Where to begin?

[Zanders.1395]

I played the original guild wars way to much back in the day and jumped at the chance to purchase gw2 when it was released. For what ever reason I just didn’t get on with the new game at the time, so moved on to other things. I did however get my character to level 67, but never finished the core game or do any dungeons. 
 

I thought I’d delve back into the guild wars universe and I’m loving it so far…. I had a couple of question and I’m after some advice. Just for clarity I have all the expansions and have the new upcoming expansion on pre order. I’ve not finished the core game and haven’t touched any of the expansion content

It is somewhat overwhelming, all the new stuff since first playing. I have 5 Characters, 1 - The original level 67 and 4 characters that I’ve boosted to level 80

I’d like to move the 4 boosted characters in unison through the early game content and get all the golden heart, hero challenges  and view point. This is purely for the achievements 

1) Do I need to worry about the hero point challenges in the core game? Will I be light on hero points if I miss them?

2) I assume you need all the golden hearts, places of interest and view points to complete the overall world achievement.

3) Would it be advisable to concentrate instead on the story missions and return to all the bits I’ve mentioned above when I have a flying mount?

4) Any suggestions on the order of content I should play?

5) Any suggestions on good guilds that welcome new players and do a good job of helping with new players coming to terms with dungeons, PvP and WvW

6) Any general pearls of wisdom that I should know about

 

cheers

 

 

[Randulf.7614]

1) There are an excess in the total game if you buy the expansions (there are none in the paid season dlcs)

2) Yes if you want the 100% map achievement

As for the rest, playing it in order, without boosting to 80 is recommended to learn the game and not feel overwhelmed with the change in difficulty later. It's also one continuous story, so getting mounts later means spoilers if that is somethig that concerns you. The game plays in order through core, season1 , season 2, HoT, Season 3, PoF, Season 4, Icebrood Saga, EoD, SoTo, Janthir Wilds. Or if you don't care about story, you can play it in any order. It will get confusing though as new systems are taught along the way, but it's an option if you feel you must have mounts early on

The best suggestion anyone can give is just to play the game. There's no right or wrong thing and any advice is likely going to be mixed and confusing. It's a big game at this point and it's best played going in and exploring and discovering for yourself. 

 

[DeanBB.4268]

Just an FYI: "Dungeons" refers to specific instanced content that has basically been replaced with newer instanced content, and (to my knowledge) is not run extensively. There are fractals, raids, dragon response missions, and strikes for instanced content. The wiki will describe them better than I could.

The wiki is your friend. Don't be afraid to look stuff up, the game is vast and throws a lot of stuff at you.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Indeed, the Wiki (link above) is a great resource for all things GW2.

The 'Dragon Story' wraps up at the end of End of Dragons (hence the name).  A new story starts with Secrets of the Obscure, so you could get a Skyscale there without too many spoilers.

Welcome return, and good luck.

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Zanders.1395 said:

I played the original guild wars way to much back in the day and jumped at the chance to purchase gw2 when it was released. For what ever reason I just didn’t get on with the new game at the time, so moved on to other things. I did however get my character to level 67, but never finished the core game or do any dungeons. 
 

I thought I’d delve back into the guild wars universe and I’m loving it so far…. I had a couple of question and I’m after some advice. Just for clarity I have all the expansions and have the new upcoming expansion on pre order. I’ve not finished the core game and haven’t touched any of the expansion content

It is somewhat overwhelming, all the new stuff since first playing. I have 5 Characters, 1 - The original level 67 and 4 characters that I’ve boosted to level 80

I’d like to move the 4 boosted characters in unison through the early game content and get all the golden heart, hero challenges  and view point. This is purely for the achievements 

1) Do I need to worry about the hero point challenges in the core game? Will I be light on hero points if I miss them?

2) I assume you need all the golden hearts, places of interest and view points to complete the overall world achievement.

3) Would it be advisable to concentrate instead on the story missions and return to all the bits I’ve mentioned above when I have a flying mount?

4) Any suggestions on the order of content I should play?

5) Any suggestions on good guilds that welcome new players and do a good job of helping with new players coming to terms with dungeons, PvP and WvW

6) Any general pearls of wisdom that I should know about

Welcome back!

The game will be overwhelming at first because there's a lot to do, and as you've noticed there's a lot of choice in what you do and in what order, but you'll get used to it again. The important thing to know is you can't get locked out of anything because you did it in the wrong order and if you make any mistakes there will be a way to fix them, so don't worry too much about what you're 'supposed' to be doing.

1) Hero challenges are required for map completion, so if you're planning to get all the hearts, vistas and points of interest you should do the hero challenges too. The hero points are also useful (they're not expansion specific, you can use any points for any skills/specialisations), but the ones in expansion maps are worth 10 points each so if you want to unlock elite specialisations quickly those are more useful.

2) Yes you do, if you open the map it will show a key on the left with all the things required to complete that map.

3) It's up to you. Some things will be quicker and easier with mounts (especially the griffon or skyscale), but IMO you also lose the opportunity to learn how the level design works and find things you didn't know to look for if you skip straight to your intended destination.

4) I think you should focus on what interests you, which can change from day to day or even moment to moment. It's easy to switch between activities, either on the same character or different ones so you don't need to commit to doing anything for longer than you want to. You can see the story order in the hero panel and that will lead you through many of the maps, but you can also go anywhere which interests you.

5) Can't comment on this one now.

6) One thing that might be useful to know: the game has a Looking For Group tool in the Contacts menu which can be used by anyone to find a group for anything. Unlike many MMOs a lot of open-world activities need a group, often a big group, so it's useful to find people doing meta events and other stuff if you don't happen to be on the same map as them. Of course it also works for dungeons, raids etc. and is better than map chat because everyone in your region can see an LFG message, whereas only people on the same copy of the same map will see chat. If you don't see a group you can join for what you want to do you can start one. Starting a group does not make you the leader and doesn't mean you're promising to guide everyone else, just that you want people to join you. There's a free text box where you can put any message you like, including asking for someone else to lead if you think it's neeed.

Oh also a lot of the big events chains and world bosses are on a timer, so it's helpful to check the Event Timer page on the Wiki to see when they're due to start, otherwise you can waste a lot of time hanging around waiting for something.

[Danikat.8537]

39 minutes ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

Just an FYI: "Dungeons" refers to specific instanced content that has basically been replaced with newer instanced content, and (to my knowledge) is not run extensively. There are fractals, raids, dragon response missions, and strikes for instanced content. The wiki will describe them better than I could.

The wiki is your friend. Don't be afraid to look stuff up, the game is vast and throws a lot of stuff at you.

That's not really accurate. Anet haven't made new dungeons in a while but all the ones they did make are still in the game, still functional and people still play them. They're no longer one of the hardest parts of the game, or the best ways to get gold so they're not popular with farmers and veteran players but it's not difficult to get a group together to play them.

[Zanders.1395]

What a fantastic community! Thank you all for the information. 
One of the things I was looking forward to upon my return to the game, that I forgot to check first time around was what I had unlocked in GW and what had transferred to GW 2. I’d got the Black Widow spider from the underworld and just assumed I’d have access to it in GW2. Turns out I only had 13 Hall of Monuments points and need 30 Grrr!

Couldn’t see many people around and didn’t relish the thought of trying to do hard areas with heroes. It was just as I remember it although the graphics are a bit dated now. Amazing how now you just level to get elite skills in GW2. Back in the GW days you had to find the relevant boss who had the elite skill you required and use a capture signet to grab it.  Those were the days! 😀

[Obnoxa.6702]

@Randulf.7614 gave a solid response. A+

Probably the only little bit I'll add is 2 things:
1: Central Tyria Masteries - may not seem that important but get em, get em, get em! At least 18 and train Pact Commander all the way down to Advanced Logistics. Auto loot is an absolute game changer.
2: As a lore fan, I would never tell someone to spoil the story, but if you are going to wiggle around for anything, mounts are good... but gliding will save you a thousand needless deaths and is much more important (HoT xpack) then the luxury of mounts.
In my humble opinion.
GL & Welcome back to Tyria 😁

[costepj.5120]

Not a ranger pet, but you can buy the mini toxic spider queen off the trading post; it looks very similat to the black widow spider pet.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini_Toxic_Spider_Queen

[Nash.2681]

16 hours ago, Zanders.1395 said:

[...]

6) Any general pearls of wisdom that I should know about

If you intend to stay longer, the best QoL item you might want to get is the Copper-Fed-Salvage 'o Matic. Then put it in a shared inventory slot and never think about salvaging white/blue/green stuff again.

[Luthan.5236]

Personally I find GW2 much more entertaining than GW1. (Though I only really started GW1 after I played a lot of GW2 ... but I had a very old GW1 account that I never really played lol.)
For the group content there are dungeons, fractals, raids and strikes (got created in that order I think). The dungeons are barely played anymore - exept during dungeon rushes. (And then people skip the cutscenes.) They tied a bit (the story modes) into the core personal story. But you can watch things on YouTube if needed. (Not tooo important.)

Personally I recommend to level chars manually - when playing the profession for the first time. Playing the elite specs starting with the expansion maps they got released with. (So you can learn each of them a bit.) But of course you can also just jump to the latest meta builds and use the later elite specs in earlier content to play more efficiently there.

For the core maps the renown hearts (yellow hearts) are not tooo important. For legendary weapons (needs also farming a lot of gold) there is a gift of exploration for exploring the whole core world (doing all the hearts included) - but there are later generations of legendary weapons that do not need it + you can buy 1st gen legendaries directly for (a lot of) gold on the trading post.

I recommend to do everything with one main - to have all waypoints unlocked and get a bit of knowledge about the maps (sometimes later achievements send you back to do stuff on old core maps and the wizards vault also has jumping puzzles sometimes ... helpful to have the waypoints close to them unlocked). For the other chars just move to the story as you like. I did the maps the core story sent me through - ignoring the others at first. (But since I am a bit of completionist I still aim to fully do every map completion on all chars .... sloooooowly. Lol. Not really needed though.)

[EDOTDOT.9265]

20 hours ago, Zanders.1395 said:

I played the original guild wars way to much back in the day and jumped at the chance to purchase gw2 when it was released. For what ever reason I just didn’t get on with the new game at the time, so moved on to other things. I did however get my character to level 67, but never finished the core game or do any dungeons. 
 

I thought I’d delve back into the guild wars universe and I’m loving it so far…. I had a couple of question and I’m after some advice. Just for clarity I have all the expansions and have the new upcoming expansion on pre order. I’ve not finished the core game and haven’t touched any of the expansion content

It is somewhat overwhelming, all the new stuff since first playing. I have 5 Characters, 1 - The original level 67 and 4 characters that I’ve boosted to level 80

I’d like to move the 4 boosted characters in unison through the early game content and get all the golden heart, hero challenges  and view point. This is purely for the achievements 

1) Do I need to worry about the hero point challenges in the core game? Will I be light on hero points if I miss them?

2) I assume you need all the golden hearts, places of interest and view points to complete the overall world achievement.

3) Would it be advisable to concentrate instead on the story missions and return to all the bits I’ve mentioned above when I have a flying mount?

4) Any suggestions on the order of content I should play?

5) Any suggestions on good guilds that welcome new players and do a good job of helping with new players coming to terms with dungeons, PvP and WvW

6) Any general pearls of wisdom that I should know about

 

cheers

 

 

1)  You'll be light in the sense that it'll simply take longer to get your build where you want it to be since a missed point is a missed point but there's still an excess of points across the entire game so you don't have to get every single one.  The elite specializations do require more points per "step" so keep that in mind as well.  Just to unlock basic access to one requires 30 points if I recall correctly.

 

3)  I would say just focus on getting to level 80 and then decide what to do next for yourself.  Some people prefer to get thee mounts and glider unlocked, others prefer to get Ascended gearing out of the way first.

 

4)  You'll have to play at least some core content to get to level 80 unless you use a boost.  After that, Heart of Thorns will unlock the glider pretty quickly and Path of Fire is where the mounts are at.