If you've ever dreamed of roaming a sprawling wuxia world as a wandering swordsman, where wind.meets is probably already on your radar. The game blends high-flying martial arts action, open world exploration, and tough narrative choices that actually change how NPCs treat you as you progress. I picked it up on launch day on a whim, and spent my first 6 hours running around aimlessly, dying to random bandits, and wasting rare items on useless upgrades. I wrote this guide to save you from making the same dumb mistakes I did, so you can focus on the fun parts of the game instead of grinding to fix easily avoidable errors.
Mastering Basic Wuxia Combat to Win Early Fights
Unlike many open world RPGs that let you button mash your way through early fights, this game punishes sloppy play hard, even against low-level bandit grunts. Parry timing is the single most important skill in the game, and you should spend 10 to 15 minutes practicing it in the tutorial zone before you leave. The window for a successful parry is about half a second, but if you land it, you'll stun your opponent for 3 full seconds, letting you land a full combo that takes out 70% of most early enemy health bars. One thing I love about where wind.meets' combat system is that it doesn't favor players who spend money on microtransactions, it only rewards skill and practice.
You don't need to unlock fancy skills to beat most early fights, either. The default light attack combo you start with works perfectly fine if you pair it with well-timed dodges and parries. A common mistake I see new players make is blowing all their chi reserves on big flashy attacks right at the start of a fight, leaving them with no way to block or parry if the enemy counters. Save your heavy chi attacks for when your opponent is stunned, and you'll win 9 out of 10 early fights without using a single health potion.
Where Wind.meets Exploration Rules Most New Players Miss
The map in this game is massive, and it's packed with hidden content that doesn't show up on your default map, even if you unlock all the nearby waypoints. I missed almost all of the early secret content on my first playthrough because I was just following quest markers from point A to point B, and I didn't realize how much the game rewards curiosity. The devs for where wind.meets clearly put a ton of work into hiding little secrets all over the map, so you'll be rewarded for almost any random detour you take. After my third playthrough, I've compiled a short list of unwritten exploration rules that will help you find way more rare loot and fun side content without wasting time:
You also don't need a mount to get around quickly early on, by the way. The gliding skill you unlock 10 minutes into the game works perfectly for covering long distances if you climb to the top of a nearby hill first. I didn't even bother buying a mount until I hit level 25, and I never felt like I was moving too slow.
How to Manage Your Resources Without Wasting Rare Loot
It's easy to hoard every item you pick up when you first start playing where wind.meets, or waste rare materials on low-level gear that you'll replace in a few hours. I did both on my first playthrough, and I had to grind for 3 full hours to get enough rare materials to upgrade my first set of mid-game gear because I'd wasted all of them on garbage starter swords. The best rule of thumb is to never upgrade any gear that's below rare rarity, no matter how good it looks when you first get it. Common crafting materials like pine resin and iron ore might seem useless early on, but you'll need thousands of them to upgrade your mid and late game gear, so don't sell them to NPCs for extra cash.
You can make way more money by selling extra health potions and low-level gear you pick up from dead bandits, anyway. Another tip: don't use your skill points on random skills just because you have points to spend. Look at the skill tree first and pick a build you want to stick to, whether that's a fast dual-sword build, a slow heavy hammer build, or a ranged chi attack build. Wasting skill points on skills you'll never use means you'll have to grind for extra skill points later to unlock the ones you actually need for your playstyle.
Hidden Progression Shortcuts to Level Up Faster
You don't have to grind side quests for hours to level up quickly if you know what content gives the most XP per minute. Where wind.meets rewards you for exploring off the main quest path, so the fastest way to level up in the first 20 hours of the game is to clear bandit camps, not complete story quests. Most bandit camps take 5 to 10 minutes to clear, and they give you twice as much XP as a regular story quest, plus you get a ton of extra loot and crafting materials. Another hidden shortcut is to complete the daily training challenges that pop up at every major town. Most new players ignore them because they look like trivial side content, but each one gives you a huge chunk of XP and a free stat boost that lasts for 2 hours.
They only take 2 to 3 minutes each to complete, so it's always worth doing them as soon as you spawn in a new town. If you're struggling with a tough boss fight, don't waste 10 tries attempting to beat it underleveled. Go clear 2 or 3 nearby bandit camps first, you'll gain 1 or 2 levels, get better gear, and the fight will be 10 times easier. I used to waste hours trying to beat bosses underleveled because I didn't want to "waste time" on extra content, but I quickly realized that clearing a couple camps takes way less time than dying to the same boss 15 times in a row.
At the end of the day, where wind.meets is all about having fun exploring a gorgeous wuxia world, and you don't have to follow every tip in this guide to enjoy it. But if you want to avoid the frustrating parts of the early game and get to the really exciting high-flying combat and huge secret areas faster, these tips will help you do exactly that. Don't be afraid to experiment with different builds and go off the beaten path, either. Some of my favorite moments in the game came from random detours I took that weren't marked on any quest list. Take your time, practice your parry, and don't waste your rare materials on garbage starter gear, and you'll have a blast.
