City of Data v2.0

[Bionic_Flea]

It is.  I don't remember changing it.  Is that the default?

[Carnifax]

27 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

Thank you @UberGuy and @Bionic_Flea. I think I figured it out.

 

Arachnos have the base modifier of 1.0 melee and 1.0 range.

 

Blasters have the base modifier of 1.125 range.

 

5.561 * 1.125 = 6.2561

 

So, the pseudo base damage for Enflame is 5.561. At least, that is a way to think of it.

 

Another example, controller range damage is .55.

 

5.561 * .55 = 3.0586

 

Yup, the pseudo base damage the Dev used when coding the condition values was 5.561. 

 

It's not really a BaseDam in the true sense though, in that if they changed Arachnos to have a 1.125 modifier Enflame wouldn't be affected, they'd have to remember to update Enflame to match. 

 

I assume this is a newish thing, otherwise they wouldn't have created lots of "AT specific" pseudopets for older powers like Tar Patch (for ages Masterminds incorrectly used the Corruptor Tar Patch because of this). 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Carnifax

[UberGuy]

 

4 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

It is.  I don't remember changing it.  Is that the default?

 

 

It should not be! Just checked, the current site code:

 

// Setting name and default value
always_prefer_at_none: ["always-prefer-at-none", false],

 

But if it ever was set, by me messing up that default or accidental click, it would remember it forever (until it was changed again.)

Edited May 5, 2021 by UberGuy

[UberGuy]

OK, this update is kind of a big one.

 

CoD can now show data for both Live ("Homecoming") and Alpha ("Cryptic")

 

The "revision" string in the top right of the screen is now clickable. When you click on it, a popup appears offering a link to change to other servers. Right now, the only two options are Live and Alpha.

 

 

 

Clicking anywhere outside of these links will dismiss them without changing your current data preference.

 

You can also change this on the settings screen. (This was the original way to do this, as the popup version was harder to implement.)

 

 

Full disclosure: CoD wasn't really designed for this sort of switch to be dynamic. While the data source was always configurable, the site was designed with the assumption that each data source would have its own dedicated site, and for that site the source would never "swap". This is what we did for a while with the alpha site, which originally hosted only alpha/Cryptic data. So the behavior of this feature is sort of limited. When you change data sources, it reloads the page, and now you're using that data source from then on until you change it back. Your browser history will not remember that previously viewed pages were viewed with a different data source. The ways of switching described above are the only ways to go back and forth.

 

Note however that if you want to compare a power between data sources, you can open it in two tabs or browser windows and switch one of them. The other view won't reflect the change in data source until you reload it.

 

Hotlinks to specific data

 

Recognizing that it may be useful to hotlink directly to a power as defined in a given datasource, without regard to how the viewer may be set up, the site accepts a URL query parameter on any page that causes it to display just that page using the specified data source.

 

Query parameters are things in a URL that come after a question mark, usually in the form of "name=value". If you have multiple query parameters, they are separated by the "&" character. For example:

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_melee.dark_melee.siphon_life&at=scrapper

 

This has a two query parameters

• power=scrapper_melee.dark_melee.siphon_life
• at=scrapper

 

Here's how you would specify that link should show live (Homecoming) data:

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_melee.dark_melee.siphon_life&at=scrapper&data=homecoming

 

and here it is for alpha (Cryptic) data:

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_melee.dark_melee.siphon_life&at=scrapper&data=cryptic

 

So you just add "&data=<SOURCENAME>", where "<SOURCENAME>" is currently either "homecoming" or "cryptic". (If there are no other query parameters, you would use "?" instead of "&".)

 

This should work on any page driven by game data - powercat/powerset/powers, sets, entities, and attribute/modifier pages.

 

If a URL conflicts with your current data source setting (eg: the URL points to alpha while you're set to view live) only that page will display using the data source given in the URL. Navigating away or manually removing the query parameter will revert you to your previous setting. 

 

There's no way to build these data links in the UI. You'll have to add the query parameter in the address bar or a text editor of some kind.

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by UberGuy
Naming convention updates

[UberGuy]

Very minor update to the above post - after chatting with some folks we decided it made more sense to call the Cryptic test server "Alpha". That's actually always been its designation, but during issue/page testing rounds a lot of us me included) have taken to calling it "beta". But there are totally different "beta" servers (Brainstorm and Paragon), so I'm jumping in early to correct the convention on CoD. The site and the post above have been updated to reflect this naming.

[Doomguide2005]

All the HCwiki links appear to be dead.  Do I need to do something on my end besides be patient while the HCwiki links to CoD2.0 are fixed?

[UberGuy]

Not sure what you mean. The links seem to be fine. The site seems to be working.

[Doomguide2005]

Okay, if I'm on the HCwiki looking at a power set description like their Gravity Control page.  If I scroll down to the section labeled "External Links" and then click on "Gravity Control" for Controllers at City of Data v2.0 I guess technically it works as in it opens a page where I see the top labeled City of Data v2.0 but none of the rest of it opens it remains blank unlike if I follow the link at the beginning of this thread, then click on the numbers just to the left of the help question mark on the far right.  And that number string doesn't appear on the page it takes me to from clicking on the Gravity Control on the HCwiki.

 

Does that help?

 

Edit: @UberGuyyeah looking at it more the links you're talking about above the Alpha and Cryptic "revision strings" don't exist on the City of Data banner I'm taken to when I click on the External Link on the HCwiki.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Doomguide2005

[UberGuy]

Ah, I was looking at the links on the main page, not the powerset pages. I didn't even know those existed.

 

That said, they seem to be working for me.

 

I see these links

 

 

For Controllers: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=controller_control.gravity_control&at=controller

For Dominators: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/powerset.html?pset=dominator_control.gravity_control&at=dominator
 

Edit: If those links directly above aren't working, the standard advice is to clear your browser's file cache. You don't need to reset cookies or anything else except cached files. Sometimes browsers really like to hold on to the backing data for CoD after it's changed, and when the data and the code are not in sync, that can really break the site's functionality.

Edited May 9, 2021 by UberGuy

[UberGuy]

Couple of small updates.

 

• Entities (critters) now show their group name. Previously, this was simply an integer value I wasn't sure how to use, but I figured out it was an index into a list of villain group definitions. I've added the ability for the Rust code to read these and use it to populate the critter's group name. As long as none of the groups are too huge, I plan to use this to build a page showing villain groups by name, with each name a link leading to pages for all the critters in the group. (Even if the groups are too big, I can still likely provide some pagination within each group.)
• Powersets containing powers that contain more than one power with the same display name now show the internal names of the powers in parenthesis next to to the power name - something that is already done with duplicate display names in a few other places on the site. This duplicate name situation never arises in normal player powersets, but it's sort of common in some critter powersets and it's basically standard in some of the Incarnate powersets.

[UberGuy]

On 3/11/2021 at 12:34 PM, Arbegla said:

I have an odd question, and the attributes from City of Data didn't really clarify it much.

 

For /traps Poison Trap, what is the duration of the cloud? According to the information posted,  when the power triggers, it creates two effects, one initial, and one after, that both have a hold aspect, but only the 'after' has the -regen/-rech, which lasts for 10 seconds. Is that 10 seconds from the time of the trap exploding, or 10 seconds from someone entering the 'cloud' that is created? I might've just been missing something. I also didn't see a trigger for the 'vomit' animation that happens, just a 2% chance for an extra mag 3 hold, though the vomit doesn't seem to be an actual hold, just an animation.

 

Any clarity would be appreciated from someone smart than me.

 

I realized I never responded to this post.

 

Both powers are Auto powers, so they both come on immediately when the secondary critter is summoned by the triggering of the trap. The "initial" effect will only ever activate once - it has a 1000s activation interval and the "triggered trap" critter only lasts 30s (as defined by its "Self Destruct" power, which goes off after a 30s delay). The debuff effects in the other power eacg last 10s but reactivates every 1s, with new debuffs replacing old ones - they don't add together.

 

There's nothing in there about the vomit because that's likely part of the hit FX applied to entities hit by one of the effects - I'm guessing it's the holds. CoD doesn't really do anything with animation data, so that's why you don't see anything there.

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by UberGuy

[AboveTheChemist]

I read through the thread to see if any of these issues were mentioned and didn't see anything (although I might have missed it), but I found a few oddities on some of the PVP set pages. An example from Gladiator's Javelin is below (with the set bonuses from the wiki page added at the bottom for reference):

 

 

1. It looks like it is only picking up the PvP-only set bonuses. The PvE+PvP bonuses are not listed.
2. The proc is just listed as 'Proc' rather than the actual proc name, although the proc name is listed correctly if you follow the link for the proc enhancement. This was true on some of the non-PvP set pages I visited as well
3. The icon on some of the set pages has an extra little 'tail' at the bottom. Having looked through the icons in the pigg files myself numerous times, I know that quite a few of the set icons have these, so I assume the icons are being pulled right out of the game data files. This might be on non-PvP set pages as well but I didn't check thoroughly for others

I just wanted to let you know in case you weren't already aware (although I'm starting to feel like I may have seen item 1 mentioned somewhere before). Thanks for all your hard work, this is such a great site!

[UberGuy]

9 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

1. It looks like it is only picking up the PvP-only set bonuses. The PvE+PvP bonuses are not listed.
2. The proc is just listed as 'Proc' rather than the actual proc name, although the proc name is listed correctly if you follow the link for the proc enhancement. This was true on some of the non-PvP set pages I visited as well
3. The icon on some of the set pages has an extra little 'tail' at the bottom. Having looked through the icons in the pigg files myself numerous times, I know that quite a few of the set icons have these, so I assume the icons are being pulled right out of the game data files. This might be on non-PvP set pages as well but I didn't check thoroughly for others

 

1. Definitely a bug. I'll look into that. It should be easy to fix. 🤞
2. That's intended. The table gives a list of high-level function for each piece, derived from the actual configuration of the boost, not its display name. For example, the boosts shown for each enhancement are figured out by really inspecting what the power does and aren't just from the boost's name - which can be wrong! I can tell that an enhancement has a proc in it programmatically, but naming the proc based on what it does is hard (damage is easy, debuffs not so much), so I didn't try. It's intended that you follow the link to figure out what it does. Check something like an LotG:+Rech and you'll see something similar for "Global".
3. I've noticed that too. I'm guessing its corruption happening when I extract them and convert them to PNG. At some point I need to dig into what's up there, but since it only happens to some of them, it's not been a high priority - especially since I'm using a 3rd party library for the conversion, so debugging it could be a challenge.

[UberGuy]

Updates!

 

• The PvP bonus bug #1 mentioned by @AboveTheChemist, above, is now fixed. It was a little more involved than I'd hoped, partly because I discovered quite by accident while testing the fix that not all PvP bonuses have "(PVP)" in their display names. So I had to add logic to test whether the bonus had a PvP "requires" expression, which involved changes further down the data manipulation stack than I expected to have to go to fix just the fact that I was displaying only one set bonus per incremental slot.
• The enhancement icon bug #3 above, is also fixed - I think. It turns out the funky image artifacts are not something my image manipulation code/library was introducing. Any image editor I loaded the raw DDS image data into showed those strange "extensions", so they seem to really be in the image data. Apparently, they don't appear in the game proper because it crops or masks them out. The icon files are 64x64 pixels in size, but the icons only ever use the first 44x44 or so. It was only icons which had image data all the way out to 44 pixels "edges" that showed the artifacts, which appeared to be a duplication of those edge pixels out to the full 64 pixel edge. I fixed the issue by masking out the unused pixels in "e_icon_*" images.
• Powerset pages now have a larger table showing not just the list of power names (as links) in the powerset, but now also shows the short help for each power next to its name/link. See the image below. Because the table is wider, it now has the row hover highlighting similar to that seen on powers pages. Thanks to @zenblack for the suggestion to display additional info next to each power. The short help for powers is pretty much the minimum I could display here, but it was simple to add the short help strings for each power directly to the powerset data. (The powerset page does not load the full data for each power - some powersets, like Temporary Powers, would have to load hundreds of powers.) Note that while the short help is a decent functional description for most player powers, it often sucks for critter powers and some "internal" stuff like internal implementation for Incarnate powers.

          

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by UberGuy
Typos

[Number Six]

16 minutes ago, UberGuy said:

Updates!

 

• The enhancement icon bug #3 above, is also fixed - I think. It turns out the funky image artifacts are not something my image manipulation code/library was introducing. Any image editor I loaded the raw DDS image data into showed those strange "extensions", so they seem to really be in the image data. Apparently, they don't appear in the game proper because it crops or masks them out. The icon files are 64x64 pixels in size, but the icons only ever use the first 44x44 or so. It was only icons which had image data all the way out to 44 pixels "edges" that showed the artifacts, which appeared to be a duplication of those edge pixels out to the full 64 pixel edge. I fixed the issue by masking out the unused pixels in "e_icon_*" images.

 

Just want to double check that you're doing this the correct way. Sounds like you were originally ignoring the texture header in favor of the width/height in the embedded DDS, which is wrong, but a number of the existing public tools do it wrong that way. The right way is to use the width/height in the texture header as the authoritative size of the texture; the values in the DDS are only used for describing the storage format.

[UberGuy]

23 minutes ago, Number Six said:

 

Just want to double check that you're doing this the correct way. Sounds like you were originally ignoring the texture header in favor of the width/height in the embedded DDS, which is wrong, but a number of the existing public tools do it wrong that way. The right way is to use the width/height in the texture header as the authoritative size of the texture; the values in the DDS are only used for describing the storage format.

 

Yep, that means I'm doing it wrong / the hard way. I'll inspect that header instead of just skipping it.

[UberGuy]

OK, the icons are now their "real" size. Instead of often being smaller icons in the top left corner of a consistently 64x64 image, they're now cropped to their useful size based on header data I didn't realize I should be parsing until @Number Six pointed it out.

 

As is often the case after a change like this, you might have to clear your browser data cache to see the corrected site. The worst case scenario if you don't is just that the icons on boostset pages will look funny, with the color background and the boost icon being the wrong sizes and/or offset incorrectly.

 

Other icons throughout the site mostly should not change. Most power icons already had a real and internal size that matched, so the code correction did nothing to them. The boost / boostset icons displayed on powers pages were (accidentally) already pre-rendered in a way that handled the raw images correctly, given that none of them had the visual artifacts that sent me down this road.

 

The only other result of the updates is that power icons on power pages for powers that are boosts will appear larger now, since they are no longer scaled down due to including extraneous blank space.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by UberGuy
Typo

[UberGuy]

New update.

 

The site can now display data about powers which share "recharge groups" and "exclusion groups".

• A "recharge group" is one in which all powers share a linked recharge trigger. When any one of the powers starts recharging, they all do.
• An "exclusion group" is one in which only one power can be running at a time. Usually all such powers are toggles. When any one of the powers turns on, any other one running turns off.

   

 

The group names are links to pages that show all the powers in that group, and each power entry in the list is a link to its power page.

 

This update seems to touch bits of the site that really resist page refreshes picking up the new code. I had to clear my browser file cache to see the updates, both in my local dev environment and on the live site.

 

Next up:

• Power lifetime settings (usually present on things like temp powers or other granted powers)
• Dark / light theme switching

[UberGuy]

Pushed out a couple of small changes.

• Displayed recharge times for powers were being rounded to the nearest whole number, even though the raw data wasn't this way. This has probably been going on since I created the site. Props to @Bopper for noticing and reporting it.
• Added a requested feature - each accepted boostset category icon on the top right of every powers page is now a link to that boostset category's page. Thanks to @Captain Powerhouse for suggesting this. It hadn't occurred to me that this was now possible since I had added pages for boostset categories, and it was quite easy to add.

[UberGuy]

One more update for the weekend, but this one is just a heads-up to be on the lookout for any unexpected changes.

 

In order to prepare the site for "theme" capability, (specifically, to allow for a "dark" color scheme for the site), I had to go through all the site's styling and convert hard-coded color specifications into variables. There are a surprising number of unique colors on the site, and a lot of places where colors are declared in order to handle things like mouse-over color changes or alternating table row colors. I made some small changes to the site's current styles, consolidating some similar-but-not-identical color schemes down to shared values and then cleaned out some unused cruft from the CSS.

 

While I made spot checks as I made changes and these suggested I didn't break anything major, given the number of styles I touched I may easily have missed something. There's also a small chance the changes won't work for folks due to older browsers, though I don't think it's likely anyone is using the ones that would break. (A lot of other stuff on the site would probably break first.) If anything is busted, it will  most likely manifest as missing colors, especially on dynamic events like mouse-over, input focus, etc.

 

If you do see anything weird, try clearing your browser's file cache first, as getting just the updated CSS or just the updated HTML would definitely look wrong. The changes are at pretty basic places that browsers shouldn't cache weirdly, though - I didn't have to do any cache clearing during my testing.

 

I plan to let the current setup bake for about a week and watch for complaints of breakage. If nothing crops up, I'll leverage the existing changes to enable switching to a dark mode theme. In the meanwhile, I'll use my local dev environment to work on actually creating a color scheme for that theme which hopefully won't look awful. 

[UberGuy]

This is what happens when I take a day off for recovering from my 2nd COVID-19 shot, but don't actually feel that bad.

 

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by UberGuy

[Bionic_Flea]

You should be kinda sick more often!

[UberGuy]

I have a bunch of new features ready. I haven't seen anyone complain about issues with the site, so I'm going to aim for a deployment of the new code on Friday, with the idea that cache expiry settings will make the new version of the site ready for the weekend.

 

Meanwhile, I'm working on the help pages, which are woefully out of date.

[UberGuy]

I may not have a lot of time tomorrow morning, so I've gone ahead and deployed the updated site.

 

Apologies to anyone who tried to visit it in the last 20 minutes or so, as an updated deployment script basically broke the site by screwing up the mime-type on all the site's files. Modern browsers aren't fans of executing Javascript that isn't marked with the right mime type.

 

I have not finished updating the help (I've barely started) so for now, here's the lowdown on what's new.

 

Dark/Light Mode Selection

First, the biggie: the new Dark theme feature is now live. The easiest way to get to it is via the little moon/sun icon on the header bar. (In Light mode the icon is a moon, and in Dark mode it is a sun.)

 

Light mode is still the default, but this icon is in the header on every page, so it very easy to change. Clicking it will change the theme between light and dark on the fly with no page reload.. Like all the site's settings, this is persistent per-browser. (Per user if you use browser IDs/profiles.)

 

You can also access this setting on the main settings page, along with another related setting. (See the next section for details.)

 

A few icons and other site visuals were updated to be more visible / legible in both display modes.

 

Colorful Power Details

There is a new feature where the "long help" for powers is displayed using in-game color codes, just like you would see if you looked at the power info window. (See the teaser preview three posts up.) This "Colorful" mode is always enabled in Dark mode.

 

If you prefer Light mode, you can still display the colorful power descriptions using the 2nd setting in the screenshot above - this is enabled by default, so if you don't like it, you can go to the settings page to turn it off. This feature, called "Colorful", works by painting the top-of-page power details in a panel that uses dark mode. If you want to use classic Light theme without the colors, the alternative setting is called "Monochrome", which simply removes all colors from the text. Several of the in-game colors are simply illegible on a white background, so you aren't given the option of displaying color on Light mode without the dark panel.

 

Breadcrumbs

There has always been an icon on all the powers, powerset and power category pages which, when hovered over, allowed you to see the whole power "path", including which ATs could access a given power category. The old icon was hard to see in dark mode, and had always required extra interaction to access the links. I only did that because originally I was concerned about there being space on the page for the breadcrumbs, but as the pages has evolved it's clear that space does exist. Rather than update the old icon, I've simply removed it. For powers and powersets, the breadcrumbs are more obvious, sitting in the open right next to the power name. (See the picture in the next section below.)

 

The list of ATs that map to a power category is still a popup icon (and I realize I forgot to change it so it's easier to see in Dark mode). This is because that list is sometimes quite long, like in the case of the Pool category. Displaying that as a single breadcrumb isn't practical, so the old icon remains there. I'll fix its size and/or color though.

 

 

"Lifecycle" Settings

Many powers, especially temp powers or "sub powers" granted to implement special aspects of other powers (like Super Speed's Momentum) have special settings that limit their use, either by limiting how many charges you get, how long they stay around, or how long you can run them (for toggles). These were never displayed previously, but there is now a power "Activation Details" icon which shows the details. The icon is a clock face encircled by rotating arrows.

 

Powers that Ignore Max Toggle Distance

A number of toggle powers exist which, once cast, let you run the toggle at any distance. This is now displayed on the Activation Details. The icon is an pale blue infinity symbol.

 

Alpha/Live Data Links

When I first added the ability to switch between Alpha and Live data, I also added the ability to create links that specify which of those data sources to use when displaying the data. However, you had to create those URLs manually. Now there's a way to get the site to create them for you. When you click on the "revision" string on the top right of the header bar, there is a new link you can click on to place source-specific link to the current page in your clipboard.

(Known issue - you can currently do this from pages like the settings and help screens, where it makes no sense. That's harmless and the resulting links still work, so I will fix it later.)

 

Better Cache Control

Asking folks to clear their brrowser cache after major updates is not very good web site etiquette. I've tuned the cache control responses the site will give both to your browsers and the CDN that will cause your browsers to much more aggressively check if there is a more recent copy of the site code (so HTML/CSS/JS). I have the settings set less aggressively on the data files that drive the site - your browsers will check for a new copy on their own if their copy is at least a day old. This means the site is far less likely to break outright for you when I update the code, but will still pick up new data in a reasonable time frame. all without sending tons of unnecessary requests to the site for data that doesn't change a lot. As long as I ensure the site code is updated in backwards-compatible ways when breaking data changes are pushed out, you will get the code sooner than the data and all should be well.

 

If you want to get the latest and greatest code and data less than a day after I make a big release (like after a game patch lands) you may still need to clear your browser file caches.

 

Known Issues

• The help pages are still out of date. I hope to work more on updating the help pages this weekend.
• The "AT breadcrumb icon" on powercat pages is a bit hard to see Fixed, I hope!
• The "Create link to this page" feature shouldn't be available on pages with no game data behind them. Fixed!
• The little "connecting" arrow for popup boxes is the wrong color in Dark mode. Fixed!

Edited June 17, 2021 by UberGuy

[carroto]

I understand that you have concerns about releasing your code, but how about the raw data?  I've only done a small project with RubyRed's data and even that required a significant amount of extra processing to put it into a useful form.  It would be great if we didn't all have to reinvent that wheel.

 

I've been toying with the idea of creating a web-based character builder.  It's either that or quit the game, since I'm on Linux and Mids' doesn't run there anymore.  However I'm aware of how foolish an undertaking it probably is.  Many before me have tried, and apparently all of them so far have abandoned their efforts.  Regardless, I'm considering it.

 

The first thing I'd need before writing any code for the builder is data.  RubyRed's is a great start, and might give me what I need for the powers stuff, but there's nothing for enhancements.  So I'm faced with doing probably more or less the same thing you did, start with that work and build it out to get what I need.  You haven't talked about how much work it was or how long it took you, but I'm guessing it was a lot.

 

Having to do that before even starting on the main project, which itself will probably be a significant undertaking, is a bit daunting.  I'd bet that the lack of availability of the necessary game data is holding back a lot of potential projects others would like to undertake as well.

 

What do you think?  Even if it's not practical to release the code or data, some pointers to shortcut the process of getting to it would be a help.  A basic character builder could probably be made with far less than the full set of data required to drive your site.