Crimson Desert Enhanced: Guide to Mechanics and Tips/Tricks for Beginners and Veterans

Steam Community guide by Athrek.

Intro

This guide is a collection of Mechanics, Tips, and Tricks for both Beginner and Veteran players. I'll start with a TL;DR of the most Important stuff that most people don't talk about then do more in-depth lists from there that explain the how's and why's.
I've also included a list of Skill Observation locations, but I haven't found them all yet so I'd appreciate anyone filling in the gaps. And located at the end is some really broken stuff so I recommend only doing it if you want to become OP and break the game.
I'll try to update this guide with any new big-information I come across, likely in the form of new sections to make it easier on people, so please let me know if you have any suggestions, feedback, or requests for other guides as I'm considering making a few more.
Without further ado, I hope everyone enjoys the guide!

TL;DR Most Important Mechanics/Tips

• Death Doesn't Matter - No Consequences
• Skill Observation - Learn Skills from enemies by watching them. I'll have a list but Boss Skill observations are missable so try to get them.
• Enemies Respawn(kind of) - Random Bandits/Enemies spawn randomly, so they "respawn". Fixed enemies only respawn if you don't kill them all, and even then it's kind of buggy. Good Farming.
• Theft Requires Mask - Buy it from Fence or loot from Bandit randomly.
• Disarm Enemies - Hold Block + Heavy Attack after being hit. Lots of benefits.
• Pets Autoloot - Get one. Pet the Dogs and Cats.
• Horses Level - Pet your horse too.
• Equipment Stats Are The Same - All Cloth Gloves give Attack Speed. All Plate Gloves give extra Attack and Defense. It's a bit more nuanced than that but it works like this for everything.
• ** Keep Duplicate Equipment** - Duplicate weapons, tools and such let you Upgrade for free. Not worth it at Tier 5 and beyond cause Skill Point cost.
• **Stamina First **- It's most important. Get to at least 200 Stamina before buying other stuff.
• **Stamina Drinks = Long Flights/Climbs **- Cheap to buy at the Tavern daily. Drink while flying/climbing for potentially infinite Stamina.
• **Hold Attack Buttons + Add Sprint/Dodge **- Hold your Attack buttons for faster attacks. Sprint and Dodge buttons can be clicked while doing this to use skills as well without missing a beat.
• Hold Gather Button for Fast Gathering - Bugs and loot are gathered as you go if you hold it.
• Gather Same Plants/Bugs - Alchemy is stupid. 3 of same bug, not 3 of right type of bug, so duplicates are more valuable than variety except for Dyes.
• **Do Main Story Through Chapter 5 First - **You miss out on A LOT of mechanics if you explore before then, causing you to miss stuff or be unable to progress certain things.
• Do Camp ASAP - Even over doing the story. Do the Main Story whenever you can't do anything more with the Camp. [Patch] It's even more important now because it increases your Storage Slots each upgrade, up to 1000 Inventory Slots.
• **Progress Abyss - **Sky Island or however you want to call it. Lots of rewards and makes a good drop point for travel.
• ** Do Witch Quests** - They give great rewards, particularly Abyss Core Equipment(those special effects you see on gear). You will be able to do them starting from when you are introduced to the 2nd Witch during the Main Story.

Important Mechanics

• Learning Through Observation - You can learn a lot of skills for free through observation. Some are from people using them during training or contests, some from quests, and others are from your opponents during combat
• You can see what skills can be learned through observation in the skills menu by looking at the skill. It will tell you the requirements
• If you buy a skill, and later observe it, resetting all your points seems to let you keep the observed skills, so you'll reclaim the skill point. I don't think it's worth it, but you can.
• Most, if not all, Main Story Bosses seem to have at least 1 skill to observe. If you beat them without observing the skill, you'll have to buy it normally.
• Some skills only give Rank 2 or Partial Rank 3 effects when Observed. For these skills, you still have to buy the upgrades so don't stress too much about Observing them and just buy the skill if you want it early.
• Equipment Types - Unlike most games, equipment in Crimson Desert all have the same stats provided they are the same type. So rather than a Transmog system, you just wear what you want. Usually at least.
• Clothing is not Armor. A Helmet is not a Hat. Greaves are not Shoes. This is what I mean by Type. If you're wearing plate armor, it will have the same stats as every other plate armor. Bows with bows. etc...So you just need to worry about looks so long as it's the right type, then upgrade it to its max.
• Many pieces of Clothing has extra effects, such as Disguise Effects.
• Resistance is also equipment specific. Usually, Cloth is Cold Resistant, Leather is Lightning Resistant, and Plate is Heat Resistant.
• Upgrading Equipment - You can upgrade most of your equipment through a process called Refinement at the Smithy. You can do this with resources OR with duplicate equipment, including tools. However there are some caveats:
• Upgrading equipment doesn't upgrade modifiers, just raw stats.
• They have to be the same Tier. That means a I cannot upgrade a III but another III can.
• It doesn't remove the Abyss Core(Skill Point) cost to upgrade. So once you get equipment to T5, it's usually better to use Resources rather than duplicates.
• Weapons and Tools are easy to get duplicates for, so it's recommended to use resources on Armor and Jewelry.
• Abyssal Gear - "Unique" equipment with orbs embedded in it that have special effects is called Abyssal Gear. This deserves it's own section but the broad strokes are:
• Witches can craft, combine, extract, and embed Abyss Cores into most equipment to make it into Abyssal Gear.
• All Abyssal Cores can be extracted, meaning you can have special effects from most "Unique" equipment on most other equipment.
• Abyssal Cores have a variety of effects that can make you anything from a God of Gathering to a near Invincible Tank once you've finished min-maxing them all. Get familiar with the system as soon as you unlock the 2nd Witch.
• Do the Witch Quests as soon as you have time in order to unlock more Abyss Core Recipes.
• Disarm Enemies - You can disarm regular sized opponents by using a Small or Medium Shield(Large don't work) and holding Block then doing a Heavy Attack(Right-click/R2) after they hit your shield. It will disarm anyone you hit, not just the person who attacked.
• You'll want to do this to stock up on weapons and shield to refine or sell.
• Hold Attack Buttons and Loot Buttons - You will attack faster and loot faster by holding the buttons down rather than clicking them over and over. For combat this means more damage. For looting this means you'll pick up everything you enter the range of 1 at a time without needing to look.
• Lantern Usage - Get used to using your lantern all the time.
• The Lantern glows blue when Memories are near. If it glows blue, shine it around to find the memory.
• Point Lantern in the distance to shine a light on Abyss Objects. These are challenges, fast travel points, etc… You will require direct Line of Sight though, so it’s better to do so from high up places.
• If your Lantern isn’t showing a light, it can’t be used to find Memories or Abyss Objects. This is why you should never have your Lantern turned Off and why even using Auto is glitchy. I recommend using the F2 Radial Menu to select the Lantern and change it to On.
• You can use your lantern to see if someone is carrying something valuable. It will show either a lootbag, a key, or a gold bar depending on what they are carrying, but they can carry multiple objects and you'll only see 1.
• Your Lantern will flash Red when you're in danger. This can be a trap or falling object, but if it's during a Boss Fight then it means you need to either Force Palm or use Blinding Flash to knock the enemy out of their attack.
• No Lockpicking. Locked Doors Use Keys - Many doors in the world are locked and if you try to enter them, you will automatically use a Key to open it. But Keys aren't super plentiful if you're just using the ones that come to you. Here's how you can fix it:
• Buy Keys from Fences - Fences sell Keys for 30c and stock 3 per day. Buy them every day and you’ll soon have more Keys than doors in the game.
• Hold your lantern up when walking through doors. You won't use a key if the door is locked this way so you can decide whether or not to use it.
• Climb into Houses through the window. You can climb the wall and open the window to get into the house without a key. If you walk through the entrance from the inside, you'll unlock the door without using the key either.
• No Theft Without a Mask - Mask can be gotten from Bandits or the Fences you get the keys from and allow you steal and pickpocket. This is not only useful for making money but also required to loot some places for unique stuff.
• **Build Trust **- Trust can be earned with NPCs and animals by interacting with them.
• How to Build Trust:
• Pets - Pet them or feed them meat. Grilled meat works best for dogs, grilled fish for cats, and oats for horses. Just drop it on the ground and they should eat it. You can pet 5 times a day and give food twice.
• NPCs - Greeting them once a day, completing quests for them, or giving them gifts. I recommend coin pouches as gifts.
• Horse Levels with Trust - Your horses will gain levels with Trust. This gives it abilities like faster movement and drifting(yes, like Tokyo Drift).
• Pets Autoloot - Dogs and Cats will grab loot for you. This is particularly useful if you disarm enemies as they can find the items easily.
• **Vendors Increase Stock **- When a regular Vendor(not a Street Vendor) gets max Trust, they often increase their stock of goods. So it's beneficial to reach max Trust with them.
• NPCs Give Gifts - At max Trust, NPCs will give you gifts, so free resources.
• Keep Your Weapon Sheathed - Friendlies will attack if you have your weapon out around them. You also can't climb with weapons out. My first death in the game was when I wiped out a large group of enemies and some friendlies came in at the last second to help. While I was looting, they attacked me because I was next to them with the sword out still. Keep it in it's sheathe.

Important Tips

• Stamina First - When you acquire Skill Points(Abyss Cores), don’t spend them on special moves right away. Spend them on Stamina as, without that, you can’t even activate some abilities.
• Gliding is the only thing you should buy before Stamina as it’s super useful for exploration.
• After about 5 levels of Stamina, you can grab the Grapple Jump and some others as well, but try to focus Stamina to max.
• **Main Quest First **- Do the Main Quest through Chapter 5. Obviously you can ignore this advice and explore first and find all sorts of fun things, and that’s a perfectly valid way to play. However, you will end up missing out A LOT of mechanics if you do so. And I mean A LOT. But Chapter 5 is about where you’ll have all the mechanics from Main Quest so you can explore to your heart’s content.
• Progress the Abyss - You'll unlock the Abyss through the Main Quest and the entire area consists of puzzles that will force you to learn mechanics that you can use for both other puzzles and combat. They only give you a small taste of the Abyss on the form of a Tutorial, but you can return and keep progressing it further.
• This will give you various rewards like new abilities and Abyss Cores and you can find chests with further rewards.
• You will unlock Fast Travel points throughout the Abyss. Since the Abyss is above the rest of the world, you can use the Fast Travel points to hop off the edge and reach destinations you haven't explored yet more quickly.
• Inventory Management - Inventory is a pain right now, even after the fix. So here’s some essential tips to being able to keep the clutter down:
• There is now a Storage Chest in your “home base”(wherever it is) that can store up to 240 items, so you can stock all your extra alchemy ingredients and weapons inside while you get more inventory slots.
• While you’ll get a lot of slots from quests and purchasing from vendors and finding bags, the absolute cap is 240 slots for your bag. That means 480 Total between you and the Storage Chest before upgrading the Storage Chest.
• Regular vendors(not street vendors) sell bags. It's only 1-3 slots each, but it's something.
• Once you read a Recipe or Crafting Book, or finish a quest, you can sell them, or discard if unsellable, all notes related to it. They take up 1 slot each and and that will add up quickly as you do more quests.
• You can upgrade your Storage Slots up to 1000 by upgrading your Camp. This makes it VERY important to do your Camp Missions.
• Watch Your Minimap - Pay attention to the icons on the minimap. They are as follows:
• ** Red to Blue Bar **- Temperature Gauge. Affects Stamina consumption and recovery. Wear the right clothes for the weather to avoid issues.
• **Yellow Bar **- Experience. Fill it to get an Abyss Core.
• White Dot = Person to talk with to learn stuff from. Can be knowledge or recipes
• Orange Dot = Important Person to talk to for a variety of reasons.
• Purple Icons = Important objects, usually quest related but sometimes secret related
• Giant ? Mark = SUPER IMPORTANT. It means there is a Fast Travel there. You may need to solve a puzzle or may get a free abyss core too, but it's always a Fast Travel in my experience.
• **Chest **= Unique Chest. Doesn't respawn but has good stuff.
• Bag = Usually a key, but sometimes other stuff. Usually useless since you have to steal it which isn't worth it if it's a key.
• ** Scroll** = Cooking/Alchemy Recipe. Learn it then you can sell it.
• Book = Crafting Recipe for Armor or Weapons. Learn it then sell it.
• Tiny X = Loot from dead enemy. It's not always a corpse, it might just be loot. NOTE: Random items WILL NOT have the X, so you won't be able to spot them with the minmap. This includes weapons and shields enemies drop when you disarm them.
• Fix Your Map - Your map will often be set to Quest. Change it to All when you open it if you want to be able to look around and use fast travel.
• Ring Bells - Ringing Bells will completely clear the fog on the map in your region. There ARE NOT a lot of bells(less than 10 total I think) so don't waste your time looking for them, just grab them when you see them.
• Use Your Guide and Know Your Toolkit - Your Guide can teach you basically every mechanic in the game once you’ve encountered it before. Use it to familiarize yourself with your toolkit so that you can better be more prepared for any situation.
• ** Do Witch Faction Quests Early** - The Witch Faction quests give access to Abyss Core crafting, extracting, and embedding which is where the majority of your combat capability will come from, as well as being a great way to improve your gathering and exploring capability.
• Sanctums have a Second Puzzle - The Sanctums can only be done for the Witch Faction questline and once you have finished them, you are led to believe that you've acquired everything. However, there is a secret second puzzle you can only do after solving the first one and is required for crafting a lot of the Kuku Pot items. I'll put it in the spoiler below so those that want to figure it out themselves can do so. As a quick warning, I recommend being careful if you're prone to flashing lights as you're likely to experience A LOT of them doing this puzzle.
• Use Blinding Flash on the gemstone embedded into each of the Sanctum puzzles. You must put the light on it when it's the glass and turn the light off for the stone until you circle back around to the beginning. This makes the puzzle require a little skill to pull off, but it's worth doing.

Combat

• Eat Food During Combat To Heal - If you have enough food on hand, it's basically cheesing fights. Literally if you're eating cheese to do it.
• Hold Down Attack Buttons - If you hold down your attack buttons, instead of pressing them over and over, you will attack more quickly and more easily go through combos.
• Use Skills and Combos - Press Dodge/Sprint buttons while holding down either Light Attack or Heavy Attack to mix in some skills. You will dominate your enemies.
• Disarm Enemies - Hold Block and then use Heavy Attack AFTER getting hit to disarm every enemy you hit. They drop their weapons making them an easier fight and guaranteeing they'll drop the weapons for money or refining.
• Know When To Dodge - Some attacks can't be blocked or parried effectively, such as attacks from massive enemies or when you're surrounded by enemies. Use your dodge button to get away and keep from being hit. However, dodge FORWARD, not back. This will keep certain attacks from hitting you that otherwise would.
• Target Ranged Enemies First - They have hitscan, shoot often, and can hit like a truck.
• Use AoE Attacks - Most fights aren't 1v1. Use AoE attacks to take out groups as fast as possible. As mentioned earlier, weaving in Skills with your combos will do wonders and many Skills are AoE
• Use Ranged to Avoid Large Groups - You can also use ranged attacks from long range to grab small groups or even 1 at a time.
• Hold then Release to Parry - Rather than tapping to parry, you have to hold block to get your Shield up then release right when the enemy hits.
• Use the Environment - Objects and long falls cause extra damage if the enemy is tossed into them. This can lead to instant kills using unarmed later.
• Enemy Weaknesses - Some enemies have major weaknesses you can take advantage of, some even from specific items that demolish them. Keep on the lookout for these items and use logic when fighting strange enemies like fire for a plant monster.
• Note: Some of the game logic is stupid and wasn't implemented correctly for some reason.
• Enemy Skill Observation - Also keep an eye out for enemies doing weird skills. You can usually learn the skill from them by having them perform the skill on you a time or two. Time will slow and they'll glow blue if you're observing the skill. This applies especially to Boss Enemies.
• Keep Your Pet Out - They'll autoloot for you during the battle and you don't have to worry about them getting hurt.
• Red Lantern Flashes - If your lantern flashes Red while fighting an enemy, it means that you're about to be hit with a very strong attack. You can use Force Palm or Blinding Flash to interrupt it and stun the enemy for a moment.

Exploration

• Buy the Flight, Swift Flight, Aerial Maneuver, and Aerial Swing Skills - After a few points in Stamina of course, but these skills will GREATLY speed up your ability to explore.
• Aerial Roll OP Flight - Technically you won't be able to observe the skill until Chapter 5, but you can just buy it early and refund it later. It's worth it. Just start flying the way you usually do, enter Focus Mode, and then activate Aerial Roll while moving forward. It will cost almost nothing and you'll make incredible distance for a low stamina cost. Patched out.
• Use Focus Repulsion while doing this to burn Stamina much faster but travel MUCH faster. Good for shorter distance flights you want to go quickly. Patched out.
• Stamina Drinks While Flying or Climbing - You can drink Stamina Drinks while flying or climbing to go further than you usually would be capable of. Mix this with flying down from the Abyss and you can traverse the entire map very early for late-game supplies and equipment.
• **Stab Waterfalls **- Waterfalls are semi-realist