Valheim - Valhallall, Meadhallall, Shieldwallall

I'm playing with friends on our own server, they are the 'push to get to the next thing' types, I'm an ultra casual. I occasionally go with them to kill bosses and for items they need some help with, but otherwise I just plink around on my own building in our starter town and overlanding to explore and unveil the map.

I think the only thing I ran into so far that stunted my casual "solo" play times is that now that we've moved further along the progression on the server, we now get stronger attacks on the newbie base area as well. I logged in to find a good portion of my building had been destroyed by trolls. So really I just think I need to pause my current goals and build up some defenses to help with this, not a big deal really and makes sense since we've been ticking off these spirits or gods or whatever they are. I'm not sure if I could just drop a solitary base on a separate island and not be susceptible to these stronger attacks or not, might try that as well.

Regardless I usually don't care much for survival games, but something about this one I can't put my finger on really grabbed me. I definitely get some early EQ (someone mentioned that Freeport-Qeynos run) and Outward vibes from it, with some addicting building sprinkled in.

I'll likely pop into the GWJ servers just to be nosey and see what y'all have built and get some ideas. Picked this one up based on the discussion here and don't regret it.

IUMogg wrote:

I hit my first big roadblock. I'm not far past beating the first boss, so I need to find surtling cores. I couldn't find any dungeons in my starting area/island. I found a smallish island north of my starting area that had dungeons. I made a raft and sailed there and set up a forward base. Then I got stranded. My raft was destroyed. I don't have the resources to build another one. There aren't many boars on this island. This island also lacks flint, so I can't do other upgrades to my crafting station or other equipment. I don't feel strong enough to get through the dungeons. I get swarmed by skeletons and die.

I was pretty frustrated. My solution is to create another character on my server. Get him to a point he can sail and have him bring needed resources to the island.

Any other options you would recommend?

A new raft isnt too hard to construct. It'll take a minute to get your 20 wood, 6 leather scraps (boars) and 10 resin but less time than waiting for a reply here

Edit: 30 wood, really, since you have to build a workbench too

IUMogg wrote:

I hit my first big roadblock. I'm not far past beating the first boss, so I need to find surtling cores. I couldn't find any dungeons in my starting area/island. I found a smallish island north of my starting area that had dungeons. I made a raft and sailed there and set up a forward base. Then I got stranded. My raft was destroyed. I don't have the resources to build another one. There aren't many boars on this island. This island also lacks flint, so I can't do other upgrades to my crafting station or other equipment. I don't feel strong enough to get through the dungeons. I get swarmed by skeletons and die.

I was pretty frustrated. My solution is to create another character on my server. Get him to a point he can sail and have him bring needed resources to the island.

Any other options you would recommend?

This is a good case where the challenge of recovery can maybe dim the fun of the game. If you wanted to bypass that and just build your boat again you could jump to one of the GWJ servers and just take/ask what you need from the community stuff especially since it is low level materials.

Jesus this game is addictive. So much so that it got me to cancel my WoW subscription.

It's super chill, immersive and just fun to play and whatever pace you decide. Pretty much wasted the weekend wandering the woods, mining, building and oh, yea drowning.

polypusher wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

I hit my first big roadblock. I'm not far past beating the first boss, so I need to find surtling cores. I couldn't find any dungeons in my starting area/island. I found a smallish island north of my starting area that had dungeons. I made a raft and sailed there and set up a forward base. Then I got stranded. My raft was destroyed. I don't have the resources to build another one. There aren't many boars on this island. This island also lacks flint, so I can't do other upgrades to my crafting station or other equipment. I don't feel strong enough to get through the dungeons. I get swarmed by skeletons and die.

I was pretty frustrated. My solution is to create another character on my server. Get him to a point he can sail and have him bring needed resources to the island.

Any other options you would recommend?

A new raft isnt too hard to construct. It'll take a minute to get your 20 wood, 6 leather scraps (boars) and 10 resin but less time than waiting for a reply here

Edit: 30 wood, really, since you have to build a workbench too

I have a whole house set up with a bed and workbench and chests and everything. My issue is there aren't any boars. I've been on this island for a couple hours and I've seen maybe 2 boars.

There are tons of boars in my starting area, which is why I created another character to farm leather and bring it to the other island.

IUMogg wrote:

I hit my first big roadblock. I'm not far past beating the first boss, so I need to find surtling cores. I couldn't find any dungeons in my starting area/island. I found a smallish island north of my starting area that had dungeons. I made a raft and sailed there and set up a forward base. Then I got stranded. My raft was destroyed. I don't have the resources to build another one. There aren't many boars on this island. This island also lacks flint, so I can't do other upgrades to my crafting station or other equipment. I don't feel strong enough to get through the dungeons. I get swarmed by skeletons and die.

I was pretty frustrated. My solution is to create another character on my server. Get him to a point he can sail and have him bring needed resources to the island.

Any other options you would recommend?

When you first log in, the game displays some commands in the bottom right that are available for use on single player servers. I believe there is /resetspawn which removes your character's binding to a bed and /killme which kills your character. So you could use the two together to set your spawn back to the starting stones and then respawn there. That way your original character is back on the starting island and you could farm all the resources you need for a new raft with your original character.

@IUMogg If it's become nigh impossible to move forward, you may want to join another server temporarily, gain some more resources that you can carry on your person, then go back to your OG server and build what you need.

Zebulon wrote:

On server 2, there are quite a few players that hang out on voice chat but tend to do their own thing in game (The Citadel didn't build itself).

True, I do like to solo since I did build up the Citadel (and now Longship ), but I still team up with the gang for Boss stomps and I will be joining up here and there for silver runs, etc. I now need to kill me a Sea Serpent, since it likes destroying my docked ships.

cartoonin wrote:
Zebulon wrote:

On server 2, there are quite a few players that hang out on voice chat but tend to do their own thing in game (The Citadel didn't build itself).

True, I do like to solo since I did build up the Citadel (and now Longship ), but I still team up with the gang for Boss stomps and I will be joining up here and there for silver runs, etc. I now need to kill me a Sea Serpent, since it likes destroying my docked ships.

I'm jealous over the number of serpent spawns you guys have on server 2. I go out hunting and sometimes find none. This is even when i was the only one doing it. Now everyone else is doing it too and it's hard to find them.

Malkroth wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

I hit my first big roadblock. I'm not far past beating the first boss, so I need to find surtling cores. I couldn't find any dungeons in my starting area/island. I found a smallish island north of my starting area that had dungeons. I made a raft and sailed there and set up a forward base. Then I got stranded. My raft was destroyed. I don't have the resources to build another one. There aren't many boars on this island. This island also lacks flint, so I can't do other upgrades to my crafting station or other equipment. I don't feel strong enough to get through the dungeons. I get swarmed by skeletons and die.

I was pretty frustrated. My solution is to create another character on my server. Get him to a point he can sail and have him bring needed resources to the island.

Any other options you would recommend?

When you first log in, the game displays some commands in the bottom right that are available for use on single player servers. I believe there is /resetspawn which removes your character's binding to a bed and /killme which kills your character. So you could use the two together to set your spawn back to the starting stones and then respawn there. That way your original character is back on the starting island and you could farm all the resources you need for a new raft with your original character.

I also read that since I still have a bed at my original base, I could destroy the bed at my forward base and die and then it would respawn at my other bed.

IUMogg wrote:

I also read that since I still have a bed at my original base, I could destroy the bed at my forward base and die and then it would respawn at my other bed.

But all your gear would be on the island.

The easiest fix to the problem is probably to just make a different local world. Play on that for awhile until you have enough leather scraps, and then revisit your first world to build a raft.

Malor wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

I also read that since I still have a bed at my original base, I could destroy the bed at my forward base and die and then it would respawn at my other bed.

But all your gear would be on the island.

The easiest fix to the problem is probably to just make a different local world. Play on that for awhile until you have enough leather scraps, and then revisit your first world to build a raft.

It doesn't take long to make a club, kill a few boars and make a new raft to go get your body. I did that myself after a serpent attacked my raft and killed me. Took around 30 minutes tops.

I'd parrot what others have said. If you're new and want to get a group of similarly leveled folks to explore together, that's really the most fun. It's probably not as awesome to show up to a long-running server and just get a ton of high-level hand-me-downs from veteran players without having worked for it since it means you're skipping a lot of the content.

Killed my first troll!

This game seems highly imperfect. In particular the controls suck. But somehow it's really getting to me at an atavistic level. Makes me want to go pump iron, or sack an Irish abbey or something. I'm finding that uncomfortable ethically, but it's sure a novel experience.

mastrude wrote:

Killed my first troll!

Congrats! I'm just now into iron, but trolls are the lone remaining thing in the Black Forest that I don't take for granted even though I've killed a bunch of em. One mistake and they can wreck you.

LouZiffer wrote:
mastrude wrote:

Killed my first troll!

Congrats! I'm just now into iron, but trolls are the lone remaining thing in the Black Forest that I don't take for granted even though I've killed a bunch of em. One mistake and they can wreck you.

Now there are two more hanging out in my territory. Gotta take 'em out. Made my first bronze armor too.

Food up and kite those guys!

Unbeknownst to me, I became Troll-Slayer a couple of days ago. I had set out to take out a couple in order to upgrade my Troll armor, but I just seemed to keep running into them and took out 6 in a row within a 30 minutes span. Flint arrows were my friend that day.

Decided to use this as a tide-me-over game until something else comes out and this is out of early access. Started last night and got up to day 7. I've built a nice lake-front home. I seem to be at a part where I'm grinding for leather scraps and deer pelts. While I find it somewhat relaxing I'm also not sure if there is pull, long-term, to keep me going.

As much as this game is ugly, it looks quite good in motion and there's a very bold choice to focus on PS1/PS2 game (mostly in the characters) that prioritizes everything into its interacting systems.

I have a bunch of small complaints and one major complaint after my first night at this. The main big complaint is that the building placement is difficult. Over the course of last night I went from "bad" to "finicky". Floor boards, walls, and roof pieces wouldn't place unless I deleted entire sections of my home. I still managed to built a home I am quite satisfied with.

-the hoe is a nice early tool but it needs better interface when it comes to leveling. There's little feedback before you do something with it
-if there is a chest beside your crafting table, the crafting table needs to be able to take materials out of the chest

The game is newly released and in early access and that these are my main complains is a very good sign.

What is the hoe for, exactly?

Robear wrote:

What is the hoe for, exactly?

You use stone to build up or flatten areas. can also make stone covered or dirt paths with it.

Robear wrote:

What is the hoe for, exactly?

Two main uses (so far for me) is level and elevate the ground. You can also clear a path and "build" basic (later stone) roads.

Rainsmercy wrote:
Robear wrote:

What is the hoe for, exactly?

You use stone to build up or flatten areas. can also make stone covered or dirt paths with it.

After playing Astroneer, the hoe feels under-designed and far to imprecise to me.

@mastrude - not sure what you mean bad controls? Can you be more specific?

@Vector - If you think the building system is finicky here, I suggest you try ARK (w/o Structures+ enabled) and Conan Exiles. It has some quirks, but comparatively speaking Valheim building has been a dream.

@all - It’s also Early Access - which could fuel an entire discussion on how this could easily pass for a fully released game - and the very next update is directed squarely at building and cooking. After that, another one of the upcoming updates is targeted at improving the (IMHO) already solid combat system and controls.

vypre wrote:

@Vector - If you think the building system is finicky here, I suggest you try ARK (w/o Structures+ enabled) and Conan Exiles. It has some quirks, but comparatively speaking Valheim building has been a dream.

Well, yeah, that's why I don't play those games. I'm really only jumping in now to give it a taste. I'll bounce off once something else holds my interest and get back to Valheim after early access. It's extremely impressive that they released it in this state and look forward to the updates, changes, fixes, and improvements.

Finally took the plunge yesterday. First few hours have been fine. I agree with the challenges of building and the "mislabeling" of the hoe tool since it doesn't really do much. I went to a wiki page just to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong, and it seems like its effect is actually quite minimal as intended.

Not knowing anything, I sort of just built on top of a broken house in the environment near where I started. But after wandering and doing stuff, I found this nice meadow area with a water view and figured I'd go there. The ground wasn't flat but I think I did more harm than good trying to fix it with the hoe

I think at this early point, I'm just going to have to live with "my house doesn't have 4 level walls" for now. I think in retrospect I would have built a few smaller buildings in a camp than trying to build a single big house, but a) Its not hard to just break it down and start over b) at least this early on I'm not too worried about just having one side of my house open to the elements As long as the roof is closed (which is also a bit harder than it should be), I think its ok.

At the end of the day, I just had to tell myself that it isn't a race and there is no pressure to do anything. These early resources are plentiful, so I'm just creating my base camp and will go from there.

Dumb question.. I assume you can have more than one Bed/respawn point or is this an EQ style bind point that you can only have your most recent bind as your current?

vypre wrote:

@mastrude - not sure what you mean bad controls? Can you be more specific?

@Vector - If you think the building system is finicky here, I suggest you try ARK (w/o Structures+ enabled) and Conan Exiles. It has some quirks, but comparatively speaking Valheim building has been a dream.

@all - It’s also Early Access - which could fuel an entire discussion on how this could easily pass for a fully released game - and the very next update is directed squarely at building and cooking. After that, another one of the upcoming updates is targeted at improving the (IMHO) already solid combat system and controls.

Conan Exiles has the best building I've experienced outside of Minecraft or EQnext and the best from a survival game. It's no where near as finicky ( I do love that's the word constantly being used to describe it) as Valheim.

You can claim multiple beds as your own but you only spawn at the last one you set as your spawn (like Minecraft).

Absolutely loving this. I claimed a small spot on the second server, but have been mostly screwing around on my solo world to learn stuff.

I changed some of the visual settings, specifically turning off depth-of-field, chromic abberation, motion blur, and so forth. My god it makes the game so much nicer to look at. Removing the depth-of-field especially was literally game-changing. I really recommend that everyone play with the visual settings.

20 hours in solo and it feels sort of empty. Only trolls are an issue.
I am not sure where I should make my base so have several small ones but see that the 2nd boss is miles away. Guess I should keep with the strategy and work toward the next boss.

polypusher wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

I hit my first big roadblock. I'm not far past beating the first boss, so I need to find surtling cores. I couldn't find any dungeons in my starting area/island. I found a smallish island north of my starting area that had dungeons. I made a raft and sailed there and set up a forward base. Then I got stranded. My raft was destroyed. I don't have the resources to build another one. There aren't many boars on this island. This island also lacks flint, so I can't do other upgrades to my crafting station or other equipment. I don't feel strong enough to get through the dungeons. I get swarmed by skeletons and die.

I was pretty frustrated. My solution is to create another character on my server. Get him to a point he can sail and have him bring needed resources to the island.

Any other options you would recommend?

A new raft isnt too hard to construct. It'll take a minute to get your 20 wood, 6 leather scraps (boars) and 10 resin but less time than waiting for a reply here

Edit: 30 wood, really, since you have to build a workbench too

You could create a new world and place all of you gear into a chest. Then return to old world and get yourself killed (After destroying bed) so that you respawn at you original base. Then go get your gear from your new world.

My brother had to use this trick. He was sailing his boat and got disconnected from the server. When he logged back in, he was in the middle of the ocean without a boat. He quickly did this trick to save his gear.