The quick answer
The Develop menu is the starting point for checking your character, equipment and abilities. Use Gear for equipment systems, Abilities for Martial Arts, Inner Ways and Mystic Skills, and Path Guide to understand a compatible setup. Open a specific requirement instead of treating every prompt as equally urgent.
On this page
Open Develop and recognise its three main jobs
Open the main menu and choose Develop. Abilities shows the techniques and passives you use; Gear shows the equipment supporting them; Talents contains a separate set of unlocks and effects. Start on the tab that owns your intended change. The same weapon picture can appear in more than one place without representing the same upgrade.
Find the screen that answers your question
| Question | Start here | Inspect |
|---|---|---|
| Why does my weapon feel weak? | Abilities → Martial Arts | The equipped style, its level and breakthrough. |
| Is my equipment behind? | Gear | Equipped pieces, slot enhancement and available gear systems. |
| Which passives work with this setup? | Abilities → Inner Ways | Equipped effects and their activation conditions. |
| How do these two weapons work together? | Path Guide | The suggested combination and available tutorial. |
| What is this stat doing? | Character details | Its current value and in-game explanation. |
For a missing exploration attribute, open Develop → Details → Exploration Skills and select the relevant attribute. Its acquisition entry can point you to an appropriate activity. This is a different branch from Abilities → Mystic Skills, where you inspect an individual technique and its development.
Run a short development audit
Start from the build you will actually use next. Inspect its active Martial Arts, then its equipment and passive choices. If you change builds during the audit, start the comparison again; otherwise you can end up fixing the secondary loadout while thinking you are improving the main one.
Record just one weak point in each area. For example: primary art can break through, an armour slot has missed enhancement, and one passive requires an action you never use. Fixing those named problems is easier to evaluate than following every highlighted button.
Read upgrade requirements as a checklist
- Check that the selected Martial Art or item is the intended target.
- Read the next level or breakthrough reward before the cost.
- Identify whether the blocker is character progression, a resource or another unlock.
- Open the missing material’s acquisition information.
- Choose one available route and return to the original screen afterwards.
If there is no usable acquisition route yet, check the requirement on that route. A locked activity can indicate that story or character advancement should come first. Buying unrelated materials will not remove that gate.
Use guidance to learn, then make a deliberate choice
The official development updates added Path Tutorials to the Path Guide. Use them to try the basic features and combinations before committing to a larger change. A tutorial answers “how does this work?”; it does not prove that the setup is the strongest choice in every activity.
Likewise, a development recommendation can flag an area that is behind without understanding your personal priorities. If your current goal is exploration, you may choose a useful traversal or interaction unlock before fine-tuning a competitive build.
Check automated purchases and replacements
Quick Enhance and similar shortcuts are convenient after you understand the proposed change. Before confirming, inspect the materials, any purchase cost and the selected target. An upgrade becoming available is not by itself a reason to spend a limited currency.
After a gear change, check the saved Development Plans as well as the active one. The game can offer Batch Replace when the old piece is used in other plans; select only the plans you intend to change. A damage upgrade in today’s setup may be a poor replacement in a saved support setup.
Walk through Abilities without spending anything
- Read both equipped Martial Art names. These are your combat styles, not the inventory names of your weapon items.
- Open the first art and read its ordinary attacks, named skill and next breakthrough. Return and inspect the second art.
- Inspect the Inner Ways slots. For each passive, identify the action that makes it useful.
- Inspect the Mystic Skills you can access and the conditions for using one.
- Return to the overview and explain what each part contributes before deciding which part needs resources.
For example, you may discover that the weapon you use most has been developed while the supporting style is still behind. That is a more useful finding than a general instruction to raise your power score.
Check Gear and Talents after Abilities
| Tab | First inspection | What to leave until you understand it |
|---|---|---|
| Gear | Equipped pieces, set effects and the level of each enhanced slot. | Repeated retuning, conversion and destructive recycling. |
| Talents → Basic | Available action unlocks and their prerequisites. | Spending simply to remove a notification. |
| Talents → Arena | Scope of competitive effects. | Assuming they improve your current story encounter. |
| Talents → Boss | The named mode, challenge and recorded progress. | Treating a campaign clear as every version of that boss. |
A worked example: “my new weapon did not help”
First check Gear: did you actually equip the new weapon, or only open its reward chest? Next check Abilities: is the intended Martial Art active and developed? Then check Inner Ways: are the passives supporting that art equipped? Finally, read the skill you are testing so you know its required state or resource.
Change one missing piece at a time. If the item was still in the Bag, equipping it resolves that part. If the wrong Martial Art was selected, more gear enhancement would not have corrected the mistake. A single number on the overview cannot tell you which of these actions you forgot.
Match the blocked button to its actual requirement
| What the screen tells you | What it means | Where to go |
|---|---|---|
| Higher character level required | Your character has not met the upgrade gate. | Quest progress or Solo Mode → Upgrade if capped. |
| Missing material | The selected action needs a specific item. | That material’s How to Obtain entry and the Bag. |
| Learn first | The ability itself is not unlocked. | Its acquisition clue or introductory quest. |
| Wrong setup seems to change | You may be editing another saved plan. | Check the active plan and Batch Replace choices. |
| No apparent benefit | The effect may need a trigger or different mode. | Read the effect and test its stated action. |
What to read next
Common questions
Which keyboard shortcut opens Develop?
Input layouts and platforms differ. Use the main menu or your configured function wheel to locate Develop, then check the binding shown by your client rather than relying on a fixed shortcut.
Sources & verification
Source research is separate from in-game testing. Recommendations are identified as editorial advice.
- Official: May development and map changes
Path Tutorial, purchase-aware Quick Enhance and saved-plan replacements; not a claim of current costs.