Lost Ark: Tips and tricks in the beginner's guide to the new online role-playing game
17/2/2022
Translation: machine translated
Lost Ark has finally been released. With our beginner's tips for the MMORPG, you are prepared for the first steps.
This is an article from our content partner "PC Games". Here you can find the original article by author Daniel Link.
This transparent map is your best friend
Pressing the Tab key opens a transparent map of your current surroundings. This map is quite helpful, as you can continue to move around freely while it is open. However, if the placement in the middle of the screen bothers you, you can easily move the map by holding down the middle mouse button and dragging the map to another location. Additionally, you can also use the various teleport stations via this map by holding down the ALT key.
Source: Smilegate
Change the color of your mouse pointer
In Lost Ark, for example, you'll face a horde of monsters in the Chaos Dungeon. It's easy to lose track of your mouse cursor, which isn't ideal for a game of this type. To make your mouse pointer stand out a bit from the background, you can change its color in the game's settings. Likewise, holding down the CTRL key and scrolling through the various configurations with your mouse wheel will change the color of your mouse pointer.
The "real" game starts at level 50
As we mentioned in our Lost Ark overview article, the "real" game doesn't start until you reach level 50. Since the gameplay loop of Lost Ark is based on daily or weekly repeatable activities, it doesn't hurt to reach level 50 quickly in order to start playing on the first day. You can learn how to reach this level as quickly as possible in our article on this topic.
Quickly escape from dungeons
The main quest of Lost Ark will often send you into a dungeon to advance the plot. There are two ways to leave one after successfully completing it. Either use the F2 key to call up your song menu and play the Song of Escape, or simply type "/Escape" into the game's chat. This will instantly exit the dungeon without having to play a song beforehand. However, this function has a 20 minute cooldown.
Source: Smilegate
Check your roster menu
Lost Ark has two different level systems. One is the level of the character you are currently playing. Your roster level, on the other hand, is your account level on your current server, so to speak. Every time you level up, you'll get some useful bonuses, such as five extra points on your skill, and occasionally even skill promotions that give you some extra talent points. However, to get these bonuses, you'll first have to redeem them in the roster menu. So you shouldn't forget to take a look at the menu from time to time.
Redeem your various rewards
Also, don't forget about the game's various collectibles and daily systems. For example, through the rapport system you'll be able to give a gift to certain characters every day, show a certain emote, or play a song to increase their affection towards you. There are some nice rewards to be had here, so you should start doing this as early as possible. By the way, you can tell that a character is part of the rapport system by the pink heart above them.
Source: Smilegate
Furthermore, you should definitely take collectibles like Mokoko seeds if you happen to see one on the map. While these don't become useful until a little later in the game, there are some interesting items beckoning here as well. Furthermore, in Lost Ark you can still complete the different maps by completing quest strings, defeating unique monsters, capturing various items, and more. The game rewards you here in stages with some nice items, which you also have to redeem first in the corresponding menu. This is located on the N key by default.
Don't waste your healing potions
The classic "Holy Trinity" consisting of Tank, Healer, and DPS, as you know it from MMORPGs like Final Fantasy 14 and World of Warcraft, is not used in Lost Ark. Instead, classes are only divided into DPS and Support. Although support classes like the Bard have some healing spells, in group content players have to use their own healing potions to stay alive. In Lost Ark, there are two pieces of this. First, we would have potions that restore a fixed amount of health. The second type of healing potion replenishes a certain percentage of your health. The former can't be used in dungeons or raids, so you should use them mainly when questing. However, you should save the percentage healing potions for the aforementioned dungeons and raids, as they are your only way to replenish your health. So if you waste them while leveling up to level 50, you'll either have to buy them expensively from the auction house or craft them yourself.
Increase your visibility
The next tip is essential, especially for PvP players. In the settings of Lost Ark you can force an aspect ratio of 21:9, even if you don't have the right monitor for it. The game will then be displayed with two black bars at the top and bottom of your monitor, but your horizontal viewing distance will increase considerably. Especially when fighting classes like the sniper, who have quite a long range with some abilities, this can make the difference between life and death in the arena.
Source: Smilegate
Get your Awakening skill
Once level 50 is reached, each class gains access to their so-called "Awakening Skill". You can think of this as a sort of ultimate ability, with a suitably long cooldown. To unlock this skill, all you have to do is travel to Trixion and accept the corresponding quest from Beatrice. By the way, in the course of the game, each class will receive two more Awakening skills, but you can only have one active at a time.
Source: Smilegate
Don't throw away your old equipment
To unlock new PvE content in Lost Ark, you'll need to upgrade your equipment to get a higher item level. Once you have upgraded all of your equipment 15 times, you will unlock the next level of content. Currently there are three levels of content, called T1, T2, and finally T3. Once you reach a new tier, you will also receive a completely new set of equipment, which you will need to upgrade again. Your old items will be useless after this, but at least you can get back some of the materials you used to upgrade them. All you have to do is use the "Recycle" option on the corresponding NPC.
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