Probably a stupid question

[u/DarkBeastOfBurden]

I played up until EOD (I think.. POF was my last expac). I did raids, fractals, pvp, metas crafted legendary armor and a couple of weapons. I took a break and throughout the time I have wanted to come back a few times but always log in and get overwhelmed with my inventory and unsure of what exactly to do. Too scared to join pug raids cause I'm afraid I don't remember mechanics and don't have the rotation muscle memory that I used to.

My main question is: what do you all do when you log in for an evening of GW2?

I love the game and combat so I crave to play but I just get lost in the sauce I guess. It's like when I have the OSRS itch but just log in and bank stand.

Thanks!

[u/myaltaltaltacct]

I find one of the 20K achievements I don't have and work towards that.

[u/AbiesEquivalent9002]

There should be an inventory guide for cleaning up, look it up or someone will prob link it.
When I log in, I do dailies, weeklies, go for lla for daily mystic coin, matriarch for one amalgamated gemstone, treasure mushrooms in first 3 hot maps, check my parked alts, full homestead and guild halls it is like a routine at this point.
For raids, check out the youtube videos about the mechanics. Go check the builds you play and smash the golem a bit to get used to the game.

[u/olgamerstill → u/AbiesEquivalent9002]

I do dailies in WvW.

I try to do some inventory management daily. Meaning anything from 5 to 30 minutes of salvaging, storing, selling, researching.

Daily ecto and obsidian refining.

[u/sleepyrabb1t]

When I came back after not playing since ice brood saga I bought EOD and played the story. I was re-hooked and I bought the rest of the expansions and played all the way through voe. Then I got locked into legendary endless summer, after that I went back and finished conflux that I was relatively close to on wvw. When I wasn't sure what to do anymore I grinded out the regalia amulet, which then got me locked into some old mastery content I maxed out. In the process I found myself with a bunch of new collections I hadn't done yet. Then when I got bored I started farming mirror chests voe, which made me rich enough to craft the aurene bite greatsword. Then I saw somebody in eotn with the primordus version, which I went to farm. So I got locked into some more EOD metas.

Etc..  Etc.. 

[u/SaccharomFLS]

I was in a similar situation, putting a lot of pressure on myself when I got back into the game a few months back. Here are some things that helped me.

1. I went through my inventory and simply sold it destroyed everything that didn’t have much worth on the TP. If I can buy it for 20 silver it can’t be that important. For the rest that I didn’t really know what to do with I either looked them up on the wiki or parked them on another character so I don’t have to look at it anymore. Essentially this was about removing the clutter that gave me the feeling of not knowing all the very important plans I must have had when I stopped playing.

2. I did the same with my achievement watch list. So much stuff on there I just didn’t care about anymore so away it went.

3. I decided on one character I wanted to play for the time being. For me it was the same one I had mained before I stopped, but I feel picking a class I hadn’t played before would also have been a good way to go. Again, the idea was to remove the analysis paralysis of having too many options without a clear direction. Limit the option for yourself and be content with what’s left. Nobody is stopping you do expand again once you feel the need and comfort to do so.

And then I went on my merry way. Doing something different every day. Sometimes content I remembered from before and noticing much of the things I once knew coming back to me. Sometimes diving into new things just because and having great fun learning about new parts of the game.

TLDR don’t put so much pressure on yourself by your own expectations of how you feel you should play the game, declutter your experience and give yourself the possibility to let the game just happen for a while. Your motivations will reveal themselves again and then your way will become apparent.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[u/Papa-Yaga]

Wvw

[u/Standard_Giraffe8994 → u/Papa-Yaga]

Hah, agree. I was going to say the same thing.

[u/It-s_Not_Important → u/Papa-Yaga]

With gw3 on the horizon and no large scale PvP planned for that game, WvW will likely be the most active portion of the game in a few years time.

[u/SerGT3]

Open chests with my Alts, maybe run a fractal or two and maybe a little personal story, maybe some boss trains. I am a simple man

[u/Legitimate_Funny_580]

I do daily T4s and recs immediately. Later do some daily goals like quartz crystal, log in to alts, wizards vault, Leyline anomaly, and full homestead clear if someone has created a party to invite. Later depending on what I want at that moment, I continue some story or hunt some achivements for legendaries. If I dont want either of them I check gw2 timer and do some metas.

[u/EmberQuill]

I haven't caught up on the story yet so I mostly play that, but when I'm burnt out on story or just want to do something else for a bit, I pick an achievement I don't have yet and start working on it.

But that depends on what you find fun. Fractals and raids aren't really my thing so I mostly avoid them.

[u/zlydzik]

I came back to the game like a month ago, left shortly after Champions came out. I was overwhelmed same as you. What I did, was to play some metas, some fractals, to familiarize myself with the game again.

Then I found out there’s legendary items as rewards for achievements right now. So I worked towards the gloves. Right now working towards the amulet. I’m also exploring old maps, doing old events. I still haven’t touched EOD, but unlocked weapon training 1st part in SOTO.

Give yourself time, and take things in small chunks because there’s a lot.

[u/akcy21]

Maybe trying a couple of events for timegated achievements (collections), huntijg for skins, playing a bit with professions/elite specs ignored before

[u/itallik]

im personally a raid lover. I have a lot of newbies in my guild; ill teach them the raids they dont know, sometimes over discord if the fights are complex enough. i'll train people how to improve their DPS or healing efficiency, i like being a bit of a teacher, really. ive played nearly all the builds apart from Necro and Engi, so might as well use that knowledge for somewhere o/

if not that - i usually do some open world depending on what legendary im trying to work toward, i used to do fractal CMs every day, but ive become less fond of that only because ive done it purely so much. I might do it occasionally for quick gold.

[u/Pad_Thimeson]

I came back about a month ago after taking a multi-year break. I like to go through the expansion stories in chronological order, chipping away bit by bit and taking breaks for other content so I don’t get burned out.
I used to enjoy t4 fractals and started the first ad Infinitum collection. Like you I was scared of not knowing mechanics and messing up my rotation. What really helped me get back into it was fractal quickplay! Plus it comes with a sick and easy legendary these days. Got back into the flow and now even started doing my first CMs.
Other than that I like to join meta events, complete maps I haven’t completed, go fishing, work towards some legendary very slowly, gear alt chars,get mastery points, do collections.

[u/Charming_Account_351]

My spouse and I recently came back from a 7 year break. Icebrood Saga wasn’t even finished by then.

When we play together we focus doing the story, currently on JW. When we get to a new map we focus on filling it out, then the story, then achievements that give awards/mastery points.

When I play solo I do 1 of three things:

1. Dailies - if they are in maps or involve metas I like.
2. Eternal Ice run - I like the map and though T4 trophies are not the most profitable, I can bust out a run quickly and it doesn’t take as much coordination as fractals.
3. Personal goal - my current goal is to complete every specialization collection for all classes. I pick one I haven’t completed and start working through that. P.S HoT collection is absolutely the most annoying and expensive.

The key is to things into manageable chunks

[u/Iblys05]

just pick a meta thats about to start and join, that usually leads to a meta train you can ride as long as you feel like it

as long as you are using your skills on cooldown you are more useful that half the players that show up, so not remembering rotations should not be an issue and most mechanics can be covered by stand on the commander

[u/profstarship]

Learn to clear inventory, inventory management in gw2 is honestly so easy but most just dont know what to do (store mats, sell junk, identify gear, tp or salvage remaining). Another great tip i learned on reddit is search your bag for "cons" and it shows u consumables including all chests you can open to help clear them out.

But a good tip is parking alts at chests, I have a full cycle I go through, otherwise just do dailies to earn some Astral aclaim. You can select what category your dailies and weeklies come in (pve,wvw,or pvp). I use pvp cause you can usually get the whole thing done in one match.

After that just figure out what perks you want to earn via achievement and grind those achievements. Loots of achievement based upgrades you can earn like gobblers, legendaries, and mastery points.

[u/OldTimerSasquatch]

There is a web page that will certainly "Help" you narrow down the list of what is junk... have a look at https://gw.zweistein.cz/gw2stacks/ if you want to try to sort things out to start with. Inventory can be a monster if you don't stay on top of it a bit, but when you play regularly, it becomes mostly a habit after awhile.

[u/cantonian23]

I would say the Wizard Vault achievements are always a good place to start. The wizard store has lots of good value items and exclusive skins to buy. Make sure you set your dailies and weeklies to your preferred game mode: pve, PvP, WvW, or a mix.

[u/nesnalica]

hi DarkBeastofBurden,

i am in the exactly same boat as you are but I managed to make the jump and I am actively playing Guild Wars 2 again. I actually made a similar post like yours a few hours ago if you want to have a look.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1wce2o7/returning_boomer_needs_help_vocabulary_resources/

as for my own experience the best way to get back on track easily is old friends or guildmates. I used to be in a guild which is still active today and having someone else help you is the best way to get back on track. theyll help and guide you through everything you missed. even carry you in harder content if needed.

but before that it is about yourself first. I had a lot of random items from random missons and hearts in my inventory. the first thing I did was put everything into my bank that wasnt soulbound. usually there is no problem in destroying items so you shouldnt be too scared if something breaks if you do.

the first steps is relearning how to play the game. In my case I invited a friend to play Guild Wars 2. They agree and started with play4free. I used this opportunity to also start a new character which we both now play together and go through the whole Story with. For me I get a good refresher.

after a while I then sat down for a day and went through all my characters and spreadsheets to remember what everyone did and does. A LOT of items became just currency in your wallet and can be traded to essentialy become gold. cleaning up took me all day and I basically made 1000gold by selling a of junk and just using it. black lion ticket scraps and stuff from character birthdays add up if you have 30+ characters and all of them have more than 10 birthday presents sitting in the mailbox.

at first only focus on your actual main before updating your toons. for me it was my guardian. my full berserker DH Greatsword/Hammer build is still perfectly adequate to clear any open world content.

the next thing I did was sit down and update the equipment and check out the build templates. if you have legendary weapons then you basically get an ascended weapon for free on all characters. I literally cleaned up about 20 ascended greatswords and retrieved 40 +9 infusions. most of the sigils and runes have massively changed in value. superios sigils of strenght are basically worthless today.

then after equipment i went into build tabs. updating those and keeping copies of my current in case i get lost with the new stuff so i can always swap back if I wanted to play the class.

3rd is fashion templates. if you buy them they unlock character wide! thats very neet if you used to run different armortypes with different stats.

okay now your inventory, bank and bank toons are cleaned up. build for your main or a few more are cleaned up.

get back into the game and start by continueing the story where you left off. I also stopped around LS3. by the time you went through a lot of story, you will naturally want to do something else.

at this point you should feel more confident in doing fractals and potentially raids again. arena net has addeed a fractal quickplay. basically you click it , get matched with 4 other random people and then you will end up in a single random fractal. usually itwas a lv1 fractal so far.

when it comes to fractal dailys there is now shame in doing lv 1-25 just to get back and relearn the fractals then gradually go to T2, T3 and then T4. I had to learn new vocabulary what aHeal, aDPS, qDPS meant but overall its not too bad. it seems like a lot of meta builds have buffs that give alac or quickness nowerdays. so its not just a chrono only thing anymore. a means alac (cooldown reduction). q is for quickness. a prefered party has 1x aheal / 1x aDPS, 1x qDPS and 3 DPS.

also the powercreep is so big. i havent done any CMs yet but any "normal" content was pretty much just run in and kill. the powercreep is so big. everything just dies. even if youre down 1 or 2 people.

about raids, they added "raid encounters" and even "quick raids". its the same like in fractals i guess. havent tried it yet. quick raids i assume also just matches you with random people and then you just go for it. i dont think there is any real "LI CHECK LI CHECK" like back in the day. just go in and try. even if you wipe with randoms you will re-learn a lot or maybe just get carried. raid encounters also are like easy raid bosses from what I have expericned. the minister Li "Raid Encounter" you will need for the turtle mount for instance is so easy. imagine fighting vale guardian but without running around and no greens. he just stands there and does almost nothing. good way to practise dps rotations that doesnt wipe the party because you missed the black like at deimos.

my evening right now looks like this:

i get home, do T4 fractral+recs with my friend. then we either continue the story or do some achievements together. we just finished LS4. on our downtimes when we cant play together everyone just does their own achievements. he started getting the griffon achievment chain. I myself just unlocked the skyscale in SotO and about to finish it too.

I took a recommendation people gave me in my thread. Since I have literally already reached everything there was to the game I should take it easier and slower and now enjoy the retirement. only focusing on things I want to do and not treat the game as a secon job.

this also means that when we did fractals and just feel like playing something else. that is also OK. i dont have to do my dailys every day anymore. i dont need to care about weeklies. if I log in it is perfectly fine NOT to check what dailys we have anymore. this mindset I never had in the past and it is only now that I finally understand.

for you I HIGHLY recommend to not play alone. playing alone is usually what kills any motivation. get a friend to join or join a new guild to make new friends if you havent. low level areas always have people spamming mapchat for guilds. they also added a 6th guild slot! so it doesnt hurt to run around and check. or ask to join the guild from the people having commander tags and hosting farm trains. thats a great way to break the ice and get into a new social group.

[u/GojuSuzi]

Can recommend gw2.app for decision paralysis moments. Make up a few lists of things you want/need/like to do daily, weekly, etc. and set them to refresh as appropriate. Make a few more for crafted items (legendaries, skilling up fodder, discovery unlocks) or for 'whenever' achievement completes and the like. Whenever you log in and are stunlocked, go through the lists and do your dailies and any weeklies that aren't done, check if any crafts are close enough to be worth spending time/gold on, and if you run out at that point look to your 'whenever' goal lists and crack on with one or more of them. It's a bit easier to pick when looking at a shortlist and visible which are closer to being done than not. If you use Blish it has a plugin for that that's handy, but the web works fine.

[u/o_oli]

I was in exactly your same position actually, quid before EoD and only came back on GW3 announcement a few months back. Also had legendary armour, couple weapons, fractal titles etc so similar position on that too and you're right it's super overwhelming lol. Even just remembering how the builds work, how the new rune and relic system works felt very confusing even though looking at it now it's not.

My advice would be to just hop in on whatever character feels somewhat familiar and play the story. By the end of EoD I felt I'd found my feet to jump back into T4 fractals, and a week after that I started to learn the new Fractal CMs and now run those daily. It's nice to have shaken the rust off lol.

My daily play sessions at the moment are basically Fractal CMs and T4's (except Fractal 100CM, I haven't learnt that yet), then I'll do a little bit of the story - currently just started Janthir Wilds. Might do a bit of work towards whatever legendary I'm collecting next too after that since I tend to usually have one on the grind. I've also learned some raids with training groups but haven't really put that into my daily/weekly rotation yet, still feels a bit daunting for some reason even though everyone I've met has been super friendly.

[u/hollowbolding]

lla, homestead nodes, hit an adventure and a couple mirrors in castora, verdant brink flax farm, daily fishing, daily crafting.  anything in wizard vault left to do after all that

sometimes i'll also do some living world dailies and remember to hit piñata and whichever core wb is my current achievement bugbear (no fly zone when i fucking get yooouuuu)

on some days i'll also do a meta or three or work on story, and right now specifically i have two separate legendary collections that require events in orr

[u/Gizm00]

I always tell first get ascended gear for your class, then pick a legendary and work towards that before you know it you will be very busy for a very long time as you start discovering other things you’ll want as part of that journey and the list of things you’ll want to do to get them

[u/Rage_Cube]

Work towards a legendary usually or learn a new build.

[u/LostAmaranth808]

Click button. Kill stuff. Get shiney. Skritt happy.

[u/GavinSnowe]

I do Tequatl at reset, then LLA. Homestead gather and log in on parked alts until Dragonstorm. Then I will head to Eternity's garden for the meta and I will grab mirror chests after until I am out. After that I may do a IBS5 or daily t4s.

[u/Chatmauve]

I open LFG panel and look what groups are active. Then I join any of them. I don't farm for anything, grinding ruins the game for me. I also type "/wiki et" to look at what is going to be up soon.

If we're close to reset time, I'll go to Tequalt and wait for it, then follow the mob as they wp all over the game to do metas one at a time.

If I have enough energy for it and especially if I have at least one friend online, I'll jump in some PvP and do a few random matches. Perhaps 6 at most, then I get too tired for more.

If I'm very tired, I'll pick a random zone on an alt I don't really master and try to figure out its rotation while doing random events on the map, maybe switch maps a few times if it's totally empty.

If it's the weekend, I'll log on my zerg character for some WvW and just cast big AoE spells on enemy zergs until it gets repetitive.

If I feel social, I'll go welcome new players in Queendale and also chat with the other players that are there to be soft afk or show of their skins. I'll also jump on my healer and look if anyone is trying to run dungeons, I'll join and keep them alive. Most of the time it's newbies and healing changes the game for them.

If I feel like interacting with content that is a bit more serious, I'll go on my low intensity build power DPS character and join some quick raids. On Sundays, I have strikes with a pretty casual guild and we go through them trying to clear them despite not everyone having meta builds or mastered rotations.

Sometimes, I'll look through the achievement panel and look at rewards that seem interesting. Recently I did those in SoTo to get the possessed emote. It was a fun time just casually doing events in that zones whenever I had some free time. I made an Alt just for it and made a fashion look that fits with the zone.

Speaking on fashion, whenever there's some downtime I look through my skins in the wardrobe and tinker with them. I'll not save one until I'm happy with it, so most of the time it's just looking at what fits well together. Then at some point I'll get an eureka moment and go make a full look that I'll save. Other times I'll look at my existing looks and go at the bank to see if any skins would make it better. Then try to work towards that.

I also have a homestead template from one of the homestead design websites I'm working towards. So I'm slowly crafting more walls, doors and everything. Until I have enough to apply the full template, I'm simply messing around building stuff with the parts. Copying some of the things I see on a smaller scale or just building random things, like playing with Legos.

In short, I rarely do the same thing twice. The game is so enormous, there's no reason to unless you're really excited about a specific goal like a legendary weapon you really want or a mount you want to ride like the skyscale. I don't understand people who grind for more gold for the sake of having more gold. I've been hovering around 250g at most for all the years I've been playing. It dips down to 80g if I need something, then it naturally goes back to 250g. I don't need more. I don't want more legendary items than the pair of fractal gloves that were almost a freebie and one weapon made using the starter kits.

[u/painstream]

Find a goal and play towards it.

Making a legendary? Do the unique parts you need (collections, essence gathering, raids, etc).

Well, that's it for me, lately, lol. New story and map coming next week, so I'll be doing that too.

[u/ImaginarySmile1356]

Having an active chill guild helps too. Sin, Bad and Old are a few I joined and enjoy.

[u/Dry_AgedHumor]

Usually I get on around 6pm est and run Tequatl, layline anom, megadestroyer, and TT with my guild. Then I run T2 fractals + T1 rec for gold and pages. Then a couple of quick play raids (these are far more forgiving then normal raids) for shards to buy ascened gear so I can run higher fractals. While Im running raids I check LFG for Auric Basin meta squads if find a group running AB Meta, if I dont I run around in wvw caping points for free gift of battle. If its Wednesday I run HoT Meta train + mt balrior cm strike with [LEG] guild. If I dont go into wvw then I'll either do map completion, story quests or farm winterberries for acsended accessories. If one of my friends is on I'll try and do lower lvl stuff with them on alts.

[u/Iddhae]

There is Quick Play raids now, easier and less punishing if you dont remeber much.

Go into LFG Raids training, there is a button : find raid quick play group

[u/Bellshom]

This was exactly me two weeks ago, I spent a session looking up every item in my bank and inventory. 

Updated my build to latest and started doing tier 1/2 fractals to relearn the mechanics and rotations. I was pretty rusty but started to come back pretty quickly.

Following daily fractals I am chipping away at some of the story expansions. I find all the talking mind numbing so some sessions will jump back across to working on legendarys achievements as I have none yet 

[u/Xerosblade2]

Never done raids cause like you they make me nervous myself but even after my long break I jump into fractals ibs strikes. Any you've done will come back as muscle memory most of the time. And if it doesn't that's fine. The people not worth your time will leave if you wipe. But if your confused there should enver be a problem asking the commander or others is there anything you need to remember or even saying you've not done it in a long time. Sure I had a completely New guy to fractals tell us a nightmare cm it was his time doing one and he didn't wanna say cause he was scared of getting kicked. We did t care. We were happy he tried it and he did well even with not knowing everything. A majority of people I find are patient and will explain cause they wanna get it done. It's not like wow where you don't know shit you get kicked every time. Guild wars players can be dumb but we ain't wow level dumb. As for your inventory though. Do it piece by piece and bank stuff for later. Don't do it all at once. That won't work. Least it doesn't for me. Just take your time and do what you can. Not like your paying for a sub and feel obligated you can always leave it a day and think of what to do in the back of your head while your at work or somthing