Lost Ark Guide – 13 Tips I Wish I Knew Before I Started

Lost Ark is currently in Closed Beta and it’s available until this Thursday, so plenty of time to jump in and experience this new MMO Action RPG. Today I am going to look at some quick tips to get you started, and these are a bunch of things I wish I knew before I started. These tips range from fast travel, levelling up to max level, time-saving tips, and getting loot drops.

Without delay, let’s dive into the tips.

How to level up to max level (50)

Some games can make the process of leveling up quite complicated, but in Lost Ark, you can level up quickly through the main campaign. If you want to do this as fast as possible, then I’d recommend focusing on the main story quest, and ignoring the side quests for the time being. Keep running through the main story and you’ll hit rank 50 in no time at all.

Fast Travel

You can use the Tripods in the game to fast travel. These are indicated on the map by the triangles, and you can find them in towns, plus all over the map making it nice and easy to fast travel. The only drawback with these is you have to spend a little currency to fast travel in this way. To use these fast travel points open up the map by pressing M on the keyboard, and then select the location you want to travel to. Alternatively, you can use the mini-map by pressing tab, then ALT-clicking on the Tripod location to fast travel.

Use your mount to get around faster

As you play through the story quests, early on in the game you’ll get a mount, and this can be used to travel around the place a little quicker. You will often enter into a zone and see a marker on the other side of the map, but by getting out your mount by pressing 5, then you’ll hop on your horse, or whatever mount you have equipped or registered, and you can use this to quickly get where you need to go.

Get a FREE pet

You may have noticed other players in Lost Ark running around with pets, and wondered how to get them. After playing the main story quest for a short time, you’ll get a notification letting you know about a core guide quest called ‘Learning about Pets’. Once you get this quest, head to Prideholme and have a chat with Blueberry, who will demonstrate how annoying it is to pick up loads of things on the floor manually. You’ll go and speak to Blueberry’s half-sister and she’ll tell you about Pets and how useful they are.

Keep chatting and you’ll get yourself a free pet, which you then have to register. Once you do this you’ll have a nice little pet buddy following you around. It’s not just decorative, they help auto pick up items, which is going to come in handy and save you from clicking on the massive piles of loot you’ll be getting from Dungeons later on.

Use your skill points

As you play the game you’ll get various skill points which you can spend on your character attributes. Make sure you are spending these, plus if you don’t like the config then you can respec at any time for free. As you level up and get XP, you’ll acquire skill points and try adding points to various skills and see what playstyle you like. Keep an eye on your UI as the game will tell you to spend your points. There’s also the tripod system, which means you can specialize your skills.

Move the mini-map

You can access an instant map by pressing tab at any time. This overlays on the screen, and this gives you plenty of information on where to go. However, it’s in the middle of the screen, and this may not be to your liking, so if you want to move it you can, by clicking on the mouse wheel in the middle of your mouse and then moving the mini-map into a better position.

Adventurer’s Tome

It’s worth keeping an eye on your Adventurer’s Tome. This is a log of your Adventures, plus you can get some nice loot from the Tome.

Change the mouse cursor colour

This is a quick UI tip and you can quickly and easily change the mouse cursor colour by holding CTRL and scrolling the mouse wheel. Sometimes things can get pretty hectic in battle and changing the mouse cursor on the fly is a good thing, so you know where it is at all times. You can cycle through various colours, to make it stand out in the background, especially when you are in a big battle.

Do Dungeons to get loot drops

It goes without saying that Dungeons are a decent place to get better loot in the game. As you progress through the main story you will naturally come across Dungeons, and you’ll have to enter them either solo or with a group. In the end, there’s a big boss, and you’ll want to take down the boss for some loot drops. Once you’ve taken out the boss and collected the loot, make sure to check your new gear against your currently equipped gear and put on your high-level stuff, as this is going to increase your overall level for your character. This is standard MMO RPG gameplay, but it’s worth shouting out and paying attention to the loot drops in Dungeons.

Quick exit from Dunegons

At the end of Dungeons, you can play a song to exit the Dungeon, normally this is by pressing F2. If you want to skip this animation and song, then you can exit more quickly by typing /escape in chat. This is a small thing, but it can save you some time in the long run.

Check out the store

It’s worth checking out the store in the beta, not to spend real money (especially given no progress is being carried over for the full release) but we have been given some free currency to play with. This means you can buy some cosmetics, plus I think there are pets and mounts in there too. Given the currency is free for us all, I’d go in there and spend it.

Play with friends

You can play through the whole game solo if you want, but these types of games are best with friends, plus you can get into some pretty epic battles, so it’s best experienced with buds if at all possible. Given the game is free-to-play, this should be quite easy, just show them a YouTube video and get stuck in.

Watch Twitch to get a beta key

If you haven’t managed to get into the closed beta at the time, then there is still time to get in. For a 100% way to get into the beta, you can buy a founders pack, with the bronze pack being as cheap as $15. However, if you don’t want to pay then you can head on over to Twitch, check out some streams from creators who are playing Lost Ark and have drops enabled and that will give you a beta key. You’ll need to sign up to the various channels, link your account and all that jazz that goes along with getting a beta key, and you can sign up on the Lost Ark website, or by searching ‘Twitch Lost Ark Beta Key Drops’.

That’s it for the tips for the time being. There are a few days left of the closed beta, and still, plenty of time to jump in. Lost Ark wasn’t really on my radar until the closed beta, but I have been having a great time playing so far. There are a few notable bugs in the game, but it’s scheduled for a full release in March 2022, so there’s plenty of time to fix things.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the tips, and if you have any more, share them with the Lost Ark Community.

That’s it for this guide for Lost Ark tips I wish I knew before I started. For more Lost Ark content like this check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.