1. I have corrected the e-mail settings so that outgoing e-mails from these forums should be sent now. If you tried to Register or Reset your Password, please try again!
    Dismiss Notice

DCUO Census API Suggestions

Discussion in 'Census: DCUO' started by Superskull85, Sep 16, 2014.

  1. Superskull85

    Superskull85 Guest

    I think I have a good grasp of the API at this point and I am noticing some improvements that could be very useful. If any of this functionality is possible now please let me know.

    Overview

    In summary I am suggesting:
    • More feat collection search terms
    • Better naming or location data for regions
    • New instance collections: instance, characters_completed_instance, characters_active_instance
    • (Possibly, only for commonly known loot table entries) New Loot collections: loot, loot_list, instance.boss.loot_list_id
    • New League Hall collections; statuary, characters_statuary, guilds_statuary, proficiency, characters_proficiency, guilds_proficiency
    General Collections

    Wherever there is a character_id or guild_id it would be use to have an alternative character.name / guild.name and world_id pairining. No need to worry about case as that could be easily handled in code. I suggest this to cut down on the number of separate queries or big queries that are needed in certain app functionality.

    I used an example in the Feat Collections section.

    Feat Collections

    Includes: characters_active_feat, characters_completed_feat

    Currently only able to query by character_id and feat_id. Would be nice to also be able to query by guild_id, guild_name, world_id and name.

    I was thinking about how I might be able to pull up the feats that a specific league needs sorted by character name. Joining a character to character_id gives me the name of the character allowing me to do a simple sort by name.

    What I noticed is that I would have to build a league roster hash and manually check the league roster against these collections using COUNT (1 for true, 0 for false) which I than add to a sub-hash of the roster. While this works this could mean several hundred queries per specific league per search.

    Next I would have to make another query to either make a hash of all feats available or an added query per search to get the feat_id that would be needed.

    Optimally I would probably make a complete hash of the league roster containing an array of all the feats they needed on app startup.This works when you know the league that you are creating the search app for but if you wanted an app like this to be more general you would have to build this hash per search on top of the query you would need to get the guild_id of the league that was entered.

    It would be nice to be able to make this queries with a single query (example):

    /characters_active_feat?guild_id=*****&world_id=*&feat_name=*****

    Or split it into a separate collection called guilds_feat, Though I don't think this is necessary.

    Region Names

    Note: This suggestion could also apply to the in-game League Management system too.

    Currently similar locations have the same region name. For example there are 9 East End Police Station regions with ID's:

    East End Police Station1587343
    East End Police Station1587336
    East End Police Station148698
    East End Police Station1918158
    East End Police Station1918157
    East End Police Station1918156
    East End Police Station1561916
    East End Police Station1561915
    East End Police Station1512894

    3 of them should be the Safehouse Arena PvP. 3 Safehouse Legends PvP, 1 Hero public zone, 1 Hero Flashback Duo and 1 Villain Flashback Duo. Which of these matches each ID? I could create an internal database by trial and error testing in-game but I'd imagine that would become dated and need constant updating as new regions are added.

    It would be very helpful to be have the name be Flashback: East End Police Station (Hero). If that is too long for the name than it would be nice to attach an instance name separately.

    Instances and Character Lockout

    One of the big feature lacking from the API is an instance collection. These collections should have the following search terms.

    instance:
    • character_id
    • name {lang}
    • instance_id
    • guild_id
    characters_completed_instance:
    • character_id
    • name {lang}
    • instance_id
    • guild_id
    • completed_bosses {boss_1 {name.lang}, boss_2 {..], boss_3 {..}, boss_3 {..}, boss_4 {..}, ...}
    characters_active_instance:
    • character_id
    • name {lang}
    • instance_id
    • guild_id
    I formated the collections as compared to what is done with the feat collections. I would not recommend the character collections only have the search terms charactor_id and instance_id due to the reason mentioned Feat Collections suggestion above.

    Having something like this would be very helpful for league management to determine lockout status of league members.Currently this would have to be tracked by event calendars/memory.

    (Though farfetched adding loot collection support for commonly known loot entries would be a nice bonus.)

    League Hall Functionality

    League Hall functionality is new to DCUO so I know why support for it in the API would not be added. However it would be nice to have support in the future. Specifically:
    • Active Statuaries
    • Active Proficiencies
    To tie in having general Statuary and Proficiency collections could extend the functionality and allow character collections similar to how the respective feat collections the instance collections I suggested.

    I can offer design ideas for these collections if requested.
     
  2. Tazzaxe

    Tazzaxe Guest

    The 2 things that seem to be out there would be :

    An opt out in the app, the problem is it may have to be done to any app that comes out.

    A counter on just how many times a particular character was looked up. The reason behind this is some people feel their privacy has been invaded and they may find out that no one has ever looked them up or very very few. Like myself for example I doubt I've ever been looked up.
     
  3. Superskull85

    Superskull85 Guest

    According to the API documentation any privacy option would have to be implemented directly in-game and not in the API itself. While there are reasons for both sides of that debate I would rather not go into any of that in this thread.
     
  4. Dedith

    Dedith Guest

    i agree
     
  5. Feldon

    Feldon Guest

    I would move these collections:
    • alignment
    • currency
    • equipment_slot
    • feat_category
    • gender
    • item_category
    • movement_mode
    • origin
    • personality
    • power_source
    • power_type
    • quality
    • region
    • world
    to a single collection called "constants" like how it's done in EQ2. This would clean things up and make it easier for the DCUO and Platform teams to add more useful info without adding dozens more small collections. This is data that most fansites will rarely query, only when first adding support for a new feature or category of data.,
     
  6. Starbuk

    Starbuk Guest

    It would be incredibly useful to have a collection for styles, and then a style_id on each item.
     
  7. Superskull85

    Superskull85 Guest

    Some other suggestions:

    Headlines

    Similar to the feats collection. Should have similar fields including name, description, predicates, date of completion. Include characters_competed collection (possible characters_active) collection but not sure if headlines have "active" status. Possibly have video path too.

    Collections, Investigation and Briefing Collection

    Similar to the headlines collection I suggested above. Include name, description, category and a characters_active and characters_collected collection.

    Plans

    Similar to collections collection above. Include name, description, recipe, category and a characters_collected collection.

    Traits

    Including traits_power and traits_skill. These collections should have:
    • name
    • description
    • trait_category
    • trait_stack
    Would like to see:
    • effect - Logical breakdown of what happens with the trait
    • base_value_min, base_value_max - Split out by type of value or generalized. Would be a way to effectively make tools to model the damage/healing (Power or Health) you would do with your current characters stats
    Also include the collections for characters (characters_power_trait and characters_skill_traits). Possibly show the traits in a characters loadout (probably a private feature). I can go more in-depth with this idea.

    NPCs

    Similar to the character collection except for NPCs instead. Can include fields for name, instance_name, health, willpower, npc_type (match, boss, etc.), level/combat_rating, etc. Should have collections for npcs_power_trait and npcs_skill_trait to show their attacks.

    Miscellaneous Ideas

    Some updates to existing collections:
    • Possibly show last_seen_on in the characters collection to show PS3 or PS4
    • More character stats - critical_chance/magnitude, stealth, dodge, etc. Showing more of the hidden stats would be very useful.
    • instances_completed and instances_entered to show completion rates
    • Show which League Hall banks are unlocked: bank_<page>_<row>
    • Character profile accessed. Would be dependent on apps to help update. Fields for times_polled and when an app sends polled=true it adds 1 to the times_polled counter. Not sure if possible to implement.
     
  8. bareheiny

    bareheiny Guest

    Some of that would be useful, but I would highly suggest not just implementing it and dropping it on the DCUO playerbase.

    Some of the information could be useful....but some of it I'm really not sure about.
     
  9. Superskull85

    Superskull85 Guest

    It can be private to the player/approved players or public. It wouldn't matter to me but that is some of the data that is missing and would be useful to have. Certainly simply having a general collection of each suggestion (without the related character collections) would be useful and not harmful. For example having a collection of all plans or all traits but not showing which character has them.
     
  10. bareheiny

    bareheiny Guest

    Apologies - I may have misconstrued what you wanted.

    I highly doubt that anybody would be overly worried about summarised information being available - such as X players have the Lime plan etc.

    Knowing that Players A, B and C have the plan could be problematic though.
     
  11. Superskull85

    Superskull85 Guest

    I don't know how much more problematic it would be compared to showing feats.

    In a positive view if the API did show which plans your character has you could easily open a shop on the official forums that would always stay updated with your plans as you could link potential buyers to your plan list.

    For leagues it would be great for easy plan lookup within the league. For example creating an app specifically for your league that would list your members and the plans. If you need a Precision & Might VI made you select the plan from the list and hit search. The search would list every league member that has the plan and you can ask them to make it.

    Likewise for feats. If you prove that you have certain feats (like Quick to Recover, Necropolis speed feat) it helps prove that you have the ability to complete the content even in particular ways.

    For leagues again it helps with lookup. Want to know who needs Quick to Recover? Search for in a custom league app which will list all league members that don't have the feat. Now you can form a group with those members and help them get it.


    The privacy issues can of course be worked through like anything else in the API. What I suggest would have both positive uses as well as malicious uses which can be said of any of the current API information as well.
     
  12. ddidderr

    ddidderr Guest

    I agree with a lot of things said here. To build up really useful applications it would be great to see more collections than we have right now. In which instance I am loot locked from which bosses?

    Looking up which colors a player uses would be nice. Hair, Skin, and so on.

    What really would be a nice thing is some kind of authentication system. So you could login using your SOE account in some app and the app automatically knows your characters and everything about you. It would unleash the full potential because app developers can focus on real features instead of thinking about how can we find out this and that about the player, how we even know if this char really belongs to him or not.
     
  13. Feldon

    Feldon Guest

    Been asking since Nov 2011. I want to believe. :)
     
  14. bareheiny

    bareheiny Guest

    Just putting it out there, PS players have their characters attached to PSNs not station accounts. It's entirely probable that only a small percentage of PS players actually have station accounts.

    My main concern would be the potential for getting random tells asking for mods or consumables.

    Well..../ignore would probably sort that out.

    But any of these additions / expansions should be socialized with the DCUO community prior to being released....we don't want another "sorry, not sorry, for not making this data available without warning you".
     
  15. ddidderr

    ddidderr Guest

    More features which would be great:

    <span style="font-size: x-large"><span style="text-decoration: underline">Online status
    Now a lot of people may think: Oh no! They just removed it and I want my privacy etc. but think about the following: This information always was public because everyone can get into the game, add you as friend and see when you go online and offline. So I really really really would love to see a field which says if a character is online or not.


    I post soon if I have more ideas.

    Again a lot of things said here like where am I loot locked and styles and colors would be great.
     
  16. Superskull85

    Superskull85 Guest

    Like I said privacy issues can be worked out, etc. I am just giving ideas that would be useful to leagues/players.
     
  17. bareheiny

    bareheiny Guest

    I think the privacy discussion has occurred to be honest - and it squarely sits in the DCUO area, rather then in the data discussion.

    Anyhoo - I wouldn't mind seeing figures around kicks (instigated, voted for, voteed against etc). Would be quite useful to know if you're in a group with members that have a high vote to kick ratio.
     
  18. ddidderr

    ddidderr Guest

    <span style="font-size: x-large">Current Role should be included in character data.
     
  19. bareheiny

    bareheiny Guest

    Preferred role would be great...but possibly difficult.

    I run a lot of solo content due to lag issues, so I'm mostly in DPS stance....but I'd rather tank in alerts and such.
     
  20. Sore

    Sore Guest

    Plans would be massively valuable.
     

Share This Page