User Interface

A new player's tour of the screens you use every day in Winds of Valen: the four menu tabs (Inventory, Equipment, Skills and Training Stance), the hotbar, the chat window and the Bank. Each section shows the window and explains what the buttons do.

Your character menu is a column of four tabs down the left side. From the top they are: Inventory (a backpack), Equipment (a helmet), Skills (a rising bar chart) and Training Stance (a sword). Click a tab to open it. The open tab is lit up with a blue background and a fancier frame. You can also open each tab with a key: Z for Inventory, X for Equipment, C for Skills and V for Training Stance.

The Inventory tab (the backpack) is where you carry what you pick up. It is a grid of 28 slots, four across and seven down. Anything you gather, craft or loot lands here. When it fills up, store things in the Bank.

The Equipment tab (the helmet) shows what your character is wearing. Your name is at the top, above twelve gear slots: shield, head, back, weapon, body, neck, arrows, legs, hands, trinket, feet and ring. An empty slot shows a faint picture of the kind of item that goes there. The panel at the bottom adds up your gear: your weapon's attack speed and range, and your protection against each type of damage. For what each stat means, see the Stats guide.

The Skills tab (the bar chart) lists every skill, one row each. A row shows the skill's icon, its name, a bar for your progress towards the next level, and your current level on the right. The picture shows a brand new character: every skill at level 1 with an empty bar. The list scrolls in game, and the mock-up shows all the rows at once. Overall Level, at the bottom, is all your skill levels added together. A new character with 13 skills at level 1 starts on 13.

Press V, or click the sword tab at the bottom of the column, to open Training Stance. At the top the diamond shows your combat level. Below it are two stance buttons: Offensive Training (a sword) and Defensive Training (a shield). The button that is lit up in light blue is the stance you are in, and the other one is dark blue. Click the other one to switch. The panel says: "Training Stance, along with what weapon and shield you are using, determines which combat skill you gain xp in when you deal damage." You train by fighting, in the stance you chose. Offensive Training puts the XP into the skill of the weapon in your main hand: Attack for melee weapons, Archery for bows and Magic for staves and wands. Defensive Training puts it into Defence, Evasion or Warding instead. If you have a shield equipped, the shield decides which one. With no shield, your weapon decides. The table is read from the game's own skill guide text, one row per combat skill.

In every stance, 25% of the XP from the damage you deal goes to Health. The rest goes to the combat skill your stance and gear pick.

Switching stance to train each skill

You do not need a new weapon to change what you train. Your weapon gives you one offensive skill, and your stance picks between that and one defensive skill. The weapon pairs are: Melee: Attack and Defence Bow (ranged): Archery and Evasion Staff (magic): Magic and Warding The pair above is what you train with no shield. Melee works with a one-handed or a two-handed weapon, and a staff works one-handed or two-handed too. Pick Offensive Training for the first skill and Defensive Training for the second. A shield changes the defensive skill. If you equip a shield, Defensive Training goes to whatever skill that shield uses, while Offensive Training still trains your weapon's skill. For example: Melee weapon and an Adept Ward: Attack or Warding. Melee weapon and an Advanced Parry Shield: Attack or Evasion. One-handed staff and an Elven Shield: Magic or Defence. The same goes for all three weapon types, so a shield can send your defensive XP to Defence, Evasion or Warding whichever weapon you hold. Bows are the only ranged weapon right now and they are two-handed. One-handed crossbows are expected in the next patch. Switching costs nothing, and you can change stance in the middle of a fight.

Auto Retaliate

The Auto Retaliate button (crossed swords) sits at the bottom of the Training Stance tab. Click it to turn Auto Retaliate on or off. When it is highlighted in light blue it is on, like the Offensive Training button in the picture. When it is dark blue it is off, like the Defensive Training button.

Monsters that attack you

Some monsters attack you on sight. Two things from the developers: One at a time: a monster will not start attacking you if another monster from the same faction is already attacking you, so you are only attacked by one at a time. Level cutoff: aggressive monsters ignore players whose level is far above theirs. The developers say the cutoff is 20 levels above the monster for most enemies, and 35 levels for some higher level enemies. The developers have not given exact details beyond that.

The hotbar stays on screen while you play. Health orb (left): the red orb shows your current health and your maximum, for example 100/100 when you are at full health. Action slots (middle): nine slots in three groups of three. The first three are for weapons, the next three for shields and the last three for potions. Drag up to 3 different weapons, 3 different shields and 3 different potions into them. The key to press for each slot is shown underneath. The default keys are 1, 2, 3, Q, W, E, A, S and D. You can change them to whatever you like. For example, some players use 1 to 9 instead. If you have changed your keybinds, your own keys show on the hotbar. Combat level (right): the diamond shows your combat level. A new character starts at 1.

The chat window has two tabs along the top. Click a tab to switch between them. Local: shows what players near you say. This is the tab that is open when you start. Global: shows what everyone on the server you are playing on says. Chat is for the server you are on only, so you will not see messages from players on other servers. To write a message, press Enter and type in the box at the bottom, which says "Press enter to chat...".

The Bank is where you store items you do not want to carry. The numbered tabs 1 to 4 at the top are four pages of storage, and the big grid below them holds your items. The row of buttons along the bottom does most of the work.

Depositing your gear, inventory and bags

Three buttons on the lower right put things into the bank in one click. Hover over one in game to see its name: Helmet button, Deposit Equipment: deposits the gear you are wearing. Backpack button, Deposit Inventory: deposits everything in your inventory. Sack button, Deposit Worn Resource Inventories: deposits what is stored in your worn resource bags, such as a crate or a sack on your back. The Ore Crate is an example.

How many, and the mouse shortcuts

The amount buttons on the left (1, 5, 10, 14, 50 and All) choose how many items you move at a time. The lit one is the amount in use. The reminders beside them list the mouse shortcuts: Quick Swap is a right-click, Quick Swap All is Ctrl and right-click, Split is a middle-click, and Split X is Ctrl and middle-click.

The padlock: placeholders

The padlock button toggles whether placeholders are left behind when you take a whole stack out of the bank. A placeholder holds the empty slot in place. To get rid of an empty placeholder, drag it to the right to delete it, the same as dropping an item.

Exchange: turning items into notes

The Exchange button, and the empty square beside it, turn items into notes. You cannot carry 1000 fish, but you can turn them into notes and carry 1000 notes instead. You cannot use the fish, or anything else, while it is in note form, but you can exchange back and forth. Notes make it easy to trade with other players or sell to a vendor.