least for now (there will be more when we get to equipment and other stuff, but for basic character building, we're wrapping up this phase). I will try and put up a couple of new shots this weekend maybe. And we are doing a fair bit of data input as well. BlackDae has been working on putting in feats. I've been putting in the wiz/sorc spells (there are ~200 of them! Uggg. Fortunately, there is quite a bit of overlap with other classes so I figured I'd do those first and then we'd have large chunks of spells in for all the other classes as well). Dragon has also done some of the cleric spells. And of course we have all the Character, Race, and Class stuff pretty much put in already. So things are coming along in terms of collecting data and getting it into a usable form. The database is really working out nicely for us, it's super easy to add and change stuff.

Speaking of spells; I'm getting the spell descriptions right out of the game (because they don't seem to exist anywhere else on the web with any accuracy). I have an iconic character that I can just reroll at will, but that only gets me to level 14 in the class I am trying to data mine (and I don't know off the top of my head how high up in wiz/sorc spells that will get me, probably level 7 spells I suspect). So we may need some help with the high level spells. I will let you guys know what spells we need descriptions for and how you can get them to us (screenshots, or if you want we can even have you input them directly using the planner itself). Everything else (targets, school, SP cost, duration, metamagic, etc etc) we're getting off of Wiki, which I'm hoping is fairly accurate.

So yeah, that's where things are at at the moment. I'll keep y'all updated.

[EllisDee37]

Hmmm, looking at iconics it appears you can go straight to 15 on cleric, or 14 on any other caster class. That means you can see up to level 8 cleric spells and level 7 wizard spells.

I'm happy to post screen captures and/or transcriptions of the in-game descriptions for every level 9 cleric spell and all the level 8 and 9 wizard spells today if you like.

(I'm ignoring the other caster classes because I don't have any high level characters of those. Just cleric and wizard.)

[EllisDee37]

Here's a "proof of concept" for the level 9 cleric spells:

http://s26.postimg.org/tzoatry61/Cleric_9.jpg (http://postimage.org/)
how to do a screenshot on a pc (http://postimage.org/app.php)

Let me know if you'd like the level 8 & 9 wizard spells as well.

[Ron]

Here's a "proof of concept" for the level 9 cleric spells:

Let me know if you'd like the level 8 & 9 wizard spells as well.

That's perfect, Ellis! Thanks. We will get those in. And yeah, when you get a chance, post the level 8 and 9 wiz/sorc spells so we can input those too.

[EllisDee37]

NOTE: I have the -10% spell point cost from magister active, as well as probably having some metas toggled on globally plus efficient meta enhancements. Be sure to use the "(Base: #)" number, not the "Spell Point Cost: #" number, for entering/checking the costs.

Here's the level 8 wizard spells. Trap the Soul is out of order because I had to jump through several hoops in order to remove the red "You do not have a required component" error message from the description:

http://s26.postimg.org/3l42f1ubd/Wizard_8.jpg (http://postimage.org/)
image hosting site no sign up (http://postimage.org/)


Here's the level 9 wizard spells:

http://s26.postimg.org/xr2gtu189/Wizard_9.jpg (http://postimage.org/)
screenshot windows (http://postimage.org/app.php)


Oddly, except for trap the soul, putting together the wizard 8 & 9 spells combined took less time than it did to put together the cleric 9.

With the cleric 9 spells I was mixing and matching to try and equalize the height of both rows. For the wizard ones I just went in order and flew through both lists.

[EllisDee37]

Checking wiki, here's what you still need (and which I cannot help with):

Artificer level 6 spells (15 artie levels)
Bard level 6 spells (16 bard levels)
Druid level 8 spells (15 druid levels)
Druid level 9 spells (17 druid levels)

All other spells can be acquired by rolling up a 14/1 iconic.

[Ron]

Awesome, thanks! I'll definitely work on putting those in over the next few days.

I have a level 16 bard, so I should be able to get those. As for the others, I'll check with the team and see what they have, we may need to ask for help from the community with the rest of them.

[blackdae]

Artificer level 6 spells (15 artie levels)


I'll do this Ron :) All of it if you want.. Sometimes......

[Ron]

I'll do this Ron :) All of it if you want.. Sometimes......

Awesome! So we just need the Druids.

[niehues]

Awesome! So we just need the Druids.

Not sure this can help.. butt lamma is up and over there u can make a toon and go to lv20 i a few min using the dojo... that could be used to save some data.. at least Screen shots..


BTW

Very nice work mate! keep up the good work! :D

[Ron]

Not sure this can help.. butt lamma is up and over there u can make a toon and go to lv20 i a few min using the dojo... that could be used to save some data.. at least Screen shots..
Cool, that might work. I'll see what we can do.

Ellis: I have the data input, if those shots are taking up space you want to reclaim, you can go ahead and delete them. Thanks for the assist!

[Alistina]

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.

I would like to see the PRR, dodge, doubleshot/doublestrike, fortification values somewhere both on the planner and forum export summary page, taking into account both the current build and all bonuses from past lives.
(P.S. Havn't read the whole thread, so not sure if this has been said before)

As always, a huge thanks to all the hardwork you guys put in this awesome app!!

[Ron]

I would like to see the PRR, dodge, doubleshot/doublestrike, fortification values somewhere both on the planner and forum export summary page, taking into account both the current build and all bonuses from past lives.
(P.S. Havn't read the whole thread, so not sure if this has been said before)

As always, a huge thanks to all the hardwork you guys put in this awesome app!!

The majority of that has to do with equipment, so we haven't started working on those aspects yet. But yes, we are planning on all that stuff being shown on the main screen and in the various outputs.

I think the new planner will be much more comprehensive than the prior versions. Already, we have a lot of detail in our data that we didn't have before, with the ability to quickly and easily add new fields as we discover we need them (which is not something we had before).

[EllisDee37]

with the ability to quickly and easily add new fields as we discover we need them (which is not something we had before).That's a huge leap forward.

[Ron]

I promised you guys screenshots :)

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/052614/FeatInput.png

This is our feat input screen, showing Epic Mental Toughness at the moment. You can see we can set up Feat Categories (this one happens to fall under Epic Feats), as well as parent and sub feats (these have different meanings). The feats can be selected into various slot types. And we've also set up a pretty extensive system of both requirements and modifiers (this particular feat requires character level 21 and the Improved mental toughness feat, and it give a +200 modifier to your spell points). We haven't set up Spell Critical Chance modifiers yet, but if we chose to do so (and I suspect we probably will at some point), it's quite simple to add that modifier in here as well.

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/052614/SpellInput.png

The spell input screen. Here you see we've set up the school and range of the spell. It has per class details on the right (this particular spell is a level 4 Druid, Wizard, and Sorc spell). And down below we've set up fields for Metamagics, components, targets, and so forth. So we have a lot more detail in the spells than what we had in the prior version of the planner. All this stuff will appear in the tool-tip boxes when you are hovering the cursor over a spell icon.

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/052614/EnhancementInput.png

The enhancement input screen. The coding for this one is in-progress. Here you will be able to create and modify trees, and for each tree slot specify the details of that slot.

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/052614/MainScreen1.png

Okay, the main screen. Not a lot has changed here since the last screenshots, except for one important difference. There are two places where data is being pulled out of our database. The first is the dropdown for the races (up at the top). That dropdown is being populated from our Race Table (so if you were to go to the race data input screen and add a new race, that race would automatically appear in this dropdown). And when you, as the user, select a race, the base values for your abilities are loaded out of that table and displayed in the Abilities panel. Here is a human...

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/052614/MainScreen2.png

...and here is a Drow. So you can see it works.

So that's where things are at. Up to now, we've focused on our database and data input (we had to, you can't very well put together a character planner without any data), but things are starting to shift to pulling that data and actually using it, and that is where it starts to get interesting. I will be working on that Abilities panel in the immediate future. So stay tuned :)

[blackdae]

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/CharacterPlanner5/Screenshots/052614/FeatInput.png

This is our feat input screen, showing Epic Mental Toughness at the moment. You can see we can set up Feat Categories (this one happens to fall under Epic Feats), as well as parent and sub feats (these have different meanings). The feats can be selected into various slot types. And we've also set up a pretty extensive system of both requirements and modifiers (this particular feat requires character level 21 and the Improved mental toughness feat, and it give a +200 modifier to your spell points). We haven't set up Spell Critical Chance modifiers yet, but if we chose to do so (and I suspect we probably will at some point), it's quite simple to add that modifier in here as well.



My baby!
You could have chosen a more FUNNY one to show.. I've already removed everything from my mind, but I'm sure there is some nightmare in there, to scare your audience :P

[Theolin]

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jacko/v2/wp-content/uploads/ppcheer1.jpg

[Grace_ana]

This is looking pretty great :)

Under additional stats, could we also get doubleshot/doublestrike, spellpower, and heal amp? They can be heavily affected by feats and enhancements (like natural fighting) and are pretty important to the build.

[Ron]

This is looking pretty great :)

Under additional stats, could we also get doubleshot/doublestrike, spellpower, and heal amp? They can be heavily affected by feats and enhancements (like natural fighting) and are pretty important to the build.

Definitely. We may already have them in the design. That panel isn't at finished yet :) But if it's not already there, I'll make sure they get in.

[Andoris]

Looking really good. Question on the colors though. Is the White on Black a placeholder is is the the plan for the final look? I ask primarily as white on black typically hurts readability to a fairly high degree.

Sorry if I am nit picking on the look too early.

Great work on the redesign, the database and editable content have me very excited!

[Psiandron]

Not really a fan of tabs in this case. I'd really rather see a new window open as an active work window and the main page stay open as well, as you did with enhancements. In fact I'd like to be able to open as many active windows as there are at once. The saving of an active window would then update the mainpage and the other windows as necessary.

No, I don't have multiple monitors, I can and do work with multiple windows open at once and either flip between them, or stack them to my advantage. If it gets too cluttered, I can close something.

With tabs it's just one window that you have to flip between and that becomes very limiting, imo.

I'm pretty flexible in terms of presentation overall, as long as I will still have something that I can reference while leveling.

The screenshots thus far are intriguing...well except for the white on black, but I assume that's just a developmental thing.

[Munkenmo]

Just a thought, would it be possible in this version to allow us to export enhancements & or builds directly to a jpeg image?

I've started making a lot more posts with formats like this (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/406092-Monks-A-Guide-for-Beginners?p=4867336&viewfull=1#post4867336), it seems to be easy for everyone to understand and follow.

[Ron]

Hmmmmmm.

Well, I WAS going to make those the colors we used :) Because....

1) The old planner was white on black and no one complained
2) We're trying to match the feel of the game, which is also white on black (for the character screens). They use a lot of yellow too.

But I can certainly modify it. Would it help if I toned down the white font, made it perhaps a light grey rather than straight up white? (e.g. if you look at DDO's skill page, they use grey for their fonts). Their feats page definitely uses white, but then their spells page uses yellow (they are kind of all over the place, aren't they, hehe). I'm open to suggestions.

The tooltip boxes will be problematic. Sadly, I would now have to change each entry individually (some roughly 700 of them right now). But better now than if we had already done enhancements, which will more than double that number.

[dunklezhan]

Hmmmmmm.

Well, I WAS going to make those the colors we used :) Because....

1) The old planner was white on black and no one complained
2) We're trying to match the feel of the game, which is also white on black (for the character screens). They use a lot of yellow too.

But I can certainly modify it. Would it help if I toned down the white font, made it perhaps a light grey rather than straight up white? (e.g. if you look at DDO's skill page, they use grey for their fonts). Their feats page definitely uses white, but then their spells page uses yellow (they are kind of all over the place, aren't they, hehe). I'm open to suggestions.

The tooltip boxes will be problematic. Sadly, I would now have to change each entry individually (some roughly 700 of them right now). But better now than if we had already done enhancements, which will more than double that number.

A little less contrast would be good yes - but what would be truly awesome is if you could include the option for the user to palette shift it - e.g. in a global options pane choose 'borders 1' or 'main background' and click on whatever standard OS palette is available, so that one thing can be changed independently and globally to the user's preference.

Its a quality of life request though, so this isn't me asking for it to be particularly prioritised. Contrast adjustments might be more helpful short term. Maybe less of the bright yellow (more of a 'gold' colour is what Turbine use in my view rather than bright canary yellow), and the white backgrounds in the boxes are a bit bright too. I think the white text is fine. Perhaps keep it exactly as it is but include an alternative mode based on more muted colours which you've predefined that people can switch to? Call it low contrast mode or something.

[Ron]

A little less contrast would be good yes - but what would be truly awesome is if you could include the option for the user to palette shift it - e.g. in a global options pane choose 'borders 1' or 'main background' and click on whatever standard OS palette is available, so that one thing can be changed independently and globally to the user's preference.

Its a quality of life request though, so this isn't me asking for it to be particularly prioritised. Contrast adjustments might be more helpful short term. Maybe less of the bright yellow (more of a 'gold' colour is what Turbine use in my view rather than bright canary yellow), and the white backgrounds in the boxes are a bit bright too. I think the white text is fine. Perhaps keep it exactly as it is but include an alternative mode based on more muted colours which you've predefined that people can switch to? Call it low contrast mode or something.

I'm installing a color handler class now. What that means is, in conjunction with an .ini file, you will be able to specify custom colors for various stuff (most likely in an HTML format color code).

[EllisDee37]

Yeah, definitely get ahead of that before hardcoding any more colors. Come up with a palette you like for defaults, for sure, but let the end user change those around as desired.

[EllisDee37]

After the new planner is released, I could envision a thread where users post their preferred color palettes complete with sample screen shots and a simple code box of their color codes for other users to easily "import" whichever palette they like best by simply copy & pasting a code block into the ini file, overwriting the color section. That could be pretty fun.

[cjgoddard]

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.from what i see so far, it looks awsome, i can hardy wait for it!!!

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

This is looking really good Ron. This program is one of the greatest contributions in all of DDO history, right along with the DDOwiki and DDOcast.

Thank you for taking the time and sharing your talent!

[Ron]

Yeah, definitely get ahead of that before hardcoding any more colors. Come up with a palette you like for defaults, for sure, but let the end user change those around as desired.

Yeah, that is what I should have done in the first place, and in fact it was the plan. But it's very easy to get caught up in a mindset of "we need to get data in" and start throwing controls on a form with some hardcoded values and totally forget about customization systems.

Retrofitting what we have so far will not be so hard. What WILL be a pain is those database entries. Unfortunately I didn't set them up properly with a common header and footer in code, which is retrospect was a major error on my part. It's going to be painful to go back in and fix them. But necessary, as even without customizable colors, they way they are now won't work. Eh, that's what I get for not thinking it through :)

[EllisDee37]

Similar thing happened to me last month as I was throwing together a travian cluster manager. In the end I decided that I really wanted customizable buttons along the bottom row, but had hardcoded everything.

Switching over to a customizable interface meant essentially re-writing that entire section of code, but once I did I was soooo much happier.

http://s14.postimg.org/ggk0bgzqp/Travian.png (http://postimage.org/)
upload picture (http://postimage.org/)

EDIT: For anyone who plays travian, to clarify, this utility doesn't interact with the game server in any way, which would be cheating. All it does is offer the equivalent of bookmark links.

[Stoner81]

I assume you guys and girls have added or will be adding the new Swashbuckler tree for the initial release of the v5.xx of the planner?

Stoner81.

[Ron]

I assume you guys and girls have added or will be adding the new Swashbuckler tree for the initial release of the v5.xx of the planner?

Stoner81.

Yes, we will. But that's the beauty of our data input systems. Even if we forget, you guys will have the ability to create the tree yourself, graphics and all. So when Turbine updates the game with new trees, you don't have to wait for us to put them in, you can do it. Same with spells, feats, equipment, etc. Nothing we are doing is going to be proprietary. We are using the exact same systems to input all the game data that will be available for you guys to use as well, should you want to do it.

Of course, we will keep the database up to date as we make releases (and there will be some issues with our database merging with your database if you've changed yours locally). But that's all stuff we will talk about when we get close to being done.

[Stoner81]

Good to know :) I highly doubt I will be messing with it like that I would rather just download it directly from you guys when you release new versions and send you bug reports about stuff if it's wrong or whatever :)

Stoner81.

[Ron]

On Skinning

Hey guys. I thought I might describe this new system to you. I don't have any screenshots to show you at the moment (well, I could, but they pretty much look like the screenshots you've already seen). But I think it's worth talking about.

Skinning turned into quite a complex system, as we wanted to give you guys a whole lot of flexibility with it, to do whatever you wanted with the various controls. There was a lot of back and forth, with many ideas tossed in and thrown out, and perhaps more than a little bit of arguing about it :) But in the end I think we've come up with a nice system for you guys to play with.

At first we were thinking we'd give you guys an .ini file type setup. But, given we have this awesome database thing going, that seemed overly limiting. You'd only be able to have one skin at a time, and editing an .ini file would be both a pain and error prone (we learned our lesson with the text files from the prior planner versions!).

So instead, we are setting up a database table for you guys. This will allow you to have multiple skins at your fingertips. You will be able to save as many as you like, and load any one of them up on command. We will also be providing an import/export function to drop a skin into a text file that you can pass on to your guildies.

You will edit skins inside a screen (accessible through the Tools menu), called, appropriately enough, The Skin Editor Screen. I will describe what happens on this screen as I go through the system.

Okay, so how does it work?

We've set up three layers to the skin, Factory Settings, General Settings, and Override Settings:

Factory Settings: This is the first layer that is loaded, and it is hardcoded right into the code. You (as the user) cannot change these settings, they are set to what we (the developers) are making the default layout. You can revert back to these settings at any time.

General Settings: This will be the second layer loaded. There is a 1:1 relationship between general settings and factory settings (they even share the same names). General settings overwrite the factory settings. If no general setting is set up for a given setting, the factory setting is used instead (in other words, if you don't put something in the box for this general setting on the Skin Editor Screen, it will fall back to the Factory Setting). This is the first layer that you guys can change on the Skin Editor Screen. So what does it do? General settings will have an effect on multiple controls. For example, we have a StandardFont which is the typical font used throughout the program for various label controls on the screen. In Factory Settings, this is a white font set to Times New Roman at a size of 9.25 (subject to change :D). But suppose you don't like that font? Maybe the color is no good for you, or you need it to be a bigger size because your eyesight is failing (like mine, heh). Then you go into General Settings and change it. This will change EVERY CONTROL in the program that uses this setting. We have other general settings like ReadOnlyFont and ScreenBackgroundColor and PanelBackgroundColor and so on. You would modify a General Setting if you want to change the overall look of the program.

Override Settings: Suppose you have your skin all set up how you like it through the use of Factory and General Settings. But you want one particular panel's background color to be different than all the others (maybe this panel is super important to you). You can't change it in General Settings, because that would change ALL the panel's background color. This is where Override comes in. On the override side of the editor, you can select a specific screen or panel, and just change items on THAT screen. For example, on the main screen is the Abilities Panel. On this panel, you have some column labels, a few columns, some row labels (that consist of two different fonts), a totals column, and some read only labels (the "+" and "=" stuff in between the numbers). Each one of those is a group, and each group has its own override setting. If you want the Totals column font a bit bigger or a different color, here is where you can change it. I should mention, we are NOT giving you a 1:1 correspondence of controls to overrides. We are grouping them into logical groups. You really don't want override control over each individual screen element. There are 100s of them :) An override setting would, of course, override a general setting for that specific group (but not for all groups that use that general setting). I should also note here that this is the area you would come to if you want to move something or resize it (e.g. a panel will have a location and a size setting. Obviously this cannot be a General setting, so this is where you would find that).

Whew, okay, I know it's kind of technical. It will probably make more sense when you see it in action. So what is the schedule?

Factory settings we are coding now (pre-Alpha). In fact, it's pretty much done, other than the actual data input. We have set up what is really all the difficult stuff for the remaining General/Override systems (dictionary lookups, links between Override names and General/Factory names, and all that), but we are not putting them into place right now.

General Settings and skin saving we will implement during Alpha or late pre-Alpha.

Override Settings we will implement during Beta (or actually probably late Alpha, since Beta really should be limited to bug killing).

Other things we have been up to:

Dragon has been working hard on the Enhancement data input screen. This one is quite a bit more complex than any of our other screens, but it's coming along quite nicely. We have a new "requirements" panel that is very nice. Anyway, give us a bit more time, I'm sure we will have some screenshots to show off on that front soon.

We've been talking recently about stances as well. It's still early stages yet, but I think we are going to be able to give you stance icons, and you will be able to turn them on and see how it affects your stats.

So yeah, there ya go, your update for the day!

[Cordovan]

On Skinning

Hey guys. I thought I might describe this new system to you. I don't have any screenshots to show you at the moment (well, I could, but they pretty much look like the screenshots you've already seen). But I think it's worth talking about.

Skinning turned into quite a complex system, as we wanted to give you guys a whole lot of flexibility with it, to do whatever you wanted with the various controls. There was a lot of back and forth, with many ideas tossed in and thrown out, and perhaps more than a little bit of arguing about it :) But in the end I think we've come up with a nice system for you guys to play with.

At first we were thinking we'd give you guys an .ini file type setup. But, given we have this awesome database thing going, that seemed overly limiting. You'd only be able to have one skin at a time, and editing an .ini file would be both a pain and error prone (we learned our lesson with the text files from the prior planner versions!).

So instead, we are setting up a database table for you guys. This will allow you to have multiple skins at your fingertips. You will be able to save as many as you like, and load any one of them up on command. We will also be providing an import/export function to drop a skin into a text file that you can pass on to your guildies.

You will edit skins inside a screen (accessible through the Tools menu), called, appropriately enough, The Skin Editor Screen. I will describe what happens on this screen as I go through the system.

Okay, so how does it work?

We've set up three layers to the skin, Factory Settings, General Settings, and Override Settings:

Factory Settings: This is the first layer that is loaded, and it is hardcoded right into the code. You (as the user) cannot change these settings, they are set to what we (the developers) are making the default layout. You can revert back to these settings at any time.

General Settings: This will be the second layer loaded. There is a 1:1 relationship between general settings and factory settings (they even share the same names). General settings overwrite the factory settings. If no general setting is set up for a given setting, the factory setting is used instead (in other words, if you don't put something in the box for this general setting on the Skin Editor Screen, it will fall back to the Factory Setting). This is the first layer that you guys can change on the Skin Editor Screen. So what does it do? General settings will have an effect on multiple controls. For example, we have a StandardFont which is the typical font used throughout the program for various label controls on the screen. In Factory Settings, this is a white font set to Times New Roman at a size of 9.25 (subject to change :D). But suppose you don't like that font? Maybe the color is no good for you, or you need it to be a bigger size because your eyesight is failing (like mine, heh). Then you go into General Settings and change it. This will change EVERY CONTROL in the program that uses this setting. We have other general settings like ReadOnlyFont and ScreenBackgroundColor and PanelBackgroundColor and so on. You would modify a General Setting if you want to change the overall look of the program.

Override Settings: Suppose you have your skin all set up how you like it through the use of Factory and General Settings. But you want one particular panel's background color to be different than all the others (maybe this panel is super important to you). You can't change it in General Settings, because that would change ALL the panel's background color. This is where Override comes in. On the override side of the editor, you can select a specific screen or panel, and just change items on THAT screen. For example, on the main screen is the Abilities Panel. On this panel, you have some column labels, a few columns, some row labels (that consist of two different fonts), a totals column, and some read only labels (the "+" and "=" stuff in between the numbers). Each one of those is a group, and each group has its own override setting. If you want the Totals column font a bit bigger or a different color, here is where you can change it. I should mention, we are NOT giving you a 1:1 correspondence of controls to overrides. We are grouping them into logical groups. You really don't want override control over each individual screen element. There are 100s of them :) An override setting would, of course, override a general setting for that specific group (but not for all groups that use that general setting). I should also note here that this is the area you would come to if you want to move something or resize it (e.g. a panel will have a location and a size setting. Obviously this cannot be a General setting, so this is where you would find that).

Whew, okay, I know it's kind of technical. It will probably make more sense when you see it in action. So what is the schedule?

Factory settings we are coding now (pre-Alpha). In fact, it's pretty much done, other than the actual data input. We have set up what is really all the difficult stuff for the remaining General/Override systems (dictionary lookups, links between Override names and General/Factory names, and all that), but we are not putting them into place right now.

General Settings and skin saving we will implement during Alpha or late pre-Alpha.

Override Settings we will implement during Beta (or actually probably late Alpha, since Beta really should be limited to bug killing).

Other things we have been up to:

Dragon has been working hard on the Enhancement data input screen. This one is quite a bit more complex than any of our other screens, but it's coming along quite nicely. We have a new "requirements" panel that is very nice. Anyway, give us a bit more time, I'm sure we will have some screenshots to show off on that front soon.

We've been talking recently about stances as well. It's still early stages yet, but I think we are going to be able to give you stance icons, and you will be able to turn them on and see how it affects your stats.

So yeah, there ya go, your update for the day!

Impressive! Can't wait for the update.

[EllisDee37]

The entire skin thing sounds like unadulterated win, but I particularly like this bit:


We will also be providing an import/export function to drop a skin into a text file that you can pass on to your guildies.Woohoo!

My vision of exporting a skin to the DDO forums (likely inside code tags) that others can copy and paste looks to be alive and well.

[droid327]

Hey, sorry if this isn't the right place, but here's something I've always thought when using the Planner...

Have you ever looked at a "Straight to 20" and/or "Straight to 28/30" mode for building a character? Ie, rather than build it level by level like you currently do, you can go through and assign all the class levels at once, then all the stat points all at once, then all the skill points, then all the feats, then Enhancements, then EDs.

Or is that something that could be achieved with the new skinning? It wouldn't be any different mechanically, you'd still be assigning the same data in the same places....it just would give you, eg., all your Feats editable on one page.

[Ron]

Hey, sorry if this isn't the right place, but here's something I've always thought when using the Planner...

Have you ever looked at a "Straight to 20" and/or "Straight to 28/30" mode for building a character? Ie, rather than build it level by level like you currently do, you can go through and assign all the class levels at once, then all the stat points all at once, then all the skill points, then all the feats, then Enhancements, then EDs.

Or is that something that could be achieved with the new skinning? It wouldn't be any different mechanically, you'd still be assigning the same data in the same places....it just would give you, eg., all your Feats editable on one page.

That actually has absolutely nothing to do with skinning :) Mechanically, it is actually a totally different system.

Fortunately for you, yes, that is in fact exactly how we are designing the new planner, system based :) Each panel on the main screen is one system (Abilities, Feats, Enhancements, spells, etc). You hit the edit button on that panel to assign those values for that system. So in fact, you will be setting all your abilities from 1-30 all in one spot, then going over and setting your feats from 1-30, and so forth.

[Ron]

Okay, I'm being asked, so I will try to answer, as best I can.

We've been working on this for what? Six months now (jeez, has it really been that long??). So when will we be able to get you guys something you can play with?

This is always a very dangerous question to answer. If I was super smart, I'd say "as soon as we can" and leave it at that ;) But I'm just not that bright.

Dragon and I were talking about this not too long ago. I think we'd like to run an alpha test session when we have abilities and feats working, just to see what you guys can break for us (right Dragon?). It would also allow you to play with the data input screens (for whatever that's worth). I like getting feedback as early as possible in a project, so that if we need to change directions somewhere, we can do so without having to rewrite reams of code.

The big barrier to that, besides just getting those couple of panels working (and I don't think those are all that far off from being functional actually) is that we have to write an installer. There is a component we have to install to allow for database functions to work. We COULD just tell you, "Go to this page and install this" and maybe that's what we will end up doing at first. But since at some point we need to create an installer for the planner, it's probably worth doing sooner rather than later.

So what is the answer? I think we are closer to a alpha test than the amount of time since we started. So less than six months :) But actually, I would think less than that. I don't think we are far from the point where all this data we've collected and input can be hooked into actual functions (in a few places it already is) and have it start working. That is actually, believe it or not, the easy part. Collecting the data, and putting it into data structures for maximum usability, that's the hard stuff.

Beyond that? Hell, I have no idea. We have grand plans for the planner. It is already a lot more sophisticated than the prior versions in a lot of ways. We have a lot more data than we had before, and the ability to use that data in a lot more ways. There is, to be sure, a lot of work ahead of us. So I can't really tell you we will be in Beta in six months. We may not be. It may take another year (ugg, I hope not). But I do think we want to make a few Alpha test releases even before we hit Beta, so it's not like you guys will be out of the loop for that long.

So that's the best I can give you. Soon(tm). I think...

[Chaimberland]

Ron, you and your team are doing a superb job! I can't wait for this to come out. Many many many thank you's in advance!

[Bernaise]

Ron, you and your team are doing a superb job! I can't wait for this to come out. Many many many thank you's in advance!

Absolutely agree, without the planner leveling in DDO would be even more painstaking than it is now.

One request; when you get around to testing, could you please test functionality with multiple monitors? In the current version, if I move the planner to a different monitor, the Enhancement window still pops up on the original screen location which is sometimes inconvenient as the enhancement window cannot be moved.

[whereispowderedsilve]

Absolutely agree, without the planner leveling in DDO would be even more painstaking than it is now.

One request; when you get around to testing, could you please test functionality with multiple monitors? In the current version, if I move the planner to a different monitor, the Enhancement window still pops up on the original screen location which is sometimes inconvenient as the enhancement window cannot be moved.

Oh man!!! ^^ This! So much this!!! I have 2 monitors & a TV hooked up as well with 2 monitors brand new monitors still in their packaging under my bed from some other sales in the past years.
(no room from them in my room currently).

Just something to consider Ron & planner team! It is greatly appreciated! Thanks so much! Keep up the great work! :P! :)! :D!

[Ron]

Oh man!!! ^^ This! So much this!!! I have 2 monitors & a TV hooked up as well with 2 monitors brand new monitors still in their packaging under my bed from some other sales in the past years.
(no room from them in my room currently).

Just something to consider Ron & planner team! It is greatly appreciated! Thanks so much! Keep up the great work! :P! :)! :D!

All windows in the new version are movable (as far as I know).

In addition, as kind of a side effect of the skinning system, you will be able to specify the default opening location of all child windows. This should apply to secondary monitors as well, but I will double check on that. So it should be possible to skin the program in such as way as the main screen stays on a primary monitor, while secondary edit screens appear on a second monitor, stuff like that. But as all that is Override settings I won't be able to actually test all this out until we get close to Beta.

[AtomicMew]

A little late to the suggestion thread, but since I've been using this more in combination with the leveler program, I thought I would give my thoughts. One of the new paradigms for web-design is less clicking and more scrolling. So, I think it would be nice if people could visualize the entire build (as much as possible) on one large, scroll-able screen. Something like:

http://i.imgur.com/14qxDYV.png

In my imagination, clicking on, for example, one of the feat boxes, would bring up a mini feat selection dialogue box for that particular level. Same with class and skill point boxes. The information chosen from the dialogue would then be condensed into the respective box.

[AtomicMew]

double post

[Spekdah_NZ]

First of i'll admit to not reading all posts so excuse me if i repeat anything.

Be nice to start off by choosing
* build points, tombs available, and if you want to obey the iconic first level class. Be nice if the tombs adjusted automatically when you level.

As for the UI, I feel it comes down to what you want to achieve;
* Build template; this is the levelling guide. It would enforce any feat choices with prerequisites/requirements and give you some kind of text step by step process at the end. This is a finalisation process that you could use to enter a build into DDO.
* Scratch-pad; This is the "at a glance" view; the playful/conceptual tool. Maybe don't bother with skill points for starting out. Be more lax with ability points (enter afterwards). Let you hand pick 10 feats you are trying to fit in; maybe drag them over to the various default slots (1, 3, 6.. etc). Highlight prereq issues as you are doing it. Lots of tool tips and information.

The second interface would be great for when I was looking at trying to convert over some NWN1/2 builds into DDO. One was a rogue archer (Fighter/Rogue), a dragon disciple/fighter/weapon master/wizard and an wizard/arcane archer.

I was trying to imagine how I could envisage these in DDO. What I really wanted when I started was something more loose to drop in different splits and more around feats. i.e. be nice to enter or somehow choose 12rogue/6 fighter/2monk and have it just allocate those classes for me 1-20. Then afterwards let me optimise it by dragging the arrangement around. As it evolves I can check the ability allocation and finally skill points and enhancements.

So two different modes would be just lovely!

[EllisDee37]

Quick question, what's the actual database you guys decided to use?

[Ron]

Quick question, what's the actual database you guys decided to use?

We are using Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17876

Ultimately in order to use the planner, you guys will have to install that runtime (it allows the program to perform database functions, otherwise it doesn't work). At some point, I need to put together an installer that will handle .NET 4, that database, and the planner, but it's not exactly high on my priority list at the moment :)

[EllisDee37]

Nice, good choice.

In terms of an alpha preview, I'm happy to manually install whatever dependencies are needed.

[Aganthor]

I WOULD LOVE to install any alpha previews!!! Was a programmer before being a teacher so I don't mind hunting for stuff to take care of the dependancies!

[Zistra]

Like many others, I want to pass kudos on to the dev team on the planner. I've been recommending it everywhere (Gen Chat, Guild, Steam forums, you name it) for several years now, because there's nothing else that comes close. Thanks for doing this.

As for suggestions, my first is for feats:

I often like to work from general to specific (I think they call that 'global thinking'). In build-planning, that means that I like to develop a 'pool' of the feats I'm considering for the build with no consideration of levels, prereqs or anything else. Then I select from that pool when actually assigning feats to levels. This intermediate step brings the feat list down to a manageable size (usually less than two dozen contenders). Probably the easiest way to populate the pool is by having checkboxes beside the feats in the overall list. Then it would require the ability to 'show only selected feats'. Clearly this is about supporting a particular creative process, but I think it might not be an uncommon one.

My second suggestion is about enhancements. I gather that to a large extent, you plan to simply recreate the existing Enhancement Planner, and since its functionality is exactly like that in-game, that's near-ideal. The only thing I would like added is kind of a 'what-if' option. Sometimes when I'm planning a multiclass, I know the primary, but I'm considering various possible secondary classes or even on a pure I'm not sure which race will work best. Working from the same 'general to specific' creative model I mentioned above, I want an overview of the enhancement trees of possible races and classes so I can decide which to take. Usually I'm doing this before I've picked how many levels of which class, let alone at which levels I'm taking them. I'm not so much selecting enhancements as looking at what's available. In this mode, I'd prefer to see what all three tiers of an enhancement grant simply by hovering over that enhancement (and without consideration of prereqs.. neither enhancement, feat nor stat). Having to change races/classes/levels in the main screen simply to see this information is painful. I think that this would be best set up outside the current enhancement selection window as a button on the main screen that would open a modified Enhancement window that would allow selection of race/class/class/class, not bother with level considerations at all (treat all as L20), and allow no input (simply show all tiers of tooltips for the enhancement the mouse hovers above). No information from this screen would be used to populate the actual planner. You would want to retain the race/class selections chosen here during the planner session (to allow revisiting), but need not save them at all.

[ThomasHunter]

I am so excited about the new version! Any ETA on usability?

You guys are awesome and one of the main reasons that I have 29 toons! I love tinkering with builds!:cool:

[Dragon.Star]

Like many others, I want to pass kudos on to the dev team on the planner. I've been recommending it everywhere (Gen Chat, Guild, Steam forums, you name it) for several years now, because there's nothing else that comes close. Thanks for doing this.

As for suggestions, my first is for feats:

I often like to work from general to specific (I think they call that 'global thinking'). In build-planning, that means that I like to develop a 'pool' of the feats I'm considering for the build with no consideration of levels, prereqs or anything else. Then I select from that pool when actually assigning feats to levels. This intermediate step brings the feat list down to a manageable size (usually less than two dozen contenders). Probably the easiest way to populate the pool is by having checkboxes beside the feats in the overall list. Then it would require the ability to 'show only selected feats'. Clearly this is about supporting a particular creative process, but I think it might not be an uncommon one.

This will actually be part of the Feat screen, basically a list box of desired feats. I will be coding this screen up next and will post screens once i get some of the layout finished up with it.


My second suggestion is about enhancements. I gather that to a large extent, you plan to simply recreate the existing Enhancement Planner, and since its functionality is exactly like that in-game, that's near-ideal. The only thing I would like added is kind of a 'what-if' option. Sometimes when I'm planning a multiclass, I know the primary, but I'm considering various possible secondary classes or even on a pure I'm not sure which race will work best. Working from the same 'general to specific' creative model I mentioned above, I want an overview of the enhancement trees of possible races and classes so I can decide which to take. Usually I'm doing this before I've picked how many levels of which class, let alone at which levels I'm taking them. I'm not so much selecting enhancements as looking at what's available. In this mode, I'd prefer to see what all three tiers of an enhancement grant simply by hovering over that enhancement (and without consideration of prereqs.. neither enhancement, feat nor stat). Having to change races/classes/levels in the main screen simply to see this information is painful. I think that this would be best set up outside the current enhancement selection window as a button on the main screen that would open a modified Enhancement window that would allow selection of race/class/class/class, not bother with level considerations at all (treat all as L20), and allow no input (simply show all tiers of tooltips for the enhancement the mouse hovers above). No information from this screen would be used to populate the actual planner. You would want to retain the race/class selections chosen here during the planner session (to allow revisiting), but need not save them at all.

This is a very good suggestion and one that is on my TODO list. It may not make the first release but it will get there. :).


I am so excited about the new version! Any ETA on usability?

You guys are awesome and one of the main reasons that I have 29 toons! I love tinkering with builds!:cool:

Honestly, that is not an easy answer. In fact at one time I had hoped that you guys would be already using the new planner; sadly though real life stuff happens and slows us down. Maybe and I emphasize maybe we might have an alpha version ready for the Next DDO Update 23.

[Zistra]

I have another suggestion, but it's pretty 'out there'. It's about tracking quest completions in the planner.

The game's Adventure Compendium is terrible. If you run a quest on Heroic Elite, then Epic Hard, you can't easily tell looking at the compendium that that's what happened. I can't even remember atm if the Epic completion overwrites the Heroic, leaving it impossible to tell what diff you ran Heroic or if it's the other way around and the Epic completion doesn't show if the Heroic was harder. That's the the annoyance. On top of that, it does nothing to show you what quests you are flagged for or where you are on Saga completions. Having to run to the Saga NPC to see what I still need is a pain. And as a person who runs multiple toons, I often forget which flagging a particular toon has completed and some of them aren't really clear if you didn't actually pick up the final. You are left scrolling thru the quest list to try to remember all the flaggers and check for completion.

Clearly, I wish DDO would simply improve this. However, they seem to be making the Compendium less readable over time, rather than more. I have built a spreadsheet for flaggers, but it doesn't help with Sagas. It would be wonderful if the planner could take up the slack. All that would be necessary would be a list of quests with selectors for Heroic AND Epic completion difficulty and then two displays built from that raw data: Quests Flagged and Saga Progress. Your existing setup allowing input of other data would work well here.. new quests/flaggers/sagas? Just input the names and dependencies. The only sticky bit would be when a saga reward was taken, resetting the saga without resetting the completed difficulties or flaggings. I haven't worked out the mechanism for that.

I recognize that this is a bit out of the realm of a 'character' planner, but I figured I'd throw it out there anyway. If you wanted your planner to be running in the background while people played DDO, this would be a way to encourage that. :)

[Tom.JonesJr]

Clearly, I wish DDO would simply improve this. However, they seem to be making the Compendium less readable over time, rather than more. I have built a spreadsheet for flaggers, but it doesn't help with Sagas.

I have built a spreadsheet for sagas it does not use any macros. It can be found at http://AdarDDO.2kool4u.net along with a couple of other spreadsheets I have made for the game.

[Zistra]

I have built a spreadsheet for sagas it does not use any macros. It can be found at http://AdarDDO.2kool4u.net along with a couple of other spreadsheets I have made for the game.

Won't load on my Win8 system with LibreOffice, so I can't try it. :(

[Tom.JonesJr]

Won't load on my Win8 system with LibreOffice, so I can't try it. :(

Ok, I have now fixed most of the spreadsheets to work with LibreOffice. The only one I did not fix is the Shipbuilder as the Web site does a better job. Someday I may even make it so you can save or at least link to a ship build.

[Dragon.Star]

Hey gang

I'm going to start doing the coding on the Class Screen where you make your class selections at.

This is a rough draft that was done up a few months ago, giving a general ideal of what it will look like.
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/Character%20Planner/Photo016_zps72e012c5.jpg (http://s153.photobucket.com/user/jgould2005/media/Character%20Planner/Photo016_zps72e012c5.jpg.html)

I want to get your feedback (good and bad) and suggestion before I do any major coding for this screen.

Currently the thought is to drag the class icon to the left top icon positions. the 1st one will automatically fill all the levels in, the 2nd and 3rd one will not. You would then select them in the combo boxes that you wish them to be in.
Class Descriptions: We are thinking to show this through a tooltip when you highlight the icon or would you rather have the description show on the particular screen when you click on a class icon?
Character Alignments will also be selectable on this screen, this will allow you change alignments if you need to while playing with the classes in this screen.

[Stoner81]

I quite like it and here are my suggestions/thoughts:


List the available classes in the order in which they were released so as they are the same as past lives.
I would do away with the boxes at the top and just leave the multi selectors for each level, maybe add a tick box to say if you wish to stay pure so as it auto populate the others for pure builds.
Tooltip for class description I think is the way to go just please make them more up to date and informative than what we get in game, the game has changed soooo much yet the descriptions have not altered at all.
Alignment - if you put this on this screen then could you make it so that when you select an alignement if there is a class which isn't allowed then it is greyed out or a huge red X is put on it or something, just some visual cue to say "OK you take this then this other thing isn't allowed". The alignment requirements could also be added to the tooltips.

As always great appreciation for all your time and efforts on this mammoth task :)

Stoner81.

[EllisDee37]

Currently the thought is to drag the class icon to the left top icon positions. the 1st one will automatically fill all the levels in, the 2nd and 3rd one will not. You would then select them in the combo boxes that you wish them to be in.
Class Descriptions: We are thinking to show this through a tooltip when you highlight the icon or would you rather have the description show on the particular screen when you click on a class icon?
Character Alignments will also be selectable on this screen, this will allow you change alignments if you need to while playing with the classes in this screen.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.

[Thayion516]

Hi ya Artamax! I didn't know you helped with the DDO planner. That's pretty awsome!

As a user of the character generator for about 4 years now. Would love to see it updated to include all the bonuses from Enhancements and from EDs. If there was a way for the final print out/feed back to list Enhancement paths and EDs with twists it would be perfect.

I like the sleeker brighter look of the interface. Maybe put Tabs on top to easily swap between Levels/ Enhancements/Epic Destinies with twists.

If what we ate doing here is brainstorming, I would love to see a 4th tab that could accommodate gear selections. Maybe divided by slots and click on the slot for a drop down with all the available named items and a random loot input? I would use the heck out of that.

Now let's really shoot the moon and ask for the planner to add up all things and put it on the feedback screen!

[Dragon.Star]

Thanks for the Class Screen Feedback all, I'm going to start coding it up.

Keep the suggestion coming

[Zistra]

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.



This is EXACTLY what I was going to suggest. The suggestion to sort the class icons by past life priority is also awesome (tho without any feedback to that effect, who would know? Maybe a note below the class icons?).

I have a question as well. If you swapped icons 1 & 2, what happens to the class selections below? I'd recommend that all class choices switch to the new primary. But in reality, aside from initial population of the class/level boxes, does sequence of classes at the top matter at all? (i.e. would switching the icons for 2 & 3 do anything?).

EDIT: When/if you implement LR in planner, you could use this same screen. All you'd do would be to select the +n LR heart you were using and then you could easily make your n class changes (or add classes and then do likewise). If that's eventually to be in the works, you might want to keep it in mind as you design the screen and its programming.

[Zistra]

Also, as regards changes on this screen for a character already some planned, have you given consideration to what happens in the background? For example, say I planned a pure Wizard and picked everything (feats, skills, you name it) and then I came here and decided to change from pure Wiz to 18 Wiz/2 Rog, changing L1 and L9 to Rogue. Does all the stuff in the background get wiped for all levels? Or do all the Wiz selections get pushed up a level (i.e. keep the Wiz 1 choices as Wiz 1 but move them from Character L1 to Character L2)? Without having thought about it deeply, I'd like it if the class feats were kept with the class level and all else got wiped.

Could be this is too complex a concept to consider for the first release, but it wandered into my consciousness, so I figured I'd raise it in yours. :)

[EllisDee37]

That's a massive can of worms. Best to stick to the current planner's behavior, which is to just signify (with color) that you have errors based on now-invalid choices. I'm thinking in particular of skills, where if you apply your skills and then switch a class level from, say, bard to fighter, you will have a lot of used skill points that you don't actually have.

Class Bonus Feats are a special case in that they might be relatively straightforward to "carry over" based on changing class levels.

In any case, not resetting anything is way preferable to trying to guess the user's intent, especially if they're just "moving" a splash level from one level to another.

[Ron]

That's a massive can of worms. Best to stick to the current planner's behavior, which is to just signify (with color) that you have errors based on now-invalid choices. I'm thinking in particular of skills, where if you apply your skills and then switch a class level from, say, bard to fighter, you will have a lot of used skill points that you don't actually have.

Class Bonus Feats are a special case in that they might be relatively straightforward to "carry over" based on changing class levels.

In any case, not resetting anything is way preferable to trying to guess the user's intent, especially if they're just "moving" a splash level from one level to another.

Yes, I think the idea is, as much as we can, to inform you of any invalid choices and let you decide how to deal with them. This should end up being better than what we currently have (in our current system, if you have errors in your spell list, for instance, there is no way to fix them without changing your class back to an old class and removing the spells. In our new system, you will have a list of spells you have taken, so if there is an error in the list, you will still be able to remove that spell without having to mess about with your class selection). And similarly for other systems (feats, enhancements, etc). So yeah, we're learning from past mistakes and are going to be applying a little more intelligent behavior to the error system :)

Ellis, we're looking at your "label" suggestion and seeing how it would work in practice. I like it. We may very well end up using it (Dragon is doing the actual coding on that screen, so he has the final decision). I think we'd need some instructions on the screen about what the left and right buttons do, which would need to be fairly dynamic, but that's easy enough to program (just a couple of labels like "Left click: set secondary class (Wizard)" and "Right Click: set primary class (Rogue)" or something to that effect.

I'm still inclined to go with the drag-and-drop system for setting primary/secondary/tertiary classes. I think that's a fairly intuitive and easy method for setting your three classes. But I do very much like the idea of "greying out" incompatible alignment classes (as opposed to just not showing them, you guys have no idea how many "bug reports" I've gotten about missing classes in the planner. "Hey, you have a bug. I can't select Barbarian, it's not on the list", "what is your alignment?", "Lawful Good, why?", "Not. A. Bug." If I have to have that conversation one more time, I might scream :) ).

[EllisDee37]

Ellis, we're looking at your "label" suggestion and seeing how it would work in practice. I like it. We may very well end up using it (Dragon is doing the actual coding on that screen, so he has the final decision). I think we'd need some instructions on the screen about what the left and right buttons do, which would need to be fairly dynamic, but that's easy enough to program (just a couple of labels like "Left click: set secondary class (Wizard)" and "Right Click: set primary class (Rogue)" or something to that effect.

I'm still inclined to go with the drag-and-drop system for setting primary/secondary/tertiary classes. I think that's a fairly intuitive and easy method for setting your three classes.Agreed 100%. Drag & Drop is one of my coding weaknesses, so I tend to never even consider it. For choosing your top 1-3 classes, drag and drop is the best way to go I would think. In my previous post I mentioned right-clicking to remove a top 3 class, but it would be much better (more intuitive) to simply drag it off.

The reason I suggested the label approach is that I just finished a program for myself for personal use. I set it up like a good little programmer, using standard elements in standard ways and had a beautifully designed application. Then I started using it, and quickly remembered why I dislike comboboxes so much. They're so easy to code, so intuitive and so "sturdy" that I'm constantly drawn to them as design elements. But using them is just so clunky, especially if you have a bunch of them on a single screen for picking options.

So after about a day and a half of using it I tore open the code and pulled out the comboboxes, switching to more streamlined elements. I'm so much happier now! The only reason this jumped out at me was because this happened just this past weekend, so it was fresh in my mind.


You could do a compromise in terms of intuitiveness and only support left click, which would apply the currently selected top 3 class to whatever label you just clicked. Adding right click support to "reset" a level to the primary class would increase usability, but is un-intuitive enough to merit a special label on the form explaining it. And in practice, even with an explanation written on the form, the right click functionality could very well end up being more confusing than helpful. But the basic premise of the top 3 class icons being option buttons, and whichever is active is the class you currently assign to levels, is reasonably self-explanatory.

EDIT: The tricky part would be the top 3 classes. They need to support drag & drop both to them (to set them) and away from them (to clear them), plus adding in option button-style selectability. That might end up being annoying to code. If it ends up looking like a timesink just stick with the tried and true combobox approach.

[Zistra]

That's a massive can of worms. Best to stick to the current planner's behavior, which is to just signify (with color) that you have errors based on now-invalid choices. I'm thinking in particular of skills, where if you apply your skills and then switch a class level from, say, bard to fighter, you will have a lot of used skill points that you don't actually have.

Class Bonus Feats are a special case in that they might be relatively straightforward to "carry over" based on changing class levels.

In any case, not resetting anything is way preferable to trying to guess the user's intent, especially if they're just "moving" a splash level from one level to another.

Yeah. Even on initial impression, it seems to me that simply clearing skills would be best.. or if a 'fill priority' was used, reiterating that priority with the new skill point pools. But just indicating the existence of problems is fine and simple as long as correcting (and especially clearing) those settings is easy and straightforward.

[Zistra]

The reason I suggested the label approach is that I just finished a program for myself for personal use. I set it up like a good little programmer, using standard elements in standard ways and had a beautifully designed application. Then I started using it, and quickly remembered why I dislike comboboxes so much. They're so easy to code, so intuitive and so "sturdy" that I'm constantly drawn to them as design elements. But using them is just so clunky, especially if you have a bunch of them on a single screen for picking options.

Strongly agree on comboboxes. Avoid where possible and minimize the number of choices in the pulldown where they can't be avoided.



EDIT: The tricky part would be the top 3 classes. They need to support drag & drop both to them (to set them) and away from them (to clear them), plus adding in option button-style selectability. That might end up being annoying to code. If it ends up looking like a timesink just stick with the tried and true combobox approach.

If this is too difficult, I'd aim for drag to set (and select), click to select, right-click to clear. Easier to program and still avoids the comboboxes. With no drag away, all left-clicks become 'select'.

[Zistra]

What's best may depend on consistency with choices made elsewhere. If you implemented someone's suggestion of click to increase stats and rclick to reduce on the stat distribution screen, then the rclick to remove class functionality for the top 3 classes would be intuitively more obvious. If you're not implementing rclick functionality anywhere else in the program for anything else, doing so here would be strange.

[Zistra]

I'm still inclined to go with the drag-and-drop system for setting primary/secondary/tertiary classes. I think that's a fairly intuitive and easy method for setting your three classes. But I do very much like the idea of "greying out" incompatible alignment classes (as opposed to just not showing them, you guys have no idea how many "bug reports" I've gotten about missing classes in the planner. "Hey, you have a bug. I can't select Barbarian, it's not on the list", "what is your alignment?", "Lawful Good, why?", "Not. A. Bug." If I have to have that conversation one more time, I might scream :) ).

I've never bug reported any such thing, but I will admit to having scratched my head over it a time or two once upon a time.

[Dragon.Star]

I should have another example of the Class Screen in a couple of days.

Layout wise it is the same except I've changed the comboboxes to label.

What can be done so far:

Drag classes from the left onto one of the 3 class boxes.
The first one will automatically set the levels to that class.
After that, you will select one of the 3 classes you have chosen and then just click on the levels label you want for that class.

Things to do still
I still need to add in the right click to remove a class and change the Level label to the primary class, but that part is pretty easy.
As for the 3 classes on top, you will right click to remove the class.

I'll see if I can post a Vid up later of who it actually works once I get it done.

[EllisDee37]

Sweet!

After you get the right-click functionality on the level labels, play around with it a bit for yourself just to make sure it's not super confusing. It could be one of those ideas that sounds good on paper but ends up being confusing in practice.


Just spitballing here, is there going to be a display of your class split anywhere on the screen? I mean totals, like if you created a cetus build, is there anywhere on the screen where it would say:

"12 Figher / 6 Monk / 2 Paladin"

That would be super useful.

EDIT: And totally ignore "user error" where the user selects more levels from the "second" or "third" class. If they want to drag paladin to the primary class despite only having 2 levels of paladin, no harm no foul.

[Dragon.Star]

Just spitballing here, is there going to be a display of your class split anywhere on the screen? I mean totals, like if you created a cetus build, is there anywhere on the screen where it would say:

"12 Figher / 6 Monk / 2 Paladin"



The MainScreen will show this, i can also put in the Class screen :)

[Lerl]

Massive props to all of you who 'are' the planner. The availability of the planner has enhanced my game play for years.:cool:

I would like to add my wish list. I do understand if these things would be too hard to work in, they are just some things I feel it would be nice to have.

1/ Number of bard songs.

2/ Number of turn undeads.

3/ Number of action boosts.

4/ Healing amp.

5/ Spell power.

Again, thank you all for the work you have and are putting into the planner!

[Munkenmo]

I want to get your feedback (good and bad) and suggestion before I do any major coding for this screen.

Currently the thought is to drag the class icon to the left top icon positions. the 1st one will automatically fill all the levels in, the 2nd and 3rd one will not. You would then select them in the combo boxes that you wish them to be in.
Class Descriptions: We are thinking to show this through a tooltip when you highlight the icon or would you rather have the description show on the particular screen when you click on a class icon?
Character Alignments will also be selectable on this screen, this will allow you change alignments if you need to while playing with the classes in this screen.

Rather than having a tooltip or a text box, why not make the Available Classes: text a hotlink to the wiki page http://ddowiki.com/page/Classes

[EllisDee37]

Somewhere on the main screen, it might be a good idea to put a "past life" field somewhere in the section that details the overall build info, such as alignment and level split.

Not the past lives you have, but rather the past life you would get if you TRed the current build. This could be as simple as showing the dominant class icon somewhere.

[Zistra]

Sweet!

After you get the right-click functionality on the level labels, play around with it a bit for yourself just to make sure it's not super confusing. It could be one of those ideas that sounds good on paper but ends up being confusing in practice.

The game itself uses rclick functionality to decrement choices in Enhancement and ED trees, so it's not completely unheralded. Your label rclick choices are to blank it or to convert it back to the primary class. Blanking would make it so there was always 2 more steps to set that label (click top class then label). I think avoiding those 2 steps in a large number of cases is worth risking some short-term confusion.

[Zistra]

Somewhere on the main screen, it might be a good idea to put a "past life" field somewhere in the section that details the overall build info, such as alignment and level split.

Not the past lives you have, but rather the past life you would get if you TRed the current build. This could be as simple as showing the dominant class icon somewhere.

I do like this. In addition to ordering the class icons on the left by past life priority, some text field somewhere or a colored border around the class icon on the left to indicate which past life will be earned would be cool and easy to program. I kinda lean toward the colored border idea, but then you'd have to explain it somehow (add the info to the tooltip for the icon so marked?).

[Zistra]

Rather than having a tooltip or a text box, why not make the Available Classes: text a hotlink to the wiki page http://ddowiki.com/page/Classes

Why not both? A tooltip for the icon AND a link to the wiki from the heading.

[Zistra]

The MainScreen will show this, i can also put in the Class screen :)

Please.

[Dragon.Star]

Massive props to all of you who 'are' the planner. The availability of the planner has enhanced my game play for years.:cool:

I would like to add my wish list. I do understand if these things would be too hard to work in, they are just some things I feel it would be nice to have.

1/ Number of bard songs.

2/ Number of turn undeads.

3/ Number of action boosts.

4/ Healing amp.

5/ Spell power.

Again, thank you all for the work you have and are putting into the planner!

I'm pretty sure most of these are planned except for the Action Boosts one (will looking into that, but no promises).


Rather than having a tooltip or a text box, why not make the Available Classes: text a hotlink to the wiki page http://ddowiki.com/page/Classes

I'm not a big fan of linking to the wiki for several reasons (1. Wiki is not always correct and is subject to griefing, its one of the reasons I stopped editing over there. 2. If we were to link to the wiki, I personally would feel responsible to make sure the information is correct, something i don't really need on my plate).


Somewhere on the main screen, it might be a good idea to put a "past life" field somewhere in the section that details the overall build info, such as alignment and level split.

Not the past lives you have, but rather the past life you would get if you TRed the current build. This could be as simple as showing the dominant class icon somewhere.


I do like this. In addition to ordering the class icons on the left by past life priority, some text field somewhere or a colored border around the class icon on the left to indicate which past life will be earned would be cool and easy to program. I kinda lean toward the colored border idea, but then you'd have to explain it somehow (add the info to the tooltip for the icon so marked?).

Honestly just us showing the Classsplit on the Mainscreen and Class Screen will take care of this. (The First class is the dominate class and becomes the Past life if reincarnated.)

[EllisDee37]

The MainScreen will show this, i can also put in the Class screen :)As long as there's a real-time counter for class levels, it's all good. Start out with pure 20 fighter, start clicking in monk levels, is that six yet? Or only five? You get the idea.

[EllisDee37]

Honestly just us showing the Classsplit on the Mainscreen and Class Screen will take care of this. (The First class is the dominate class and becomes the Past life if reincarnated.)For displaying an already-created build, definitely. I was thinking more along the lines of while I'm actively building it. When I start with a blank slate, and drag the first class icon to the primary class area, there's no guarantee that the build I end up with will give me that class as a past life.

When I commit my changes, close the screen and re-open it, though, yeah, the primary class will be the one you get a past life for. So on second thought, I see your point. Probably not needed elsewhere.

EDIT: And oh yeah, duh, the summary display info (eg: "12 Fighter / 6 Monk / 2 Paladin") has the dominant class info built into it, as you said.

[EllisDee37]

Blanking would make it so there was always 2 more steps to set that label (click top class then label). I think avoiding those 2 steps in a large number of cases is worth risking some short-term confusion.Blanking it probably shouldn't be allowed just because it's conceptually awkward to have no class taken for a level in the middle of a build. But to clarify, reselecting a blanked level would in theory only require a single mouse click, which would set it to whichever top 3 class was currently "active."

[Munkenmo]

I'm not a big fan of linking to the wiki for several reasons (1. Wiki is not always correct and is subject to griefing, its one of the reasons I stopped editing over there. 2. If we were to link to the wiki, I personally would feel responsible to make sure the information is correct, something i don't really need on my plate).

Those reasons are fair enough. Then how do you feel releasing the planner with some of your own html files?

I'm never likely to need to look at race / class tool tips, but if i did I'd like to be look at and compare them all at once. To me atleast it seems it'd be best to do this in a browser format rather than a small description box or tooltip.

[Stoner81]

Honestly just us showing the Classsplit on the Mainscreen and Class Screen will take care of this. (The First class is the dominate class and becomes the Past life if reincarnated.)

If you take the first class as Druid and have 9 levels in it, splash 2 levels in another class then take 9 of yet a another class in the third it will be the third class you select which becomes the dominant class because of the way the classes were released. Perhaps it would be better to call those boxes 1st/2nd/3rd class and have an empty box to the right saying "Dominant Class" which is automatically populated based on level split and classes taken.

Stoner81.

[blerkington]

Hi,

I've found your planner very useful over the years, so I'd just like to thank you for all of the time and effort you've spent on it. It's a really great resource for the community and very good of you to develop it.

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but one thing I'd like to do more easily is compare and adjust how I spend skill points level by level. The point of this is to optimise how you spend points level by when you have a multiclass build and you are trying to keep cross class skills at level without wasting points.

Thanks.

[Zistra]

Honestly just us showing the Classsplit on the Mainscreen and Class Screen will take care of this. (The First class is the dominate class and becomes the Past life if reincarnated.)

This is true for any build that doesn't have an equal number of levels of its two highest-level classes. Any 8/8/4 or 10/10 or similar build depends on the class priority list to determine which of the two highest-level classes becomes the past life. That sequence is listed at http://ddowiki.com/page/Past_life under the 'Dominant Class' heading. If there's no tie for highest-level class, then the highest-level class is the Past Life, but if there is, this priority determines the Past Life earned.

EDIT: You could indicate past life class rather easily with no additional display space if you were to do the following:

The classes selected at the top will have from 1-3 icons. At any time that a class has more levels assigned to it than the class whose icon is to its left in the set of 3 selected classes, swap the icons. In this way, the 3 top icons will always be in order of the number of class levels taken (greatest to least). If in addition, you checked for the case where the FIRST TWO classes had equal numbers of levels and swapped them to suit the Past Life dominant class, then the furthest left class icon at the top would always be your current Past Life.

Example: Select Druid then Fighter. All class levels are labeled Druid. Swap 10 or more levels to Fighter, and the icon for Fighter gets moved to the left (From Druid|Fighter to Fighter|Druid). At 10 levels of Fighter, you'd move it because Fighter is the dominant past life between the two. At 11 or more, it would be because there were more class levels of Fighter.

You only need to check the Dominant Past Life list for icons 1 & 2 and only when the # of class levels for each is equal.

Simple and effective. A side benefit is that the class presentation will always be in the Highest level class/Mid level class/Lowest level class sequence that players customarily use.

[Zistra]

Hi,

I've found your planner very useful over the years, so I'd just like to thank you for all of the time and effort you've spent on it. It's a really great resource for the community and very good of you to develop it.

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but one thing I'd like to do more easily is compare and adjust how I spend skill points level by level. The point of this is to optimise how you spend points level by when you have a multiclass build and you are trying to keep cross class skills at level without wasting points.

Thanks.

I believe the plan is to have the skills for all levels on a single two-axis screen: Skill name down the left, Level across the top. You would then assign skill points to all levels in a single visible screen, with totals at the right (per skill) and at the bottom (Points used or left to use). Discussion as to whether to use Lclick to increment & Rclick to decrement or some other method was ongoing last I noticed.

EDIT: I assume at the bottom the totals would be 'Unassigned' and in the event of overassignment (generally due to a change of class) the number would likely be in red and/or indicated as negative.

[Zistra]

Blanking it probably shouldn't be allowed just because it's conceptually awkward to have no class taken for a level in the middle of a build. But to clarify, reselecting a blanked level would in theory only require a single mouse click, which would set it to whichever top 3 class was currently "active."

Good point. The actual choices should be rclick to set to Primary class or if no rclick functionality, one must click a class at the top to make it 'active' then Lclick a label to switch to that class. The second will definitely be required, the first would optionally be programmed to avoid a mouse move to the top and click in a small fraction of cases. Worth doing if it isn't too much trouble to program.

[Zistra]

I'm not a big fan of linking to the wiki for several reasons (1. Wiki is not always correct and is subject to griefing, its one of the reasons I stopped editing over there. 2. If we were to link to the wiki, I personally would feel responsible to make sure the information is correct, something i don't really need on my plate).


I take your point about your perceived responsibility for content to which your program points, but I think you're putting your personal bias ahead of the value to the community. I surely look at ddowiki almost every time I build a toon, and having the planner link directly to the appropriate page would be a huge convenience and timesaver. You surely don't want to duplicate all the class info that exists on the wiki. Linking to it as a resource for more info is reasonable and would be very helpful. If you feel your deniability requires it, optionally link to a warning page "This link connects to data we neither control nor verify; use at your own risk" or somesuch, with a 'Go|Cancel' option would absolve you. Including the option to 'never show this warning again' would be nice, too.

[Dragon.Star]

Those reasons are fair enough. Then how do you feel releasing the planner with some of your own html files?

I'm never likely to need to look at race / class tool tips, but if i did I'd like to be look at and compare them all at once. To me atleast it seems it'd be best to do this in a browser format rather than a small description box or tooltip.

Something I can look at for the future for sure


If you take the first class as Druid and have 9 levels in it, splash 2 levels in another class then take 9 of yet a another class in the third it will be the third class you select which becomes the dominant class because of the way the classes were released. Perhaps it would be better to call those boxes 1st/2nd/3rd class and have an empty box to the right saying "Dominant Class" which is automatically populated based on level split and classes taken.

Stoner81.

The code will know which class is the dominate one and put it first, so even if you choose like you said above, the full class display will show the druid one 2nd. (9-other class/9-druid/2 other class)


Hi,

I've found your planner very useful over the years, so I'd just like to thank you for all of the time and effort you've spent on it. It's a really great resource for the community and very good of you to develop it.

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but one thing I'd like to do more easily is compare and adjust how I spend skill points level by level. The point of this is to optimise how you spend points level by when you have a multiclass build and you are trying to keep cross class skills at level without wasting points.

Thanks.

yeah like Zistra said below, you will be able to modify all your skills on 1 screen.


I believe the plan is to have the skills for all levels on a single two-axis screen: Skill name down the left, Level across the top. You would then assign skill points to all levels in a single visible screen, with totals at the right (per skill) and at the bottom (Points used or left to use). Discussion as to whether to use Lclick to increment & Rclick to decrement or some other method was ongoing last I noticed.

EDIT: I assume at the bottom the totals would be 'Unassigned' and in the event of overassignment (generally due to a change of class) the number would likely be in red and/or indicated as negative.

[Stoner81]

The code will know which class is the dominate one and put it first, so even if you choose like you said above, the full class display will show the druid one 2nd. (9-other class/9-druid/2 other class)

<3 YOU GUYS ROCK <3

Stoner81.

[blerkington]

yeah like Zistra said below, you will be able to modify all your skills on 1 screen.

Hi,

That's really great news, thanks very much.

Take care.

[Zistra]

yeah like Zistra said below, you will be able to modify all your skills on 1 screen.

Just a thought: Those of us who have been playing for some time are familiar with the DDO implementation of skills for multiclasses (Your total possible becomes 23 for any skill that is a class skill for any of your classes; your cost to raise is 1 point on the levels where it's a class skill and 2 points on the levels where it's a cross-class). New people might benefit if there were a way to indicate this info on the skills screen. Obviously that particular screen is already going to be pretty full, so it might not be possible, but if an inspiration as to how to include that info were to strike you it might be helpful to newbies.

[EllisDee37]

You mean like a second "totals" column to the right of the "total ranks" column showing the maximum possible ranks, ideally in a dimmer, grayed out font color?

A similar setup could be used for a "total ranks" row at the bottom, below the "ranks spent" row, again with a dimmer, grayed out font color.

[Zistra]

You mean like a second "totals" column to the right of the "total ranks" column showing the maximum possible ranks, ideally in a dimmer, grayed out font color?

A similar setup could be used for a "total ranks" row at the bottom, below the "ranks spent" row, again with a dimmer, grayed out font color.

Not sure. I didn't have a vision for how when I came up with the idea. Atm I'm thinking.. color coding? Skills you can get full 23 ranks of in an indicator color. Levels in which they're class skills in bold (or bright) and levels in which they're cross-class in dim or greyed or whatever. Not sure if the skills screen is going to have room to indicate which class you are at each level. You might not even need that if you could present this info within the grid.

[EllisDee37]

Not sure. I didn't have a vision for how when I came up with the idea. Atm I'm thinking.. color coding? Skills you can get full 23 ranks of in an indicator color. Levels in which they're class skills in bold (or bright) and levels in which they're cross-class in dim or greyed or whatever. Not sure if the skills screen is going to have room to indicate which class you are at each level. You might not even need that if you could present this info within the grid.Not sure what the skills screen will look like, exactly, but I'm basically picturing it would look something like my skills spreadsheet:

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/534/8ib5.png (https://imageshack.com/i/eu8ib5p)

The classes are identified along the top; I use "F" and "C" to denote fighter and cleric levels, but I'm guessing the planner will use class icons instead. (There are two different tables because the top one is for without any tomes, which is how I post builds to the forums, while the bottom is with a +2 int tome from a previous life, which is what my actual character has.)

[Feybrook]

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. :)