Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started Playing

1. Dump your early Skill Points in Stamina early
   This is one of the closest things the game has to an early universal tax (how it blocks you from accessing places and doing stuff). More stamina means better traversal, more glide freedom, and way less movement misery. Consider putting a single point (Abyss Artifact) in the Grappling Jump skill, another in the Swift Flight skill, and dumping everything else in Stamina (it's the uppermost skill in the skill tree) until you max it out. You'll also need it for horse taming, more about this down below.
   
   
2. The menus are stupid, learn to deal with it
   The game doesn't tell you this, but your're not supposed to just Press Start/ESC and browse through the menu. No... The "correct" way of browsing through the menu is HOLDING the Start/ESC button and then going to whatever menu you want. The last one you interacted with will be set as the "shorctut" for quick press. What were they thinking?
   
   
3. Stick to the main questiline for the first dozen hours
   You'll unlock some neat traversal skills and gear (gliding, grappling) that make exploration far more efficient. I'd say, rush the campaign up until the point you have a new camp spot, then you can start sidequesting about.
   
   
4. The game has dark-souls style secret walls
   Whenever you spot a wall with a button indicator and no response, that's a hidden wall.
   
   
5. Merchants sell inventory space
   Yeah, wtf. Check merchants constantly. Bounties and some smaller quests can also expand your bag space. Whatever their price, BUY THEM ASAP.
   
   
6. The default map filter is bad
   Make a habit of setting the world map to All or it will feel way more useless than it actually is.
   
   
7. Ring church bells to reveal the map
   THIS IS A BIG ONE. Don't waste time roaming the mnap to clear fog of war. Just ring the church bells.
   
   
8. Set the lantern to Auto
   Do this immediately unless you enjoy manually babysitting the lamp forever. You can do this by hovering it in the radial menu and pressing the highlighted button (there'll be an option for ON/OFF/AUTO).
   
   
9. Hold the loot button
   I personally figured this out early, but a lot of my friends didn't. Anyway... If you're surrounded by loot, don't tap-pickup every single item like a lunatic. Just hold it and move through loot piles, it'll automatically grab whatever's on the way.
   
   
10. Sheathe your weapon before looting
    One of the dumbest hidden rules in the game. If loot seems inconsistent, this may be why. You can sheathe by double pressing the left directional on the controller, or "T" on the keyboard.
    
    
11. Hold attack buttons instead of mashing them
    It's INSANE how the game says ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about this. But here's the 101 of Crimson Desert combat: you're supposed to HOLD the attack button... and combine them with other stuff you'll be unlocking on the skill tree. Late-game wise you'll be holding R1 and spamming everything else for special attacks. Think of it as an MMORPG, holding the attack button is "enabling attack mode", while pressing whatever other buttons are your special skills. Bonkers, right?
    
    
12. Parry is a hold-block timing, not a panic tap
    This is not a tap-to-parry game. You actually have to HOLD the block button.
    Why? I dunno bro.
    
    
13. You can climb way more than the game makes you think
    Walls, buildings, trees, branches, windows. If a door is locked, the answer is often up, not come back later.
    
    
14. Upgrade your gear
    Half of us will save up those materials for upgrading some better gear down the line, right? Haha yeah, don't. Early refining will require only abundant materials, and soon enough the game will start slapping you around. EARLY-LEVEL-WISE, whenever an equipment you're currently using can be upgraded, upgrade it.
    
    
15. Do not go to the Quarry early
    Seriously. Leave that place alone until you have a more respectable character.

1. Blur settings are hidden in Accessibility
   Because of course they are... If you wanted to turn off motion blur, consider yourself a person with special needs.
   
   
2. Use the quick menu
   Already mentioned this one, but worth pointing it out here again... Holding Start/ESC brings up a useful shortcut menu. Once this becomes muscle memory, basic navigation gets much less annoying. That's how you're supposed to seamlessly browse through them.
   
   
3. Set camera acceleration higher if it feels sluggish
   Default camera movement can feel weirdly sticky. Bump that sensitivity up asap.
   
   
4. Grouping items is for organization, not real extra space.
   LISTEN UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP.... You can group and stack items on your inventory. It reduces visual clutter and scrolling, but it does not magically increase total carrying capacity. You have to do it one by one, though... Just hover any item at your inventory and hold the "GROUP" button. Rinse and repeat for the rest of them.
   
   
5. You can raise or lower visors and toggle some headgear visuals from the radial menu.
   Tiny detail, but neat.
   
   
6. Minimap icon meanings
   F*ck this man, the game never teaches you anything. So here's the actually useful version.
   
   
   
   Icon

   What it means

   What to do

   Right Bar

   Weather indicator.

   Red means hotter, blue is colder, green is milder. Dress for the climate or your stamina economy gets worse.

   Left yellow bar

   Experience bar.

   It fills as you kill enemies. Each full bar gives you an Abyss Core.

   Green Leaf

   Spirit meter.

   This fuels your spirit-based abilities, so keep an eye on it before trying to spam flashy nonsense.

   Orange dot

   NPC with dialogue or a quest.

   Talk to them. Could be side content, story context, or a useful request.

   Purple icon

   Bounty board or sealed Abyss Artifact.

   Check it. Bounty boards lead to outlaw targets. Sealed artifacts lead to puzzle content and rewards.

   White circle

   Nearby fast travel point.

   Walk into the area and look for a Nexus platform or hidden Cresset entrance to unlock it permanently.

   Bell icon

   Bell tower nearby.

   Climb it and ring the bell to clear a big chunk of fog from the world map.

   Yellow marker

   Current objective.

   Follow it to advance your tracked quest, whether main story or side quest.

   Temperature gauge

   Local heat or cold level.

   Cold slows stamina recovery and drains you faster. Use proper gear or resistance items when entering rough climates.

   Scroll Icon

   Consumable recipe nearby.

   Go check it if you care about cooking, utility items, or just not missing free unlocks.

   Book Icon

   Weapon or armor recipe nearby.

   Worth grabbing whenever you see it. Easy progression, easy miss.

   "+" icon

   Lootable corpse nearby.

   There is a body close enough to rob. Go vacuum the dead guy's pockets.

   Pouch Icon

   Stealable loot or key-related object.

   Check it carefully. A lot of the time this is tied to stealth and may require the mask.

1. You can drift with your horse
   You can slide down hills... By yourself AND WITH YOUR HORSE.
   
   
2. Slide-yeet
   Speaking of slides, if you jump after sliding it'll YEET you further than normal.
   
   
3. You can precision jump while climbing.
   THIS IS A BIG ONE and might get patched in the future. As it requires no stamina, you can climb pretty much anything in the game, no matter how tall, if you keep precision-jumping upwards instead of actually climbing it.
   
   
4. Look up guides for puzzles.
   You're not braindead and wanna do this on your own... Sure... Sure... But hear me out. This game has a genuine problem conveying the rules of its puzzles. It's not that the puzzles themselves are bad, but if COMPLETELY fails in making the rules clear. So, unless you wanna waste half an hour figuring out WHAT you're supposed to do, before even attempting doing it, look up a guide. If you still want the challenge, look up a guide and read only the first lines, as It'll let you know if you're supposed to stab your sword to move something, use the spirit punch or whatever, and you can take it from there.
   
   
5. Strange Energy markers matter.
   Those giant question-mark-style markers are not fluff. They lead into puzzle content and fast travel related rewards. Here's how to pinpoint where you should go:
   
   
6. Shining your weapon from high vantage points helps detect distant points of interest.
   Fast travel spots, artifacts, puzzles, weird shiny nonsense. Get to high ground and find out stuff!
   
   
7. If the distant glints vanish, it may just be line-of-sight.
   Try again from a better height instead of assuming the game lied.
   
   
8. If a building is locked, climb it and try the windows.
   This works way more often than you would expect.
   
   
9. You can climb basically everything, including trees.
   And trees are not just scenery. They are traversal tools. In fact...
   
   
10. You can launch yourself off trees.
    (SKILL LOCKED) Once you start abusing this, the world opens up in a very funny way. Beware before unlocking this skill, though, you'll need 200 Stamina to use it.
    
    
11. After latching with Axiom Force, double tap jump to pull yourself in.
    (SKILL LOCKED) This is a major vertical traversal upgrade that the game does a terrible job emphasizing.
    
    
12. Force Palm can be used midair for extra height.
    (SKILL LOCKED) You can chain additional boosts and force a glide even from fairly flat ground.
    
    
13. You can negate some fall damage with the slam move.
    (SKILL LOCKED) Useful when you misjudge height like a clown.
    
    
14. Landing in water can also save you from some bad falls.
    
    
15. If you run out of stamina mid-glide, stop moving.
    You will slow-fall straight down for free instead of immediately eating dirt.
    
    
16. You can slide down hills for absurd distances.
    Press in the left stick and become a medieval landslide.
    
    
17. The first free Abyss teleporters make great glide launch points.
    If you hate long horse commutes, abuse elevation.
    
    
18. Using the stab move can get you behind waterfalls.
    Exactly the kind of deranged traversal tech this game leaves for players to discover by accident.
    
    
19. Grappling a tent destroys it.
    Ridiculous, useful, beautiful.
    
    
20. Be careful climbing over spiked palisades.
    The hitbox is more generous than it should be, and not in your favor.

I swear to god, man. This game dumps you in the middle of combat and never tells you anything about how it works.

Here's the 101 of it:

1. Hold attacks. Do not mash them.
   Worth mentioning again here as this is the single biggest "combat suddenly feels better" revelation for a lot of people.
   
   
2. Parrying is done by holding block at the right time.
   Also worth mentioning again here because WHO WOULD GUESS YOU HAVE TO >HOLD< THE PARRY BUTTON? Ffs... Anyway...
   
   
3. You can parry with more weapons than you think.
   This is not limited to your starting sword and shield combination.
   
   
4. Bullet-time
   Sliding and drawing your bow slows down time. Same goes for using the Axiom Force skill while airborne.
   
   
5. You can learn skills for free
   Before spending points in Skills, make sure you can't get it for free by observing NPCs doing it.
   
   
6. A lot of skills exist in rough form before you properly unlock them.
   So the skill tree is not always a pure on/off gate. Some moves feel underwhelming because they literally are until you invest in them. Get them Lvl 3 skills asap.
   
   
7. Read your starting abilities.
   You begin with more useful tools than the game meaningfully teaches you to exploit.
   
   
8. Before buying an upgrade, make sure you can actually use it.
   Some ability upgrades are unusable if your current Stamina or Spirit is too low.
   
   
9. Some combat moves make you effectively unstaggerable during the animation.
   This matters a lot against regular and elite enemies.
   
   
10. You can use Force Palm for mining if needed.
    Not ideal, but useful if you are missing a pickaxe. You'll not extract all potential ores from it, though.
    
    
11. In fact.. You can harvest many resources by simply attacking them.
    Do not overcomplicate gathering.
    
    
12. You can use fire on more than enemies.
    Bushes, hay, foliage, environmental junk. Fire solves problems.
    
    
13. Some bosses and side bosses have weird silver-bullet counters.
    Pay attention to what absolutely ruins a specific enemy, because some of them get shut down hilariously hard.
    
    
14. About capturing criminals
    Once you learn how to slam, pin, and tie people up, captures get way easier. Tackle them.
    
    
15. You can unlock grab tech on enemies with grappling upgrades.
    Very funny against annoying ranged enemies.
    
    
16. If an enemy gets knocked into traffic or under hooves, that can kill them fast.
    Crimson Desert occasionally turns into slapstick physics murder.
    
    
17. You can instakill poltergeists/dementors (LATE-GAME)
    Just use focus light.
    

1. Do not hoard recipe/blueprint papers
   If you already learned them. Sell them or gift them to vendors.
   
   
2. Use your chest
   Crafting materials and whatnot are better off kept in your private chest instead of being carried around all the time. You can find it beside your bed on the tent you spawned at Hernand. But you probably knew this already...
   
   
3. You can teleport unwanted loot to it
   What I bet you DIDN'T KNOW is if you want to remote-stash your junk from anywhere in the world, all you have to do is (1) find a bed, (2) dump the loot on the floor, and (3) sleep. Everything you left on the floor will be teleported to your personal chest. Pretty neat, eh?
   
   
4. Kill all deers in early game
   Deers, goats, you name it. If you see one, kill it. You can use their bones to easily increase your damage by upgrading your jewelry and fry the meat for easy early game meals.
   
   
5. Speaking of jewlery
   Did you know useless statless rings can be upgraded at the blacksmith to give you more damage? Huh...
   
   
6. Roam the Abyss
   There's tons of Artifacts (skill points) to be found there. Don't sleep on it just because the puzzles are boring.
   
   
7. Always help out beggars
   If you max out their trust, they'll become a passive upgrade material source. They'll straight up give you ore, timber, bones and whatnot.
   
   
8. Check every merchant for bag space
   LISTEN UPPPPPPPPPP... This is huge and easy to miss. Whenever you see an item expansion on sale, buy it.
   
   
9. Open your little money bags.
   Silver and copper pouches are not decorative junk. You're supposed to "USE" them. There is also a use-all option.
   
   
10. Check vendor shelves, not just vendor menus.
    Get a load of this... A lot of shops have buyable or stealable items physically sitting around. Most won't be listed in the vendor's menu. So, always check both shelves and the menu. Going into firt person helps a lot.
    
    
11. Duplicate equipments are not trash.
    Whenever you're refining an item on early levels, instead of spending materials you can just burn through any duplicate copies you have of it first. Say you stumbled upon another helmet of the one you're using... Instead of selling it, use it to enhance yours.
    
    
12. You can catch fish by hand.
    Not just through the proper fishing minigame. You can literally go feral and grab them.
    
    
13. Do not turn fish into fillets if your goal is money.
    Selling fish whole is often worth dramatically more. Unintuitive, right? Figures.
    
    
14. Water is one of the most useful cooking ingredients.
    Hoard it.
    
    
15. Cook often.
    Food matters more than some players realize, and you can brute-force recipe discovery by improvising.
    
    
16. Magnifier-cooking
    You can actually cook stuff by using your blinding flash ability (the sword light beam-y thing).
    
    
17. Many abandoned camps and mini-POIs are full of cooking materials.
    Once you recognize which junk piles actually contain useful food supplies, you stay stocked much more easily.
    
    
18. Some "trash" items are actually bait, ingredients, or money in disguise.
    AGAIN, A BIG ONE HERE. LISTEN UP... Always double-check new items before assuming they are pointless.
    
    
19. There is a bank.
    And yes, that has obvious implications.
    
    
20. You can steal skill points.
    You can pickpocket Abyss Artifacts from Freeswords and Homeless guys in Hernand Town (and soutwestwards at the hobo den). Just use your lantern and look for someone with cubes on their waists, instead of satchels. It's a pretty nasty RNG rate, but they're out there.
    
    
21. Completed bounty posters can be sold too.
    Free your inventory from paper clutter.

1. You should adopt a dog ASAP
   They're the game's autoloot systemm, and will help you clean out the aftermath of a battlefield in half the time.
   
   
2. You can adopt a dog instantaneously (thanks @cstrikin it up)
   You can only interact with it 5x a day. So, just "petting" it for 5p of trust won't do it for the 100p you need. You'll need to feed it by discarding food next to it. You can feed cats with poultry, and dogs with meats of all sorts for 10 points of trust. If you cook it, though, it'll give 20p each. Dropping small bones, 25p each. 5 interactions of grilled meat or 4 of small bones means you can adopt a dog in a single go. The pup will disappear and be summonable via your inventory.
   
   
3. Mounts - How to tame
   You can find horses in the wild, just run after one and jump onto it. It'll prompt a taming minigame, after you finish it, the horse is yours. If you want legendary horses, you'll need at least 6 Stamina.
   
   
4. Mounts - Monsters
   You can also tame larger animals, usually by beating them until they stop aggroing and waiting for a button prompt to appear, allowing you to mount it. These will be temporary mounts, though, and can't be tamed (except for some quest-related one).
   
   
5. Mounts - Best ones
   The best overall mount SO FAR are Royler, the legendary white horse (best speed and stamina), ATAG Mech and Blackstar Dragon (best damage output). You'll get these by Chapters 10 and 11 of the Main Questline.
   
   
6. Your horse loves being abused
   Get a load of this... If you force punch your horse, it'll heal him. Hold the right analog while standing and press the left one to switch to healing punch. Insane.
   
   
7. You can load animals, bodies, and bounties onto the horse
   No need to dismount.
   
   
8. Horse movement through villages can accidentally count as vandalism
   Tiny fences apparently have rights. Be careful.
   
   
9. You can activate some Abyss waypoints while mounted
   
   
10. Animals can become companions
    This is not fluff. Some of them can follow you and help loot enemies. In order to do that you have to build TRUST. Petting and feeding both contribute, but there are daily limits to it.
    
    
11. Companions can be revived if they go down
    But if you die before reviving them, they can go on cooldown.
    
    
12. A companion's lantern can also glow blue near Memories
    So even your ally can help sniff out hidden Memory content.
    
    
13. Once you unlock other playable characters, you can summon some of them to roam with you
    They are not just mission-only furniture. Try it out.
    
    
14. Traveling with comrades can help their progression
    And some of them are absolute monsters in combat.
    
    
15. Dispatch missions can auto-repeat until canceled
    Which is great if you want background resource income without micromanaging every five minutes.

1. Think of reputation as KARMA
   Shouldn't your reputation only go down if someone actually sees you stealing? Of course. Does it, though? Nope. Therefore, even though the game calls it "reputation", It's more like a karma system, straight out of Red Dead Redemption 2. They probably didn't want a direct association with RDR2, but that's it. (Patched March 29 - Now if you steal and no NPC sees you, you no longer lose reputation).
   
   
2. Greeting merchants matters.
   Always say hi first. Trust can affect discounts and inventory expansion.
   
   
3. Gifting NPCs is a fast way to improve Trust.
   Different NPC types like different gifts, so pay attention.
   
   
4. Maxing Trust with some shops can unlock more items.
   A quick way of doing this is giving them gifts. Noticeably recipes and books.
   
   
5. Stealing hurts your reputation even if nobody directly catches you.
   So stealth theft is not morally or mechanically free.
   
   
6. How to steal?
   Some stealable items only become properly interactable with the mask. There's a pretty early sidequest that'll award it to ya. That's how you steal in this game.
   
   
7. If you are alone in a room, you can often steal safely enough.
   You still take the reputation hit, but the actual act is easier to get away with.
   
   
8. You can lure individuals with dropped money.
   Petty crime and crowd control, together at last.
   
   
9. Churches can absolve your bounties.
   Accidentaly ended up breaking someone's tent? Ask for redemption.
   
   
10. Doing good in an area improves standing there.
    This actuallY affects friendliness and some practical outcomes, so reputation is not just flavor.
    
    
11. You can inspect faction details on the world map.
    This is easy to miss and worth learning if you want more context on who is who.
    

1. The lantern glows blue near a Memory.
   This turns it into a proximity detector for hidden Memory content.
   
   
2. The lantern can also reveal names of NPCs from a distance.
   
   
3. The lantern can reveal interaction options like freeing captured NPCs.
   
   
4. Beds are not your only way to pass time.
   Some campsites and cooking pots let you do it too.
   
   
5. You can only sleep when the game lets you, not literally whenever you want.
   If you're not tired, your man won't get any shut eye.
   
   
6. If you arrive too early for a quest step, the game may let you auto-pass time.
   A prompt will appear on the right side of your screen. Just press start when it does.
   
   
7. White dots on the minimap can mark NPCs with actually useful dialogue.
   Sometimes recipes, knowledge, or other worthwhile info.
   
   
8. Some features are hidden behind specific progression beats.
   If something seems weirdly unavailable, there may be a quest gate behind it.
   
   
9. You can hide in hay bales.
   Because apparently this game sometimes remembers it has stealth.
   
   
10. Bees are not a joke.
    Treat them with the respect due a tiny airborne apocalypse.
    

No point turning the guide into a GPS walkthrough when the important part is just knowing the farm exists. So I'll only mention the places, leaving the googling to you.

1. Very Early money farm
   A decent way of making a quick buck in early game is taking place in the Archery Contest at Hernand and playing it with Mouse & Keyboard. Considering they had to balance it for Controller players, it's a pretty much guaranteed couple of silvers' drop every minute if you use M&K.
   
   
2. Early-game money farm - Hernand Bank Robbery
   As soon as the world opens up, this is one of the fastest early cash boosts in the game.
   
   • Get the mask, save before going in.
     
   • You'll lose karma, but if everything goes right you won't get a bounty, and you can make something like 30 to 55 Silver in just a few minutes, which is why this is one of the nastiest early money tricks in the game.
     
   • Strongboxes won't respawn, but chests will in a couple of days.
   
   
3. Mid-game money farm - Spire of Insight method
   
   • Get to the Spire of Insight
     
   • Burn the vines to access the door, place the little stone in the bowl, then place the gravestone in the elevator bowl to make it go up.
     
   • The actual farm is on the second floor: Ride the elevator, jump off onto the second level, and start checking the cabinets and drawers for Small Boxes. Once you pick one up, more can keep spawning. Rinse and repeat for money.
     
   • If they stop spawning, teleport away and back.
   
   
4. Mid-game money farm - Five-Card table in Beighen
   About this one... A lot of the opponents will call all-in with weak hands, so if you play disciplined and only shove on strong starts, you can turn 150 Silver into roughly 600 very quickly.
   
   • You need 150 Silver to buy in: That is your entry cost, so bring at least that much before you sit down.
     
   • Save before playing, only go all-in on strong hands, leave once you already made good profit.
     
   • Reset the table by teleporting away and coming back.
   
   
5. Early/Mid/Late-game money farm - Lioncrest Manor
   
   • AS EARLY AS YOU CAN, go to Lioncrest Manor and steal a gold bar from inside the fireplace.
     
   • Put it in the bank (you need 100 silver to open an account) at medium risk, and before you know it you'll have half a dozen sitting there.
     
   • IT RESPAWNS. Go back after a few days for another. (Patched V. 1.00.4)
   
   
6. Mid/Late-game money farm - Wildlife Park
   This is currently the most effective method. If all goes well, it pays up to 10 gold bars per hour. But... It has a bit of RNG involved.
   
   
   • Go to the Demeniss Wildlife Park (by night is better).
     
   • Use your lantern to highlight the visitors' and look for anyone carrying ingots instead of satchels or keys (the ingot's shape is jarring, so don't worry about missing it).
     
   • You SHOULD spot at least one or two visitors carrying it per run, but it's 100% RNG.
     
   • Now you have 3 choices: Either pickpocket (if you have the gloves), rob (might not drop it), or kill and loot them (guaranteed drop but marks you for a $30 bounty).
     
   • After circling through the park, just teleport away and back and do it again.
   
   If you know another method, let me know in the comments!

Between the time I publish this and the time you read it, the game will probably have been patched dozens of times. So it's only natural that some inaccuracies might show up.

If that's the case, feel free to leave your own tips or corrections in the comments! I'll gladly update the contents with them. Let's make this the definitive Crimson Desert guide!!!