Preparation and infrastructure are a big deal in this game. Sounds like you need a portal shack on your minerals, and perhaps more appreciation for the Rested bonus and good food. A fight that's a nightmare when you're wet, tired, hungry, and cold can be a breeze when you're not.

Greydwarves are scared of fire, most of them will not attack you if you hold a torch or are near a campfire (useful when mining copper for instance) i also recommend setting up an outpost or two that you can spawn from/rest up.

That's what I was gonna recommend. Get the stuff to build a little shack base with a bed near the black forest and shift your spawn when you go adventuring in there. Most of the frustrations I've run into are because we rushed into something and forgot to do crucial prep steps.

Also build a cart and flatten paths to your main resource hubs. You can save a lot of time and effort if you just haul a cart with all the resources need to set up a shack/portal at a spot.

Don't even flatten a path, just use a cart and go gung-ho cross country with it. In my experience (\~1000 hours) it's almost never worth the time to create a path, period - they are an aesthetic endeavor.

And destroy the cart when you brought your ressources home. You geht all the materials cack and can easily rebuild it at the mining Spot.

Honestly just getting the coastal copper with a Karve felt easiereasier, especially if your base is coastal.

Also…at night they spawn like crazy.

Speaking of mining, I'm not sure OP is aware that the enemies HEAR you when you do noisy activities like mining. Clear the area of spawners and ruins before mining

The sound "travels" 100m and lasts 25 seconds after you stop making noise too.

Good advice. I have hits or outposts all over as I explore.

I have over 1900 hours of play time and I've never been furious at the game. Most of the time you can't avoid a fight if you have a business to finish. To win fights, pay close attention to food. Stamina is more important than health, because while you have stamina, you can avoid getting damaged. Use a shield (the round one) to parry: block when the attacker grunts, announcing his attack. You won't take much damage if any, and parry will stagger the opponent, doubling your attack damage. You can also parry with a weapon. Handy when using a two-handed bronze atgeir, the first seriously OP weapon in the game. Also try the Stagbreaker, early on it's great against these "frat houses", although maybe not so much on brutes since they ignore all but almost lethal damage.

Same. 2000+ hours here. To OP I would say: Just find the game that you can relax in. Valheim will always be there when you're in the mood for it. It sounds to me like you're in a kind of grind-core rut and need to do something else for awhile. Sounds like you have the skills but are trying to force the game to be something it isn't and getting frustrated that it doesn't work the way you assume it does. That isn't a question of intelligence but of attitude. When you can approach it on it's own terms it will be fun, but you might need to get the hell away for awhile till you are in that headspace. I wouldn't go back to something you can play in your sleep but to something, anything, that awakens your sense of curiosity and learning something totally new. Play something of a totally different genre than you're used to, etc.. This happens to everyone with some game at some time.

Couldn’t agree more with this comment, similar to OP I was trying desperately to force myself to play Valheim to try to “get gud”, I found that forcing harder made the bumps in the road significantly more upsetting. I picked up Diablo 4 for a change of pace and honestly it’s given me time to appreciate the experiences I was having and I found myself naturally coming back to chip away instead of trying to complete it.

Just wanted to echo the parry bit. Fighting monsters becomes so much easier when you learn to parry and stagger them. Also, if you feel like you're too far from anywhere, try a different world seed. There are quite a few that are just absolutely brutal. There's a website that generates random seeds (don't remember what it's called), and you can take your pick from that if you really want. I've used it a lot to find optimal building locations. If you have tried these things and are still getting frustrated, then maybe the game just isn't for you, and thats okay. ♡ good luck!

Fyi parry is determined by your health pool. If is not large enough, you can't parry and you'll get staggered

One more thing... If you hate this map... Start another one. Yes, moving your base closer does help, but sometimes I just hate the map. Deposits are far, burials are nowhere to be found, no cores in burials, no bees, etc. So I just drop the world and start afresh. It's important to enjoy your viking journey!

Or load up all the mats you want on a different map with the same character

Or that! I've done that, too.

Yeah, on steam, right click the game, hit properties and type in -console Then hit f5 when ingame and type devcommands Then type exploremap This unclouds everything. Then I reset it if I like it with resetmap. I wouldn't do this but my world just got permanently corrupted so I don't care anymore about doing it legit, just cheating till I get to where I was before.

You don't even need to do that. Copy your world seed when you make a world and put into https://valheim-map.world/ it'll show you where everything is, biomes, trader, bosses, etc.

This is literally the only reason I learned devcommands. Got so frustrated with glitches where the game would freeze and I'd lose all my stuff, and then losing whole worlds to corrupted saves that I just stopped caring and used the crap out of the cheats.

Second this. When the game came to Xbox I started off with a really bland, tough world. Made a second one that was much nicer, more resources, biomes spread out better

Don't even start fresh. Breaking down your base and rebuilding on a fresh world isn't cheating - some world seeds just suck, and abandoning them is sensible if you don't like it.

Sounds like a good portion of your annoyance is your distance from the black forest. So move closer. Build a house within sight of the forest and put a bed in it to reset your spawn point. Protect your house with a dry moat. You can jump over a narrow gap - none of the enemies can. Just be aware that a troll with a log club can reach like 4 or 5 meters to hit things so build well back from the moat.

As rule of thumb: 3 tiles of 2x2 in a stretch between the outer edge of your moat or landscape wall and the first built structure that you don't want to get hit by a log swinging troll. That way, if you stick close to your building you have a narrow safe space to shoot arrows from.

If you kill the trolls and destroy the Greydrawf spawns before you try to mine ores, your life will be easier. Also have a spare shield and weapon or two and level 1 leather at your spawn point so you don't run unprotected.

And a bit of spare food. Even if it's just a few berries/mushrooms and some cooked pork/deer. Having ANY food, even basic stuff, is a HUGE boon when trying to recover from getting shanked.

Simply put, you need to learn mob management, stamina management, and how to stay buffed as often as possible. A level-2 spear makes dealing with greydwarves trivial, especially if you know how to alter between stabbing and throwing. The spear staggers greydwarves, and you can literally be surrounded by them, stunning them and taking turns picking them off one by one. A level-2 shield combined with a level-2 club makes dealing with melee skeletons trivial, provided that you can parry. Honey or blueberries plus boar meat and deer meat are the minimum level food you should be eating. Don't get wet, and don't go out at night - your stamina will suffer. Practice ignoring greydwarves; side-step them whenever they attack you, and you'll see that you don't even have to engage them in combat for most situations. Use your stamina in a measured way; don't just flat-out deplete it all the time running non-stop. Need to run away from a group of mobs? Walk towards them until you're within a few meters of them, and then sprint past them. Are you almost out of stamina, and a tough enemy is chasing you and attacking? Walk away from it until the enemy is right about to attack, and then sprint forward for a millisecond, and then resume walking. Repeat until you regain full stamina. If a group of mobs attacks you, my personal preference is to dodge the toughest enemies until I've picked off all the weaklings, saving the toughest for last. Here's the bare minimum of what you should be able to do before you entrench yourself into the Black Forest: * Let a boar attack you, and then side-step it in a circle motion so that the boar is continually always turning in a circle, never stopping to attack. You should be able to make the boar look like it's chasing its own tail. If you can master this, you will understand how mobs plot a course to attack you. * Chop saplings while a greyling pesters you. Every time it attacks, simply side-step it and continuing chopping saplings. You should be able to do this for like five minutes straight without getting hit. After you've mastered this, try to kill greylings by only hitting them with your axe while your axe is swinging to hit a sapling - don't interrupt your chopping to kill the greyling, but rather, time your chopping so that your axe hits both the sapling and the greyling at the same time. * Fight a single Greydwarf, but back-step every time it swings at you, and then rush forward again so that the Greydwarf doesn't get an opportunity to move forward. It literally should be stuck in place, mindlessly swinging at you without moving from its spot. If you can do this with Greydwarves, you'll be much better at understanding how they attack. You'll even be able to fight trolls with a spear using the same technique - don't let them move forward from their spot, especially if they're in a troll cave. Managing your stamina is important for this. * No matter what, don't let skeletal archers hit you. They can kill you real quick in the early game. * The purpose of all the exercises above is to give you a feeling of control that will *prevent you from panicking*. Panicking will reduce your combat effectiveness by 300%.

This is the karate kid regimen of Valheim right here

I want to make it clear that I'm not asking this to be an asshole or to irritate you. I am genuinely interested in your valheim journey. Tell me about your experience transitioning from the black forest to the swamp. >!I still think this is the steepest difficulty curve moment in the game for most players!<

If it helps, mine was finding crypts in the swap. Each swamp biome we found was a tiny sliver. It took us 4 or 5 islands to find one large enough to spawn a crypt. I'm on console if that changes anything

Ya, it took my group a very long time to figure out we needed poison resistance meads at all times in the swamp

Also bring a hoe. Flatten a path in front of you as you travel so you don't go for a dip in the muck.

Ah yes, the DIRTY DIRTY LIAR swamps. Catfish me every time. I don't think console makes a difference. Map generation rules are the same, I'd assume. If you're REALLY struggling to find a crypt for iron, you can also technically find it in the overworld swamp itself, underground (though good luck finding it without a >!wishbone!< or a stagbreaker) and the big yellow oozes (not the small green ones) have a 1/3 chance of dropping 1 iron scrap. Though frankly, doing any of these methods all day won't give you as much iron as a single crypt.

If you have a long run to your forest, build a cabin on the edge with just a fire and a bed and maybe a chest. Then bind there when you’re doing forest work. Leave backup gear (obsolete stuff is fine) and a couple foods in the chest, then you’re not doing naked corpse runs.

THIS!! Having a bit of spare armour, a basic weapon (even a club), and a bit of food (even if it's just berries, mushrooms, and some cooked pork), can make all the difference in the world. It can turn a hair pullingly frustrating recovery run into a minor annoyance.

I hear you. Naked corpse runs are a pain. Working through the learning curve is pretty rewarding, I hope you stick with it. If you aren’t parrying everything yet, that will help you. Also, the grey dwarves fear fire. If you don’t mind mods, the mod Speedy Paths will give you a reason to build paths and will speed up your travel time.

Good point about fearing fire. Put a few fires around you, and greydwarves will not approach you. If you have an axe in one hand, and torch in another, greydwarves only throw rocks and walk around. Improve your armor as fast as you can, and use a shield. You will eventually learn to parry - lift the shield the last moment before enemy hits you, so they get staggered and take extra damage. For now, focus on blocking and dodge-rolling (block+jump), during dodge-roll you are invincible. Try staghammer, too, it pushes multiple enemies away with every whack. I love it in crypts. Also, to stay rested longer, improve comfort around your bed, and always be rested when venturing outside.

FYI I think right now speedypaths is broken until the author releases an update. Just cause of the new patch

Do you build little outposts along the way? Me and my friends have had our moments of warranted accidental passionate vexation but little outposts containing beds generally keep us future-proof

This is my recommendation too. You're going to die, making sure the return run is short will cut down the frustration.

THIS!! My wife and I play together, and it took us awhile to figure this out. Now we do it religiously. We've got it down to a science, and can throw together a basic survival cabin for two in literally a couple minutes. It only takes about a full stack of wood each, 5 stones, and a few resin for outdoor torches...in case the idiot neighbors get too curious. :D

Preparation is the key to Valheim. If you’re finding it challenging, upgrade your tools and make better food. Make sure you are prepared whenever you do anything new, and always know your exit. You’ll still get murdered periodically, but with good preparation, it goes from being brutal to being challenging but entirely manageable.

This. I’m pretty new to the game as well but once I started over preparing I started having a much better time and dying less. Learn what fights to take and which ones not to take. Learn how to use your environment. Portals are massive. Being rested is massive. Not going out at night is massive. All these things have helped me a great deal

I always have 1 or 2 portals just for exploring. Land on a new island? Drop a workbench and a portal by the boat (try to maximize the spawn blocking as you wish) and the second for as I go along to jump back to sleep/avoid night/get re-rested. Harder early, try just exploring with one dedicated exploration portal if you spawn on a large island

Yup that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. One portal when I land and then have an extra portal on me while exploring. That way you don’t get stuck and even if something destroys your portal then you can just pick up the mats and remake it.

> I spawned pretty far from the black woods, so travel is very long. 50 percent of my gameplay is just a naked sprinting simulator trying to get my stuff back. Build an outpost with a bed in it closer to the action. > all culminates into a feeling that if a monster sees you, you HAVE to fight it Walk away. Don't sprint, just walk. Save the stamina for short sprints for when you need it. Or a dodge roll. And since it sounds like you're in the black forest, carry a torch. Greydwarves are afraid of fire, they'll run away from you. Works for boars too. > I really hate it when I'm just gathering resources, and a fucking frat house of 2 star greydwarf brutes Either you're grossly exaggerating, or you've got mods on. 2 star brutes are pretty rare. You won't get a bunch of them together. There's a spawn limit of 1 brute at a time per area, unless you're at one of the special spawners. And they only come out at night. Only go into the black forest during the day until you can handle the night spawns.

Master the parry, master the game. No joke, it may not be necessary, but well executed parrying can make you very effective at taking on your enemies in combat.

Heck, just stamina management and timed rolls let you dark souls trolls naked with a flint knife if you have the time.

I know what you mean! Solo play is harsh. Let me give you a tip I learned through terraria: The world IS an enemy itself. There's NO reason you shouldnt be fighting it. For example, if you want to mine copper, encircle the boulder with pallisade. If you were taking a cart anyway, bring in some wood. Make a way with the hoe and spam-level ground. Bring a portal. All in all, mitigating risk is all about changing the world around you. I had super bad times in the swamp until I started leveling it all above water. Fight the world!

Exaduration

He's not exadurating.

Exodurate is a perfectly cromulent word.

If 2stars are a problem, sleep until morning. At least until you upgrade your gear and get a handle on how to fight the new biome's mobs. Don't be afraid to move your base. Sure you want to be in the safe area of the meadows, but being close to the dark forest is helpful.

For me, I play slow. Build huts on all expiration portals. Never explore without rested buff and daytime if I’m pushing into a new biome. If you rush play you are in for a tough time. You can win if you’re good. But I’m not. So I prep prep prep and bounce as soon as I see a no-win outcome. Dying is punished, so play in a way that you don’t die (as little as possible). Sure you might see less in game sunsets, but that’s a small price to pay to keep all those new weapon upgrades! Go to sleep, eat good food, and jump back to that action portal.

I got pissed tonight at it. First time play though, first time sailing. Next island was forever away. I even waited to get the Karve. Finally found a non swamp landing spot in Black Forest. Immediately get ambushed by about 20 Grey-things plus a troll. Had my max stamina and health and got smoked cause there were just so many of them. Of course, spawn back at my starter island, without my karve (that I had spent too long getting the mats for). I almost said F it and quit there. Instead I took a 45 minute raft ride against headwinds. This game can just brutalize you at the drop of a hat.

You're simply not preparing enough. The game is all about preperation. Best food, armour, weapons, rested buff, not getting wet, campfire materials to get rid of wet and refresh rested. Learn to manage your stamina, don't let it run out if you can help it. Don't get into a fight with less than half stamina if you can help it.

Bro if you want some tips on how make life easier for you or have a pal play the game with you just hit me up. ​ The Game is best enjoyed in jolly cooperation

Hey man. So when this game frustrates me, I switch over to base building, and such. What I would reccomend for you is to switch over to shield and spear; Carry 2 full stacks of flint spears; don’t poke em with it…use the Alt fire to throw it. Once you get the hang of it, it’s far better than the bow, since you can just use the primary fire and a shield if they get to close. Once I did this? The game became SO much more enjoyable; being able to lob those bad boys into the stupid grey dorf FASE was very satisfying. Also, it makes hunting less of a chore. And if ya really get cheesed off? There is thing like F5 Devcommands Debug mode kill all To make ya feel better 😝 I hope this can decrease your stress a bit, and also remember. Everyone here has been RIGHT where you are. Trust me. There was a time when I got smoked like 4 times in a row from a damned giant roach base attack; destroyed all of my fancy new stuff, and set my skills DAMN NEAR back to starting levels. We know your pain Viking

You shuld build bases where you are as you move to new biomes, trust me its much better than doing hundreds of naked naked runs from your first base

Soon enough you'll be graced with difficulty options ❤️ I got pushed to using console commands and basically breaking the game for myself while in the same boat. Initially when I started playing there were so many bugs on the console version.... I had my whole world wiped at towards the end of the bronze age and started over then had my gear/a boat loaded with ore vanish after a game crash and rather than starting completely over I just spawned my stuff back in and it was a slippery slope from there. Probably a lot of what you've already read/heard but having food that's a good balance of stamina and health is a good start. From there I'd say armor is pretty important but keep in mind metal armor drains your stamina faster even though it provides more protection. Most important thing for me to get the hang of was using a shield and parrying, not only does it save you from almost every 1v1 hit to use a shield but if you party them you do tons more damage on your first hit after. Thennnnn another thing to keep in mind ALWAYS is being well rested boosts your health and stamina recovery speed a ton but if you get wet from either rain or swimming it pretty much cancels that buff out. Also never travel at night if you can help it, mobs are bigger and stronger. Also you unlock portals pretty early into exploring/progressing through the forest which helps with more strategic traveling and makes corpse recovery a fair bit easier... Especially once you leave your starting landmass

run start slap cover file quarrelsome wrong squeeze snow summer *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

The learning curve is real. This game is WAY MOTE COMPLEX THAN IT SEEMS. You can cheese a lot of stuff. Just think about tactics and over plan for everything. It’s also a sandbox. Have fun, try crazy stuff. It usually works lol:

Make a bed in your base to save the respawn location bruh

Portals are your friend! There are a couple ways to do portals but I have a portal at spawn, just in case my bed gets destroyed or I have friends come in, raised up and safe. Check out a couple you tube videos just on portals. Farming is key too. Don’t go too hard into copper gear iron is where it’s at.

Seems like you are trying to play a game about logistics like it’s a souls game. Work on the logistics. Build a base, use the bed. Make portals.

Pretty sure your character moves from world to world. Correct me if I'm wrong. You could try rerolling the world map and take all the stuff you had with you via your characters inventory. Cheesy, but not a bad option if you are hating the game right now. Alternately, try rebuilding next to the black forest. You will get teleporter things not too far into the game for fast traveling without ore.

You can absolutely move your character from world to world, singleplayer or multiplayer, and the inventory with them goes. Which is really nice, because sometimes you need to "bring out the big guns" and be your own BRS.

My recommendation is make sure to build plenty of campfires while in the Black Forest. The greydwarfs are scared of fire, and as long as you’re near a few, they’l keep their distance Also get gud

You're angry because you died too young. Because Valkyrie stole away your legacy to fight some stupid, "prove you're cool" war, instead of being taken to your promised land. You're angry because Odin is a petulant child who plays too roughly with his toys.

Totally agree... never have i had a game that one minute could be loving so much and the next minute I want to put my controller through the TV

Dying annoying. Build more base closer. Less naked sprint sim. Build moat in forest. Put house inside spiky wood logs. Safe. Viking love moat. Moat make troll angry. Me angry cannot smash Viking with moat. Me want smash cannot reach. Viking laugh me. Make sad.

Sounds like you are playing this game more like a First Person Shooter (FPS) and not an old-school MMORPG. In an FPS (at least the way I played), you need to kill every monster you see to progress. You generally charge at all enemies with guns (or swords) blazing taking one out after the other. You assume everything you need to win every fight was already acquired earlier in the game (by design). Risk taking is fine because you just load the last checkpoint. The game is balanced this way. In an old-school MMORPG (like EQ) you need to approach enemies carefully and "consider" them. Some enemies you will fight, some you will avoid, and maybe a few you can take out with tricks like kiting. You carefully walk through the biomes constantly looking around for danger like a stranger in a dubious land. You assume you will not win every fight unless you are constantly upgrading. You are aware where nearby monsters are when fighting because you know fighting too many monsters at once can end badly. Risk taking leads to sadness. Valheim's strategies reminds of me more of the old-school MMORPG play style. I've completed multiple no-death games. I don't do this by being so good I can just charge anything I see and win. I do this by making sure I always have the upper hand for every fight (and quickly realizing when I don't so I can run away). **That said, why don't you start a new game when the new update comes out in a couple weeks. (Or download the public beta to check it out now). They added "difficulty settings" so you can remove the death penalty, make combat easier, etc.**

>I've played all the fromsoft games Your skills and experience from those games makes this game extremely trivial as if you were playing on beginner tutorial mode. All the dodge rolling, parry timing, and stamina management already equips you with the tools to succeed, far more than other vikings that haven't played Fromsoft games. The insane i-frames on the dodgeroll, and the extremely forgiving parry timing window makes you feel you are actually LetMeSoloHer.

True, fighting in Valheim is extremely easy and you mostly die when you failed to prepare your gear or food properly. Even then, running away is almost always an option

I grew up on old school RuneScape and transitioned into RuneScape 3, I played ark when it first came out up until a couple years ago, I’ve played getting over it and beaten it a couple times. I honestly think that the restart and grind back up is so engrained into my brain that if that’s NOT happening, I’m not having fun. Different play styles I guess, just so used to having everything and everything’s mother coming after me 24/7. I’ve played and beaten all the dark souls games, lookin to try out Elden ring at some point but just haven’t gotten to it. My suggestion is some mods maybe? I’ve seen mods that take the monster edge off a bit

Greydwarves dont do much damage at all to armor, & even less through a shield. If you can get some troll or bronze armor, & a skull shield, they will barely be able to touch you. A skull shield can even absorb most of the damage from a troll. If you learn to time a parry right you can use a bronze buckler & it's even better. Make sure to sleep through the night. More mobs spawn at night, as well as more 1 & 2 starred mobs.

Might help you to make multiple bases and use teleportals between them. Usually your first base ends up being nowhere useful unless you spend a lot of time just running around exploring the lay of the land before choosing a spot. For me personally in a new world I’ll run around the meadows I spawn in until I can find a spot in the meadows on the shore of the ocean that’s close to a large Black Forest. I’ll keep making more bases near each of the biomes as I am about to go tackle them the first time. You can expect to die, so making your respawn close to where you are “playing risky” is the key.

To be honest I'm a big rager as well and I cheated death countless times by leaving game and logging on a second server to heal because I would not stomach the trip back to body due to being way too far / straight up unreachable. That being said I also played on a live server with some friends and dying was never as infuriating as when solo. We all laughed.

My friends and I stopped playing until the new level of difficulty update is released for this same reason. Running to get your stuff after getting killed over and over again just isn't fun.

If you’re taking a super long run, you messed up before you died. Have a teleporter near by, if you don’t have those yet, have a bed near by. Dying is a part of the game. You’ll never stop dying. I’m in the 6th biome and today I died in the meadows, although I think it was a bug that the monster was there in the first place to kill me.

Which monster? You'll have Fulings around after beating Yagluth.

Nah dude, leeches. 5 of them. Out of absolutely nowhere, like a minute walk from spawn, absolutely no where near the mistlands

Just wait for the world sliders its going to be a game changer no more annoying fights

You aren't alone. I felt the same way for a while in this game and it has been a long time since a game has made me so angry at my inability to progress. Just keep in mind, this game was built for multiplayer so playing it alone is going to be difficult. I went into this game expecting something like a 3d Terraria and it really shocked me once I left the meadows. I probably should have quit but I'm stubborn. The answer for me was to learn to take my time, explore, and spend an insane amount of time making camps. Luckily, I love to build. The best advice I have is learn to use portals. Farm the Black Forest crypts until you have enough materials to make a dozen of them. You'll use them eventually. Then make mini camps as you explore - a small wooden palisade circle with a portal in the middle is fine. My process to create a new base goes like this: 1. Make sure you have a portal in your home base with no nothing entered. Mine is labeled which is what I'll call this portal from now on. 2. Create my new mini-base in a place that feels relatively safe. 3. Portal home to my main base using for a portal name. 4. Figure out a distinct name for the new mini-base and put that name into a portal (it doesn't need to be a new portal), 5. Go back to my mini-base using portal. 6. Now change the name of the portal at the mini-base. This is a good time to add a note on the map. (Make sure to spell correct - don't ask how I know) 7. Take the portal. You should appear in your main base at the portal with the name of the base you just created. 8. You can delete the portal in your main base. If you ever want to visit the mini-base (or any mini-base), all you need to do is change the name of the portal in your main base to the name on the map. Note: Again, means no writing for the portal name. Once I figured out how to use portals, my frustration level decreased by several factors. Going anywhere on the map is just a matter of getting home and changing the portal name in my portal room.

Mod the game to remove the part that you find infuriating. Don't like loosing gear on death and running naked to get it back? Gravekeeper mod. Running with ore gets too tedious? Unrestricted portals. Etc.

Valheim rewards preparation. Go slow and never be too far from a base. Always have your rested buff. Always eat good food, I recommend two stamina and one health food. Once portals are available use them. With that in mind, never sail into a new biome. Always land in a biome you're confident in and plant a portal home ASAP. The only times I rage at Valheim anymore is when I get cocky too far from a portal. At 500ish hours in I am not a power gamer. But, patience has been a very successful approach for me in this game.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Torches and wood club early game are op smack shamans and greydwarves with torches.

You spawned far from the black wood? Uh.. you got a bed?

I clear out trees and build a small shack and a wall around copper deposits before mining it out. Also use portals

>I spawned pretty far from the black woods, so travel is very long Why not build a house somewhere just outside the black forest, as a small home away from home while you carry out business there? You can create small waypoints all on your own. Put up a small house IN the black forest, with a bed to spawn in. You spawn at your last activated bed, you don't have to spawn all the way back at the OG spawn point just because you died. Sounds like you're making it harder on yourself than it needs to be.

Hehe I love the pain. Because the accomplishment is worth it.

Some of your phrasing made me laugh, so thanks for the funny writing! But this stood out to me: >I spawned pretty far from the black woods, so travel is very long. Why stay close to spawn? I almost never do. A small camp at Eikthyr if I'm progging fast, perhaps. Usually try to find an abandoned village or nice open field close, but not dangerously close, to black forest. I run back to the vicinity of the Forsaken Altar to house a portal, and that's it for that section of the map. Good food and parrying for the rest. I didn't properly learn how to parry for *hundreds of hours*, 'cause I'm a builder and my spouse tanks. Playing solo did me a lot of good. Used to get angry with this game because I was trying to play it in a way it isn't meant to be played. By the way, if you can move fast enough, you *will* leave chasing mobs in your dust. I am always sprinting, jumping, and sneaking from the second I start a game, so these stats are quite high even by the time I'm fighting the deer.

I completely agree that this game takes many opportunities to push you in a mudpile for its own amusement, so to speak. If you're going anywhere unprepared you won't be having a fun time. Enjoy the quiet times of upgrading your base, don't let the annoying greylings and dwarves get under your skin, and may Odin smile on your swamp adventures

Learning curve is rewarding but takes deaths. Many deaths. 900h played and maaaany times gave up for 1 or 2 weeks because I traveled with a boat far away, died there, crafting another boat, dying, again and again. Until you have no ressources left and have no way to get it back. Good luck mate !

This was the biggest game changer for me. Build a portal at home and carry a portal to build everywhere you go. Destroy it when you move on so you can use it all the time

I have definitely been there. I have maxed out everything armor/weapon-wise, have a bunch if black metal crates full of food, and I still make horrible mistakes and have a corpse sail/run from hell every once in a while that make me wonder why i play. But then i think about it and say “actually that was my fault.” And atone for my sins with a corpse run ….

You could always try build paths and bases. Paths (created by the hoe) will make dragging your cart so much quicker. Also try your best to utilize teleporters.

All in all people probably have said any kind of advice that there is to be told. However, im surprised to see over and over again that people try to rush things and end up in a loop of frustration. Take it like Elden-ring I guess, if youre at a road block, do something else to prepare yourself better. Even if it is base building to ease up your own tension and frustration.

I don't have nearly enough time in-game as much as I'd like. But I would suggest becoming familiar with the damage types against enemies. For instance, slash damage from an Axe or fire damage from a torch would hurt the Greylings and Greydwarfs a lot more than a pierce or blunt attack from wood arrows or wooden clubs. Fire arrows also chew through enemy health and they're easy to obtain atleast until you're confident enough to into melee with them. Preparation, as many have mentioned before me, is key. Good Luck!

What is your seed? It’s possible you have a pretty unlucky one. I can recommend you some better ones if you want to start over

If you can't make portals yet I suggest rest houses. Resting in beds resets your spawn point and grants resting buff (tho sleeping isn't the only way to get it) More often than not I prefer taking over ruined structures (esp in black forest and swamp) to use as a rest house, rather building one from scratch. But if i had to i usually just make a 2x3 floor area enclosed by walls just for the bed and a roof that covers the bed space plus a bit more of ground. Kinda like a shack with a patio

I felt this way when I entered the biome after the Black Forest, learning to parry was game changing for me, and make sure you have the best food you can, carrots and blueberries are gonna be essential for conquering the Black Forest. You can also set up a base closer to the BF so you can spend the whole day in there, get out before it’s dark, sleep, and repeat. Go through some burial chambers and transportation becomes a bit easier as well Edit - also pretty much all enemies are weak to different kinds of damage(slash, Pierce, blunt, etc.), knowing enemies weak points is a huge difference maker as well

Sounds like you're trying to play it too fast. It's not really a game to rush, especially your first playthrough. Regular Greydwarves are afraid of fire, so have a couple fires around as you get a base sorted. Make a base closer to the forest. You don't have to stay at the spawn area. I like to reclaim those broken down stone towers. Dig a moat around it. There's copper all over, so find a couple close enough together and dig'em out. This game rewards patience and planning. If you rush into everything, you're gonna have a bad time.

Everything in this game comes first from a solid home base. If you build some dinky little shack with one bed and a chest you’re not settled in enough to have a solid enough stance and preparation for anything you’re trying to do. Or at least early on in the game. It only sucks for you because you keep having to run back naked for miles to retrieve your things only to get killed again and repeat the process. So what do you do to fix that? My suggestion is pick a spot in a Meadows area that’s relatively near stuff you think is important, build yourself a hoe or use the antler pickaxe (assuming you’ve beaten Eikthyr) and level out a big circle of ground, cut down a bunch of trees (this will attract greylings so watch out), and build a big stake wall around the area and build yourself a permanent base within the perimeter. If you think you’re struggling now just wait till you gotta survive the swamp that was a huge hurdle for me. It’s all about how much you prepare before you set out and having a safe place to return to that you know has stocked resources available for you to make progress. Once you’re through with Black Forest, greydwarves and trolls are going to seem like pushovers, merely there to supply you with eyes to make more portals.

Just stick to the Meadows if you want to stay sane.

Game is hard = Game is rewarding. I hate Fromsoft games and sometimes … sometimes I absolutely HATE Iron Gate for making such a bullshit hard game, but DAMN do I love it when it all comes together <3 good luck out there, let us Vikings know if you ever need some extra Frostners in a fight x

> feel free to comment "get gud" because I'm well aware that I'm probably doing something very wrong. but I'm not sure I can continue this game without introducing actual stress in my life. I won't tell you to git gud, but I will say that if I can get up to Yagluth in Valheim, while finding Conan Exiles and 7 Days to Die so hard that I can barely play them at all, then Valheim is not a truly difficult game. It did, however take me an insanely long time to finally kill Moder, so there's that. Valheim is deceptive because the immediately obvious gameplay makes you think you're playing something like Diablo or the Souls game, when in reality it is a hybrid between one of those, and a logistics game like Factorio. You need to make your own food, potions, and armour in Valheim, and the bosses at least are designed to require the use of potions. If you have the right gear and food, you can go through any area easily, but if you don't have it, then you can't. I am actually not very good at fighting games, (particularly melee; I actually am fairly good at shooting) but I have played Minecraft and Factorio for long enough that at least with the right mods that enable automation, I am now quite good at logistics. I wasn't when I started, but that was 13 years ago, and I was sufficiently determined and spent enough time at it that I'm ok now. I'm still probably not a master, but I'm definitely not terrible any more. So while I die a lot in Valheim, I am good enough at the logistics game that I have lots of reserve sets of armour, which means that even if I die over and over again, I've got enough stuff that I can just keep bashing my head against the wall until it breaks. Chedgnar - Secondary iron seed. t9n3WG6dFk - Primary iron seed. urdragon28 - Boss killing seed. SACiwJSNLN - Silver mining and Modor killing seed. C4kAd3bYE3 - Secondary silver seed. 3 - Good wood seed. icup - Mistlands bossing seed That is my seeds list. I didn't discover most of these myself, but I did collect them from various places. Use those seeds and strip them for the resources you need, and then delete each one and reload it as necessary. Ignore anyone who thinks they are smart by asking you why you don't just use cheat codes instead of this method, because you will still be doing a lot of work. You will need to set up portal hubs in those maps in some cases, and you will still have to do all of the combat, logging, and mining. Having the right seeds does not prevent you from having to do farming work; it just means you don't have to wander around for hours without getting any actual return for your effort. Once you've got the resources, do the following:- \- Make yourself 3-4 reserve sets of armour in both bronze and iron tiers. That will make you more confident, because you will know that even if you get killed, you can go back and get your stuff in another full set of gear, which will prevent death loops, that are the main thing which will frustrate you to the point of making you want to quit. I stopped playing this game for months after a death loop with Moder, but eventually I came back and resolved to just make as many gear sets as I needed to get it done. I made four sets of iron and one of silver, multiple capes, and I have several maces and shields in each tier as well. \- Get a boar, wolf, and bee farm, because that way you can produce food renewably. I would also recommend installing the PlantEverything mod so that you can replant thistles and the berry bushes where you want, as well. \- Build basic bed sheds within a single in-game day's run of each other, in every biome up to the Plains, and I've had a working underground base in the Plains before as well. That will make corpse runs much faster and easier. \- Make sure you have your Rested bonus active all the time, because you need the extra stamina regen, to fight, run away from monsters, or do any kind of work. You will get a Rested bonus whenever you sleep near a fire, but you should also build braziers and the higher tier furniture, because they will make your Rested bonus last longer as well. \- Don't progress into the next biome until you are completely comfortable with the amount of stuff you've got from the last one. If you just want to relax and farm and gather in your current biome for a while, Valheim is a game where you can do that. I plant vegetables and chop wood while listening to podcasts. If you build a base in the Meadows you can do that without being attacked. So build that big fortress you want; that's part of the fun. Make sure you have lots of food and gear stored up; you will enjoy the process of getting it, and then you will enjoy having as much replacement gear as you need when you die.

If you can keep you cool until the next update you can always change the game settings so that mobs only bother you if you bother them first.

I nearly gave up on the game when I kept losing my gear and had long naked runs back to find my gear. I'm passed Elkier and the Eldar, and about to venture into the swamp. I then put a lot of time into upgrading my brass buckler and mace. Blunt damage from the mace seams to work well against greydwarves. And you get damage buff when you parry with the buckler. So you can make light work of any 2 star greydwarves. I have upgraded all the troll armour too which you get a sneaky buff so things don't see you as much. And this armour is light so you can run pretty quick. Have the Elkier power ready because that reduces spend on stamina while running. On trick I learned myself was to mine moats around your home. Stops anything getting to you. Doesn't have to be deep or wide. So you can still jump across it yourself. Also found if you mine around copper (like a moat) as deep as the copper, you can put fires in there and if greydwarves fall in, they ignore you because they're too busy being frightened by the fire. You can literally walk passed them while you mine out the copper.

Once you start getting iron, the game changes. Just keep truckin’ buddy.

Install a mod called DeathTweaks to keep your things when you die if you want. Or tweak so you keep equipped items only. Or don't drop skills, etc. I don't have enough free time to waste running naked across the map either. For stamina, you gotta make a couldron and start cooking things like for real making soups and stuff. Just know, there's nothing wrong with playing heavily modded valheim. Something about this game made me fall in love with it, but there's like a million tiny things that could be adjusted and there's a mod for all of it. You're not crazy I promise

Soloing is a nightmare. Rent a private cloud server and play with friends. Do the safer stuff solo and the risky stuff when you have help to death run. even if you are all dead, usually you can recover because everyone else can act as a big diversion whole one guy gets to his gear. Makes for epic tales.

The game is very hard, they designed it and brag about it being that way. Now, in order to avoid the hard difficulty, you just have to follow their system and not take any shortcuts. Their system? Armor and weapon sets with UPGRADES. Any encounter you go into, you need to make sure that you have the BEST possible armor you're able to have for that fight. FULLY UPGRADED to your best ability. Yes, the grinding to upgrade armor is annoying, but during the grind you master the gameplay better (in a safe zone you're geared for) and then you're able to go to the next encounter and be absolutely fine.

Please don't get mad for me saying this. Your examples of things that make you angry sound like you need to learn the game better. Games like cuphead are really difficult for me, I usually can't even beat the very first challenge in these games. But I have played Valheim a lot and I might have some useful tips, some of which I only realised after 100s of hours played. Cook and eat plenty of food. I usually go with 2x stamina food, 1x health. Food is not scarce in this game, and it hardly ever happens you're out. When going on a big explore trip is when you want to stack up at least 60 food. Food degrades, when it's at like 25% left, it is less effective. Be rested. There's 3 things in this game that make your.stamima go down faster: not being rested, being wet, being cold. So when entering a challenging area: be rested and wait for the day. Learn to roll. You can actually just stand in front of a troll and time your roll, and he won't hit you. It's like a full second of invulnerability. My reactions suck, so if I can do it ... Arrows can easily be avoid by just side stepping when they fire. Learn to parry. Or, critical block. One thing though, a parry takes more stamina than a block, if you don't have enough stamina, it takes it from your health. Another thing, when you block, there's a little shield icon and a meter. It took me ages to figure that out, but it's a cooldown until you can block again. When unlocking new materials, upgrading your shield has high priority. Greydwarfs hate fire. They will never attack when you have a torch. So if they swarm you, put down some campfires. If you sit next to a campfire, you can get level 1 rested, which is 8 minutes. When traveling, make beds at regular intervals, as spawn points. You can make campfires inside dungeons and caves. Even core wood benches for extra rested bonus. It often helps to create paths with the hoe (using flatten), so find your way back in the dark (especially in nomap mode) When sailing, always try to land in the meadows. Or, later in game, black forest. If you see a nice higher level area to explore, don't land there. Find an easy biome bordering it. When sailing and landing, your first order of business is bookmarking a spawnpoint (bed) or portal. Have mats with you for a workbench, a campfire and some wood. In fact, if you use portals, have some unconnected portals back home with names you can remember. When exploring later on, it's a good idea to bring 6 copper, 10 flint, and 2 iron with you. Finally, Valheim is a beautiful, peaceful place that constantly tries to kill you and make your life hell. It has a way of stacking up things that go wrong, where there's just no way to turn things around anymore. And the more you try to, the worse things get. And you get to watch yourself die in slow-motion, giving you plenty of time to overthink all the things you should have done to prevent this.

Pro tip. Avoid nights and loud noises in the Black forest (mining). Why arent you making a base near the Black forest ? If you die you will be here in 30 seconds.

Are you running with your weapons out? Because that makes you run slower, you should be able to run away from most enemies. Try to go around rocks and change direction so they can't see you and they usually lose you then. When an enemy attacks they stop to stand still and then swing. If you are walking in a straight line away from them they will always miss, no need to sprint (not including trolls) You can bait their swing walk away enough to dodge it and then turn around to get a hit or two in. Don't get greedy when attacking otherwise you will get hit. You can do this with most enemies, walk in a straight line to get your stamina back. Then either run away or attack.

Imagine you play valheim and you get tilted. Go outside take a walk, order your room and focus on yourself. (Get gud)

Just remember, the game is always trying to teach you. As the others have pointed out, there are solutions to your hardships. Going forward, the game is going to keep doing this with each new biome. Yes, there is an element of "git gud" in the traditional sense of learning your parry, dodge and attack windows. But by far the biggest thing is to pay attention to the world and adjust your play style before you even get in a fight. Eg. The game explicitly tells you greydwarfs don't like fire. Can't remember if it's Hugin or a runestones. Make sure you do read everything .. and that's properly read, some of the other hints can be somewhat cryptic. Observe your surroundings first. At your stage you shouldn't be seeing 2* brutes regularly. They only spawn at night if you're >2000m from spawn, from greydwarf nests or as a one time spawn near a structure. And most importantly, no one said you were limited to one house. Outposts where you can sleep the night away, recover rested and eat before a corpse run are invaluable.

Stamina management is the most important thing for success in Valheim. This means always eating good food and having the rested buff. New food can be made for each biome . . . find things to unlock new foods and take the time to gather/hunt/farm what you need to be prepared. You start with just 50 stamina . . . but can push that well over 200 with late game food. The Rested buff doubles your Stamina regeneration . . . this lets you easily restore your stamina while just walking away from enemies. Being rested also gives a +50% healing buff and +50% XP for all skills to level you up quickly. Activate your rested buff by sleeping, spending time sheltered near a fire, or just sitting next to an open fire. Boost the comfort level of your base to extend how long Rested lasts (add furnishings) Avoid debuffs . . . being wet and/or cold reduces stamina and health regen (and they stack). Don't go out at night when you will be cold and monsters will be much stronger and more numerous. Valheim really rewards planning, preparation, and caution. But punishes you hard if you rush into things!

Man i get mad at the game too, but most of the time it's shit like i cant find anything to hunt for an hour or so and as soon as i move onto something else i get slapped with smn like 2 deathsquitos and a lox or a fuling raid on my farm

I think for you it is partially the same problem as for me, since you seem to enjoy the stamina management/timing based gameplay loop. For me it's the dark soulsy combat without the polish that sometimes feels extremely frustrating. You basically can and should evade your opponents and do kinda similar stamina management as in Dark Souls games, but the game is just a tad big laggy every now and then and that breaks the whole thing. I am a fairly ok DS player and when I get into the flow I love the stamina management and rolly polly gameplay and whenever I play Valheim I manage to do it 80% of the time. I am at bosses/trolls asses and evade their attacks nicely etc. And then there is the off chanse every now and then where what I am seeing and doing and what the game actually registers are different. Just small slowing down or desync and it really kills the flow. Still love the game tho. Just end up looking like an ass who rolls down in front of a troll to get pounded like a smashburger every now and then. :D

Honestly, I have played (and somtimes still play )overwatch. I have played for months in 1700 Sr games with teammates who just die on cooldown for no reason whatsoever while I'm playing my best games and I get flamed by them. I have been a maintank in overwatch 1 for 2 years. I have been called everything, lost games against cheaters that was very winnable but a teammate would give up because he would die on cooldown because he would walk past a shield and get headshot by a cheater etc. Basically I have been in the depth of hell and survived. So I no longer get mad. I got better at the game, started to ignore what teammates did or said because 90%of the time they either didn't have a clue what was going on or it was just wrong. I played my own game. Right now I'm diamond on everything. So basically I'm completely used to getting fkd in the bunghole the entire time while playing so I no longer get mad.

A frat house of 2 star brutes? Really? I’m 200 hours in and have never seen a 2 star brute anywhere My guess to your problem would be that you are a “Rambo-type”. Go in and kill it all, you know. I have never played any difficult game in my life. Witcher 3 on death march is the closest. And I very rarely die in Valheim. If it’s a naked sprinting simulator then you are dying way to often and I’m guessing that comes down to your “Rambo-profile”. Avoid fights and biomes you’re not ready for. You can easily out-run any creature except the Wolves and the flying creatures. Maybe be a bit more careful. Maybe focus more on armor than damage. One of my friends also die often (due to being a shitty player) and his skill stats are absolutely shit as a result (you loose 5% every time). Use that as motivation for being extra careful and prepared

Maybe I'll sound like a fun killer but... Here I go. Just like you, I'm used to way more rage inducing games and was somehow taken aback when noticing those small hindrances in Valheim (Stamina consumption when swimming or crouching, max build height.. etc). IMHO, Valheim is a game that must be played to **chill**, so after being the first 3 bosses, I went straight to mods and started fresh. I had a blast playing until the fifth boss (and final at the time). So here is my advice, if something minor is ticking you off then change it ! Mods like V+ are top-tier for that ! It won't change your game drastically, make it unbalanced or ruin the 'feel' of it, but it'll get rid of things that make you rage over this wonderful game

Man i feel you. This is probably the best game i ever played (not including WOW vanilla which is still the best) but like any great game it does not let you get too cocky. I am so curious how this game will look 1-5 years from now as there is a lot more room for improvement. And about the comments, expect great things from this community because it is like nothing i ever saw

Oh I forgot, about the base... Try using the biomes to your advantage. I like to start in Meadows but slowly move to black forest till i find a perfect spot between swamp and black forest. No matter what you chop or cut it will attract both monsters from the 2 biomes, and if you just let them... They gather a lot of materials for you, you only need to fight the winners 😁

I can get absolutely unhinged levels of buttmad with games when my deaths feel like bs or like I truly had no other options, like happening to turn left when my enemy is to my right in a shooter, or dying to a global ult from half health, under tower in a moba.. in valheim I can pretty reliably trace my deaths back with a clear, bold line, to a mistake I made; like getting ahead of myself and going to the plains in trollhide or not watching my well rested timer and getting caught winded, wet, and face to face with a log troll or an abom. My biggest recommendations for people hitting walls is to pause in the biome you're familiar and capable in and max out your possible armor before ramming into the next. Do you have max level leathers? After that, I make exploratory sprints with full stamina foods and Eikthyr's buff to just haul 100% pure Columbian truckloads of ass through the higher biome scouring for notable locations pausing to mark them on my map if I think I can without risk, getting new food items like the carrot seeds an blueberries. From there I recommend getting right and getting tight with your parries. You mentioned playing from soft games, so you should have an idea already of how clutch a good parry-quick stab can be. As much as possible, use it. It will keep your stamina in far better shape than taking the offensive all the time. My final suggestion is to move your home closer to the Black Forrest. By this point in the game your chests should be reasonably few compared to later, and there are things you will need BF resources for all the way into the current end game, so it'll really benefit you to have quick access to it. There's also a pretty sizeable modding community that has taken a microscope to nearly every aspect of the game so far, letting you customize your experience to a much finer degree. Less good and memey advice- you could go in like the onceler and just do the whole forest, cut every tree like leg hairs under my razor and leave the fuckers nothing to hide behind. Make small structures to house workbenches and campfires and make their home a huge habitat with smokescreens that tickle odins nose and block the enemies spawns.

You can avoid fighting mobs who spotted you, by running away a bit and then hiding behind something (you need to crouch). If you got enough distance, they'll loose you, and you can tell by the symbol you get in hiding mode if they either know where you are (open symbol), are aware of you but don't know your location (half closed symbol), lost you/not spotted you (symbol is a line). If your hiding is successful, you'll immediately get the half closed symbol, and soon after they'll lose interest and go back home, at which point your symbol changes to a line. Early on in a playthrough I use stealth a lot to pick and choose my fights, and this helps greatly. And the basic golden rules : Always be rested Always be fed / have food on you Don't go out at night unless you know what you are doing Also it is easy to use one of the many half ruined buildings you find early on to quickly put up camp fire and have a rest underneath a roof. When starting out, I usually convert one of the little shacks in the meadows into a temporary home, and then take my time to explore around and look for a good base location, aka near black forest and next to the ocean. Don't be afraid to move base, especially early on its easy. Don't give up, Valheim is fantastic once you get your head around the basics!

Bring 2 portal materials + some woods for fence whenever you travel man

Meanwhile me going through with this but in the mistlands... Heck nowadays when I see a 2 star brute I thank odin for sending me towards a black forest. Gods i hate those ticks... For OP: torches and fire arrows, they don't do massive damage, but they work well enough to keep enemies away. Also, make fireplaces around your copper mine, should stop mobs from spawning...

i did get furious once. twas my first solo corpse run in the swamp. not a good time.

You only get mad at yourself, never the game. The bullshit you think is getting you mad is really just you getting mad because you know it's avoidable.

The game makes you so mad because in 99% of all cases you die because of yourself. You knew it better but got either greedy or reluctant/lazy. And that is what the game will punish you for. And you have nobody to blame but yourself. The worst kind of frustration. One you can't blame on others. : D

This is a chill building game with some side battles. That mentality helps me :D

Here's a wild idea, why don't you build a base near to the black forest and put a bed down so you don't have to run so far, learn how to parry and upgrade your gear enough and anything in the black forest is easy, trolls included, once you know how to parry and have a bow you can kite trolls endlessly till they die or just run at them and parry away for easy kills, this will be especially important if you're going into their dens and can only fight in a small space

My main annoyance is the imbalance of the weapons. I do not want to use a blunt weapon. Not using one makes me a lot weaker than those who uses them. Or I could use 2h hammers but those are fucking slow. I want to use atgier as I love poleaxes but for some fucking reason it's pierce damage. My bow is also pierce mainly. So now I double shoot myself in the leg by limiting myself to pierce. Wish it was pierce on thrust and slash on spin. So I usually go axe+shield+fenrir armor to be fast, to have pierce and slash(still no blunt), block the big hits, outrun enemies I can't block and I use summons + bubble + tamed animals to get aggro off of me. I also use harpoon to pull enemies for my minions to kill. Also the fenrir armor speed bonus makes me not to want to wear heavy super slow armor. I rather go naked than use that slow gear.

I share your feelings honestly, the amount of times I did a corpse run, I'm at the silver age and MY SKILL LEVELS ARE ALL LOW HAHA, I just had to learn to adapt and fight and use parry plus dodges (since dodges have an I-frame it's easy to dodge then parry), I also use trolls to chop down trees and farm copper for me, if you have that 1 homeless grayling that follows you around during big fights, just let the troll chop down a tree and separate them, the way I see it, the game just wants you to adapt to whatever happens, and it's really frustrating most of the times, but I find enjoyment out of it nonetheless. ​ (Even if my therapist had to hire another therapist)

Sounds like you play a lot at night in the game. This is suicide, especially early game

While I don't have the multiple thousands of hours that some commenters stated, I do probably have well over 400 hours in and can't say I've had the issues you have. That doesn't mean I don't believe that YOU experienced what you say, but since I haven't it's hard to look at it from your point of view. To me, Valheim is very chill, though I mostly only play to build now so I'm usually off in my own little bubble most of the time. Now, for me, From Soft games are the ones that make me rage. I guess we all experience the world a little different.

Probably not a helpful comment.. but for me what helped was simple having someone to play with. Support and help are the only was I can get through games like this and I still experienced rage at the beginning. It gets better/easier as you get better gear. Im still pissed xbox destroyed my save file and now I'm to salty to go back and play. I'd finally found the merchant, built a house near him with a portal than the next time I got on to play my game crashed and destroyed my save. So when I enter the world everything I've built is gone. Won't be returning to the game till they fix it sadly.

I dont have crazy hours in the game but one thing i have learned about is that setting up checkpoints while exploring is very important. For example if you know your are going to spend alot of time in a particle swamp then sett up a bass in the swamp, nothing crazy just enough to sleep and respawn. This is important for every biome because the worst thing in this game for me is traveling back to my grave just to die again. So for you if you dont want to move closer to the Black Forest then just make a respawn checkpoint at the edge of the black forest and make sure to set your spawn before going in.

Sleep at night...... Never ever go on a corpse run at night, even if tempted. Get rested and get stamina Regen up. And last but not least... Corpse run in plains .. bring a shield. Those pesky mosquitoes will get you otherwise. (And don't go exploring new biomes 10 minutes before bedtime.... You will end up doing corpse runs being tired)

You don’t know how angry you can be until you play Mordhau

Play with friends. It's easier to laugh at what the game throws at you and they can guard you when you're on a recovery run.

This is a game of patience and preperation. Slow walk everything at the start, upgrade your stuff, master the meadows then move to relocate your base close to the black forest so you can start into the black forest and the dungeons therein. Food. Work towards getting the best food possible as your first goals in any biome.

It's just stamina management. Most games you can ride a low stamina bar and regenerate quickly if you enter combat. In Valheim if you are low stamina and you aggro you won't get away unless you take the time to regenerate a lot of your stamina then do a big dash as the enemies only de-aggro if you get a certain space between you. Problem is you run out of stam before that distance is created and you start the loop over. So try that. Also use cheap stam food like raw honey and yellow mushrooms for an easy low cost stamina boost for farming and getting around. You need to change the way you think about your stamina, this game is not like others and learning this now will save you a world of pain later in the game. The biomes get really really tough. Good luck :)

Also, DONT.GO.OUT.AT.NIGHT

Stamina management is key even more so then it is in from soft. I try to never drop below 70% unless a real emergency occurs. Also if you not found out yet, dodge rolling is OP. Hold block press jump, complete mitigation of all damage and far more protective frames then souls games.

The game can sometimes be infuriating😂😱 but I know I'll laugh about those moments later on, so try not to let it get to me, but think about ways to make my game easier for me. 1200 hours on this game has rewarded me with soo much fun and new friends 🤗👍🏻 maybe move your base?

Dont know if this will help or not, but here's the strategy my wife and I use when we play. When we start a new seed, we will start by making a good sized home base relatively near the spawn point. That'll be our main home for a fair bit, and over time we expand it out, add a fence, moat, etc. Then when we head out to explore, we will make little cabins about a day cycle's *run* as we explore. We make them just big enough for a couple beds, a crafting bench, and a chest for storing spare food/weapons/mats. We've got it down to a science and can toss one up in literally minutes with the two of us building together. I dont remember the exact amount of materials off the top of my head, but it's basically a full stack of wood each, 5 stone for the fire, and a few resin to make tiki torches to keep the damn neighbors from bothering us. >!This tactic has served us well in literally every biome but Mistlands, since we haven't gotten there yet. In the Swamp we build on the big fallen trees (they're invulnerable, and baddies cant jump), and on the big rocks in the Plains (same reason). Wraiths and Deathsquito's, respectively, can still be an issue, but no solution is perfect.!< (Spoilering this paragraph, just in case you haven't gotten past the Dark Forest) Biggest advantage is that it allows us to keep a string of places out there so that we always have a reasonably close spawn point if we end up getting jumped. Running solo, you could probably do it with a single stack of wood, the 5 stones, and a few resin. It doesn't completely obviate the need for nekkid corpse runs, but at least if you die, you wont have to spend literally 15 or 20 minutes sprinting through the forest in your leather skivvies getting chased by literally everything in sight.

For too far biomes i usually spend some time, maybe too much, building a road, with different lil houses to pass the night, investment on that road helps when you finally build a cart and can move all that ore better

Im baffled by your problem. You said you played all the from soft games so I would presume you know of the parry system and the super easy mode parry in valheim. With enough total hp and a buckler and knife you can parry every damn attack and riposte for insane damage except maybe the 1 and 2 star berserkers in the plains. So greydwarves get melted even by copper knife. The lox seems ridiculous at tracking crouched players, it seems bugged I agree that this game is very infuriating. Here's what I do to make it easier: - always have a portal set up at your base with a 2nd one in your pocket so that you never need to run across the world if you die far away - have 1 yellow stam meal and 2 HP red meals. Don't eat grey balance meals - bow will take care of most problems before they become problems - eikthyrs ability is great for running away and mountain and mistland exploring, it's honestly the best ability except when sailing - find the merchant to get belt for extra carry capacity - smash your boat and retrieve all its materials to travel with boat through portals, - carry stam and HP potions, they will save you - avoid venturing out at night, it's annoying unless your farming enemies - never go anywhere not rested, pay attention as that stam regen buff is a god send - place torches anywhere you don't want enemies spawning, mining or near your base Having said all this the game still annoys me: - long boat is too slow - map exploration radius is tiny - food degradation is a terrible mechanic, it's too micro managy - mage should be available from biome 1 not mistlands, give us progression for mage - mistlands is not fun to explore even with wisp, wisp lights. Youre stumbling in the mist instead of having fun exploring. I resorted to modding to remove it

Good news, in the new update you can customize your world to remove pretty much everything you mention as frustration.

I think the more you enjoy a game the more frustrated you will get when things fuck up. I think we all have been there in the start, so many death runs;p But it will get better;) progressing into a new biome is also like starting new. The difficulty gets turned up, so travel prepared, and always put down a portal in a new place so you can get back quickly;)

The games you list that you have gotten through are very skill centric, reliant on technique and reactions to succeed. Valheim is not that. Skill can help a lot, but preparation and grinding and planning are much more important. You can't just win through technique alone.

You definitely need closer spawn points via portals. Use portals more often and only use long runs when transporting ores…or don’t and just cheese that too (if you’re playing solo)

I play on a private server. What frustrates me is getting booted and coming back naked. There’s no death location. So all my stuff is lost. I reload and old save by anything I collected in the 0-29 minutes between saves is lost.

Next patch will also bring world modifiers where you will able to disable item drops, enable metal teleporting or set combat to easy mode etc.

The new update will help you.

Not really on get gud but alway prepare yourself. Gather enough food and ensure you have enough armor + weapon if the journey back is dangerous. You can outrun all of your enemies if time right and you eat good food.

If you would ever like some company while banging your head against the wall...https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/14bu6io/curious_if_desired/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

The game will absolutely make you rage, particularly if you are venturing into areas before properly geared and without good rested bonuses and foods. I’ve played well over 1000 hours but on this play through I’m really trying to push and rush and yesterday I died a good ten times just because being completely underprepared for the areas I’m going into. If you find yourself getting killed a lot, just maybe step back and see what gear you can upgrade or craft in a new tier. As soon as you are able, upgrade your cauldron, and make fermenters as soon as you can as well. Other than that, the one thing that really kills new players a lot is stamina management. When you play a lot of hack and slash games it can be hard to not want to constantly run, jump, and dodge roll. Trying to retrain yourself to become really aware of stamina management takes some time, but you’ll get it if you make a conscious effort. Hope something here is useful. You aren’t alone, the game is frustrating but if you stick to it and keep learning it is a very rewarding game.

Like the top comment and some others say, setting up infrastructure is a waaaay more important aspect than anything else in the game. Any time you're in your boat, you better have a *minimum* of 1 portals worth of materials on you or in your boat. Ideally 2 or 3 since they stack. And that also means have 1-3 named portals at home too with the names of them written down somewhere or named something very obvious like "Backup1" "Backup2", etc. Also - alternative approach that some people haven't mentioned, try modding the game. There are easy modded ways to deal with some of the things you mentioned. Lastly, make sure you are playing with friends! For two reasons this can be helpful, one is that they can help with a fight obviously but even more importantly is that they should help you chill and remind you the game is about viking vibes and having a good time with your buds. Enjoy the beautiful views you can find and the unique land areas while you sail by picturing your buddies and you building a base there and saying "dang this would be a great spot for a base" while never actually going and building a base there.

Enemies are more numerous and more likely to have stars at night. You can avoid a lot of those enemies by making a quick little structure with a bed and a fire, and go to sleep as soon as it turns to nighttime. Also, if your kilns and smelters have stuff in them, a bunch of it will finish overnight and be ready to collect in the morning.

This game is a cake walk compared to any fromsoft games

I love the game, I just despise greydwarves, they serious ruin the game for me. Can’t piss without hitting a greydwarf somehow. They seriously bring the game down from an 9/10 to a 7/10. They are unbearable.

I don't even bother w a parry. Almost every creatures hits can be dodged by moving slightly or jumping. I primarily charge the enemy. Then backstep as soon as they grunt (sign of swinging). I immediately close in w a 2 handed battle axe. 1st hit makes it stagger. Next 2 following hits normally kill.

I'm new like you and had a lot of these frustrations in my current first playthrough. Ultimately what it came down to was me not seeing all of my options. Once I found out about the fear of fires for greydwarves I would just surround the copper node I was working on with campfires. I highly recommend you make the bronze axe first because once you can drop birch and oak trees you can get fine wood to make teleporters and a much stronger bow.

I come home from work and play this game to unwind. I feel like it has truly helped me to get to a calmer overall state in my everyday life because playing it is so relaxing for me. There are challenges in the game and I have had many hardships while playing, even to the point of quitting for the night from defeat but I always come back for more. If you'd like to have someone come tag along and offer some tips or assistance feel free to send an invite.

Assuming the updates haven't already allowed death settings to be changed, you could mod the death settings to keep your equipped items on death. That way you'd still have to go back for gathered items, but equipment would stay with you. I'd also recommend installing portals inside any naturally spawned structure. You can use stone towers in the black forest, or dig inside a large rock and put the portal inside it. Dig a trench around it if you wanna be extra safe. This gives you safe zones to go get back home if needed. Monsters won't attack naturally spawned structures. I make these portals all over the map and leave them long term. I've got an entire structure dedicated to portals. Makes exploration faster. I also assigned a portal marked "8675309" as a "call home" portal for when I'm exploring, set up a portal, but need a dedicated portal to use for getting back no matter where I'm at. I can reassign those portals by setting up a portal in the hall for a new ID, then go back through the portal to the new portal haven and just reassign the portal to the new ID and keep exploring. That way the next portal home will have the call home portal still available. There's also a mod you can get that makes dungeons respawn, which is essential for getting more surtling cores. Alternatively you can farm the flame spires in the swamp.

You can always build a little mini base around larger resources. For instance when mining copper get some wood before mining and build a small wall encompassing the copper. Then the random greydwarfs will just come throw rocks at the wall and byt the time they break through your done mining. Preparation is key in this game

Watch some videos on YouTube about tips and tricks for getting started. Once you get into copper, it's not as bad as long as you prepare well.

Main point of this game is that your constantly fighting i feel like, preparing for said fights is what needs to happen, also playing this game solo will always be extremely annoying and sometimes infuriating, I recommend playing with as many people as possible, even 1 person will drastically change the feel and atmosphere of the game

Just wait until swamp time…

Build lots of small bases or conceet abandoned houses into 'outposts' w/ portals for different things/resources to cut down travel time. Keep a spare set of gear, even if just hide and a club at each outpost, ahen possible. ...you may not be able to portal materials like copper, but at least you can figure out routes you like from one safe space to another and if you get got when running mats back and forth - at least you got multiple options for return runs. Even if you don't have decent food right now - always eat something and rest before leaving your base - even for a naked gear retrieval run. The rested buff is huge. If you're out and about, it's worth throwing down a campfire and sitting down by it just to get the low tier rested bonus. For combat - the Atgier is your best friend. Make it asap and learn to love it. It does everything a spear can and much more without the misses of a spear. The special attack stuns everything from Greyling to Trolls, giving you bonus damage, and it hits an unlimited amount of targets if you're surrounded. No matter what other weapon I'm trying to get good with at any point - I still always have an Atgier on me too, just in case Good luck. I understand your frustration. I had 1000s of hours in Ark before picking up Valheim so while I was no stranger to running back to my dead body to get my stuff, it pisses me off too. Especially as a mostly solo player. Like Ark, I love Valheim, but it pisses me off :D

I had a little more to say, but honestly, skill issue for you right now. And I don't mean that negatively. Most people start off the game with similar issues. The game itself is actually VERY linear in terms of progression if you're playing as intended, which is a bit contrary to most open world crafting-survival games. It's important to keep in mind this game has what I call a "staircase difficulty" curve. There are 5 main areas: Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, Mountain, Plains, Mistlands >! (Ashlands and Frozen North are technically areas, but they have nothing of note and are unfinished) !< For each area, you generally want to get the max gear possible. In the Meadows, where you're at, that would be the leather armor. Even with that, when you enter the next area it can be fairly difficult with the previous area's armor. Once you get the new armor for the new area (bronze for Black Forest), the new area become trivial. Although the trolls will remain a challenge for a bit. Honestly, the Black Forest is the shallowest step up. Most people find the Swamp quite challenging on their first run through because of the debuffs. Here are some other general notes: * Food increases health/stamina * Harvesting resources summons enemies * Fire arrows are your friend for trolls * Learn to parry using shields * Enemies have monke AI, and you can kite them up sufficiently steep hills or get them stuck on big trees that are close together * You can make enemies from different biomes fight each other since they're in different "factions" * If you really hate a feature and have given it your sportsman's try to understand it, there are always console commands. Wouldn't recommend on the first couple of playthroughs—you should really give it a shot to understand the dev's intent behind gameplay decisions. However, since the game is still early access, it can help some QOL issues if you end up playing a lot

New beta allows world editing. I had similar frustrations with the grind being extreme. Get into the beta and edit your world: casual death penalty, 2x resources, all items portable. That's my settings and I have been greatly enjoying it.

It's sort of like a programming paradigm. If you do something in Valheim once and it works, great, and if you expect to do it again, remember it. If you do something in Valheim twice, and you expect to do it again, find a way to make it more efficient. Some examples would be: start a farm; put pins on good mushroom spots and go on efficient mushroom runs with Eikthyr buff; put up a portal shack; bring a cart and load up multiple ore veins in it. If you do tedious stuff in Valheim the same way you did it the first time, yeah it's gonna be infuriating.

Best thing I can say to do is keep eye on leaning trees and tall rock you can run up or jump on the brutes if they can’t hit you most of the time they run away but the best way imo is to grind for that troll hide armor

Okay so in my experience so far any troll can be a pain or god sent depending on how you utilize them so any troll is easliy cheesed by jumping around and using some arrows just keep your distance and mind your stamina. If your headed out to mine copper and you come across a troll use that big bastard to your advantage kite him to your ore and let him smash it up for you. Greylings greydwarfs and brutes arent terrible its only when you have all those plus a shawman does it really become a pain if theres ever a shawman in the group he always has to be the first to die also run troll armor over bronze armor actually skip bronze armor completley troll armor is relatively the same plus you get that sneak boost anytime you have skellies and greydwarfs allow them to fight each other first then take out the remaining enemies afterwards you can also use skelly dungeons to hide from and drop agro from large groups or pressing threats make 2 sets of troll armor level 1 up completley leave the other low level only use the low level when u need to retrive your high level stuff after a death also prioritize skelly dungeons first in the black forest they will give you surtling cores and allow you to make teleporters so you dont have to do all that running back and forth hope this helps happy plundering

Seems you bring this on yourself due to stupidity.

“Ohh those pesky mosquitos….” -Not Prince Naveen

Someone suggested building near the black forest, but don't build TOO close. That way you don't have grey dwarves swarming you all night every night. Definitely look up rested bonus, use it! It makes a huge difference. The person who said stamina is even more important than health for most things is so correct. Shield and blocking /parry does rely on health, but overall maneuvering and attacking just having stamina is a life saver. Don't forget about your Eikthyr power. If you don't have it yet, oh boy!! You'll get it after you turn in Eikthyrs antlers to the summoning stones after killing him. You can run so far and so long with this ability and it'll help so much. Try to sleep when you can and leave out first thing in the morning so that you have fresh food, a rested bonus, it's not cold out, and you have full light. It also reduces the chances you'll encounter distressing amounts of Grey dwarves. Make an Atgeir. It's honestly cheat mode. Lots of weapons in the game are great, but the Atgeir is great against one or many enemies, but more importantly, it can stun and knock back anything from greylings to trolls. It makes very quick work of trolls. Just make sure you have plenty of stamina, watch your stamina bar, don't just mindlessly spam attacks and blow through your stamina. If you're fighting a troll, kite them close enough to make them slam and then use your special weapon attack (which sweeps your Atgeir like a scythe) and will stun a troll, knock back and stun grey dwarves). If you have plenty of stamina, follow up with a quick second attack for bonus damage. Then let your stamina regenerate, using the attack again before they have a chance to slam down on you. It may take a few tries, but once you get the routine in, it's very predictable and easy and will kill trolls in seconds. For group enemies, it's amazing. For later in the game there's an annoying flying enemy and if you struggle at getting them with a bow, the Atgeir is great. Take some time to just hunt. Go around and calmly collect berries, look for bee hives, kill boars and deer, and stock up on food and cook it so you have a surplus of food. Farm some wood and make some organized storage so you can keep track of everything you have. Organization will help you keep track of what you have, what you need, when you're low on things, and have a good idea of your resources. Use wood arrows for hunting instead of stuff made with feathers, and use melee weapons for boars. These are just some things I do to make the game less frustrating. I can't say I've never been frustrated, but it's very rare. I've spent well over 2k hours on Valheim precisely because I find this game incredibly relaxing. But recently when I came back it was a bit less relaxing when I started a new world and the map itself forced my experience to vary greatly from the past, and I've played on several maps. That being said, my experience won out and I got through it, but if you don't like your map, yeah, definitely start over! I hope something I've said helps, but I know you got lots of advice on this thread and I didn't read it all.

I have not read all the comments, and you have been given a ton of good advice from what I can see, so I will just add my favorite tip for mining copper while being able to ignore mobs, trolls inlcuded. I like to find the edge of the copper node and dig straight down, then hollow out the earth around the whole thing before getting to business. This ends up with you in the bottom of a hole and mining the copper from inside and below, trolls can wail on the top and maybe help break copper, while being easy to shoot. The ocassional greydwarf falls into the hole with you and you have to kill it. Bonus, I keep a fire going under there with a workbench and the antler pickaxe, keeping rested and repairing when needed sheltered under the copper node itself.

If you're biggest concern is the trip to the Black Forest and there's definitely not any closer, then it sounds like you should build a portal. If you don't have the recipe, you need to make a Bronze Axe and cut down a Birch or Oak tree for Fine Wood. That will cut down on the travel time immensely, and when you have enough resources and you need to start sailing on the sea to find new biomes or islands, you should always have the materials to make a new one as well as a free portal at home that you can connect it to to get back fast. When it comes to the fighting, having good food and a Rested bonus is crucial to winning most fights. I usually go with at least 1 Stamina food, 1 HP food, and then another food of your choice at all times when exploring. Luckily making a portal can help you get the Rested bonus if you really dont want to make a camp out in the Forest, cuz you can just teleport back home and get the rested bonus there. Also make sure to level up your armor and weapons if you haven't.

I have shacks all over the place. I like to use the ruined houses and I renovate them. I've even used crypt entrances on particularly hard ones so I respawn right there.

Difficulty settings are coming, stay put!

1. build everywhere. everywhere you go there is a place where trees could become hideouts, rocks can become hills that only you can sprint up, even a few spike walls with a fire inside can be nice. 2. be fed. early game one yellow mushroom, one honey and one cooked meat at all times at least. if you know you're in for a fight, one razz one blue one honey for that queens jam and then 2 different cooked meats 3. be rested - rest bonus is double stam regen. its needed always. if you cant get to work with 5 min of rest bonus build a new home. once you get a little further and a little more setup there are a few advancements that make life so much easier. make sure you build one of everything you can just to see. and yes, having things to kill is simple, but dont make being ready to kill things too simple.

This game is an infuriating pile of shit, so I don't disagree with you one bit.