Over the past several months, we’ve featured a number of games from NetEase, including the zombie survival title LifeAfter and, most recently, the soccer-based game Champion of the Fields. Now, we’re going back to the adventure MMORPG from NetEase we had recently covered — Dawn of Isles, which you can now download for your iOS or Android device.
The game comes with several mechanics you may be familiar with thanks to these titles, such as crafting, stringing together combos when battling against beasts and other enemies, dungeon crawls, and base management — there are several islands to explore in the game, but as you progress forward, you’ll need to make sure your Home Island is up to speed. You’ll also have a chance to tame some of the beasts found on the islands and turn them into your Pets, which have their own unique skills that could help you in battle and other aspects of the game.
Weeks ago, we helped get you started with the game by publishing a handy Dawn of Isles beginner’s guide. Now, we’re going to focus on one specific gameplay element in this Dawn of Isles strategy guide — it’s going to be all about farming, which, for those who aren’t familiar with gaming jargon, refers to the act of repetitively gathering resources, experience points, or equipment (among others) with the least possible effort and the least possible difficulty. (This process is also referred to as grinding.) Read on if you need some help with this all-important process, as we’ll be telling you which modes to play for the most effective in-game farming strategies! So without further ado, we are presenting you our Dawn of Isles farming guide, featuring tips, cheats and strategies on how to farm for resources, EXP and equipment!
1. Gather Resources At Resource Points On The Islands
As you may know by now, Dawn of Isles is a game that relies very heavily on the crafting mechanic. In order to craft new items, you need materials, and in order to cook new meals, you need meat from the various animals found on the game’s islands, among other necessary components. And since you’ll need a fair amount of Breezewood, Sand Rock, fruit, and other ingredients for the various crafting/cooking recipes, as well as for certain quests where an NPC may ask you to provide certain materials for completion, some grinding may be necessary during those times where you aren’t on a main quest or side quest.
When it comes to grinding for materials, ingredients, resources or whatever you prefer to call them, your best bet is to visit the different islands, enlarge the mini-maps on the top left of the screen by tapping on them, and look for those resource points. Each resource point is represented by the icon of the resource that can be found in those specific areas, with green trees representing Breezewood, green bushes representing fruits, gray rocks representing Sand Rock, and so on. Just tap on a resource point and the game will automatically take you there in most cases — sometimes, you’ll get a message telling you that auto-navigation is not available, but if that happens, simply tap on the resource point again. This error may usually be due to an inconsistent internet connection on your end, but it’s usually no big deal.
Before you start farming for materials, you’ll need to make sure your tools are in working condition or aren’t close to falling victim to wear and tear, i.e. still at 20 percent or better. Otherwise, you’ll need to head back to your home island and use the crafting bench to create new tools. You’ll need a logging axe to chop down trees for Breezewood logs and resin, a Mining Pick to gather Sand Rock and its ore, a Sickle to gather fruits from the bushes, a Skinning Shiv to take the meat, hide, and shells off of the beasts that you kill, and a Fishing Rod for, well, fishing.
Of course, visiting resource points is just one of the ways in which you can farm for resources in Dawn of Isles. Read on and we’ll tell you about another thing you can do on your Home Island when it comes to loading up on those all-important resources.
2. Certain Buildings Can Produce Resources For You
As you go along and continue your search for Daria, you’ll need to go back to your Home Island from time to time, where Gugu will brief you on the next set of tasks you need to take care of to bring the island back up to speed. Some of these tasks may involve creating a new building on the island, or upgrading an existing one you already have. Once created, these buildings can produce resources for you, and once upgraded, the level of production increases, thus giving you two main options when farming for materials — you can either gather them at resource points, as we discussed above, or collect them from the respective buildings on your island.
Below is a list of buildings and the types of resources they produce once constructed.
Greenhouse: Fruit
Quarry: Sand Rock
Lumber Mill: Breezewood
Construction Yard: Bricks, Planks
Furnace: Ingots
Textile Mill: Glue, Clothes
Hunter’s Lodge: Leather, Chitin
Aside from those buildings, it’s also worth noting that you will eventually get to build a Crafter’s Hut, which allows you to learn more crafting formulas/recipes, as well as a Farmland, where you can buy seeds that you can use for planting crops.
Before you upgrade those buildings, however, there’s one building that you need to upgrade as your City Hall of sorts, and that’s the Deity Altar. Each building’s level is capped by the level the Deity Altar is currently in, and before you upgrade this particular building (as you would the others), you’ll need to have the required resources in place, which makes farming even more important in the grand scheme of things. The resource requirements progressively get steeper as each building levels up, which is why you cannot rely on your buildings alone to produce new resources/materials.
3. Grinding For Experience Through Adventure Mode – It’s Not All About Resources
When we say “grinding” or “farming,” we’re not exclusively limiting ourselves to resources. Sure, you need ingredients for crafting recipes, and sure, you need wood, rock, and all that stuff to upgrade your existing buildings or construct new ones. But in order to unlock more features in Dawn of Isles, you’ll need experience points (EXP) to level up. And as we said in our beginner’s guide, you may need to complete a few side quests before returning to the main ones, as certain quests require that you reach a certain level before you take them on. But you can also farm for EXP in order to reach a higher level faster. What would be the best way to go about this?
As you may have surmised by now, killing beasts is not a good way to load up on experience, and neither is quest completion — once a main or side quest is completed, you cannot repeat it like you could in other games. (Really, would it make sense, for instance, if you helped Daria cook her first recipe in one of the early quests while taking a break in between the latter quests? It wouldn’t, because the storyline of Dawn of Isles is a linear one.) With that in mind, you can play Adventure Mode once unlocked — in this game mode, you will be required to team up with other players and kill beasts (including, but not limited to the boss beast) that are tougher than the ones you would normally kill during or in between quests while island-hopping. And this mode does include the good old fashioned Dungeon crawl, which will come into play early in the third batch of main quests.
As you’ll notice, completing your first Dungeon crawl will help you level up REALLY quickly! We went from level 11 to 16 during that one adventure, with our pet leveling up from 13 to 20.
If you don’t know anyone else who also plays the game, then you need not worry, as you can let the matchmaking system auto-match you with other players who may be online at the same time as you are. Auto-matching continues until your party has enough members, though you may have to be patient if the game doesn’t immediately find anyone else for you to team up with. This process could sometimes take a few minutes!
4. Other Methods Of EXP Farming
In addition to Adventure Mode, there are a few other methods which you can utilize in Dawn of Isles if you want to farm for EXP and level up quickly. Let’s start with a feature that you will eventually be introduced to during those trips back to the Home Island and in between getting updates from Gugu.
The Task Board is the feature we are referring to, and these list down quests given by the game’s various townspeople — NPCs who may ask you to gather certain materials in given quantities or perform other tasks. There is no deadline for these tasks, and any resources you may currently have in possession will count toward these NPCs’ requirements. We suggest that you complete as many of them as possible, because a successfully completed Task Board quest will reward you with thousands of EXP, as well as some coins and supply boxes! As far as we’ve noticed, we’ve yet to see a task that would require something truly impossible or extremely difficult out of you — it may be as simple, for instance, as buying a few seed packets of a certain type!
Got some surplus resources that you may not need at the moment? Well, you can go to the Trading Pier on your Home Island and sell them for coins, while also gaining a large amount of EXP in the process. Of course, you need to evaluate whether you may have a need for these resources in the future, but if you believe that you’re flush with resources, it’s always a good idea to supply those excess materials via the Trading Pier and get something substantial in return.
5. Farming For Equipment – Adventure Mode Is Still The Way To Go
Aside from resources/crafting materials, EXP, and currency, farming also covers equipment, and no, we do not call going through the main quest “farming for equipment.” It is true that the items you earn while questing will get progressively more effective as you go along, but one, it would take you too long if you simply go through the quests, and two, it really can’t be considered grinding when main/side quests (as designated in yellow and sky blue respectively) can only be played once. That being said, Adventure Mode would still be your go-to mode if you’re trying to load up on better equipment for your character(s) as quickly as possible. And we’re not just talking about weapons and armor here, but all types of items.
For starters, the World Boss option in Adventure Mode has you teaming up with other human players and fighting off “giants” that randomly appear on the islands, and aside from EXP, playing this mode regularly could make you rich in coins as well, while giving you a chance at earning Epic rarity equipment, Rebirth Stones (for refreshing your pet’s skills), and Map Fragments. (You’ll need the latter for finding treasure on the different islands — beware, though, as the map minigame, which requires you to create a map with the Map Fragments you have, can be quite challenging!)
Elemental Realm unlocks at level 22 and allows you to earn EXP, coins, Feat (a resource used for upgrading your character’s skills), Map Fragments, and Pet Training Manuals. Chaos Onslaught, on the other hand, becomes available at level 25 and pits you and your team against the hordes of the Chaos Legion, with a chance to win EXP, pet training manuals, map fragments, Rebirth Stones, and Tome Stones.
Lastly, you have Sage Trials, which give you a chance at earning various types of gems, Feat Scrolls, Trial Points, Infusion Powder, and Epic-level equipment — these unlock at level 50, so you’ll need to be a really advanced player to go through the Sage Trials, as the game will also warn you in this mode’s description.
And that’s all you need to know as far as our farming tips, cheats and strategies are concerned. If you know additional tips or strategies for Dawn of Isles, feel free to drop us a line in the comments below!