A new and improved Character Builder

[NearNihil]

Hello!

Ever since I started playing again after Nexus War I've been theorycrafting a lot. If any of you are familiar with EVE Online - I spent a lot of time in Pyfa. And so the Character Planner linked at the top was a godsend - easily seeing what I could do with a character. I started making spreadsheets to see where I could shift skill around to make the best I could. But I really severely missed the option to import and export builds to share my creations. So I made my own! The devs have also graciously made APIs available to use (seriously, big shout out to them, this whole project would have been infinitely more painful without the support), so everything in NearNihil's New Thing(tm) is - should be, anyway - up-to-date with any patches as soon as they hit.

You can find the app over at:

https://nexus-clash-character-builder.herokuapp.com/

It's still a work-in-progress, as the interface isn't the prettiest and there's touches of wonkiness here and there, but I've been loving the project and should address any issues reasonably quickly as they are brought up.

Features:

• Plan your characters' builds!
• Skills updated as soon as a patch hits, automagically!
• Share builds by exporting & importing them! Both a downloaded file and a "magic build code" (a "base64" version of the build) you can put in your notepad or wherever. Try it with what I came up with for a melee Seraph!

  Code: Select all

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  I can heartily recommend putting a "magic code" like this on your character's Pad (it's next to the Inventory when logged in) to organise builds!
• Import anyone's current build by copying & pasting their character link in the import box and clicking the button! Try it with mine! clash.php?op=character&id=14044
• Ranks are supported, level 30 characters rejoice!
• See what the skill's effects are before you choose!

Future plans

• Stats being summarised (such as predicted total HP, MP, soaks, that kind of stuff) would be amazing to have. However, the server side is not ready for that yet.
• Spruce up the UI somewhat so it looks fancy. It's pretty... barebones right now.
• I'd like to be able to show all the various stats items, armor, and weapons have. For example, be able to show that a First Aid Kit heals 5HP per use without bonuses, but 20HP in a Stronghold with Surgery.
• In the same vein, being able to compare what an enchanted sword does on one build versus an innate weapon with all the bells and whistles on another would be pretty neat. Damage per AP, MP, HP, what kinds of defences are affected (auras, dodge, evasion)...

Known issues

• Due to the nature of the beast, sometimes you'll get a message about "connection to the server has been lost" after a while of not interacting with the website. This should fix itself after a second or two, but if it doesn't, refreshing the page should. Your build will be gone in the second case though.
• Mutually exclusive skills exist (IB, DO), but the API doesn't include those things so you'll just have to read the skill descriptions.

So yeah! Let me know what you think, feature requests and bug reports are most welcome!

[plum]

This is really awesome, thanks for putting it together!

[elimyx]

This is amazing, first of all. I like the layout of this a lot better then the current planner.

That said - would it be possible to add Exploration Badges to the list of toggles? That's a pretty hefty CP chunk for a lot of people, even if they don't max 'em out.

[NearNihil]

That said - would it be possible to add Exploration Badges to the list of toggles? That's a pretty hefty CP chunk for a lot of people, even if they don't max 'em out.

The API gives me all of the badges, including things like "you've died 10 times, congratulations!". Those don't grant cp, and there's no easy way to distinguish them. I'll probably make a temporary thing until then where you can just put "I have 30/49 exploration badges, so give me those points please" later today though

Also, spells were recently added on the dev side so that's wip too. SoonTM!

EDIT: Exploration badges now have a box for 'em. Imported characters get a best-guess amount (aka "how many badges would they need to make the build work").

[elimyx]

The Exploration Badge box works wonderfully! Thank you <3

[NearNihil]

Updated to use Spells! Interface is, ahem, rudimentary and descriptions are missing. I'll work on that later. But at least there's a list now, and it should count all the numbers properly!

[roly]

This is amazing! Thank you for taking the time to make everyone's life a little nicer.

[Nightwielder]

wow! this is really great!

[Weirdomen]

This is super useful! Thank you!!

[NearNihil]

I updated the thing, spells now have a nice description when you hover over them with the mouse and the categories have been re-done so they group by damage type instead of whether it's offensive, defensive, etc.

Next up: The ability to export (and subsequently import) builds in a human-readable format, so that builds made using the tool can be pasted into the Pad without having to put it back into the builder to figure out what it was that you wanted.