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Scars of Honor — Beginner & Getting Started Guide

By LongBeam·Published

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Scars of Honor is an upcoming MMORPG from Beast Burst Entertainment, and its first public playtest ran April 30 to May 11, 2026. This guide walks you through the basics a new player needs on day one: how to make a character, how combat works, how to level, where to find gold and gear, and the progression systems (talents, Scars, and procedural dungeons) you will encounter.

Early-playtest caveat: Everything below is based on the first technical/stress test, which the developers described as an unpolished build with bugs, balance issues, and incomplete systems. Specific numbers in this guide — the level-16 start, the 33-to-40 talent-point totals, vendor level requirements — are playtest-specific and are very likely to change. Treat them as a snapshot, not as the final game.

What the playtest was

The first playtest ran for roughly 12 days, from April 30 to May 11, 2026. It was the game's first community Steam-based test, described as a technical/stress test rather than a polished demo. To join, you wishlisted and used "Request Access" on the official Steam page; access was granted in waves, so requesting early improved your chances. There were no separate keys, Discord sign-ups, or extra steps — everything was handled through Steam.

The playtest was free to play, with the developers stating the game is no-pay-to-win and monetized only through cosmetics. Because this was an early build, expect bugs, lag, balance problems, and unfinished systems — that is normal for a test at this stage, and one of its purposes was to gather player feedback. More playtests are planned, with early access or full launch expected around 2027.

Character creation: faction, race, then class

Character creation flows in one direction, and each choice narrows the next. First you pick a faction: the Sacred Order or the Domination. Your faction determines which races you can choose. Your race then determines which classes you can play — this game is class-locked, unlike some MMOs where any race can be any class.

Because of that chain, some combinations are forced. For example, if you want to play a Mage on the Sacred Order, you are effectively locked into being a Human, because no other current Sacred Order race opens up the Mage class. Plan your character around the class you actually want.

One important consequence: choose your faction to match your friends. If you are on the Sacred Order and a friend is on the Domination, your ability to play together is very limited — you will largely be on opposing sides. Coordinate with friends or guildmates on a single faction before anyone creates a character.

Classes in the playtest

The full game is planned to have 10 classes, but only four were playable in this test: Paladin, Mage, Ranger, and Druid. With 12 days available, there was time to try each one and compare combat, skills, and weapons.

How combat works

Combat is best described as tab-target with exceptions — a hybrid of tab targeting plus skill-shots and ground-targeted (telegraphed) abilities. Press Tab to cycle and select a target (the selected enemy's name appears above it). Most abilities are tab-target, but a limited number can be placed on the ground, which makes those more action-based — for example, dropping an area-of-effect attack on the ground and pulling a tab-targeted mob into it.

There is no auto-attack. Each class has a basic attack (for the Ranger, this is marksmanship), but you have to re-tap it every time you want to use it — it does not keep firing on its own. Telegraphed enemy attacks appear as ground markers you can dodge out of. Combat is fast, and in this build time-to-kill could be very short, so expect fights to end quickly.

The talent system

You start the playtest at level 16 with 33 talent points to spend. Open the talent menu (in the test, via a button at the bottom right) and click the nodes you want. Each level-up grants 2 more talent points. With the current level cap of 20, that works out to a total of 40 talent points at max level. These nodes are significant power spikes, so always spend the points you earn.

Talents are fully refundable with no respec penalty, so you can experiment freely — try a build, refund it, and try another. Nodes let you pick primary skills and branch into passives, extra skills, shorter cast times, more damage, and so on, and every class can be built several ways. (If you want to plan a layout before committing in-game, you can sketch builds in our talent planner.) Because the talent trees are large and still being tuned, exact nodes and numbers will change between tests.

Leveling and quests

The fastest way to level — and therefore to earn talent points — is the main story quest. Follow it all the way through; it gives the best XP. Pick up side quests along the way as well. Killing mobs does give XP, but it is more efficient to do quests and kill mobs on the way rather than grinding mobs alone.

Use the mini-map to navigate: a quest NPC shows as an NPC icon with a green arrow indicating whether the target is above or below your current elevation. Side quests appear as purple diamonds (and as the standard NPC icon once you have not yet started them). Enemy NPCs of the opposing faction also show on the map with an NPC icon but appear red — you can ignore or kill them.

Two practical warnings for this build:

  • Kill quests require the last hit. You only get credit if you land the killing blow — this is true even in a party. For tougher targets such as mini-bosses, this matters: if a partner gets the last hit instead of you, you do not get credit. Coordinate so each player gets their own last hit.
  • Some quests are bugged. If a quest can't be accepted or otherwise seems broken, just skip it.

Gold, vendors, and gear

The best way to earn gold is by killing goblins, which drop it. You can also loot dead bodies for a chance at gold, and rare-and-above chests have a chance to drop it too.

Towns have three key vendor NPCs, marked by a bag icon on the mini-map:

  • A tool vendor.
  • A potion and food vendor.
  • A gear vendor — the most important of the three.

The gear vendor sells equipment with a level-1 requirement (weapons are the exception, requiring level 18), giving you a big early power spike. The catch is that gear rolls with random attributes, so to get a good roll you re-buy the same piece repeatedly to re-roll it. Not every vendor sells every piece, so rotate between vendors — their stock refreshes over time. Most gear is class-specific (a class icon appears under the gear's level indicator), so match what you buy to the class you are playing, and match the stats to your build. Note you cannot sell anything to the gear vendor — sell to the tool or potion vendor instead.

Chests and rarities

Chests are scattered across the map in four rarities: common, rare, epic, and legendary. Legendary chests tend to sit in hard-to-find spots but give the best rewards. They can drop rings — which (as of this test) were not obtainable anywhere else — and legendary gloves with extra stats. Both are large power spikes, so legendary chest locations are worth seeking out, though they can be contested by other players.

Scars: permanent progression

Scars are a second layer of character progression on top of gear and talents. A Scar is a permanent buff or modifier — described as more than just a flat "+5% strength," capable of fundamentally altering your abilities and playstyle. You earn them by hitting certain level thresholds and by defeating elite mobs and bosses. In the playtest, getting the last hit on the world boss let you choose one of five different Scars (for example, increased crit chance and crit damage for a damage-focused build).

Because Scars are earned through what you accomplish rather than copied from a build, two players with the identical talent tree can still play differently. Exploring widely and challenging a range of elites and bosses is the way to collect them.

Evershifting (procedural) dungeons

The game's dungeons are procedurally generated and were referred to as Evershifting Dungeons; the developers have also shown that this content scales by group size, from solo up to a full party. The first dungeon shared was the Crypt of the Fallen.

According to the dev-shared structure (reported by all.gg), each dungeon is built as two mazes, and each maze is eight rooms. There is a mini-boss at the connection point of each maze, and a final boss at the end of the final maze. Completing a dungeon unlocks higher tiers with more mazes, more rooms, greater enemy density, and higher difficulty. Note that the playtest started before the repeatable dungeon content was fully available, so expect this to evolve.

A realistic first-session plan

  1. Coordinate faction with your friends, then build your character: faction, then race, then class.
  2. Open the talent menu and spend your starting points; refund freely while you learn what you like.
  3. Follow the main story quest for XP, grabbing side quests on the way, and remember to land the last hit on kill-quest targets.
  4. Farm goblins for gold, then visit the gear vendor and re-roll class-specific pieces; rotate vendors as their stock refreshes.
  5. Hunt down legendary chests for rings and gloves, and challenge elites and bosses to start collecting Scars.
  6. Spend your 2 points each level-up all the way to the cap.

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