This has put me off up to now. It’s been something I like the look of, but honestly just thought it was something I would miss out on, as I game solo now. I much prefer to do things at my pace.
Valheim
- Thread starter TriedandTested
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This has put me off up to now. It’s been something I like the look of, but honestly just thought it was something I would miss out on, as I game solo now. I much prefer to do things at my pace.
Soldato
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Yes, this is a really great thing about the game. It really works beautifully like that.
I have pretty much abandoned my SP world as I only play with my kids now, but it's still there - with my first ugly barn house blighting the meadows.
My youngest is super eager to fight the black forest boss, but I am trying to get him to wait until we've upgraded our bronze and troll gear. I assume it would be a tough fight in basic troll armour and with a bronze axe and finewood bow?
You can do it naked without any weapons. You're not supposed to, but it is possible. Josh ("Let's Game It Out" channel on Youtube) makes entertaining videos about creatively playing games as wrong as possible. Mostly about building ridiculous things, but he's killed the first two bosses in Valheim without any weapons or armour. His "weapon" is campfires and his "armour" is running away. Why? Because it's a wrong way to play the game.
I recommend watching the video (and the channel as a whole, especially the gloriously deranged "tornado" Satisfactory building that his building in Valheim is a reference to) but in case you just want a quick summary of the technique I'll put it here in spoilers:
Dig around and under the altar area where you summon Elder, the Black Forest boss. All the way round and under, so the altar becomes a floating platform with enough space for you to move around under it. The empty space around it should be a jumpable distance, so you can run on the ground and jump onto the altar platform. Summon the boss and run off and under the altar platform while the boss is arriving. The boss will probably get stuck in the gap around the altar platform, up to its knees or thereabouts. Valheim mobs can't jump. You're safe under the altar platform as it works as a massive shield against the boss' attacks. Use a campfire to set fire to the boss and wait.
Im going to give it a go. It sounds right up my street. I never thought about playing with my kids on this to be honest, it might be something they would like also.
I was in the same boat:
I really don't know why the publishers are pretending Valheim is a multiplayer-only game. The only thing that does is put a non-trivial number of potential customers off buying the game. It's only a disadvantage for the publishers. It has no benefits for them in any way. Why are they doing it? It makes no sense unless they have an ideological dislike of single player games but that seems highly unlikely. They should be advertising the fact that Valheim does a really good job of working as both a single player game and a multiplayer game and even allows free movement of a character between the two and that doing so actually works.
Soldato
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Ah, yeah, I watched that video after you mentioned it previously (I think it was you who mentioned it, anyway). Very intenvtive and cool, but we'll probably try a straight-up fight the first time at least.
Yes, do it! We're having a great time, and sharing gaming surprises and laughing with the kids has been fantastic.
Is that how they're marketing it? I haven't actually seen any promotional material for it, I just grabbed it based on what people on this forum were saying about it. That isn't a good representation, though, as you say - or at least only an incomplete one.
I was having great fun with it SP before my kids got a copy. And last night I played a bit on my own after my kids logged off for bed. Mostly to replenish the materials the youngest had grabbed from our chests to make... I don't even know what. It was still fun solo, and I got a good sense of achievement from restocking our stores of metals and berries.
Though... I think I dropped all the ancient seeds we had to make room for ore without thinking about it. When I got back they were gone, and I know I dumped what I intended to be lower-value items to make space. He is not going to pleased that we can't now summon the boss. Still, if he hadn't used all our bronze to make spare items we don't need and all our food to brew meads we're not going to use yet, I wouldn't have been out farming them again.
It is only for a close spawn point - you don't need to sleep there. Generally I have a base in meadows, but if venturing far away for mining/sailing I will make a hut with bed near to ore/landing spot to make sure I don't have to run naked for ages. Just remember to change spawn point when back at safe base. I remember sailing for ages to find swamp then dying soon after landing. Had no copper/bronze left so had to go mine to craft nails for boat, with antler pickaxe and flint axe for wood as gear was with body. Finally made it to grave only to die almost immediately. So 2 boats halfway across the map with no decent gear. At that point I did consider getting the teleport anywhere mod.
We tend to find a decent area to mine and build a small building on the coast. Then stick a portal inside. No more running and sailing to get back to your body.
You can take the boat parts with you when you next portal, collect the ore and sail back. Stick to the coast and you should encounter no dangers.
On any death, we feed up and portal to the nearest place (we have 11 portals so far) and then do a nudey run to our body. Max stamina means running for longer and as long as you watch it, you can rest on large rocks quite safely.
Whenever we go exploring new parts of the map in a boat, we always take the portal parts with us.
2 of us in a longship can take a sea serpent so we actively look for them on sea crossings. L2 huntsman bows and fire/bronze arrows
You can take the boat parts with you when you next portal, collect the ore and sail back. Stick to the coast and you should encounter no dangers.
On any death, we feed up and portal to the nearest place (we have 11 portals so far) and then do a nudey run to our body. Max stamina means running for longer and as long as you watch it, you can rest on large rocks quite safely.
Whenever we go exploring new parts of the map in a boat, we always take the portal parts with us.
2 of us in a longship can take a sea serpent so we actively look for them on sea crossings. L2 huntsman bows and fire/bronze arrows
Ah, now I see what you mean. That's a good idea and I think I'll start doing it.
Making a bed nearby also means you can die a few times doing the naked run without losing further skill, whereas if it takes you 10 minutes to get back to your death point it means you potentially keep losing 5% of your skill per death over and over.
Associate
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I know there is a debugmode which is essentially sandbox for materials and building.
Soldato
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So looks like my kid was right and we could have taken the forest boss earlier. We each only got hit once the entire fight. He definitely made it clear that he told me so
On to the next biome...
On to the next biome...
Me too. If not an anchor, then at least a mooring rope.
As far as I can tell there is an invisible magic anchor in the game. In my experience, boats in Valhalla only move when there's a player in them. Someone here told me that earlier in the thread when I mentioned the lack of mooring and my experience since then bears it out. I've left my boat on the shore by my base repeatedly for ingame weeks now and it hasn't moved an inch, not even after several severe storms.
I just spent 3 ingame days loosing ~2000 arrows at a target I built (just a wooden wall section), with a few breaks to chop down more trees, do some cooking, make more arrows and repair the target quite a few times. It was, strangely, quite entertaining.
I've had mobs push the boat causing it to drift so theres been a few times when we've returned to our ship after spending time in crypts and what have you, only to find that the mobs have pushed the boat out to sea
After my lengthy archery training, I decided to set out on an epic voyage of discovery for a change. 3 days and 2 nights aboard ship, exploring the coastline. Along the way I saw a small island a little way out to sea with some rocks on it that didn't look like other rocks I'd seen, so I sailed out to get a look at them. Definitely different rocks. I entered a new biome just before reaching the island - the ocean biome. There aren't any mobs on the island, so I should be OK, right? Jump onto the island and see that the rocks are giant barnacles. Can't gather them...can I use a pickaxe to smash them off? Yes, that worked and...
It's not an island! It's alive! It's time to make like Enya and Sail Away, Sail Away.
Soldato
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Eek! I've been a bit scaredy cat about the water in this game, sticking right by the shore to circumnavigate our island. That has definitely reinforced that I had the right idea!
Good to know that the wooden barrier we spent a while building to stop our boat drifting away is unnecessary, though. That was a pain.
Need to find some swamp, I believe is next. But when we finally got the end of the enourmous forest biome on our island, we found meadows again. Hopefully we'll find something as we go around the coast. It seems a pretty big landmass so we'll see.
You found
a leviathan. As far as I can tell, they just sink once you have mined a certain amount and do not attack. The problem occurs when you end up in the water with no stamina having used it all mining. Our last venture also included a sea serpent so the thing started submerging almost immediately. I'm not sure if its possible to kill one or not.
I think it is % chance that the leviathan will move when mining a barnacle. The loot will give the change to make the harpoon so that sea sepents can be dragged to land for meat/scales
We tend to kill it and then turn the boat around and go back for the loot. I forgot about the harpoon being an option, might try it next time although it last few ocean crossings have been serpent free