DDO Character Planner

[Ordinary]

Hello there,

I have been developing a DDO character planner for some time now and think it is well worth sharing with the community.
Please provide feedback or any bug reports.

Updated to U58
Latest release is: 1.0.0.184 (17th March 2023)

It comes without a dedicated installation program, so its an unzip job.
You may need to install a 3rd party Microsoft package to get the software to run.
Solution: Requires Visual C++ redistributable package 2010 for Windows (x86)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/down...s.aspx?id=5555

Current features are:

How to use guide as a PDF
Ability spend
Skill points and new skill spend dialog and a new view
Tomes (skill and ability)
Feat selection (and a custom ignore list)
Past lives (heroic, racial, iconic and epic)
Enhancement trees
Spells
Caster Levels
SLAs
Immunities
Epic destinies
Self and Party buffs
Special ability DCs can now be viewed
Set stacks ans set suppression by special augments
Notes can be added to a character
All level 20+ gear is supported except for random weapons and some TOEE items (which are slowly being filled out).
Configurable forum export.
Sentient weapon Filigrees supported for main hand weapons and Minor Artifacts
Gear import from the DDO Named Gear Planner application

A link to the project releases can be found in my signature.

See other posts in this thread for changes in each version.

Please report any problems either in this thread or on the GitHub repository

Maetrim of Cannith

[Stoner81]

Just wanted to say I hope everything works out for it dude unfortunately I don't have time to help test this out and help you

Stoner81.

[Ordinary]

As I seem to be unable to edit the first post. Progress as follows:

Fate points and twists of fate now working.
Many enhancement trees updated to the recent version
Epic destiny effects for 8/12 trees now have an initial first pass added.
Its gear/items for the next big push.

Currently only have 1 alpha tester. Seems like this project is super popular! ;p

[mpetrarca]

As I seem to be unable to edit the first post. Progress as follows:

Fate points and twists of fate now working.
Many enhancement trees updated to the recent version
Epic destiny effects for 8/12 trees now have an initial first pass added.
Its gear/items for the next big push.

Currently only have 1 alpha tester. Seems like this project is super popular! ;p

I was wondering if I was the only person that could not edit their post, was thinking it might have been my gateway sever, nice to know it is not.

[Jyhdif]

I don't have the time to provide feedback on your specific program, but I am addicted to character planners. It was unclear from your post whether you were trying to develop a different type of character planner from the two main ones that are currently used (ElissDee's and Ron's/Tom.JonesJr's).

From my addiction to character planning, I have some experience with the gaps and differences I see in current planners:

-Gear layout added to character planner to allow some sort of mid/end-game data calculations (e.g. spellpower, stats, melee power, double-strike, AC, dodge, DCs for various abilities/spells, etc.) There is a gear spreadsheet on the forums somewhere that already has all the gear data entered as of ~July 2016 -- I have a copy, but can't find the forum post right now). Neither of the current planners have integrated a gear planner, although I believe Tom.JonesJr will be adding it soon to the new "Ron's Character Planner".
-I find Elissdee's character-planner-lite to be quick, and the forum export much clearer, but I really like the graphical enhancement selector of Ron's Character Planner (as I can't always remember the pre-reqs for the enhancements I want).
-A mobile character planner!! There is nothing out there right now for any mobile platform that I am aware of. I would use this all the time.
-Although it would be a lot of work, some sort of link to common build splits with descriptions might be helpful for the less-than-expert build planners (e.g. 6 fighter is often chosen for Kensai core +1 crit multiplier; Divine class 6 enables feat Blessing of Sylvanus for +2 crit range for mauls).

I am sure there are others, but those are off the top of my head.

[Ordinary]

Gear layout added to character planner to allow some sort of mid/end-game data calculations (e.g. spellpower, stats, melee power, double-strike, AC, dodge, DCs for various abilities/spells, etc.) There is a gear spreadsheet on the forums somewhere that already has all the gear data entered as of ~July 2016 -- I have a copy, but can't find the forum post right now). Neither of the current planners have integrated a gear planner, although I believe Tom.JonesJr will be adding it soon to the new "Ron's Character Planner".
-I find Elissdee's character-planner-lite to be quick, and the forum export much clearer, but I really like the graphical enhancement selector of Ron's Character Planner (as I can't always remember the pre-reqs for the enhancements I want).
-A mobile character planner!! There is nothing out there right now for any mobile platform that I am aware of. I would use this all the time.
-Although it would be a lot of work, some sort of link to common build splits with descriptions might be helpful for the less-than-expert build planners (e.g. 6 fighter is often chosen for Kensai core +1 crit multiplier; Divine class 6 enables feat Blessing of Sylvanus for +2 crit range for mauls).

I am sure there are others, but those are off the top of my head.

Some good suggestions here for features I actually have built in from the start. One of the aims of this planner apart from multiple gear layout support (you can switch dynamically) is to allow breakdowns of standard and non standard values that you should be able to see in game. A brief but not fully comprehensive list of things I want to add to these breakdowns include:

All Ability scores
All Skills
Saves (plus save sub types, e.g vs traps, poison)
Spells powers in all elements
DC's for all schools
Caster levels from spell types and classes
Energy resistance / absorption
PRR, MRR
Dodge, Dodge cap
AC
Double strike, Double shot
Melee/ ranged power
Fortification
Fort bypass, dodge bypass
Glancing blow chance/damage etc
Healing amp, repair amp, negative amp
Weapon attack bonus, damage, crit range, multipliers etc (e.g. 2.5[2d6] + 57 + 2d6 Light, 19-20 * 5, 15-18 * 3 etc), alternate stat bonus damage
Reaper trees supported, stances can be activated/deactivated

Basically, if its a non-monster specific number (e.g +2 damage vs giants) I want to be able to list all standard buffs to a particular effect, along with sources and bonus type. This will also list duplicate effects on items which are not helping.

A lot of this stuff is already working, but the totals are not yet true due to the fact that the gear section is missing and I am still building in the effects of the destiny trees.

I will also be providing a lot of common forum builds as example files with the first release once I have most of the features debugged and working.

[Jyhdif]

That sounds great!

The gear planner spreadsheet forum post I was thinking about is here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...er-Spreadsheet

It has all the values already entered for everything up to May of 2016, I believe, so it might save you some time.

[Ordinary]

Development continues. Although gear was my next major push, it was a scary section so I have been avoiding it for now.
Recent changes are:

All destiny tree effects added.
Double checked all feats against the wiki and added those which were missing and updated many others.
Stances broken out into their own window from the main dialog. They now support tooltips correctly.
Enhancement selection dialog now support tooltips,
Selected enhancement tooltips now show selected sub-enhancement tip
Missing spells added.
Feat tooltips now show for selected feats.
Monk stance bonus's now work correctly when you have Adept, Master and Grandmaster of forms.
A host of minor bug fixes most peeps wouldn't even notice but I did.
Started adding the special hidden stances which will be used with equipment (currently visible in UI for testing purposes)
Bonus Racial APs now work correctly.

Known Issues
Epic destiny stances seem to be broken in some way (they never show up).
Gear selection and effects missing

[Ordinary]

More work done:

Threat generation breakdown added
Movement speed breakdown added
Breakdowns for hirelings bonuses to:
Abilities
Hit points
Fortification
PRR
MRR
Dodge
Melee power
Ranged power
Spell power
Automatic feats selection now considers feats trained at the current level also
(this affects Composite plating when you take Mithral or Adamantine Body as a WF)
Amount per level effects added (e.g. Bard Movement speed in Swashbuckler)
Added racial completionist feat and ensure awarded/revoked correctly
Feat requirements now support optional Amount (i.e trained n times)
Build points updated to always be 32/34/36 (28/30/32 for Drow) - 28 pt option missing
Armor check penalties added to skills
Armor check penalties added to attack bonus's when non-proficient
Arcane spell failure (Armor) breakdown added
Arcane spell failure (Shields) breakdown added
Fixed cost issue for meta-magic enhancement in wizard-arch mage tree
Effects dependent on feats trained now work correctly (Dragonborn: Dragon Heritage)
Destiny stances now apply and revoke correctly
Caster level breakdowns added for:
artificer
cleric
druid
favored soul
paladin
ranger
sorcerer
warlock
wizard
Weapons now list critical attack/damage breakdowns
Power attack now applies effects for critical attack/damage

Still only have the one alpha tester

[Ordinary]

More work done today:
Feats, enhancements and destiny effects/descriptions updated for U36 (Battle Engineer TBD)
Spell resistance breakdown added
Weapon attack speed breakdowns added
Blinding speed feat effects added
Racial enhancement tree race icons now show correctly
Tactical breakdowns added
Assassinate
Stunning blow
Sunder
Trip
Ravager: Barbarian Power Attack now correctly requires the feat "Power Attack"
Crashes when selecting breakdown section headers fixed
Spell points for certain classes now do not erroneously include "Magical training" twice
Correct casting stat now used for bonus SP creation (previously I guessed)
Started creating Augments in preparation of gear work

[Ordinary]

So I was having trouble getting builds of this planner out to people. So decided to do it the same way Ron was with his planner. The project is now available on GitHub and can be found at:

https://github.com/Maetrim/DDOCharacterPlanner/releases

[EllisDee37]

My very first thought is that I don't love that you save settings to the registry. I would switch that to a datafile under User\AppData\Roaming.

Could you maybe record a demo video where you create a build from scratch, with classes, stats, feats, enhancements and destinies? It's fine if it's like 10 minutes long; I'd just like to see the intended workflow.

[Stoner81]

My very first thought is that I don't love that you save settings to the registry. I would switch that to a datafile under User\AppData\Roaming.

Or better still could it be kept in the same folder as the application that way it is far more portable and can be transferred easily from one computer to another? All of the tools I use for DDO are on my Google Drive so if I run them on the laptop it's always the latest version etc, it would be really cool if this could be done in a similar fashion.

Stoner81.

[EllisDee37]

Or better still could it be kept in the same folder as the application that way it is far more portable and can be transferred easily from one computer to another? All of the tools I use for DDO are on my Google Drive so if I run them on the laptop it's always the latest version etc, it would be really cool if this could be done in a similar fashion.

Agreed. My initial and immediate reaction was that Registry = bad, AppData = good, but you're right that for extract-and-run tools you download from the internet, ini files in the program folder are the way to go. (Typically xml files nowadays.) The primary reason is that users expect to be able to completely remove such tools by just deleting the application folder.

I avoid the registry so completely with my Lite tools that I actually spent time pulling my registry library out of the source code completely. I could associate file extensions with my programs, so that for instance if you double-click a build file in explorer it opens in character builder lite, but I don't want my tools to leave any trace behind on the user's machine if they decide to delete them.

[Ordinary]

Or better still could it be kept in the same folder as the application that way it is far more portable and can be transferred easily from one computer to another? All of the tools I use for DDO are on my Google Drive so if I run them on the laptop it's always the latest version etc, it would be really cool if this could be done in a similar fashion.

Stoner81.

The registry entries are a default place any MFC application saves its workplace too. It shouldn't be too hard to redirect these to a file. I'll add it to my list of things to do.
I actually never realised that peeps have such an aversion to info being stored there.

[EllisDee37]

The registry entries are a default place any MFC application saves its workplace too. It shouldn't be too hard to redirect these to a file. I'll add it to my list of things to do.
I actually never realised that peeps have such an aversion to info being stored there.

I have a personal hang-up about it, but most people don't really care. There are many advantages to the registry, but for extract-and-run tools the main selling points of ini files are:

• Clean: Easy for the user to completely remove all traces
• Portable: Users may want to run it from a thumb drive they carry around with them
• Compatible: Linux and Mac don't have a registry
• Stealthy: Less chance of getting dinged by your company's IT department if you want to run it on your work machine

I took my ini file to the next level just for kicks, where all three of my programs share the same Settings.txt file. That was trickier than I expected, but it ended up working pretty well.

My first impression of your planner is that it looks pretty sweet, btw. I just couldn't immediately figure a couple things out that left me stumped, which is why I'd love to see a demo video. (eg: I couldn't figure out how to make a 36pt build, which happened to be required for the build I was testing it with.)

[Ordinary]

My first impression of your planner is that it looks pretty sweet, btw. I just couldn't immediately figure a couple things out that left me stumped, which is why I'd love to see a demo video. (eg: I couldn't figure out how to make a 36pt build, which happened to be required for the build I was testing it with.)

I am not sure I have the tools to record a demo but I can write out some basics here.

Build points are dependent on the number of past lives you have. So to go from the base 32 you need to train a couple of these. These can be found in the special feats window.
To be able to select a class, you have to be the right alignment.
You can select up to 3 heroic classes in the level up window.
To train a class at a specific level, click the level x button to select the level and click it again to display a pop up menu which has the available classes listed. Note that when you set the class for level 1 by default, this will make all 20 levels that class, unless they are already set to a different one. So if you were doing a 1 rogue, 1 fighter, 18 ranger, I would choose the classes first, then set level 1 as ranger so all other levels default to that and then change the specific levels for rogue and fighter.
Feat selection drop lists will only list the feats that you qualify for in that slot.
Fate points for twists are calculated from the number of epic past lives and core levels in each destiny. By default each destiny has 0 APs to spend, but as the cores cost 0ap, as you train the core levels you gain 4ap to spend in the tree for each.
Twist drop lists only list the available trained enhancements from the non-active destiny.

The program will automatically revoke feats and enhancements if you change the required prerequisites.

Basically the planner is setup to allow you to change anything anywhere at any point, and it does its best to keep everything consistent.

[Stoner81]

The registry entries are a default place any MFC application saves its workplace too. It shouldn't be too hard to redirect these to a file. I'll add it to my list of things to do.
I actually never realised that peeps have such an aversion to info being stored there.

I think part of the issue is that many of the other tools folks have written don't use the registry so cloud storage becomes a very easy option for folks to use (I'd be lost without Google Drive now) so it's something that many folks have just gotten use to, on top of this there are folks like Ellis that just has a natural aversion to it but as he said most folks don't even care. Hell for that matter most folks don't even know what the registry is

I am not sure I have the tools to record a demo but I can write out some basics here.

There are loads of ways you can record and many are free, check out OBS Studio it does take a bit of setting up but there are loads of tutorials on Youtube for it

Anyway now that the planner is on Github I have downloaded it to have a look over and so far it looks really nice dude though not tried a build with it yet just not had the time but yeah looking great so far

Stoner81.

[EllisDee37]

I am not sure I have the tools to record a demo but I can write out some basics here.

The two I use for various reasons, both free to use:

Screen Recorder
Totally free. Doesn't handle scrolling very well (artifacts) but if you stick to pageup/pagedown it works fine.

IceCream Screen Recorder
Free up to a certain duration of video. (5 minutes? 10 minutes? I forget.) Handles scrolling fine.

Basically the planner is setup to allow you to change anything anywhere at any point, and it does its best to keep everything consistent.

During my initial run-through, I kept closing and opening the program trying to "reset" the workflow when choosing build points in case I missed the past life selector somewhere. Finally I just gave up and decided to go with 28pt, so then I went to feats. I wanted to pick power attack first, which wasn't available since on this final iteration I'd forgotten to choose stats. So I hit the + next to Str and the entire program stopped responding. Ended up having to kill the process in task manager.

[Ordinary]

The two I use for various reasons, both free to use:

Screen Recorder
Totally free. Doesn't handle scrolling very well (artifacts) but if you stick to pageup/pagedown it works fine.

IceCream Screen Recorder
Free up to a certain duration of video. (5 minutes? 10 minutes? I forget.) Handles scrolling fine.

During my initial run-through, I kept closing and opening the program trying to "reset" the workflow when choosing build points in case I missed the past life selector somewhere. Finally I just gave up and decided to go with 28pt, so then I went to feats. I wanted to pick power attack first, which wasn't available since on this final iteration I'd forgotten to choose stats. So I hit the + next to Str and the entire program stopped responding. Ended up having to kill the process in task manager.

To get to past lives their should be a window called "Special Feats" if its not visible it may be a stupidly small somewhere. Without the default layout its hard to spot these windows when they initially get spawned as 1 pixel wide.

One way to check this is to use the view ->Toolbars and docking windows menu. All windows that in theory are currently visible should have a tick next to them. You can try enabling/disabling the list present to hopefully show up the one your need.


As for the lock up issue. Its something I have seen in the past in regards to MFC getting itself stuck in some kind of redraw loop. It may be down to the layout you currently have of windows . I would turn them all off for the moment and then switch each on in turn, place it somewhere sensible for your layout. If its a section your not interested in (e.g. the equipment screen as its currently not working) you can just leave the window hidden.