Flame suit on. Please read the whole thing. Constructive Criticism on an overall great product.
Long time user and lurker on LW forums. Very happy with the product overall. I, like many on here, needed to create a class: Armiger from Super Genius Games.
I had slugged through the editor once a year ago and gave up with it being incredibly difficult to understand and try to add simple things. I thought that it had been awhile and maybe the editor changed in the last year.
I fired up the editor and was presented with a sea of tabs. A litteral wall of tabs that are not easily identifiable and already I'm looking at each one wondering what they do and why I'm presented with them. I pick the class tab, put in some info, very straight forward with data input for basic items: skills, hit points, saves, etc. I thought this was going to be a breeze as this front end sped me through everything, Impressed!
Now I get to special abilities and the sea of tabs overwhelms me. Is it a Custom Ability? Class Ability? There's a list I have to present to the user, how do I do that? Maybe the Tutorial will help! I head to the tutorial and check it out.
Blue vs. Tan: Frist thing I notice is that the background is blue instead of tan. Frist sign that this hasn't been updated in awhile. I dig through the Class creation tutorial and see that the documentation is calling for me to click on a tab that doesn't exist, enter data into a "Miscellaneous" field for class special abilities, add a "Bootstrap" to add a special ability to a class field,
At this point I step back and add a simple class ability at level one: Bulwark. Easy. I spend 2 hours going back and forth saving, compiling, testing, trying to get my ability shoe horned into the base class and eventually I figure it out. (I didn't write it down how I did it sadly :sad
. Eureka! I can do this!
Advanced Stuff:
I head back to the array section of the tutorial for more advanced class features where I can have a selection of talents available for the user to pick. Tutorial shows one section about special abilities primary,secondary, etc that I eventually figure out has been deprecated and rolled into the base class tab. I figure out how to add an ability so that at level 2,5,8 I get to pick and choose. Didn't write that down either :sad:.
Now, I try to add that list of abilities that are selected (no rules changes yet), and here is where I'm stone walled. The tutorial does not demonstrate an easy way to say "At level 2, select from this list and apply". Slugging through the editor I am unable to add that selectable ability to the primary list that is available as nowhere does it demonstrate how to do that with the new editor layout. The old one in on the tutorial pages shows how to do this but the layout is not the same and the selection tabs are the only thing in common.
At this point I've worked on this task for the better part of 5 hours and I'm frustrated and decide to start grilling and drinking a beer.
This morning I downloaded a spreadsheet and created the PC by hand: 30minutes said and done.
I love Hero Lab and realize how much effort it takes to create a class, this is a monumental task and whomever does this has the patience of a saint and the intellect of a Modron God. I on the other hand have some patience and tolerance and smarter than the average bear (polar bear, not a dire one).
I urge Lone Wolf to take another pass through their documentation, spend some time cleaning up the tutorial, and revamping the editor to streamline the process as much as possible. Content creation is king to providing long life for a product and more user interaction within the community. I'd love to give my armiger.user file back to the community for free and do more to help out, but I need to learn a new language in order to do this.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
Summary: Tutorial is out of date. Referring screen shots and data mostly wrong. Confusing to read. Editor overly complex, not simple to do minor tasks. Frustrating to build a basic Class. Help me to Help You.
Long time user and lurker on LW forums. Very happy with the product overall. I, like many on here, needed to create a class: Armiger from Super Genius Games.
I had slugged through the editor once a year ago and gave up with it being incredibly difficult to understand and try to add simple things. I thought that it had been awhile and maybe the editor changed in the last year.
I fired up the editor and was presented with a sea of tabs. A litteral wall of tabs that are not easily identifiable and already I'm looking at each one wondering what they do and why I'm presented with them. I pick the class tab, put in some info, very straight forward with data input for basic items: skills, hit points, saves, etc. I thought this was going to be a breeze as this front end sped me through everything, Impressed!
Now I get to special abilities and the sea of tabs overwhelms me. Is it a Custom Ability? Class Ability? There's a list I have to present to the user, how do I do that? Maybe the Tutorial will help! I head to the tutorial and check it out.
Blue vs. Tan: Frist thing I notice is that the background is blue instead of tan. Frist sign that this hasn't been updated in awhile. I dig through the Class creation tutorial and see that the documentation is calling for me to click on a tab that doesn't exist, enter data into a "Miscellaneous" field for class special abilities, add a "Bootstrap" to add a special ability to a class field,
At this point I step back and add a simple class ability at level one: Bulwark. Easy. I spend 2 hours going back and forth saving, compiling, testing, trying to get my ability shoe horned into the base class and eventually I figure it out. (I didn't write it down how I did it sadly :sad
. Eureka! I can do this!Advanced Stuff:
I head back to the array section of the tutorial for more advanced class features where I can have a selection of talents available for the user to pick. Tutorial shows one section about special abilities primary,secondary, etc that I eventually figure out has been deprecated and rolled into the base class tab. I figure out how to add an ability so that at level 2,5,8 I get to pick and choose. Didn't write that down either :sad:.
Now, I try to add that list of abilities that are selected (no rules changes yet), and here is where I'm stone walled. The tutorial does not demonstrate an easy way to say "At level 2, select from this list and apply". Slugging through the editor I am unable to add that selectable ability to the primary list that is available as nowhere does it demonstrate how to do that with the new editor layout. The old one in on the tutorial pages shows how to do this but the layout is not the same and the selection tabs are the only thing in common.
At this point I've worked on this task for the better part of 5 hours and I'm frustrated and decide to start grilling and drinking a beer.
This morning I downloaded a spreadsheet and created the PC by hand: 30minutes said and done.
I love Hero Lab and realize how much effort it takes to create a class, this is a monumental task and whomever does this has the patience of a saint and the intellect of a Modron God. I on the other hand have some patience and tolerance and smarter than the average bear (polar bear, not a dire one).
I urge Lone Wolf to take another pass through their documentation, spend some time cleaning up the tutorial, and revamping the editor to streamline the process as much as possible. Content creation is king to providing long life for a product and more user interaction within the community. I'd love to give my armiger.user file back to the community for free and do more to help out, but I need to learn a new language in order to do this.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
But if you get upset and and frustrated then take a break and come back to it. I am sorry you will NOT pick this up over night especially if you no background in programming.