While Wayfinder has not had an easy road, with a bumpy launch with myriad issues to the divestiture of publisher Digital Extremes, Airship Syndicate remains committed to expanding on and building up the world of Wayfinder for the foreseeable future. In 2024 Wayfinder is heading towards its full free-to-play launch, with a new playable area and reworks to many of its systems. This is the best time to prepare for the free to play launch, and this Wayfinder beginners guide will set up.
Getting Started
Wayfinder is an MMO lite. This means you will be seeing and interacting with other players in the game, however it’s not yet a full blown MMO experience. The core gameplay loop revolves around running expeditions or dungeons in order to level up your wayfinder and your weapons. You will be searching for specific loot to craft certain items, and basically rinse and repeat.
Main Quest
Like any other game, when you first jump into the Wayfinder it’s recommended that you begin with running the main story quest. This is going to familiarize you with a lot of the systems in the game, and unlock some much needed items to progress your gameplay. As you work your way though some of the quests you will begin to level up your wayfinder and your weapon.
Progression
Progression in Wayfinder consists of several different systems. The two main ways to progress is by leveling up your Wayfinder, and leveling up your weapons. So, once you’re in the game, you can open up your character loadout by pressing the default key of “C”. Here you will see your currently equipped Wayfinder and currently equipped weapon. The max level for both a Wayfinder and a weapon is level 30. You will need to level up each Wayfinder individually, and each weapon in the game can be leveled individually to max level as well.
As you level up your wayfinder, your power rating will increase. This will increase your overall stats for that particular wayfinder, making them more powerful. If you click on your Wayfinder from the loadout screen, this will take you to your character screen. From here, if you have acquired any other wayfinders, you can switch to them. Selecting a wayfinder will show you their current stats. If you select a wayfinder and press the middle mouse button, you will also see their abilities, and you can see their currently equipped echoes from here as well.
Affinity
Another method of character progression is the Affinity system. You can access the Affinity menu in your character screen. Once there you can spend affinity points in order to gain additional bonuses. You can also gain additional perks by hitting a certain affinity level.
As you level up, you will earn Affinity Points. These points can be used to upgrade your affinity. There are three different types of affinity:
- Instinct
- Discipline
- Focus
Each of the different types of affinity will increase the power of your currently equipped items with specific stats. You can see which equipped items the affinity is affecting whenever you hover over the applicable affinity. So, just to reiterate by upgrading an affinity the associated stats on the equipped weapon and accessories will be increased by a bonus multiplier. This bonus multiplier will be applied to any affinity aligned base stats coming from the current equipped loadout.
Echoes
Another way to increase your power and to customize your Wayfinder to your liking is through the echo system, which is like the Mod system from Warframe. You can view the echo system via the character menu. Echoes are items that have a chance to drop from almost every enemy in Wayfinder. Each echo will have a stat, multiple stats, or a passive associated with it. You can then slot that echo into your Wayfinder, weapon and accessories in order to increase your power rating.
There are several different categories of echoes, and slotting an echo of a particular category into the matching slot will reduce the cost of slotting that echo. Your Wayfinder, weapon, and accessories all have an echo capacity associated with them. This means you can only slot echoes up to a certain echo cost. You can see the cost of each echo on the right side of the echo menu when you’re browsing through them. You can also fuse echoes together in order to make a particular echo stronger. So, if you have multiple of a particular echo that you aren’t utilizing, you can fuse them into an echo that you are using in order to upgrade it.
Accessories and Consumables
As you play you are also going to collect accessories. Each accessory has a set of stats associated with it. This is another method of customizing your Wayfinder with the stats that you want. Accessories can also come equipped with Echo slots. The lower level accessories oftentimes will not have echo slots, but as you progress you will find some that do.
You also have 3 available consumable slots. Your first slot consists of a health flask that you can utilize. It comes with several charges. This means you can only utilize it a certain amount of times before it needs refilling. Whenever you use all of a consumable you don’t need to craft anymore, you simply need to refill them at a refill shrine.
Combat
The combat in Wayfinder is action based, and consists of a total of 5 abilities. You will receive 4 Wayfinder specific abilities and 1 weapon specific ability.
The Wayfinder abilities you receive will vary greatly depending on which Wayfinder you choose to play. You can view all of those abilities and how they function within the character screen. The power of those abilities and other attacks is determined by your attributes, and the gear that you have equipped that increase those attributes. You can also perform heavy attacks by pressing the default key of “E”, and can perform jumping heavy attacks by jumping and pressing “E” as you land. Combos can be achieved as well by performing a full series of light attacks.
Every weapon ability has different qualifications for it to be activated. These tie into your weapon passives. When you look at your ability screen you can see how each weapon ability is activated by reading the weapon passive mechanics. For example, if you’re using daggers you will earn what’s called flourish points. You earn these by landing a 4th consecutive melee attack. So you have to land a full combo of light attacks to earn a flourish point. You then spend a flourish point by pressing the default key of “E”. The more flourish points you have the more damage you will deal.
Housing
Playing through the main story will unlock your housing. You will get this option fairly soon in the game. The first iteration of housing in Wayfinder is an apartment. In order to enter your apartment you will need to be in Skylight. You can also acquire trophies that you can interact with once a day to gain some items. There are also artifacts that you can obtain that will give you a global buff when you place them in your house.
Wayfinder Beginner Tips
- When you pick a character in Wayfinder, you’re going to stick with your chosen character for a pretty long time before you can unlock more Wayfinders. You’re kind of just stuck with them, regardless of whether you like them or not. You are also stuck with the weapons of those characters, unless you want to spend 4,500 gold coins to buy a new weapon in Market Row.
- learn your character’s moves and weapons. Particularly learning the opportune times to use the special skill sets to your advantage. Also, learn the basics of blocking, parrying, and dodging. You can block incoming attacks using your shield and two-handed weapons. Or parry using daggers. But you can also dodge attacks using Wayfinder’s special short-distance fast travel through enemies.
- Unlocking Echoes allows you to gain extra buffs on the gear you currently have by either scaling an accessory’s or character’s critical ratings and powers or increasing your defense stats. Either way, they give you a boost in combat that you’ll definitely need down the road.
- There’s an Affinity Perk menu that’s easy to miss, right at the very bottom of your screen. When you pull it up, it shows each stat’s perks or special, powerful skill modifiers. Some perks are already available to you. However, others are unlockables that only become available once you reach certain milestones on the main screen.
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