Cube World - Beginners Guide

A shortened guide on the goals the player has, on how the game divides up progression, and how to complete said goal within the progression loop with the least amount of frustration possible.

Cube World Guides:

How the Game Works (and How to Read the Map)

All credit goes to Applecooler!

Cube world isn’t in alpha anymore so completely forget anything you remember from playing that. this game is based on a regional gear system with a overall system of “upgrading” or stat boosting with artifacts.

This is where you level up within a region. note that your “level” wont go up for a while. That’s normal. the main goal within each region is to find all the lore, acquire at least a legendary weapon (for the ranged classes, melee classes will have to have armor for survivability), and defeat any and all dungeons in the region. You can ignore lore and just walk around until you find dungeons but that is kinda a pain in the not in my christian guide so do what you will. Below will be images of maps filled with icons followed by the key on what each means.

Map Key

Text color: the “difficulty” of the area. almost directly proportional with weapon grade. anything 2 or more weapon grades above your current weapon grade will be difficult / impossible
Blue dots: Activated shrines of life. very important!
2 rectangles in what is supposed to be a hammer: this is an area that, when completed, will give you a crafting book for the area you are in, with a rarity based on the color of the area/hammer. these crafting recipes will need a corresponding rare gem to create, making it more difficult to craft better equipment. These areas usually have a friendly NPC that when talked to, will tell you what then want you to do. Tip: when a NPC says “Fight them!” that means kill as many as you need until the boss spawns on the map. Then kill the boss.
Speech bubbles: A location where lore was found. You don’t really need to know these places but it helps on avoiding places you have already been.
A gnome: This place has enemies that have captured a shopkeeper. They are either surrounding him or have him locked up (if hes locked up, you only need to kill the boss for the key). When released he will give rewards, but also stock up stores in the villages in said regions.
A Boat, Flute, Harp, Reins, Climbing Shoes, Blue tear, or Glider: These places have a unique equipment in them. They are almost always in the wide open and/or are relatively easy to find. A quick rundown of what they each do. A boat: a boat. A glider: a glider. (you will get prompts for these when you can use them) Reins: lets you ride your pet with T when its nearby (some pets you cant ride(I think)). Climbing shoes: This allows you to climb without consuming stamina, which allows you to reach some places unreachable before (some dungeons have very very steep stairs, so this might be a necessity) Flute: Allows you to access floating islands by activating the statue of the bird next to it, on the ground. Right click when being lifted to drop. Harp: Around the region and even in dungeons, there will be giant locked golden doors. With the harp, you can open them to get the treasure inside. Blue Tear: A treasure locator that works by floating towards the treasure. Only comes out when treasure is near. Note: Sometimes the tear will point underground when there is no caves nearby. I think it might be a bug with the spawning. These are the only equipment I have found so far.
Specials: i have found 2 specials so far, the purple orb and the red portal. These seem to be regional dependent and optional but their destruction seems to only benefit. In regions with a portal, you might encounter possessed enemies. Destroying the portal stops possession. Destroying the purple orb got rid of magical barriers (TBH I dont even know that a magical barrier looked like. I dont even know if it did anything at all. Thats just what it said)
A sword is a fight. I think that’s all it means.
A yellow orb: A artifact dungeon. It is the main goal of each region to complete these. Their location is unlocked at 100% lore (more below)

As you can see, there are various open chests. These are hidden treasure locations so look around when you are about.

These icons can be shown on the map when, you either find the place or talk to a person who tells you about the location. If you find the place, you might not get the rarity or objective on the map until you see the boss.

Artifacts

The artifacts are the main way of permanent upgrading in this game with the level scaling with how many artifacts you have collected +1

That means that, yes, the only stats you can upgrade are these ones below:

These stats will never change unless you make a new char, so these are permanent.

Gear Between Regions

Whats not permanent is gear: This is my gear in a relatively complete region that I explored.

This is the Same Gear in another region:

As you can see, the game treats any gear that isn’t from the region as nothing. That means your first objective in each region is to get SOMETHING. Anything. from the town or elsewhere. When you get the new equipment, just equip it like you normally would and your old equipment will go into the inventory of the previous region. It is not lost. If you ever return however, you MUST equip your old gear again.

That’s pretty much it on the systems at play here…

So, Where Do I Start?

So you start in the middle of no where, surrounded by monsters with colored text. The first thing you want to do is either try to find a dungeon around your gear level (currently white aka one star) or, find a town on the map and find your way there. On your way, avoid anything that has a green name if you are alone and fight anything you see with a white name with caution if far away from the nearest shrine of life.

Tips for exploring:

Look For Shrines Of Life: These are respawn points and fast travel points. Get them. Even if they are out of the way.
The resolution on the map matters: A small place in the ocean might not even show up on the map when zoomed out. Things can hide in plain sight if you are not careful.
You can see people of interest on the map: Cant find the boss in the area? Try the map.
Find people and talk to them: The NPCs give you hints and locations of gear. Just walk up to em and spam e until you either hear a bell, or they repeat what they say.
Find people and make them help you: If you are fighting a boss that is a little hard, try and kite the boss to any friendlies. They will help (and most likely die).

The main objective is you for you get legendary gear in the region. you can leave any region at anytime but your current gear will be useless. Look at the tips section for elaboration on this system.

For getting better gear, kill things at least one gear level higher than you. The only thing that really matters is your weapon level (for ranged. For melee they need to care about almost everything). The reason why is because a weapon a higher or equal grade level makes combat SO MUCH EASIER. The amount of difference between playing with a under leveled weapon and playing with a equal or higher graded weapon is the difference between a 5 minute fight and a 30 second one. It really matters.

I wouldn’t recommend trying to craft your better weapons at first because it requires a substantial amount of money to actually do, though it is a option later on in other areas.

Once you get good enough gear and have found enough lore, go into the artifact dungeons and collect the artifact. You can preview what buff each artifact will give you before entering it as well. The enemies will slowly scale from green, at the beginning of the dungeon to yellow, at the end. Once you finish you can even fast travel out by clicking any shrine of life on the map. Then go to another region and repeat this ENTIRE process, just a little faster. its recommended that you choose regions where artifact locations where already unlocked but you can do what ever you like at this point. Make sure to check out tips below to make it easier on your journey. Good luck friend!

Tips to Avoid Frustration and Confusion

Cube world isn’t perfect. I think that’s all that needs to be said. Tips below.

Activate Shrines Of Life: I cannot stress this enough. They are so useful and with them being a fast travel point that you can click on and use at any time that’s even better.
The map can hide things: As i said above, The map resolution can completely hide small places. Zoom in and right click to drag if you really need to.
People: As long as when you mouse over them and they have a BLUE NAME and not a RACE they are friendly. Sometimes in “evil” biomes, camps aren’t occupied by nice people. Make sure to check everyone by mousing over them far away first, then meeting them.
Ranged bosses: Ranged bosses are a lot harder to kite as a ranged class. If you can, avoid them. If you cant, try your best to stun them. Rangers are fine because you can dodge if you are far enough away from their arrows. Mages just suck.
Vertical gates: In dungeons, you might encounter a set of vertical bars that are a gate. In order to progress you must kill all enemies in the previous room.
Gliding to water: If you choose to glide over water before dropping into it, watch your stamina bar. If you exhaust your stamina bar before you hit the water, you can drown just beneath the surface FAST. Don’t learn the hard way.
Gliding in general: You can get better distance and height if you take out the glider first, then jump off a platform. You can do this by jumping and pressing e on a flat surface while holding w or forward.
Mages suck to fight: Any non playable race char that has a magic stick or staff has the ability to cast a storm of meteors with very little warning. This can kill you even when highly geared. They can do it indoors as well. Try your best to roll and dodge these, even though the duration of the spell is too long to dodge entirely.
Imps suck to fight: Imps have a very similar fire ability that can shread health and also has very little warning too. I don’t know how to avoid this one without having a NPC tank for me (sorry).
Bosses: Bosses have a ability that causes them to do more damage the lower their health. So watch out for taking any hits when they are almost dead. You can die in one shot if you are not careful and then you might have to start all over again.
Dungeon reset: If you die in a dungeon (you will), you will respawn at the nearest activated shrine of life to where you died not where the entrance is. If this happens you can fast travel to the nearest one but that isn’t the problem. The problem is, if you use a respawn point too far away, the dungeon will reset. Fully. There is no way around this so just be careful when you are deep in a dungeon. Also dungeons seem to reset at midnight anyways.