So, what do I do now? Keep levelling toons just to buy them gear at 80? Jumping puzzles? (i’m not the best jumper). WvW? What do I do with pvp currency when I’m wearing exotic gear?
Is end game all cosmetic?
The only thing I can tell you is that if you expect to have a feeling of gear progression in GW2, you will not find it, and should instead try to look at the picture a bit differently.
I, myself, am a very hardcore and veteran WoW player, and was pretty scared of the “unorthodox” “endgame” (notice the pairs of quotes in there) that GW2 offers, especially after having played WoW for 6 years and never having played the original Guild Wars before. Every time I asked, people raged at me for expecting there to be an endgame in GW2 and also tunnel-visioned on what I was NOT asking of them.
I read both GW2 books before the game even shipped. I was so excited to meet the characters from the books in-game. How would Lion’s Arch compare from what the book describes and my imagination vs the game, how did Logan’s and the Queen’s relationship continue to develop after the events in the books, etc. I pre-ordered GW2 but suddenly stopped playing it when I reached level 25 with my Elementalist for only 1 reason: I thought there was no endgame. And there isn’t in the form WoW had taught me. And then when I asked in Map Chat and later in different forums across the net, everyone raged at me for expecting WoW’s endgame in GW2. But, in a nutshell, what I was asking was “What can you do at level 80, and what is the point in doing it?”
Absolutely no one could answer me.
If a newbie WoW player came to me and asked me, “Hey, man, can you please give me a very detailed LIST of things to do in WoW at max-level and what is the point in doing them,” I would be able to produce an ordered listing of absolutely everything you can do in the game and for what reasons you would like to do that. I think this is what you have asked (correct me if I’m wrong).
Thankfully, after a scorn-filled “l2google, you noob”, a friend of mine gave me this posts from Guild Wars 2 Guru and Gamespy:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/What-to-do-at-80-1
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/guild-wars-2/1226589p1.html
It has exactly what I wanted, and I can now proceed to enjoy the heck out of this awesome game. I started a fresh Guardian on Friday, and I’m already 50 on Sunday. I’ve enjoyed the game THAT much with the mentality that most of what I’ll do will be bragging rights. After 16,000+ achievement points in WoW I can confidently consider myself an achiever and will enjoy the challenges this game will bring to my OCD regarding map completion and medal completion (in the character screen). Hope this helped. And whatever you do, DON’T quit on this game just because another MMORPG has shown you what you think is the only endgame in the genre.
TL;DR – If you wanna know most of the things you can do at max-level in GW2, check out the links I posted. And as to what is the point in doing them: the point will be what YOU as a player give them, be it fun, bragging rights, passing the time, challenging yourself, etc. but the point will never be to perform at a higher level than others because of gear.