Templates Preview Guild Chat -- We want your questions!

[Neutra.6857]

Ok, so essentially this template is like more bag space where the spots are specified for specific armor. It isn't really a template like what arc did, where the armor ws still in inventory and it just switched that around. I really do prefer arcs implementation, but then I have legendary armor so this method of implementation is much more limiting.

[Hawken.7932]

I think the feature, as presented, looks pretty good.Those complaining about the paid slots - let's get real. We're playing a free-to-play game, and I would expect this kind of thing in all features of the game going forward. The equipment templates part of this with free up huge bag space for many people, which will certainly cannibalize their "bag slot" gem sales, so it stands to reason they need to replace this revenue stream at least somewhat.That's not to say that I particularly like that there is no subscription option in GW2 to remove all this crap - I would much prefer that that there was - but given that the MMO genre has ended up in this free-to-play mess, at least I find this feature to be reasonably implemented.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

I’m sorry but you guys literally split the templates into “build” and “equipment” templates and are CHARGING FOR BOTH??? like come on. That’s some of the shadiest business practices you guys have employed. “We could make this feature and sell it as 1 template, but why not make it two templates for no particularly great reason and then sell it for twice the money???”

Not to mention how insanely punishing this is for people that have Full Legendary and also primarily only play one character. I would need upwards of 8+ equipment slots and then a bunch of build slots as well just to utilize my legendaries properly. This is absolutely crazy and I’m probably going to uninstall over this honestly.

[Bovan.9481]

Very happy to see the templates are on their way!

I do have one burning question that has been bothering me for quite a long time. Will this system allow us to swap infusions as well? I'm worried swapping between power and condi builds will still require 2 sets of gear even if I have legendary gear if infusions aren't being swapped between builds as well.

Also are we allowed to name the templates ourselves (like ''condi'', ''power'', ''dungeon'', etc'')?

[Hokie.1045]

@"Dzjudz.9142" said:What would you say to people who have legendary gear for the convenience of swapping between lots of builds (many runes, stat combinations) and now being locked to only two possibilities (with having to buy gems for more options)? A ranger can for example use power soulbeast (berserker), condi soulbeast (viper), heal druid (harrier), deimos hand kiter (minstrel or whatever), wvw condi (trailblazer), and many more. What is the benefit of legendary gear if you lock the options via build templates?

What you said rings very true! I made a second ranger to put my druid gear on long before I acquired my legendary gear. Now I can't even swap easily between my main ranger's variations, which doesn't even use one of the elite specializations available to him! I think this update has dealt a big punch in the gut to even wanting to put the effort into more legendary gear. I don't see how unique future elite specializations wouldn't be a ploy to try to get people to buy more slots.

Idea: Maybe make one or two more equipment slots per account unlockable? One for entering https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Special_Forces_Training_Area? How about for equipping a piece of legendary armor?

[Neutra.6857]

@"Hawken.7932" said:I think the feature, as presented, looks pretty good.Those complaining about the paid slots - let's get real. We're playing a free-to-play game, and I would expect this kind of thing in all features of the game going forward. The equipment templates part of this with free up huge bag space for many people, which will certainly cannibalize their "bag slot" gem sales, so it stands to reason they need to replace this revenue stream at least somewhat.That's not to say that I particularly like that there is no subscription option in GW2 to remove all this kitten - I would much prefer that that there was - but given that the MMO genre has ended up in this free-to-play mess, at least I find this feature to be reasonably implemented.

Actually no, most of us are not playing a free to play game, most of us who will use this system bought the game, and the expansions. Those of us who will use this system already had system that worked, was free and was more extensive then this. This system works for those who have a very limited set of equipment builds. It make legendary armor and weapons decidedly less useful then what we had before with arc-dps.

[Saniyah.1984]

It is disgusting that its gemstore, atleast made it 6 build templates and 6 equipment templates. Also is the per character a wording choice like bag slots per character or account bound per charact(ike a total)?

[Asum.4960]

This will come entirely down to pricing for me. Some of the features like build sharing and banking gear in the template sounds really awesome and exactly what I hoped for.On the other hand, I have as much as around 20 templates in Arc on multiple characters, and with how ridiculous the pricing in the gemstore tends to be, keeping a similar variety in terms of gameplay is likely going to cost me literally hundreds of Euros, or thousands and thousands of Gold, even if I shave down on some more niche builds, which is exactly what I was most afraid of.

If that is the case, it will severely impact what type of content I play, how often and also the variety of professions I'll play, as by the sounds of it purchases will be per character.This will likely drastically reduce my engagement with the game compared to what it is now with Arc, no matter how good the features themselves are.

How much will depend on the price tag.

[Mrs Lana.2506]

Paying for gear slots I understand, but what made you guys think that people would actually pay for extra build storage slots, regardless of per character or account?

[Seera.5916]

@"Hawken.7932" said:I think the feature, as presented, looks pretty good.Those complaining about the paid slots - let's get real. We're playing a free-to-play game, and I would expect this kind of thing in all features of the game going forward. The equipment templates part of this with free up huge bag space for many people, which will certainly cannibalize their "bag slot" gem sales, so it stands to reason they need to replace this revenue stream at least somewhat.That's not to say that I particularly like that there is no subscription option in GW2 to remove all this kitten - I would much prefer that that there was - but given that the MMO genre has ended up in this free-to-play mess, at least I find this feature to be reasonably implemented.

This is a buy to play game. ANet lets players have a very long extended free trial of the game.

They let arcdps have build templates for a while now. They didn't communicate with players to figure out what a good starting amount would be for free templates and instead made it relatively small. So players got used to using a lot of templates and the ability to just make a new one to try out a new build for kicks, but be able to go back to their main build when it's time to do something important.

Now ANet's come in and said, you'll only get this small number for free, but after that you'll have to pay.

And it's even more of an issue because GW1's templates you could have as many as your hard drive could store. For free.

So yes, players are mad and honestly ANet should have anticipated it and reached out to players to figure out the average number of builds per character people had. So that their initial limits at least were close to if not at average number.

[Ashantara.8731]

I believe the most unpleasant part about this will be the slots in which your equipment is stored. Upon switching, the one you take off will likely be auto-placed in your first bag.

Edit: Oh, I was wrong! Quote: "Items you add to Equipment Templates will no longer take up space in your character’s inventory." :+1: :)

@"Matrix.3087" said:Could you increase the default Equipment Template tabs to at least 3 or 4?

Quote: "For a limited time after release, you’ll be able to pick up a free pack in the Gem Store for a total of six free Build Storage Spaces." The same does not go for Equipment Templates, though...

@Aechidna.3084 said:Less of a question, more of a request:PLEASE don't make them horribly expensive...You realise that the way your classes are made, a single character can run a LOT of builds. I have 16 builds on 3 of my characters alone atm :( Please, please, please don't lock this stuff behind huge paywalls...

It looks like you can only run a maximum of 6 builds per character at a time.

[Robban.1256]

@Akachi.1352 said:Why are you restricting us to 6 (3 +3) baseline build storage slots when we had infinite with Guild Wars 1.

you didnt have infinite in gw1, max slots was 550

[Aaralyna.3104]

I have no question nor do I wanna be all pink glasses supporting Anet but I still feel I have to say this to the community. And I do feel some folks would rather downvote what I am going to say.

We are given:

• 3 Build Template tabs for each character (1 build for pve, 1 for pvp and 1 for wvw)
• 3 Build Storage Spaces for free (in gemstore for a limited time). (Again 1 for pve, 1 for pvp and 1 for wvw)
• 2 Equipment Template tabs per character. (1 for pve and 1 for wvw)

Pvp has another equipment system (it basically has no gear to save, only stats and attributes, runes and sigils)

If you do not play a certain mode, you can use those tabs/spaces solely for a mode you do play). As a player you have the freedom in that.

When we started the game we were all aware that 3rd party addons were never supported (even against game rules). Some grey area ones were given a temporary greenlight by Anet which they could have red lighted from the start. They also made the agreement to greenlight Arc build templates (for the community) with the comment that when they do manage to insert build templates themselves Arc will be red lighted. This is also confirmed by the developer of Arc build templates (ahead of today's post). Players that played the game as supposed without addons always only had 1 build template tab, no storage space and 1 equipment template per character.

Some players also refer to gw1 that has this feature for free.... Guild wars 2 is another game and is simply not Guild Wars and times change, market changes as well.

I feel that Anet is very generous to give us a free slot so we can have 1 setup for every game mode in game (which will make more players step into all modes since it saves the equipment in the template and not in your inventory bag, this is a big big plus). Having more than that is just a QoL thing that in my eyes they are entitled to ask money for and its not even p2w. Its a 1 on 1 on inventory bag slots for gems.

The devs put a significant amount of time and resources to make this long requested feature and it seems to be created just as we (players without addons) had hoped for. Give them some credit for their work...

[Wakani.1829]

@Stephane Lo Presti.7258 said:

If you have questions about the feature, drop them here and we'll answer as many as we can tomorrow.

I wanna add to what i said before.

If you wanna see less outrage, while keeping shit in the gemstore, heres a brilliant idea.

1: gear AND build slots, are character based, but account wide, meaning if you give us 3 of each, each character has 3.2: Up the number of slots to 5 gear, 5 build.3: reward any account that has HoT or PoF 2 additional gear AND build slots (totalling 9 free slots).

If anyone wants to go beyond that, it'll be their choice, but at least this way, the average ACTIVE player, will have enough slots for what they do in the game.

[Dzjudz.9142]

@Aaralyna.3104 said:I feel that Anet is very generous to give us a free slot so we can have 1 setup for every game mode in game (which will make more players step into all modes since it saves the equipment in the template and not in your inventory bag, this is a big big plus). Having more than that is just a QoL thing that in my eyes they are entitled to ask money for and its not even p2w. Its a 1 on 1 on inventory bag slots for gems.

I don't know, I don't think it's cool to start monetizing the use of legendary gear for the purpose for which it was made.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

What is the point of legendary gear and upgrades if we limited to only 2 gear templates?

[Neutra.6857]

I have a different suggestion. The advantage of this system is that this essentially acts as inventory slots for armor/weapons as a set. The problem is that it severely limits legendary armor, weapons, and accessories. That is the advantage that arc had, that it could easily swap legendary equipment and you had an infinite number of varieties you could have. So basically I would implement a system somewhat like what arc has, where there are methods of switching the legendary stuff, while the upgrade components would be in your inventory. If you wanted the advantage of the the templates storing your runes and sigils as a set you would have to buy additional slots.both

This means it is both monetizable and keeps the current ability of arcdps that everyone loves.

[Wakani.1829]

@Ashantara.8731 said:Not if you want to get more free content in the future. There won't be an expansion anytime soon, so they need to make money.

Where exactly in the update did they mention that all the other gemstore content is being removed ?. they didnt? right, so there's no need to put this long awaited 13+ year old feature behind a paywall to survive.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Wakani.1829 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:Not if you want to get more free content in the future. There won't be an expansion anytime soon, so they need to make money.

Where exactly in the update did they mention that all the other gemstore content is being removed ?. they didnt?

A feature like that will make a lot more money than some skins. I know people who rarely buy anything from the store. This, on the other hand, will definitely be bought by tons of people, because it is super practical and not just something to look at.

[jokobet.6081]

I am very excited to see templates come and that legendary equipment is shared between equipment templates. What about legendary sigils/runes, will they also be shared across templates, e.g. if I had 4 legendary sigils and only legendary weapons, would I need any more sigils outside of underwater combat?

An example could be swapping from Sword/Axe + Greatsword to Sword/Axe + Longbow on my Soulbeast, would I need six legendary sigils for that or do four suffice when using two templates?

Thank you for your answer to this niche question. :)

[Crystal.8051]

Do something for the people that have spent money, that have multitudes of characters, gear, etc. Your players that have played 5-6-7 YEARS. While im not personally bothered by the 'pay your way after 2', you will only cop extreme flak from your veteran players for this. Do something like adding it to the achieve total rewards and if your so high you unlock so many automatically. Or based on years of gameplay. Im sure theres someway you could make this better for the veterans and you wont hear so much whinging...

[Wakani.1829]

@Ashantara.8731 said:A feature like that will make a lot more money than some skins. I know people who rarely buy anything from the store. This, on the other hand, will definitely be bought by tons of people, because it is super practical and not just something to look at.

you Just made my point for me. all those reasons are exactly why it shouldent be monetized. QoL shouldent be monetized, ever. wanna know why ?Bethesda Monetizing repair canisters in fallout 76.Activision-Blizzard Monetizing A RED DOT SIGHT in call of duty.

If you let this continue, without calling it for what it is, then you're gonna be one of the reasons gaming becomes a thing of the past (not die, but a thing of the past). I woulden't let my children play such a game if i had any children, not a fkn chance in hell, and when that becomes the norm - and it will, who are you gonna be playing your games with ?, i dont mean you specifically, but you have to look forward, this style of monetization is HURTING the gaming industry, and its community, its dividing gamers, and making less people interested than was before, its NOT GOOD for the gaming community.

[Wakani.1829]

@Crystal.8051 said:Do something like adding it to the achieve total rewards and if your so high you unlock so many automatically. Or based on years of gameplay.

Now that is actually a solid solution aswell. 10k+ points netting you a free slot every few thousand AP you earn after that, retroactively added ofc(im personally just passing 8.5k btw, so theres no instant gain bias here for those that may be thinking that).

[Ashantara.8731]

@Wakani.1829 said:you Just made my point for me. all those reasons are exactly why it shouldent be monetized. QoL shouldent be monetized, ever. wanna know why ?[...]

I find RNG a lot worse than monetizing additional slots in an otherwise free feature. Also, a lot of QoL stuff is already being monetized, like make-over kits, additional bag slots, bank tabs. Additional template slots is not where I draw the line, to be honest, if I want the company that makes the game to survive. Of course, if the whole feature was accessible only through payment, I would be against it, too.

[Saniyah.1984]

How long untill we get gem store only stat prefix, Aim for pay to win next ;-;