I don't really understand the game

[TheTyFactor.2458]

i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

[Sir Alric.5078]

@"TheTyFactor.2458" said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

There is nothing you "should" be doing. Just do whatever you think is fun. You like competition? Play PvP. You like exploration? Go for map completion. You like end game content like Raids? Do those. Ecc.This game doesn't tell you what to do. It's up to you to set your personal goal and decide what you want to do.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

Hi and welcome!Well, when you start your character, it gives you a small story to work through, then you find yourself on your racial beginning map. (Metrica Province for Asura, Caledon Forest for Sylvari, Wayfarer Foothills for Norn, Queensdale for humans, and Plains of Ashford for Charr.

On your map, you will see many heart-shaped icons. Those are reknown hearts, and they hover over a character who wants your help with something. You complete tasks until the heart fills up. (To completely explore a map and get the map reward, if you want to, you will need to finish all the hearts, find the map's points of interest, beat the hero point challenges and view all the vistas. )

You will also sometimes see dynamic events marked by orange circles and icons. These are recurring activities that happen, and which you can take part in.

Everything you do, exploring, fighting, beating challenges, gives you experience points. When you get to Level 10, the next chapter in your character's story will open and you can follow the green stars to continue.

You should learn to use your hero panel. Press 'h' to bring it up. Some tabs and functions will not be available till you get to the higher levels, but from the start, you can use this to change your character's equipment, colors, etc. Once you can use hero points, you will be able to spend them on the Hero Point tab to get extra skills you can choose to fill your character's skill boxes from 7-9. (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are skills from your weapons, 6 is always a healing skill.)

Hope that helps you get started! There is an incredible lot of things you can learn and do in this game.

[Zedek.8932]

It is weird that you don't know what to do, I mean, you'd run literally into things to do when you would move a bit.So are you sitting in your starting zone waiting for exclamation mark speechbubbles to pop up or why can't you find something to do?I mean, I don't understand you or your problem here. Literally hundred of thousands of players just dove into the game and then it keeps going by itself, you should try that, too.

Excelsior.

[Obtena.7952]

I don't get the problem. You can't go anywhere in the game without being bombarded by all kinds of things to do ....

????

[preacher.9370]

@Obtena.7952 said:I don't get the problem. You can't go anywhere in the game without being bombarded by all kinds of things to do ....

????

exactly, unless you're sitting in a city somewhere, but even then, if you haven't been to a connecting map, there will be a notification in the top right pointing you to the map you have not yet been to

[Svarty.8019]

@TheTyFactor.2458 said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

Press B, join WvW, lament the fact that there are other game modes.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

I started less than a year ago, and I still remember the confusion of being surrounded by a bunch of toolboxes, and when I interacted with them, it said that the toolbox had been organized, and I had no idea what the point was or what was going on. ^^ GW2 doesn't really do any leading by the hand for complete newbies.

[Talindra.4958]

@TheTyFactor.2458 said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

What do you usually play? Gw2 is mmorpg .. you create a character and you make it awesome to the way you like :)

[Talindra.4958]

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:I started less than a year ago, and I still remember the confusion of being surrounded by a bunch of toolboxes, and when I interacted with them, it said that the toolbox had been organized, and I had no idea what the point was or what was going on. ^^ GW2 doesn't really do any leading by the hand for complete newbies.

There are lots of friendly players in the map (ignore the nasties) whenever you hv question.. i really find map chat is quite useful.. or type /wiki [item] it takes u to guild wars wiki .. one option that I use almost every time I'm in game ??

[Galaa.8475]

i dont understand what you dont understand. you have the personal story to start with, if you want to do it. . or do the quest line in your starting area. which will take you to the next area and so on and so on......... if you have played mmo's before its not that hard to figure out. :# :# :#

[squallaus.8321]

@Talindra.4958 said:

@TheTyFactor.2458 said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

What do you usually play? Gw2 is mmorpg .. you create a character and you make it awesome to the way you like :)

50g on the OP usually play asian mmorpg with autopathing. All of them will say idk what to do when they try gw2. omg theres no autopathing that tells me where to go I just dont know what to do!

[Linken.6345]

@Galaa.8475 said:i dont understand what you dont understand. you have the personal story to start with, if you want to do it. . or do the quest line in your starting area. which will take you to the next area and so on and so on......... if you have played mmo's before its not that hard to figure out. :# :# :#

Well to be fair if they are level 2 they wont see the next story step untill level 10.

[Bilgato.8034]

I just wander around, uncover the maps, look at vistas, check out points of interest and see what others are doing. If I see people fighting bosses I help and always try to revive fallen players.You can just roam around seeing the sights and running from monsters like a pacifist tourist...that's fun too sometimes.

[mauried.5608]

Heres a good challenge for you all.Level a char from 1 to 80 without killing anything and not using any tomes or other levelling items.

[Linken.6345]

Not sure if its even possible to get to 80 just getting poi , vista and waypoints tbh.Cant even map complete for that exp since atleast 1 hp should have you kill something in each map. ( well you can map complete the citys and southsun cove tho.

[Fallesafe.5932]

@"TheTyFactor.2458" said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

Ok... there are several different game modes. And different people have different playstyles. But here's a walkthrough of my thinking when I started this game.

1) This game is nonexistent for players under level 80. You get kicked from level 35 dungeons for not being level 80 for God's sake! So, the first thing I need to do is to hit level 80.

2) Ok, I hit level 80. But everybody is flying around through the air, and I'm not. This is a huge disadvantage. So I'm going to play the heart of thorns story to get the "basic gliding," "updraft use," and "bouncing mushrooms" masteries. Now I can keep up with everyone.

3) Ok, done. But all the coolest videos I've seen in this game come from high level fractals and raids. In order to do those, I need a good build. So I'm going to join hero-point groups to unlock an elite specialization and take the best build for what my character wants to do.https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

4) Now I need to grind out enough gold to get exotic gear (orange on the trading post) that's appropriate for my build. Won't take long...

5) Now I can finally jump in on the beginning-end of the content I want to play (in my case, fractals) and do a fairly respectable job. I can focus all my energy on progressing through this content, improving my skills, and slowly upgrading all my gear to ascended/legendary. I can also begin to nail down my damage (or support) rotation to be more valuable to the groups I join. And I can work on fleshing out my mastery abilities (mounts, fractal attunements, advanced gliding skills, etc).

From there, it's just "see item, want item, get item," x 1000, and ratcheting your plan forward. That's how it went for me.

[Zeefa.3915]

Do story, I know its all that like it, but at least it still got some novelty value, and it brings you through almost all maps. (you need to be level 10 for the first part of story, then 20 and so forth untill the story needs you tobe level 80)To level you can do events, hearts, map completion, crafting etc. (really anything you do besides standing around doing nothing will give some xp)You might be able to get into dungeons earlier than lvl 80 (for those that are in areas below), but to do that you will need a guild/friends that will help you, since pugs probably wont accept you.Really finding a good friendly guild will be a good step :)

[Vayne.8563]

@Fallesafe.5932 said:

@"TheTyFactor.2458" said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

Ok... there are several different game modes. And different people have different playstyles. But here's a walkthrough of my thinking when I started this game.

1) This game is nonexistent for players under level 80. You get kicked from level 35 dungeons for not being level 80 for God's sake! So, the first thing I need to do is to hit level 80.

2) Ok, I hit level 80. But everybody is flying around through the air, and I'm not. This is a huge disadvantage. So I'm going to play the heart of thorns story to get the "basic gliding," "updraft use," and "bouncing mushrooms" masteries. Now I can keep up with everyone.

3) Ok, done. But all the coolest videos I've seen in this game come from high level fractals and raids. In order to do those, I need a good build. So I'm going to join hero-point groups to unlock an elite specialization and take the best build for what my character wants to do.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

4) Now I need to grind out enough gold to get exotic gear (orange on the trading post) that's appropriate for my build. Won't take long...

5) Now I can finally jump in on the beginning-end of the content I want to play (in my case, fractals) and do a fairly respectable job. I can focus all my energy on progressing through this content, improving my skills, and slowly upgrading all my gear to ascended/legendary. I can also begin to nail down my damage (or support) rotation to be more valuable to the groups I join. And I can work on fleshing out my mastery abilities (mounts, fractal attunements, advanced gliding skills, etc).

From there, it's just "see item, want item, get item," x 1000, and ratcheting your plan forward. That's how it went for me.

As a counter point, I couldn't disagree more with this post. I'm not saying it's not true for the poster, but I'm pretty certain it's not true for the biggest majority of the player base.

For one thing, end game for everyone in this game is different. For everyone who is looking at the Fractal and Raids end game, there's someone who just loves the open world (like me). I've done Fractals and a bit of raiding, but the open world is where I choose to spend the bulk of my time.

I also run a guild, and have taken many low level players through dungeons. So yeah not really agreeing with this post. I'm sure it's the posters experience, but I don't think it's an accurate represent of the game over all.

[Shirlias.8104]

@TheTyFactor.2458 said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

Wrong approach ( probably because of other games which always told you what to do instead of having fun ).

[Odinens.5920]

@Linken.6345 said:Not sure if its even possible to get to 80 just getting poi , vista and waypoints tbh.Cant even map complete for that exp since atleast 1 hp should have you kill something in each map. ( well you can map complete the citys and southsun cove tho.

Well, gathering gets you XP too, don't forget lol. Pretty sure it's possible to get to 80 without killing anything, but would I want to try it? NOPE.

[Fallesafe.5932]

You've gotta understand that people have vastly different temperaments and tastes. And they can only tell you about what works for them. I laid out a pretty focused/linear approach to the game (because that's just who I am). And somebody responded to me, with barely restrained contempt, to recommend a more "enjoy the journey" approach. It really just depends on how you enjoy playing.

Are you a type-A tryhard who wants to race through everything? Welcome to the club if so =)

Or are you a more laid back person who likes lore, immersion, experimentation, and enjoying the scenery?

The sharpest divide in this game is between those two types of players. And they just are who they are. It's not even a matter of right and wrong.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

A well-known Guild Wars 2 YouTuber called WoodenPotatoes is just starting a full playthrough of Guild Wars 2 from the beginning, explaining the story and game to anyone interested. I think this is going to be a great guide to new players and anyone who likes to experience the full story again. Would you like to use this?

He just created a Human Elementalist character and explained everything about the basics and character creation.

Far more videos are to come in this series so you may want to subscribe to him.

I am certainly going to watch because, while I know the game quite well, I usually miss half of the story because I need all my attention to the gameplay mechanics and I tend to only play through the storyline missions once.

[Menadena.7482]

Think of the process of leveling up to 80 as a tutorial. After you have done it a few times you will just want to skip to 80 but I would advise leveling slowly the first few times. Not only are you learning the mechanics but you will get a better idea of the options out there. The people who say 'I am done now' just stagger me. Have they fully explored EVERY map? Have they beat EVERY boss? Have they done EVERY story? Have they beat EVERY other PVP player? etc ...

[Ashantara.8731]

@TheTyFactor.2458 said:i played it awhile back and lost interest and started playing it again and i just don't know what i should be doing.

Welcome to the world of Guild Wars 2, where there are no proper tutorials, no proper in-game guides, no proper help nor explanation of the basics at all.

In the beginning, it took me quite a while to grasp most of the basics, because I didn't have anyone to explain things to me and had to put all the pieces together through research. The constant adding of new methods of acquisition for certain types of content doesn't help with the matter, either. One has to do a lot of research (GW2 Wiki, YouTube) in order to get certain information. Some content even remains hidden to some players, because they don't know where to look for news and info.

I must have spent about 30% of my GW2 gaming time over the years doing research, that's for sure. It's a real shame ANet never saw the necessity to release a beginners' guide or any other equally helpful content for that matter. This game certainly isn't self-explanatory in that regard.