Level Rushing For Noobs

The Level-Rushing-Strategy has already been described for players who are skilled enough to deal with ghouls, so the aim of this wiki-page here is to fill the gap towards and **for absolute beginners of official devast.io**. You will be surprised how far you can get in half an hour without killing a single ghoul!

***Why level rushing:***

Level Rushing is a kind of cutoff trick to speed up your game session. There are some tools (axe, pickaxe) you will use through the whole game on and on. The better these tools are, the earlier you have them, the more quick your achievements will be. The advantage adds by every use of the more developed tool in comparison to the use of a cheap tool. **You can save hours by having better tools from the start.** (Details see later in this article.)

It´s a very easy strategy and there are absolutely no skills needed. Though there are some rules you have to follow strictly to be successfull with it:

**Recommended prerequisite:** Have a **countdown clock** set for 16 minutes, because after 16 minutes normal ghouls will start to attack you. It´s good to know this point in time some minutes ahead, because you then can perform some actions, depending on your chosen strategy, **to make use of the ghouls** instead of getting killed by them. Strategy options are described later in this page.

***The Do´s and Dont´s, to collect as much XP as possible (starting from level zero) in this 16 (to 22 see later) minute timespan:***

* **What and how to collect:** Regardless of having free slots (and therefore wasting "taken" stuff), always crop all tomatoes and oranges. Use your hatchet to take all stuff from the wild animals. Ignore all mushrooms. If you see the rare flower take it immediately and throw it away. Always crop/chop/axe resources when they appear as 2 objects side by side, or ideally as 3 objects in a bunch. 1 hit gives then 2 to 3 pieces of wood/stone/etc. and this lets you quickly gain XP! **Never grind at single appearances** - you have to act most efficiently! Also be very careful not to hit any ghoul by accident ever!
* **What to craft:** You should craft as soon as possible a (spare-)campfire, a workbench and build there a normal stone **pickaxe**. This is because with the pickaxe you can additionally gather iron-ore and usage of this tool gives more xp-points (stone 28, iron 25) as the hatchet would give (stone 9 pts.). You should prefer to grind for stone/iron rather than wood (only 6 pts.). Crafting the first spear along the way also gives some XP. You can also craft a workbench and all stuff at night when you have to make a break due to cold anyway.
* **What to unlock:** When you gain XP points always unlock sight first. Then comes the inventory slot upgrade. You need sight for spotting resources, houses and other players ahead. **Avoid any contact to other players**, and if this can´t be averted, just give them (drag and drop) something useful (e.g. in this order: food, tendon, leather, iron, stone, seed, or all at once - that might be impressing) and they hopefully leave you alone and won´t follow you. If they then attack you, they would have tilted at you anyway, so don´t worry in this case. As for inventory, you need slots for hatchet, pickaxe, spare campfire, wood, stone, and food (only tomatoes, oranges) - that´s a total of **7 slots**. More slots have the advantage to be able to collect some extra stuff (tendon, leather, etc.) to "bribe" other players with such giveaways.
* **Keep on movin´:** Stroll around, even at night - you don´t have any time to waste! If it´s night, then always make one campfire (including some wood for fuel) in advance for the next break due to body heat energy (blue bar) reaching zero. Remember that a campfire needs max. 35 wood to burn the whole night, but you shouldn´t stay there unneccessarily long, instead stroll further around. **Use the fire only to heat up!** Don´t fiddle around with crafting steaks, seed or tomato cans! While you heat up, craft the next campfire and quickly move on for collecting further resources!
* **Do not steal/sabotage:** If you spot unattended workbenches/woving tables/campfires/firepits etc. from other players: Leave them alone unless you are planning a different strategy! The process of taking from benches would give some XP, but since it´s very risky this is no option for beginners in this strategy layout given here.
* **Avoid houses (also the containers outside):** That´s because they don´t give you any XP. If you want to search for items then this is a different strategy.

***Near the end of these 16 (or 22 see later) minutes, you have 2 basic choices:***

* **Learn to fight against ghouls to gain XP:** If it´s still night or getting towards nighttime, you can search an abandoned house or build your own shelter (not a base). Inside a house you can craft spears or bow and arrows and a low wooden wall. If you set that wall directly outside of a house´s "window" (low wall or door) you then can shoot or kill (pickaxe) ghouls easily from a safe position because they are distracted with the task of destroying your wall. If you decide to build some shelter outside a house, don´t build a complete base! Just make 2 to 4 wooden traps and put them with 3 units space around your campfire (because of exploding ghouls that could accidentally destroy your fire). You also need at least 2 spears, to kill those few normal ghouls, that will haunt you in the night. But **don´t waste time** when there are no ghouls coming around.
* **Or you simply quit and respawn.**

The output of this strategy after 15 minutes (stage 1) is **XP-level 10..16** depending if it´s day or night when you start, the amount of resources you find, and the peacefulness or absence of other players. So you can respawn later with **XP-level 5..8 (iron pickaxe)**.

**When you respawn (stage 2), don´t go for building a base** with the given equipment (wooden or stone walls, doors, cases)! Throw these items away immediately. Only keep the pitfire, use it when needed, and leave it like a normal campfire behind after warming up. That´s because it´s not the time now to make a base (**too less XP, too less equipment**). If you don´t follow this rule, you will be extremely busy with your base and in another 15 minutes you won´t reach any XP level further than you had before (10..16). Instead, other players will start to annoy you targeted even more (see Least Investment Strategy).

But if you **act like you did your first 15 minutes**, you will make it **up to XP level 19** (in case of starting with level 8, you then have the iron pickaxe that gives more points than the stone pickaxe, especially if you dig iron-ore). In best case, you have a starting day after these 15 minutes. Then you can make it **up to level 22** without ever having killed a single ghoul!

***Best timing for level rushing:***

1. log on, server check: lag, savages, free base locations

2. level rushing until day/night or night/day change - display clock with seconds - do screenshot to capture exact time

3. respawn, when around 2 minutes of the day have passed (1 day = 1 night = 8 minutes long)

***This results in the following gameplay:***

* 1st minute begins: respawn, when 2 minutes of day have passed

* the remaining 6 minutes of the day pass by

* 7th minute begins: the night comes in

* all the 8 night minutes pass by

* 15th minute begins: the day comes in

* 15th & 16th minute passes by (2 minutes of the new day)

* 17th minute begins: weakened ghouls attack, if they are not already dead **Note: Normal ghouls attack after exactly 16 minutes after respawning with a low XP level!**

* you can make use of the remaining 6 day minutes without being bothered by ghouls, until nightfall
* so **in total** this way you have 6 + 8 + 8 = **22 minutes for level rushing!** **Note: The "clock" at the left bottom shows 1 minute per segment (8 segments = 8 minutes). The "clock" is yellow with segments displaying at day, but turns white at night without showing minute-segments. Night and day lasts each for 8 minutes.**

***What XP level should you try to develop:***

XP Respawn OverviewIf you want to reach higher development stages in this game, **you need good equipment** (and some XP points to unlock features) **right from the start** (respawning). E.g. if you want to reach sniper-stage, then you will need at least the metal-pickaxe, because you have to collect sulfur and lots of iron for shaped metal quickly.

**XP level 16 (respawn 8):** Here you get the metal-pickaxe but the metal-axe is missing. So this XP level is only good for further level rushing!

**XP level 18 (respawn 9):** Here you have enough equipment for starting a base and try to reach sniper-stage. But if you want a better start, then level 20 is worth striving for.

**XP level 20 (respawn 10):** This gives **pretty good equipment** for starting your base. You have 2 pitfires and 8 orange plants (good for making gasoline later!), enough full stone walls to have base protection for the some time, some half stone walls for first protection of the entrances/exits, 3 chests (for quickly having hands free) and a research bench (for making smelter, gasoline, fridge, etc.).

**XP level 23 (respawn 11):** **Very good equipment** (no need to do further level rushing!). The **sulfur pickaxe** will speed up a lot. The headscarf is sufficient and enables you to use the nights better. The missing pitfires can be crafted easily. The 9mm gun is not needed but kind of "nice to have" in the beginning as an emergency weapon. **But be careful:** After respawning the highest priority is here to **collect enough food and have a stable pitfire!** Don´t underestimate the importance of these basics, because you will be very busy and distracted with building you base and there´s no seeds and no spare food you are starting with!

Make sure to **exactly die with the desired XP level**, otherwise you might be disappointed by getting different, not that good usable stuff when you respawn! Better invest a second or third period of boring level rushing to reach XP 23 instead of quitting at XP 20, if you aim for sniper-stage.

***Other strategical options:***

You certainly always have all other strategic options open, like the **opportunistic strategy** and rather search through all houses for some 9mm-gun, ammo, scarf, crossbow etc. On low populated servers (up to 25 players) chances are high to find such stuff easily! But searching costs a lot of time - **you can´t efficiently gain XP and search for stuff simultaneously**. A mixed strategy often turns out as frustrating.

Last but not least some warning ahead: Always be aware of the big **frustration potential** of this game when you are starting to invest and grind (building a neat base, etc.). It´s a good idea to read here some wiki-pages (e.g. Strategy Basics) to disperse your illusions beforehand.

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