Valheim

[KungFuSpaghetti]

So, do tough enemies invade the beginner biomes? I was hoping I could have a safe base just on the Meadows side of the Meadows-Black Forest border. Or is this too early to think about a proper base? I need something a bit bigger than my little hut now.

On the subject of that latter, I was skirting around the edge of the Forest but staying just out of it. All was going well and I had loaded up on leather and hide when I met my first Greydwarf and then was chased by two more straight afterwards. Chased right into a troll, who one-shot me with a gigantic club! It made for a pretty nervous corpse-run. Great fun, though.

So to answer the first question, yes. Troll attacks are simply the beginning, they get harder as you progress, at worst I've had 6 invade my base. I wont spoil it, but that's tip of the iceberg, but it comes later so you'll be better prepared.

Second question is also easy. It's never too early to build a proper base. You'll start off with wood, which is fine, then as mentioned already, stone. That's when it gets real fun as you can basically mine stone for fun, cart it back and go nuts. I spent a while finding my initial starting spot, I headed up the coast and looked for an area abundant with resources. There was a HUGE rock mountain next to black forest, which in hindsight I should have mined into and made a mountain fort... I digress, instead I used the stone to terraform and raise the land next to ocean as high as possible and went from there. Once you're up high you can use the hoe to level to your feet from ground level. Cheesy, yup, but the amount of stone saved was colossal!

End result is a base that is effectively impenetrable by enemies. The giant stone steps I put in due to boredom and wanted some action on the doorstep... But they never get that far for obvious reasons.

And dont go to deep into the black forest to start with, it's constant death to start with and you lose 5% of your XP each time you die! Which I didn't realise to begin with!

 

[Kutter]

We have a nice village setup with a town hall, we just found the crypts in the swamp region and built an FOB ready for a raid.
I thought some mobs had set themselves on fire and went in for an easy mop up. Until they started throwing fireballs at me and I had to run for my life.
The great thing about the server I play on, is we are all new, at the same point in the game,and get our asses kicked by creatures we've never seen before. No rage quitting, just lots of wtf was that and laughing about it.

 

[jasoncb]

We have a nice village setup with a town hall, we just found the crypts in the swamp region and built an FOB ready for a raid.
I thought some mobs had set themselves on fire and went in for an easy mop up. Until they started throwing fireballs at me and I had to run for my life.
The great thing about the server I play on, is we are all new, at the same point in the game,and get our asses kicked by creatures we've never seen before. No rage quitting, just lots of wtf was that and laughing about it.

That's how games should be. Kind of puts my days of Rust into perspective, wasted a lot of time dealing with toxic people for nothing but stress.

 

[Angilion]

My signs are blank. I've written on them and if I point the cursor at them the text I typed in shows above the sign, but the signs are blank. I thought that was how the game was, either because the feature hadn't been added yet or the devs had decided that signs not in Old Norse runes didn't fit the game.

I've put them on backwards, haven't I?

 

[jasoncb]

My signs are blank. I've written on them and if I point the cursor at them the text I typed in shows above the sign, but the signs are blank. I thought that was how the game was, either because the feature hadn't been added yet or the devs had decided that signs not in Old Norse runes didn't fit the game.

I've put them on backwards, haven't I?

Yes just use the mouse scroll wheel to turn them around

 

[Kainz]

lawl

 

[KungFuSpaghetti]

My signs are blank. I've written on them and if I point the cursor at them the text I typed in shows above the sign, but the signs are blank. I thought that was how the game was, either because the feature hadn't been added yet or the devs had decided that signs not in Old Norse runes didn't fit the game.

I've put them on backwards, haven't I?

Pmsl! Don't worry, we've all been there!

The three dots should be facing the front

 

[strumpusplunket]

I have my home in the meadows, quite some way from the black forest. Initially, I got raid events from meadows mobs - boars and greylings. The raid event warning message mentioned grass. Usually while I was at home. After defeating the first boss, the raid events changed to black forest mobs
...
If you need a base bigger than what you have, it's time for a bigger base. But it won't be its final form. You won't be able to build in stone yet (that requires iron, which doesn't exist in either meadow or black forest biomes), so sooner or later you'll be rebuilding again..

So to answer the first question, yes. Troll attacks are simply the beginning, they get harder as you progress, at worst I've had 6 invade my base. I wont spoil it, but that's tip of the iceberg, but it comes later so you'll be better prepared.

Second question is also easy. It's never too early to build a proper base. You'll start off with wood, which is fine, then as mentioned already, stone. That's when it gets real fun as you can basically mine stone for fun, cart it back and go nuts.
...
End result is a base that is effectively impenetrable by enemies. The giant stone steps I put in due to boredom and wanted some action on the doorstep... But they never get that far for obvious reasons.

And dont go to deep into the black forest to start with, it's constant death to start with and you lose 5% of your XP each time you die! Which I didn't realise to begin with!

Right, cheers guys.

So, it sounds like tonight's task will be to start a Baby's-First-Base on the coast not too far from the Black Forest biome. I think there is a spot for that.

I can see there is loads to the building that my "repair and fill in this little shack" has not even touched!

That base is very impressive, btw! But what do you mean, the mobs don't reach the stone steps? I didn't see anything that would stop them, so I am probably missing something about base defenses or mob behaiour.

I had heard some people mention that excessive land-levelling or raising can cause stutter in the game? I have already noticed a little bit of stutter as (I presume) the game loads in new terrain as I move around, so I don't want to make it worse.

 

[Kainz]

I had heard some people mention that excessive land-levelling or raising can cause stutter in the game? I have already noticed a little bit of stutter as (I presume) the game loads in new terrain as I move around, so I don't want to make it worse.

Correct and this will be a major problem as you expand your base too. As long as you don’t mess with the landscape too much you should be fine. I first mentioned it a while ago as this is what killed our main base on our server.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/posts/34581042

Essentially as you login or port into a base, the game loads the old original terrain in first and then loads all your alternations afterwards. This creates a huge amount of ingame lag for upto a few mins depending on the number of alterations made.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Correct and this will be a major problem as you expand your base too. As long as you don’t mess with the landscape too much you should be fine. I first mentioned it a while ago as this is what killed our main base on our server.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/posts/34581042

Essentially as you login or port into a base, the game loads the old original terrain in first and then loads all your alternations afterwards. This creates a huge amount of ingame lag for upto a few mins depending on the number of alterations made.

Ah yes, your post must have been where I read about this.

So, is there a guide for how much we can terraform before it gets too overwhelming for the average PC? Is it that most standard bases are fine and it's only when players get into full-on Minecraft mode that it gets problematic?

I see in the linked Reddit thread people are discussing using pillars instead of terraforming, but I can't quite visualise how that would work.

 

[spidiweb7]

My signs are blank. I've put them on backwards, haven't I?

We have definitely all been there

 

[Nutty_Death]

Built an iron sledge, thinking it would be an upgrade to my iron mace. I didn't consider that it was a two handed weapon or that the way it strikes would be different.

I noticed my brother was feeding his 6 pigs so I thought I'd go slaughter one Infront of him, diving over the wall I brought what I've now realised is a hammer down and obliterated 5 of the pigs, leaving 1 who was in the corner still alive and a pile of mushrooms on the floor... I'm now hoping for an act of God for the lonely pig to give birth.

 

[spidiweb7]

obliterated 5 of the pigs, leaving 1

When i first tamed two boars and felt the immense satisfaction having had to walk them what felt like miles, the game decided to do a troll attack of the base... they came with logs in their hands and killed the boars! It's a cruel world

 

[Angilion]

Correct and this will be a major problem as you expand your base too. As long as you don’t mess with the landscape too much you should be fine. I first mentioned it a while ago as this is what killed our main base on our server.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/posts/34581042

Essentially as you login or port into a base, the game loads the old original terrain in first and then loads all your alternations afterwards. This creates a huge amount of ingame lag for upto a few mins depending on the number of alterations made.

That completely ruins the game for me. I may as well stop playing now. Bummer. I'm already noticing maybe half a second of lag when approaching my base and the terrain altering I've done there is a miniscule fraction of the terrain altering I have planned for my permanent base. Building is the main part of the game for me and I was planning a large castle at an appropriate scale, which would require extensive terrain altering over thousands of square metres. The moat alone would probably be more than enough to bork the game as it currently is.

I expect some performance loss due to my building. My main town in Fallout 4 caused a ~30fps drop, for example. Worse on the PC I had at the time - building in Fallout 4 was the main reason I built a new PC. But it looks like Valheim just wasn't designed for large scale building. Presumably the devs never expected players to do that.

 

[Angilion]

Yes just use the mouse scroll wheel to turn them around

Can you move existing items in the game? I haven't found a way yet and that's less than ideal. Not just the signs - there have been times when I want to move something and so far I've been demolishing it and building a new one.

 

[Brutal biff]

That completely ruins the game for me. I may as well stop playing now. Bummer. I'm already noticing maybe half a second of lag when approaching my base and the terrain altering I've done there is a miniscule fraction of the terrain altering I have planned for my permanent base. Building is the main part of the game for me and I was planning a large castle at an appropriate scale, which would require extensive terrain altering over thousands of square metres. The moat alone would probably be more than enough to bork the game as it currently is.

I expect some performance loss due to my building. My main town in Fallout 4 caused a ~30fps drop, for example. Worse on the PC I had at the time - building in Fallout 4 was the main reason I built a new PC. But it looks like Valheim just wasn't designed for large scale building. Presumably the devs never expected players to do that.

The game isn't well optimised if you ask me hopefully some future optimisation updates coming soon

 

[Kainz]

Ah yes, your post must have been where I read about this.

So, is there a guide for how much we can terraform before it gets too overwhelming for the average PC? Is it that most standard bases are fine and it's only when players get into full-on Minecraft mode that it gets problematic?

I see in the linked Reddit thread people are discussing using pillars instead of terraforming, but I can't quite visualise how that would work.

There’s no way to tell how soon or late you’ll get the lag effects due to terraforming. When it hits you, you’ll start to notice as you use a portal to main base the scenery redraws take a little longer...

Subnautica, which is another Unity engine game has the same issue. The devs also removed a terraforming tool early on during the games development but that still doesn’t help as big bases do get laggy due to the terrain auto deforming a little bit to accommodate the placing of structures.

I could do a video of me logging into our now dead old base on our server but I think most folks will experience this issue if they stick to expanding one base over a hundred hours or so.

Optimisation is key, but then with a 5 man team (at the moment), they can only focus on so much. Integrating new staff members takes time also. With the money they’ll have made they’ll need to get to work fast on that roadmap before the fickle gamers of today lose interest.

I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier but on our lagtastic server base we had an Instance (press F2 ingame) count of 16-17k. In comparison our very first initial noob base was at 5k instances and smooth.

My current single player base which has 3 medium sized buildings and a dock for two boats is at 8k. For the latter I have noticed a tiny drop in frames as I port in from other bases. I haven’t even finished with the place yet.

 

[spidiweb7]

I also think people forget this is a newly released early access game. Hopefully they expand the team with some of the money they've made and start cramming a lot of optimisations in there for the next major patches.

 

[humanlaptop]

Found a Swamp, sod that.

Some green slime attacked me, I killed it but seemed to be gassed and logged out on 2 health in the middle of nowhere at night, under attack

Im hoping the game regens my health without me logged in ( i know it dont)

 

[Kainz]

Found a Swamp, sod that.

Some green slime attacked me, I killed it but seemed to be gassed and logged out on 2 health in the middle of nowhere at night, under attack

Im hoping the game regens my health without me logged in ( i know it dont)

Lol. That poison DoT is devastating if you’re not prepared for it. Especially if you’re decked in Bronze Age gear. First time me and 2 friends got poisoned we al screamed on chat as the DoT was never ending and then 3 tombstones popped!

Better off killing them with arrows the moment you spot them. If one gets close hit it with a mace ASAP and roll out of the way at the same time. In crypts slimes are an absolute disaster as they sometimes get bugged and stuck in an item that you can’t reach them in, but they can eternally throw out poison while stuck.

Everything in the swamps is weak to blunt/clubs.