Ultimate Task List, beginner, to intermediate, to advanced play.

[biscuits4smut]

I have had a look, I have had an ask, and I couldn't find what I was looking for, so I thought I'd make my own task list, although what I know fits on a moderate sized post-it note, so I would like to ask the community to help me flesh it out. But first some context to put my request in.

I was recommended Ark by a friend who had got into it, in a, what I think his wife would agree was "unhealthy" way - that instantly appealed 😁 I was having some trouble getting a foothold myself and he recommended I watch some Phillinger Phoo on YouTube which really helped me to understand the principles of the game, and most importantly, gave a clear direction to aim for, to keep pushing forward to keep investing time into the game. But, somewhere around L30, after I'd tamed an Argy and could relatively explore the island without challenge,I became a bit disinterested in the game, which was a shame because so I gather there is MUCH more to enjoy, I wasn't anywhere near The Guardians, so all the game trailers suggested there was a world of Sci-Fi technology to develop - I was barely out of a loin cloth.

It's been a while since I played the game, so apologies if my inaugural list is oversimplified, but I would greatly appreciate help putting together a graduated task list which takes you from beginner, intermediate to advanced.

Start
1. Aquire wood and thatch by hand from trees
2. Pick up stone from the ground to craft a pick and hatchet
3. Protect yourself. Collect fibre from plants and craft cloth armour
4. Craft spears
5. Build a basic base to protect yourself from the night
6. Craft a bola in preparation for taming animals
7. Collect berries for basic food and to use as bait
8. Tame a parasaur for increased mobility
9. Tame a Carbonemys to act as storage
10. Work towards unlocking Mortar and Pestle
11. Work towards narcotics and ranged weaponry such as bows which will aid in future taming
12. Tame a Triceratops for protection on longer journeys
13. Build a garden with irrigation to prepare for crops
14. Create Compost Bins to support crops
14. Equip your base with all appliances in order to progress further (Cooking Pot, Forge, Smithy)
15 Tame a Argentavis

NOW, at this point I was picking up large deposits of metal from mountain sides, tamed a number of other species, Id just started to develop firearms, but I hadn't got any idea how to progress - where I was going and how I would get there. It would be really appreciated by any kind soul who might be able to add to my list here to give me some ideas when I return to the game.

[ShawnDaGeek]

:-| you can really tame with only one bola? what is your secret please?

[Sleazy Ninja]

More importantly how do you craft an argy saddle at level 30?

[Smightor]

As I just posted in other thread:

This is the game play loop:
1. Build a small base
2. Tame some dinos to protect you and help gather resources.
3. Lvl your toon and dinos and gear up. Build bigger as needed.
4. Complete the caves to get the artifacts.
5. Tame/Breed dino army
6. Use army to defeat sub bosses.
7. Use army to defeat main boss
8. Ascend to next map

This is very difficult and most players will never even defeat a sub boss much less the main and complete even 1 map.

[biscuits4smut]

Originally posted by Smightor:

As I just posted in other thread:

This is the game play loop:
1. Build a small base
2. Tame some dinos to protect you and help gather resources.
3. Lvl your toon and dinos and gear up. Build bigger as needed.
4. Complete the caves to get the artifacts.
5. Tame/Breed dino army
6. Use army to defeat sub bosses.
7. Use army to defeat main boss
8. Ascend to next map

This is very difficult and most players will never even defeat a sub boss much less the main and complete even 1 map.

Thanks for the response, yeah that's the sort of thing I was looking at, but in terms of focusing on specific aims and objectives, can you be any more specific? For instance there's a lot of dinos, resources and gear in the game, I'm assuming it's not all as valuable as each other towards building an army.

Can I ask you to break down the cave system, I never ventured into the cave systems - so what would you recommend in terms of equipment, armour, weapons and dinos before starting this milestone?

[Smightor]

First off, find a youtuber you like. Syntac, PhlingerPhoo, or my fav nooblets, There is a lot of tutorial vids. Hard to tell everything in a forum.

Second: https://ark.fandom.com/wiki/ is a very useful tool.

every resource has a list of tools/dinos that will gather it. do some research on the wiki and choose which dino you would like to tame to collect it for you. Example Anky harvest metal and have metal weight reduction. you can see that in the page for metal or the page for anky. But, they are not the only dino you could choose.

My basic resourcing team is: Argy for hauling, Anky for metal, dodi for stone, beaver for wood, and megatherium for everything else.

My best all around mounts: Argy, Thyla, Megatherium

Best base defense: To many ways to answer that. Aggressive Parasaur on turret mode with some strong dinos on follow is good early on untill you have good walls

If you look up 'caves' on the wiki, you can see advice on what to wear, which dinos to bring, which weapons, what artifact is in it, ect. Every cave is different. each has loot drops and an artifact needed to fight a boss. The youtubers can show you a walk thru of said cave. I do not recommend you venture in a cave without knowing what you are walking into. Pay attention to how old the vid is as some caves have changed over the years.

So much is left up to playstyle and preference. I like the long neck rifle, my buddy likes his crossbow, but we both use shottys in caves. I like Baryonx for caves, he likes thylas. Some just use no dino and run it on foot.

There are a couple easy caves, like lower south that you could do on foot pretty early in game, but most are late game content.

Boss army 'Standard' is 18 max lvl breed imprinted Rexs with good sadddles, one Max lvl Yute, and one max lvl daedon. But I have seen people use an army of therizino to beat bosses, some like to throw in a megatherium(or 18) for the broodmother fight, and I have seen the main boss go down with a guy solo on foot. Its all up to how you want to do it.

The best gear comes from deep sea drops, cave drops, red and yellow air drops. As far as gear goes, just use the best you have for the situation. I use hide in most caves, wear my flac in the world and boss fights, fur or an otter when in the cold. Just remember that that awesome strong ascendant chest you just got will be expensive to repair.

No one can tell you the best way for you to play this game. Do research, watch vids and try what you like, fail and try something different.

[biscuits4smut]

Wow, that's really useful, thanks for that. 👍