[From the ‘update news’]

@Svarty.8019 said:

@"TwoGhosts.6790" said:Fiddling while Rome burns.Rearranging the furniture as the house collapses.

I believe you're looking for, "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic."

Thank you, I missed that one.

[From the ‘update news’]

3 months.2 variables.Impressive work rate.

[From the ‘update news’]

Fiddling while Rome burns.Rearranging the furniture as the house collapses.

[wintersday donation drive to the kids]

If you wrap the foods that drop (instead of buying the toys to wrap), you can make about 35K karma per Daily run of 15 orphans (net of wrapping paper) - this is without a bonfire booster and prolly some other sources.

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

@Svarty.8019 said:I find the Build and Equipment templates to be amazing, I love to switch between my silly, crappy Burn (condi) Guardian, WvW Zerg Firebrand and power Dragon Hunter. When I put them on hotkeys it's an incredible improvement!

Thanks Arenanet!

Boo - no u! :p

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

@Gatvin.6510 said:I love this feature. I really do. I WOULD really like to see savable keybind profiles to go with it rather than the one-set-for-all-builds-and-characters we currently have. I was hoping that we'd see something to address keybinds before wintersday and the bell events came out.

ARC Templates didn't have a keybind function, and I managed fine without.Then again, ARC was actually a really good templates system.I suppose the shitshow we have now differs from ARC in a number of ways.

[Will 3rd Expansion happen at all?]

No.They are either still working on GW3 (which they were), or that was one of the 'side-projects' that got cancelled with the lay-offs.Either way... not looking too good for GW2-related content.

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

Also, just to be clear.I have no problem with paying a reasonable price for a good quality product.The problem is that it's a ridiculous price for a shity product.It represents a massive loss of QOL for me in the game, and a major source of frustration and loss of motivation in playing the game the way I had come to enjoy with ARC Templates.I have stated elsewhere that I would happily spend 5000 gems on an Anet solution that offered the same elegant, reliable and open-ended solution to templates that ARC did.But I'm not going to spend a penny on the shitshow that we have at the moment.Those players that used ARC and/or have legendary items will understand my anger and frustration. Those that don't probably won't.And that's the greatest irony of Anet's so-called templates launch; those players who would make the most use of a templates system are the ones most alienated by the system as it stands. GG.

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@TwoGhosts.6790 said:The implementation of Anet's so called build templates is appalling, certainly when compared to the brilliant solution many people were already using and can no longer use; Arc Templates.The monetisation structure they have adopted for it is repugnant.

You do realize there's a difference between what developers may want to do and what corporate may want you to do right? I would blame the methodology of the build/gear templates squarely on NCSoft and not ArenaNet...and as someone else posted above, it was always known, from the beginning, that the ARC templates would go away as soon as ArenaNet released there's, an agreement is an agreement, something a lot of people don't live up to in today's world.

The first is plausible.The second is stating the obvious.Neither changes the facts of my original statement.

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

The implementation of Anet's so called build templates is appalling, certainly when compared to the brilliant solution many people were already using and can no longer use; Arc Templates.The monetisation structure they have adopted for it is repugnant.

[World War III]

They won't make it off the beaches ?

["Mark I Golem" following me around! Why? For how long?!]

This is one of my favourite threads ever, you brightened my day. ?I can just imagine your frustration.

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

@"Asum.4960" said:GW2 is all about horizontal progression.Arc Templates encapsulated that perfectly by not making you more powerful at any one thing, but allowing you to instead become specialised at more and more things over time with investment, allowing you to gear up and learn a vast array of builds for more and more scenarios, no matter how niche, while crucially also providing the tools to seamlessly swap between them. Which in turn also encouraged players to seek out and master more and more gamemodes and content within them, drastically increasing the longevity of the game.

Upon reflecting on why this patch had such a massively negative impact on my (and many other's I know) desire to even just keep playing, I came to the conclusion that in my opinion Anet took out the primary progression system for many veteran players of the game when they shut down Arc, just to replace it with a monetization scheme, an almost absurdly heavy handed one at that. While even with full investment of a couple hundred euros/dollars, it still stops far short from replacing the functionality, and with that necessary service for the game, that Arc provided, in pretty much every regard.

I truly think this "template" patch was the most damaging thing that happened to the hardcore scene of the game since launch, and that says a lot among all the missteps and lack of content we stuck through with.

As much as I appreciate that we eventually got any response at all, that can't make up for the fact that it completely missed the mark and only talked about eventually months down the line just fixing the most preliminary issues, while completely avoiding the issue of how flawed to the core almost everything about the implementation is, from lack of functionality to massively overbearing monetization for such a vital feature for many, and how much damage that caused to some of the most invested playerbase.

This.Just reading it makes me sad all over again.

[Saying Something Nice to the Devs.]

Yeah, HoT was the best PvE content they released I think (story and final boss aside). Unfortunately it also began the power creep that has plagued other parts the game ever since.I've had SO much fun playing this game over the last 7 years, and there is so much to admire in it's execution (most notably in the environment design and music), but sadly things have been slipping more and more recently. And the templates BS is just a shameful situation.I'm still playing, but I'm disappointed at the moment.But yeah, in the spirit of the OP, thank you for creating a game that has been a part of my life like no other.Please don't fuck it up.

[Gw2 placed 163rd on the most watched games of 2019 (twitch)]

I challenge you to think of 162 other things you might do; never mind naming 162 other games; never mind 162 other games you would watch someone else play.So yeah.Gratz.I guess.

[I think expansions hurt the game.....]

Don't worry.There won't be any more expansions.

[Is it worth returning in 2019 after years?]

@DutchRiders.2871 said:Gw2 is not worth comming back to. You get about 30 min of story every 2 months. The aggressive monitezation also is bad on your wallet.

I mean, angry as I am about the templates BS (and I am, very) this comment is simply not true.There is a tremendous amount of content for returning players to enjoy, and the monetisation is only bad if you get your wallet out, which I won't now.

[Do you actively use the Build-Templates feature?]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@TwoGhosts.6790 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Tukaram.8256 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:wow I am amazed by the results of the poll

So am I. I am surprised so many people use it.

And this poll so far is only a small sampling of a small portion of the player base that comes to the forums. Imagine the data that Anet must have?

Yeah, but imagine how many players are now using Anet's garbage simply because it exists in game, but have never used Arc Templates before and so have no frame of reference or experience of what a well-designed templates solution was like. Very sad.

well most players dont use third party software in GW2.

I know that, of course. It's just a shame that, as a result, all those people missed out on a great QOL feature against which Anet's own solution is terrible in comparison.

[Do you actively use the Build-Templates feature?]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Tukaram.8256 said:

@Knighthonor.4061 said:wow I am amazed by the results of the poll

So am I. I am surprised so many people use it.

And this poll so far is only a small sampling of a small portion of the player base that comes to the forums. Imagine the data that Anet must have?

Yeah, but imagine how many players are now using Anet's garbage simply because it exists in game, but have never used Arc Templates before and so have no frame of reference or experience of what a well-designed templates solution was like. Very sad.

[Do you actively use the Build-Templates feature?]

I'm not using it at all because I can't bear it.I was using Arc Templates, which was superb and I loved it and how much fun it brought to exploring classes and builds in the gw2's endgame content.Sadly, Anet seem to have ignored everything that Arc did so well in their own design, and coupled it with a revolting monetisation goal.

[Tier 6 materials observation]

Sell what you don't need to buy what you do. It has ever been the idea behind the TP. Pretty sure that selling 5000 elder wood will buy you a lot of leather.

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

@starhunter.6015 said:The build swap needs to have a bit more limitations in WvW, make it at spawn point only.

Arc Templates had quite a good limiting mechanism in competitive modes, more than enough delay to frustrate rapid changes on the fly between combats. If Anet haven't replicated that, then I don't know what they were thinking. I think they have though, which would mean your suggestion is quite literally to limit use to spawn only. And I simply can't agree with that idea, far too limiting. Mind you, it would actually have to be well designed and useful in the first place to even suffer from abuse. And it's not. So w/e.

[Yeah. This isn't content.]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@"Fenella.2634" said:Then again, they surely think their build "templates" are expansion level content...

I hope this was just the unevitable lower-quality episode we get from time to time. I don't know if it's a team issue or just plain bad luck, but looking back at previous seasons those episodes were usually followed up by something much better. Let's keep looking forward.

Anet never gave us the impression build templates were expansion level content. In fact, that was a lame comparison imposed on templates by opponents to argue things they didn't like about them.

Wut?People simply don't like them because they are so very badly implemented.I myself despise them, but I also never expect to see another expansion for this game ever again.But you are right, Anet never gave us the impression build templates were expansion level content. Thank god. Their crowing over the templates BS was misplaced enough as it is.

[Tomorrow's Guild Chat: We want your questions!]

Did anybody at Anet use (or even try for R&D purposes) Arc Templates before the design process began on your own version? Or was the entire design philosophy about creating something diametrically opposed to most people's expectation (even experience) of a successful solution to templates, coupled with a revolting monetisation goal?

[Official Feedback Thread about Build and Equipment Templates]

@Linken.6345 said:sometime next year.

I mean, it's embarrassing.