How to Play ARK: Survival Evolved Efficiently: A Comprehensive Guide
Playing ARK: Survival Evolved efficiently boils down to a combination of smart resource management, strategic leveling, effective base building, and a thorough understanding of the game’s mechanics. It’s not just about surviving; it’s about thriving in a world teeming with prehistoric creatures and challenging environments. To play efficiently, you need to focus on a few key areas: prioritize your early-game levels, master resource gathering, choose the right engrams, establish a safe base quickly, and understand the importance of taming. Efficient play also means adapting to the map you’re on and making calculated risks rather than wandering aimlessly. Ultimately, it’s about making every action count and progressing steadily toward your goals, whether that’s defeating bosses, building a powerful tribe, or just surviving another day.
Understanding the Basics: Early Game Efficiency
Prioritizing Character Stats
The initial hours of ARK can be the most challenging. Focusing on the right stats early on is crucial. Movement Speed and Weight should be your top priorities. Speed allows you to escape dangers effectively, while increased weight capacity speeds up your resource gathering and base building. After that, focus on Health to survive encounters and some Stamina to avoid exhaustion. Avoid over-investing in Melee Damage early since you’ll rely on dinos later. Fortitude and Torpidity can be secondary stats to consider later. Prioritizing these core stats in the early stages is one of the fastest ways to become stronger.
Efficient Resource Gathering
Don’t waste time using your bare hands! Craft a stone pickaxe and hatchet as quickly as possible. These basic tools will vastly improve your gathering speed. Identify which resources you need most. Wood is generally useful at the start, but don’t neglect the importance of stone, thatch, and fiber. Learn which resources can be found in abundance in certain areas. This knowledge will save you significant time and effort. Also be mindful of your weight, going overweight slows you down drastically.
Choosing the Right Engrams
Engram points are precious. Don’t learn every recipe. Focus on crafting essential tools, weapons, basic armor (cloth armor to start), and building materials first. Prioritize essential structures like a small shelter (at the minimum a thatch hut), crafting tables, mortar and pestle, and a bed as quickly as possible. Avoid spending points on items you won’t use often early on.
Building a Basic Shelter
A safe base is essential. Start small with a simple thatch hut that will protect you from the elements and wildlife attacks. Strategically place your crafting stations and bed inside, and make sure you are near a water source and an easy to gather food supply. A bed is critical as it allows you to respawn there and provides a fast travel point in early game. Don’t spend excessive time on aesthetic elements in the very early game, focus on functional efficiency.
Mid-Game: Expanding and Optimizing
Taming Dinosaurs
Taming is fundamental to ARK. Learn about the creatures and their unique abilities and decide which will help you most. A Trike is a good early-game herbivore to help with resource gathering, while a Raptor can provide a good defensive option. Research taming methods and use them appropriately to avoid wasting resources. Use dododex.com to find the exact resources needed for taming particular dinos. Taming is essential to progress, so make it a priority as soon as you’re set up with the basics.
Advanced Resource Management
Once you are more established focus on streamlining your resource gathering. Create a secure farm area, and grow your own crops. Dinos like the Doedicurus and Ankylosaurus are incredible resource gatherers. Also look at crafting higher-tier tools and weapons. The Metal pickaxe and hatchet allow for faster gathering, while weapons like the bow and crossbow make hunting safer and more efficient.
Base Expansion and Security
Your base should grow alongside you. Upgrade from thatch to wood, then stone, and then metal, building sturdier structures. Always consider defensive measures for your base. Tames set on turret mode can help defend your base when you are offline. Set up your resources and crafting tables in a logical fashion, allowing faster crafting and faster storage.
Strategic Tribe Building
Joining a tribe provides a variety of advantages. Shared work responsibilities, more hands to collect and craft, and the ability to collectively tame much larger dinos. Look for a tribe with a good reputation that is active and aligns with your gaming goals.
Late Game: Mastering ARK
Optimizing Character and Dino Stats
As you progress, understand the importance of specific stats. Increase weight on your gathering tames, melee damage for your combat tames, and health for tanking tames. Breed high-quality dinos with beneficial mutations. These will be essential for boss fights.
Exploring and Tackling End-Game Content
Start planning for boss fights. Research the bosses’ strengths and weaknesses, breed appropriate dinos, and gather the necessary items. Explore different maps, learn their unique dangers, and find their rare resources. These higher-level activities test your understanding of the game’s systems.
Understanding the ARK Maps
Each ARK map offers different landscapes, resources, and challenges. Knowing which map suits your play style is important. Some maps are great for resource gathering, while others offer the most challenging boss fights. The Island is the basic map, but Lost Island and Fjordur are extremely popular.
Server Settings and Adjustments
Understand how server settings affect gameplay. Things like experience multipliers, taming speed, and harvest rates can dramatically change the game’s difficulty and your personal progress. Adjust server settings to your liking to help keep the game fun.
15 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What are the best settings to run ARK smoothly?
To improve FPS, lower “Sky Quality”, “Terrain Shadows”, “General Shadows”, and Anti-Aliasing. Using the “Medium” preset can often be an easy way to balance visuals with performance.
2. What should I prioritize in ARK?
Prioritize stats like Weight and Movement Speed early on, followed by Health and Stamina. Food and water are a constant requirement. Focus on taming useful dinos for resource gathering and defense.
3. How do I get good fast in ARK?
Level up Movement Speed and Weight early. Run away from dangerous situations and focus on crafting for experience. Building a good base is crucial to getting on the right track.
4. What is the main goal of ARK?
The main goal is survival. Players must hunt, harvest, craft, build shelters, and tame dinosaurs to survive in the harsh environment of the ARK.
5. What is the ultimate goal of ARK?
While the main goal is survival, many players strive to conquer bosses, explore different maps, or build thriving communities. It’s a sandbox game so create your own goals.
6. What is the best difficulty offset for ARK?
Setting DifficultyOffset to 1.0 is recommended. It makes it easier to understand and adjust the difficulty value of the server to your preferred experience.
7. What difficulty should I put on for ARK?
Starting with a lower difficulty like 0.2 is good for beginners as it limits the maximum level of wild dinos. Increase this setting as you get stronger to find higher-level dinos for taming.
8. What are 3 of the most useful commands in ARK?
The commands God (toggles godmode), InfiniteStats (refills health, stamina, oxygen, food, and water), and GMBuff (godmode plus infinitestats and additional experience points) are often considered useful.
9. What is the best skill to level up in ARK?
Weight is often considered the most important skill to level up. Next, comes Health, Stamina and Movement Speed. After that, Fortitude, Melee Damage and Torpidity.
10. What is the best ARK map?
Lost Island, Ragnarok, and Fjordur are popular options due to their size and content. However, your preferences and goals will influence your choice.
11. What to do in ARK if bored?
Explore new areas, breed and tame dinos, go hunting, build elaborate structures, and tackle bosses. There’s always something to do.
12. What is the hardest boss in ARK?
The King Titan is widely considered the hardest boss, followed by the Overseer and Dragon.
13. What does starving do in ARK?
“Starve taming” is a technique used to quickly tame creatures by only feeding them when they are completely starved, which minimizes wasted resources.
14. Does higher difficulty in ARK mean better loot drops?
Yes, higher difficulty values will result in items and blueprints with higher tiers and stats.
15. What makes you level up fast in ARK?
Crafting large quantities of items and building structures will quickly level you up. Narcotics are especially good for this.