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Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates


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@"Zaklex.6308" said:My point being is that for them to offer account bound equipment slots they would have to price them just that way to equate the income they can conceivably receive from selling them per character as is the case now.

Where you live, do they also sell washing machines at a price depending on and multiplied by the population of your city because you might share it, so they have to calculate the conceivable "missed" profit from anyone who may ever use it?

How does anything work like that?Nobody has to scale up prices like that and no one does, that's a ridiculous idea, especially for digital products which don't have running per piece material and work costs and already only have to be created once to then generate theoretical infinite pure profit.Setting prices is just about finding the highest acceptable price for the maximum amount of people possible, forming an acceptable value proposition.

Price something too high, and while the individual purchase is high value, too few people will buy it, leading to overall reduced profits (as well as a disgruntled consumer base).Price something too low and while many, many people will buy it, the individual purchase will be such low value, it's still going to be overall reduced profits (although at least with a happy consumer base).

Somewhere in between that is the highest amount of revenue.Looking at all metrics available to us, such as overwhelmingly negative player feedback, flatlining gold to gem conversion rates at feature release and the following months as well as staggering record low quarterly earning reports, it's stands to reason to assume that with this feature Anet way overstepped with the pricing of this system (in combination with massively underdelivering on functionality), offering a terrible value proposition over all - both generating little revenue as well as disgruntling a lot of players.

People suggesting the slots to be account wide at the current price are trying to suggest ways to move the value proposition more to that middle ground where it can generate higher revenue for the company, as well as please more players.And frankly, even if they were to do that, asking for the price of an entire expansion, or two in case of PoF's pricing, just to unlock some saved bit's in form of 6 (not even really) "Templates" for all your characters is still questionable, at least in my opinion. But it would certainly be better than asking for the price of an entire expansion per character.

The idea that they then would have to charge 200.000+ Gems (~2500€/$) for an account wide Loadout version because players theoretically can have 70 characters on the account is the most absurd and removed from reality thing I've read in a long time.

I at least actually want Anet to make money because I enjoy their product. They can't do that with terrible value propositions.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@"Zaklex.6308" said:My point being is that for them to offer account bound equipment slots they would have to price them just that way to equate the income they can conceivably receive from selling them per character as is the case now.

Where you live, do they also sell washing machines at a price depending on and multiplied by the population of your city because you might share it, so they have to calculate the conceivable "missed" profit from anyone who may ever use it?

How does anything work like that?Nobody
has
to scale up prices like that and no one does, that's a ridiculous idea, especially for digital products which don't have running per piece material and work costs and already only have to be created once to then generate theoretical infinite pure profit.Setting prices is just about finding the highest acceptable price for the maximum amount of people possible, forming an acceptable value proposition.

You mean besides Windows or other OS which charge per device? There are a ton of digital goods which are priced around how much use they can see.

Especially digital goods are priced on a per use basis and often have limitations in place (keys, registration, etc) because they are so easily multiplied.

@Asum.4960 said:Price something too high, and while the individual purchase is high value, too few people will buy it, leading to overall reduced profits (as well as a disgruntled consumer base).Price something too low and while many, many people will buy it, the individual purchase will be such low value, it's still going to be overall reduced profits (although at least with a happy consumer base).

Somewhere in between that is the highest amount of revenue.

True, which also means some players will have to face the reality that they might be in the group which considers the price to high, making these items unavailable to them or forcing them to spend out of their comfort zone.

@Asum.4960 said:Looking at all metrics available to us, such as overwhelmingly negative player feedback, flatlining gold to gem conversion rates at feature release and the following months as well as staggering record low quarterly earning reports, it's stands to reason to assume that with this feature Anet way overstepped with the pricing of this system (in combination with massively underdelivering on functionality), offering a terrible value proposition over all - both generating little revenue as well as disgruntling a lot of players.

A huge part of the negative feedback was also about functionality, bugs and design. Unrelated to price. Let's not mix those 2 together.

The pricing of the system is in line with past pricing for convenience items. Unlike those though, there was never a "free" version available before which reduced the perceived acceptable price point.

@Asum.4960 said:People suggesting the slots to be account wide at the current price are trying to suggest ways to move the value proposition more to that middle ground where it can generate higher revenue for the company, as well as please more players.

Yes, that would be one way of increasing the value proposition.

@Asum.4960 said:And frankly, even if they were to do that, asking for the price of an entire expansion, or two in case of PoF's pricing, just to unlock some saved bit's in form of 6 (not even really) "Templates" for all your characters is still questionable, at least in my opinion. But it would certainly be better than asking for the price of an entire expansion per character.

Which poses the question: was PoF maybe intentionally offered at a very low price? Given the HoT expansion, the PoF price was probably intentionally lowered, even if the expansion might have been worth more.

@Asum.4960 said:The idea that they then would have to charge 200.000+ Gems (~2500€/$) for an account wide Loadout version because players theoretically can have 70 characters on the account is the most absurd and removed from reality thing I've read in a long time.

I at least actually want Anet to make money because I enjoy their product. They can't do that with terrible value propositions.

It's not unreasonable to factor for both extremes (minimum characters and maximum characters). What makes the most sense is probably to factor for the average characters most revenue generating accounts have. Which would still end up as likely 9+ characters (each class at least 1nce) I'd assume. Even under those circumstances I doubt a lot of more price sensitive players would be accepting the account wide unlock price would be around 4,500 gems per equipment slots (9x500). For a total of 18,000 gems for all equipment templates (9x500x4).

Even calculating for the minimum amount of characters of 5 ends up as 2,500 gems account wide unlock, with 10,000 gems for all 4 slots.

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@Deihnyx.6318 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:Not against it, but would be unfair for those of us who already paid for per-character templates.How would that work for us?

However, I would def want more than 6 templates and better integration with PVP, I can't get in queue outside of HotM without something funky going on.

There is a thing called Steam sales and a lot of games go up to 75% discount sale, for many companies these sales represent a huge boost in revenue. Its called business and pro-consumer tactics. I dont cry and complain when a game I bought at full price goes cheaper down the road.

That is not the same thing. Sales are expected. A change in pricing model is not.And yet GW2 core is f2p now, and HoT is free with PoF sale.
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@Cyninja.2954 said:You mean besides Windows or other OS which charge per device? There are a ton of digital goods which are priced around how much use they can see.Notice how the per-device licence cost does not change depending on how many people will use said device.

A huge part of the negative feedback was also about functionality, bugs and design. Unrelated to price. Let's not mix those 2 together.Oh, it's very related. It's their desire to design the system in order to justify the high pricing that crippled it in its infancy. The system is designed around pricing at a cost to functionality. You can't separate one from the other here.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:You mean besides Windows or other OS which charge per device? There are a ton of digital goods which are priced around how much use they can see.Notice how the per-device licence cost does not change depending on how many people will use said device.

and yet, only 1 person can use the device at any time. Also, on a corporate level, you actually get a certain amount of licenses for simultaneous use. Meaning it does not even matter on which device the OS is, but rather how many instances of that OS are in use at the same time.

I fail to see how this is different here. In both cases, more use sees higher cost. Just that the affected party is different. In case of build templates, having access to more simultaneously benefits a single individual on multiple characters. In case of big corporations, having multiple licensees allows for more individuals to make use of the product at the same time, while the single individual profiting off this is the company.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:A huge part of the negative feedback was also about functionality, bugs and design. Unrelated to price. Let's not mix those 2 together.Oh, it's very related. It's their desire to design the system in order to justify the high pricing that crippled it in its infancy. The system is designed around pricing
at a cost to functionality
. You can't separate one from the other here.

I could make a list of issues which are unrelated to monetization and need addressing which where on the very top of the things people dislike. But let's be honest, we both know where you stand on this issue, so why would I bother?

The main issue for many who want this cheaper is the lower (striving towards 0 to be exact, aka free) price point of arc templates before hand.

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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:A huge part of the negative feedback was also about functionality, bugs and design. Unrelated to price. Let's not mix those 2 together.Oh, it's very related. It's their desire to design the system in order to justify the high pricing that crippled it in its infancy. The system is designed around pricing
at a cost to functionality
. You can't separate one from the other here.

I could make a list of issues which are unrelated to monetization and need addressing which where on the very top of the things people dislike. But let's be honest, we both know where you stand on this issue, so why would I bother?Let's start from the top:
  1. gear templates: Anet could have made them to use gear from inventory, and,
    optionally
    , add a spacial gear storage. But they preferred to base it on gear storage only. This heavily limited the amount of possible gear templates a character can have. But hey, at least noone that does feel the need to have more gear templates can avoid buying gear loadout tab unlocks
  2. account-wide build templates. Anet could have made them client-based, which would allow for practically unlimited number of template slots. Instead, they decided to use server-based solution so they could justify having players pay for it. This (again) heavily limited the amount of available build templates.
  3. character-based build loadouts. That is something that would have been completely unnecessary if the account-wide template system was working right (what was at best needed was
    keybinding
    slots you could tie to specific accountwide templates). But anet needed one more thing to monetize, so here we're stuck with clunky build loadout tabs.Yes, that's not all the issues with the system, but those lie at the very core of it, and influence the whole design. And they are a result of planning the system not around useability, but around monetiztion.

The main issue for many who want this cheaper is the lower (striving towards 0 to be exact, aka free) price point of arc templates before hand.Yes, price is important (because the cost of the system is insanely high), but the fact that the system is for the most part a failure, that is useful only for those that have low to moderate (at best) use of templates, but
not
for those that would primarily want a working template system, and that the initial design makes fixing that mess practically impossible, cannot be overlooked.It is
both
badly designed and overpriced. You can't blame only one of those things for its lack of popularity.
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@Astralporing.1957 said:It is both badly designed and overpriced. You can't blame only one of those things for its lack of popularity.

I never blamed only 1 thing. I disagree that the vast majority of disapproval was only due to cost, since many people love to throw all discontent together. Not all of it was based on cost, and yes, the system can and should be improved.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:Not against it, but would be unfair for those of us who already paid for per-character templates.How would that work for us?

However, I would def want more than 6 templates and better integration with PVP, I can't get in queue outside of HotM without something funky going on.

There is a thing called Steam sales and a lot of games go up to 75% discount sale, for many companies these sales represent a huge boost in revenue. Its called business and pro-consumer tactics. I dont cry and complain when a game I bought at full price goes cheaper down the road.

That is not the same thing. Sales are expected. A change in pricing model is not.And yet GW2 core is f2p now, and HoT is free with PoF sale.

Fine. GW2 core went f2p years after its release, with very strong limitations. People who bought the game still got access to additional content no longer available (or not in the same form), free LS, historical achievements, etc.This does not compare to something that was just released a few months ago.
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@Deihnyx.6318 said:

@Deihnyx.6318 said:Not against it, but would be unfair for those of us who already paid for per-character templates.How would that work for us?

However, I would def want more than 6 templates and better integration with PVP, I can't get in queue outside of HotM without something funky going on.

There is a thing called Steam sales and a lot of games go up to 75% discount sale, for many companies these sales represent a huge boost in revenue. Its called business and pro-consumer tactics. I dont cry and complain when a game I bought at full price goes cheaper down the road.

That is not the same thing. Sales are expected. A change in pricing model is not.And yet GW2 core is f2p now, and HoT is free with PoF sale.

Fine. GW2 core went f2p years after its release, with very strong limitations. People who bought the game still got access to additional content no longer available (or not in the same form), free LS, historical achievements, etc.This does not compare to something that was just released a few months ago.

Even free to play people unlock LS so its not just for paid accounts. ( cant play it without upgrading account tho but they still unlock it. )

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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:It is
both
badly designed and overpriced. You can't blame only one of those things for its lack of popularity.

I never blamed only 1 thing. I disagree that the vast majority of disapproval was only due to cost, since many people love to throw all discontent together. Not all of it was based on cost, and yes, the system can and should be improved.That's the problem - most of its core problems are inherent to its original design and thus cannot be improved. You'd basically need to redesign the whole system from scratch. The current system is simply designed for other purposes than functionality, and there's no way around it.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:It is
both
badly designed and overpriced. You can't blame only one of those things for its lack of popularity.

I never blamed only 1 thing. I disagree that the vast majority of disapproval was only due to cost, since many people love to throw all discontent together. Not all of it was based on cost, and yes, the system can and should be improved.That's the problem - most of its core problems are inherent to its original design and thus cannot be improved. You'd basically need to redesign the whole system from scratch. The current system is simply designed for other purposes than functionality, and there's no way around it.

That I kind of agree with. The account wide build unlocks or the character specific build unlocks are redundant. That could have been managed better. Or just, in a slot based system, make equip and build templates one and the same.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:It is
both
badly designed and overpriced. You can't blame only one of those things for its lack of popularity.

I never blamed only 1 thing. I disagree that the vast majority of disapproval was only due to cost, since many people love to throw all discontent together. Not all of it was based on cost, and yes, the system can and should be improved.That's the problem - most of its core problems are inherent to its original design and thus cannot be improved. You'd basically need to redesign the whole system from scratch. The current system is simply designed for other purposes than functionality, and there's no way around it.

yup. and I'm sure if they changed anything now (ie. character-wide to account-wide) that would upset the people that already paid for things thinking that they are character-wide, so that's never going to happen. Best I would hope for is them packaging some free slots with the next expac.

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@Raolin Soulherder.3195 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:It is
both
badly designed and overpriced. You can't blame only one of those things for its lack of popularity.

I never blamed only 1 thing. I disagree that the vast majority of disapproval was only due to cost, since many people love to throw all discontent together. Not all of it was based on cost, and yes, the system can and should be improved.That's the problem - most of its core problems are inherent to its original design and thus cannot be improved. You'd basically need to redesign the whole system from scratch. The current system is simply designed for other purposes than functionality, and there's no way around it.

yup. and I'm sure if they changed anything now (ie. character-wide to account-wide) that would upset the people that already paid for things thinking that they are character-wide, so that's never going to happen. Best I would hope for is them packaging some free slots with the next expac.

Could always refund the gems spent on duplicate template purcheses.

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@Linken.6345 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:It is
both
badly designed and overpriced. You can't blame only one of those things for its lack of popularity.

I never blamed only 1 thing. I disagree that the vast majority of disapproval was only due to cost, since many people love to throw all discontent together. Not all of it was based on cost, and yes, the system can and should be improved.That's the problem - most of its core problems are inherent to its original design and thus cannot be improved. You'd basically need to redesign the whole system from scratch. The current system is simply designed for other purposes than functionality, and there's no way around it.

yup. and I'm sure if they changed anything now (ie. character-wide to account-wide) that would upset the people that already paid for things thinking that they are character-wide, so that's never going to happen. Best I would hope for is them packaging some free slots with the next expac.

Could always refund the gems spent on duplicate template purcheses.

right, but I'm not sure if that is realistic. It would displace gem sales, taking money out of Anet's pocket. they're probably not in great condition to do that due to the shrinking quarterly revenues. People would still complain, saying they had only spent money on the condition that they get the template slots, and not the gems, and would demand a refund. The vast majority of businesses are incredibly resistant to offering money refunds, and would much rather offer coupons or discounts on future products to address any customer dissatisfaction.

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@"Linken.6345" said:Could always refund the gems spent on duplicate template purchases.

You've never run a business with investors I see.They could make existing customers happier by retroactively expanding build storage as I mentioned several times here (i.e. everyone who bought 3 slots gets 9 or 10 or something in that realm per purchase) or have time-sensitive price reductions (people always buy things on sale due to the sense of urgency due to the timer) and limited bundles (i.e. bundle 10 for 25%+ off or something every day rather than only on sale; someone might not normally buy build storage and PvE-only players are less likely to buy many build templates as they can per-use the 3 provided all for PvE) to entice the price conscious or bulk buyers. Expecting a refund is in the realm of "forget about it".

Putting out refunds would be a disaster for multitude of reasons such as being forced to meet new quarterly earnings without those refunded gems factoring into the new fiscal quarter, the logistics of having support refund each outlier case with zero return on investment, and any changes in currency conversion rate if there is a chargeback.

I'd fully expect equipment templates to be expanded directly to the data-mined 10 equipment/build template slots or have legendary armory step in there. I also expect the legendary armory to be monetized directly or indirectly (due to requiring equipment templates to function properly). No one forced a player to buy templates and many opted for more character slots so refunds are just not a likelihood.

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@Infusion.7149 said:I'd fully expect equipment templates to be expanded directly to the data-mined 10 equipment/build template slots or have legendary armory step in there. I also expect the legendary armory to be monetized directly or indirectly (due to requiring equipment templates to function properly). No one forced a player to buy templates and many opted for more character slots so refunds are just not a likelihood.Unfortunately, that's probably what will happen. So, templates will remain crippled and half-functional, and legendary armoury will either not help, or actually make matters worse by complicating an already clunky system even more (and possibly raising its cost to boot).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still no answers on when this Kitten will be removed or converted to ArcDps version? I come here every so often to look and be disappointed and I log in to the game for a few minutes to poke around. I even spent a few hours on he coast but knowing the template system is still here makes me feel ill in game.

Good news for GGG though, been playing and buying stuff in Path of Exile, storage tabs and such.Been playing Mechwarrior online now that MW 5 is, predictibly, losing player interest, don't say you weren't given heaps of feedback Piranah games about how quickly it would die.Restarted my MTG games too. I've never bought digital packs before but, never say never.

Anyway, maybe check back again

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  • 3 weeks later...
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