October 2022

October 4

I'm not doing a good job of keeping focus on site progress lately, as you can probably tell by the gaps between updates recently. Events in games keep distracting me, plus a few other passing interests lately. I still have good progress to report on this update, at least. Here is what I have done in the last 2 weeks plus a few days:

Miscellaneous small patches

• Re-enabled data saving, so that the Armory would remember window positions/configurations and tab settings again. This has been off for a while now for testing purposes.
  
• Added the ability for the Armory to correctly calculate and display DEF when destroyed. It was sitting dormant and incomplete for so long, it is nice to have it working now.
  
• Implemented code for the site to be able to give warning/error messages when warnings/errors occur.
  

Site Settings window

• Gave Color Themes a default sort order, double sorted. Your own themes will be at the top of the list, sorted from newest to oldest. Built-in themes will be below those, also from newest to oldest.
  
• Fixed a small error that opened the New Theme prompt instead of the Edit Theme prompt when attempting to edit a theme you created.
  
• Gave the Edit Theme prompt a facelift, and added functionality to it. It was half-placeholder before, where only the name display could update, not the Theme ID display or public status checkbox.
  
• Added functionality to the Edit Theme prompt, to where it can actually save changes now.
  
• Loading a saved color theme will no longer jump you back to the top of the Color Themes Table.
  
• Importing color themes from others user is now possible, if they have set them to be public.
  
• Deleting saved color themes that you created is now possible. Default site color themes cannot be deleted.
  
• Implemented a safety so that if you somehow managed to keep a deleted theme as your active theme, the server would load the original site theme colors instead of failing to load anything.
  

Loadouts module:

• Gave loadouts a default sort order, from most recently saved to oldest. This will be able to be changed later, but not on initial release. The unsorted order was seemingly random, I don't know what logic it was following.
  
• Removed placeholder code for selecting icons for each saved loadout in the list. A placeholder fallback was being used because I hadn't added the icons for chars after Lethor to the sprite image.
  
• Fixed an issue from before I started using my new code for sprite images, that resulted in the weapon icons for saved loadouts being too big.
  

Profiles module:

• Gave Profiles a default sort order, from most recently saved to oldest. Same deal as Loadouts, will not be able to be changed on initial release.
  

This update period was a good example of why the To Do list is a very conservative estimate of the amount of work left to do. This only marked off around 5-6 things on the original list, the rest was stuff I decided needed improvement, or discovered didn't work at all as it was still placeholder.

The majority of this bout of work was on Color Themes and managing them. With this burst, it is now feature complete, and needs no more work before release (hopefully). It has been a long while since Color Themes came up, so I will recap a bit about how they work. When you first make an account, you will already have two themes you can select in the table, these are [Default] and [Crimson]. These are default themes to the site that are available to everyone automatically, and can't be edited or deleted. All of them have their name surrounded by [] to denote them. You can make copies of them, but you can't edit the originals.

Themes you yourself make can be named whatever, as long as it is 3-20 characters in length. Your themes list will show your own themes at the top, followed by the default site themes below them. Each of these two groups will also be sorted within themselves to have the most recent themes at the top. When you click Edit, you will be able to rename the theme, and/or change its public status. If you make the theme public, you can share the 8 digit hexadecimal ID shown on that prompt to others, and they will be able to import a copy of that theme. They will be able to make changes to it as if it was their own, but it will not change your copy. Importing a theme loads the theme as it currently is, not as it was when you made it public, so keep that in mind when sharing.

Aside from Color Themes, most of the other changes over this period were QoL improvements, aimed at making the Armory easier to use. I suspect even after release a lot of the first updates will be QoL.

I don't know what I plan to work on next, though I will probably go back to tidying up item data yet again. It is still a decent ways off being done. Here is the full remaining To Do list, though simplified a bit from my own copy:

• Find a background image(s) for the site
  
• Adjust the images and CSS of the site so that the main page texture can have its color changed by color themes, and so that the background images are tinted by it to blend in better
  
• Enable Notifications to work (This may be delayed until post-release depending on how complex it proves to be)
  
• Add some form of tutorial to help new users figure out the Armory, without being intimidatingly long.
  
• Investigate an issue with scrolling through tables on old browsers.
  
• Add toggles for the currently existing settings to the Settings window.
  
• Clean up item data.
  
• Add the Share tab (For sharing links as the v2 Armory could, albeit a hell of a lot shorter)
  
• Add the Buffs tab (Self-explanatory)
  

October 22

I've been occupied with doing events on two different online games, probably not the best idea but I', no genius. Today's update brings a massive detour from my previously intended work order, but it has a HUGE payoff in the long run. Today, I finished overhauling how you enter your base stats into the Armory. To a user, this probably seems like something mostly trivial, but I'm really happy with this one, and will be explaining why, in lots of detail.

First off, here is the previous incarnation of the Base Stats tab, say goodbye to it because it is never coming back:


Just like with the v2 Armory, you had to unequip absolutely everything to be able to enter accurate stats. Also just like the old Armory, if you had a VIP/VVIP buff active, or Partholon Vanguard, or something like a Fine Bath Soap, that got baked into your base stats too if you weren't careful. This is particularly vexing because these are also in the Buffs tab, and would also give stats there if selected. It was an unavoidable inaccuracy/hassle on all sides, but all of that is over.

Behold the new Base Stats tab:


As you can see right off, instead of asking you to degear, you now just need to open your title info ingame and enter the total title stats it shows you. You don't have to mess with your gear at all, so no risk of forgetting to reequip a Cadet Badge or epaulet. Since it is only title stats, this also means there is no way for buffs like VIP or soaps to get in the way.

Below the inputs for title stats, you have four select lists for your Redeemers progress. Each option in these lists will show the cumulative stats gained from that amount of progress when hovered on it. Their option names show how many times you would have to clear the raid to reach that amount of progress. This entry format will make it easier to quickly tack on those missing stats if planning builds based on future base stats.

All of these benefits, and ontop of that it has fewer inputs, meaning it is faster to fill in. Additionally, it takes up less page height, meaning it is easier to fit in on layouts. Wins all around!

If you are wondering how it works with just title stats and redeemers, it can do this because those are the only two variables in character stats at endgame. The Armory forcibly assumes your character is Lv. 110, and that all of your skills that raise your stats are maxed. It can then just add these onto your title stats (which will include Ein Lacher) and your Redeemers stat bonuses.

While updating the Profiles module to handle this new base stat setup, I took the opportunity to improve overall Armory consistency and redesigned the listings on the Profiles tab to be near identical to the listings for saved Loadouts. This also upped the amount of saved profiles visible at once from three to four. It looks like this now:



I experimented with more dense listings that also showed STR/AGI/INT/WIL, but some asking around in Discord led me to the conclusion that it was hard to understand, so I just kept it to this.

This rework to Base Stats did more than just all of that, though. From the very beginning, the v4 Armory was designed to have two modes of operation: Simple mode and Simulation mode. Simple mode is the Armory you've been seeing in every Dev Log, except any posts about the Titles module or the Skills module. You just enter your stats and go.

Simulation mode was planned to be massively more comprehensive (and massively slower to initially fill in). You'd fill in your skill ranks and titles individually, and it would calculate your stats off of that. This allowed much more complex capabilities, such as showing breakdowns of how significant titles/etc individually are to your stats, such as ATT. It could then show you how much more ATT (or any other stat) you were missing in total, or from some specific source. It would have had a complete repository of all titles, so it could have shown what was missing, and where to get it. It also avoided the issue with VIP/soap/etc that was mentioned above.

With this new base stat format, I can now officially declare Simulation mode obsoleted and no longer in development. That doesn't matter much right now, other than allowing me to streamline some code. However, later, this saves me an enormous amount of time and effort. I can just slowly integrate those into the Armory one by one, in a form that can be used piecemeal or in other completely different ways.

I plan to go back to item data (I'm saying this for I think a third time now), but who knows what QoL detour I might veer into next.