Do you want to see more of the world of Windrose quickly? MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus provides you with some tips to help you progress faster when you get stuck.
To progress quickly in Windrose, you need to know what details to pay attention to and what mistakes to avoid. Our tips make getting started easier for you. The right gear is also helpful:
I noticed many of these tips through my own mistakes, which I recognized at various points. After over 30 hours and some research, they should also help you make progress more easily.
Tip 1: Level Up Quickly – These Activities Bring XP
Like in an RPG, you can level up in Windrose and receive skill and attribute points for it. These are necessary for certain builds. Unlike in RPGs, however, you don’t get XP just for killing enemies or gathering resources.
Instead, exploration is the source of your experience points. If you want to level up quickly, you should:
- complete the main and side quests, as these offer the most rewards
- or find interesting locations (white markers on the map) and complete their tasks.
Here we explain how to find all important treasures.
It may happen that the enemies for the next quest are too strong, but you have nothing left in the quest log. In these cases, it’s usually best to set sail and explore new islands to search for treasures. This is the best source of XP after the quests themselves.
Tip 2: Focus Stats on Stamina, Everything Else Can Wait
With each level up, you can distribute attribute points. It may be tempting to put everything into strength, agility, or precision, but this is not advisable for quick progress.
Instead, focus primarily on stamina and a little on vitality. Stamina increases your endurance, allowing you to sprint longer, gather resources, or attack. In the long run, it’s more valuable to avoid death through dodging than to kill an enemy a little faster.
Moreover, the majority of your attack strength does not come from your stats but from the weapons themselves, at least in the beginning. An upgrade brings you more than a point in strength. Some useful talents for further improvement are:
- Marathon Runner
- Just a Flesh Wound
- Robust Frame
- Too Angry to Die
You can change your stats and talents at any time, by the way.
If you still feel like you’re not making progress, it’s often due to missing upgrades. These can easily be overlooked but provide a huge boost in damage and defense – for both you and your ship.
Tip 3: Don’t Craft Nails, You Need the Metal
This tip is especially important at the start of the game. You need nails to craft better storage options like crates and barrels – and with more storage space, you can manage your resources more efficiently.
Nails are a recipe for the workbench, but your best source at the start is shipwrecks. At most coastlines, you’ll find destroyed boats and old crates. If you break these down with a pickaxe or axe, you’ll get wood and nails.
Both resources are constantly needed at the beginning of the game (and later) in large quantities. Until you eventually have a full iron stockpile, it’s smarter to farm nails directly and save the copper ingots for new equipment and especially upgrades.
The same goes for gunpowder, by the way. While you can craft gunpowder, you can also find it in abundance from enemies and in chests. I never felt the need to craft any, yet I use my pistol very often.
Tip 4: Build Only What’s Necessary, But Build It!
Your base in Windrose serves not only to unload materials and impress your friends. It also provides you with rest – and the cozier it is, the longer the buff is that allows your stamina to regenerate faster.
You can increase comfort by building decorations. However, you only get a comfort bonus for each of the possible categories. If you’re not much of a builder, you should still place at least one item (with the highest comfort value) from each category somewhere.
This is important because you can gain rest not only in your base but also on your ship. The comfort value of the ship corresponds to that of your base with the highest value. Especially when on the move, this is important when you don’t want to always travel back after a death.
Tip 5: Use Fast Travel Correctly: The Boat Is Your Friend
With fast travel, you can teleport across the map, but only between two set points. At some locations – like Tortuga or the faction outposts – there are fixed travel points. You set most others with a bell.
Here you can find more tips on how to use fast travel correctly.
However, you don’t need a travel point to get started. As soon as you’re at the helm of a ship, you can head directly to any fast travel point. This also works with the small shell that is called “Boat”.
The advantage of the ship is that you can also use it as a mobile storage. Ships with plenty of cargo space are especially well-suited to unload the yield from a rich ore vein and then directly continue exploring the newly discovered island, for example, for XP.
By the way: You don’t need to enter your ship to access the cargo hold. It’s enough to be near the coast to call it and access it via the “Flagship” tab in the inventory. If you’re close enough to the ship, you can store items directly from your inventory.
Even if the ship sinks, the cargo remains untouched after restoration at the dock. So you don’t lose anything – unlike with character death. In our list, you can find all the ships and which ones we recommend for certain situations.
Bonus Tip: Use Shanties, They’re More Useful Than You Think
This may sound like a meme now, but the shanties in Windrose not only sound good. Your crew sings only as long as they feel safe. This means: as soon as a battle begins, the sailors immediately fall silent.
Especially when you’re in an area that’s a bit too high for your ship’s level, it’s important to notice immediately when an enemy takes notice of you.
The yellow marker in the middle of the screen can be easily overlooked, and if you’re using speakers on your PC, you can even stand up while driving straight ahead and still hear if the situation becomes dangerous.
Despite all these tips, you shouldn’t rush, because Windrose deserves to be discovered and experienced. Especially the moment of owning your first ship is… almost magical: After 3 hours, I got my first ship in Windrose and no pirate game has fascinated me for so long.
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