I reached level 80 on my first character. Now what?

[Deleted]

Up to level 80, I had my personal story to play through, but now that that's finished, I'm not sure what to do. once I hit 80, I spent some gold on decent gear from the AH, but I'm not sure where to continue from here...

[Karizee]

Dungeons, Fractals, WvW, EotM, Jumping Puzzles, World Bosses, Activities, Collections, Living Story, Guild Missions, MIX IT UP and see what you like best - the entire game is open to you now!

[zito]

You can also redo zones you already completed and zones you missed. There are also new zones. Literally anything in the game you can do.

[Deleted]

Let me elaborate: Up until the end of my personal story, I had the content guide to tell me what to do, and I played so I could finish my personal story. My personal story is finished and I liked it, but I'm stuck in this limbo where I have no idea what to do next. In WoW, I could just play for gear and to finish my legendary. There's also a lot of content that can be done in random groups without too much trouble. However, I have no idea how feasible pugging dungeons or fractals is.

Dungeons, Fractals: never done them. Maybe a thing to do, but since I'm quite a bit behind, I'm not sure how effective I can be.
WvW, EotM: No. Fucking. Way. The reason I enjoy GW2 is because I can completely ignore Player versus player, not even having to do world PvP.
Jumping Puzzles: I started on those, I quite enjoy them, but I find them to be somewhat Guide Dang It, where you almost need a guide to find or finish them.
World Bosses: I have the ugly tendency to always be late for events, and I don't like molding my entire playtime around a single moment or content.
Activities: you mean finishing the world quests? I find those too grindy and boring.
Collections: same as Activities.
Living Story: Don't I need to pay extra to do those?
Guild Missions: Guilds nearly always have attendance requirements like "you need to do X amount of content with the guild", which never sits well with me.

[Valeron]

It's an open ended game for you at this point, there is no right or wrong way (no directional play unless you want to continue with the living story) to play.

activities are mini games, not "world quests" (not sure what that is in reference to)

for the living story, if you don't care about the rewards, you can piggy back with someone else to participate in the living story missions free of charge. You just won't get any of the rewards for it.

[Deleted]

by World Quests, I mean map completion: hearts, skill challenges, vistas, locations to find,...

[Kazgrel]

Let me elaborate: Up until the end of my personal story, I had the content guide to tell me what to do, and I played so I could finish my personal story. My personal story is finished and I liked it, but I'm stuck in this limbo where I have no idea what to do next. In WoW, I could just play for gear and to finish my legendary. There's also a lot of content that can be done in random groups without too much trouble. However, I have no idea how feasible pugging dungeons or fractals is.

Dungeons, Fractals: never done them. Maybe a thing to do, but since I'm quite a bit behind, I'm not sure how effective I can be.
WvW, EotM: No. Fucking. Way. The reason I enjoy GW2 is because I can completely ignore Player versus player, not even having to do world PvP.
Jumping Puzzles: I started on those, I quite enjoy them, but I find them to be somewhat Guide Dang It, where you almost need a guide to find or finish them.
World Bosses: I have the ugly tendency to always be late for events, and I don't like molding my entire playtime around a single moment or content.
Activities: you mean finishing the world quests? I find those too grindy and boring.
Collections: same as Activities.
Living Story: Don't I need to pay extra to do those?
Guild Missions: Guilds nearly always have attendance requirements like "you need to do X amount of content with the guild", which never sits well with me.

Dungeons/Fractals: If you want to read up on some of them, http://gw2dungeons.net/ is a decent start. Dungeons are divided into two settings, Story and Explorable. You have to do the Story Mode first before you can do the explorables (which generally consist of several "paths"). Basically each dungeon is 4 different dungeons in one, in a way. Note: I haven't done a dungeon in over a year, so maybe the story mode requirement was removed, but I don't ever recall hearing/seeing that.

Jumping puzzles: Here's a guide of sorts. Most of these puzzles are intentionally hidden from the well-beaten path: http://dulfy.net/2012/09/16/gw2-jump...-guild-wars-2/

World bosses: You can either type "/wiki world boss" (minus the quotes) in the game's chat field and it'll open a page with boss timers. Personally, I like the one on Dulfy's page. There is also http://gw2timer.com/ that a friend of mine found recently and it's helped him moreso, since it gives an interactive map that may help newer players out moreso.

Activities: Activities in GW2 refer to mini-games such as crab toss, keg brawl, etc. These are pvp activities, pretty much, minus getting downed/killed by the opposition. Based on your disdain for pvp, you may want to skip these.

Collections: These are mostly item/gear collections. Some are easy to fill out, others not so much. Example, Citadel of Flame collector requires you to unlock all weapon/armor skins from CoF.

Living Story: If you weren't playing the game when these were introduced, you do have to pay to unlock them now. Kinda lame, in a way, but not as lame as Living Story Season 1, since you don't even have the option to replay that one at all.

Guild Missions: Wouldn't know. I just run around in my own personal guild. Plenty of stash for all my cooking and crafting stuff. :P

[Fencers]

Do everything you enjoyed doing from levels 1-79.

[Gray_Matter]

Dungeons, Fractals: never done them. Maybe a thing to do, but since I'm quite a bit behind, I'm not sure how effective I can be.

Just one not here. You can't really fall behind. The story mode dungeons are pretty easy. I have done a couple with my two young daughters. Just the 3 of us in the party and we completed them in story mode. Some people can solo them. Caudecus Manor (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Caudecus%27s_Manor) is a nice easy one to get started with. You can look in the group finder for a party of if you just go to the entrance then you can also get an invite.

[Christonya]

This is literally the one most negative part of GW2. Structure. GW2 has none. Rather then saying: You HAVE to go farm gear to be useful, you HAVE to get this legendary to be useful. You HAVE to do these dailys to be useful.

GW2 says: Do what ever you want. Dungeons? Go for it. Low level zones? Np, we'll scale you back a bit. Fractals? Sure! Open world content? Absolutely! World pvp? (wvw) Heres FIVE maps dedicated to it. Want nicer gear? Lots to choose from, pick the skins you want, and work towards them. Ect ect ect.

Gw2 is what YOU make of it for YOURSELF. Not what others tell you to do. It's why I have quit wow, and play gw2 over it, there's so much to do, and it's all relevant.

[Kazgrel]

This is literally the one most negative part of GW2. Structure. GW2 has none. Rather then saying: You HAVE to go farm gear to be useful, you HAVE to get this legendary to be useful. You HAVE to do these dailys to be useful.

GW2 says: Do what ever you want. Dungeons? Go for it. Low level zones? Np, we'll scale you back a bit. Fractals? Sure! Open world content? Absolutely! World pvp? (wvw) Heres FIVE maps dedicated to it. Want nicer gear? Lots to choose from, pick the skins you want, and work towards them. Ect ect ect.

Gw2 is what YOU make of it for YOURSELF. Not what others tell you to do. It's why I have quit wow, and play gw2 over it, there's so much to do, and it's all relevant.

Call me biased, crazy, or whatever, but reading your description of a lack of structure does t exactly strike me as a negative.

[Valeron]

Call me biased, crazy, or whatever, but reading your description of a lack of structure does t exactly strike me as a negative.

Not a negative for me either but I imagine for some it would be, especially for those who are used to playing directed, structured games.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Not a negative for me either but I imagine for some it would be, especially for those who are used to playing directed, structured games.

It's just that the way GW2's endgame is structured is jarring; we've been playing MMOs with the expectation that all the fun stuff is at level cap, and that in order to go do the fun stuff we need to blast our way to the top as quickly as possibly to do what usually amounts to raiding.

In GW2, the endgame starts from the moment you leave the tutorial area - questing (in the zones). What your doing at level 1, you'll be doing at level cap in GW2 - questing, questing, questing. Or dungeons, which you unlock at level 30ish I believe? Fractals are just harder group PvE, and so forth.

The jarring part is that once you reach level cap, nothing new really unlocks; again your doing the same thing as you did before, except that instead of gaining levels your gaining skillpoints.

[Karizee]

What your doing at level 1, you'll be doing at level cap in GW2 - questing, questing, questing.

Remarkably uninformed or flat out misleading statement in the light of the fact that there are no quests in GW2 xD

The only reasonable response to a post such as this is: http://www.cinemablend.com/images/se...1429495917.gif

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Remarkably uninformed or flat out misleading statement in the light of the fact that there are no quests in GW2 xD

Alright; I'll rephrase: Running around zones doing quests repackaged as a bar you fill up without having to talk to an NPC to pick up, with lil' scripted events sandwiched in between.

Satisfied?

[Karizee]

Alright; I'll rephrase: Running around zones doing quests repackaged as a bar you fill up without having to talk to an NPC to pick up, with lil' scripted events sandwiched in between.

Satisfied?

Sure dude, same as taking a raid boss down is simply a quest repackaged as a bar you decrease. Now begone with ye!

http://i.imgur.com/9rDjfTn.gifv

[Edge-]

Sure dude, same as taking a raid boss down is simply a quest repackaged as a bar you decrease. Now begone with ye!

http://i.imgur.com/9rDjfTn.gifv

Karizee, come on. They're functionally quests, the big difference being the delivery and completion method. That's not a bad thing or a jab at the game, it is what it is.

[Valeron]

It is impossible at this point to make a game truly dynamic anyway.

I prefer the event system over the static questing but at the very base, they are the same as Edge has said.

[Karizee]

Karizee, come on. They're functionally quests, the big difference being the delivery and completion method. That's not a bad thing or a jab at the game, it is what it is.

Unless they've drastically changed the definition of questing, I don't see how you can define an entire zone of players working together to progress events to the point where Breaches open to underground Champion boss fights, which will spawn the ultimate or meta event which has 3 lanes of players working to defeat the Champions of Mordremoth in what is essentially an open world raid in an 80 only zone.

C'mon now.

[Kazgrel]

Arguing semantics here, folks. Based on Valyrian's description, it sounds clear he is primarily referring to hearts, which are a streamlined version of ye' ol' quest NPCs from MMOs prior (and even after). This is not a bad thing, btw.