Character Planner - Series 4.xx

[Lauf]

Heya Lauf, don't give up yet!

the way your screen shows you colors, brightness and contrast depend mostly on two things:
- The screen settings (the ones you can fiddle using the screen buttons / dials)
- The display calibration software.

Now, you might think: "I got no display calibration software, what the heck is that anyway?"
In fact, you do have. There's a monitor profile that is installed when you install a monitor (we usually toss to trash that CD that comes with the monitor, I know I do).
If you don't install it, Windows puts in a default profile - which can work out ok, or not so (colors being tinted yellowish, blueish, too dark, not enough contrast, etc).

You can calibrate your screen easily: if you have Windows system, you can search for "calibration" on the search line, and pick "Calibrate Display Color"

It will lauch a wizard, that lets your select the best look based on your intuitive input - it's not perfect, but should improve your white/black point, and maybe remove some color cast (sometimes, you think you're seeing white, until someone shows your real white).

I hope this helps you.

Carry on.

thanks for the tip
I've gone through the paces, and while the trees are still too dark for my liking, the calibration has definitely improved my experience significantly, so thank you very much for that

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

Not too sure, but:

- Epic Toughness doesn't appear to add +50 hps
- Not sure if fighter is supposed to get bonus feats at epic levels too. If he is, level 22 is missing one.

Carry on.

[Garix]

Not too sure, but:

- Epic Toughness doesn't appear to add +50 hps
- Not sure if fighter is supposed to get bonus feats at epic levels too. If he is, level 22 is missing one.

Carry on.

Will have a look at the toughness issue. EDIT: Confirmed that it isn't adding as it should. Either Ron or DragonStar will need to address it as I think its more a codeing issue than the txt file

The Fighter one though - Fighters get a bonus feat every 2 fighter levels. The epic levels AFAIK are not counted as such - they are their own separate entity. If any one can confirm or deny this statement please do (My fighter is parked at 20 and can't see him getting out any time soon)

[Ron]

Will have a look at the toughness issue. EDIT: Confirmed that it isn't adding as it should. Either Ron or DragonStar will need to address it as I think its more a codeing issue than the txt file

Yeah, we'll take a look at it.

The Fighter one though - Fighters get a bonus feat every 2 fighter levels. The epic levels AFAIK are not counted as such - they are their own separate entity. If any one can confirm or deny this statement please do (My fighter is parked at 20 and can't see him getting out any time soon)

Should be WAI. Epic levels are not class levels, they are Epic levels. A pure level 22 fighter is not really 22 Fighter, he's 20 Fighter/2 Epic. AFAIK, they shouldn't get any bonus feats past 20.

[Bolo_Grubb]

My pure fighter is level 28 and received the same feat progressions as my level 28 rogue once they were both level 20 +

SO my fighter got a feat at level 21 and level 24
then an epic destiny feat at level 26
a feat at level 27
and another epic destiny feat at 28

Edit: I meant to say this is what happened in the game.

[Ron]

My pure fighter is level 28 and received the same feat progressions as my level 28 rogue once they were both level 20 +

SO my fighter got a feat at level 21 and level 24
then an epic destiny feat at level 26
a feat at level 27
and another epic destiny feat at 28

Yes, this is correct. ALL characters get this same feat progression at 21+

[Dragon.Star]

thanks for the tip
I've gone through the paces, and while the trees are still too dark for my liking, the calibration has definitely improved my experience significantly, so thank you very much for that

hmmm, ok just tyring to clarify what you are trully seeing as dark, the reason being is to me and I think others, the screenshot you posted doesn't look dark at all. Is it that the Icons or Backgrounds are dark, Or is it that there is too much red borders going on?

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

Yes, this is correct. ALL characters get this same feat progression at 21+

Then I can confirm you have a bug: at levels 24, 26 and 28, a Class Feat appears, and only allows Fighter feats to be allocated.



Carry on.

[EllisDee37]

to me and I think others, the screenshot you posted doesn't look dark at all.

Concur.

[Ron]

Then I can confirm you have a bug: at levels 24, 26 and 28, a Class Feat appears, and only allows Fighter feats to be allocated.

Carry on.

Huh, yeah, that's a bug. It's not supposed to do that. Sometimes the planner has a mind of it's own

[mikarddo]

I cannot seem to pick the Grandmaster of Forms feat on level 18 despite having 12 monk levels prior. Instead I can pick Master of Forms despite having that already as an autogrant. It thus appears that the autogranted Master of Forms isnt recognized properly.

[Lauf]

hmmm, ok just tyring to clarify what you are trully seeing as dark, the reason being is to me and I think others, the screenshot you posted doesn't look dark at all. Is it that the Icons or Backgrounds are dark, Or is it that there is too much red borders going on?

first of all yes, there are definitely too many red borders going around, thank you for asking
some enhancements can't be selected yet have no red border, the description highlights in red why it is that they cannot be selected. others do have a red border, even if it's quite clear (arrows) why they cannot be selected.
Even if we ignore the visual effect of the red borders, I'm having trouble seeing its contribution in terms of interface.
for example, if I can select a core enhancement, it has a white border, as all selectable enhancements do. perfect.
if I can't select it, and this is unique to arrow & core enhancements, it would either have no border, as with all other selectable enhancements, or it would have a red border, as with only arrow/core enhancements.
if it has a red border, selecting the previous in the chain would remove it, yet it won't necessarily make it selectable... so we've removed the red (i.e. the barrier) yet you still can't take it. why can't you? read the description, you'll see it there in red, as with all other enhancements... you see where I'm going with this
why have for core/arrow enhancements red borders signifying some prerequisites, and their descriptions containing other prerequisites, rather than just stick to a uniform logic and have all of the enhancements' prerequisites appear in the descriptions, as is the case with most enhancements already?

forgive me my rant on interface logic I'll try to stay on topic.

the problem for me was mainly the contrast between the bright red borders and what was already a greyed out icon, making them appear darker than they really are.

but while reading your reply, the part about icons not looking dark to others stuck me as odd, as seemingly now (post calibration) my monitor should be showing colors/brightness properly... anyways long story short, started playing around with the screen resolution (the only variable left).
sure enough, the lower the resolution, the bigger the icons became, and as a result they became more differentiated from the colors around them, grew less dark and easier to look at.
so the problem I'm having with the graphics seems to mostly be the result of screen resolution making the background/border/icon group closer to each other, and the contrast between the colors and the grey making the icons appear darker than they are.

not sure if there's a way to make the icons' size proportional to the resolution rather than to have them at a fixed pixel size, but if there is that would be a nice touch.

Either way thank you very much Dragon star for helping me pin point the problem, and as a result find a workable solution (I can now just switch resolutions before hacking out a build). Thanks to you and ddo.rsmo.pt it's become much easier to work with the character planner. most appreciated.

my screen resolution at the time was @ 1920x1200, if that helps... though I assume the resolution at which they'd become eye straining and dark would change from person to person.

[Dragon.Star]

first of all yes, there are definitely too many red borders going around, thank you for asking
some enhancements can't be selected yet have no red border, the description highlights in red why it is that they cannot be selected. others do have a red border, even if it's quite clear (arrows) why they cannot be selected.
Even if we ignore the visual effect of the red borders, I'm having trouble seeing its contribution in terms of interface.
for example, if I can select a core enhancement, it has a white border, as all selectable enhancements do. perfect.
if I can't select it, and this is unique to arrow & core enhancements, it would either have no border, as with all other selectable enhancements, or it would have a red border, as with only arrow/core enhancements.
if it has a red border, selecting the previous in the chain would remove it, yet it won't necessarily make it selectable... so we've removed the red (i.e. the barrier) yet you still can't take it. why can't you? read the description, you'll see it there in red, as with all other enhancements... you see where I'm going with this
why have for core/arrow enhancements red borders signifying some prerequisites, and their descriptions containing other prerequisites, rather than just stick to a uniform logic and have all of the enhancements' prerequisites appear in the descriptions, as is the case with most enhancements already?

The reason here is we tried to simulate the Live game as much as possible. So basically a user would know without looking at a tooltip. why the could select or not select an icon. Short answer (White: Selectable, Red Border: Missing Feat, Enhancement or its locked out due to another enhancement, No border: means you meet requirements expect level/AP spent).

the problem for me was mainly the contrast between the bright red borders and what was already a greyed out icon, making them appear darker than they really are.

This I can try and fix for the next update, I will try and tone down the brightness of the red borders, that might help a bit. Will most likely test it out on Destinies first and then if people like it will update enhancement to be the same .

Either way thank you very much Dragon star for helping me pin point the problem, and as a result find a workable solution (I can now just switch resolutions before hacking out a build). Thanks to you and ddo.rsmo.pt it's become much easier to work with the character planner. most appreciated.

Your very welcome.

my screen resolution at the time was @ 1920x1200, if that helps... though I assume the resolution at which they'd become eye straining and dark would change from person to person.

I myself run in 1920x1080, but like you said, Eye straining is different from person to person.

[Missing_Minds]

A few feat suggestions.

In the feat listings when we are selecting a feat.

Check boxes.
1. Show only those you can take.
2. Show only the special ones you can take. (aka the yellow and green feats ala fighter/monk training, caster metamagics, fvs/cleric religious)
3. Show only filtered. Filtered being it would reduce the feats shown by a search. (probably just text looking like how the AH works.)

Replies aren't needed as they are only suggestions.

[Missing_Minds]

Did find two bugs in the UI though. Build 04.19.02

Main page

The blue/green level buttons on the main page.
The first column of them. If you click left of the "L" it does not select the level you just clicked on. This is column L1 to L10.

Columns L11 to L20 and L21 to L28 will select that level when clicked anywhere on that blue button.

-------------------------

Enhancement page.

In my example, I'm a tri class. Paladin, Fvs, Fighter.

Unset several of the trees in order to make the drop down menu long.
Now of the tree panels visible, click on the drop down menu of the 3rd one. (right most)

If you try to select the 3rd visible option of that tree, chances are very likely when you click on it you will instead select the 'Reset All Trees' button due to the size/placement of the button.

[Ron]

Did find two bugs in the UI though. Build 04.19.02

Main page

The blue/green level buttons on the main page.
The first column of them. If you click left of the "L" it does not select the level you just clicked on. This is column L1 to L10.

Columns L11 to L20 and L21 to L28 will select that level when clicked anywhere on that blue button.

Okay, thanks, I'll take a look at it.

Enhancement page.

In my example, I'm a tri class. Paladin, Fvs, Fighter.

Unset several of the trees in order to make the drop down menu long.
Now of the tree panels visible, click on the drop down menu of the 3rd one. (right most)

If you try to select the 3rd visible option of that tree, chances are very likely when you click on it you will instead select the 'Reset All Trees' button due to the size/placement of the button.

Huh, I thought we had already fixed that. We'll take another look at it.

Has anyone noticed any issues with the number of skill points available? I somehow ended up with more skill points in game than the planner indicated that I should (with a Warforged Arty build). Has anyone else seen this? I may have to take another look at how skill points are being calculated.

[Missing_Minds]

Huh, I thought we had already fixed that. We'll take another look at it.

Has anyone noticed any issues with the number of skill points available? I somehow ended up with more skill points in game than the planner indicated that I should (with a Warforged Arty build). Has anyone else seen this? I may have to take another look at how skill points are being calculated.

I don't know really. I've made two builds off near the same character. one from scratch with this build, and one from scratch in the previous release. The previous release save file screams at lvls 19 and 20 that something is wrong (what I have no clue) but reports -80 skill points spent. I don't recall having spent points at all.

The from scratch version of the file (I made class lvl split tweeks) doesn't have that issue.

I typically choose my skills on the fly. And... I want to say that more in game vs generator has existed for a while actually. I always figured it was just me, but the few times I have i think i did end up with more in game. I never tried to figure out what happened to verify a how and what.

edit: huh.. now that file reports -99 and -97 skill points to spend in the latest build vs -80 in the previous.
*does a beyond compare on the two files* Well.. I see why the skill reports what it does. not certain how that happened...

Instead of the last two lines of SKILLRAISE: being...
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
it is
0, 0, 0, 0, 7, 3, 0, 18, 1, 0, 18, 10, 0, 10, 10, 0, 3, 9, 0, 11, 3,
0, 24, 1, 0, 15, 1, 0, 15, 3, 0, 9, 1, 0, 21, 1, 0, 5, 3, 0, 1, 1,
Which means I guess at some point I tried to spend points, but that spread seriously doesn't make any sense to me at all. Assuming alignment, that would be near impossible to have spent in the planner I would have thought.

I'm just going to blame the user and ignore it myself, and just redo characters from scratch as needed.

[Ron]

Interesting. What is the version number of the save file (it's at the top of the file)?

I wonder if we have a load/save issue with skill points.

[Kenaustin]

One thing I did notice with the 04.19.02 build was that loading my Rogue's save file, generated by the last 3.xx build, resulted in 11.5 ranks in Spellcraft instead of 23 ranks in UMD.

There is definitely something going wrong with skill point allocation..

[Nanith]

I leveled up my TR last week. I received my extra skill point from my +2 tome at level 7 rather than level 8 when it used to kick in.