It’s now been confirmed that Knowledge Transfer will be available from launch in the European and North American release of Lost Ark in February 2022, and that you’ll be paying in-game currency rather than real money for the privilege of level skipping in this fashion.
What is Knowledge Transfer in Lost Ark?
Knowledge Transfer in Lost Ark is a method of levelling up your alts without grinding or paying real-world money for the privilege. Purchase a Knowledge Transfer using in-game currency and your selected character will be sent out for eight real-time hours of “training” — in effect, they are completing a section of the game’s main storyline which you’ve already seen on their own, and levelling up accordingly. This saves you the effort of replaying the same parts of the game over and over again to farm level-ups for each of your characters individually. This helps keep your roster more balanced, avoiding a situation where you’re forced to grind for XP when you’d rather be doing something else or risk leaving your alts falling further and further behind as your main continues to level up.
When does Knowledge Transfer become available in Lost Ark?
Knowledge Transfer was only added to the South Korean version of the game comparatively recently, in the summer of 2021. In Europe and North America it will be included with the game at launch; but that doesn’t mean that you’re free to use it to level up your alts right away. You need to meet a few criteria first:
Unlock the Island Stronghold (player housing from the end of the North Vern storyline) and complete the quest to gain access to the stronghold’s training zone. Complete the main storyline for every continent where you want to perform a Knowledge Transfer. Have one character you’ve manually levelled up to that continent’s level cap.
How far can you level up your alts using Knowledge Transfer?
At the time of writing, the main storyline of Lost Ark is split across five continents. Once you have completed the storyline on a continent and one of your characters has reached the required level, you can pay in-game gold to perform a Knowledge Transfer on your alts. Naturally, the level cap gets higher the further through the game you progress, and so performing a Knowledge Transfer on your alts becomes more costly in terms of in-game resources. The only flat requirement is the training time, which stays at eight hours. You can’t extend the timer, but you can manually cancel the training midway through, in which case your character will receive XP proportional to the amount of time spent training. For example, if you cancel after four hours, they’ll return with 50% of the XP yield from a full eight-hour training session. Below are the costs associated with each Knowledge Transfer, though please be aware that since these figures were collected pre-launch they may be subject to change (we’ll update this page as appropriate if they do):
What happens during and after a Knowledge Transfer?
You can still play as your alts while they’re notionally out for training. Once the eight hours have expired, you can check back into the training zone to collect the rewards for their progress. You’ll be briefly taken to a self-contained tutorial area where you direct your character to read from a book that completes the Knowledge Transfer. They’ll then return with all the XP from the main story quests on the continent you sent them to, as well as all base items that ought to be gained from completing that questline.
Is Knowledge Transfer worth the Gold?
Performing Knowledge Transfer on your alts to skip them through North Vern is definitely worth doing if you have any qualms about replaying the first continent over and over again. Knowledge Transfer at this level only costs 600 Gold per character; has a lower level requirement than what you get out of it (you only need your main at Level 50 or above and an Item Level of 10 to return at Level 302 once the Knowledge Transfer is finished); and the eight hours it takes to complete is faster than manually levelling through North Vern, which takes an average of 9-12 hours. At higher levels, main story quest lines get shorter and the cost of Knowledge Transfer goes up, so it might not be such a bargain as you reach the later stages of the game. If you’re just beginning your Lost Ark journey, be sure to check out our Lost Ark classes tier list to help you figure out how to set up your character roster. And if you’ve got a Twitch account, don’t miss out on the Legends of Lost Ark Twitch Drops — see our guide to help you claim some prizes to celebrate the game’s launch!
