Asia Skyly · Nov 03, 2010, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Hello All:

I created an excel spreadsheet to keep track of my heroes armor, insignias, runes, weapons, etc. Unfortunately I have too many characters (20) and too many heroes (most have them all). Any suggestions on how to get the in game information into my spreadsheet?

I have a hard time locating which hero has what item as it stands.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could query the game servers remotely? Perhaps a little application online that shows you YOUR character and their heroes and gear? We do this already for the hall of monuments...

RedDog91 · Nov 03, 2010, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Learn to live with it?
I honestly can't give any other advice. All other 3 million players seem to work it out just fine.

Asia Skyly · Nov 03, 2010, 07:08 PM // 19:08

A simple no would have been a lot more civil.

Clearly I have "learned" to live with it (20 characters). However, accepting the status quo is not always best.

If you do not ask, you do not learn. I was hoping for input and ideas. There are a lot of very creative folks on these boards. Some of them will provide something other than: NO.

Dagoth Umbra · Nov 03, 2010, 07:32 PM // 19:32

/agree and /signed for an effective in-game or safe online way to keep track of hero gear.

I agree with you OP, a way to keep track of Hero gear would be nice.

@RedDog91
*shakes head with disgust*

DeanBB · Nov 03, 2010, 07:36 PM // 19:36

I'm not sure why this information is needed. Generally speaking, I equip my heroes "generically" and then only swap out what I need for specific builds, like switching a warrior from sword to hammer. I like to give spellcasters staves tied to primary attributes so don't have to worry about things like fire vs earth or healing vs protection.

Where I have multiple heroes of the same profession, I generally make them specialized across the board. So Olias is always setup for death on all of my characters, Masters = curses, etc.

So once a hero is equipped, for the most part I don't ever worry about them again. What more do you want? Why record it?

Jk Arrow · Nov 03, 2010, 08:07 PM // 20:07

I know I'm not the only one but I keep a spreadsheet to keep track of what is on what character, achievements by character, to do lists, minis, etc. Helps me to know what the hell is going on with my 10+ toons. Only way I know to do so. Sorry to say you have to enter all that data manually...

Ailina · Nov 03, 2010, 08:25 PM // 20:25

My personal biggest problem with hero gear is armor. Because we can't have multiple armor sets for a hero, every time you need to rerune them for a different purpose, you have to manually salvage off all the runes that need to be changed then reapply them. Yes, I'm aware that more generic setups might work well, but often I'll need them to serve different purposes depending on the situation.

For example, there are 3 elementalist heroes. I have vekk set up as a water ele, zhed set up as a fire ele, and sousuke set up as an earth ele, depending on which would be best for the situation. But what if I want to run, say, dual SF on my heroes? Then I'd need to rerune sousuke as a fire ele. And I don't want to put the energy storage rune on the headpiece, since he really doesn't need another two points in ES.

So I have to salvage off the Earth rune from Sousuke's head, replace it with a fire magic rune.

Now that's a very simple switch that requires only one salvage and one reapplication. But there are many more complicated rune rearranging/replacing situations that occur fairly often for me.

Another example is when running discordway (please do not flame on my usage of this build; this is not the forum for discussing its arguable "lameness"). For this, the three necro heroes are all runed up with full survivor insignias (and a bloodstained), vigors, minor death magic on their headpieces, a minor soul reaping (if I have the money for it), and the last two spaces are vitaes, unless the necro needs another necro att (only Olias uses curses).

This is all fine and dandy, but when I need to have an AotL mm, I need to entirely rerune one of the necros for the build (superior death magic, take out curses, a higher vigor, etc).

This may not seem like a huge deal, but when you use heroes a lot, it can get VERY confusing constantly remembering what went on which hero for each build. Honestly, I wish there was a system like the PvP Equipment template for heroes. In my head, I'm imagining it saving the armor setups and switching them in and out when they're needed, but obviously that seems like it'd make little sense coding-wise (since the runes are physical, salvageable objects, not infinitely-creatable pvp items).

Plus, you need to keep all of the spare runes needed for switching any of your heroes in an easily accessible place, like the xunlai, but that's incredibly inconvenient because there are other things I need to keep there. I'd probably just keep the runes on a storage character, but then I'd have to keep switching characters whenever I needed a new rune for a hero.

Basically, I agree with your point about it being very difficult to keep track of all the hero gear information, and am adding the above to augment your point.

Terribly sorry about the wall of text. I'm far too tired to be concise.

Asia Skyly · Nov 03, 2010, 08:39 PM // 20:39

here is the sheet I am using now. I have added Pet (giving a pet to every hero!) and armor to this list.

slaponte · Nov 03, 2010, 08:54 PM // 20:54

I agree with the need, but lost hope looong time ago that we would ever have a tool to examine all the stats/stuff on your chars offline. If they would allow READ ONLY access to the data, a tool could be setup to just download a list, specifying whats on everything your char has including the heroes.

It could be a simple thing as a / command (/dumpitall) that generates a text file. We can then import/process the data and voila! Simple thing.

Ailina · Nov 03, 2010, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Honestly, slaponte, with something like that, I could far too easily imagine a bug that somehow let you modify the information -- and thus your in-game statuses (I have this image of someone figuring out how to edit all their characters so they have obby armor and modify their storage info to include millions of ectos or something)-- becoming discovered and immediately exploited. If there's anything gw players know how to do well, it's discover previously unimaginable ways to cheat the system (didn't the massive duping crisis a while back involve some complicated system involving having two computers and something about disconnecting them from the internet? I don't know the details). Something that puts the gw files of your character onto your computer just seems incredibly dangerous to me, even if it is read-only and they try to secure it.

I can just see bad things happening.

Honestly, though there always is the possibility of a major crisis like that though, I wish so much that we could have something like that. It's so frustrating that the ONLY way to save info from the game onto your computer is screenshots (and templates, but eh). You can't even copy-paste chat logs, etc.

I definitely approve of slaponte's suggestion, I'm just worried that there are so many things that could go wrong.

Waldir · Nov 03, 2010, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Here is my sheet, maybe it will help you with yours, as you can see its not finished due to the same problem as you have, too many characters

/signed

Edit: xls files aren't allowed as attachments so i had to zip it, feel free to virus scan it but i assure you its clean.

**cosyfiep** · Nov 03, 2010, 09:10 PM // 21:10

I, too, have an excel spreadsheet (and more than 20 characters that I am keeping track of)....I gave up basically on the hero stuff since I only use about 5 of them and those have what they need (really never have used mox, the 2 sins, etc....why bother spec-ing them out?)...only keep track of if they have hero armor now.

Asia Skyly · Nov 03, 2010, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by slaponte

It could be a simple thing as a / command (/dumpitall) that generates a text file. We can then import/process the data and voila! Simple thing.

Love the idea of a /dump file type! That is pretty clever!

Waldir love you spreadsheet! Wow! Nicely done!

Waldir · Nov 03, 2010, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosyfiep

I, too, have an excel spreadsheet (and more than 20 characters that I am keeping track of)....I gave up basically on the hero stuff since I only use about 5 of them and those have what they need (really never have used mox, the 2 sins, etc....why bother spec-ing them out?)...only keep track of if they have hero armor now.

Gonna get more difficult with 7 heroes to keep up with soon

DeanBB · Nov 04, 2010, 05:16 AM // 05:16

I just think you're making it more complex than it needs to be. Remember the days before heroes? Just henchies and their imperfect setups? Your heroes don't need to be as optimized as your player character. As stated already, the most I ever do is swap hat runes to make the switch from fire to earth, for example. I leave their minor runes and insignias alone, even if they aren't optimized. They don't have to be perfect to be effective.

I know I could never keep track of all of my heroes and their gear. It's hard enough to keep track of my own toons. Since there's nothing linking the info, I'd make a change and not take the time to record it and soon enough the spreadsheet would be unreliable and virtually worthless. It just doesn't seem like the effort is worth it to me.

Now if there was an HoM-like tool for it, sure, that'd be nice. Once I'd outfit all my heroes though I probably wouldn't look at it unless I was trying to find some green weapon I knew I'd given one of them.

**cosyfiep** · Nov 04, 2010, 07:27 AM // 07:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waldir

Gonna get more difficult with 7 heroes to keep up with soon

yeah---means I will have to keep track of 3 more than I was before, though just about all of my heroes have the same set up from one character to the next---and all have ok weapons, so it would just mean getting a few runes and insignias (and with the wik stuff seems that is all I get so no big problem).

after they get set up, will be back to par......

bsoltan · Nov 04, 2010, 10:07 AM // 10:07

As others have mentioned, the only thing you can do is to create your own reference and keep it updated.
Once you've put all the information in it isn't that much of a task to keep up with what upgrades/changes you make and I find it very useful as I can reference it when I'm not in-game.
I have attached a copy of the sheet I use, it is pretty similar to the other Excel file shared in this thread.

I keep all my characters on one sheet though so I can quickly compare who has what so if a rune/insignia drops I know exactly which character it will get used on or if I can just sell it to the trader.

Spreadsheets ftw.

Smarty · Nov 04, 2010, 10:26 AM // 10:26

Back when I could be bothered I had one sheet per character, heroes going down the page and runes/insignias/weapons going across, so that everything was visible without scrolling and it was easy to look at the same hero armour spot on every character to see whose Gwen needed the FC rune that just dropped. Sadly I never did find a way of filling in the sheets other than manually checking each hero and typing in the data.

slaponte · Nov 04, 2010, 08:23 PM // 20:23

Been a programmer myself, I can NOT imagine what could go wrong.

If you /dumpit (or whatever they would want to call it), the server would get all the current char info into a flat text file, and write it out to your directory. Since there is never an "update" function involved or an "upload", there is no way to send anything back to the server. I don't imagine they would give us the char file, but a file created of the text data that is displayed on your screen.

Since the data would be deciphered already, they don't have to disclose their file structure or what any byte says or means. In case they are worried about me learning to read/update memory.

They have to decipher all the data to show it to you on the screen. All we are asking is they put it together in a flat non executable not coded text file and write it out just like a log or a screenshot.

I am pretty sure by now GW is been debugged and cleaned as much is it might ever be, so adding a char dump function to keep some of the ongoing players entertained shouldn't be soo hard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ailina

Honestly, slaponte, with something like that, I could far too easily imagine a bug that somehow let you modify the information -- and thus your in-game statuses (I have this image of someone figuring out how to edit all their characters so they have obby armor and modify their storage info to include millions of ectos or something)-- becoming discovered and immediately exploited. If there's anything gw players know how to do well, it's discover previously unimaginable ways to cheat the system (didn't the massive duping crisis a while back involve some complicated system involving having two computers and something about disconnecting them from the internet? I don't know the details). Something that puts the gw files of your character onto your computer just seems incredibly dangerous to me, even if it is read-only and they try to secure it.

I can just see bad things happening.

Honestly, though there always is the possibility of a major crisis like that though, I wish so much that we could have something like that. It's so frustrating that the ONLY way to save info from the game onto your computer is screenshots (and templates, but eh). You can't even copy-paste chat logs, etc.

I definitely approve of slaponte's suggestion, I'm just worried that there are so many things that could go wrong.

Nov 03, 2010, 05:53 PM // 17:53	#1
Asia Skyly Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: May 2005 Location: California, USA Profession: Mo/	Suggestion on how to keep track of heroes gear. Hello All: I created an excel spreadsheet to keep track of my heroes armor, insignias, runes, weapons, etc. Unfortunately I have too many characters (20) and too many heroes (most have them all). Any suggestions on how to get the in game information into my spreadsheet? I have a hard time locating which hero has what item as it stands. Wouldn't it be nice if you could query the game servers remotely? Perhaps a little application online that shows you YOUR character and their heroes and gear? We do this already for the hall of monuments...

Nov 03, 2010, 09:01 PM // 21:01	#10
Ailina Krytan Explorer Join Date: Jan 2010 Guild: Whats Prot Spirit [FoR] Profession: R/	Honestly, slaponte, with something like that, I could far too easily imagine a bug that somehow let you modify the information -- and thus your in-game statuses (I have this image of someone figuring out how to edit all their characters so they have obby armor and modify their storage info to include millions of ectos or something)-- becoming discovered and immediately exploited. If there's anything gw players know how to do well, it's discover previously unimaginable ways to cheat the system (didn't the massive duping crisis a while back involve some complicated system involving having two computers and something about disconnecting them from the internet? I don't know the details). Something that puts the gw files of your character onto your computer just seems incredibly dangerous to me, even if it is read-only and they try to secure it. I can just see bad things happening. Honestly, though there always is the possibility of a major crisis like that though, I wish so much that we could have something like that. It's so frustrating that the ONLY way to save info from the game onto your computer is screenshots (and templates, but eh). You can't even copy-paste chat logs, etc. I definitely approve of slaponte's suggestion, I'm just worried that there are so many things that could go wrong. Last edited by Ailina; Nov 03, 2010 at 09:04 PM // 21:04..

Nov 03, 2010, 09:10 PM // 21:10	#12
cosyfiep are we there yet? Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: in a land far far away Guild: guild? I am supposed to have a guild? Profession: Rt/	I, too, have an excel spreadsheet (and more than 20 characters that I am keeping track of)....I gave up basically on the hero stuff since I only use about 5 of them and those have what they need (really never have used mox, the 2 sins, etc....why bother spec-ing them out?)...only keep track of if they have hero armor now. __________________ where is the 'all you can eat' cookie bar?

Nov 03, 2010, 06:32 PM // 18:32	#2
RedDog91 Desert Nomad Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Farming for Nick gifts Profession: R/	Learn to live with it? I honestly can't give any other advice. All other 3 million players seem to work it out just fine.

Nov 03, 2010, 07:08 PM // 19:08	#3
Asia Skyly Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: May 2005 Location: California, USA Profession: Mo/	A simple no would have been a lot more civil. Clearly I have "learned" to live with it (20 characters). However, accepting the status quo is not always best. If you do not ask, you do not learn. I was hoping for input and ideas. There are a lot of very creative folks on these boards. Some of them will provide something other than: NO.

Nov 03, 2010, 07:32 PM // 19:32	#4
Dagoth Umbra Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: In Cartman's Brain, Directing. Guild: Lazy Dominus Legatus [LaZy] Profession: W/E	/agree and /signed for an effective in-game or safe online way to keep track of hero gear. I agree with you OP, a way to keep track of Hero gear would be nice. @RedDog91 shakes head with disgust

Nov 03, 2010, 07:36 PM // 19:36	#5
DeanBB Forge Runner Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Arizona Guild: Wizardry Players Guild, http://4guildwars.7.forumer.com	I'm not sure why this information is needed. Generally speaking, I equip my heroes "generically" and then only swap out what I need for specific builds, like switching a warrior from sword to hammer. I like to give spellcasters staves tied to primary attributes so don't have to worry about things like fire vs earth or healing vs protection. Where I have multiple heroes of the same profession, I generally make them specialized across the board. So Olias is always setup for death on all of my characters, Masters = curses, etc. So once a hero is equipped, for the most part I don't ever worry about them again. What more do you want? Why record it?

Nov 03, 2010, 08:07 PM // 20:07	#6
Jk Arrow Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: WI Guild: Dark Phoenix Risin [DPR] Profession: R/	I know I'm not the only one but I keep a spreadsheet to keep track of what is on what character, achievements by character, to do lists, minis, etc. Helps me to know what the hell is going on with my 10+ toons. Only way I know to do so. Sorry to say you have to enter all that data manually...

Nov 03, 2010, 08:25 PM // 20:25	#7
Ailina Krytan Explorer Join Date: Jan 2010 Guild: Whats Prot Spirit [FoR] Profession: R/	My personal biggest problem with hero gear is armor. Because we can't have multiple armor sets for a hero, every time you need to rerune them for a different purpose, you have to manually salvage off all the runes that need to be changed then reapply them. Yes, I'm aware that more generic setups might work well, but often I'll need them to serve different purposes depending on the situation. For example, there are 3 elementalist heroes. I have vekk set up as a water ele, zhed set up as a fire ele, and sousuke set up as an earth ele, depending on which would be best for the situation. But what if I want to run, say, dual SF on my heroes? Then I'd need to rerune sousuke as a fire ele. And I don't want to put the energy storage rune on the headpiece, since he really doesn't need another two points in ES. So I have to salvage off the Earth rune from Sousuke's head, replace it with a fire magic rune. Now that's a very simple switch that requires only one salvage and one reapplication. But there are many more complicated rune rearranging/replacing situations that occur fairly often for me. Another example is when running discordway (please do not flame on my usage of this build; this is not the forum for discussing its arguable "lameness"). For this, the three necro heroes are all runed up with full survivor insignias (and a bloodstained), vigors, minor death magic on their headpieces, a minor soul reaping (if I have the money for it), and the last two spaces are vitaes, unless the necro needs another necro att (only Olias uses curses). This is all fine and dandy, but when I need to have an AotL mm, I need to entirely rerune one of the necros for the build (superior death magic, take out curses, a higher vigor, etc). This may not seem like a huge deal, but when you use heroes a lot, it can get VERY confusing constantly remembering what went on which hero for each build. Honestly, I wish there was a system like the PvP Equipment template for heroes. In my head, I'm imagining it saving the armor setups and switching them in and out when they're needed, but obviously that seems like it'd make little sense coding-wise (since the runes are physical, salvageable objects, not infinitely-creatable pvp items). Plus, you need to keep all of the spare runes needed for switching any of your heroes in an easily accessible place, like the xunlai, but that's incredibly inconvenient because there are other things I need to keep there. I'd probably just keep the runes on a storage character, but then I'd have to keep switching characters whenever I needed a new rune for a hero. Basically, I agree with your point about it being very difficult to keep track of all the hero gear information, and am adding the above to augment your point. Terribly sorry about the wall of text. I'm far too tired to be concise.

Nov 03, 2010, 08:54 PM // 20:54	#9
slaponte Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Miami, FL Guild: Praetorian Guard Profession: W/Mo	I agree with the need, but lost hope looong time ago that we would ever have a tool to examine all the stats/stuff on your chars offline. If they would allow READ ONLY access to the data, a tool could be setup to just download a list, specifying whats on everything your char has including the heroes. It could be a simple thing as a / command (/dumpitall) that generates a text file. We can then import/process the data and voila! Simple thing.

Nov 04, 2010, 05:16 AM // 05:16	#15
DeanBB Forge Runner Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Arizona Guild: Wizardry Players Guild, http://4guildwars.7.forumer.com	I just think you're making it more complex than it needs to be. Remember the days before heroes? Just henchies and their imperfect setups? Your heroes don't need to be as optimized as your player character. As stated already, the most I ever do is swap hat runes to make the switch from fire to earth, for example. I leave their minor runes and insignias alone, even if they aren't optimized. They don't have to be perfect to be effective. I know I could never keep track of all of my heroes and their gear. It's hard enough to keep track of my own toons. Since there's nothing linking the info, I'd make a change and not take the time to record it and soon enough the spreadsheet would be unreliable and virtually worthless. It just doesn't seem like the effort is worth it to me. Now if there was an HoM-like tool for it, sure, that'd be nice. Once I'd outfit all my heroes though I probably wouldn't look at it unless I was trying to find some green weapon I knew I'd given one of them.

Nov 04, 2010, 10:26 AM // 10:26	#18
Smarty Krytan Explorer Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: England Profession: Me/	Back when I could be bothered I had one sheet per character, heroes going down the page and runes/insignias/weapons going across, so that everything was visible without scrolling and it was easy to look at the same hero armour spot on every character to see whose Gwen needed the FC rune that just dropped. Sadly I never did find a way of filling in the sheets other than manually checking each hero and typing in the data.