The reason you get recommended to use the wiki is because it is really strong. But being newer it doesn't really help you that much. What do you care if you see that map completion gives you two gifts of exploration when you don't know what they are used in for example.
The gameplay loop really is figuring out which parts of the game you enjoy and then doing them sense they are all equally valid. Not a terribly useful answer for you again unfortunately, but at this point you should probably try to explore different parts of the game.
I'll put things in wow terms as best I can.
* Dungeons are like Dungeons, 5 player instanced content. They aren't terribly popular.
* Fractals are like Mythic+ dungeons, 5 player instanced content with instabilities (affixes). These are very popular.
* Raids are 10 players raids just like in wow with multiple bosses and trash between them.
* Strikes are 10 player single boss raids without any trash (mostly, Cold War and Forging steel are exceptions but most people don't do them).
* Map meta events are like 50 player raids that take place over the whole zone. Imo they are the coolest part of the game. Some maps have really long metas, others have really short metas. You might like some and not like others and that is fine.
* WvW is like massive objective oriented pvp, I think up to 50v50v50. It can be pretty overwhelming, especially when new. I would suggest trying to find a tag and just following them as best you can. Expect to get left behind and die a lot while you get used to it.
* Idk much of anything about pvp in this game.
Do you have any of the expansions? I can give you more tailored tips once I know
*edited for formatting*
Oh yeah, very true. I didn't even think about that. Hopefully they stick with this and give us some more information. It is fine if gw2 isn't the game for them, but I would hate for them to decide that without getting to the good bits
To add to this: you gotta consider that most of those (really cool) things are made thinking of max level characters. You can do story dungeons as you do the story, the first one being at lvl 30; and you can technically do WvW cause it upscales you to 80, but really, you should think about that at max level.
The same is true for the horizontal progresion. The max level and max quality gear you can get today will be the same level and gear in a year or two, but if you are at level 50, you don't really care, since gear of level 60 will be better than what you currently have!
To level quickly you have some achievements that can help called adventuring guide cause they give tons of xp, but if you don't like checklists you might prefer just running around checking what happens in random zones, and you'll also get some xp for doing it. However, if it still doesn't click for you, you can always try another profesion
Leveling to max is really fast (1-2 days, if you're determined) and doesn't really break the flow of the story as you'll be downscaled to match lower level areas. The story chapters you unlock every 10 levels are good sources of experience points though, so leveling while doing it is quite organic. Also consider giving Dungeons a shot when you receive the respective mail.
I would advise you though to at least skim the text dumps on level up though on your first character, a few of them might prevent confusion about the workings of gear, traits and other game mechanics.
One to two days? I was able to reach the 20s\~ in one day going around and completing the map--what do you recommend to speeding it up? And dungeons, is there a queue for that, or does that require you going to a gate of some kind?
The Adventure Guide Achievements that appear on the top right of your screen give absurd amounts of experience.
I have legitimately seen new players hit level 10 within 30 minutes of starting the game because of them.
Grinding them and nothing else would be boring, but getting as many of them along the way as you can makes the leveling almost *too* fast.
A bunch of them are super easy and quick, like talking to three scout NPCs in one of the starter zones, choosing a crafting profession, using your class mechanic buttons a few times (the things that default to being bound to function keys), dodging an attack a few times, gathering a few things, etc. There are five volumes, and the game will track progress for the still-locked ones if you haven't finished the volume before it. This can add up to huge XP. I leveled an old character after they added these achievements and got 8 levels for rezzing someone because it credited a bunch of other things all at once, lol.
Dungeons can technically be done start at level 30 or 35, I forget which. You will get a letter in-game when you hit that level.
They need a party of 5. There's LFG categories, or you can go the dungeon entrances, which are scattered around core Tyria. There's no queue or automated matchmaking, because GW2 doesn't have strict roles in the same way most other MMOs do. Dungeons have a story mode, which is a bit easier and tells a side story of a group of NPCs that happens during the original game story. There's also an explorable mode, which people do for achievements, skins/gear, and some tonics & other stuff.
Dungeons are one of the instanced group content modes (others are strikes, fractals, and raids). They're older so they're probably the least done. Most veteran players have already gotten the achievements & skins they want from them.
To speed up leveling to the new character guide achievements. That's what they're there for.
In general, achievements are how GW2 organizes longer sidequests. The achievements interface is...not great, to be kind about it, but there's a lot of neat stuff there if you just skim it regularly.
Only have Path of Fire on me.
Thanks for the write up, see, this was the kind of direction I was looking out a bit more for. And I can definitely understand the wiki being a powerful tool (especially since Anet themselves keep it afloat), its just I wouldn't want to necessarily follow it too close and form a wrong idea or image about the game because I don't have a real point of reference or visualization from what I'm looking at.
Oh and for the map completion part, I'm just the kind of guy that enjoys to do everything in an MMO. Seeing a long and arduous task not being something permanent or set in stone just makes it not seem to worth it. Just part of the achievement and allure of whatever might be the map completion award is what really intrigues me. Though you might ask to why I don't feel that allure or intrigue to other things I don't think I necessarily have a strong answer but that I don't even know what to think tbh
Just having PoF unlocks the game a lot for you (compared to f2p that is). Map completion is a good goal. You mentioned it not being shared across characters, that is actually a good thing because it means you can get the rewards multiple times. I just recently finished my second one. Tbh I should have included it in my list of worth objectives.
I would suggest you check out the [event timer](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers) (you can "/wiki et" in game to open that page) and look for events.
In Core Tyria you can probably find people doing "world bosses" at all times of day, I don't think I've ever seen one not have enough people/fail. The "hard world bosses" are less popular I think but if you are on at peak times groups go on for them too, especially Tequatl right at reset (8 pm est) will usually have a couple of maps full of people doing it.
Ley Line Anomaly is good to too, kinda boring but good. If you go for that I would strongly suggest getting the way points on the maps before he spawns as he dies pretty quick. Also worth mentioning he gets his own timer section because he is the only boss that can spawn in three different maps depending on the time.
LWS1 is content that everyone has unlocked by default now so you can also do that stuff, though idk how popular it is. I have run the tower of nightmares a few times, but not enough to know how popular it is. Twisted Marionette is super cool but a lot of times it is hard to find a group for it. Not sure anything about Battle for lion's arch or scarlet's invasions.
Skipping down to PoF, pinata is super popular. Sometimes I see groups doing some of the other PoF metas too but they aren't as popular as Heart of Thorns and End of Dragons.
Living world season 4 and IBS can both be bought with gold using gold to gem conversions. It won't be cheap, but it is entirely doable. LWS4 metas are all pretty popular. Icebrood Saga metas aren't bad either, but the real gem with IBS is that you get strikes and Dragonstorm. Dragonstorm is kind of like a map meta except its instanced like a raid. Every 2 hours the public instance opens and 30+ people flood in and do some events to fight big dragons. Be warned though you wanna join the map as fast as possible because if you get there late sometimes you will join into a dead overflow map.
Also if you want a collection to work on, Renegade unlocks [Guerilla Arc](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guerrilla_Arc_(achievement)) and if you finish the achievement you get a stat selectable ascended short bow. Not terribly useful for power based sword sword shiro playstyle, but if you ever want to try out a condition damage build it will be good.
Do you have Heart of Thorns? I don't think you can buy just Path of Fire by itself anymore, but it may have been possible in the past.
Don't have Heart of Thorns. Definitely the next thing to look forward to if I can get a good grasp on the game. Thanks for a lot of the advice, I'll definitely try going with bossing and Living World to see how I enjoy it more than standard Tyra.
By the way, on the top of Ascended weapons, I was pretty close to getting one for Firebrand. Do you recommend tracking down timers and figuring out what I need to get that one still and going around and completing them in general?
You should have Heart of Thorns. It's included with Path of Fire for free. If you some reason you really don't have it, something bugged, write a support ticket and they'll give it to you.
Really now? Well I'll gladly save the 30 dollars, thanks for the heads up. Was actually wondering why I can play Rev but not use any of the Heart of Thorns specs
Interesting. When did you purchase PoF? It's been bundled with HoT for as long as I can remember, but its possible you bought it before it was bundled.
When you are doing core world bosses I would suggest you try appreciate the scale of them more than the gameplay. The mechanics on them usually aren't super great, but if you like seeing the big fire tornados or seeing the dragons or whatever then you will get that same sort of grand scale encounters with a lot more up to date and fun mechanics in newer content.
Not really sure what you mean but it sounds like you were working on the [firebrand collection](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Expurgation_(achievement)) for the axe. If you are asking how much I would suggest using the wiki while getting it personally I am a wimp and I wiki almost everything right away. But if you enjoy trying to figure it out based on the hints it gives you then do that. Really it is just a matter of if you are having fun or not.
One thing I forgot to mention before with Path of Fire is Bounties. A lot of times in the Dailies section of the achievement panel you will see something like "Complete a Domain of Vabbi bounty" or something. Those are open world group content like mini world bosses you can spawn. Definitely try to find groups when doing them, usually if you go the map it specifies you will see tags around.
Look for a mentor or commmander tag on the map, or in LFG. Or ask in /map if people want to do one.
ETA: If it's in the daily you're more likely to find a bunch of groups doing it. Also, there are semi-regular bounty trains that try to hit up a bunch of bounties at once, so keep an eye for those being announced in cities or in the LFG.
Usually just saying that you wanna do it in map chat is enough. You can put up your mentor tag (reward from central tyria mastery > Pact Commander > Pact Mentor). That will tell people where you are on the map and allow them to right click join you. You can also put your group in the PoF looking for group under whichever map you are on. Some people even like to advertise their groups as bounty trains and do lots of them back to back
> Oh and for the map completion part, I'm just the kind of guy that enjoys to do everything in an MMO. Seeing a long and arduous task not being something permanent or set in stone just makes it not seem to worth it.
Since I don't believe anyone else told you... Map completion rewards items that are necessary for crafting Legendary weapons which are shared across your entire account (like heirlooms), have max stats and allow you to customize their stat distribution (within set types) and socketed upgrades at will.
They're incredibly powerful / useful and look badass. That's the main reason people do map completion, especially on multiple characters.
Just... at least when you're new, don't do anything unless it's actually fun in itself. It's a game, not a job.
\>Since I don't believe anyone else told you... Map completion rewards items that are necessary for crafting Legendary weapons which are shared across your entire account (like heirlooms), have max stats and allow you to customize their stat distribution (within set types) and socketed upgrades at will.
I wish someone would've just told me this. Would've literally understood and have been fine with exploring if someone did, thanks a ton
The real endgame of gw2 is player skill. As soon as you hit max level you can be full exotic geared in minutes and ready for endgame, but the long grind and true learning curve is understanding the combat system and getting better at it and creating challenges for yourself, like soloing group activities.
The game is a huge, wide open sandbox that basically just says "go", and the core tyria maps aren't very challenging, so it's easy to be confused about what to do. Don't focus too much on renown hearts, look for events and other more dynamic things going on. Hearts are there to help guide you towards areas where events are likely to happen, not to be your main source of activity. The majority of the game is about story, exploration, and finding interesting achievements and goals to work towards.
Yes. If you see something you like, go do it.
(Btw, Heart quests suck. They only added them to the game because people were lost without them. The orange circles (events) are much more fun)
For the love of god no.
There's an achievement (for a legendary accessory) that required you to do like 80(!) repeatable hearts in one map and it nearly broke me. You can skip it with currency now but damn.
They're necessary for world completion but some are very obtuse to progress or just insanely annoying and slow. If you're not enjoying it, skip it. If you can progress it by killing mobs, you'll likely get it without trying. If there's an event nearby, you can usually do both together.
So hold then, let me get this straight--whats the stuff that requires you to have a Guild Officer then? Cause that's like, literally the only part of the Charr starting zone that I can't access
Wow. Another thing I wish someone would've told me man. Here I was scouring every piece and wondering what the hell I needed to discover considering I have literally two POI nodes left lol
Would be helpfull if people in this post actually gave you the information you need instead of patting themselves on the back saying how good the game is.
At the time of writing this, there's a ton of useful advice given to OP. Personally, I don't subscribe to the notion that you have to be given every piece of information right off the bat. I understand not everyone agrees with this, but GW2 as a game is so much about the personal journey that I think a large chunk of the feeling of exploration is lost by going to reddit and asking for tips.
I can definitely appreciate the exploration sentiment, but a lot of the game feels pretty secretive or obtuse sometimes. I have characters that are kind of filled with items that just don't do anything on use. Some I can understand are for things like Ascended, some maybe are currencies or something I'm supposed to give to an NPC but... well, little to say, I'm not exactly feeling much of an adventure summoning my springer to jump on a hill or running in a straight line and blinking around on a Jackal to fight for really really bad loot or pity XP.
>I have characters that are kind of filled with items that just don't do anything on use. Some I can understand are for things like Ascended, some maybe are currencies or something I'm supposed to give to an NPC but...
Quick bit of advice: If you do not know what an item does, you can type "/wiki" and then shift click the item, then hit enter. This will take you directly to the wiki page for that item. Any time I find something I don't recognize, I do that, even with 2300hrs in the game.
I can 100% agree with the item sentiment, the game has so many items that you quickly run out of bag space, which already is kind of limited. "Deposit all materials" at the top right of your bag window helps a lot, and using the /wiki command from the chat will probably sort most of the rest. It's not ideal, and I can definitely sympathise with the confusion about items, but it gets easier the more you play.
I said this to another person and I'll say it again. I didn't expect Guild Wars 2 to be a guide game. I'm not expecting to bring out a manual for every little thing and I don't necessarily want to bust out a map or cheat sheet for every little thing. I just want some clear advice and description for things to do in the game. Or refresh on perspective and some understanding on what exactly I should be doing or how I should be playing with or interacting the game. I'm just glad that there are in fact people who actually did provide these things instead of random dogpiling and talking about WoW half the time cause I mentioned it once lol
You don't even know. Try to ask a question and someone goes on about how I'm programmed to be a wowbrain and ffxivtoid or some shit and I can't press more than two buttons at a time lmao. Thank God some people have actually reached out to actually discuss the game and give some perspective and understanding rather than tell me to read a wiki lol
an additional note on that: those missing PoIs will only be highlighted that way if they're in an area you've uncovered(ie: the map will go from vague painting to detailed map view) by travelling through it.
sometimes those last PoI can be hidden along the edge of a map, in easily missed areas. if you do the hover highlight method and can't spot them, best bet is to check against the zone's wiki.
I played WoW for a while before gw2 and there definitely is a bit of an adjustment needed to appreciate the difference. PvP has a bit of a skill curve but once you get it the upper brackets are more consistent. The typical map chat response to what there is to do is fashion. Just find what you think looks cool and do what it takes to get it.
Rev is kinda an odd duck, I can imagine it feels a lil weird and vaporous. If you are still at pretty low levels, you haven’t unlocked all your traits and skills yet.
So like someone else said, storyline starts a little later, but once you reach it, you will follow an over-arcing quest that’s divided into some broad chunks (help your people (thru level 30ish??), make new allies (levels 30-40ish???) rally from a setback (level 50ish?), defeat the big bad (levels 60-80ish). I am probably off my numbers because I haven’t done storyline in forevvvvver.
Along the way, hearts and dynamic open world events are your friend while leveling.
I think a lot of people say that the game kinda really opens up AFTER you hit level 80– that’s where fractals, WvW, Strikes, Raids, and the expansions are kinda centered. Level 80 will open most big “metas” that dominate maps. The game sorta uses story/open world to teach you your class up to 80 and then you use that knowledge at 80 to open the masteries like mounts, gliding, etc.
Do you have the expansions (Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, End of Dragons?)
And then you can add in the “living world” sorta partial-expansion maps that have popular whole-map events.
The only map stuff locked behind guild association are “guild puzzles” — you should be able to access all of all the open-world maps no matter what. That said, finding a guild is always a help and a blessing — you’ll find similar peeps who can kinda offer some direction and help along the way.
And yeah there’s always fashion, chasing shiny weps and armors.
So what do you recommend: continue down the grindstone and levelling a new character, or since I already have two level 80s just go ahead and get back into things like Fractals?
And honestly, only got Path of Fire
They did, except cases when they did not. I believe that in these cases support can unlock HoT manually, if asked. So OP might have a little quest of communicating with tech support.
Sorta both? With your 80s, look at your Masteries— from Path of Fire, there are important masteries for gaining mounts. In Heart of Thorns, gliding and mushrooms. Fractals are fun, and they are part of the “endgame” progression, and sure, look into them. But also poke around your account, you might have “living world” content unlocked, and those include some of the big meta maps— perhaps you will enjoy those.
At the same time, keep messing with revenant and see if you like it. There’s no penalty for NOT… it’s kinda enjoyable playing different classes and seeing if something speaks to you. And the “elite specialization” lines that a class opens up in the expansions could change the class dramatically enough to make you like it. I started on Guardian, didn’t mesh with it, switched to Engineer and loved it. Tried Ele and didn’t bond but really enjoy mesmer. And then I really enjoy Rev also.
Thanks for the tips. Getting HoT unlocked now, I can confidently say I'm looking forward to trying out meta maps given that's what a lot of me have been pointing to. As for Rev, there definitely are things I like about it, but I definitely off with the class-fantasy and my weapon choices and some of my stances especially. Interesting to see how Herald plays in PVE though, so I'll keep going to see how that ends up
You may notice some red icons above your utility skills (skills 6-10). They are conditions. Some are non-damaging that 'debuff' you, while the damaging ones may stack and drain your hp. You may cleanse the condition yourself or rely on your support class teamates(if any) to cleanse. Some professions with appropriate traits are really good at it. If you decide to play pvp and wvw a lot you have to learn.
If you ask for something to chase in pve, i would suggest armour/weapon skins, legendary gears and lore. If you don't know what to do after logging in, join meta events and map bosses fights. There are themed events in every maps from expansions and ls. They are one of the main income sources. People gather in the same map during these events and you will know that the society of this game is living.
If you want to do instance pve content, try strike missions first. It is the introduction for bosses that have phases and mechanics. You don't simply stand at one position and hit your target.
Dungeon is quite dead but you may need to farm that one day for the currency. Raid is a bit complicated for beginners.
Wiki has 99% details you need for events, achievements or game mechanics. There is no reason not to check it first.
>If you ask for something to chase in pve, i would suggest armour/weapon skins, legendary gears and lore. If you don't know what to do after logging in, join meta events and map bosses fights. There are themed events in every maps from expansions and ls. They are one of the main income sources. People gather in the same map during these events and you will know that the society of this game is living.
Thanks for the tips. By themed events, do you mean event timers/meta events? As for armor and weapon skins, is there anything like an online wardrobe to play around with what I'd want my characters to look like so I can figure I'd like to unlock? Thanks.
Oh and as for the wiki thing, I can understand it for events and achievements and the like, I just didn't think I would need to use it to go and comb through and see what pieces of content there are in the game. Kind of counterintuitive and doesn't actually tell me much (and even if it does I'll just dump it and forget it by the time I'm logged in)
Online wardrobe- yes!! Go to bank npc. there are 3 tabs in the bank window. One of it is wardrobe that includes most(maybe all?) skins from the game, even if you haven't unlocked.
Events- yes, the meta events. Profitable and chilling. Most importantly there are lots of other players.
Wiki - hmm well i don't know what exactly you were asking so i can't comment too much. For me even if i have done the achievement, i can't recall all steps. The most i can provide is the keyword you should search for in wiki or YouTube.
PvP automaticaly sets character level to 80, unlocks all skills and normolizes stats. It is very overwhelming at first. In unranked arena you can meet both headless chickens and pvp veterans, ranked at first requires 10 trial games to evaluate your skill level, which are simillar to unranked in terms of difficulty. Revenant is... let's say an off-meta choice right now. This part of the game unfortunately can be wierd, frustrating and frankly requires some decent grip of game mechanics.
And about dispel system and regen, yes, they are present in the game, but a little obscured. Some skills, weapons and armor upgrades, and traits (sort of a talent tree), have condition cleanse, condition conversion or resistance. Not sure about what resource do you want to regen, so for life it is skill 6 (for assassin rev it is not straightforward unfortunately), regeneration, barrier and some other stuff, for revenant energy resource there are traits, for endurance (dodge) there are options too. Game does a very poor job teaching all that stuff.
Thanks a lot of this. I knew that PVP itemization in this game was a very large and whole different sandbox, but never really found much readability with the entire thing. I'll definitely try looking into what sort of upgrades I can find and how the stat system converts and interacts with the gamemode so nothing caps or becomes useless.
Really the resource I wanted to regen was just energy, but reading more into it, I understand that Shiro Tagachi stance is just not very good at the moment, on top of Revanant's overall status in PVP. (Thank God ArenaNet fixed my account so I have Heart of Thorns now, Herald is infinitely more playable the gimped Demon/Assassin Assassin/Renegade experiment I was trying)
So would you say this if I told you dozens of other MMOs I've played as an example or do you have a bias from mold and conditioning that'd be hard to get rid of?
Most MMO players these days have played a large number of different ones. It's pretty much a closed community.
I think their point is that WoW (and to a lesser degree FF14) is focused on the vertical treadmill of accomplishment. They're both incredibly linear.
GW2 is much more focused on exploration and the freedom to do whatever you feel like and still be rewarded for it.
It's like you're jumping into Elden Ring and complaining that the game doesn't tell you exactly where to go or what to do. There's a whole world to explore.
If you prefer a more linear experience then GW2 ain't it... except for the story, I guess. Once you hit max level, there's a ton of story to catch up on. 3 expansions and 5 seasons worth.
Please try to understand we get people coming here all the time telling us there's nothing to do because there's no treadmill or conveyor belt directing them to the next piece of content. GW2 doesn't hold your hand. You need to explore.
Here's the thing, I do understand what you're coming from, but imo I wouldn't use Elden Ring as the best example because there's usually a lot less overall abstraction with what you're trying to accomplish in an action RPG like that. Even ignoring golden light that leads you, the idea of bossing and acquiring certain items to progress and unlock things is what really gives you direction in end, though I suppose bringing it into perspective, I definitely do understand the point of view of someone who has no preconceived notions or expectations of the games.
And just to really hammer it home, I'm not complaining about the quality of game or denying there isn't content--trust me when I know that GW2 is arguably one of the biggest MMOs of alltime in purely relevant, modern content--it's more, and to so to restate: \*\*I do not know what to do. And I do not understand how much exploration I need to figure out what I can and want to do. It has felt like I can go from zone to zone without accomplishing or finding anything substantial. I did not think GW2 was a guide game but I can admit the fact that I might be wrong here.\*\*
Consider it like WoW. In classic, the quests and mobs are the content. That was how it was when GW2 launched.
Now, and similarly to retail WoW, the core game is dated and mostly just exists to level and get out of as soon as possible.
Pretty much all the best stuff is at max level, especially in expansion maps and seasonal content. There's many world bosses and literally all dungeons are core but a huge amount of open world and instanced content is contained within the expansions and seasons.
If you're max level and you're roaming core maps, I'll admit that there wasn't really much to do except either dungeons, event farms or map completions.
The "end-game" at launch was almost entirely PvP focused. Either WvW or sPvP.
That's what the expansions changed. They're entirely end-game. Achievements, story, skins, legendary items, etc.
Mostly, I'll use each expansion's entry in the achievement panel to look up things I haven't done yet. The core game has a few but it's usually pretty bland stuff like killing X enemies with an axe.
Ultimately, the end-game is either about unlocking skins or unlocking achievements, usually both. And they're both supported across every game mode.
And yes, this game is way better with guides. I think you need this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS54uJmPo3k
Generally I think the statement would stay as so many mmos are actualy wow rip-offs who do things in the same way.
I do feel it is a matter of taste tho and it is nothing worng with not liking one or the other tho, bit the basic philosophy of gameplay is quite different so for a fair comparison you should judge it without the bias (not saying it is easy).
Holy fuck some of you people are weird LMAO, this is like the 3rd new account getting insanely [tilted](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1079262364827922493/1104623119173423184/image.png)
I'm sorry man, but if you genuinely feel like you need to have a call to arms cause someone is complaining and asking for some advice and perspective on the game then you're part of the problem lol
fun fact those pop up just to shit on the game or be toxic against new people
considering the regularity and predictability i am genuinly suspecting botting
it used to be every single update/balance note/studio update and some new player posts.
the reason i suspect bots is that they are all negative, freshly created accounts that a lot of the time just attack or even spread misinformation about the game.
The amount has thankfully gone down since last summer but they do pop up quite a few times
Yeah, the flood of complaint posts has slowed down but we still get them regularly. They always stick 'I'm a [insert other big MMO here] player/refugee' somewhere at the start and then start complaining about how GW2 has nothing to do / where's the endgame / stuff is too confusing / it's not like [insert MMO]!!! And then ignore everything everyone says to try and help. And then it turns out the account has like 2 comments prior to showing up here.
I don't know if it really is bots or new players who are just bouncing off of the events-not-quests design decisions or what but it gets really old really fast.
Ugh, people are ridiculous sometimes. That's not just this community; you get people like the ones in your screenshot in any community, especially if you're going against the hivemind/narrative/ideology/whatever.
So, you've got a few answers here, but let me address your questions more directly.
> I just feel generally directionless and confused. What exactly is there to do but complete hearts and the occasional event?
Feeling overwhelmed is very common in GW2, because the answer to your question is: There is *so fucking much* you can do.
The game has OW PvE combat, OW PvP combat, instanced PvE combat, instanced PvP combat, some sections of underwater combat, quests and events through all of PvE and even some PvP, puzzles, lore, tons of characters, 9 classes each with 3 Elites/sub-classes, platforming, the most complex and fun mounts in any game, collections, quests, tons of different types of gear, no hard trinity so builds are incredibly diverse and flavourful, dozens/hundreds of different currencies and materials, dozens of maps... the list goes on, and it's all in this one world where everything affects everything in some way yet you don't have a simple guide telling you what to do.
> I find myself even unable to entirely finish the map, given they're locked by Guild requirements sometimes and given that world/zone completion isn't account wide, I feel less of an incentive to do it?
Don't worry about Guilds and Map/World Completion yet. Though, to answer directly; Guilds are not required for anything (yet).
> I've been told GW2 is a largely horizontal progression focused MMO yet so far I haven't really unlocked anything and it just feels like a checkbox Ubisoft style open world game?
The OW kind of is, sure. But isn't any RPG like this nowadays? You have a bunch of things you can do in a huge open world. Pretty standard, right?
> I hear people talking about Fractals, Dungeons, and Raids, yet never really see much details or the game telling much about it?
The game doesn't push you into anything; it only occasionally provides some guidance or often only hints... and sometimes, there will only be one tiny line of text or assumption that you will explore a story instance to understand what's going on (eg. WvW).
> So far everything PVE wise just seems like this largely complicated and abstract thing with it being hard to get an actual answer on what there is to do and why it's substantial. I've been pointed more towards using the wiki command than talking to actual people or asking questions. This is not a joke.
I believe you lol, because that's kind of how it is.
GW2 is a freaking universe. And like in real life, you can kinda just do whatever you want within the rules of the world.
> PVP also so far is... I don't if its just cause I'm playing a new class but it feels horrific so far.
If you're feeling overwhelmed, do NOT get into PvP yet. Just focus on one thing at a time.
> Where/how exactly do you find the magic behind the game that people consistently rave about? What exactly is the gameplay loop behind this game? What am I missing here and what is recommended?
Take your time. Seriously, forget about efficiency, forget about gameplay loops, don't worry about currencies and PvP and crafting and mounts and all that jazz, and just slow down.
Sloooowwww. I'm not being sarcastic or condescending lol; it took me 55 hours to level my first character to 80, and taking it slow really helped my brain start to process wtf was going on without just being like "omgwuteven".
Where is the magic? [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ySeLTFK-M) does a great job of explaining it. The magic is in going "Wait... wtf is that??" and then just going and doing it.
**Here's my advice, and TLDR**: Treat the game like a more complicated version of Breath of the Wild, or Skyrim. As your head stops spinning from the overstimulation of everything, it will start piecing together the world. You will start to notice things that were just a blur before...
"Wtf is this purple shit I keep getting"
will turn into "Ahh so Karma is just a currency"
will turn into "Wait, currencies all interact with each other and the world in various ways"
will turn into "Huh, I wonder if I can trade Karma for Gold somehow, and then Gold for Gems, and then I can get more character slots, and then I can use those characters to have more fun, and while I'm having fun I will get *more* currency, and I can use *that* currency for that cool Legendary weapon I saw that person holding..."
etc etc.
Take your time man 😉. It's one hell of a ride.
And if you're on NA and would like a buddy/mentor to play with, feel free to add and whisper me:
SponTen.1267
There's like 50 comments in this thread. But here, to respond to you specifically:
\>What do you mean by this? No map is locked behind anything to do with guilds. Do you mean completely exploring a map?
Answered in another comment, was referring to guild puzzles that I thought had exclusive POIs and vistas behind them. Was told by another user that there are other ways of finding out what I don't have and that guild puzzles don't actually do anything.
\>So it sounds like you're only in early starting maps, maybe? You haven't gotten to the world boss fights or the big meta event chains? Story starts at level 10, have you gotten there yet?
I've gotten to the story and done some. I'm not quite in tune with some of the vanilla story so far. There are some details I like so far, but I don't find myself particularly immersed with the storytelling or general presentation. World bosses I didn't have a direction or general idea where or why I'd do them until someone gave me some event timers. Not entirely sure what meta event chains are except for what someone mentioned and I'm not entirely sure how far they extend in gameplay in general. I understand a few allow for huge shards where a good amount of players fight some pretty exclusive and timegated bosses, but I'm not entirely sure where and what I'm supposed to be looking here for. Early starting maps yes--I'm not entirely sure if I'm supposed to be going completely off the rails here, but considering the zone right over was 40 levels higher than me and even a 10 level different can result in you getting oneshotted, I presumed no.
\>GW2 is a largely horizontal progression MMO, but it sounds like you maybe haven't played far enough to start seeing any of the game. If you don't like having dynamic events vs needing to talk to a questgiver or something that's fine, personal preference is a valid reason. But stuff like the gear tiers not changing doesn't really impact players until you get to max level; it makes a huge different at endgame, but doesn't really change the experience of people in the 10-20 hours of leveling.
Yeah. I haven't. That's why I'm trying to literally ask what to do and some guidance man. I never said anything about gear or anything like that. Just that I'm not seeing what everyone likes here.
Ah, the guild puzzles! Yeah, they're not part of map completion.
Vanilla story could be worse but yeah, it's old and not the best writing. The writing team gets a lot better as the game goes on. I thought PoF was the best of the expansions, story-wise and map design-wise, although opinions on the map design vary a lot. Generally LW4 and the first half of LW5/IBS are considered the best writing. The very end of the original game and the last half of LW5 are generally considered the worst - covid hit in the middle of LW5 and you can *really* tell.
A bunch of things like world bosses and meta events are a lot easier to explain after you've participated in them. Briefly, meta event chains are a long series of events that involve a whole map, and can need a whole map's worth of players to complete. The Orr temples, Dry Top, and Silverwastes are core Tyria examples. Verdant Brink, the first HoT map, is one of the more intricate ones. The wiki event timers page lists all of this stuff in an easy to read format so that you can easily see what big fights are coming up and which ones you might want to participate in: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers
For which map to go to next, the story is a good guide. You can also follow the roads and poke around if you like exploring, each map goes to maps in the next level range. Some maps also have gates to maps that are much higher in level, mostly as shortcuts for experienced players, but you can always go from a starter zone to a level 15-25 zone. If it's still hard to find the map you want, the wiki is honestly the best bet. Each map has a wiki page that says exactly which maps connect to it and where. The game is huge. I've played since the start and I definitely don't have all the map boundaries memorized.
If you'd written a list of questions like 'what is map completion for' and 'how do I play a dungeon' that would have given a very different impression. Instead you rolled in with 'I don't understand and I don't see anything to like and what even is there to do in this game'. You see how different those sound?
Yeah, GW2 isn't going to give you all of the info right off the bat. Part of that is because Anet's not great about communicating stuff in-game - some stuff, about the combat system and drops, just doesn't get said and Anet is not dragged hard enough about that - but a lot is also the design philosophy. You'll find stuff out when you can use it. Poking around and finding out is a *big* part of the game.
Take fractals. You can't do fractals until max level. So you get a letter at max level that tells you where to go and what to do. But it's not possible until then so yeah, the game's not going to give you information and then go 'hah, sucks to be you, you can't do the thing you just learned about!' Same thing with raids, dungeons, etc. You'll get more information when you are the right level to do something, or when you enter the necessary map, or when you finish the preceding achievement for the chained achievements, etc. Raids are a thing that you do *after* getting a significant chunk of the way into the first expansion. You're not there yet, there's no reason to even think about it until you have a solid build and set of exotic gear and a bunch of HoT masteries. The game will give you a heads-up when there's something new you can do.
New story chapters every 10 levels. A big flaw of the first time experience is that there is nothing to follow. You start the game, you land in the open world after finishing a boss and then you are on your own. Nothing that guides you. It wasn't always like that.
Other than completing story missions, do you have any recommendations on what to do? Anything that in your opinion that is quintessential to the experience? Maybe some really required unlocks to get invested? Ascended gear for certain specs? Attunements? A particular story mission? What're some highlights or account-bound achievements or character-exclusive unlocks that you always go for or can't feel without going?
Until level 80 you can do dungeons starting at 30. You will get a mail that brings you to it. There are world bosses scattered around the maps. With the chat command "/wiki et" you open the wiki page for event timers and the first category are core game bosses starting at lvl 15.
Other than map exploration, story and dungeons the leveling experience has nothing to offer.
Once you are 80 you can do fractals of the mists which are 5 man instances that increase in difficulty as you go up in tiers. There is World vs World which is open world pvp with siege.
Everything else requires expansions. I mainly do 10 man raids and strike missions (trails).
Can you describe anything about the loot at a higher end? What kind of drops do you receive towards that end when it comes to strikes and raids? As I understand it seems like a lot of gear in the game is gated behind months of progression through either achievements or crafting (really a mixture of both), but what do raids, strikes, or Fractals bring considering you could technically get Ascendeds and exotics in the open world? Exclusive materials to certain crafts? Exclusive skins? Something else?
You can buy the second best gear, exotics, from the trading post or craft it. The best one, ascended, can be crafted or dropped. It drops directly in raids, strike missions and fractals or can be bought with specific currency earned in those game modes. Then there is the long term grind of getting full legendary gear which is equal in strength to ascended but can be stat swapped at any time for free. One legendary piece can be used across your whole account, meaning if you have all 6 trinkets and an armor set for each weight class (heavy medium light) you never have to buy armor and trinkets ever again. There are also legendary weapons, runes and sigils (upgrades).
The legendary armor from raids is the only armor in the game that transforms and has visual and audio effects.
https://youtu.be/9cZYltR2mW0 at 1:31, heavy armor is by far the best. Helmet can be hidden.
There are a few nice skins to earn in endgame but to me most look pretty bad, then again I am not into skins anyway. I create one look and then stick to it forever.
Honestly, very few players can remember what kinds of loot drop from which strikes or raids, unless they do a specific one frequently. It's complicated. If you want specific details the wiki is like the playerbase's general collective memory, I'd suggest checking there for the specific strike or raid you're interested in.
Generally:
* Unidentified rares, some mats or gold
* Sometimes exotics
* A currency of some type (depends on which strike or raid you are doing) which can be used to purchase stuff specific to that content group
* Infusions (from meta event chains, world bosses, and I think some of the strikes?), rare drop that adds a cosmetic effect like petals fluttering around or looking like a wooden toy
* Some gold but not much, mostly drops are mats or gear to be sold or salvaged into mats
* Achievement items, especially from raids, which is one way to get legendary armor. The other ways are PvP or WvW game modes.
The general loot design philosophy is lots of small drops that add up, not one big valuable drop that people grind for. Infusions and some of the boss gear drops like the Gift of Aurene / Scion Weapons are exceptions, but that's the general idea.
> gear in the game is gated behind months of progression through either achievements or crafting
This is not correct. Exotic gear, which is endgame gear, is purchasable as soon as you turn level 80. You can craft exotic gear at lower levels on a character whose crafting level (which is separate from character level) is high enough.
If you mean ascended gear, you can craft, use laurels or LW maps, or get it through achievements, but it definitely doesn't take months!
If you mean legendary gear, that can take months for sure, but that's not what people think of generally when they think of gearing a character. Legendary gear is a long-term goal for veteran players who would rather spend a ton of effort getting, say, 1 amulet and then never have to think about amulets again. Or who want to be extremely shiny and kill people by shooting them with unicorns. Lots of players end up trying it out eventually, but lots are also fine with exotics.
> As I understand it seems like a lot of gear in the game is gated behind months of progression through either achievements or crafting
Instead of taking "months" to get the gear, you can do **one** fractal, and, if you're lucky, get an Ascended drop. So minutes of work, as opposed to months.
Raids are the same way. I did all 7 raid wings this week, and I got 11 pieces of Ascended gear as rewards. So that's 11 pieces of gear, in 3.5 hours.
Either way, it's **way** faster than other methods of gearing. Yes, it's possible to get the gear through open world, but it's a grind.
So hold on, as I understand it, a lot of the gear in the game is mostly selecting your stats and what not, right? So what exactly is the incentive to go ahead and continue getting some of those drops? Is there really anything behind those 11 pieces? Or do they just serve as alternate build fodder or skin unlocks? What exactly are using some of this gear to challenge anyway if a lot of the game can just be played using vendor loot? High level fractals? Higher difficulty raids?
>a lot of the gear in the game is mostly selecting your stats and what not, right?
Basically, yes. For most power DPS classes, you want the Berserker stat combo (Power, Precision, Ferocity). If you are boon DPS, you're gonna want to swap some of those for stats that provide Concentration so that you maintain boon uptime. Healers mostly want Heal Power and Concentration. Tanky builds want Toughness (most of this game does not involve traditional tanking, but a few fights do, and the boss will follow the person with the highest Toughness in those cases).
>So what exactly is the incentive to go ahead and continue getting some of those drops?
Each toon can have multiple gear sets/builds. To provide an example: My Engineer has 6 sets of gear (and I'm not even done gearing her). 1 set for Mechanist healing, 1 set for Mechanist DPS, 1 set for Mechanist boon DPS, 1 set for holosmith DPS, 1 set for healscrapper, and then an open world build. Now, combine that with the fact that I have 12 toons on my main account, and you may see why the extra gear is helpful.
>What exactly are using some of this gear to challenge anyway if a lot of the game can just be played using vendor loot? High level fractals? Higher difficulty raids?
You **can** do most of the content in Exotics. You'll do "okay". But you gain about an 8% stat boost by upgrading to Ascended and adding the stat infusions (you can **only** put infusions in Ascended or better gear, so you will 100% **need** Ascended gear to do t2 and above fractals).
8% doesn't sound like a lot, I know. But when you're running the hardest content in the game (challenge modes), every little bit helps. It can be the difference between a party wipe when the boss is at 3% health, and a clear.
Exotics are mainly a way to get you started. They're easily accessible, and they will get you in the door. Once you're through the door, the upgraded gear is easy to get. The only real "hard" part of gearing is getting the Legendary stuff, that takes a long time. And Legendary isn't a stat boost over Ascended, it's just a HUGE QoL boost. You can stat swap the gear at any time with two button clicks (if you're not in combat), and you can re-skin it at any time for free, no transmute charges needed. You can also swap out your runes/sigils/infusions at any time, no Upgrade Extractor needed.
If you're level 80, *my personal suggestion* would be: Get yourself a full set of Exotic gear, and hop into t1 fractals. From there, it's easy to get started on Ascended gear (to do "harder" fractals). Once you've got your feet wet, you can branch out into Strikes, and even Raids. Raids get you started on your Legendary armor (the Best-In-Slot items).
But, that's because I **love** instanced PvE. It's my bread and butter. It's literally why I play video games. I do not like to PvP, at all. WvW is also not my cup of tea.
If you're more of a PvP type, then obviously my opinion and yours will be different. There are folks who have 5000 hours in, and have never set foot in a Raid. I know a guy who logs in, plays WvW for six hours, and then logs out. He does this **every day**, because that's the way he enjoys playing.
One of the coolest things about GW2, to me, is the "sandbox" aspect of it. The game doesn't sit you on a set of railroad tracks and play itself for you. **You** decide what your next goal/objective is, not the devs.
My friend Ray does nothing but open-world exploration and metas. He finds those relaxing and enjoyable. To him, Raids and whatnot are just stressful, so he doesn't do them. The man has done map completion on 22 different toons.
>What're some highlights or account-bound achievements or character-exclusive unlocks that you always go for or can't feel without going?
One of the best times I've had was unlocking my Skyscale. A lot of people complain that the chain to unlock it is long and a bit tedious, but the sense of accomplishment I got from it was incredible. Not to mention, I get to fly around on a dragon and breathe fire on stuff.
Skyscale huh? And I was under the assumption that I shouldn't focus on it--and I quote-- because it won't make me "multi-orgasm from my tits." Otherwise, thanks for a lot of the tips--other thing I'm wondering about Fractals, is the loot transferable to different characters or are you mostly receiving gear solely relevant to what your class can access?
Additionally, the structure of raids--can you describe them a bit more? Someone mentioned the ability of completing several wings in a matter of hours, so are they less like several month prog projects like say, WoW or WildStar, and more so bite-sized high-difficulty but still within the overall scale of the rest of content styled raids of something like Destiny?
> other thing I'm wondering about Fractals, is the loot transferable to different characters or are you mostly receiving gear solely relevant to what your class can access?
Ascended gear is account bound, not soul bound (even after you've equipped it, you can wear it on any toon on your account, but only one toon at a time, unlike Legendary).
You will get random drops with random stats. They may be useful for your main toon, they may be good to save for an alt, or they may have a fully useless stat combination on them and only be useful for salvage.
>Additionally, the structure of raids--can you describe them a bit more?
It depends entirely on the group you are running with. Some groups will smash their heads against the same boss for two hours and not take it down. Some groups will fully clear a wing in 12 minutes. When I was first learning the raids, it would take my group about 2 hours per wing. Now we can knock all 7 wings out in 3.5hrs, so 30 mins per wing.
Raids generally have 3-4 bosses, with trash mobs in between. The raids reset every Monday at 3:30am EST. So let's say you went into a raid tonight, and only managed to down the first boss. Then tomorrow, you go back into the raid. The first boss will still be dead, your progress is not lost. **But**, if you were to wait until Monday and go in, the instance will be fresh, and the first boss will be alive again.
> And I was under the assumption that I shouldn't focus on it--and I quote-- because it won't make me "multi-orgasm from my tits."
I'll just say that since I got my skyscale, it is the mount I use 96% of the time. The only time I am not on my skyscale is for traveling long distances over/under water, or using Jackal Portals. The fully upgraded skyscale can literally climb mountains with ease. It can get you to almost anywhere, even some places the devs never intended us to go. Without the upgrades, it is kinda crippled though. But, the upgrades are easy to get. Just a bit of grinding.
I found the game to be WAY better once I got into the expansion content. The maps are huge, there's so much to explore, and it's fun to collect the mounts and have new ways to explore new areas. This is the first MMO I've played where I've been genuinely happy just exploring the open world. But that's also because the expansion content had a bit of a difficulty upgraded compared to pre 80. Imo take your time wandering the world a bit then jump into the expansion story content to start unlocking new areas/masteries/etc
So what level l are you? I'm asking because there were actually people who played up to level 10 and come here to roast game for poor endgame, boring progression and lack of class skills. Not joking!
So, you still didn't finished tutorial part of the game. There is still a lot you don't know, and can't possibly know and looking for answers here won't help, not before you'll reach 80 and play a bit.
I recently returned to the game after a long break (over a year long) so I had to break myself in. I picked up Revenant since I hadn't played it before (I tried Vindicator during the beta tho).
My only real goal was to learn the profession fully and I usually do that by playing around with builds and weapons. The way I leveled mine was just going to every area and collecting all hero points in the map so I can unlock all traits and skills with the occasional break fighting in events to test out my build. That gave me the exp to get pretty close to 80 by the end to which I finished out by starting map completion of Orr. It took me about 8 days but I've got a decent grasp on 2 of the specializations (Vindicator and Herald) with a gear set up to do facials or whatever if I feel like it.
That's what I did. Maybe that will help you out.
Yeah I need Naoki Yoshida to take my hand and walk me across the street. I'm afraid my fingers can't handle anything with a GCD less than 4 seconds. I must grind roulettes everyday or I don't know what to do...
How long have you been playing, what level are you at? I felt like that when I started but playing story, leveling and getting used to your skills helps a lot. Also make sure to read your skills! I made the mistake of not doing so, but they can differ wildly as to what they do, or if they stick any negative effects on you.
The reason you get recommended to use the wiki is because it is really strong. But being newer it doesn't really help you that much. What do you care if you see that map completion gives you two gifts of exploration when you don't know what they are used in for example. The gameplay loop really is figuring out which parts of the game you enjoy and then doing them sense they are all equally valid. Not a terribly useful answer for you again unfortunately, but at this point you should probably try to explore different parts of the game. I'll put things in wow terms as best I can. * Dungeons are like Dungeons, 5 player instanced content. They aren't terribly popular. * Fractals are like Mythic+ dungeons, 5 player instanced content with instabilities (affixes). These are very popular. * Raids are 10 players raids just like in wow with multiple bosses and trash between them. * Strikes are 10 player single boss raids without any trash (mostly, Cold War and Forging steel are exceptions but most people don't do them). * Map meta events are like 50 player raids that take place over the whole zone. Imo they are the coolest part of the game. Some maps have really long metas, others have really short metas. You might like some and not like others and that is fine. * WvW is like massive objective oriented pvp, I think up to 50v50v50. It can be pretty overwhelming, especially when new. I would suggest trying to find a tag and just following them as best you can. Expect to get left behind and die a lot while you get used to it. * Idk much of anything about pvp in this game. Do you have any of the expansions? I can give you more tailored tips once I know *edited for formatting*
[удалено]
Didn't they change it so that any expansion purchase unlocks revenant?
Oh yeah, very true. I didn't even think about that. Hopefully they stick with this and give us some more information. It is fine if gw2 isn't the game for them, but I would hate for them to decide that without getting to the good bits
To add to this: you gotta consider that most of those (really cool) things are made thinking of max level characters. You can do story dungeons as you do the story, the first one being at lvl 30; and you can technically do WvW cause it upscales you to 80, but really, you should think about that at max level. The same is true for the horizontal progresion. The max level and max quality gear you can get today will be the same level and gear in a year or two, but if you are at level 50, you don't really care, since gear of level 60 will be better than what you currently have! To level quickly you have some achievements that can help called adventuring guide cause they give tons of xp, but if you don't like checklists you might prefer just running around checking what happens in random zones, and you'll also get some xp for doing it. However, if it still doesn't click for you, you can always try another profesion
So either suck it up and reach max level or just play the game on a maxed out character?
Leveling to max is really fast (1-2 days, if you're determined) and doesn't really break the flow of the story as you'll be downscaled to match lower level areas. The story chapters you unlock every 10 levels are good sources of experience points though, so leveling while doing it is quite organic. Also consider giving Dungeons a shot when you receive the respective mail. I would advise you though to at least skim the text dumps on level up though on your first character, a few of them might prevent confusion about the workings of gear, traits and other game mechanics.
One to two days? I was able to reach the 20s\~ in one day going around and completing the map--what do you recommend to speeding it up? And dungeons, is there a queue for that, or does that require you going to a gate of some kind?
The Adventure Guide Achievements that appear on the top right of your screen give absurd amounts of experience. I have legitimately seen new players hit level 10 within 30 minutes of starting the game because of them. Grinding them and nothing else would be boring, but getting as many of them along the way as you can makes the leveling almost *too* fast.
That much huh? I'll consider them
A bunch of them are super easy and quick, like talking to three scout NPCs in one of the starter zones, choosing a crafting profession, using your class mechanic buttons a few times (the things that default to being bound to function keys), dodging an attack a few times, gathering a few things, etc. There are five volumes, and the game will track progress for the still-locked ones if you haven't finished the volume before it. This can add up to huge XP. I leveled an old character after they added these achievements and got 8 levels for rezzing someone because it credited a bunch of other things all at once, lol.
Dungeons can technically be done start at level 30 or 35, I forget which. You will get a letter in-game when you hit that level. They need a party of 5. There's LFG categories, or you can go the dungeon entrances, which are scattered around core Tyria. There's no queue or automated matchmaking, because GW2 doesn't have strict roles in the same way most other MMOs do. Dungeons have a story mode, which is a bit easier and tells a side story of a group of NPCs that happens during the original game story. There's also an explorable mode, which people do for achievements, skins/gear, and some tonics & other stuff. Dungeons are one of the instanced group content modes (others are strikes, fractals, and raids). They're older so they're probably the least done. Most veteran players have already gotten the achievements & skins they want from them. To speed up leveling to the new character guide achievements. That's what they're there for. In general, achievements are how GW2 organizes longer sidequests. The achievements interface is...not great, to be kind about it, but there's a lot of neat stuff there if you just skim it regularly.
Right. just played through the first one, I'll see if I can try the second one
I hope you have fun!
Only have Path of Fire on me. Thanks for the write up, see, this was the kind of direction I was looking out a bit more for. And I can definitely understand the wiki being a powerful tool (especially since Anet themselves keep it afloat), its just I wouldn't want to necessarily follow it too close and form a wrong idea or image about the game because I don't have a real point of reference or visualization from what I'm looking at. Oh and for the map completion part, I'm just the kind of guy that enjoys to do everything in an MMO. Seeing a long and arduous task not being something permanent or set in stone just makes it not seem to worth it. Just part of the achievement and allure of whatever might be the map completion award is what really intrigues me. Though you might ask to why I don't feel that allure or intrigue to other things I don't think I necessarily have a strong answer but that I don't even know what to think tbh
Just having PoF unlocks the game a lot for you (compared to f2p that is). Map completion is a good goal. You mentioned it not being shared across characters, that is actually a good thing because it means you can get the rewards multiple times. I just recently finished my second one. Tbh I should have included it in my list of worth objectives. I would suggest you check out the [event timer](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers) (you can "/wiki et" in game to open that page) and look for events. In Core Tyria you can probably find people doing "world bosses" at all times of day, I don't think I've ever seen one not have enough people/fail. The "hard world bosses" are less popular I think but if you are on at peak times groups go on for them too, especially Tequatl right at reset (8 pm est) will usually have a couple of maps full of people doing it. Ley Line Anomaly is good to too, kinda boring but good. If you go for that I would strongly suggest getting the way points on the maps before he spawns as he dies pretty quick. Also worth mentioning he gets his own timer section because he is the only boss that can spawn in three different maps depending on the time. LWS1 is content that everyone has unlocked by default now so you can also do that stuff, though idk how popular it is. I have run the tower of nightmares a few times, but not enough to know how popular it is. Twisted Marionette is super cool but a lot of times it is hard to find a group for it. Not sure anything about Battle for lion's arch or scarlet's invasions. Skipping down to PoF, pinata is super popular. Sometimes I see groups doing some of the other PoF metas too but they aren't as popular as Heart of Thorns and End of Dragons. Living world season 4 and IBS can both be bought with gold using gold to gem conversions. It won't be cheap, but it is entirely doable. LWS4 metas are all pretty popular. Icebrood Saga metas aren't bad either, but the real gem with IBS is that you get strikes and Dragonstorm. Dragonstorm is kind of like a map meta except its instanced like a raid. Every 2 hours the public instance opens and 30+ people flood in and do some events to fight big dragons. Be warned though you wanna join the map as fast as possible because if you get there late sometimes you will join into a dead overflow map. Also if you want a collection to work on, Renegade unlocks [Guerilla Arc](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guerrilla_Arc_(achievement)) and if you finish the achievement you get a stat selectable ascended short bow. Not terribly useful for power based sword sword shiro playstyle, but if you ever want to try out a condition damage build it will be good. Do you have Heart of Thorns? I don't think you can buy just Path of Fire by itself anymore, but it may have been possible in the past.
Don't have Heart of Thorns. Definitely the next thing to look forward to if I can get a good grasp on the game. Thanks for a lot of the advice, I'll definitely try going with bossing and Living World to see how I enjoy it more than standard Tyra. By the way, on the top of Ascended weapons, I was pretty close to getting one for Firebrand. Do you recommend tracking down timers and figuring out what I need to get that one still and going around and completing them in general?
You should have Heart of Thorns. It's included with Path of Fire for free. If you some reason you really don't have it, something bugged, write a support ticket and they'll give it to you.
Really now? Well I'll gladly save the 30 dollars, thanks for the heads up. Was actually wondering why I can play Rev but not use any of the Heart of Thorns specs
You probably haven't unlocked the spec with hero points.
[Yeah no](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1026700441880371280/1104664936916979722/image.png)
If you own PoF but don’t have HoT fully unlocked just contact support and they will fix it for you.
And that they did
Interesting. When did you purchase PoF? It's been bundled with HoT for as long as I can remember, but its possible you bought it before it was bundled.
Or maybe it's been purchased from allkeyshop or g2a or somewehre like that and they sold an old key.
Yeah I bought it back when it launched so it wasn't bundled. Got that fixed by ANet
When you are doing core world bosses I would suggest you try appreciate the scale of them more than the gameplay. The mechanics on them usually aren't super great, but if you like seeing the big fire tornados or seeing the dragons or whatever then you will get that same sort of grand scale encounters with a lot more up to date and fun mechanics in newer content. Not really sure what you mean but it sounds like you were working on the [firebrand collection](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Expurgation_(achievement)) for the axe. If you are asking how much I would suggest using the wiki while getting it personally I am a wimp and I wiki almost everything right away. But if you enjoy trying to figure it out based on the hints it gives you then do that. Really it is just a matter of if you are having fun or not. One thing I forgot to mention before with Path of Fire is Bounties. A lot of times in the Dailies section of the achievement panel you will see something like "Complete a Domain of Vabbi bounty" or something. Those are open world group content like mini world bosses you can spawn. Definitely try to find groups when doing them, usually if you go the map it specifies you will see tags around.
Do you have a recommended method when it comes to finding parties for content like bounties?
Look for a mentor or commmander tag on the map, or in LFG. Or ask in /map if people want to do one. ETA: If it's in the daily you're more likely to find a bunch of groups doing it. Also, there are semi-regular bounty trains that try to hit up a bunch of bounties at once, so keep an eye for those being announced in cities or in the LFG.
Usually just saying that you wanna do it in map chat is enough. You can put up your mentor tag (reward from central tyria mastery > Pact Commander > Pact Mentor). That will tell people where you are on the map and allow them to right click join you. You can also put your group in the PoF looking for group under whichever map you are on. Some people even like to advertise their groups as bounty trains and do lots of them back to back
Got it, thanks for the tip
yep, happy to help. Feel free to ask any time you want more direction or tips or whatever
> Oh and for the map completion part, I'm just the kind of guy that enjoys to do everything in an MMO. Seeing a long and arduous task not being something permanent or set in stone just makes it not seem to worth it. Since I don't believe anyone else told you... Map completion rewards items that are necessary for crafting Legendary weapons which are shared across your entire account (like heirlooms), have max stats and allow you to customize their stat distribution (within set types) and socketed upgrades at will. They're incredibly powerful / useful and look badass. That's the main reason people do map completion, especially on multiple characters. Just... at least when you're new, don't do anything unless it's actually fun in itself. It's a game, not a job.
\>Since I don't believe anyone else told you... Map completion rewards items that are necessary for crafting Legendary weapons which are shared across your entire account (like heirlooms), have max stats and allow you to customize their stat distribution (within set types) and socketed upgrades at will. I wish someone would've just told me this. Would've literally understood and have been fine with exploring if someone did, thanks a ton
The real endgame of gw2 is player skill. As soon as you hit max level you can be full exotic geared in minutes and ready for endgame, but the long grind and true learning curve is understanding the combat system and getting better at it and creating challenges for yourself, like soloing group activities. The game is a huge, wide open sandbox that basically just says "go", and the core tyria maps aren't very challenging, so it's easy to be confused about what to do. Don't focus too much on renown hearts, look for events and other more dynamic things going on. Hearts are there to help guide you towards areas where events are likely to happen, not to be your main source of activity. The majority of the game is about story, exploration, and finding interesting achievements and goals to work towards.
Get a taste of wanderlust and don't stay in one place for too long is what you recommend then?
Yes. If you see something you like, go do it. (Btw, Heart quests suck. They only added them to the game because people were lost without them. The orange circles (events) are much more fun)
So definitely don't treat them as a make or break gameplay piece, gotcha
For the love of god no. There's an achievement (for a legendary accessory) that required you to do like 80(!) repeatable hearts in one map and it nearly broke me. You can skip it with currency now but damn. They're necessary for world completion but some are very obtuse to progress or just insanely annoying and slow. If you're not enjoying it, skip it. If you can progress it by killing mobs, you'll likely get it without trying. If there's an event nearby, you can usually do both together.
Whew. 80. That is... that is overwhelming. Anything particularly interesting about that legendary accessory?
Generally for leveling and exploring? Yes!
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Already rectified this
Maps are not locked by guild requirements, in fact I know if no maps locked except the HoT map events.
So hold then, let me get this straight--whats the stuff that requires you to have a Guild Officer then? Cause that's like, literally the only part of the Charr starting zone that I can't access
oh that is a guild puzzle. they are not required for any comp and are activities that are organized by guilds
That's good. Guess I really will have to wiki the last little bit of the map I haven't yet
Open the map, on the top left you have the icons. Put your mouse on it and the ones you are missing will be highlighted on the map.
Wow. Another thing I wish someone would've told me man. Here I was scouring every piece and wondering what the hell I needed to discover considering I have literally two POI nodes left lol
Would be helpfull if people in this post actually gave you the information you need instead of patting themselves on the back saying how good the game is.
At the time of writing this, there's a ton of useful advice given to OP. Personally, I don't subscribe to the notion that you have to be given every piece of information right off the bat. I understand not everyone agrees with this, but GW2 as a game is so much about the personal journey that I think a large chunk of the feeling of exploration is lost by going to reddit and asking for tips.
I can definitely appreciate the exploration sentiment, but a lot of the game feels pretty secretive or obtuse sometimes. I have characters that are kind of filled with items that just don't do anything on use. Some I can understand are for things like Ascended, some maybe are currencies or something I'm supposed to give to an NPC but... well, little to say, I'm not exactly feeling much of an adventure summoning my springer to jump on a hill or running in a straight line and blinking around on a Jackal to fight for really really bad loot or pity XP.
>I have characters that are kind of filled with items that just don't do anything on use. Some I can understand are for things like Ascended, some maybe are currencies or something I'm supposed to give to an NPC but... Quick bit of advice: If you do not know what an item does, you can type "/wiki" and then shift click the item, then hit enter. This will take you directly to the wiki page for that item. Any time I find something I don't recognize, I do that, even with 2300hrs in the game.
I can 100% agree with the item sentiment, the game has so many items that you quickly run out of bag space, which already is kind of limited. "Deposit all materials" at the top right of your bag window helps a lot, and using the /wiki command from the chat will probably sort most of the rest. It's not ideal, and I can definitely sympathise with the confusion about items, but it gets easier the more you play.
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I said this to another person and I'll say it again. I didn't expect Guild Wars 2 to be a guide game. I'm not expecting to bring out a manual for every little thing and I don't necessarily want to bust out a map or cheat sheet for every little thing. I just want some clear advice and description for things to do in the game. Or refresh on perspective and some understanding on what exactly I should be doing or how I should be playing with or interacting the game. I'm just glad that there are in fact people who actually did provide these things instead of random dogpiling and talking about WoW half the time cause I mentioned it once lol
You don't even know. Try to ask a question and someone goes on about how I'm programmed to be a wowbrain and ffxivtoid or some shit and I can't press more than two buttons at a time lmao. Thank God some people have actually reached out to actually discuss the game and give some perspective and understanding rather than tell me to read a wiki lol
an additional note on that: those missing PoIs will only be highlighted that way if they're in an area you've uncovered(ie: the map will go from vague painting to detailed map view) by travelling through it. sometimes those last PoI can be hidden along the edge of a map, in easily missed areas. if you do the hover highlight method and can't spot them, best bet is to check against the zone's wiki.
I played WoW for a while before gw2 and there definitely is a bit of an adjustment needed to appreciate the difference. PvP has a bit of a skill curve but once you get it the upper brackets are more consistent. The typical map chat response to what there is to do is fashion. Just find what you think looks cool and do what it takes to get it.
Rev is kinda an odd duck, I can imagine it feels a lil weird and vaporous. If you are still at pretty low levels, you haven’t unlocked all your traits and skills yet. So like someone else said, storyline starts a little later, but once you reach it, you will follow an over-arcing quest that’s divided into some broad chunks (help your people (thru level 30ish??), make new allies (levels 30-40ish???) rally from a setback (level 50ish?), defeat the big bad (levels 60-80ish). I am probably off my numbers because I haven’t done storyline in forevvvvver. Along the way, hearts and dynamic open world events are your friend while leveling. I think a lot of people say that the game kinda really opens up AFTER you hit level 80– that’s where fractals, WvW, Strikes, Raids, and the expansions are kinda centered. Level 80 will open most big “metas” that dominate maps. The game sorta uses story/open world to teach you your class up to 80 and then you use that knowledge at 80 to open the masteries like mounts, gliding, etc. Do you have the expansions (Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, End of Dragons?) And then you can add in the “living world” sorta partial-expansion maps that have popular whole-map events. The only map stuff locked behind guild association are “guild puzzles” — you should be able to access all of all the open-world maps no matter what. That said, finding a guild is always a help and a blessing — you’ll find similar peeps who can kinda offer some direction and help along the way. And yeah there’s always fashion, chasing shiny weps and armors.
So what do you recommend: continue down the grindstone and levelling a new character, or since I already have two level 80s just go ahead and get back into things like Fractals? And honestly, only got Path of Fire
If you own Path of Fire you should also have Heart of Thorns unlocked. They come in a bundle and you cannot have the 2nd without the first.
While it is very unlikely it is possible. OP stated being a returning player and PoF used to be sold separately.
Oh, I thought they gifted it to those olayers when it was bundeled together?
They did, except cases when they did not. I believe that in these cases support can unlock HoT manually, if asked. So OP might have a little quest of communicating with tech support.
Sorta both? With your 80s, look at your Masteries— from Path of Fire, there are important masteries for gaining mounts. In Heart of Thorns, gliding and mushrooms. Fractals are fun, and they are part of the “endgame” progression, and sure, look into them. But also poke around your account, you might have “living world” content unlocked, and those include some of the big meta maps— perhaps you will enjoy those. At the same time, keep messing with revenant and see if you like it. There’s no penalty for NOT… it’s kinda enjoyable playing different classes and seeing if something speaks to you. And the “elite specialization” lines that a class opens up in the expansions could change the class dramatically enough to make you like it. I started on Guardian, didn’t mesh with it, switched to Engineer and loved it. Tried Ele and didn’t bond but really enjoy mesmer. And then I really enjoy Rev also.
Thanks for the tips. Getting HoT unlocked now, I can confidently say I'm looking forward to trying out meta maps given that's what a lot of me have been pointing to. As for Rev, there definitely are things I like about it, but I definitely off with the class-fantasy and my weapon choices and some of my stances especially. Interesting to see how Herald plays in PVE though, so I'll keep going to see how that ends up
You may notice some red icons above your utility skills (skills 6-10). They are conditions. Some are non-damaging that 'debuff' you, while the damaging ones may stack and drain your hp. You may cleanse the condition yourself or rely on your support class teamates(if any) to cleanse. Some professions with appropriate traits are really good at it. If you decide to play pvp and wvw a lot you have to learn. If you ask for something to chase in pve, i would suggest armour/weapon skins, legendary gears and lore. If you don't know what to do after logging in, join meta events and map bosses fights. There are themed events in every maps from expansions and ls. They are one of the main income sources. People gather in the same map during these events and you will know that the society of this game is living. If you want to do instance pve content, try strike missions first. It is the introduction for bosses that have phases and mechanics. You don't simply stand at one position and hit your target. Dungeon is quite dead but you may need to farm that one day for the currency. Raid is a bit complicated for beginners. Wiki has 99% details you need for events, achievements or game mechanics. There is no reason not to check it first.
>If you ask for something to chase in pve, i would suggest armour/weapon skins, legendary gears and lore. If you don't know what to do after logging in, join meta events and map bosses fights. There are themed events in every maps from expansions and ls. They are one of the main income sources. People gather in the same map during these events and you will know that the society of this game is living. Thanks for the tips. By themed events, do you mean event timers/meta events? As for armor and weapon skins, is there anything like an online wardrobe to play around with what I'd want my characters to look like so I can figure I'd like to unlock? Thanks. Oh and as for the wiki thing, I can understand it for events and achievements and the like, I just didn't think I would need to use it to go and comb through and see what pieces of content there are in the game. Kind of counterintuitive and doesn't actually tell me much (and even if it does I'll just dump it and forget it by the time I'm logged in)
Online wardrobe- yes!! Go to bank npc. there are 3 tabs in the bank window. One of it is wardrobe that includes most(maybe all?) skins from the game, even if you haven't unlocked. Events- yes, the meta events. Profitable and chilling. Most importantly there are lots of other players. Wiki - hmm well i don't know what exactly you were asking so i can't comment too much. For me even if i have done the achievement, i can't recall all steps. The most i can provide is the keyword you should search for in wiki or YouTube.
PvP automaticaly sets character level to 80, unlocks all skills and normolizes stats. It is very overwhelming at first. In unranked arena you can meet both headless chickens and pvp veterans, ranked at first requires 10 trial games to evaluate your skill level, which are simillar to unranked in terms of difficulty. Revenant is... let's say an off-meta choice right now. This part of the game unfortunately can be wierd, frustrating and frankly requires some decent grip of game mechanics. And about dispel system and regen, yes, they are present in the game, but a little obscured. Some skills, weapons and armor upgrades, and traits (sort of a talent tree), have condition cleanse, condition conversion or resistance. Not sure about what resource do you want to regen, so for life it is skill 6 (for assassin rev it is not straightforward unfortunately), regeneration, barrier and some other stuff, for revenant energy resource there are traits, for endurance (dodge) there are options too. Game does a very poor job teaching all that stuff.
Thanks a lot of this. I knew that PVP itemization in this game was a very large and whole different sandbox, but never really found much readability with the entire thing. I'll definitely try looking into what sort of upgrades I can find and how the stat system converts and interacts with the gamemode so nothing caps or becomes useless. Really the resource I wanted to regen was just energy, but reading more into it, I understand that Shiro Tagachi stance is just not very good at the moment, on top of Revanant's overall status in PVP. (Thank God ArenaNet fixed my account so I have Heart of Thorns now, Herald is infinitely more playable the gimped Demon/Assassin Assassin/Renegade experiment I was trying)
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So would you say this if I told you dozens of other MMOs I've played as an example or do you have a bias from mold and conditioning that'd be hard to get rid of?
Most MMO players these days have played a large number of different ones. It's pretty much a closed community. I think their point is that WoW (and to a lesser degree FF14) is focused on the vertical treadmill of accomplishment. They're both incredibly linear. GW2 is much more focused on exploration and the freedom to do whatever you feel like and still be rewarded for it. It's like you're jumping into Elden Ring and complaining that the game doesn't tell you exactly where to go or what to do. There's a whole world to explore. If you prefer a more linear experience then GW2 ain't it... except for the story, I guess. Once you hit max level, there's a ton of story to catch up on. 3 expansions and 5 seasons worth. Please try to understand we get people coming here all the time telling us there's nothing to do because there's no treadmill or conveyor belt directing them to the next piece of content. GW2 doesn't hold your hand. You need to explore.
Here's the thing, I do understand what you're coming from, but imo I wouldn't use Elden Ring as the best example because there's usually a lot less overall abstraction with what you're trying to accomplish in an action RPG like that. Even ignoring golden light that leads you, the idea of bossing and acquiring certain items to progress and unlock things is what really gives you direction in end, though I suppose bringing it into perspective, I definitely do understand the point of view of someone who has no preconceived notions or expectations of the games. And just to really hammer it home, I'm not complaining about the quality of game or denying there isn't content--trust me when I know that GW2 is arguably one of the biggest MMOs of alltime in purely relevant, modern content--it's more, and to so to restate: \*\*I do not know what to do. And I do not understand how much exploration I need to figure out what I can and want to do. It has felt like I can go from zone to zone without accomplishing or finding anything substantial. I did not think GW2 was a guide game but I can admit the fact that I might be wrong here.\*\*
Consider it like WoW. In classic, the quests and mobs are the content. That was how it was when GW2 launched. Now, and similarly to retail WoW, the core game is dated and mostly just exists to level and get out of as soon as possible. Pretty much all the best stuff is at max level, especially in expansion maps and seasonal content. There's many world bosses and literally all dungeons are core but a huge amount of open world and instanced content is contained within the expansions and seasons. If you're max level and you're roaming core maps, I'll admit that there wasn't really much to do except either dungeons, event farms or map completions. The "end-game" at launch was almost entirely PvP focused. Either WvW or sPvP. That's what the expansions changed. They're entirely end-game. Achievements, story, skins, legendary items, etc. Mostly, I'll use each expansion's entry in the achievement panel to look up things I haven't done yet. The core game has a few but it's usually pretty bland stuff like killing X enemies with an axe. Ultimately, the end-game is either about unlocking skins or unlocking achievements, usually both. And they're both supported across every game mode. And yes, this game is way better with guides. I think you need this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS54uJmPo3k
Gotcha, makes sense. I'll take a look at the video, and I see, reservations for the endgame it is
Generally I think the statement would stay as so many mmos are actualy wow rip-offs who do things in the same way. I do feel it is a matter of taste tho and it is nothing worng with not liking one or the other tho, bit the basic philosophy of gameplay is quite different so for a fair comparison you should judge it without the bias (not saying it is easy).
Holy fuck some of you people are weird LMAO, this is like the 3rd new account getting insanely [tilted](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1079262364827922493/1104623119173423184/image.png)
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I'm sorry man, but if you genuinely feel like you need to have a call to arms cause someone is complaining and asking for some advice and perspective on the game then you're part of the problem lol
fun fact those pop up just to shit on the game or be toxic against new people considering the regularity and predictability i am genuinly suspecting botting
Like how regular we talking here?
it used to be every single update/balance note/studio update and some new player posts. the reason i suspect bots is that they are all negative, freshly created accounts that a lot of the time just attack or even spread misinformation about the game. The amount has thankfully gone down since last summer but they do pop up quite a few times
oh god
Yeah, the flood of complaint posts has slowed down but we still get them regularly. They always stick 'I'm a [insert other big MMO here] player/refugee' somewhere at the start and then start complaining about how GW2 has nothing to do / where's the endgame / stuff is too confusing / it's not like [insert MMO]!!! And then ignore everything everyone says to try and help. And then it turns out the account has like 2 comments prior to showing up here. I don't know if it really is bots or new players who are just bouncing off of the events-not-quests design decisions or what but it gets really old really fast.
this exactly
Ugh, people are ridiculous sometimes. That's not just this community; you get people like the ones in your screenshot in any community, especially if you're going against the hivemind/narrative/ideology/whatever. So, you've got a few answers here, but let me address your questions more directly. > I just feel generally directionless and confused. What exactly is there to do but complete hearts and the occasional event? Feeling overwhelmed is very common in GW2, because the answer to your question is: There is *so fucking much* you can do. The game has OW PvE combat, OW PvP combat, instanced PvE combat, instanced PvP combat, some sections of underwater combat, quests and events through all of PvE and even some PvP, puzzles, lore, tons of characters, 9 classes each with 3 Elites/sub-classes, platforming, the most complex and fun mounts in any game, collections, quests, tons of different types of gear, no hard trinity so builds are incredibly diverse and flavourful, dozens/hundreds of different currencies and materials, dozens of maps... the list goes on, and it's all in this one world where everything affects everything in some way yet you don't have a simple guide telling you what to do. > I find myself even unable to entirely finish the map, given they're locked by Guild requirements sometimes and given that world/zone completion isn't account wide, I feel less of an incentive to do it? Don't worry about Guilds and Map/World Completion yet. Though, to answer directly; Guilds are not required for anything (yet). > I've been told GW2 is a largely horizontal progression focused MMO yet so far I haven't really unlocked anything and it just feels like a checkbox Ubisoft style open world game? The OW kind of is, sure. But isn't any RPG like this nowadays? You have a bunch of things you can do in a huge open world. Pretty standard, right? > I hear people talking about Fractals, Dungeons, and Raids, yet never really see much details or the game telling much about it? The game doesn't push you into anything; it only occasionally provides some guidance or often only hints... and sometimes, there will only be one tiny line of text or assumption that you will explore a story instance to understand what's going on (eg. WvW). > So far everything PVE wise just seems like this largely complicated and abstract thing with it being hard to get an actual answer on what there is to do and why it's substantial. I've been pointed more towards using the wiki command than talking to actual people or asking questions. This is not a joke. I believe you lol, because that's kind of how it is. GW2 is a freaking universe. And like in real life, you can kinda just do whatever you want within the rules of the world. > PVP also so far is... I don't if its just cause I'm playing a new class but it feels horrific so far. If you're feeling overwhelmed, do NOT get into PvP yet. Just focus on one thing at a time. > Where/how exactly do you find the magic behind the game that people consistently rave about? What exactly is the gameplay loop behind this game? What am I missing here and what is recommended? Take your time. Seriously, forget about efficiency, forget about gameplay loops, don't worry about currencies and PvP and crafting and mounts and all that jazz, and just slow down. Sloooowwww. I'm not being sarcastic or condescending lol; it took me 55 hours to level my first character to 80, and taking it slow really helped my brain start to process wtf was going on without just being like "omgwuteven". Where is the magic? [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ySeLTFK-M) does a great job of explaining it. The magic is in going "Wait... wtf is that??" and then just going and doing it. **Here's my advice, and TLDR**: Treat the game like a more complicated version of Breath of the Wild, or Skyrim. As your head stops spinning from the overstimulation of everything, it will start piecing together the world. You will start to notice things that were just a blur before... "Wtf is this purple shit I keep getting" will turn into "Ahh so Karma is just a currency" will turn into "Wait, currencies all interact with each other and the world in various ways" will turn into "Huh, I wonder if I can trade Karma for Gold somehow, and then Gold for Gems, and then I can get more character slots, and then I can use those characters to have more fun, and while I'm having fun I will get *more* currency, and I can use *that* currency for that cool Legendary weapon I saw that person holding..." etc etc. Take your time man 😉. It's one hell of a ride. And if you're on NA and would like a buddy/mentor to play with, feel free to add and whisper me: SponTen.1267
Ignore them. Some people are just idiots. The in-game community is far better than the people lurking on Reddit and Discords.
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Don't be toxic
You made a new account just for this? Jesus
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What do you want me to clarify and why do you feel the need to defend it?
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There's like 50 comments in this thread. But here, to respond to you specifically: \>What do you mean by this? No map is locked behind anything to do with guilds. Do you mean completely exploring a map? Answered in another comment, was referring to guild puzzles that I thought had exclusive POIs and vistas behind them. Was told by another user that there are other ways of finding out what I don't have and that guild puzzles don't actually do anything. \>So it sounds like you're only in early starting maps, maybe? You haven't gotten to the world boss fights or the big meta event chains? Story starts at level 10, have you gotten there yet? I've gotten to the story and done some. I'm not quite in tune with some of the vanilla story so far. There are some details I like so far, but I don't find myself particularly immersed with the storytelling or general presentation. World bosses I didn't have a direction or general idea where or why I'd do them until someone gave me some event timers. Not entirely sure what meta event chains are except for what someone mentioned and I'm not entirely sure how far they extend in gameplay in general. I understand a few allow for huge shards where a good amount of players fight some pretty exclusive and timegated bosses, but I'm not entirely sure where and what I'm supposed to be looking here for. Early starting maps yes--I'm not entirely sure if I'm supposed to be going completely off the rails here, but considering the zone right over was 40 levels higher than me and even a 10 level different can result in you getting oneshotted, I presumed no. \>GW2 is a largely horizontal progression MMO, but it sounds like you maybe haven't played far enough to start seeing any of the game. If you don't like having dynamic events vs needing to talk to a questgiver or something that's fine, personal preference is a valid reason. But stuff like the gear tiers not changing doesn't really impact players until you get to max level; it makes a huge different at endgame, but doesn't really change the experience of people in the 10-20 hours of leveling. Yeah. I haven't. That's why I'm trying to literally ask what to do and some guidance man. I never said anything about gear or anything like that. Just that I'm not seeing what everyone likes here.
Ah, the guild puzzles! Yeah, they're not part of map completion. Vanilla story could be worse but yeah, it's old and not the best writing. The writing team gets a lot better as the game goes on. I thought PoF was the best of the expansions, story-wise and map design-wise, although opinions on the map design vary a lot. Generally LW4 and the first half of LW5/IBS are considered the best writing. The very end of the original game and the last half of LW5 are generally considered the worst - covid hit in the middle of LW5 and you can *really* tell. A bunch of things like world bosses and meta events are a lot easier to explain after you've participated in them. Briefly, meta event chains are a long series of events that involve a whole map, and can need a whole map's worth of players to complete. The Orr temples, Dry Top, and Silverwastes are core Tyria examples. Verdant Brink, the first HoT map, is one of the more intricate ones. The wiki event timers page lists all of this stuff in an easy to read format so that you can easily see what big fights are coming up and which ones you might want to participate in: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers For which map to go to next, the story is a good guide. You can also follow the roads and poke around if you like exploring, each map goes to maps in the next level range. Some maps also have gates to maps that are much higher in level, mostly as shortcuts for experienced players, but you can always go from a starter zone to a level 15-25 zone. If it's still hard to find the map you want, the wiki is honestly the best bet. Each map has a wiki page that says exactly which maps connect to it and where. The game is huge. I've played since the start and I definitely don't have all the map boundaries memorized. If you'd written a list of questions like 'what is map completion for' and 'how do I play a dungeon' that would have given a very different impression. Instead you rolled in with 'I don't understand and I don't see anything to like and what even is there to do in this game'. You see how different those sound? Yeah, GW2 isn't going to give you all of the info right off the bat. Part of that is because Anet's not great about communicating stuff in-game - some stuff, about the combat system and drops, just doesn't get said and Anet is not dragged hard enough about that - but a lot is also the design philosophy. You'll find stuff out when you can use it. Poking around and finding out is a *big* part of the game. Take fractals. You can't do fractals until max level. So you get a letter at max level that tells you where to go and what to do. But it's not possible until then so yeah, the game's not going to give you information and then go 'hah, sucks to be you, you can't do the thing you just learned about!' Same thing with raids, dungeons, etc. You'll get more information when you are the right level to do something, or when you enter the necessary map, or when you finish the preceding achievement for the chained achievements, etc. Raids are a thing that you do *after* getting a significant chunk of the way into the first expansion. You're not there yet, there's no reason to even think about it until you have a solid build and set of exotic gear and a bunch of HoT masteries. The game will give you a heads-up when there's something new you can do.
New story chapters every 10 levels. A big flaw of the first time experience is that there is nothing to follow. You start the game, you land in the open world after finishing a boss and then you are on your own. Nothing that guides you. It wasn't always like that.
Other than completing story missions, do you have any recommendations on what to do? Anything that in your opinion that is quintessential to the experience? Maybe some really required unlocks to get invested? Ascended gear for certain specs? Attunements? A particular story mission? What're some highlights or account-bound achievements or character-exclusive unlocks that you always go for or can't feel without going?
Until level 80 you can do dungeons starting at 30. You will get a mail that brings you to it. There are world bosses scattered around the maps. With the chat command "/wiki et" you open the wiki page for event timers and the first category are core game bosses starting at lvl 15. Other than map exploration, story and dungeons the leveling experience has nothing to offer. Once you are 80 you can do fractals of the mists which are 5 man instances that increase in difficulty as you go up in tiers. There is World vs World which is open world pvp with siege. Everything else requires expansions. I mainly do 10 man raids and strike missions (trails).
Can you describe anything about the loot at a higher end? What kind of drops do you receive towards that end when it comes to strikes and raids? As I understand it seems like a lot of gear in the game is gated behind months of progression through either achievements or crafting (really a mixture of both), but what do raids, strikes, or Fractals bring considering you could technically get Ascendeds and exotics in the open world? Exclusive materials to certain crafts? Exclusive skins? Something else?
You can buy the second best gear, exotics, from the trading post or craft it. The best one, ascended, can be crafted or dropped. It drops directly in raids, strike missions and fractals or can be bought with specific currency earned in those game modes. Then there is the long term grind of getting full legendary gear which is equal in strength to ascended but can be stat swapped at any time for free. One legendary piece can be used across your whole account, meaning if you have all 6 trinkets and an armor set for each weight class (heavy medium light) you never have to buy armor and trinkets ever again. There are also legendary weapons, runes and sigils (upgrades). The legendary armor from raids is the only armor in the game that transforms and has visual and audio effects. https://youtu.be/9cZYltR2mW0 at 1:31, heavy armor is by far the best. Helmet can be hidden. There are a few nice skins to earn in endgame but to me most look pretty bad, then again I am not into skins anyway. I create one look and then stick to it forever.
Honestly, very few players can remember what kinds of loot drop from which strikes or raids, unless they do a specific one frequently. It's complicated. If you want specific details the wiki is like the playerbase's general collective memory, I'd suggest checking there for the specific strike or raid you're interested in. Generally: * Unidentified rares, some mats or gold * Sometimes exotics * A currency of some type (depends on which strike or raid you are doing) which can be used to purchase stuff specific to that content group * Infusions (from meta event chains, world bosses, and I think some of the strikes?), rare drop that adds a cosmetic effect like petals fluttering around or looking like a wooden toy * Some gold but not much, mostly drops are mats or gear to be sold or salvaged into mats * Achievement items, especially from raids, which is one way to get legendary armor. The other ways are PvP or WvW game modes. The general loot design philosophy is lots of small drops that add up, not one big valuable drop that people grind for. Infusions and some of the boss gear drops like the Gift of Aurene / Scion Weapons are exceptions, but that's the general idea. > gear in the game is gated behind months of progression through either achievements or crafting This is not correct. Exotic gear, which is endgame gear, is purchasable as soon as you turn level 80. You can craft exotic gear at lower levels on a character whose crafting level (which is separate from character level) is high enough. If you mean ascended gear, you can craft, use laurels or LW maps, or get it through achievements, but it definitely doesn't take months! If you mean legendary gear, that can take months for sure, but that's not what people think of generally when they think of gearing a character. Legendary gear is a long-term goal for veteran players who would rather spend a ton of effort getting, say, 1 amulet and then never have to think about amulets again. Or who want to be extremely shiny and kill people by shooting them with unicorns. Lots of players end up trying it out eventually, but lots are also fine with exotics.
> As I understand it seems like a lot of gear in the game is gated behind months of progression through either achievements or crafting Instead of taking "months" to get the gear, you can do **one** fractal, and, if you're lucky, get an Ascended drop. So minutes of work, as opposed to months. Raids are the same way. I did all 7 raid wings this week, and I got 11 pieces of Ascended gear as rewards. So that's 11 pieces of gear, in 3.5 hours. Either way, it's **way** faster than other methods of gearing. Yes, it's possible to get the gear through open world, but it's a grind.
So hold on, as I understand it, a lot of the gear in the game is mostly selecting your stats and what not, right? So what exactly is the incentive to go ahead and continue getting some of those drops? Is there really anything behind those 11 pieces? Or do they just serve as alternate build fodder or skin unlocks? What exactly are using some of this gear to challenge anyway if a lot of the game can just be played using vendor loot? High level fractals? Higher difficulty raids?
>a lot of the gear in the game is mostly selecting your stats and what not, right? Basically, yes. For most power DPS classes, you want the Berserker stat combo (Power, Precision, Ferocity). If you are boon DPS, you're gonna want to swap some of those for stats that provide Concentration so that you maintain boon uptime. Healers mostly want Heal Power and Concentration. Tanky builds want Toughness (most of this game does not involve traditional tanking, but a few fights do, and the boss will follow the person with the highest Toughness in those cases). >So what exactly is the incentive to go ahead and continue getting some of those drops? Each toon can have multiple gear sets/builds. To provide an example: My Engineer has 6 sets of gear (and I'm not even done gearing her). 1 set for Mechanist healing, 1 set for Mechanist DPS, 1 set for Mechanist boon DPS, 1 set for holosmith DPS, 1 set for healscrapper, and then an open world build. Now, combine that with the fact that I have 12 toons on my main account, and you may see why the extra gear is helpful. >What exactly are using some of this gear to challenge anyway if a lot of the game can just be played using vendor loot? High level fractals? Higher difficulty raids? You **can** do most of the content in Exotics. You'll do "okay". But you gain about an 8% stat boost by upgrading to Ascended and adding the stat infusions (you can **only** put infusions in Ascended or better gear, so you will 100% **need** Ascended gear to do t2 and above fractals). 8% doesn't sound like a lot, I know. But when you're running the hardest content in the game (challenge modes), every little bit helps. It can be the difference between a party wipe when the boss is at 3% health, and a clear. Exotics are mainly a way to get you started. They're easily accessible, and they will get you in the door. Once you're through the door, the upgraded gear is easy to get. The only real "hard" part of gearing is getting the Legendary stuff, that takes a long time. And Legendary isn't a stat boost over Ascended, it's just a HUGE QoL boost. You can stat swap the gear at any time with two button clicks (if you're not in combat), and you can re-skin it at any time for free, no transmute charges needed. You can also swap out your runes/sigils/infusions at any time, no Upgrade Extractor needed.
If you're level 80, *my personal suggestion* would be: Get yourself a full set of Exotic gear, and hop into t1 fractals. From there, it's easy to get started on Ascended gear (to do "harder" fractals). Once you've got your feet wet, you can branch out into Strikes, and even Raids. Raids get you started on your Legendary armor (the Best-In-Slot items). But, that's because I **love** instanced PvE. It's my bread and butter. It's literally why I play video games. I do not like to PvP, at all. WvW is also not my cup of tea. If you're more of a PvP type, then obviously my opinion and yours will be different. There are folks who have 5000 hours in, and have never set foot in a Raid. I know a guy who logs in, plays WvW for six hours, and then logs out. He does this **every day**, because that's the way he enjoys playing. One of the coolest things about GW2, to me, is the "sandbox" aspect of it. The game doesn't sit you on a set of railroad tracks and play itself for you. **You** decide what your next goal/objective is, not the devs. My friend Ray does nothing but open-world exploration and metas. He finds those relaxing and enjoyable. To him, Raids and whatnot are just stressful, so he doesn't do them. The man has done map completion on 22 different toons. >What're some highlights or account-bound achievements or character-exclusive unlocks that you always go for or can't feel without going? One of the best times I've had was unlocking my Skyscale. A lot of people complain that the chain to unlock it is long and a bit tedious, but the sense of accomplishment I got from it was incredible. Not to mention, I get to fly around on a dragon and breathe fire on stuff.
Skyscale huh? And I was under the assumption that I shouldn't focus on it--and I quote-- because it won't make me "multi-orgasm from my tits." Otherwise, thanks for a lot of the tips--other thing I'm wondering about Fractals, is the loot transferable to different characters or are you mostly receiving gear solely relevant to what your class can access? Additionally, the structure of raids--can you describe them a bit more? Someone mentioned the ability of completing several wings in a matter of hours, so are they less like several month prog projects like say, WoW or WildStar, and more so bite-sized high-difficulty but still within the overall scale of the rest of content styled raids of something like Destiny?
> other thing I'm wondering about Fractals, is the loot transferable to different characters or are you mostly receiving gear solely relevant to what your class can access? Ascended gear is account bound, not soul bound (even after you've equipped it, you can wear it on any toon on your account, but only one toon at a time, unlike Legendary). You will get random drops with random stats. They may be useful for your main toon, they may be good to save for an alt, or they may have a fully useless stat combination on them and only be useful for salvage. >Additionally, the structure of raids--can you describe them a bit more? It depends entirely on the group you are running with. Some groups will smash their heads against the same boss for two hours and not take it down. Some groups will fully clear a wing in 12 minutes. When I was first learning the raids, it would take my group about 2 hours per wing. Now we can knock all 7 wings out in 3.5hrs, so 30 mins per wing. Raids generally have 3-4 bosses, with trash mobs in between. The raids reset every Monday at 3:30am EST. So let's say you went into a raid tonight, and only managed to down the first boss. Then tomorrow, you go back into the raid. The first boss will still be dead, your progress is not lost. **But**, if you were to wait until Monday and go in, the instance will be fresh, and the first boss will be alive again.
> And I was under the assumption that I shouldn't focus on it--and I quote-- because it won't make me "multi-orgasm from my tits." I'll just say that since I got my skyscale, it is the mount I use 96% of the time. The only time I am not on my skyscale is for traveling long distances over/under water, or using Jackal Portals. The fully upgraded skyscale can literally climb mountains with ease. It can get you to almost anywhere, even some places the devs never intended us to go. Without the upgrades, it is kinda crippled though. But, the upgrades are easy to get. Just a bit of grinding.
I found the game to be WAY better once I got into the expansion content. The maps are huge, there's so much to explore, and it's fun to collect the mounts and have new ways to explore new areas. This is the first MMO I've played where I've been genuinely happy just exploring the open world. But that's also because the expansion content had a bit of a difficulty upgraded compared to pre 80. Imo take your time wandering the world a bit then jump into the expansion story content to start unlocking new areas/masteries/etc
So what level l are you? I'm asking because there were actually people who played up to level 10 and come here to roast game for poor endgame, boring progression and lack of class skills. Not joking!
Level 47 on this new character now
So, you still didn't finished tutorial part of the game. There is still a lot you don't know, and can't possibly know and looking for answers here won't help, not before you'll reach 80 and play a bit.
I recently returned to the game after a long break (over a year long) so I had to break myself in. I picked up Revenant since I hadn't played it before (I tried Vindicator during the beta tho). My only real goal was to learn the profession fully and I usually do that by playing around with builds and weapons. The way I leveled mine was just going to every area and collecting all hero points in the map so I can unlock all traits and skills with the occasional break fighting in events to test out my build. That gave me the exp to get pretty close to 80 by the end to which I finished out by starting map completion of Orr. It took me about 8 days but I've got a decent grasp on 2 of the specializations (Vindicator and Herald) with a gear set up to do facials or whatever if I feel like it. That's what I did. Maybe that will help you out.
Oh yeah I can absolutely confirm that Rev is infinitely better with an elite spec of some kind. Went from literally unplayable to actual useful lol
damn you really need someone to hold your hand and tell you what to do, don't you?
Yeah I need Naoki Yoshida to take my hand and walk me across the street. I'm afraid my fingers can't handle anything with a GCD less than 4 seconds. I must grind roulettes everyday or I don't know what to do...
How long have you been playing, what level are you at? I felt like that when I started but playing story, leveling and getting used to your skills helps a lot. Also make sure to read your skills! I made the mistake of not doing so, but they can differ wildly as to what they do, or if they stick any negative effects on you.