Getting Started

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Getting Started[edit]

Version 0.11.0: This article may not be up to date for the latest version of Isleward.

Isleward is an in-development multiplayer roguelike playable in a browser. The game is based around creating a character, exploring different islands, fighting mobs (monsters), teaming up with friends, and completing dungeons in search of treasure. Strengthening your character by looting and crafting better equipment and leveling up by gaining experience is also an integral part of the process!

Parts of the game are open-source, so some of the code and other assets can be found on the GitLab. Players can contribute improvements to the live game or create their own projects using the Isleward engine.

Registering an account[edit]

To create an account, navigate to https://play.isleward.com, enter a username and password, and press register.

Your account name and password should be kept private. Do not share them with others! Sharing accounts is against the Terms of Service and you also risk losing your items or characters.

Remember your password! There is currently no password recovery mechanism. If you do lose your password, you will need to contact Big Bad Waffle or Vildravn on the Isleward Discord server.

Only one account per IP is allowed to log in at the same time. If you are playing on a shared WiFi network and another device is already playing, you will be unable to log in. You can request the IP limit to raised for your IP using the Report an Issue option in the in-game menu.

Note: If your ISP blocks websocket access, try https://play.isleward.com/?polling

Creating a character[edit]

When you first make an account, your character list will be empty. Click new to start creating a character.

First, you'll need to pick an unused valid name (3 to 12 characters and alphanumeric). Then you'll choose a spirit. Spirits are similar to classes and races in other games. Although any spirit can use any item and build any stats, it's recommended that you follow the builds most closely associated with your spirit. Different spirits gain different stats on level up, but more importantly, they have different starting nodes in the passive tree, offering lots of important stats.

As a general rule, focus on increasing the main stat that your weapon scales with, and use runes that scale with that stat as well. These weapons and runes are often closely associated with certain spirits.

Owl: The "mage" class

  • Main stat: Intelligence
  • Recommended weapon: Wand or Staff
  • Recommended off-hand items: Brittle Tome or Ancient Tome

Bear: The "warrior" class

  • Main stat: Strength
  • Recommended weapons: Sword or Axe
  • Recommended off-hand items: Shields

Lynx: The "rogue" class

  • Main stat: Dexterity
  • Recommended weapon: Spear or Dagger
  • Recommended off-hand item: Shields

Finally, you can select prophecies for your character. Prophecies are permanent modifiers chosen during character creation. They can't be added or removed after the character is created. The butcher prophecy opts in to unrestricted PvP anywhere in the game. The other three available prophecies offer additional challenges for experienced players. It's recommended that you don't select any prophecies for your first character.

After clicking create, you will enter a short tutorial. The rest of this guide covers everything in the tutorial and more with links and more depth.

Gameplay[edit]

Use WASD or arrow keys to move, or QEZC to move diagonally. Every move you input is queued up on the server and every tick you move one square forward on your path. Press ESC to clear your queue. The sprint chance stat (on items or via Rune of Swiftness), certain abilities (such as Rune of Roll, Rune of Charge, and Rune of Ambush), and mounts can speed up movement.

Combat[edit]

Click a monster to target it or use tab to cycle through targets.

Press space to activate your autoattack with your main weapon. Once activated, you will continue attacking the same monster. You can target a different enemy and activate the ability again to change your autoattack target.

Press 1, 2, 3 or 4 to activate the abilities that come from your equipped runes (see below).

Killing monsters is the main way to gain experience and equipment to make your character stronger.

Controls list[edit]

Key Function
WASD, QEZC, Arrows, Numpad Movement
Left Click Select
Tab Cycle between targets
Space Activate auto-attack
1, 2, 3, 4 Use abilities from equipped runes
U Interact (doors, fishing, gathering, etc)
I Open/close inventory window
Escape Close windows
Cancel movement queue
V Show/hide nameplates
H Open/close help window
J Open/close character stats and equipments
O Open/close online players list
P Open/close passive tree window
Enter Open/close chat
Send a message (if chat is open)
R Use quickslot item

Progressing[edit]

After you've created your character and figured out the basic controls, your main objective is to reach the max level and make your character stronger.

Character window[edit]

Press J to open your character sheet. This window shows which items you have equipped and shows your current stats. The tabs at the top show various different stats.

Your abilities (bound to space, 1, 2, 3, and 4) are provided by your equipped weapon (the autoattack) and up to 4 equipped runes. Hovering each ability's icon in the top right shows extra information about what each skill does, their estimated damage per tick, and other details.

Leveling up[edit]

Leveling up grants 1 point of your spirit's main stat, 1 passive tree point, increases your max health and mana, and gives you access to higher-level items which have better stats. Experience is required to level up, and the amount increases with each level. A common first goal is to reach max level.

The primary way to gain XP is to kill enemies. If you hit an enemy before it dies, you will receive XP and loot for that kill. You don't need to get the last hit! It's often faster to team up with others to kill enemies quicker and safer.

Killing mobs at your own level gives the most experience. Mobs with much higher or lower levels than your own give much less XP. Of course, you should balance this with how quickly and safely you can kill different mobs.

If you die, you will lose a percent of your current experience, but you'll never lose levels. Once you reach max level, you're free to die as much as you want.

Here are some recommendations for where to farm. Remember that the "best" spot depends on your stats, your runes, what other players are around, and other factors.

Quests are the other main source of experience, so make sure to complete as many as you can. Quests are available in many zones but not all of them. They give different amounts of experience based on their type and location. Higher level areas will give much more XP and are essential to leveling later on.

Equipping items[edit]

Killing monsters has a chance to drop a loot bag where they died. You can move on to its tile to pick it up. Various items can drop from enemies, but equipment such as weapons and armor are the most common. Other common drops include runes, crafting materials, and cards.

Items have different rarities, with higher rarities dropping less frequently. Harder areas and enemies tend to drop rarer and higher-level items. Items of higher rarities have more stat rolls, so they tend to be better.

Press I to open up your inventory. Hovering over items show their stats, and right-clicking them allows them to be equipped, dropped, destroyed, and so on. You can also equip items by clicking on any equipment slot in the character window (press J). Weapons, armor, runes, and tools are all equipped in the same way.

Choosing the right gear[edit]

Higher level and higher rarity items are generally better. You should prioritize your spirit's main stat (int, dex, or str) and use weapons and runes that scale with this stat so that you can most easily increase your damage output. Other stats also increase your damage or survivability, so choose according to what you need. For example, if you find yourself dying too often, you might want to equip items with vitality, elemental resistance, armor, dodge chance or HP regen. If you find yourself running out of mana, you may want to prioritize max mana or mana regen.

To compare the stats of an item with your currently equipped item in the same slot, hover over the item and hold shift.

For more detailed (subjective) advice in choosing runes, passive trees, and stats later on in the game, check out the Advanced Guide.

Passive tree[edit]

Every time you level up, you gain 1 passive tree point. Press P to open the passive tree and spend these points.

Salvaging and crafting[edit]

If you have excess gear or runes that you don't need, you can salvage it by right-clicking and selecting salvage or pressing F with the context menu open. You should hold on to these salvage materials, as the usefulness of crafting increases later in the game when it's harder to get better items just from mob drops. Crafting too early might waste resources on bad items that you can replace by farming more. Other players might also be willing to trade these materials for better items. These crafting materials and the idols randomly dropped by enemies are used for crafting.

Be careful when salvaging! Salvaged or destroyed items are gone forever.

Salvaging runes gives essence, but they can also be sold instead for a decent amount of gold. However, gold isn't used for much in the game besides purchasing items from certain NPCs. The essence from salvaging runes is useful for buying a mount or augmenting trinket slot items.

Mounts[edit]

You will probably want a mount as soon as possible to get around faster. Buying a mount will cost essence which is obtained from salvaging runes and trinkets. Mounts can be purchased from Alrik in Fjolgard, which can be found by going up from the starting area and across the bridge which will load you into the Fjolgard map. Then continue upwards towards the town and head left until you find the horse farm.

Other tips[edit]

Some other useful information is collected here. Feel free to ask questions in chat, people are usually willing to explain things.

Card sets[edit]

If you obtain a full set of cards you can turn them in to the Shady Dealer in the Sewers for a reward. The reward depends on which card set you completed. Sometimes these cards are used as currencies for trading between players.

Surviving[edit]

  • Don't AFK where auto-aggro mobs spawn. You will die when they respawn and start attacking you.
  • Make a party with other players. Don't worry, you will still get full XP and loot as long as you successfully hit the enemy at least once.
  • Make sure you can survive farming in the next higher-level area if you want to move on.
  • You can make consumables to quickly restore your health in the middle of a fight, but keep in mind that they have cooldowns.
    • Fish for Sun Carps and cook them at the Hermit's fire. You will need to buy sticks from the hermit to cook them on.
    • Craft minor healing potions in the city at Estrid's shop using the Alchemy Workbench. You can buy the vials from Estrid. You will also need 3 Skyblossoms which can be found randomly around the map and gathered.

Vendors[edit]

Some NPCs sell items or cosmetic skins. These NPCs usually also will buy items from you for gold. You can buy-back sold items for a limited time if you change your mind or accidentally sold something.

It's usually not worth it to buy the random equipment from the Hermit, but unique items like the Akarei necklaces or Cowl of Obscurity are powerful options.

Fishing[edit]

Fishing offers a small amount of XP (the amount depends on which zone you're in) and healing consumables. To fish, you need to be next to a school of fish and press G or U. After waiting a few seconds, you will either catch nothing, a fish, or rarely a Cerulean Pearl. Cerulean Pearls are used to augment fishing rods to get better stats.

If you don't have a fishing rod, you can buy the Flimsy Fishing Rod from the Hermit.

The Fishing Tournament is a twice-daily event where players try to catch the largest fish using the provided fishing rod, which can't be augmented. Placing highly earns a currency that can be used to buy better fishing rods or Cerulean Pearls.

Other community information[edit]

The Isleward community is very friendly, so feel free to ask in chat if you have questions or need help.

You may want to check out the Glossary for some common chat abbreviations.

In the interest of keeping chat clean, you should try to use party chat, direct messages, or custom channels when applicable. You can type % to switch to party chat or select it from the channel picker. To direct message someone, open the online list by pressing O, right click their name and select the whisper option. You can type @ to switch back to previous whisper channels or use the channel picker. You can also join a custom channel by typing /join (channel name) and leave by using /leave (channel name). You can switch to joined channels by typing $ or using the channel picker. You can always switch back to global chat by typing ! or using the channel picker.

Chat colors and prefixes[edit]

Different players have different chat colors.

  • Gray: Default chat color for everyone
  • White: Patrons or moderators
  • Light blue: Developers

Certain players have a prefix before their name in chat.

  • (p): Patrons
  • (m): Moderators
  • (dev): Developer

Advanced Guide[edit]

For additional (subjective) advice, check out the Advanced Guide. It covers advanced tips and builds and is intended for players with at least one max level character.

Useful links[edit]

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