Devlog: July 2026

Heyoo adventurers!

This month was big on UI and PvP. I've mentioned before that the UI has been the most embarrassing part of Eldria, and honestly, that is still true in places. But it is getting a lot better.

The big UI makeover

There is a reason we have not shown much of the game UI before. It was wonky and I was not happy with it.

For a long time, the UI was built from transparent overlays on top of the playable area and UI elements would become visible on hover. I wanted to keep the world front and center, but this caused a lot of problems in practice. For example trying to target a monster in the lower-left corner could activate the chat area and prevent you from selecting the target. The minimap had the opposite problem: you had to hover over it before you could use it for a quick glance at where you are. Super annoying.

It also created some exploitable PvP situations. If UI elements cover the world, you can stand under another player's cursor, with the chat or minimap covering you, and make it harder for them to fight back. That is not the kind of dynamics we want.

So I moved the main UI elements out of the viewport. The world now has a space of its own, while chat, the action bars, the minimap, and the nearby list live around it.

I was initially very much against a "Tibia-like" layout. Classic Tibia was fine, but in my opinion it has started to look more like a professional forex trading desk than an MMORPG. I really did not want Eldria to become a messy collection of a thousand tabs and controls.

I looked at a lot of games for inspiration and I think we found a good compromise. The playable area stays in focus, and the UI does its job without getting in the way. The unit frames are the only elements that cover the playable area. Health, mana, target, and cast information need to be visible immediately, so they kinda need to stay above the game world. They are transparent and click-through though, so you cannot use them to hide behind.

The amount of empty space on the right panel is quite jarring, but it's intentional. It'll later come in handy for things like a quest log, party list, or raid information.

More PvP depth

We have talked before about wanting combat choices to matter. This month we added a few systems that should make PvP feel less like standing still and trading hits.

Combat stances

There are now three combat stances: Offensive, Balanced, and Defensive. Your stance changes how much damage you deal and take. Offensive gives you more damage but less protection. Defensive gives you more protection at the cost of damage. Balanced sits in the middle.

Some abilities will only be usable in certain stances and the action bars change for each stance. Changing stance will really change how you fight, as well as the numbers. This is still an early version though. The numbers need a lot of playtesting, and we will probably find that some ideas are more fun on paper than in an actual fight.

Walking backwards and shooting behind you

You can now walk backwards with a speed penalty. Hold Space and your character faces your mouse pointer while moving, no matter which direction you walk.

This opens up some fun PvP options. You can run away from another player while keeping your aim pointed at them. A player being chased down a path can shoot spells backwards instead of stopping, turning around, and losing distance.

Enemy and friend targeting

Targeting now has separate offensive and support modes. A blue square marks a support target, while a red square marks an offensive target. Support mode lets you use helpful abilities on the player you have selected.

If you are fighting someone and they are marked as your offensive target, a healing spell will go to yourself instead. This prevents you from accidentally helping the person attacking you.

And for your amusement: for early access, Mirenroot will be PvP enabled so you can try these systems against each other. We are looking forward to your feedback, and we are open to changing any (or all) of this!

What is still rough

The UI is not finished. That is fine. The important thing is that the game now has a stable foundation that supports the basic actions. We can polish it more when you guys have actually gotten a chance to leave your feedback on the direction!

Come tell us what you think in Discord.

See you in Mirenroot.