Xanendor's DDO Master Experience Planner

[Xanendor]

EDIT: May 6, 2013

Never mind about the challenge, it wasn't a good idea.

Since I am here I'll make an announcement about Xanendor's Experience Planner v2.

I've been out of game for thirty-eight days straight, spending my game-time building version one and then immediately thereafter I started version two.

I finally got to the point where I thought version two was completed and decided to start playing the game again. While in game, with my version two planner loaded in the background I realized I overlooked a couple of things when comparing my game results with the planner.

If I *ignored* the character level -vs quest level penalty then all the calculations were spot on (with the tiny exception of the rounding discrepancies).

You can justify ignoring the character level -vs- quest level penalty by saying that anywhere the planner showed you had incurred a penalty that you would just skip the dungeon run or not worry about it because you would bank the experience instead. But none of this is really an ideal solution. The planner *should be* able to get it right in the first place but I just wasn't able to accomplish that apparently.

The only reason the character level -vs quest level penalty is off is because the order in which you run the dungeons in game matters but the planner didn't have a way of knowing the actual run order you did things in, so that's why the CVQ penalty was off a little bit.

The second thing I noticed also had to do with the order that you ran things in game and that was the StreakPolice columns. In the planner they were actually calculated correctly but in order to get what you saw in the planner to match what you see in game was to run the quests in game in the *exact* same order as they were listed in the planner. That too isn't really ideal.

The last thing I noticed and this was just an honest oversight on my part was the new way I handled the switching of the baseXP columns based on whether you chose HeroicXP or EpicXP. Although it was a pretty cool and very fast way of switching the baseXP when needed the part I overlooked was it switched ALL of the quests that can be done on heroic and epic at the same time. What I mean by this is, there are 41 quests that can be done either on heroic or epic and if you clicked the toggle switch it switched all 41 at the same time. The oversight was, what if I only wanted to do one or three quests on epic and the rest of them I wanted to do on heroic? There was no way to do that; it was either all or nothing.

So my mood being what it was I still couldn't get into playing the game, just wasn't motivated - maybe still burned out? So I went back to the planner to see if I could fix these three things I mentioned up above.

I actually managed to fix the switching of the baseXP columns pretty easily and it wasn't a bad trade off either. So I fixed it so that you could just type "Y" in the new "Epic = Y" column and it would switch the baseXP for you on the fly. That was the easy part.

The issue with getting the StreakPolice to match up with what you actually seen happening in game - that started off easy but then it got sorely complicated. After half a day on it I finally figured it out and got it to work but that required a new column called "Run Order" and very long and confusing formulas. For all the quests you wanted to do you would have to type a number 1,2,3,4 etc for every quest indicating what order you would actually run them in game. So it ended up matching okay finally.

This whole Run Order actually brought the planner to a halt for me though and here's why:

When I was finishing up version one and I was dreaming up all these new things for version two, the Run Order was actually something I wanted to add but it slipped my mind and never made it in. I see now through 20/20 hindsight how necessary this really was to have. To add it in now, after 99% of version two was done is like trying to go back and lay down new soil under the grass you spent all Spring trying to grow. It's just to late to go back.

This being said, without the planner being built around "run order" I am not able to get the character level -vs- quest level penalty fixed.

So anyhow, long-winded as usual I'm saying version two as it stands is final, it has those three flaws I mentioned up above and I'm just going to leave it as is. There will be no further uploads for version two. I'm sorry.

[Xanendor]

I know I said I wasn't going to do a version three but I felt compelled to fix those three flaws of version two and I did. I needed to see this through and get it done properly before moving on to different things in my gaming life.

Version three is absolutely the best I can do and no further work on my behalf will make it any better so this is it, the absolute final version of Xanendor's Experience Planner ever! I am positively done with this planner.

Notable changes from version one and two:

• There are no more circular references which means iterations in Excel's options are no longer needed.
• Excel's built in filters and sorting are now functional and I already have them set up for immediate use.
• After reading the Instructions and Changelog you can hide them leaving only two sheets for you to use instead of five or seven.
• A somewhat cleaner and less cluttered look at the top.
• Better behind-the-scenes handling (I don't know how else to word this so I'll leave it at that).
• The Bravery Bonus is actually correct now, no really! v1 and v2 didn't keep track of which streak bonus was the highest e.g your +20% x2 elite streak bonus or your +15% x3 hard streak bonus. This has been fixed! +20% bonus obviously!
• The StreakPolice have been fixed and now that it's totally accurate there is no need for that Bravery Bonus column the other two versions had. The "Bravery" column has been removed and your in-game streaks are now correctly calculated!
• The two Level-Up Notification columns (formerly the yellow columns that told you which dungeon made you level) has been fixed and is calculated correctly now!
• The Character Level -vs- Quest Level penalty is now fixed and it no longer requires circular references, iterations, nor does it break the Level-Up Notification columns any more.
• The planner now requires you to tell it what "run order" you will do the quests in game. Sorry, but it's the only way to make the planner match what you see in game as far as the Level-Up notifications, Character Level -vs Quest Level penalty and the StreakPolice. The planner must now be sorted by the "Run Order" column after you are done filling in all your dungeon runs. The sort needs to happen before it displays the correct cell values.

I can't think of anything else offhand so I guess that's about it.

The rounding discrepancy is still there, to be honest I didn't even try to tackle it.

I'm thinking if someone else wanted too they could probably figure it out with this version. I didn't even do any =ROUNDDOWN functions on the bonuses and penalties, or anywhere for that matter. Maybe in this version using that function will correct the values, or maybe that function combined with Excels option to "Set precision as displayed" will do it. /shrug

Anyhow, I'm outta-here! I am subscribed to this thread so I will receive an email if anyone posts a reply here or has a question they need answered. I also lurk the forums regularly so I'm still around in that sense. I just won't work on the planner any more. This is the last time I will upload.

I've only played DDO for two months before I tried my hand at making this experience planner. Now that I'm done with it I think I will re-subscribe for my third and final month of DDO to play it once more then I think it's time to move on.

I sincerely hope you like Xanendor's Experience Planner, I actually enjoyed building it (maybe not 3x though lmao! ) - I'm just burned out on this too I guess.

Happy gaming everyone! See you on the flip-side (next great game - whatever that may be).

~~ Xanendor Swordsteel of Ghallanda (retired)

Download Xanendor's Experience Planner v3 Final

[danotmano1998]

What with the forums being redesigned, I didn't even realize that there was a version 3 out.
You have done a lot of work on this, Xan, and if I could I would +1 you.
I'm quite impressed with the amount of thought, work, and personality that went into this little project. Well done!

Now go dust off your swords and armor, there are heroic deeds to accomplish in-game.

[Xanendor]

Hi there.

Just checking to see if anyone is still interested in this experience planner or not. Anyone still using it maybe?

I haven't been following the game or any updates it may have had but for those who are using it did you have any problems updating the planner to match the current game updates?

Anyways, have a nice day.

Xanendor

[Deathstroke2000]

Hi there.

Just checking to see if anyone is still interested in this experience planner or not. Anyone still using it maybe?

I haven't been following the game or any updates it may have had but for those who are using it did you have any problems updating the planner to match the current game updates?

Anyways, have a nice day.

Xanendor

Hi, I'm a new player, so am downloading an Excel viewer program to view your spreadsheet. Looking forward to it lol

[Xanendor]

Hi, I'm a new player, so am downloading an Excel viewer program to view your spreadsheet. Looking forward to it lol

I hope that works out for you.

I recall years ago before I had Microsoft Office I too had to find an Excel viewer (don't recall the name of it sorry) and it worked pretty good if I recall. But I do know that I also tried OpenOffice and some other ones - and even though they worked pretty much, they did distort the spreadsheet in the sense it didn't look or work as nice as it would have in Excel.

So again I hope it works out for you.

~Xanendor

PS: I made this using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 so make sure whatever you find works with Excel 2007.