I previously wrote an article on Lost Relics when I had just started out. Now with several months of gameplay under my belt, top tier items in my possession, and a much deeper understanding of the game, I believe it’s time to give you a personal account of my experience thus far. My hope is that this will serve as a helpful Beginner’s Guide and aid in growing the number of new players joining the game and community. So without further ado, let’s get into everything I’ve learned since starting out in Lost Relics…

Mistakes Were Made

If I’m being honest, when I first started playing Lost Relics, I was pretty terrible. No, seriously bad actually. But after each poor decision I made, I quickly learned the things I wish I had known beforehand. Strategies, mentalities and wisdom gleaned from numerous challenging experiences have been reinforced by the many friendships I have developed with longtime professional players within the community. So, while I don’t want to get into the substance of my original article, I will break down a few things for anyone who hasn’t read it (or refresh the memories of those who have):

• Lost Relics is a dungeon crawler game similar to Diablo and Runescape
• Games like these require players to enter various dungeons that are randomly generated so that they can search for loot
• Loot is distributed using Random Number Generated (RNG) systems from slaying monsters and opening chests
• Lost Relics differs in a few key ways. Firstly, it is built on Blockchain and makes use of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) within a game model known as Play-to-Earn (P2E)

So with that out the way, I think the best place to start is with the things I wish I had known on my first day of Lost Relics.

Back to the Start

My first week was rough. I fought and died in dungeons, tried again and completed them, and battled on just to die some more. Dying early causes you to lose key items needed to move into the second tier of the game. I quickly learned the dire consequences of dying and the benefits of obtaining Blockchain items that aren’t destroyed when your character dies.

Just so you know, you lose every non-Blockchain item (known as virtual items) when you die. New players are given a couple of virtual items at the start, namely a bow and a sword. Neither of these are actually any good, but if you die on your first attempt, you’ll quickly realize just how vital they actually are.

At the start of the game, you will complete a few simple quests by talking to merchants around the town of Talmuth. These quests give you your first bow and sword, which some people forget to equip before embarking on a dungeon quest. Make sure you aren’t one of them. However, even with your new items, don’t enter the first dungeon just yet…there a few things you can do to make first adventure less strenuous and risky.

Everyone starts out with a small amount of gold that, in my opinion, should be used to create some food that you can use to heal yourself:

• Head to the General Store and buy some Ceramic Jugs
• Next, head to the Well located near the Tavern
• After that, locate the Alchemy Table. Near it you will find a pile of flour with a limited supply you can take every day for free
• Once you have your jugs of water and flour, it’s time to make some bread at the Stove
• Now that you have some usable food in your inventory, it’s time to start grinding

Be warned though! It’s best to take more food than you think you’ll need at first until you are confident enough to know exactly how much you’ll require—surviving the dungeon is the most important thing, so it’s always best to plan for a worse-case scenario. With this in mind, head over to Adventure Pass and get ready to enter your first dungeon!

Use the TAB or M key to pull up the map of Talmuth

Into the Fiery Pits…

Now I’m ashamed to admit it, but for the first couple of dungeons I took a whirl at, I failed to realize I had the ability to execute a heavy attack. Believe it or not, I actually made it to Level 5 before I finally figured this out! I spent a lot of time learning enemy attack motions and at what points to move in order to avoid taking damage from them. At the time there were no in-game tips that directed players to make use of both attack types, but thankfully there are now.

The heavy attack is your go-to and best bet for clearing dungeons rapidly and safely. This tip may seem elementary, but for anyone who started playing before these prompts knows firsthand, or has met someone (like me) who didn’t have a clue about the heavy attack. Heavy attacks use up your blue energy bar which will always recharge itself back to 250.

While this will keep enemies at bay for the most part, new players must be aware of fire traps while grinding indoor dungeons (such as the first one). Identifying these traps is vital to surviving these kinds of dungeons as every single on of them has traps. After triggering a few of these and learning the hard way, you should find they start to stand out, so avoiding them should become significantly easier.

This trap triggers most often as it blends almost perfectly into the floor

These fire traps are easy to spot and just require a little good timing to dodge

Just about every player within the world of Lost Relics has plenty of stories of failed first and second attempts as a result of these traps that deal a whopping 250 damage over time. Hitting one or two of them can quickly bring your loot grind to a screeching halt and are more than a bit frustrating when you hit several of them. Just remember, it’s going to happen, so don’t be too hard on yourself.

A tactic that helped me in the beginning was making use of the camera view rotation. The defaults for this are the left and right arrow keys but can be easily remapped in the controls section of settings. At first this process felt awkward, but it eventually became second nature while grinding for loot and racking up XP.

I then learned a method called ‘playing the corners.’ All you need to do is rotate the view so the direction you’re moving in is always towards one of the top two corners of your screen. This allows you to see farther into the next room when using the default ‘isometric’ camera view. This is highly beneficial in that it provides you with more insight as to what enemies are present and gives you a longer time to prioritize targets to attack first.

Not using the corner technique—restricted view, a lot of nebulous information

The same spot using the corner technique—note how the field of view is far more expansive and provides you with critical clues as to what awaits you in the next area

If you die, don’t let it discourage you—it’s happened to all of us, and it’s going to happen to you. I myself have lost hundreds of thousands of in-game gold from simple mistakes, misclicks, or, more specifically, taking my headphones off to answer a call and not realizing someone was attacking me because I couldn’t hear the game!

Yeah, that was me, and man was that a rough sight to return to: my cold, dead body covered in a pile of virtual items I no longer had! Considering you only get around 300 to 600 gold on average per dungeon run, losing over 100,000 gold in one run…does sting a bit.

Goals, Skills, and Leveling

So you can complete dungeons without dying…now what? In my opinion, you should start setting goals and milestones for yourself. This is one of the best ways to keep progressing and avoid getting bogged down by the slow process of leveling up. Other than the obvious mission to find and collect high value NFTs, there are generally only two major goals to work toward: Combat Level and Skill Level.

Your Combat Level unlocks Champion Rewards, some of which are only accessible by having an active Power Pendant. These rewards are designated with a crown icon

Skills got thrust into the spotlight of the meta thanks to an update in late September

While both offer their own benefits, most of the community tends to focus on leveling up in-game skills such as Fishing, Mining, Scavenging, Woodcutting, Alchemy, Cooking, Engineering, and Forging. Skills can be leveled up by acquiring tools and harvesting resource nodes. These nodes are designated with icons on the minimap in dungeons, so be sure to keep an eye out for them.

Tools are relatively cheap to purchase using gold at the in-game market (The Royal Emporium) and easily found using the search filters on the left. Skills are generally paired together in dungeons, only allowing you to level up two of them at a time. Make sure to only bring tools you can actually use, otherwise you risk losing gold carrying unusable ones if you die. The pairings are, for the most part, Mining/Fishing and Scavenging/Woodcutting (though some higher level dungeons mix it up).

Focusing on skill progression goes hand in hand with early players. Before the September update, resource nodes could be mined in all dungeons regardless of the tier. Since the update, skills are now tailored to dungeon difficulty tiers. So even if you have epic quality items and can complete high level dungeons, you will not be able to harvest resources unless you have a skill level to match. So the faster you get tools, the quicker you can increase your skill levels.

Tools also greatly improve the potential to attain and save gold by selling resources at the Royal Emporium or using them to create items like food or potions. The other four skills rely on the resources gathered from the primary four, so these will increase with the resources you find and use.

Combat skills shouldn’t be written off entirely though as some key Levels will drastically improve your ability to complete dungeons. I won’t go into all those that I know, but the first big ones are at Level 5, 18, and 20. Reaching Level 5 will give you access to the stash deposit cart located just outside of the Adventure Pass—it may cost 5 gold to deposit each item, but the time it saves you will add up to some serious gains.

It may cost some gold, but the time it saves is well worth it

The next and most important of the three is the fourth relic spot that becomes available at Level 18. This allows you to equip four relics in total (once you have them, of course). Relics are arguably more important than weapons in the long run since they provide you with highly advantageous healing options that recharge every time you complete a dungeon.

You start the game with access to 3 of 5 Relic spots; unlocking the fourth is critical in the long run

Last but certainly not least, reaching Level 20 increases your max energy recharge moves from 250 to 375. Considering how often you will need to use your heavy attack, which rapidly drains energy, having a higher capacity energy bank means that the average time required to complete dungeons is significantly reduced.

The Evolving Strategy Guide of Community

The last thing I will touch on in this Beginner’s guide is perhaps the most important of all—engaging with and asking the community for help. I have learned beginner tactics all the way to extremely advanced tricks simply by asking people to explain things and by tuning into community streamers. Lost Relics has an amazingly helpful and encouraging community—I have yet to see someone ask a question and not have people go into any level of detail needed to explain the answer.

The absence of toxicity in this community is something that really made me want to be an active part of it in the first place. Coming from AAA title games, I challenge you to find anything close to this within the communities of the extremely popular games of today. Try going into a Call of Duty Discord server and asking beginner questions—I would be willing to bet that you won’t be met with people eager to help you understand or figure out whatever it is you may be unsure of.

With changes, new additions, and events coming out regularly, I hope this Guide remains helpful for new players for as long as possible. Regardless of how long this actually might be, the community itself will continue to serve as the primary guide new players need to start their journey. As far as I’m concerned, I will continue to assist both new and old players alike. We are all in this P2E grind together, and I will fight for it to remain that way…

If you do end up having the pleasure of playing Lost Relics, just know that if you ever come across the name Spizzo, never hesitate to ask me for any help or guidance you might require. I will always strive to help promote and grow what the player base has already established as the game’s community standard.

Good luck on your journey into P2E, and as always, happy hunting!