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As the year end approaches, I'd like to give my thanks to ArenaNet for all their hard work on Guild Wars 2 in 2016. With the game being over four years old, it has only gotten better and better.
My favorite additions from 2016 were:
Salvage all by rarity. Oh my god - this single QoL addition has made GW2 gameplay at least twice as fun for me. Less time clicking and more time having fun is always a good thing in any game :D
Shared Inventory Slots. This QoL addition has resulted in me spending lots of hours on all nine of my characters, all of whom are different professions and now have full ascended gear. They really make it much easier to multi-toon. I use it for things such as the copper-fed salvage kit, mystic forge conduit, permanent airship pass, permanent merchant, and for the HoT currencies that can't be stored in the wallet.
Raids (addition of wing 2 and wing 3). I admit I didn't think much of raids when they were first released in 2015, but after experiencing how awesome they were (I used to only do dungeons and fractals previously), it gave me incentive to fully gear all of my previous characters with full ascended, as well as create additional characters to fill out the full roster of professions the game offers. Because of how much fun raids have been, I have even created gear sets to support different builds. The challenge of raids really forced me to learn and master professions, which has driven my desire to play this game every single day. I must say -- in 2015, I really only played my guardian - which was the only character I had that was full ascended, and had 150 AR. Other than that, I had two other characters that only had exotic gear and were barely used. Now, I have nine characters, one of each profession, and a total of 12 different builds in full ascended gear, of which three builds (so far) have 150 AR. Having so many characters never makes the game boring as I can now swap between them if I'm bored with one of them. Another thing that raids has shown me is the great benefit of voice communications - I used to never use them before until raids entered the fray, and now I can never see myself going back to "silent" play. The use of voice communications has helped me to become a better player, and has also resulted in closer friendships with my fellow guild members. Raids are awesome.
Living Story Season 3. I love the episodes from this season. The story has been great (especially the humor!), and the fact that we can now get ascended trinkets and backpieces without having to do guild missions or raids has been wonderful, as it makes it easier to gear out full sets for builds now.
Fractals improvements/additions. The challenge mote for the Nightmare fractal is so fun and really reminds me of games like Dark Souls. Performing mechanics correctly in the challenge mote really gives me a rush and really tests my ability to play my character to his/her full capability. I'm looking forward to future fractal additions/updates, as the latest additions and updates to older fractals has already given me incentive to get 150 AR on my other characters.
I'm looking forward to a great 2017 (more fractals, raid wings, living story, maps, and new expansion?), and here's to hoping for build templates, fashion templates, cutscene/cinematic viewer, and the ability to swap sigils and runes for free ;)
I've spent nearly 3000 hours on GW2 (of which I'm sure many people have spent a lot more time), and I don't see any sign of stopping any time soon :D
Thank you ANet and have a happy holidays!
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