So I’m gonna post this here in the hopes of some help.
I’ve tried playing WoW a fair few times over the years and honestly I have no idea how to navigate anything at all. Beyond boosting a character in a new expansion and then following the quests until max level and clicking the dungeon finder thing I literally have no idea what the …is going on. I have no idea how to know what to do, and no idea where to find information beyond - “oh go here and do dailies and join groups and do keys etc” … yeah mate might as well be speaking Russian (which I don’t speak).
Can someone please show me how one goes about knowing what to do? There must be a very simple way to just see what’s next on the list of things to do and easy ways to navigate the map etc without addons, surely?
Stop doing it
Good point. If you level up yourself, you actually PLAY the game and get to know parts of WoW piece by piece. Instead of being hurled into a sea of content.
Care to elaborate? I levelled a character up from 1 and same issue. GO here and kill stuff, queue random instances. Same deal man am I just not getting it?
From the start of wow you just accept the first quest(s) you see in your starting zone and complete those quests, 9/10 times you’ll be guides to a progression in that questline till you finish a zone, by the time you finish a zone It’ll give you a quest to go to a different zone for another quest line. Only at specific intervals (Level 60) for example you’ll be asked for a choice, either go to Northrend or go through the Dark Portal. Again same principle applies. End game of wow consists of doing dungeons and or raids, that is just end-game and if you don’t really like that you really should not boost a character and skip all of the other content in the game.
What is your goal?
Why do you play?
What do you expect out of an mmorpg?
PS: you might want to edit the title and OP. Circumventing the language filter is against the rules.
Well, at your level I would probably stick to World Quests (weapon/armor caches), assaults in the Vale/Uldum, and maybe Mythic 0. Around 410/420 you should be safe to grind out the legendary cloak from Wrathion. You get there by progressing through the quest line with Magni. Some of this content can be quite difficult, which is why you could possibly do it now, but you may run into some problems depending on your knowledge of the game and class.
Each week you can kill the world bosses in Uldum and the Vale for a chance at some nice loot too. Bring some seals of fate if you wish so you can reroll if you get gold or AP.
From there, you can start pushing Mythic+ or PvP, whatever your heart desires.
I’ll jump on a fresh character and try again I guess ty.
*i’ll edit that title too
I don’t understand what there is to not understand in the game…
You pick up quests and do stuff and go into dungeons and kill stuff.
Maybe try and join a guild or community and find friends to play with who can help you figure out where you are gettibg confused?
I agree with you that it can be confusing for new players who haven’t levelled a character before especially navigating all the new stuff that opens at 120. Seasoned players tend to forget the confusion they felt on the first character they ever made.
For future expansions they are looking at offering a ‘mentoring’ system, where mentors will be available to offer help and advice for new players 
Ok so example - not played at all for months, jump on a level 113 character with no memory of what I was doing. Where do I see what’s available to do? I’d join a guild and ask but typically the guilds I’ve managed to join are dead or don’t want to be barraged with noob questions - granted all people aren’t like that but I’m sure you get what I mean.
The map will actually show exclamation marks where the main quests are given, so if you ever get stuck while levelling, look there.
You should have a list of quest objectives if anything is outstanding when you left.
Also look at the adventure guide (shift and j) to see whats available to you
Try communities over guilds maybe?
What do you mean when you say whats available to do?
Can I ask have you played any other MMO? Elder Scrolls online, FFIV, Guild Wars 2, Runescape?
What games have you played that are similar to WOW or other fantasy games.
An understanding of what you have played previously will help us be able to get rid of some possible expectations based on those games and help direct you.
I played Rift from launch and have been playing BDO for the last 4 years or so. What I’m getting at is that beyond looking at the basics - like following quest icons (which ofc is simple enough) I have no idea how to priorotise what to do. Get my neck stronger - ok get better gear from dungeons - again ok - take this teleport to XYZ yeah mate nice map - find world quests - is it really just farm azerite or whatever it’s called and be done with it? Am I looking for something that doesn’t exist? Using the dungeon finder I can be sat for an hour with nothing and get into a half abaondoned group. I’m not trying to be difficult I just don’t get what I’m missing but it feels like theres something. Surely I don’t just do quests and wait for dungeon/raid groups.
A lot of the advice you’re given is about leveling and that’s really not your problem. Your problem seems to be about confusing endgame and the endgame in WoW is really not well introduced. I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t know how to change dungeon difficulty, because that’s put in a very unintuitive place.
MMOs used to be easy - here’s your goal - kill the raid boss, and you’re done. Then you walk back from that point. Okay, I need a guild to kill this boss. Let’s find a guild that raids. Okay, the guild says I need better gear and here’s how I get it.
But right now in WoW… you just queue for the last wing of LFR and that’s it, you’ve skipped 8 bosses and you’ve cleared everything the game tells you to clear.
There’s no structure around mythic+, the game doesn’t push you to do heroic and mythic raids. It assumes you know about them and you want to do them, but it seems you don’t. The game doesn’t exactly explain how the mythic + keys work, it just tells you to push your key, but it never explains what the hell that key is, and why you’d ever want it.
Your most valued goal in my opinion would be to join a guild that is willing to help, and then to find goals that you want to pursue. I think clearing the current raid on heroic is always a good goal to work towards - not too hard to achieve, but also requires you to engage with all of the game’s mechanics to get it.
Exactly this.
Now how to go about finding a guild that fits that criteria?
Ok, a few thoughts;
- Check your quest log. At the top should be a section for war campaign, and it may tell you to finish a specific quest, or reach a specific level to continue. I recommend following the WC as much as possible while levelling, since you will pretty much need to get it out of the way eventually.
- If you don’t have anything in your quest log, go back to your ship and mission table. Someone there probably has an ! and wants to put you back on the war campaign.
- If there’s really truly nothing, head to the top of the pink pyramid where Princess Talanji is standing by a map table. You should be able to pick a zone and get a starter quest to go there.
But also… as someone above asked, what are your expectations? What do you want to get out of this game? Are you looking to run through the lore, the quests, the backstory? Are you looking for a social game? Do you want to get into dungeon groups, and start pushing more difficult levels of content? Do you want to jump into battlegrounds and arena and fight other players? Knowing your goals will help others advise you, since there isn’t specifically a “you should do this” endgame in WoW; it’s about what you choose to make your focus.
Regarding the social side, it does sound like you’ve had a poor experience with guilds. My advice there is; don’t give up. There are a lot of friendly and sociable players around, sometimes it just takes a while to find them. I’d recommend looking up the Zen Horde community - communities are a bit like guilds, but not tied to a realm, and you can join more than one.
There’s also the community recruitment forum, where you might find some folks who are more dedicated to helping newer players find their feet.
Well there is the cloak and visions for cloak upgrade and doing uldum and vale stuff to for coalescing visions and echoes.
Echoes can buy rank 3 essences for alts (if unlocked on another char) or corruptions and once your cloak is 15 you can use them to buy further upgrades too.
Tbh at this point if the expansion, 3 months or so to the end, its not much to do. BfA is more or less done so all in all its just finishing off the stuff you haven’t done yet before shadowlands drops.
Maybe work towards getting curve, some achievements, mounts or other stuff thats gonna be removed with pre patch 
Thank you for all the replies - I would indeed be looking for a social group to push endgame content and was considering either just playing classic until next expansion or ff14 (yeah the whole anime culture isn’t my thing so scrap that one).
I’ll have a look at that Zen Horde and see if I can find a decent newer player friendly guild. Ty all.