If you’re a fan of the original Arknights tower defense game, you’ve probably already dived into the open-world RPG spin-off Arknights Endfields without much prior research. I know I did, and I spent my first 10 hours wasting rare resources, picking the wrong starting characters, and getting stuck on story missions that should have been easy. This guide pulls from 40+ hours of playtime to help you skip those frustrating missteps and get the most out of your first few weeks in the world of Endfields. You don’t have to follow every tip to a T, but even applying a few of them will save you hours of unnecessary grind.
How to Pick the Best Starting Team for Arknights Endfields
A lot of new players make the mistake of rerolling for hours to get a 5-star DPS character as soon as they start the game, but that’s almost always a waste of time. Most 5-star characters require ascension materials you can’t unlock until you beat chapter 3, so you’ll be stuck with a low-level 5-star that underperforms compared to easily obtainable 4-star characters for weeks. Your starting team only needs five core roles to handle 90% of early and mid-game content, and you can unlock all of them for free within the first two hours of play.
You’ll want at least one shielder with high physical defense to tank open world mob swarms, one AoE healer, one melee DPS, one ranged DPS, and one attack speed support. The free 4-star AoE healer you unlock after beating the prologue is one of the most reliable healers in the entire game, even better than some limited 5-star healers for general open world content, because she can heal three characters at once instead of just one. That makes her perfect for handling large mob swarms that hit multiple team members at the same time.
Don’t invest more than level 20 in any 3-star characters, either. They fall off hard after chapter 2, and the resources you spend leveling them would be far better used on 4-star characters that will stay relevant until late game. You can easily collect enough 4-star character shards from story missions and side quests to fill out your full team within your first three days of play.
Core Resource Management Rules You Should Never Break
Arknights Endfields has three main non-premium resources that drive all progression: alloy shards, operator EXP chips, and field credits. It’s easy to waste these resources on low-value upgrades when you’re first starting out, but bad resource management can set your progression back by weeks if you’re not careful. I learned this the hard way when I spent 20k field credits on a character skin my first week, then had to grind three extra days of dailies to get enough shards to ascend my main healer for a story boss fight.
Alloy shards are the rarest non-premium resource in the game, used for ascending your 4 and 5 star characters. They only drop from high-level bosses and weekly challenge missions, so you only get around 50 of them per week if you complete all your dailies and weeklies. Ascending a single 4-star character to level 60 costs 30 alloy shards, so you can only ascend one or two characters per week at most, making every single shard count.
To avoid wasting resources, follow these hard rules for your first month of play:
Open World Exploration Tips to Save You Hours of Grinding
The open world in Arknights Endfields is packed with hidden rewards that are way more valuable than the rewards you get from daily missions, if you know where to look. A lot of new players stick strictly to story and daily missions, and miss out on hundreds of dollars worth of premium resources that are just sitting in hidden chests across the map. You don’t have to 100% explore every area right away, but keeping these tips in mind will make your exploration way more rewarding.
Red glowing resource nodes are respawnable every 24 hours, so mark them on your map as soon as you find them, especially the ones that drop alloy shards or high-tier weapon ascension materials. I have 12 alloy shard nodes marked on my map, and I collect from them once a day to get an extra 12 shards per week for free, without having to grind any challenge missions. That adds up to almost an extra full character ascension per month, just for 10 minutes of farming a day.
You also don’t have to fight every mob you see. If you’re just exploring to collect resources, you can outrun 90% of overworld enemies, so you don’t waste healing items and time on fights that give almost no EXP. Another little-known tip: If you see a glowing blue butterfly flying around the open world, follow it. It will almost always lead you to a hidden chest that has rare resources or even free operator recruitment tickets. I found three 4-star operator tickets in my first month just by following these butterflies, and I know other players who have gotten 5-star tickets from them too. Complete the small side quests from NPCs in the first town first, too, because they unlock fast travel points across the map that cut travel time by 70% once you have them all unlocked. I used to walk everywhere for my first 15 hours, and once I unlocked all fast travel points I kicked myself for not doing those side quests earlier.
Common Beginner Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
Even if you follow all the team building and resource management tips, it’s easy to fall into common traps that new players don’t see coming. Most of these mistakes don’t seem like a big deal when you first make them, but they add up to a lot of wasted time and resources later on. I’ve made almost all of these mistakes myself, so I can tell you exactly how to avoid them.
First, don’t force story missions that are way above your team level. If a story mission has a recommended level 10 higher than your average team level, don’t keep trying to beat it over and over. You’ll just waste healing items and repair kits, and you’ll get frustrated. Spend an hour grinding open world resources or dailies to level up a little first, it’ll make the mission way easier. Second, don’t ignore the base building system. The base lets you generate passive resources every hour, even when you’re not logged in. Upgrading your resource generation buildings first will give you way more resources over time than grinding extra dailies. I ignored the base for the first week, and my friend who upgraded it first had twice as many alloy shards as I did by the time we both hit chapter 3.
One other common mistake I see a lot of new players make is selling all their extra weapon ascension materials for field credits. A lot of these materials are super rare, and you’ll need them later when you unlock new characters or upgrade higher-tier weapons. Keep all blue and purple quality materials in your storage, even if you don’t have a use for them right now. You’ll thank yourself later when you don’t have to grind for 5 hours to get a single material you sold for 100 credits a month earlier.
At the end of the day, Arknights Endfields is designed to be enjoyed at your own pace, so you don’t have to follow every tip perfectly to have fun. But if you want to avoid the annoying grind and get to the more exciting story and boss fights faster, these tips will help you get there without wasting dozens of hours like I did. Take it slow, experiment with different team compositions, and don’t be afraid to skip content that doesn’t feel fun for you. You’ll find your own rhythm in the game before you know it.