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Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates


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@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:Hi all, I have some more news for you. Like I mentioned in last week's post, we had a list of updates we felt confident we could start working on and planned to give you an update on that list early in the new year. That has changed because one of the updates to build and equipment templates will be ready earlier than expected.

We've been working on an update that will automatically switch your build and equipment templates when you enter or exit PvE, WvW, or PvP. The game will remember which build and equipment template tabs were last active when you return to a game mode.

Also, PvP equipment will be integrated into all Equipment Templates, which will bring all of your equipment management into one convenient place. Our current plan is to add a new button to the equipment menu to view the PvP equipment slots in each template. By doing this, it means you to be able to manage your PvP equipment whenever you like, even outside of PvP game modes. Because PvP equipment is very different from normal inventory items, it will not take any space away from your standard equipment.

This update to Build and Equipment Templates will go live on December 3. We'll still follow with another update early in the new year.

I don't do PVP - EVER. This hopefully isn't assigning one of the "templates" to pvp. I only ever go between PVE and WvW.

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@"Heibi.4251" said:I don't do PVP - EVER. This hopefully isn't assigning one of the "templates" to pvp. I only ever go between PVE and WvW.

Considering they STOLE the Loadout from PvP, I doubt they'll give it back 100%.Loadouts could stay mode-independent, with a box to tick for 'load this when entering PvP'.I actually wouldn't mind reversing this whole mistake, but then they'd have to deal with refunds.

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Thank you, Rubi. This should pretty much restore the QoL we've had before the patch. :)I think storing the "last loadout" per gamemode is a good solution. Those who don't play multiple modes per character are not affected and for the rest of us it should be like it has been for the last years.

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@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:Hi all, I have some more news for you. Like I mentioned in last week's post, we had a list of updates we felt confident we could start working on and planned to give you an update on that list early in the new year. That has changed because one of the updates to build and equipment templates will be ready earlier than expected.

We've been working on an update that will automatically switch your build and equipment templates when you enter or exit PvE, WvW, or PvP. The game will remember which build and equipment template tabs were last active when you return to a game mode.

Also, PvP equipment will be integrated into all Equipment Templates, which will bring all of your equipment management into one convenient place. Our current plan is to add a new button to the equipment menu to view the PvP equipment slots in each template. By doing this, it means you to be able to manage your PvP equipment whenever you like, even outside of PvP game modes. Because PvP equipment is very different from normal inventory items, it will not take any space away from your standard equipment.

This update to Build and Equipment Templates will go live on December 3. We'll still follow with another update early in the new year.

will the next patch only bring improvements to the templates etc or the long awaited balancing too, that was told about in the forum?^^

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@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:Hi all, I have some more news for you. Like I mentioned in last week's post, we had a list of updates we felt confident we could start working on and planned to give you an update on that list early in the new year. That has changed because one of the updates to build and equipment templates will be ready earlier than expected.

We've been working on an update that will automatically switch your build and equipment templates when you enter or exit PvE, WvW, or PvP. The game will remember which build and equipment template tabs were last active when you return to a game mode.

Also, PvP equipment will be integrated into all Equipment Templates, which will bring all of your equipment management into one convenient place. Our current plan is to add a new button to the equipment menu to view the PvP equipment slots in each template. By doing this, it means you to be able to manage your PvP equipment whenever you like, even outside of PvP game modes. Because PvP equipment is very different from normal inventory items, it will not take any space away from your standard equipment.

This update to Build and Equipment Templates will go live on December 3. We'll still follow with another update early in the new year.

Since you guys keep working on the templates loadouts and push updates to it, please. make. this. thread. sticky. again.

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@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:Hi all, I have some more news for you. Like I mentioned in last week's post, we had a list of updates we felt confident we could start working on and planned to give you an update on that list early in the new year. That has changed because one of the updates to build and equipment templates will be ready earlier than expected.

This update to Build and Equipment Templates will go live on December 3. We'll still follow with another update early in the new year.

Thank you Rubi for the update. Please advise the powers that be that this is the type of communication that some of us have desperately needed. Hopefully, they will give a list or outline of other things they are working on for the future of templates.

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@Jura.2170 said:

@Rubi Bayer.8493 said:We've been working on an update that will automatically switch your build and equipment templates when you enter or exit PvE, WvW, or PvP. The game will remember which build and equipment template tabs were last active when you return to a game mode.

Can we choose if we want this or not?

Like a tick box in the menu, to say if we want the game to remember?

Why would you not like the game to auto switch gear and traits when entering wvw then back to pve ones when exiting?

@UnDeadFun.5824 said:

@Rubi Bayer.8493 said:Hi all, I have some more news for you. Like I mentioned in
, we had a list of updates we felt confident we could start working on and planned to give you an update on that list early in the new year. That has changed because one of the updates to build and equipment templates will be ready earlier than expected.

This update to Build and Equipment Templates will go live on December 3. We'll still follow with another update early in the new year.

Thank you Rubi for the update. Please advise the powers that be that this is the type of communication that some of us have desperately needed. Hopefully, they will give a list or outline of other things they are working on for the future of templates.

I agree with this poster.

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@"Cronos.6532" said:

Because PvP equipment is very different from normal inventory items, it will not take any space away from your standard equipment.

Aight but I'm totally still going to have to use a PvE build in Structured PvP from now on because I can't afford to give up a slot

They should just do the right thing, and give every character 2 free build slots for PvE, 2 for WvW and 2 for PvP. That way they would be factually correct in saying they gave us "3 free build slots" since as it stands today, all they did was re-purpose/label the 3 build slots we always had since the game launched.

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Unfortunately this design is actively making the player base worse at the game. The biggest problem the casual playerbase has is they have 1 build they play in pvp/wvw/pve and its the same build. I don't see how adding pvp amulet/rune/sigils to the current system is going to fix that mind set. But hey I guess this is the direction of the current company.

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I wonder if including the character slot expansion in the Black Friday Sales is a kind of apology, really.I mean, character slots have always been and will continue to be valid alternatives to build templates.

If it's meant as a roundabout apology, then thanks for the thought. I suppose a 95 % discount on the actual loadouts / templates is not an option, so a bit of a discount on character slots is better than nothing. :)

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@CptAurellian.9537 said:So, they're finally fixing one entirely self-created issue. I'm almost impressed.

I wonder if they've acknowledged internally yet that building the whole system around direct monetization was a huge mistake. Overengineered the whole thing, wasting god knows how many manhours, and generated a lot of ill will for a feature that should have been nothing but a simple and exciting gameplay enhancement that would generate good will and hype.

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@"Heibi.4251" said:

I don't do PVP - EVER. This hopefully isn't assigning one of the "templates" to pvp. I only ever go between PVE and WvW.

They should a have separate block of template slots for PVP. If they can split traits by PVE/PVP/WVW, then they can do this.

Purchased template slot upgrades should be assignable to PVE or PVP.

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I've played with this "template" system for few weeks and I'd like to expand on my initial opinion. It was positive, but I want to note that I've never used Arc Templates. And I'm glad I haven't, because otherwise I'd probably be just as pissed as almost everyone else in this thread. I've used player-made templates in another game, so I imagine how they might have looked like.

For someone like me, these "templates" (they are not real templates, build storage is) are much better than having nothing at all. However, it seems like they were designed for people who never make ANY changes to their builds; every minor change, like switching 1 trait or weapons, is more troublesome than before. Before, I only had to remember if I made changes to my current build; now I need to remember this for ALL builds that I have. So basically this system is expanding inconvenience that real templates are supposed to fix.

For example, if I have 2 different armor sets in "template" 1 and 2, and I want to mix them up for whatever reason (fashion, min-maxing stats, different weapons), it creates all sorts of problems: items will be randomly popping up in my inventory, and when I'd want to return to my original setup, fixing all "templates" would be more hassle than it is worth. And I don't even have any legendary gear! (That would be nightmare.)

But even if you have everything set up perfectly, never make changes to your whole 2 FREE "templates", having them split into 2 tabs feels completely unnecessary and... wrong? I must admit, I was never a fan of this game's interface, where you have 1 window with thousand tabs (and tabs within tabs). You have 1 tab for changing/activating outfit, another for changing it's colors, then even another for hiding back item... so you end up with like 10 extra clicks for something as simple as changing outifts. It would be great to have template system for outfits/colors too btw, but my main point here is: these tabs should be more condensed, with more utility in each tab instead of having tabs with singular purpose. There was a lengthy post with lots of modified screenshots few pages ago that explained how it could look like. I don't know if that was the best possible implementation, but there were a lot of good ideas there.

Having additional bag slots is neat, but it's so obvious that they were added to this "template" system to justify monetization. Nobody ever would expect templates to give you more bag slots, that is not their purpose. Their purpose is making changes to gear and skills instant and convenient, no matter how big or small the change would be.

So yes, this is good start ANet, but if you're going to keep things like they are now, you're shooting yourself in a knee. This system needs to be expanded, A LOT, to resemble one that GW1 had. Storing builds locally is absolutely fine, as long as you're able to have infinite number of them. So instead of "build storage" we need in-game support for storing/loading builds locally. We can do this manually right now, by copypasting codes to text files, but once again, the key word for templates is: convenience. And of course, there need to be something like "build storge" for equipment. If you can't make it (someone said that ANet didn't want to touch equipment coding, but I haven't seen source of this information), while it was possible in Arc Templates, then something's wrong... Think, third party developers could manage your code better than your own?

I don't know about you ANet, but I'd like to have this game alive for years to come; if you care about long-term health of your games, I believe you should reconsider your short-sighted policy.

@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:Also, PvP equipment will be integrated into all Equipment TemplatesP.S. Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong? PvP equipment never had anything to do with your actual items, so why would you change it by making it part of equipment "templates"? It should be integrated, but into BUILD "templates"!

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Rubi's announcement is the best thing to happen for WvW players since the equipment templates launched honestly. The main secondary reason is there is a definitive time table of December 3 rather than "we are working on it" or "soon".The monetization on the build templates/storage could still use improvement but that is not a technical issue so that's besides the point. That's not something that needs patching out.

@"Fenella.2634" said:I wonder if including the character slot expansion in the Black Friday Sales is a kind of apology, really.I mean, character slots have always been and will continue to be valid alternatives to build templates.

If it's meant as a roundabout apology, then thanks for the thought. I suppose a 95 % discount on the actual loadouts / templates is not an option, so a bit of a discount on character slots is better than nothing. :)

Do you know how ridiculous a 95% discount sounds?

From a business / merchant standpoint:Paypal's page lists the following example: "2% + $0.103 markup + a 1.8% interchange fee = $3.90 fee on a $100 sale". For other payment methods it's far higher, on the order of 3.5% or so for AMEX and around 2.6% for VISA/Mastercard and that's before any Euro to USD conversion charges.

If anything there needs to be a price reduction on buying in bulk for equipment templates and the build templates in build storage could be increased per purchase. For example, if you buy 5 equipment templates whatever the charge for credit cards is reduced on a per-template basis. This is evidenced by the price reduction on buying bulk of other items.i.e. if it's a $1 basic transaction charge on a 500 gem ($6.25) equipment template , dropping it down to ~400 gems each at 5 templates bulk price would make sense. It's most readily apparent with the cheapest gemstore items such as Knife Tail Gang Hunting Bond , Dye Kits, Item Boosters or Metabolic Primers.

I'm guessing two equipment templates probably fits most of the user-base that doesn't play support and only run Berserker's + Viper's,

Build templates are currently priced the way they are mainly due to hotkey function. The workaround for people that don't WvW/PVP is just to use the templates given "free" for those modes ; the majority of people likely only run power+condi+maybe support. I know many WVW players simply opt for a separate WVW character slot or even one per elite spec (18 slots). Even so , a template swap is as simple as a chat-code so the inability to hotkey swap is an annoyance but not world-ending.

The build storage expansions could just be simply reduced in price to 5 or 9 build storage per gem purchase, this way there would be no need for refunds. Coding & chargebacks would be minimal as the number of templates given by the build storage item would just be switched from "3" to a higher number. Arenanet dug themselves in a hole because the base build storage could have been 9 slots instead of 3+ 3 free for the first month(s). Bank tabs are 600 gems for 30 slots and are item slots not just chatcode copy-paste replacements.

There's businesses where the minimum charge for credit cards is in the order of $10-15. Factor in there needs to be at least 30% margin after everyone involved is paid (the credit card company, the NCSoft payment processing, the currency conversion, etc) and there's "price anchoring" so that there is profit even when a 20-50% sale is introduced.

From a player standpoint:From a player standpoint what you gain from equipment templates is minimal if you only play PVE casually. A 800 gem (base price) character slot affords you more flexibility , especially if you bought a world boss portal device or recharging teleport to friend since the primary issue with a new character is levels (non-issue for WvW players with stacks of tomes) , hero points for elite specs (non-issue for WvW players with hero point scrolls) and waypoint unlocks (relatively quick with mounts) , extra time for relogging / character switching, needing to character swap if it's WvW and possibly hitting a queue (non-issue if you have a WvW specific character).For raids, the waypoint unlocks are meaningless and also for WVW/PVP.

!! For PvE:! Guardian (5): Power (DH), Condition, Condition Quickness (mainly rune swap) , Power Quickness (mainly rune swap), Heal --- if you only do fractals/strike and don't raid you're only looking at Power and Quickness mainly! Mesmer (5): Power Boon , Condition Boon, Power, Condition, Condition Axe (weapon + rune swap) --- if you only do fractals/strike and don't raid you're looking at power + power boon mainly! Revenant (3-4): Power Herald (zerk, no boon duration), Power + Alacrity, Condition, Heal (less common) --- if you only do fractals/strike and don't raid you're looking at power + alacrity only! Elementalist (3-5): Power + Power Sword (only weapon swap) , Condition + Condition Sword (only weapon swap), Support Tempest --- power elementalist remains the main use of elementalist, you rarely see people ask for a support tempest in LFG! Thief (3-5): Power staff, Power rifle (only weapon swap ; single target means typically raids only), Power daggers (only weapon swap), condition, boon (only raids due to detonate plasma) --- mainly power! Ranger (3-4): Heal, Power, Condition, Condition Dagger (weapon swap) --- druids fell out of favor for fractals, so it's mainly power Soulbeast for most people! Necromancer (3): Power, Condition, Heal --- mainly power reapers! Engineer (3) : Power, Condition, Heal (less common) --- mainly power holosmiths! Warrior (2-3): Power, Power with offhand daggers, Condition --- mainly power banners/spellbreakers!
! Summary: Guardian, Chrono are most affected because rune swap takes more effort than weapon swap ; three main archetypes are power + condi + support (boon/heal)!! For WvW (the other use for equipment template slots):! Firebrand , Scrapper usually run minstrel's which are rarely used in PVE! Herald typically is running full berserker unless frontline rev! Power scourge is usually full berserker , unless cele scourge for extra strength of barriers and corrupted boons! Spellbreaker usually has marauder gear or some form of vitality (paired with defense traitline + defy pain)! Weaver and thief (Staff daredevil most commonly) are always running some form of vitality! Chrono is mostly gutted in WvW due to clone reliance and mirage is typically condi so is unfavored for squad play! Ranger can run berserker's soulbeast but generally unwanted due to projectile / pet liability

The value-adds from a new character slot are immense:

  • Extra character-bound birthday gifts
  • The option to map complete new Living Story / Icebrood Saga / future episodes for extra one-time rewards (for Grothmar Valley this meant an extra chance for Visage of Khan-Ur , which is bad design honestly).
  • The ability to gain extra story rewards (see sigil of nullification fiasco)
  • Up to 3 extra legendary gifts from map completion per character with zero diminishing returns on Central Tyria (TP sellable gen 1 legendary items)
  • Ability to stash extra unused items without cluttering bank tabs (storage characters for accountbound items that can't go in a guild bank and are unused often such that a bank tab is wasteful)
  • An extra equipment template is included at a minimum (cost = 500 gems) , if completely different gear then you can count it as the full 2 templates (1000 gems)
  • Two extra build templates if character is used for a single game-mode (cost = 300 gems each so = 600 gems) , if builds are entirely different you can count it as 3 build templates (= 900 gems)
  • You have isolated inventory so if you don't PvE on that WvW character you can put all your siege + WvW specific gear and utility/food on it.
  • If you have the patience and/or time, weekly delete and reroll for black lion keys by doing low level story (I don't do this but people have key farmers)

If you WvW , an extra character slot affords you 3 build templates and 2 equipment templates for equipment with toughness that normally isn't run in PVE (i.e. minstrel's, trailblazer, dire, etc) = total value of 1900 gems. Realistically there's only 2 meta WvW builds (squad-play, roaming) for a given class so it's probably closer to 1600 gems' value.

The only way for the templates to be remotely competitive with a character slot in its current state is if a build template was half the price or equipment templates were account-wide unlocks; I don't see equipment templates dropping more than a hundred gems or so given the pricing on bag slots (400 gems , character-bound). A 95% discount isn't necessary to make the template option enticing but build templates (and build storage) remain the most irrationally priced aspect of the system. That's especially a problem when the entire build storage monetization can be circumvented with a chat-code.

People have been suggesting that more templates be given to each character slot, but that would just make character slots even more appealing than templates. The only way that can be rectified is if the "free" build templates were locked to a game mode such that a new character slot has two templates for PvE game mode , 1 for WvW (if templates worked as originally stated where the templates can only swap at spawn/home keep), 1 for PvP (since hotswapping mid-match isn't possible anyway there's no reason over build storage) and the given build storage increased per purchase. That way build templates exist for hot-key convenience in PvE and not "pay-to-win" in WVW as some have been stating in the WvW subforum.** In that scenario , where each character has 2 PvE build templates , the value-add of a character slot as far as build templates is diminished greatly to 300-600 gems or whatever 1-2 build templates amounts to : that's why build templates should still be reduced in price or come in reduced price 5 packs. It doesn't quite address the equipment templates nearly as well however as you'd still be looking at an added 2 templates vs only one template per 500 gems.

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@Infusion.7149 said:

@Fenella.2634 said:I wonder if including the character slot expansion in the Black Friday Sales is a kind of apology, really.I mean, character slots have always been and will continue to be valid alternatives to build templates.

If it's meant as a roundabout apology, then thanks for the thought. I suppose a 95 % discount on the actual loadouts / templates is not an option, so a bit of a discount on character slots is better than nothing. :)

Do you know how ridiculous a 95% discount sounds?Yes. Sure. About as ridiculous as charging several hundred Euros for a simple feature.I'd pay about 20 € max for a complete unlock accountwide. That corresponds to about 5-10 % of the price, so there we go. And even 20 € is expensive. Normally, features like build templates should be simply included in the game.

I don't expect a discount like that though. I think I'll just continue to use the three loadouts as usual and create some more characters if needed. I've never used ArcTemplate, so it's not much of a downgrade, but it's still a bit of a letdown, as I, too, was hoping for real build templates. Oh well.

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@TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

@"Heibi.4251" said:

I don't do PVP - EVER. This hopefully isn't assigning one of the "templates" to pvp. I only ever go between PVE and WvW.

They should a have separate block of template slots for PVP. If they can split traits by PVE/PVP/WVW, then they can do this.

Purchased template slot upgrades should be assignable to PVE or PVP.

If they don't enter the pvp lobby, they don't have to worry about any of their templates being assigned to be used by pvp.

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@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:Hi, everyone,

Thank you for all the constructive feedback you’ve provided about templates. We’ve spent a lot of time reading and discussing your thoughts, and we’ve identified a few updates we feel confident we can start working on.

Here are the pieces of feedback we’re currently working on addressing:• Automatically switching build and equipment templates when a character enters or exits PvP and WvW. We’ll need to make updates to this functionality to further integrate templates with PvP.• Ease of swapping legendary equipment between characters.• Greater flexibility when making experimental changes to templates.Because we have limited time to program, test, and implement these changes before the winter holidays, we’ll be able to give you a progress update early in the new year.

We’ll keep reading your feedback, so please continue to share your thoughts as you play with templates.Thank you!

By the way, the default mount you set in PvE will always reset to Warclaw after you enter and leave WvW.Please make the game switch back to the PvE mount we set before we enter WvW.

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My two biggest problems with this is first that if you like to play rev if you switch builds its like a puzzle re-arranging every single skill where it is supposed to be in the build template. Then after that hoping and praying that when you press the button that it is actually the skill that is being shown. So this system for playing rev is like gambling at the roulette table when you try to use a skill. Then also wierd crap happens if you need to switch legendary pieces out because it may show you have infusions but then not actually have any at all and have to go find out exactly where these infusions are located if you play a lot of different characters.

So overall I had become bored with the game but then this build system made it entirely too frustrating to even bother with this game anymore. I would love to know whose great idea it was to say hey lets make it where it automatically strips every upgrade out of your legendary items and play hide and seek with them. So I guess the bigger picture here is that they want players to stop spending money on legendary items and replace them back with ascended(great job anet but I am kind of too annoyed to do that).

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