Dragon Quest Builders 2 Beginner’s Tips: Building, Combat, Goodwill & More

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a game which can feel ridiculously meticulous in how it goes about explaining its systems to you as a player. In fact, you will spend many hours of the game going through various tutorials in order to learn how to do things most other survival/crafting games will let go from the get-go. That said, there are a few quirks and things that are easy to miss between all the dialogue boxes and a slow-paced narrative. Here are some of the best tips for newcomers to DQ Builders 2.

Hearts and Minds, Hearts and Minds
In order to level up your base in Dragon Quest Builders 2, you need to collect the hearts and goodwill of your people. You gain most of this by completing quests and fulfilling requests. However, you can also earn quite a lot by just helping out around the settlement. Doing things like cooking and serving food, helping with the harvest or other small things will net you some of those sweet, sweet hearts that you crave. Though it might seem small at first, it adds up over time.

Ring The Bell
Feel that collecting those scattered hearts, or finding a particular villager is a bit of a hassle? Ring the town bell and both hearts and people will come flying to you. This makes it easy to get the scattered hearts and also check in with quests or tasks that the settlers will give you from time to time.

Let the Anvil Ring Out
Making weapons for yourself and your companion is something you will learn almost immediately in the game. What it doesn’t tell you very clearly, though, is that many of your villagers can be given weapons and equipment as well. This will heal greatly during monster attacks and make the early raid attacks a walk in the park.

You’re A Builder, Act Like It
Most if not all problems in Dragon Quest Builders 2 can be solved by building or moving something. Want to get up to a high peak? Build blocks and stairs to take you there, or better yet, pull the rocks or dirt out from the cliff face and arrange them into crude staircases. Even monsters can be dealt with by boxing them in or building high ground.

Don’t Fear the Boogeymen
Throughout your expeditions across the islands, you will happen upon a plethora of high-level monsters which need a good thrashing. True, you’re a builder and not a fighter and as such you deal a rather meagre amount of damage with your weapons. However, you do have Malroth at your side, and he can be a true beast when it comes to combat. Additionally, almost all enemies you encounter very obviously telegraph their attacks, which makes getting out of the way relatively easy. A good way to earn XP in the beginning is to head out and hunt for these bigger and tougher monsters who might seem too powerful for you to tackle. Just keep avoiding their attacks while hitting them in the back and you will be fine.

Burn the Midnight Oil
Remember those weapons you made for your people? This is where they get put to good use. The game tells you that it’s best to go to bed at night and avoid staying out. This is because powerful enemies and ghosts are lurking around at night. However, they are not that hard to beat, especially if you stick around your home base. Whenever enemies appear close to home your villagers will rush out and start whacking at them. This makes it rather trivial to defeat the early night monsters and they are an excellent source of XP as you start out. Once you get a few armed villagers, you don’t even need to get yourself involved in the fighting. Instead, tend to things like building or harvesting and just let that XP tick up as you do.

Make a Mess, Why Don’t You?
One temptation in any building and crafting a game of this type is to double down on placing things perfectly and arranging things ‘just so’. In DQ Builders 2, however, it is so easy to pull out blocks, rearrange and redo things that those things shouldn’t be your top priority early on. This is because you will constantly gain access to new materials and tools during the opening dozen or so hours. So, let that house have messy walls or leave that base in disarray. Focus on advancing the story in order to get to the good characters and upgrades instead.

There you have some beginner’s tips that will hopefully help you out in the early game of Dragon Quest Builders 2.

From our Dragon Quest Builders 2 review:

“Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a methodical adventure with a glacial pace that would have utterly destroyed a less well-crafted game. In this case, however, the strength of the visual design and the excellent writing is more than enough to gloss over those flaws.”