ARK Survival Ascended - Survival of The Fittest beginner’s guide

The Survival of The Fittest in ARK Survival Ascended is a multiplayer online survival battle royale similar to Fortnite or Apex Legends, but with dinosaurs. Here, you must go up against other players and environmental elements to level up and become the champions of the arena. The mod has three modes: solos, duos, and squads.

This guide explains what you need to do in order to secure victory in the ARK Survival Ascened - Survival of the Fittest mod.

Beginner’s guide for ARK Survival Ascended - Survival of The Fittest

Starting ARK Survival Ascended - Survival of The Fittest

When jumping off the Quetzal, try to land somewhere safe on the land (Image via Studio Wildcard)

When ARK Survival Ascened - Survival of the Fittest starts, you'll find yourself on the Quetzal Arc bus. You can open the map using the keyboard to find where you want to land. On the map, you'll see where the ring is and where the bosses are. The rings symbolize the safe zones on the map. Going outside the ring will slowly deplete your health.

Once you and your tribe have settled and decided where you will go, it's time to jump out of the Quetzal and skydive to land. Just be careful of landing near dinos that will kill you straight away.

Loot drops in Survival of the Fittest

Open loot drops to gain items and survive longer in the game (Image via Studio Wildcard)

Loot drops in the Survival of the Fittest mode are similar to Ark Survival Ascended's; they come in different colors: green, blue, purple, and red. The green drops provide basic items, the blue loot offer mid-tier items, the purple ones give higher-tier items, and the red ones grant the best items.

When you land at the start of the game, you'll want to head straight to a green drop because these drops are already on the ground as soon as you get there. The blue, purple, and red drops take significantly longer to appear at the start of each game. So, it's worth going for the green drop first, especially if your tribe mates are nearby.

Inventory and crafting

One must craft weapons to increase their chances of survival in ARK Survival Ascended (Image via Studio Wildcard)

Looting in ARK Survival Ascended will provide you with two things: items and crafting materials.

The items will automatically fill up your inventory wheel, which you can see by holding down "F" on your keyboard. Here, you'll find all the items you have and can use. You cannot drop any of your items off for other tribe members as the goods are fixed to your inventory. Additionally, you can craft weapons and ammo.

To craft basic ARK Survival Ascended weapons, use the materials that loot drops provide. Go into your inventory wheel and select the items highlighted in green —this indicates that you have the right materials to craft them.

To craft more ammo, hold the weapon first, and then a toggle will appear, allowing you to craft more if you have enough materials available.

Taming and possessing dinos

You need to tame and level up your dinos to be the last players standing in Survival of the Fittest (Image via Studio Wildcard)

To tame your ARK Survival Ascended dino, you'll need to knock it out first. You can do so by attacking it and getting its health bar all the way down to 0, at which point it'll be knocked out. You will have the option to tame it using tokens or kill it for tokens.

Above each dino's body, you'll see how many tokens it will take to tame it and how many it will give you if you kill it. You can see how many tokens you have on the right-hand side of your screen.

Once you've tamed your dino and are on it, you'll be able to see a few different things. You'll see its level bar, health bar, stamina bar, and controls. The number on the level bar indicates what level your dino is currently at. In addition, on the left, you'll see your health bar and stamina bar, as well as your item slots in the middle.

As an ARK Survival Ascended player, you can walk up to any of your tamed Dinos and take control of them. In possession mode, your human character stays in place, but you can use the dino's attack. If you unfortunately die but your dinosaurs survive, you can still control them by possessing them.

This means your ARK Survival Ascended dinos can still help you win the game even if you die. However, if you're controlling a dino, you can't tame others, only knock them out. If your tribe mates are still around, they can tame other dinos for you to possess.

Leveling up

One level 3 dino is better than several level 0 dinos (Image via Studio Wildcard)

Leveling up your dinosaur is super important in Survival of the Fittest. A dino at level 0 does little damage to players with armor or higher-level Dinos. To level up, you must either kill other dinos until they're all gone or use 40 tokens at a time for a slight experience boost. You can do this by holding "G" and clicking on "level up."

Once your ARK Survival Ascended dinosaur hits Level 3, it becomes much better. Just remember, killing more dinos won't give you extra experience. So, if you want other dinosaurs to level up, switch to them and let them do the killing. Having one Level 3 dino is way better than three Level 0 dinos.

Healing

Tokens are so crucial for the end of Survival of the Fittest as you need them to heal your dinosaurs as much as possible. The creatures will most likely take a lot of damage during battles, and it can be very expensive to recover.

All you need to do to heal your dinosaurs is hold down "G" and select the heal option. This has a cooldown, so use your healing options wisely. You want to avoid getting caught with no access to healing.

Taming bosses

Defeat bosses to increase fighting power and gain tokens (Image via Studio Wildcard)

At the beginning of each Survival of the Fittest game, bosses will appear randomly on the map. So, it's a good idea to check your map before you drop to see where the ring and the bosses are.

You are recommended to drop near these bosses, gather points on the way to them, and then collect them for 400 tokens before other players arrive.

When you summon an ARK Survival Ascended boss, you can ride it and use it to attack other dinos. However, remember, you won't get tokens for killing or hurting other dinos with the boss. So, using your own dinos to gather tokens is better than relying on the boss.

That wraps up our Survival of the Fittest Beginners guide. Good luck!

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