10 things I WISH I knew before playing Ark: Survival Evolved

10 tips for beginners! This game is hard, don't feel bad about being confused or dying a lot. It happens to everyone that plays lol

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[RUGER]

1 tip: don’t get attached to anything in pvp servers.
Edit: don’t get attached to anything at all.

[deadjam]

[Tips for your stats]
1.) The base max level you can hit is level 104.
2.) You can increase your max level through other tasks, such as defeating end-game bosses, collecting all explorer notes, etc.
3.) Its recommended to invest at the minimum of 130% movement speed. I usually go with 145% since there are items that help with movement such as grapples later on in the game.
4.) It is fine if you choose to do a quirky build. I once played with my friends and increased my HP to 800, it was pretty funny.
5.) Unless if you are playing in a PVE server/world, only invest in either (Health, Stamina, Weight, Speed). It is because the other stats(except crafting) can be dealt with using items and dinosaurs.
6.) Be careful in choosing what recipes to unlock, you have limited things that you can unlock.
7.) WARNING. There is a highly contagious disease in ark that can be gained from either leeches or players who are sick. It has the following effects:
20% Reduction in WEIGHT, MELEE, HEALTH, and STAMINA.
20% Increase in SPEED
50% Increase in FOOD, WATER, and OXYGEN consumption

[Tips for your base]
1.) It is recommended to skip past the Thatch buildings. You should use at least Wooden buildings. Stone buildings is best since it cannot be damaged by most dinosaurs whatsoever.
2.) Your first base is recommended to be hidden, example is either in forests, or near rocky cliffs.
3.) For newbies, try building it near the recommended spawnpoints, it usually has the least hostile dinosaurs.
4.) You can use rafts as your base! There is only two things that can capsize a boat; It is either players or a Leedsichthys, which is a large aquatic dinosaur capable of destroying boats, they are somewhat uncommon though.

[Tips for your dinosaurs]
1.) Dinosaurs with a red aura around them are called "Alpha" dinosaurs, they are much stronger than the normal ones and cannot be tamed, though when killed, it can drop some good loot.
2.) Usually, the max level that a wild dinosaur can have is 150 to 180.
3.) When tamed, your dinosaur max level is set to only INCREASE 88 levels AFTER taming.
4.) Try not to get too attached to your dinosaurs. This may be difficult, even for me, but unless the server is PVE, there is a high chance that your dinosaur may get killed.
5.) Craft BOLAS. You can use it to temporarily immobilize most human-sized dinosaurs or, humans. It is very useful from either taming, or running from dinosaurs like raptors.
6.) Dinosaurs are either HERBIVORES or CARNIVORES. For most players, It is recommended to either use MEJOBERRY or RAW MEAT to tame dinosaurs.
7.) You can use NARCOBERRY to make the dinosaur(or players ;) ) sleep longer. It can be used to craft TRANQ arrows as well.
8.) Things that can SPOIL will last longer inside a DINOSAUR's inventory rather than a player's. Keep your spoilable stuff in there until you can get a preserving bin.
9.) When your dinosaur is injured, forcefully feed it food so that it heals quicker.

[Tips for YOU]
1.) Be careful of deep rivers/lakes, it commonly has piranhas in them, sometimes megaladons.
2.) Make sure you place SLEEPING BAGS or BEDS at your base or areas where you want to respawn in.
3.) Use Dododex! It is incredibly useful when taming dinosaurs
4.) SHIELDs and PARACHUTEs are very useful for surviving.
5.) When you die, a stream of green light will appear at your dead body so that It is easier to spot.
6.) When you see a beam of colored light, It is most likely a SUPPLY CRATE/DROP. Sometimes it drops good stuff that tribes would die for. The color depends on the quality and is restricted by level.
WHITE LV3
GREEN LV15
BLUE LV 25
PURPLE LV 35
YELLOW LV 45
RED LV 60

EXTRA: If the supply crate/drop has a yellow/orange ring on it, it means the drop is doubled :))

[thomasdevlin]

Save your engram points! You don't have enough points to learn every engram, so only learn things you know you need. Blueprints are a great way to save points too, as they give you access to an engram without actually needing to learn it

[WolvenSpectre]

1) Alpha Creatures can't be tamed and are massively more tanky than regular versions of that dino.
2) If you slip and fall off a high position try to land on a dino… any dino, it will remove all or most of the fall damage you are about to take.
3) Stamina is as important to you in the water as Oxygen. It used to be when you ran out you would die, but now you just have your movement in water affected that can make you drown or die of exhaustion before you get back to land you can stand on.
4) Keep flyers on passive unless you want them to fight for you. Having your flying mount in a fight and trying to get on it or getting it to stop and follow you to save it or yourself. If you are worried about them not defending themselves when attacked remember that if it has a saddle it can tank a few hits until you get to it, and if what is attacking is powerful enough that it won't survive you likely wouldn't be able to fight it off in time to save it either. It will also keep them from attacking things your are trying to tame.
5) ALWAYS Carry Parachutes and have them on your hot bat. Yes, even underwater. I have been in fights deep in the ocean dismounted and was teleported to the top of the skybox. I don't have to guess how that lateral thinking problem on how a SCUBA Diver was found dead in a tree in the forest for I have been that SCUBA Diver. Also it can be usefull for traveling far distances without a flyer if you have a way to climb or can get to high altitudes.
6) Recipes have buffs that are useful out of combat like improved harvesting or better results crafting from blueprints. This is often overlooked by early players and impatient ones but over time the difference actually saves time and can earn experience faster.

[shawmiserix]

fortitude keeps you warmer in cold climates and cooler in warm climates and also a quite lovely plus is that it increases your torpor

[riggsplays]

I usually lure hostile creatures chasing me to a bronto, just hid between the brontos legs and the creature will try to hit you and it will hit the bronto and piss it off. It works 99% of the time

[MrSlinky]

When you said to put a bed down in your base, I felt personally attacked

[darklingnz]

If you ride a dino off a cliff dismount just before hitting the ground. Unridden dinos take no fall damage and if you dismount close to the ground it doesn't count the momentum of the whole fall just that little bit.

Another option to get rid of something nasty around your base is to lure it off a cliff. Fairly perm result depending on the cliff. Just use a bow to agro it at as far a range as you can hit it from and you won't need speed.

Put your critters within a walled complex. Roofed pens are good if you can afford them as trolls like to drop wild critters into ppls bases even on PvE.

I prefer to go weight and stam as first levels as I use harvesting to level faster. On a single foundation you can place (at extremes) a bed, smithy, mortar and pestle, refining forge. Get to metal tools asap and start cranking out sparkpowder to later be made into gunpowder. You can get some serious levels in a short time. I never build an actual starter base until I get to stone as so many things eat through lesser quality too quickly.

With pitfall traps you don't need speed, just use a bow to attact things at distance. Also building them on a raft allows you to move the trap. If you make a pitfall trap on PvE ALWAYS put a gate on it and leave it unlocked! If someone else lags and runs a dino into it by accident theres nothing worse than having to leave a tame till an admin or the trap owner gets on to help you free it.

If you need to move a lot of fliers at once don't have them all follow you. Hop on one of them and have the others follow it. Get off and hop on your normal flier and have that leader follow you. This stops the following birds overtaking you if you stop. So your screen isn't full of flapping wings.

If you use a quetz base/cage put an extra pteranadon on it and have the quetz follow it at a HIGH DISTANCE. This can be used as a quetz handbrake so it wont try to land if your not on it (stamina rules depend on the server of course)

[irish_vampyre]

I always recommend at least 5 levels in weight to start. Having to leave resources behind, especially early on when you don't have anywhere to keep things, is just an instant failure.

[iAmMantequilla]

I just started using taming groups so I could move specific species without having to follow one by one or accidentally calling my every dino at my base. Much easier to put breeding dinos in a specific area

[greentank]

If anyone is on mobile, giant beavers and mammoths are a good alternative for wood gathering.

[fbj]

2:35 you could also get that creature that wants to kill you and aggro it onto a pack of trikes and when they kill it you also get free loot from it! it works well

[ollieVeroli]

I finally started Ark a few days ago and I definitely needed to see this video beforehand. That pitfall trap is a great one. For early protection I just tamed a bunch of dilophosaurs to run around with me. I don't know how well they'll be when I venture off the starting area, but hopefully their numbers will suffice.

[ladyteruki]

5:30 To be fair the taming tracker didn't exist yet back then :)
I just wish the taming tracker had a hotkey attached to it... Sometimes it really inconvenient to have to click in your menu like that. Also it'd be nice if you could turn on and off what creatures you're monitoring at will, and delete ones you started taming accidentally (Pegomastax, Fjordhawks...) but didn't want. I mean, it's useful for sure, I just think it could be a bit more flexible.
6:30 The whistles also have a hotkey each ! And you can remap them so that you don't do a "follow all" in the middle of the base by accident, too :P You know what I'm talking about hahaha ! I put mine further from my fingers just to be on the safe side !
8:13 The search bar is also a life saver in your inventory or crafting engrams. Even if, for some weird reason, you're one of these weirdos who use the folder view, a search is so much more practical and fast.

[VisonsofFalseTruths]

For the trap demonstration you used a theri and stone structures. Probably worth mentioning that some creatures, including the theri, can eventually rip right through stone structures, more quickly if they’re higher level. You can layer walls to give yourself more time. You can also layer large bear traps inside the trap for the same purpose. Might be worth keeping in mind.

[BartTheBardOfficial]

Wow, a tutorial/guide with a guy that actually has a chill voice and not some weird tick of making each sentence sound the same or trying to sound 'cool'. Man this was a breath of fresh air! Thanks!

[aym]

What a great video been playing for 5 months with only island engrams. Cursing why I didn't have net gun. Turns out now I do thanks for the tips. We new players really need things like this. Please do more.

[whatd]

Regarding chainsaws, sure they are great at gathering lots of wood, but depending on how you've distributed your stat points it can get really annoying when you get encumbered after chopping down one or two trees. Combine that with the fact that, in the early-mid game at least, they use up a decent amount of gas and resources, and you'll find something like a Beaver your best bet for gathering lots of wood. They harvest about as much as a chainsaw and also get a large weight reduction on it. Going out with the beaver, munching on some trees, and carrying it back to base with an argy is a great alternative to sprinting around with a chainsaw if that's just not your jam.

[braydonkowal]

Wow you got lot of subs last time i saw you had 40k

[RaveoLife]

Youve earned my like by listing the controls for all the platforms. tutorials overlook this and I find myself having to look up a specific console tutorial.