Guild Wars 2

Hello! I know this topic was already discussed in the past, but nothing concrete came out of it: would it be possible to get some build templates with HoT, or at least just after the release of HoT – if they were not scheduled for the expansion…? It would be a great feature for us players who have a lot of characters with a lot of builds. That would be so easy and ergonomic (and way less frustrating) to load the builds and the equipment in just one or two click(s)…!

Here is a video made by a GW2 player that shows a very good example of what build templates could be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq3PkFCS0rs

Nothing concrete came out other than a flat out statement by Colin that while they think templates are a cool idea, they have not worked on them for HoT.

So no, it’s not possible, they aren’t spending the resources on it at this time. Maybe a while after HoT? But not just after.

We know this is something Anet wants to do but we also have confirmation that it won’t be coming with HoT.

What kind of annoys me about the way Anet is handling it is that they are saying: We want to implement a complete version of this feature, and we are not happy until we get it right. I’d rather have a limited version right now, to be honest. With a limited version I mean: A version which saves our specialization choices, trait choices and healing/utility/elite skill choices but which doesn’t save our equipment.

That would be so amazing! I can’t wait to be able to save my builds and equipments!! Please Arena.net!! Hear us and help us sort our complicated builds
What this guy did in the video looks perfect! ^^
Thanks a lot for everything you already do <3

Well, thank you all for answering. I already knew what Colin said about this topic, but as it was a while ago, I Imagined they could have already begun working on something anyway, even if it is intended to come out only after HoT, simply because a lot of people are waiting for Build Templates.

I agree that a primitive version of them would be better than no version at all… and I think that if a student who also has a job on his own found the time and “ressources” to make some pretty good build templates for GW2 (and a video describing them), ANet should be able to impliment them easily and quickly enough into the game, with little effort. But I guess they are just not considering Build Templates as important as mini Pet Rocks and godly outfits…

Lymew is right though: thank you ANet for all you do. But really, if you could spare a few of these minis and clothes in order to make us some good Build Templates, that’d be great.

I like that they now save your builds separately for PvE, WvW, and PvP, but sometimes I wish I could quickly change builds, in all game modes in fact.

WvW — I usually do camp capturing and tower guard duty in WvW, so I have a build that focuses on survivability in camp capturing (since you will go against many NPCs at a time), but when I see an enemy coming my way to defend the camp, I disengage and change builds to a more suitable dueling build. I wish there was a way to change quickly once out of combat.

PvP — it would be nice if I could change my build accordingly to my team’s and my enemy team’s composition quickly. The problem here is the one minute preparation time. You also need to analyze the enemy team, their possible move at the start of the game, what will you guys do at the start, think what could happen in the middle of the battle (eg. focus on this X and that Y, be careful Z they have this and that), communicate with one another, and then finally change your build. It would be VERY nice to focus more on discussing strategy with your fellow team mates on that one minute preparation, rather than being preoccupied with your build tinkering.

PvE — it’s primarily a QoL feature, since there’s no rush to change builds, except maybe if you are speed running. It’s a pretty nifty QoL change if you were just doing map completion and you want to use a build that focuses on mobility, then when you want to fight, you change your build to a more offensive one.

You may be thinking, “oh we might change things or add things in the future, so build templates is impossible, IMPOSSIBLE, I dare say, to implement because of the changing tides of the moon and the rise and fall of the sun”. -.- Then include a version number in the build template, so even if you change things, that version number will validate if a build template is compatible with the current system. To clarify, just in case ( -.- ), the version number is not the version number of the build, it’s the version number of the current system (ie. traits, equipment, etc. ) How would you specify version numbers to the system changes? This is just a suggestion bro, maybe you could think of a better way to do this, or maybe it’s not even needed, but this is just my hunch why you don’t want build templates, because you change things a lot, and I remember one of the devs were asking how you could encode templates in chat text form, when there are many things to include in the template code.

My understanding is that ANet wants them too. Implicitly, they’ve suggested that there’s some technical issue that prevents them from creating “loadable” templates (as opposed to just saving the details of your build). I can’t imagine what that issue is myself. I am assuming that it’s significant, otherwise ANet would have already done this if implementation was as easy as we think.