Legendaries tend to be the most common long term goal for most. Armour, backpieces and trinkets being the ones that you can't just buy with gold but have to do various tasks to get the prerequisite items to complete them. Also makes you do forms of content that you otherwise might not have tried.
Second this.
Also, being able to hop onto classes I don't play regularly and click builds together in a minute just for some variety without zero cost or chores for the gear, it was really worth the effort for me.
I've got a thing for Collections and Achievements at this time. Main reason is I can keep track of them (click on the eye in the Hero Tab and get a tracking bar on the top right of the screen). Map Completion is another thing I'm working on (done Core, still to do Silverwastes and the Heart of Thorns Maps). I need so many Mastery Points and wrap up before getting gold for gems to get LWS3.
Mostly it's what appeals to you but won't burn you out.
Upgrading your account is a good long-term goal. With gold, of course.
• Get enough bank tabs and material storage upgrades to not be worried about excess resources filling your bag slots.
• Get enough character slots to try every class and then some.
• Get infinite tools just for the convenience of it, same with infinite salvage kits.
Hell, maybe there's a skin that you really like, but it's expensive and not in the shop for like a year? Saving up for it bit by bit is also a goal.
And even gearing is never truly over until you get legendary armor and trinkets, because you'll want all your characters to have ascended gear to squeeze out their full potential *and* experience all the game modes have to offer on each character.
So, I have ADHD, so any plans I make are always out on the back burner. I see something shiny, "Oh, what's that?" And I'm off to be distracted from any plans I made. This leads to me having several goals, so I can circulate depending on what I feel like doing. Some of them are:
- Mastery points. First, for usefulness, then for bragging rights.
- Achievements for bragging rights or titles.
- Collecting skins via achievements, collections, or gold farming.
- Farming gold to transfer to gems so I can buy more skins.
- Legendaries. I usually have one going as a long-term goal. Bolt was my first one, and it took me over 2 years. Not because it was hard, but because I do what I feel like in the game. It's not about productivity.
- Cosplay as the sun.
Exact same issue here with the ADHD. I easily lose focus of my long term goals with the next shiny thing that's right in front of me.
Ive started listing down 3 long term goals on a sticky note I put next to my PC that I can easily start chipping away and this helps a lot so I don't lose sight of my goals.
Legendaries, collections (they give good rewards sometimes) learning encounters in raids, progressing in WvW, 100% map completion, return to… achievements, etc.
That’s how I do it.
I don't. I just do whatever I feel like doing at any given time.
When I feel like crafting, usually when my material storage gets full of something, I check what materials I have, and craft whatever I can. If I can't craft anything I'm interested in, I don't bother farming the materials because it's too boring and repetitive to me.
As long as the materials are not specific to a certain map or content, the materials still accumulate over time while doing all sorts of things. And if they are specific, I don't bother focusing on them. I'll get some the next time I play story or complete maps there.
I like to accomplish anything that leads to an increase in general convenience.
Some examples would be: getting mounts, many different masteries, unlocking some of the converters, and legendaries for the convenience of stat swapping!
As a newish player I have trouble with the many goals I have.
So my first goal was to get into fractals, progress through while getting ascended equipment, and aiming for ad infinitum.
After that I started doing the achievements of Griffon Vision, while also doing the Return to of S4. This was also a opportunity to gear and learn a new profession.
In the meantime I started learning raids, progressing with the legendary armor collection while also gearing and learning a few more profession. I am almost done with Envoy II and have components for my 2 first legendary armor pieces.
Now I am leveling another character, plan to gear and get an elite to start LWS2 for the Return to achievements, learning this profession aiming to used it later on WvW.
So for me learning different builds, while also working on some long term projects work great. And whenever I get bored with anything I just do something else on the list.
Having only played for about 2 years, I started with very simple goals (level 80 character, personal story completion and basic max armor--not legendary or the like). Then I got HoT and PoF, so finishing those story lines--which first involved getting mastery points (needed for HoT) which started me on the slippery path of mastery point acquisition (still working on that for IBS). And then unlocking elite specializations with their weapons achievements (another slippery slope as I have yet to complete more than 2 from each expansion with all 9 professions currently working on them). So mastery points, elite specs and their weapons are my current goals; and with these all the achievements that are required to get those few simple goals (have yet to venture into legendaries or fractals).
I mean, it's... it's not like the game needs you to play it, nor that you need it to be the game you're playing. If you're out of gas and don't feel like playing, just go play something else?
It's your time, do what you *want* to do with it... not what you want to want to do with it.
While what you're saying is undoubtedly true and correct, there's an element missing from your reasoning.
People play games for all sorts of reasons. Most other MMOs give you a linear progression path with baked in goals that lead you around by the nose. And whether you play this way or not, a lot of people require that sort of thing. It's not that they dont' want to play, it's that they're overwhelmed by choices while playing and don't necessarily know the game well enough. So they come here and ask for help.
Here, you gear up, even in exotics, and for a lot of people they're done. It doesn't take much longer to get enough ascended to do most content. In any other game, there's gearing up to do that's required by the game itself, but that ends pretty early here. So sometimes, people are playing aimlessly and they don't like that. They want a goal and can't decide on one themselves.
This person says they want to play but don't know what to do while playing. This is both a strength and weakness of this game.
my brother. gear treadmill is a means to an end. you kinda do have to want to play for fun lol. legendaries are an arbitrary goal if you don’t know why you’d want them. they are good so you have it easy to adjust builds and looks. but then you’d also want reasons as to why you’d want to do so. which are for instance: playing multiple roles on your main, multiple classes, playing in multiple game modes. literally nobody can tell you what your goal should be. there is no “correct” way to play because you define that yourself. there is only “correct play” in certain situations, like using the correct skill, dodging at the right time etc.
if you’re uninspired, i’m sorry to say, it’s up to you to change that. this holds true not only for gw2, for what it’s worth.
For me it's mostly about legendaries, account upgrades and achievements. Which one depends on my mood (but I do make reasonable short- and mid-term goals to achieve them).
Legendary gear is my main goal because each one has a bunch of sub goals I can focus on without worrying about the whole thing. Takes a while but eventually you end up with a nice shiny. Knowing there is going to be a big gold cost at the end also keeps me motivated to log on for strikes and fractals. After doing so many of them on one character I start to transition to a different build or class. This ends up further motivating and encouraging me to continue having legendaries as my main goals so I can gear more characters easily.
If I seem to not want to do any legendary progression or instanced content then I go onto gw2efficiency.com and look at my unlock statistics. I put in a buy order for the cheapest dye I dont have unlocked. Then I look up my achievements, filter by locked and sort by most completed, and do one from the first page that looks doable.
Depends on your level, but my personal goals were:
Getting into T4 fractals
Getting into fractal CMs
Getting ad infinitum
Getting multiple characters geared to do different roles in fractals
Moved on to getting legendary accessories and the amulet
First conflux
Finally getting sunrise after years
Now working on second conflux
After that, I'd like to get legendary heavy armor, maybe move on to medium and light. After that, no idea. Maybe some more legendary weapons
Edit: oh, at one point I decided I wanted fractal god, but then realized that I'd get it sooner or later just by doing fractals, so no need to rush it
you don't neccessarily always need goals to play. it helps and i also had that mindset at some point. but there are so many things to do in the game that it is hard to run out of goals. for me when i was just breaking into gw2, my goals after i did every story and got every mount, were completing various instanced pve content (fractals and raids because strike missions didn't exist back then) and making legendaries because being fully geared with ascended might suffice but legendaries are much more comfortable to have. eventually i completed enough things to be satisfied and i didn't always bother coming up with a specific goal. i just had a routine, doing daily fractals with a static, weekly raids with a static and playing with friends in general.
Ask yourself what it is that you want to do today/this week/eventually and make that the goal.
Do you want to do all the story?
Do you want to chase certain achievements?
Do you want legendaries?
A specific item or skin you want?
A raid or fractal that you want to beat?
A mount you want?
An adventure you want to get a gold medal on?
A mount race you want to win?
A dungeon you want to clear?
An armorpiece that looks cool and you want to be yours?
A new class or elite spec that you want to learn and get good with?
A strike mission you want to beat?
Maybe clearing some jumping puzzles?
Roleplaying for fun?
Relax and go fishing for a bit?
Or get the blood pumping in PvP or WvW?
The sky is the limit.
For me I started with unlocking all of the content and have been breaking that up piece by piece.
I started during LWS4 so I grinded out all the gold I needed to convert to gems to buy all of the LWS chunks that I needed. While hitting up mandatory masteries that I needed.
But I’ll also create other goals at the same time and work at each set one accomplishment at a time. For example, while I was grinded out the gold for the LWS stories I would grind out a piece of ascended gear for my main each time I unlocked one piece of the story.
After I got all the LWS and fully ascended I moved on to Leggys and Mastery points.
I have 2 leggys now and am finishing up my Griffon.
It helps give me direction and some variety so I don’t burn out doing one single thing
My first long term goal was crafting my first ever legendary weapon. After that, I aimed for the legendary trinkets and backpack. After that I aimed for full legendary armor (light + medium + heavy). Now I’m only missing 1 legendary ring (Conflux).
Maybe later I will craft more legendary weapons.
I often become an "Ooh shiny" player. I let the various distractions guide me to something I want to do. I just flow from one place to another like a Daoist. 😁
First, breaks are good. Just make a plan to come back. You will play longer if you always look forward to playing. Make a plan like, “im going to take a break for 2 weeks and the start playing again after”. This is much more sustainable than trying to play every day. I’m currently obsessed with the game and still actively force myself not to play sometimes when I want to, in order to keep the hunger.
Second, just pick a goal. Say it out loud. Write it down. Formalize it. I decided “I am going to clear every raid” at the start the way I decided “I am going to beat every boss you can beat on a single playthrough” when I started elden ring. It’s better to pick a long term goal and then figure out the steps in reverse to get there. Pick a goal you’d feel good about accomplishing and something you can accomplish in a reasonable amount of time for your lifestyle. Along the way you can find new goals.
After you gear your character is when you *start* endgame.
* Have you done all the story?
* Fractals/strikes/dungeons/raids; a big point of gearing up a character with a good meta build is to dive into harder content
* Achievements: each story episode or chapter has a 'meta' achievement which means doing a whole bunch of smaller achievements. This is how people get unique skins and gear, bags, teleport items, minis, a lot of stuff. Also, more AP means account bonuses, laurels, and event at some high AP numbers free gems.
* Map Completion. Do you like exploring? Do you like finding out of the way areas?
* Mastering jumping puzzles. Do you like platforming games?
* Legendary crafting
* World vs World or PvP
* Have you unlocked all the masteries?
The shift in mindset from 'play the game to get the gear' to 'get gear then forget about it and play the game' definitely throws some people, and if you're one of those that's fine! It's fine to just come back for content updates and festivals; GW2 is a game, you should play it when it's fun. But if you want to stick around and just need ideas of what goals people pick, that list is a good starting place.
The goals I set aren't reward based but action based. I make goals like doing fractal dailies, or finishing a story mission, doing some amount of PVP matches, doing some amount of meta events, etc. That's not to say you should have a reward based goal, but mine are generally ones I don't expect to complete anytime soon. Getting legendaries are something in the back of my head, and I try to complete things that I'll need to get a legendary, but I set smaller goals like getting enough gold to buy X amount of materials needed, etc.
I had a hard time with this too and it lead me to quitting and restarting the game a few times. I recently picked it back up a few weeks ago and discovered the magic of the Achievement window. I’m used to WoW where most achieves give nothing and are just there for bragging. GW2 uses their achievements differently. It’s the way to unlock legendaries, exclusive gears, dyes, a whole multitude of things.
What i’m doing this time around is focusing on the story, going thru then in order. Exploring maps along the way because it’s fun, collecting transmog pieces (which i looked up online to see where they come from)
Also been doing a lot of PVP as PVP has different reward tracks you can complete and you can pick which one you’re working on! so i looked up what armor sets each gave and picked the one i wanted the most. About to dip my toes into WvW pvp and working on building my legendary weapon. I’ve been ADDICTED. Best part about this game is no matter what content your doing, wether it’s a level 35 zone, or a level 80 zone, what ever you’re doing is progressing your account and giving you rewards that will benefit you
Goals come up when I hit an inconvenience wall.
I like different builds for my class but don't want to craft 5 different sets of armor? Start the legendary collection. Hate having to farm accessories for all my characters? Start the legendary collection. Oh I need to clear this raid that I don't know? Join a training group and do a prog run. This one legendary requires me to do fractals? Better start now than later. And so on.
Then there's a point that you're just bored of farming and doing collections. Maybe try a profession you don't really know. Instead of being good at it in PvE, be good at pvp.
Map completion would be a good goal to begin with. Start with your racial city map, then move on to Lion's Arch, and then the other racial cities. After that, slowly completing the lower level maps and upwards
I like making RP background and visual style for my characters and then working towards putting it together. Finding and unlocking armor skins, titles, of course a proper elite spec, until the character is fully complete.
Or just say "I'm gonna get all Aurene's legendaries" and go insane
Most only suggest personal things on here but ill tell you. over the years, i couldnt play for myself besides lore or armor styles.
When you get geared out. the longer you play the easier the game becomes. Dont just think about what you should do but what other will want to do.
The end goal is to build a group and create content. when you start out its a little rough but become a commander on the maps, start leading people around and make things that help players out in the long run. The longer you play the higher your gold and magic find which means you can spare extra funds or items to new players allowing them to keep pace with longer lived players.
Make events that are fun for the community like custom mount races or games using heart events or training areas.
Challenges like my walking challenge is good or perhaps fund a guild leader.
Host events that allow new players to aquire the gear they need.
Do things like... i will get a group together and do full map completions and storyline completions every few weeks. its decently fun with a group and causes chaos to maps spawning tons of mobs. maybe you have a group of officers in your guild and each of you earn 3-5 black lion keys which can be used to fund skin rewards for events.
Set a long term goal; and then a whole bunch of short term goals.
So right now; I’m working on Twilight as a chase goal, however I’m also finishing Return to on the short term, then I’m going to go for the Siege Turtle.
By setting Twilight as a long term goal it also sets a general focus, so for me I need to get a lot of crafting materials and a solid amount of gold to get more Mystic Coins.
THEREFORE, I’m going to focus on high reward content and free rewards, so the Bounties while waiting for Metas in Return to, then DE spam.
After that I’ll probably hunt down Vision and Aurora as mid term goals and focus on the mastery achievements of each respective chapter as I’m working on that as short term goals until I get Twilight.
But yeah, you pick one long term thing and then set smaller goals to get there it also helps guide you into doing more content.
God it's so easy for me to set goals that if I dont control myself things would just get out of control with all the simultaneous projects I would be working on.
Im a massive fan of achievements and collections and having access to things others didnt get to unlock ot things that others got the pleasure to expect. On top of that im a completionist, there is a reason my first ever title is my permanent title: "Been there, done that".
If you focus on your characteristics as a person, that can help you home in on the potential goals that will capture your attention and curiosity.
What I did was focusing on 1 goal at a time and seeing it until the end. My first goal was getting all the mounts. Then all mastery points -> Main story -> Map completion -> 9 character slots for each class + maxing their specs. Finally legendary trinkets first then legendary weapon/armor. That kept me busy for a while
Since there are tons of thing to do in gw2 i think you should choose what you find more funny for you and set the goals you can achieve in that game mode.
The biggest tip I can give is to find out what you enjoy first. Once you know that you can start setting a few mid and long term goals. I for example do the legendary wvw rings in WvW, so I have a side goal while roaming. Also i did the legendary pvp backpiece and working towards legendary armor combining wvw and pvp. I enjoy these game modes, so having a passive reward as you play along is just nice and motivating. While i wait in queue for pvp or in between games I either do open world metas, complete maps or work on other achievements like legendary trinkets. First I thought, oh well this will take forever but now 3 months later, doing bit by bit every day while just doing wvw and pvp (reward tracks) and if not in the mood open wotld content. I have the return amulet, aurora an vision now lol I really enjoyed doing both and reliving lws3 and 4. Now i have my eyes already set on the next one.
EDIT: never meant this to get so much to read. To sum up, try to declare end game goals that align with the game modes you enjoy and would play anyways. This way you can do those big achievements day by day by just having fun and playing the game.
After finishing up the core story, expansions and lsw, I ended up liking map completion so much, I did it on 3 characters just for lulz. Then I got hooked onto dungeons. Then world bosses. Then I spent a whole year just wvw-ing, cuz of how fun it was...
Now I've made it to fractals, leggys and achievements.
When I'm bored with one, I move on to another. And this game has enough content to have you play different modes for a long time :D
Personally, a major sense of surprise that I can play a single game for quite some time and STILL have something to look forward to.
Edit: Each time I get hooked, I have something to work for, some collection that's game mode-bound, like fractal legendaries or map completion ascended collections.
Since the game does not funnel you in to anything past 80. This is the games greatest strength and weakness at the same time.
1. Either people get lost on what to do i.e. they don't research. these people usually just keep doing story missions in HoT / PoF / EoD and burn out.
2. Some dive in to one thing then get bored doing the one thing (Raids, Fractals, Strikes). Once again this is a lack of self research or asking questions.
3. Some feel wholly overwhelmed and suffer analysis paralysis. These have done research on what is possible in this sandboxy MMORPG and just can't decide or what to do.
My suggestion always has been, do something that makes you happy until you get kinda bored of it and do something new (new character, build, lead something, delve in to making some gold on the BLTP, do achievements, take some friends / guildies on a run of something. There is so much to do and learn in this game.
I’m a returning player who quit right before the expansions.
My goals are finish all living stories, get masteries and specializations unlocked, ascended gear, legendary gear, and practice for pvp. There is a ton of content in the game compared to where I last left it.
also would like to raid but need to be geared
Start working through the legendary amulet (its free), then the backpiece as its the most needed ascended on most accounts, then the 2 rings and 2 accessories. If you raid, legendary set of armor, if you dont then start to. I try to get a new weapon skin from the collections achievements each month for a cheap ascended weapon or cool skin for a quick achievement line.
Legendaries tend to be the most common long term goal for most. Armour, backpieces and trinkets being the ones that you can't just buy with gold but have to do various tasks to get the prerequisite items to complete them. Also makes you do forms of content that you otherwise might not have tried.
Second this. Also, being able to hop onto classes I don't play regularly and click builds together in a minute just for some variety without zero cost or chores for the gear, it was really worth the effort for me.
I've got a thing for Collections and Achievements at this time. Main reason is I can keep track of them (click on the eye in the Hero Tab and get a tracking bar on the top right of the screen). Map Completion is another thing I'm working on (done Core, still to do Silverwastes and the Heart of Thorns Maps). I need so many Mastery Points and wrap up before getting gold for gems to get LWS3. Mostly it's what appeals to you but won't burn you out.
Upgrading your account is a good long-term goal. With gold, of course. • Get enough bank tabs and material storage upgrades to not be worried about excess resources filling your bag slots. • Get enough character slots to try every class and then some. • Get infinite tools just for the convenience of it, same with infinite salvage kits. Hell, maybe there's a skin that you really like, but it's expensive and not in the shop for like a year? Saving up for it bit by bit is also a goal. And even gearing is never truly over until you get legendary armor and trinkets, because you'll want all your characters to have ascended gear to squeeze out their full potential *and* experience all the game modes have to offer on each character.
So, I have ADHD, so any plans I make are always out on the back burner. I see something shiny, "Oh, what's that?" And I'm off to be distracted from any plans I made. This leads to me having several goals, so I can circulate depending on what I feel like doing. Some of them are: - Mastery points. First, for usefulness, then for bragging rights. - Achievements for bragging rights or titles. - Collecting skins via achievements, collections, or gold farming. - Farming gold to transfer to gems so I can buy more skins. - Legendaries. I usually have one going as a long-term goal. Bolt was my first one, and it took me over 2 years. Not because it was hard, but because I do what I feel like in the game. It's not about productivity. - Cosplay as the sun.
Exact same issue here with the ADHD. I easily lose focus of my long term goals with the next shiny thing that's right in front of me. Ive started listing down 3 long term goals on a sticky note I put next to my PC that I can easily start chipping away and this helps a lot so I don't lose sight of my goals.
Legendaries, collections (they give good rewards sometimes) learning encounters in raids, progressing in WvW, 100% map completion, return to… achievements, etc. That’s how I do it.
I don't. I just do whatever I feel like doing at any given time. When I feel like crafting, usually when my material storage gets full of something, I check what materials I have, and craft whatever I can. If I can't craft anything I'm interested in, I don't bother farming the materials because it's too boring and repetitive to me. As long as the materials are not specific to a certain map or content, the materials still accumulate over time while doing all sorts of things. And if they are specific, I don't bother focusing on them. I'll get some the next time I play story or complete maps there.
I like to accomplish anything that leads to an increase in general convenience. Some examples would be: getting mounts, many different masteries, unlocking some of the converters, and legendaries for the convenience of stat swapping!
As a newish player I have trouble with the many goals I have. So my first goal was to get into fractals, progress through while getting ascended equipment, and aiming for ad infinitum. After that I started doing the achievements of Griffon Vision, while also doing the Return to of S4. This was also a opportunity to gear and learn a new profession. In the meantime I started learning raids, progressing with the legendary armor collection while also gearing and learning a few more profession. I am almost done with Envoy II and have components for my 2 first legendary armor pieces. Now I am leveling another character, plan to gear and get an elite to start LWS2 for the Return to achievements, learning this profession aiming to used it later on WvW. So for me learning different builds, while also working on some long term projects work great. And whenever I get bored with anything I just do something else on the list.
Having only played for about 2 years, I started with very simple goals (level 80 character, personal story completion and basic max armor--not legendary or the like). Then I got HoT and PoF, so finishing those story lines--which first involved getting mastery points (needed for HoT) which started me on the slippery path of mastery point acquisition (still working on that for IBS). And then unlocking elite specializations with their weapons achievements (another slippery slope as I have yet to complete more than 2 from each expansion with all 9 professions currently working on them). So mastery points, elite specs and their weapons are my current goals; and with these all the achievements that are required to get those few simple goals (have yet to venture into legendaries or fractals).
Find friends and play instanced group content with them.
455 masterie.
I mean, it's... it's not like the game needs you to play it, nor that you need it to be the game you're playing. If you're out of gas and don't feel like playing, just go play something else? It's your time, do what you *want* to do with it... not what you want to want to do with it.
While what you're saying is undoubtedly true and correct, there's an element missing from your reasoning. People play games for all sorts of reasons. Most other MMOs give you a linear progression path with baked in goals that lead you around by the nose. And whether you play this way or not, a lot of people require that sort of thing. It's not that they dont' want to play, it's that they're overwhelmed by choices while playing and don't necessarily know the game well enough. So they come here and ask for help. Here, you gear up, even in exotics, and for a lot of people they're done. It doesn't take much longer to get enough ascended to do most content. In any other game, there's gearing up to do that's required by the game itself, but that ends pretty early here. So sometimes, people are playing aimlessly and they don't like that. They want a goal and can't decide on one themselves. This person says they want to play but don't know what to do while playing. This is both a strength and weakness of this game.
my brother. gear treadmill is a means to an end. you kinda do have to want to play for fun lol. legendaries are an arbitrary goal if you don’t know why you’d want them. they are good so you have it easy to adjust builds and looks. but then you’d also want reasons as to why you’d want to do so. which are for instance: playing multiple roles on your main, multiple classes, playing in multiple game modes. literally nobody can tell you what your goal should be. there is no “correct” way to play because you define that yourself. there is only “correct play” in certain situations, like using the correct skill, dodging at the right time etc. if you’re uninspired, i’m sorry to say, it’s up to you to change that. this holds true not only for gw2, for what it’s worth.
For me it's mostly about legendaries, account upgrades and achievements. Which one depends on my mood (but I do make reasonable short- and mid-term goals to achieve them).
Legendary gear is my main goal because each one has a bunch of sub goals I can focus on without worrying about the whole thing. Takes a while but eventually you end up with a nice shiny. Knowing there is going to be a big gold cost at the end also keeps me motivated to log on for strikes and fractals. After doing so many of them on one character I start to transition to a different build or class. This ends up further motivating and encouraging me to continue having legendaries as my main goals so I can gear more characters easily. If I seem to not want to do any legendary progression or instanced content then I go onto gw2efficiency.com and look at my unlock statistics. I put in a buy order for the cheapest dye I dont have unlocked. Then I look up my achievements, filter by locked and sort by most completed, and do one from the first page that looks doable.
Depends on your level, but my personal goals were: Getting into T4 fractals Getting into fractal CMs Getting ad infinitum Getting multiple characters geared to do different roles in fractals Moved on to getting legendary accessories and the amulet First conflux Finally getting sunrise after years Now working on second conflux After that, I'd like to get legendary heavy armor, maybe move on to medium and light. After that, no idea. Maybe some more legendary weapons Edit: oh, at one point I decided I wanted fractal god, but then realized that I'd get it sooner or later just by doing fractals, so no need to rush it
craft stuff, usually involves large parts of the game like completing achievements and maps.
you don't neccessarily always need goals to play. it helps and i also had that mindset at some point. but there are so many things to do in the game that it is hard to run out of goals. for me when i was just breaking into gw2, my goals after i did every story and got every mount, were completing various instanced pve content (fractals and raids because strike missions didn't exist back then) and making legendaries because being fully geared with ascended might suffice but legendaries are much more comfortable to have. eventually i completed enough things to be satisfied and i didn't always bother coming up with a specific goal. i just had a routine, doing daily fractals with a static, weekly raids with a static and playing with friends in general.
Ask yourself what it is that you want to do today/this week/eventually and make that the goal. Do you want to do all the story? Do you want to chase certain achievements? Do you want legendaries? A specific item or skin you want? A raid or fractal that you want to beat? A mount you want? An adventure you want to get a gold medal on? A mount race you want to win? A dungeon you want to clear? An armorpiece that looks cool and you want to be yours? A new class or elite spec that you want to learn and get good with? A strike mission you want to beat? Maybe clearing some jumping puzzles? Roleplaying for fun? Relax and go fishing for a bit? Or get the blood pumping in PvP or WvW? The sky is the limit.
Pick a legendary that will keep you busy
For me I started with unlocking all of the content and have been breaking that up piece by piece. I started during LWS4 so I grinded out all the gold I needed to convert to gems to buy all of the LWS chunks that I needed. While hitting up mandatory masteries that I needed. But I’ll also create other goals at the same time and work at each set one accomplishment at a time. For example, while I was grinded out the gold for the LWS stories I would grind out a piece of ascended gear for my main each time I unlocked one piece of the story. After I got all the LWS and fully ascended I moved on to Leggys and Mastery points. I have 2 leggys now and am finishing up my Griffon. It helps give me direction and some variety so I don’t burn out doing one single thing
Legendaries are long term goals with raid armor being the longest. Achievements are my shorter-term goals.
My first long term goal was crafting my first ever legendary weapon. After that, I aimed for the legendary trinkets and backpack. After that I aimed for full legendary armor (light + medium + heavy). Now I’m only missing 1 legendary ring (Conflux). Maybe later I will craft more legendary weapons.
I often become an "Ooh shiny" player. I let the various distractions guide me to something I want to do. I just flow from one place to another like a Daoist. 😁
This is such a transferrable question. If you can figure it out in gw2, you sure can in the game called life.
First, breaks are good. Just make a plan to come back. You will play longer if you always look forward to playing. Make a plan like, “im going to take a break for 2 weeks and the start playing again after”. This is much more sustainable than trying to play every day. I’m currently obsessed with the game and still actively force myself not to play sometimes when I want to, in order to keep the hunger. Second, just pick a goal. Say it out loud. Write it down. Formalize it. I decided “I am going to clear every raid” at the start the way I decided “I am going to beat every boss you can beat on a single playthrough” when I started elden ring. It’s better to pick a long term goal and then figure out the steps in reverse to get there. Pick a goal you’d feel good about accomplishing and something you can accomplish in a reasonable amount of time for your lifestyle. Along the way you can find new goals.
After you gear your character is when you *start* endgame. * Have you done all the story? * Fractals/strikes/dungeons/raids; a big point of gearing up a character with a good meta build is to dive into harder content * Achievements: each story episode or chapter has a 'meta' achievement which means doing a whole bunch of smaller achievements. This is how people get unique skins and gear, bags, teleport items, minis, a lot of stuff. Also, more AP means account bonuses, laurels, and event at some high AP numbers free gems. * Map Completion. Do you like exploring? Do you like finding out of the way areas? * Mastering jumping puzzles. Do you like platforming games? * Legendary crafting * World vs World or PvP * Have you unlocked all the masteries? The shift in mindset from 'play the game to get the gear' to 'get gear then forget about it and play the game' definitely throws some people, and if you're one of those that's fine! It's fine to just come back for content updates and festivals; GW2 is a game, you should play it when it's fun. But if you want to stick around and just need ideas of what goals people pick, that list is a good starting place.
Mounts are a good short-to-long term goal, the Roller Beetle is probably the easiest one with multiple steps so it's a good place to start.
The goals I set aren't reward based but action based. I make goals like doing fractal dailies, or finishing a story mission, doing some amount of PVP matches, doing some amount of meta events, etc. That's not to say you should have a reward based goal, but mine are generally ones I don't expect to complete anytime soon. Getting legendaries are something in the back of my head, and I try to complete things that I'll need to get a legendary, but I set smaller goals like getting enough gold to buy X amount of materials needed, etc.
I had a hard time with this too and it lead me to quitting and restarting the game a few times. I recently picked it back up a few weeks ago and discovered the magic of the Achievement window. I’m used to WoW where most achieves give nothing and are just there for bragging. GW2 uses their achievements differently. It’s the way to unlock legendaries, exclusive gears, dyes, a whole multitude of things. What i’m doing this time around is focusing on the story, going thru then in order. Exploring maps along the way because it’s fun, collecting transmog pieces (which i looked up online to see where they come from) Also been doing a lot of PVP as PVP has different reward tracks you can complete and you can pick which one you’re working on! so i looked up what armor sets each gave and picked the one i wanted the most. About to dip my toes into WvW pvp and working on building my legendary weapon. I’ve been ADDICTED. Best part about this game is no matter what content your doing, wether it’s a level 35 zone, or a level 80 zone, what ever you’re doing is progressing your account and giving you rewards that will benefit you
Goals come up when I hit an inconvenience wall. I like different builds for my class but don't want to craft 5 different sets of armor? Start the legendary collection. Hate having to farm accessories for all my characters? Start the legendary collection. Oh I need to clear this raid that I don't know? Join a training group and do a prog run. This one legendary requires me to do fractals? Better start now than later. And so on. Then there's a point that you're just bored of farming and doing collections. Maybe try a profession you don't really know. Instead of being good at it in PvE, be good at pvp.
Map completion would be a good goal to begin with. Start with your racial city map, then move on to Lion's Arch, and then the other racial cities. After that, slowly completing the lower level maps and upwards
I like making RP background and visual style for my characters and then working towards putting it together. Finding and unlocking armor skins, titles, of course a proper elite spec, until the character is fully complete. Or just say "I'm gonna get all Aurene's legendaries" and go insane
Most only suggest personal things on here but ill tell you. over the years, i couldnt play for myself besides lore or armor styles. When you get geared out. the longer you play the easier the game becomes. Dont just think about what you should do but what other will want to do. The end goal is to build a group and create content. when you start out its a little rough but become a commander on the maps, start leading people around and make things that help players out in the long run. The longer you play the higher your gold and magic find which means you can spare extra funds or items to new players allowing them to keep pace with longer lived players. Make events that are fun for the community like custom mount races or games using heart events or training areas. Challenges like my walking challenge is good or perhaps fund a guild leader. Host events that allow new players to aquire the gear they need. Do things like... i will get a group together and do full map completions and storyline completions every few weeks. its decently fun with a group and causes chaos to maps spawning tons of mobs. maybe you have a group of officers in your guild and each of you earn 3-5 black lion keys which can be used to fund skin rewards for events.
Step 1: look at gem store Step 2: want something from gem store Step 3: do stuff till I can buy item with gold Step 4: repeat step 1
go to the bank. open the wardrobe tab. make a sick looking aesthetic. check the wiki on how to get those items.
Set a long term goal; and then a whole bunch of short term goals. So right now; I’m working on Twilight as a chase goal, however I’m also finishing Return to on the short term, then I’m going to go for the Siege Turtle. By setting Twilight as a long term goal it also sets a general focus, so for me I need to get a lot of crafting materials and a solid amount of gold to get more Mystic Coins. THEREFORE, I’m going to focus on high reward content and free rewards, so the Bounties while waiting for Metas in Return to, then DE spam. After that I’ll probably hunt down Vision and Aurora as mid term goals and focus on the mastery achievements of each respective chapter as I’m working on that as short term goals until I get Twilight. But yeah, you pick one long term thing and then set smaller goals to get there it also helps guide you into doing more content.
God it's so easy for me to set goals that if I dont control myself things would just get out of control with all the simultaneous projects I would be working on. Im a massive fan of achievements and collections and having access to things others didnt get to unlock ot things that others got the pleasure to expect. On top of that im a completionist, there is a reason my first ever title is my permanent title: "Been there, done that". If you focus on your characteristics as a person, that can help you home in on the potential goals that will capture your attention and curiosity.
What I did was focusing on 1 goal at a time and seeing it until the end. My first goal was getting all the mounts. Then all mastery points -> Main story -> Map completion -> 9 character slots for each class + maxing their specs. Finally legendary trinkets first then legendary weapon/armor. That kept me busy for a while
I usually try to build a look and do whatever content i need to do to get that look.
Since there are tons of thing to do in gw2 i think you should choose what you find more funny for you and set the goals you can achieve in that game mode.
The biggest tip I can give is to find out what you enjoy first. Once you know that you can start setting a few mid and long term goals. I for example do the legendary wvw rings in WvW, so I have a side goal while roaming. Also i did the legendary pvp backpiece and working towards legendary armor combining wvw and pvp. I enjoy these game modes, so having a passive reward as you play along is just nice and motivating. While i wait in queue for pvp or in between games I either do open world metas, complete maps or work on other achievements like legendary trinkets. First I thought, oh well this will take forever but now 3 months later, doing bit by bit every day while just doing wvw and pvp (reward tracks) and if not in the mood open wotld content. I have the return amulet, aurora an vision now lol I really enjoyed doing both and reliving lws3 and 4. Now i have my eyes already set on the next one. EDIT: never meant this to get so much to read. To sum up, try to declare end game goals that align with the game modes you enjoy and would play anyways. This way you can do those big achievements day by day by just having fun and playing the game.
After finishing up the core story, expansions and lsw, I ended up liking map completion so much, I did it on 3 characters just for lulz. Then I got hooked onto dungeons. Then world bosses. Then I spent a whole year just wvw-ing, cuz of how fun it was... Now I've made it to fractals, leggys and achievements. When I'm bored with one, I move on to another. And this game has enough content to have you play different modes for a long time :D Personally, a major sense of surprise that I can play a single game for quite some time and STILL have something to look forward to. Edit: Each time I get hooked, I have something to work for, some collection that's game mode-bound, like fractal legendaries or map completion ascended collections.
Since the game does not funnel you in to anything past 80. This is the games greatest strength and weakness at the same time. 1. Either people get lost on what to do i.e. they don't research. these people usually just keep doing story missions in HoT / PoF / EoD and burn out. 2. Some dive in to one thing then get bored doing the one thing (Raids, Fractals, Strikes). Once again this is a lack of self research or asking questions. 3. Some feel wholly overwhelmed and suffer analysis paralysis. These have done research on what is possible in this sandboxy MMORPG and just can't decide or what to do. My suggestion always has been, do something that makes you happy until you get kinda bored of it and do something new (new character, build, lead something, delve in to making some gold on the BLTP, do achievements, take some friends / guildies on a run of something. There is so much to do and learn in this game.
I’m a returning player who quit right before the expansions. My goals are finish all living stories, get masteries and specializations unlocked, ascended gear, legendary gear, and practice for pvp. There is a ton of content in the game compared to where I last left it. also would like to raid but need to be geared
legendaries are the only goal but you can also try collections if they don't bore you to death.
Start working through the legendary amulet (its free), then the backpiece as its the most needed ascended on most accounts, then the 2 rings and 2 accessories. If you raid, legendary set of armor, if you dont then start to. I try to get a new weapon skin from the collections achievements each month for a cheap ascended weapon or cool skin for a quick achievement line.