The experiment, Build a Ranger, selecting everything on the Class tab (Class, Build, Fighting Style and Ranger Option) then use "Choose for Me" for everything else. Here's how that went, tab by tab:
Race: Wilden. Has a bonus to Dex and Wis, the perfect two stats. yay! nothing wrong here.
Details: Lone Wolf Paragon path? wtf? Isn't that a str based melee path? Can we do better for Epic Destiny? Actually yes. Prison of the Winds is not only good for an Archer, but its also a favourite of mine. Deity: Gruumsh. Background: Wilder - Hunted (Trained in bluff). These two I really don't care about.
Abilities: 18 Dex, 14 Wis, 11 Con, 10 Str, 10 Int, 8 Cha. Solid choices. Dex and Wis get maxed. They did good here.
Skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal and Religion. Why no Perception, that's a real easy default choice for any class with a decent wis. Bluff's also a weird one, not sure why they took it. Perhaps because it was chosen with the background?
Powers: Not going to go through all the levels, just the final ones at lvl 30.
At-Will Attacks:
- Nimble Strike. A decent choice.
- Careful Strike. WTF? Isn't this the worst at-will in the game? And isn't Twin-Strike one of the best? If we're going to be suggesting powers for people that would seem like an obvious choice.
Encounter Attack Powers:
- Thundertusk Boar Strike. Not a bad power, but level 3. Are you sure there's nothing better by level 30?
- Hawk's Talon. I know there's better powers to choose from at lvl 7, yet this power is not only suggested, but stays around till level 30?
- Unstable Gash. Wow an actually high level power. yay! wait... what? It's a str based melee attack? So the highest level power is actually the worst. In fact I'd say the lvl 3 encounter is the strongest one picked.
Daily Attack Powers:
- Excruciating Shot. Hey look, another low level power survived to lvl 30. What's with that?
- Attacks on the Run. Okay, so this is actually a top choice for level nine. Nice. I'm sure there's stronger by level 30, but still I can understand keeping it around.
- Brutal Tempest. So what does the glorious lvl 29 daily slot bring us? A Beast attack power. Wow, it's a completely unusable power. Shouldn't there be some kind of check for that?
Utility:
- I'm not going to bother going through the utilities one by one. They're not great choices, but they're all at least usable. The one odd bit is that there's only one encounter utility power, the rest are dailies. You'd think Encounter Utilities would be a more popular choice, or at least a better balance between them.
- The Power List: Crucial Advise, Skilled Companion, Open the Range, Diehard, Fleet of Foot
Feats:
They did a fairly good job here. Very few feats which I would consider Bad. I think they actually put some thought into this section. However they didn't get Bow Mastery, and they took Weapon Expertise (Bow) instead of Bow Expertise (which is strictly superior).
The List: Weapon Expertise (Bow), Weapon Focus (Bow), Lethal Hunter, Improved Initiative, Initiate of the Faith, Predatory Action, Point-Blank Shot, Seize the Moment, Bleeding Precision, Combat Anticipation, Prime Quarry, Sly Hunter, Martial Master, Peerless Hunter, Epic Resurgence, Staggering Shot, Correcting Aim, Surprise Action.
Equipment:
+6 Lightning Strike Bow: Kinda weak. Don't see why this is a lvl 30 item, or why it would be chosen over many other options.
+6 Counterstrike Elderhide Armor: Well at least it's +6, but once again a fairly weak choice.
+6 Amulet of False Life: Not a bad choice, thought there are better. Certainly good for a suggested option.
That's it. The auto-buy gear option didn't buy anything else, leaving all the accessories to the player.
hmmm... looks like it actually says that auto add will just randomly give you the items you are entitled to. So it's behaving as advertised.
Overall, not a bad idea, but you have to make sure the the CB actually picks powers that don't screw you over. There's no reason to pick a paragon path that relies on a stat that's of no use to your class. Sure the guys over at CO do that sometimes, but they have a good reason for it. Once you've taken care of that picking stuff that works well together is a great next step.
What I would suggest, add stat flags to each build (ie. Archer Primary Dex, Secondary Wis, Tertiary n/a) and the same for each paragon path. Make sure that the primary stat for a path is either the primary or the secondary for the build before selecting it.
After that you can go through and flag powers and paths for general goodness, to make sure that no bad ones get chosen. I'd hire some data entry temp to go through the CO guides and flag powers that are below black as "don't suggest" and flag any thing that's light blue or gold as "lean towards these". Then you have a real easy criteria to sort on. You can even add another flag for complexity. Any powers that tend to have rules confusion, or are fairly long and complicated can get flagged here and skipped over when making suggestions.
Anyway, I understand that this is a new product, and that not all the bugs are fixed (though this should really be a free beta test rather than a paid service with the quality it's at right now, but that's beside the point), and that having a good auto pick system isn't a high priority. However you really need it to be performing much better than this, or new players will soon be having little fun with their characters who have powers that they can't actually use. In the mean time I'd really suggest renaming "Choose for Me" to "Choose Randomly" so players don't think they're actually getting a decent character.
Such a system would be one interesting benefit of the new online model.
I do like the idea of analyzing the character database for common trends and making suggestions based on what other players who are building similair characters have taken. That would actually be a really cool system.
gave me a real fright to see them believe that str+dex is best for (tome) wizard stat update at lvl 4
However you really need it to be performing much better than this, or new players will soon be having little fun with their characters who have powers that they can't actually use. In the mean time I'd really suggest renaming "Choose for Me" to "Choose Randomly" so players don't think they're actually getting a decent character.
I don't think that you will be having many new players with level 30 characters. And if I had players choosing random powers at that level, I'd be a little leary of playing with them, anyhow.
Don't get me wrong, the CB is mired in mediocrity. It's a good write-up, but a more fair and potentially accurate test would be test new characters from levels 1 to 5 and maybe up to 10.
However you really need it to be performing much better than this, or new players will soon be having little fun with their characters who have powers that they can't actually use. In the mean time I'd really suggest renaming "Choose for Me" to "Choose Randomly" so players don't think they're actually getting a decent character.
I don't think that you will be having many new players with level 30 characters. And if I had players choosing random powers at that level, I'd be a little leary of playing with them, anyhow.
Don't get me wrong, the CB is average at best. It's a good write-up, but a more fair and potentially accurate test would be test new characters from levels 1 to 5 and maybe up to 10.
It may be true that there are not a lot of new players with characters at level thirty, I do know that in my group we have a few players who don't like going through and picking everything and would probably be quite happy having a choice seleted automatically, or even just a good filtered list with two or three choices.
I agree with you that the early levels should be a priority, as that's where this feature is most likely to be used by new players. However its also easiest to set up for early levels. Once again looking at my group as an example, the players tend to grab easy to spot good feats like expertise, toughness, weapon focus, etc... as they level up, but then they get to a point where they have no idea what to take next. There's a lot of feats and most of them are rather conitional in their uses, and having a good way to narrow down the range of choices would really be useful.
Perhaps Wizards should ask CO to help em out with some quick feat lists. I'm sure they'd be happy to help, and it would make the CB much better
I'm sure they'd be happy to help, and it would make the CB much better
I was an optimist going in. Not so much now. There are a lot more issues than the auto-builder, unfortunately.
We are getting this Character Builder from the source: Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons and Dragons, themselves. This should be the penultimate character building utility and experience on every front. That should be the vision and that should be the execution. Anything less should be an embarassment.
When I crack a new book from Wizards, I'm typically impressed with the quality and quantity of the work, from content to construction. I am engrossed and my imagination is sparked. The Character Builder should be inspired by this very same experience.
It's not. It's more expired than inspired. It's an average utility. Coming from Wizards, it should be the best. Tools like this promote copyright and licensing infringement. They should be releasing tools that are borderline revolutionary, and at least so good that it would be a waste of time for 3rd parties to even try to produce.
It just doesn't have any soul.
*headdesk*
I was an optimist going in. Not so much now. There are a lot more issues than the auto-builder, unfortunately.
We are getting this Character Builder from the source: Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons and Dragons, themselves. This should be the penultimate character building utility and experience on every front. That should be the vision and that should be the execution. Anything less should be an embarassment.
When I crack a new book from Wizards, I'm typically impressed with the quality and quantity of the work, from content to construction. I am engrossed and my imagination is sparked. The Character Builder should be inspired by this very same experience.
It's not. It's more expired than inspired. It's an average utility. Coming from Wizards, it should be the best. Tools like this promote copyright and licensing infringement. They should be releasing tools that are borderline revolutionary, and at least so good that it would be a waste of time for 3rd parties to even try to produce.
It just doesn't have any soul.
I will admit that I preferred the old CB, warts and all, to the new one, but really ... you are taking this way too seriously. WotC is part of a corporation (Hasbro); they're not going to do things as cheaply as possible to minimize expenditure. This is simply a fact of life, the way things are.
Yeah, it would be nice to think that a little extra expenditure now would result in a wider profit margin though quality, but that's now how corporations think. The short-term is everything.
The first rule of getting through life: lower your expectations of everything.
The 'pick for me' option in the old CB was regularly pretty darn stupid.
Valid point. It's more of a problem here because picking stuff yourself is SO laborious.
Feats were where it really shined though. I got such gems as:
-Expert Charioteer [Arena Fighting]: All this does is provide benefits when using certain at-will powers. At-will powers that it DID NOT PICK.
-Mounted Combat: Combined with the above, it seems to have a very specific idea of what kind of campaign this is.
-Zombie Veteran [Heritage]: Provides a +2 bonus to Athletics checks to escape grabs, and more benefits when using at-will powers that the character doesn't have.
-Didn't choose anything for a level 2 feat; I had to click again to make it fill that one in after it had already chosen all the others. That's when it chose Expert Charioteer, as if to spite me.
Gear selection was similarly terrible. As I mentioned, it chose a Greatsword despite the majority of powers requiring either a free hand or two weapons. Adding insult to injury, it chose the Farbond Spellblade enchantment, which does nothing above a plain Magic Weapon for any class other than Swordmage.
I had 11 Charisma, and it chose a trick that gave me a bonus based on my Charisma modifier. Or as it politely reminded me +0.
O.o
What is beyond my understanding, is that nobody of them seems to be able to read threads in message boards.
It would take 5 minutes per class to look up the Gold options in char op and probably 15 minutes to feed them in the Character Builder
And why they still use these maxed out primary stat builds is also totally beyond me.
I have no sympathy for anyone who picks "Choose for me" in either version of the CB.
You reap what you sow. If you put zero effort into building your character, you will end up with a zero for a character -- and you will deserve it.
I have no sympathy for anyone who picks "Choose for me" in either version of the CB.
System mastery is great for some groups but sometimes you just want to throw something quick together, and sometimes you genuinely don't know what you want (due to being new to the game or just indecisive). "Choose for me" should be a useful option, not just a random pick.
You reap what you sow. If you put zero effort into building your character, you will end up with a zero for a character -- and you will deserve it.
I have no sympathy for anyone who picks "Choose for me" in either version of the CB.
System mastery is great for some groups but sometimes you just want to throw something quick together, and sometimes you genuinely don't know what you want (due to being new to the game or just indecisive). "Choose for me" should be a useful option, not just a random pick.
Aye. Sometimes you just need a fill-in character, a quick DM-controlled character, or are introducing someone new to D&D and want to give them a taste of the game without burning an hour or so of your gaming session.
At-Will Attacks:
- Careful Strike. WTF? Isn't this the worst at-will in the game?
Not any more.
I don't disagree wth you other points, by the way, "Pick For Me' often results in sub-optimal choices. That just isn't one of them. Any more.