Etrian Odyssey III Skill Simulator v0.1

Designed by Zaraf
coded by negzee


Contents
    * Introduction
    * Controls
    * Skill Trees
    * Using the Skill Simulator
    * Skill Points
    * Development History


Introduction

Welcome to the Etrian Odyssey III Skill Simulator. This tool is designed to 
help you plan out the particular skill build you would like to develop your 
EO3 characters into. It lets you see the minimum level you would need to gain 
access to particular skills, or even to help you decide on a distribution of 
abilities between various characters. These results can be exported into a 
text format that you can save for yourself, or even show others easily.

You can use the EO3 Skill Simulator here:

http://www.ualberta.ca/~fqureshi/EO3/SkillSim/


Controls

To get started right away, select the main class and sub class you would like 
for your character. Sub classes are available after the second stratum, 
however, if you prefer, you can build a character with a main class only. Of 
course, you cannot have the same class for both main and sub. When you select 
your classes, you will notice that the skill trees will automatically change 
to the corresponding classes. When you change the class, any points that have 
been assigned to any skills before you changed the class will be removed 
automatically (except for default skills). You can set the level to whatever 
you want, however the level will also automatically increment as you add 
points to the skills. The level cap is set as a default to level 70. Later in 
the game you will discover ways to increase the level cap, and you can then 
set the level cap accordingly. If you wish gain the bonus skill points given 
to a retired character, you may check the Retired box, and enter in the level 
at which you wish to retire. The minimum retiring level is 30, and the 
maximum is 99.

The �Help/About� button will bring you to this window. The �Clear All� 
button will erase all points assigned to skills and set the character level 
back to 1. The �Switch to Japanese� button will change the English text on 
each skill box to its Japanese equivalent. The button will then turn into 
�Switch to English�, that will reverse this action. The �Export to Text� 
button will open a window in which your current build will be displayed in a 
text format. Simply click on the �Copy to Clipboard� button to be able to 
paste the build into any medium you wish.


Skill Trees

Main class skills have blue boxes while sub class skills have purple boxes. 
Light blue/purple boxes are skills that are currently not accessible because 
the pre-requisites for those skills have not been met. Dark blue/purple boxes 
are those skills that are unlocked as their pre-requisites have been met. 
Assigning points to a light colored box will automatically assign the 
necessary points to its pre-requisites. In this way, you do not need to assign 
points all the way up the tree. You can simply add points to the higher tier 
skills and automatically have the correct points assigned to all required 
skills before. Similarily, if you remove points from a lower tier skill, all 
skills that it is a pre-requisite for will have their points removed 
automatically, since their pre-requisites are no longer met.

The skill trees are arranged in such a way that the arrows show the 
relationship between what skills are required to unlock other skills. The 
numbers above each arrow represent the required level of the source of the 
arrow to unlock the target of the arrow. Small balls (level balls) are placed 
on skill boxes that represent how many points that skill can be assigned. 
Skills have maximum skill point values of 1, 5, or 10 points.


Using the Skill Simulator

Hovering your cursor over the level balls of a skill that has no points 
assigned to it will show you how many points that you can assign. Click once 
to set the amount of points to that skill. To clear all points from a skill, 
simply click on the same level that is assigned to the skill. If the skill is 
level 7, click on level 7 again to set the skill to zero. To assign a new 
amount of skill points to the same skill, simply click on any level ball 
amount. All calculations required to keep track of how many skill points you 
have are done automatically and are shown at the top as Total and Available. 
The Total points value is the running total number of points you have 
available to use, while Available represents the remaining free skill points 
that have not been assigned. If the level cap is reached and the assigned 
skill points exceeds the amount available, then the available skill points 
will go into the negative and become red.

If you click on the name of a skill, then it will bring up an info box that 
contains various data about that particular skill. Moving your mouse away 
from the skill box will cause the info box to disappear. If you wish to lock 
the box in place, click on the skill name again while the box is open. This 
will allow you to click and drag the box to wherever you wish. Click on the 
small �sticky� icon to cause the info box to become unlocked and disappear.


Skill Points

The skill points totals are determined as follows:

+=======================+==============+
|  	                | Skill Points |
|       Condition       |   Acquired   |
+-----------------------+--------------+
| Default               |       2      |
| Every Level           |       1      |
| Acquire Sub Class     |       5      |
| Retire at Level 30-39 |       4      |
| Retire at Level 40-49 |       5      |
| Retire at Level 50-59 |       6      |
| Retire at Level 60-69 |       7      |
| Retire at Level 70-98 |       8      |
| Retire at Level 99    |      10      |
+=======================+==============+

The skill points acquired column represents the amount of skill points gained 
for the various conditions. It should be noted that the skill points acquired 
by retiring a character are determined only by the most recent retirement of 
that character; they are not cumulative.


Development History

Zaraf had some history doing various projects for games in the Etrian Odyssey 
series (as well as some others). He had made dungeon maps for Etrian Odyssey, 
dungeon maps and class skill trees for Etrian Odyssey II, and dungeon maps 
and class skill trees for Etrian Odyssey III. Zaraf had always wanted to do a 
skill simulator, but not having any experience with JavaScript, he was never 
able to undertake this sort of a project. Finally, set on trying to create 
one, Zaraf looked around the internet for examples of good skill simulators. 
He found skill simulators for Ragnarok Online that he liked a lot, but 
unfortunately the coding was much to complex for him to figure out and try to 
modify.

Zaraf finally decided to call out to the community and see if there was 
anyone willing to help out. This is the point where negzee got involved with 
the project. He offered to help out in developing the �secret project� at the 
time with his JavaScript skills. Starting May 20, 2010, they both worked on 
trying to complete the skill simulator as quickly as possible. While negzee 
handled all of the JavaScript coding, Zaraf busied himself with compiling all 
of the required information, laying out the skill trees and just working on 
the design aspect of the skill simulator itself. By the end of May, they had 
both completed the core and all that was left was minor touch ups and some 
remaining data that needed to be input. Even though they didn�t spend all 
that much time on it (just under two weeks), it certainly seemed like a 
grueling slow pace. Thankfully it's all done now. The next big haul will 
come when the English version of Etrian Odyssey III is released. Until then, 
we both hope you find this tool useful and have fun using it!

-Zaraf and negzee

http://www.ualberta.ca/~fqureshi/EO3/SkillSim/