Valheim

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If you're playing single player, it's great to begin with but then gets far from good.

If you're playing multiplayer, it remains great.

Mods are a good idea regardless, but probably more mods if you're playing single player.

For example, the last patch forced a major delay on using the hoe tool. That ruins the game for anyone who is into building (you use the hoe to raise and/or level land for building, farming, etc), so pretty much everyone who plays the game will find it greatly improved by using a mod that reverses the hoe delay added in the last patch.

If playing single player, a single death will often effectively be game over after the early game. Without mods, each time you die you lose all of your equipment and everything you're carrying and a large part of every skill you have. One death will cost you in the region of 10 hours of playtime in terms of skills. Or more. Your equipment will be in a grave marker where you died, but if you died when you were fully equipped you are very unlikely to be able to recover your stuff when you're not fully equipped (because all your stuff is on your corpse). In multiplayer, someone else can get your stuff for you. Even if the whole group dies, there's a good chance at least one person will survive to recover some of the stuff and get out while the others are being killed by whatever it was that killed you all in the first place.

So do you fancy spending as much as a real world hour slowly travelling to a location to fail to recover your equipment and die again? Then do that again? And again? If not, don't play Valheim single player unmodded.

But not in unmodded Valheim single player.

I disagree, been playing single player for a while and sometimes have been tempted to use cheat mods when dying, but resisted the urge. Keeping lower level equipment, ensuring you have a spawn point when you land ship, or going into new biomes, mitigates the risks. Still make errors and have to sail/run for ages occasionally but that is part of fun. I have not fully lost equipment when dying except when I used a mod that gives to a separate equipment inventory. I am on 2nd play through and can navigate plains in troll armour as long as I don't try and be clever.
 
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So do you fancy spending as much as a real world hour slowly travelling to a location to fail to recover your equipment and die again? Then do that again? And again? If not, don't play Valheim single player unmodded.

That's just bad preparation man. Bring portal materials with you, first order of business when you get to your destination - build basic shelter with a bed and a portal. You'll still have to bring any ores etc back the long way but if you don't at least have a nearby shelter with that bed set as spawn, and you do that multiple times, that's on you!
 
Soldato
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I disagree, been playing single player for a while and sometimes have been tempted to use cheat mods when dying, but resisted the urge. Keeping lower level equipment, ensuring you have a spawn point when you land ship, or going into new biomes, mitigates the risks. Still make errors and have to sail/run for ages occasionally but that is part of fun. I have not fully lost equipment when dying except when I used a mod that gives to a separate equipment inventory. I am on 2nd play through and can navigate plains in troll armour as long as I don't try and be clever.

We use a similar mod and when we died our armour was on the floor next to the gravestone - lucky we died in the plains tbh as we might not have seen it in the swamps
 
Man of Honour
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That's just bad preparation man. Bring portal materials with you, first order of business when you get to your destination - build basic shelter with a bed and a portal. You'll still have to bring any ores etc back the long way but if you don't at least have a nearby shelter with that bed set as spawn, and you do that multiple times, that's on you!

Which is fine if you are travelling overland to a destination. Which you often won't be in a world made of islands.

The last time I was killed was when I was sailing around an island to map it, looking for another swamp biome. I hadn't landed. I was killed offshore by deathsquitoes and furlings.

My least bad course of action would have been to abandon everything, return to a black forest biome, mine more tin and copper, make more bronze and make weapons and armour to replace the ones I'd lost. But I didn't fancy replaying another 10 hours to regain what I'd lost when all I wanted was the ability to build in stone. That didn't appeal to me. I'd died before, of course. Sometimes more than once. Being killed trying to recover your gear is normal in Valheim. But on previous occasions I'd thought that I stood a chance.

If you find losing everything, losing a huge chunk of all of your very slowly gained skills and reverting to grinding a previous zone to make new kit to be fun, good for you. Valheim is perfect for you.
 
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We are now at the point where we have a dozen wolves and 6 cubs. They breed like rabbits so we've taken to decimating the local boar, deer and neck population to keep them fed.
They make short work of many enemies, they roam the compound which is so large that greydwarves spawn inside the walls and are then killed off in short order.
 
Soldato
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Well, managed to get my first Iron.

Built a base in some meadows *right* next to the swamp.

Stripped naked, emptied inventory except for some food, maxed out my stamina, took a poison potion, activated Ethikir and basically ran around mapping it until I found places of interest.

Figured I would have less to lose that way if I died.

It worked so well, that when I went back in I equiped myself and did the same thing. As long as you stay out of the water you can outrun all of the stuff in the swamp.

Now got a Iron banded shield (lvl 2) and an iron mace (lvl 2). Still haven't finished the location where I get the iron from so it's back in later....
 
Soldato
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I bought this last night. It looks "blocky" like Minecraft, and I wasn't expecting that. I'm just checking here in case I'm missing something obvious (not surprising for me) before I request a refund?
 
Soldato
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I bought this last night. It looks "blocky" like Minecraft, and I wasn't expecting that. I'm just checking here in case I'm missing something obvious (not surprising for me) before I request a refund?
It does have a certain pixelly charm. But give it a go, the gameplay is fabulous.

It's not all about graphics (just ask some of the great looking AAA titles that play terribly)!
 
Soldato
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It does have a certain pixelly charm. But give it a go, the gameplay is fabulous.

It's not all about graphics (just ask some of the great looking AAA titles that play terribly)!

Yea, I can see past visuals if the gameplay is worth it. I'm playing on a 48" OLED so maybe that's making it feel worse than it is.

I'll try to get an hour and half run at it tonight and see if it draws me in. :)
 
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Is this really as good as everyone says it is? Feeling like I need to get in on the action!

I had two different experiences, quite good when you have friends to play with but gets boring if not.

I dropped the game for a while when I died in a dungeon on my own and lost everything, wasn’t motivated to go back and get my stuff. Then some friends asked me to play with them and it was a different experience.
 
Man of Honour
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I bought this last night. It looks "blocky" like Minecraft, and I wasn't expecting that. I'm just checking here in case I'm missing something obvious (not surprising for me) before I request a refund?

You're not missing anything obvious about the graphics. They're low quality and definitely "blocky". The textures on most stuff are really low quality, especially things like copper ore (which is just rock with what looks like giant green and brown pixels on it). Your 3080 will be about as overpowered as a jet engine on a bicycle :)

I was initially a bit surprised, but the graphics work well enough.

I've returned to Valheim despite my experience with it and despite it being geared towards multiplayer. I wrote off my equipment and loot, made a L1 bronze mace from the small amount of bronze I had left after upgrading my lost equipment and went back to the black forest biome to rebuild my equipment. I'm now back to a complete set of L1 bronze weapons and tools and there's still some of the huge copper ore deposit I found within a reasonable distance of my base in some meadows. I've run out of tin now, but some exploring around the coast should fix that. Another few days and I'll be back to the swamp biome. I'm definitely missing the circlet of light and the belt of magic strength, though. I'm assuming I can buy replacements when I've acquired enough money.

One thing that's more unusual than the graphics is the pace of the game. It's slow. Really, really slow. You can spend an hour realtime just in hunting birds for feathers. Or deer and boar for meat and hide. Or gathering stone for building. Or all sorts of things. The pace of the game is very slow indeed, very different to most games.
 
Soldato
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Have not seen anyone mention it, but the swamps are super easy if you take poison resistance potions along. You can literally saunter through at leisure without worrying about leaches or blobs.
 
Soldato
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Now found my first proper Plains biome with a nice Meadows next to it so that’s where I’ve built my camp. Right on the border are 2 of their camps and in one of them I can see one of the huge ones. That’s for tomorrow though.
I did this. I built a small outpost in the meadows just before the border. Across the border was a small gobbo camp so it seemed like a good idea. However be aware that 'mozzers' can 'bleed' into the meadows and still get you so always keep your health up lol. There was one time I logged into my outpost and heard knocking on the door so I went to investiga....DEAD. Mozzer was outside somehow and I had 25hp :o
 
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Soldato
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I did this. I built a small outpost in the meadows just before the border. Across the border was a small gobbo camp so it seemed like a good idea. However be aware that 'mozzers' can 'bleed' into the meadows and still get you so always keep your health up lol. There was one time I logged into my outpost and heard knocking on the door so I went to investiga....DEAD. Mozzer was outside somehow and I had 25hp :o

I just beat Bonemass and i went exploring on the way back to my main base.
I found a large island with a good size mountain region with a plains biome beside it, and there was a small island just off the coast.
I had to level it up a bit but now i have a camp with a bed in it. ready for when i have to go to the plains. i need to bring back portal materials.

My reasoning for the island base, is for when the swarm attacks at night come, hopefully i am safe. I had a furling looking at me but so far he hasn't tried swimming out yet, hopefully the tide doesnt drop too low lol
I could also extend the island for when i have to grow flax as well.
 
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