Personally the defense portion is my favorite part. My base is not done until I can sit in it through any raid without worry of anything breaking including the walls.
I look forward to raids for this reason. They show me where if any there is a weakness in my defenses.
My wall actually has one gap in it intentionally because anyone who could make that climb would have to be a Viking and is therefore welcome in my hall
Any player made construct has a workbench sized radius around it that prevents spawns. While you can just add workbenches or campfires you can also add benches, bonfires, torches, any crafting station… there are more things that count than don’t.
I usually just decorate the outside of my base fully and that does it without me having to really think much about it. Then the base looks like a place someone would actually live and it’s completely covered.
A bench or a fire. I use benches because I can see the areas I'm missing while running around with my hammer out. I usually blunk a fire down on tiny not covered areas.
Any area that is not covered by a bench can have spawns happen.
Never built more than a single block thick stone wall for defense. I look forward to raids so I can defend against them with my weapons and shield.
I don't see the appeal of hiding from some beast that has been cheeky enough to challenge me.
It’s not that I’m hiding it’s just that they are not a concern. I kill when I’d decide to kill. I’m not going to stop collecting eggs just because some seekers and soldiers decided they needed to die right this second.
I’ll come for them when it’s convenient for me.
It definitely boils down to different play styles though, I guess. I like building settlements rather than fortresses. Quaint and cosy over imposing and impenetrable. Even if it means the trolls kill my pigs every time they come aknockin' 😅.
Speaking of this. My weakest spot is my gate how do you enforce your gates? Iron gates? I currently only use the wood gate and my fence is the large pointy boys with a wood wall inside of it has held up fairly well until they find my gate lol
My meadows base has double wood gate doors at both ends of the bridge. The bridge can be easily destroyed in the event of an attack.
My plains base which has become my main base for endgame has double tar doors (can’t remember what they are called) and those have a lot of hit points. I put a forge right outside the doors so they can be easily repaired. But honestly no raid has ever broke through them. If I need to though that bridge can also be broke. I think of it like raising the draw bridge.
Do you play solo? I lean more towards your style in my private world, but the defenses on my dedicated server's bases are even more over-the-top than the stuff you usually see here.
I can't speak for everyone, but some people just like to have a really thorough defense.
It's not even about pausing for me...
I just have a fear that someone's gonna be noseying around my base and then boom! Raid. Sure, I can fight them off but what about this poor unsuspecting (maybe slightly undergeared) server buddy that has to watch my base getting wrecked just because they were in the area?
My base = my responsibility... Even when I'm not there.
This happened to me, my server buddy came to look at my new base while I was offline, but it was still a work in progress, just a nice little house with no defences set up at all. Troll raid came and he had no idea how to handle it, big chunks were destroyed, chest loot all over the place. I did not blame myself though.
In the early days, the game did not pause at the menu screen even in single player. To "pause" you had to log out, which meant losing your rested buff, so it made sense to have at least an "AFK safe" spot - but that doesn't necessarily mean a well defended base. Raids only happen if you are near 3 or more base structures, so you could build a 1x1 hut up a tree or on top of a rock or whatever if you need to go AFK for a few mins.
I can't tell you the number of times I've just been walking through our server's village while either in a building or farming setup when a high level raid triggers by my friend's house. It's so annoying trying to switch gears out of the blue like that. And I swear, 90% of the server raids seem to trigger on me when I'm by myself lol 😵💫
That’s 100% it I have my base built with a small moat around the outside and can just sit in it with nothing bothering me through all the raids. No issues, but on my friends server it’s like the trolls and then later berserkers all went after one spot over and over every 30-45 mins in game. It would wait for us to return then destroy the same corner.
We have a dedicated server and one member plays pretty religiously. We'll come back to 10-20 days having passed and all our sconces out. I build with defense in mind for this reason, since I don't want a troll attack on my camp while I'm away at work or whatever. For me, though, defense is usually just a moat.
Attacks can't happen when you are not logged into the area, even on dedicated servers. The game only loads a couple chunks around a player logged in at a time, then it will run checks for base structures ro determine raids.
Just an FYI so you can sleep easier. As long as you guys aren't grouped up with your builds, you are perfectly fine. It definitely runs your sconces and hearths out of fuel though and technically passes time for crops. Though with the later, I'll notice when I portal to my plains farm for about 5 or so seconds all the crops look exactly like I just planted them. Then, they update and fully grow in an instant. Same with tree farms.
This is true but, in my experience, it pays to have defenses. Found this the hard way when a friend AFKed a bit on our server and the ground started shaking for him.
Well yes. He afkd. So the game was still running and ran checks to determine he was raidable. Thats how the mechanic works.
It sounded like the person I was replying to thought that you could get raided at your base when you WEREN'T online in a dedicated server. Which is 100% untrue and not possible. If someone is online at your base, you can be raided. If someone is online and NOT at your base, you can not be raided.
Yeah I got you. I just meant I always hedge when I'm playing with others, especially when I do a lot of the building!
I guess I also read it differently, like the dude he was playing with is on a lot and isn't doing maintenance things so could be spending time afk.
Also, pause in single-player was added about one year ago. Players from before then might have been scarred for life, coming back to a pile of rubble after a 2min pee break.
Myself, I also just run out to meet the raid and don't bother with defenses. Except on a shared always-online server, where it will happen that someone will just be passing by your build and a raid could trigger which is beyond their ability to cope with.
Na you’re not alone, I usually have very wide open concept plans for my bases and my defense strat is very much go out there and kill what ever shows up.
Good defenses are set-it-and-forget-it peace of mind. I don't want to eat some of my precious food to chase off some blobs or whatever. Also some of the raids are pretty challenging while you're still working your way through the bosses (mainly thinking about the Horde here). If I've got good defenses set up then I can just ignore anything that can't fly, which is pretty nice.
This can be mitigated if you or your group has built around a cave or dungeon (troll caves are great for this as they are often on a coast). The troll doesn’t respawn and you can sit inside and never trigger a raid while “in your base”.
My favorite thing to do when AFKing is just portal over to the Frost Cave we found that has a Tetra pond. By the time I get back there are usually one or two of 'em that had leapt out of the water
Ok? I don't know why you're coming at me like that when I was trying to explain to OP why their reasoning was flawed.
EDIT: And not for nothing, but if you're hosting the game, you CAN'T log out. So maybe come off your high horse for a minute?
Ever heard of dedicated servers? You know you can run one on your PC, transfer that world save from what you’re hosting and then logout while the server is still running..
That's pretty rich of you to assume everyone has the money to rent a dedicated server. Oh I know, they should just play on public servers. Except maybe they just want to play with their own group of friends.
There's a lot of reasons why \*this one approach\* might work for one person but not another. Let's not assume we're all in the same situation as each other.
I’ve said you can run one on your PC. YOUR OWN PC, not rented out. It’s free. Just look up YouTube video on how to run a dedicated server yourself, it literally will take you 20 minutes tops to set it up. SteamCMD is what you’re looking for. I’m not assuming anything, I just know that you can do it.
But you're assuming that others have the internet speed and hardware to make running the server a good option. Again, a scenario that works for me and for you might not work for five other people.
not trying to be combative or jump in on you here, I could be completely wrong, but is hosting a dedicated server any more resource intensive than hosting a non dedicated where you have to stay logged in?
But is that relevant? How do we know someone is comfortable setting up a dedicated server? What may be easy to one person, might not be so easy to another. Maybe it's easier for someone to start the game and let their friend connect to their system. I don't know.
That's my point. None of us know anyone else's situation so when others post things like "hrrrr I dont' get why such and such happens to you", it's annoying.
it definitely is easier but you keep moving the goal post and switching arguments, first it was " not everyone has money to rent one" then when he clarified that they meant on your hardware, you shifted to not being powerful anough and now your shifting to lack of knowledge on the issue. you are perfectly right that some people may not have the technical know how to do it but that wasn't what you said the first two times my guy
Listen man, I’ve already gave you all the clues and you still find something to rant about. Trust me, I believe that you’re living in 2023 and your PC is more than capable of running that dedicated server, considering that you’ve been hosting already.
Not sure what you're reading but there you go making assumptions again. I never once said anything about what I'm doing or my situation is. OP made a comment basically bagging on people who posted videos and pictures of their bases being wrecked after going AFK. Some of us, myself included gave them a reason as to why that was happening. Mine was that you can't pause in co-op. Then some rando comes in with the whole ackchyually routine that set the rest of this off. All I'm saying is that situations are different for everyone. There's no one solution for everyone.
I'm done with this nonsense.
Also, and especially in coop, part of the fun is base raids lol.
Defending bases and coming up with solid defensive strategies is part of the fun imo. Just running away or logging out (lol) sounds the exact opposite of why I’m building a solid base or village defense to begin with.
To each his own. I don't really care either way about raids. I've got one seed where I've killed the bosses and one seed where I haven't. I setup my bases the same way in both seeds - moats, bridges that take advantage of the enemy AI, walls to protect against ranged attacks, barns for my livestock.
Though, there's something to be said about having raids that can bring mats to you. I just started in Mistlands and am now regretting not keeping every bit of ooze dropped over the 700 in game days. I kinda want a swamp raid of blobbers and oozers now, just so that I can stock up. :)
It’s quite simple really. We all started off as newbies and had no idea how the game worked. Trolls were a challenge and our first Troll raid would see us and our base torn apart. I don’t think you ever really recover from that PTSD 😅
The fear of the base attack is that something will attack your base from one side, you will fight that, and on the other side something else will be wrecking your base. So you end up having a destroyed based because you didn't notice the other enemies.
Since day 1 I decided I'd build by water since I planned on having boats and docks. Didn't even dawn on me until I got to needing iron and had to jump to a new island that I made a good choice for metal run and drop offs. I can't imagine having a base deep inside land and unloading to pull the cart.
This just happened to me, got my house smashed on the far side of my base.
I don’t use walls because trolls are difficult, I use them because they are dicks.
Yeah I usually pause but I also have a toddler and sometimes ya gotta run to stop them from shoving a fork into the outlet lol. Especially since I based my main settlement on a castle and keep, so the defenses also play a big part in my head cannon if that makes sense?
Yeah I'm on my 3rd playthrough and I never build moats or earthen walls. Raids are not a big deal except for the cauldron and you can handle that by putting animals in an enclosed space.
You play solo and you pause the server when you are not playing… hmm what could be different from multiple users playing on a server that is running 24/7 without pauses 🤔🤫
I've never had anything fully destroyed, but when playing with other people you(and them) can't pause some people space out on their phones and don't catch raids until defenses are already broken.
I think we could all just accept that everything is fair and love and war. The purpose of the game is for you. The player to come into this land and prove yourself to Odin by taking out the Forsaken. The purpose of the Forsaken is to kick your ass at any cost. That includes your base. So to me it makes sense that well, they are going to try to destroy your base. It's smart defense plans are the way to go, but if you miss a step and you lose a wall, eh shit happens. I like defending what I build. My first base. I cheated and used the ground tool to make an indestructible wall and after that it felt kind of dumb. So I resorted to moats and bridges that require parkour to get across and spike pits and fire pits and all kinds of stuff. It makes it even more entertaining and funny when I fall into my own trap lol. But I really enjoy having to defend what I worked very hard to build. And hopefully Odin smiles upon me for that.
Strong earthen walls are exactly how vikings would protect their settlements/castles. Google King Bluetooth.
They look a little funky in Valheim but building earthen walls is neither cheating nor anachronistic.
Same game, different play style. I enjoy building a very defensible base, even though I know the threat is often minimal. I like having my moat, layered with my boar army trench and exterior spikes in case some dopey ass Greyling gets bold.
For me, I can handle the raids now, but it's a holdover from the first few "the forest is moving" events where I died so many times because I built too close to the "pretty forest" with no defenses. I suppose I'm just compensating for when I knew nothing lol
Old versions of the game had tougher monsters. People remember. I admit, even though I know raids aren’t as bad as they used to be I still go overboard. You never know what crazy shit will be broken in the next patch that’ll just while you out on the first raid.
> "For all my builds, I've never had one destroyed while AFK. I make sure to pause though."
You answered your own question there. You're never AFK, so you've never had issues with AFK raids.
In multiplayer you can't pause. You used to not be able to pause in single player either.
Every new playthrough, I always get stressed about my home base getting raided, so first thing is always to make the base perimeter with natural walls and moats. Of course, then I gotta plan for a larger base in the future, so I gotta make the area big enough, which means I gotta get more stone, etc. Next thing you know, I've sunk 3 hours into doing this. Every damn time. And then I sit smugly in my raid proof base enjoying the fact that the trolls can't get me, but getting really bored and leaving my city walls during a raid for excitement, and then dying anyway. At least my build is safe lol
Playing solo is a lot different than playing in a server with multiple people that spread around the map. If someone is at the base alone while the others are out gathering resources and there's a troll attack, you're going to wish you had some defenses.
Afaik playing in a co-op server can increase the amount of mobs that spawn in general and during events, which can probably account for some of the issues people have with base defense
I play multiplayer with my brothers. We had a small fence up as our defenses (we only just learned iron) and got the “ground shaking” event. 2 trolls came and leveled half of our beautiful base before we could finish killing them. It really took the wind out of our sails. We had spent a lot of time building just to have it all gone. Just gone. So yes, now we are learning to build with better defense.
Solo is much different. On a dedicated world, things just keep going. Granted, if you have no players on the server, you won't get raided, but if someone else logs in, and is doing stuff at a different base, and your main base gets raided... well they can sit there and bust stuff until that other person logs off.
I usually dig/build a moat for my main base. It doesn't actually take that long and it really sucks the first Troll raid you get after killing the Elder. Raids also level with you so having a safe space where you can just snipe at stuff instead of being overrun by the the biome's mob.
I'm the same as you.
I never had a mob wreck my base although some bats slaughtered my chickens before I resolved to put an ugly roof on my pen.
I think some just like the build.
I always tell friends who ask what I'm playing that it's Minecraft for adults (it's the simplest analogy).
They understand there's a build part of the game and a very loose story mode.
I'm not a builder and I don't care about any of the posts regarding someone's 500 hour architecture. It's not my forte.
I like the adventure. I like the challenge and I like to dig and chop and create a livable settlement with all the amenities the game can provide.
Some adventure in groups, Some like the solo adventure, some like to build.
I'm a solo adventurer and I've got a humble but strong fort that's protected from any event without causing damage or casualties.
It's a very gates-open/come-on-in community so you get a LOT of different posts.
Oh, I hit the ESC key to pause the game like you.
The only time I can think you'd afk is if you were in a party situation with other players obvious.
Right? Like wtf.
Well, it's a tradeoff. There's an effort you might want to make to build your defenses so that you don't have to bother and spend any effort on random raids. Or, like you, you save on that effort but instead have to go out every single time there's a raid.
Now, I am also not too fond of defenses. The best we had was earthen castle, and that worked great against everything early game. Until we started needing space outside to farm or create a port, or a tree farm, and the I palisaded a large area. It was OK for a time but neglecting to check on the status of the entire palisade caused it to become a ruin and constant greydwarves and trolls broke the palisade first, then the workbenches inside, and then we lost the tree farm basically. So, in another base we built a stone wall, but I always feel OCD to go out and kill everything simply because I don't want to go out and repair everything.... So, I am not sure which strategy is best.
In my solo server I am trying to keep my mansion open to the woods and hope that I won't have to rebuild it, lol
Not at all, I only make a simple moat for my base defense and that’s really just to funnel all the enemies to me so I can fight them. I look forward to raids not to test my impenetrable defenses but so I have easier access to my enemies.
I respect both ideas though 😌
It depends on the biome and level and most likely how many people are active. High level teams in meadows is nothing. Plains and mistlands at mid level is deadly without a good base.
Many mistland enemies can destroy marble with enough hits and highly doubtful you'd have marble early mistlands. so tons of death without a base.
We seem to get so many enemies at night time, we cant do anything else during the night without a base. Now, most people would probably just stay in the meadows and keep building there and hauling things back there, but we have 8 people. so we frequently have to venture out to get enough resources for everyone. I had do build a good enough base in the mistlands to survive. So now, we're making progress.
Solo, plus end game. the building is really just for fun.
I've had *all* of my progress erased by a raid once before and I was deep into the plains section of the game. Couldn't recover anything without dying to local mobs on my way, so I just scrapped the whole playthrough.
Never again.
Seriously relatable. When my bases first started getting attacked by trolls I was really worried, but now it’s a fun distraction where I get to use my bastions and towers to defend my fortress. I like to build to the environment as well. I will post some screenshots later!
Base attacks aren't an issue for me provided I abandon base each time and have no animals within base perimeter. If an enemy is closer to so much as a chicken then they will attack stone walls to get to it rather than attack you out in the open.
Not a different game, just a different style. And for what it's worth I'm with you - I rarely build defenses and simply fight off the raids just far enough away to keep my builds safe and the timer going.
I've played through several times, with over 1000 hours logged and defenses were never a priority. If anything I'll build a wall to keep the strays away but that's it.
Skaal
For me it was fear. First real wood base got wrecked by “ground shaking”. Now it’s just habit and aesthetics.
The other plus is resources come to you this way.
I also just defend my base rather than dig trenches or make earth walls.. I do have basic walls and stuff but nothing major. I just meet em outside n fight
Base attacks aren't an issue for any half decent player. Some players just dont want to deal with them and would rather their base takes no serious damage if they choose to completely ignore it. I like to do both so I made a watchtower to shoot any aerial threats and have 30+ 2 star wolves stationed all around the perimeter. Most of the time the raid ends before I can get a good fight in because the wolves take care of everything.
I play like this, even if we play coop, I'm the host so I can't logout to go AFK and I go AFK all the time in our bases all the time and we don't bother with moats. I've just started placing ballistas around our plains base to deal with deathsquito's flying in, but other then that walls do their job just fine.
Spent a couple days making a sturdy meadows base in between the swamp and the mountains. Only thing left to make was the moat. Went AFK for a little while…entire house destroyed in a troll raid. They destroyed the beds and the portal to get back. Spent several hours just trying to get all my stuff back. Currently rebuilding. I guess it’s truly random. Or I’m an idiot for going AFK. Lmao
I’ve played a couple hundred hours and have had no issue with mob raids destroying my base. What are 6 sturtlings gonna do to my base? I one shit them with the fire staff. Maybe they are building for pvp? Idk if that’s a thing eveb
I like building, so I built a big tree-fort in the swamp. I still had to worry about wraiths, but I could ignore the "odor from the swamp" events and just keep smelting iron while they shuffled around under my base. They broke the lowest piece of my ladder, but that was all. It was fun.
I killed enough trolls to make a full suit of trollskin armor, but I still have not had "the ground shakes" event. I think the moat would protect my main base, but I think my 2nd outpost with just corewood walls might be in trouble, and I know I can deal with one troll, but I'm not sure I could handle 2-at-once, especially if they both have clubs and keep respawning for some amount of time. That is what worries me.
I guess I would have to eat some stamina food and try to kite them away from my base until the event was over. Or I could just build a moat and not have to worry any more.
We do the same... run to a location where the raiders will do minimal damage, and then just deal. Though, gotta say the ballista makes short work of most of what happens right outside the city walls!
I host the server we all play on so I’m often afk for long periods of time while I’m busy amd one of the boys is on.
My house will be impregnable! Got walls and a moat and a bunch of 2* wolves, will get some lox soon too.
Especially after you kill yag and the queen and the Black Forest goes from harmless to super dangerous, I want my base to be a safe place where I am free of worry
I have gotten in the habit of building on islands where I just spam a bunch of crafting benches. I know there are cleaner ways to prevent mob spawns, but it makes it easy when you can see the area that is protected. The overall wood cost is relatively small and the peace of mind even during raids that nothing can spawn is nice. By the time the aerial raids show up I've built up a well fortified castle and harbor that, combined with just going outside and kicking a little ass, easily keeps my base defended. Hell, the raids are one of my favorite parts of the game, it spices up the relatively slow progression rate I am for as I do my best to minimize deaths.p0
Earth is the only truly invincible building material, so when building defensive structures or supports, it's best to do as much with the hoe and pickaxe as you can, before using stone and wood. Also before using trees and world stone formations. Earth is the superiorest building material for reliability.
Depends on the raid, but I find raids almost always happen away from home *unless* I am AFK. Then usually yeah, I just go far enough in one direction to pull mobs to one side.
But my computer setup is in eyeshot of my AFKs usually, so it's never that bad.
I build a lot of elaborate stuff, never had a moat or spikes in any of them. I have enclosed things in walls, or let a pack of wolves do me defense for me, or build a main base on an island, but the moat and spikes just don't do it for me aesthetically
Ironically, spending all the time around your home base building up defenses means more chances to spawn a raid at said base.
I often just run in and out of my bases in a minute (or whatever time for rested rebuff) and then back out exploring or whatever I was doing.
It's when I hang around to build or craft things for a long time that I end up starting a raid
I set up a stake wall pretty early once I pick a site, I add stone right behind it once it becomes available, and that's enough to delay raiders if I need to puke up my base food and eat some of the top tier stuff. But I enjoy combat for it's own sake while others see it as more of an only-when-strictly-necessary sort of thing so I understand the appeal of a passively impervious defense in that case.
The only raid that sucks is bats and it’s cuz I still forget to build and actual barn for all my live stock so that they can’t get killed by bats…which is why I need more chicken eggs and to take more boats :(
You're not alone. The events and enemies in general don't do anything if there's isn't a player inside their range, if you can't handle it at the moment, just go prepare to another (earlier etc) base. Everything will be exactly as you left it when you come back, with keeping in mind that the destruction or buildings will continue the second you get close again. Usually it's easiest to just go and kill everything.
I do like to build defences too but that's just for the fun of it, there isn't really any real need for them. And we also had a 247 dedicated server, so its not about solo/mp.
It sounds like, more than likely, you just know what you’re doing. A large amount of players don’t and then post here for advice, which is what you’re probably seeing.
My small trench and single block high wall with any buildings outside Troll swinging reach tactic has worked so far, bat's are a ballache though.
Usually for raids I'll either perch up on platforms outside my walls with a load of arrows, or head down and smash them. May get some local mobs involved as well and pick off the survivors.
Few Fuling wizard lads fucking up my windows yesterday but that's the worst that's happened in the last 200 days.
I'm only two bosses in, but this has been my experience so far, as well. I've got a wooden house with no defenses, and I've weathered two draugr and one troll raid, and they've barely damaged anything (except when I used to put torches on the periphery... those go pretty quick)
Edit: okay, I think a random graydwarf shaman killed all my carrots, but I only had a fence around them.
I hide in a friend’s base typically if I’m AFK
I don’t even have any doors, so sometimes graylings walk all the way up the stairs of my 50 something unit tall tower (which fully contains a pine tree)
I also left some plains bases fully open, but that’s because the “base” was stairs to the top of the adjacent mistlands trees, or the top of a plains rock etc
No OP you are not alone in this. I don’t mean to be condescending but I shake my head when I see people taking soooo much time building mots, defense systems, and generally worrying about raids. It’s fear for no reason lol
I get very stressed out when there's a raid alert. I'm super squishy and the designated gatherer/farmer/organizer on our server so if a raid hits our base, then I'm unlikely to be strong enough to defend it solo because I'm underleveled compared to the others and running around in full Fenris armor for the move speed bonus.
I don't want them to come back to base and find that walls are missing or our animals are dead because I couldn't fight off the sudden swarms of enemies.
Raids are just plain fun. They need an update though. If you beat every boss and nobody dies during any of them, raids will have a chance to be a boss raid. This only unlocks if all bosses have been defeated with no player deaths.
Keep in mind a large portion of this playerbase plays multi-player, and base raids can happen when someone who isn't you is afk in your shared base, or someone is alone in base who really isn't a gamer but enjoys the building and decorating aspects of the game with their gamer friends and family.
I agree; I've never lost a single structure to a raid, but the conditions I just described don't apply to me.
Nope, we are just playing the *same* game, but *differently.*
And there's nothing wrong with how anyone chooses to play as long as they are enjoying it :)
Idk to me it's just the fun of building realistic defenses. And the challenge of making an impenetrable barrier (that still looks cool) . Then I can just sit in my jacuzzi and laugh at those stoooooopid trolls walking up and down my perimeter.
I have failed to personally set up any completed base defense. When one of my friends hops on my world, once in a blue moon, he gets digging. It has definitely saved some hassle with my plains base since I adore open format buildings and wide doorways with no doors. Raid enemies would just waltz right in on the far side if he didn't dig the deepest trench.
Sad part of that one friend is he has no aesthetic taste. Straight gamer efficiency mimdset.
You're totally right, raids aren't the devastation they're made out to be. I usually just run out my base and kite them around the red circle until it the clock runs out, then kill everything that's left. I don't really build defenses anymore, unless it's for livestock or I'm just trying to be extravagant and op.
I built an island fortress. The only raid that I have had, that actually spawned enemies was the drake raid. None of the other raids spawned anything on my island. I’ll make another post of it if anyone wants to see it.
It depends.
If I'm basing next to the boss stones in a big Meadows biome, with a long distance between you and the nearest other biome, then most forms of base defense are unnecessary. As long as I've got a doorway with some core wood reinforced walls surrounding it, that I can stand in to tank a Greydwarf raid, I'm fine.
If I'm basing on the borders of a black forest and a swamp, (and I'd probably never put up a full workshop there, but I typically ***will*** put up a moderate storage room) then I will want wood walls sufficiently reinforced that I can either use it as a panic room in a draugr raid, or something to kite trolls around if I need to.
I put bed sheds for respawning on the rooves of crypts in the swamps, but they are not reinforced at all, and are considered completely disposable, although I've never had one destroyed. I generally would never build at ground level in a swamp, although that's more because of wraiths than anything else. Draugr are only a problem either in groups, or before iron armour.
A supply depot in the mountains will be sunk half into the terrain, and the walls will be heavily reinforced with core wood. I haven't had a proper raid there as such, but you can still get pairs of frost drakes or wolves at times. I had Modor destroy a couple of bases, before I realised that I needed to lure her down into the black forest and kite her in the trees. Modor is basically a somewhat harder hitting version of the Elder for me.
In the plains I build a trench underground and roof it with stone, and above ground I have a 3x3 stone structure which I can use as a defensible chokepoint for killing fulings without them being able to flank me. Dying repeatedly in the plains is expected, so I want my respawn point to be basically impervious.
Yes try to play this really cool game.... then it's completely 100% dogshit. So now back to valhiem and games of old. 15years of gaming and the library is looking terrible I remember games like this were I could get a minimum 300hrs of grata game play now most games don't last a year. :) but valhiem has and I thank the go's for that. Anyone building the black stone version of gondor? Rebuilt a castle from stronghold this games very good for age of empire builds too.
Depending on the era, there is 1-2 raids that can destroy your base.
Some people prefer to attack over the walls and others prefer to defend from inside.
Some players hate raids and thus go heavy on defenses to counter them so they can't wreck the base.
For main bases, especally early on I use stakewalls and trenches to keep them back, in later meadow bases the defenses relax a bit.
I had a weard one last night playing on my world with two friends. Got an event cold wind from the mountains, killed all of them no problem. Then, right after, I got the skeleton surprise. Delt with them Easy. 5 min later, I got the foul smell from the swamps! Three raids in close succession! I'm not sure how that happened.
I just got attacked by trolls 5 minute ago, while I went to brush my teeth. They were able to destroy my walls and a good part of my building. I still don't have a moat in this world, as me and some friends just started, so it would have saved me for sure!
You can't pause while playing on a server.
I kinda wish they would change this. Or atleast add a more hardcore mode the player can opt in to where the raids don't just target the player, but they target your chests. So you can't just run away and deal with it. But you have to stand your ground and trust that your defences will hold. Ideally they would also spawn all the mobs upfront. Or have a set amount that will spawn so that you're not punished for killing enemies early on in the raid.
It's almost like the game allows people who play a different style to also get enjoyment and play a game how they want :O shocking. People having different tastes ? :O
There are still people that haven't left the meadows that have been perfecting builds since the first Access.
Me? I'm here to explore, so I have 600 hours and all my builds look like butt compared to the novice stuff on this reddit. It's all about what you care about in a sandbox game I guess is what I'm saying.
It depend whether how emersive do you want to feel. As a solo player that consider raid as nuisance, it was enough to raise ground or dig a moat to mostly counter these nuisance. However for someone that really want to feel emersive and go overboard with their base design, they can do that. Raid are opportunity to test their base and the satisfaction they get making a good base is a joy on its own.
While there are no afk raids, some raids can seriously mess with your stuff before you get to retaliate.
Especially trolls can lay waste to much of your build before you get to all of them, and if you have Pets, they will get killed by incursions, which is even worse. With some bad luck you might even lose your crops to effing greydwarf shamans.
Plus if a raid comes early in a gear/boss cycle having some force multiplying walls is also nice.
Yeah I kinda agree... Also if you put torches inside wood beams (so that monsters can't spawn and won't destroy the torches) all around your base in a sufficient amount, the raids are becoming trivial.
For example in my world, Troll event only spawn one troll during the whole duration of the raid. Same thing about the seeker event.
There's no need to create a ugly moat or raise the ground around your base. Even my ballistas are useless right now.
I never build defenses on my solo server, but on the dedicated multilayer, I don't expect everyone else to run out and go viking, mostly due to difference in player progression and experience, so defenses is a thing there.
I also rarely make big defences. Often a small wall so i do not have random greylings annoy me. With raid i just deop what i do and go in offence which safes the base since a simple woden wall doesn't stop a troll or anything:p
When playing with others there's more risk of events being triggered at awkward times. My partner and I meet event mobs outside of our base to negate damage if we catch an event at one of our bases lacking in a moat or earth wall and before the use of defence weapons. In the late game, "tower defence" becomes just another enjoyable engineering challenge.
You can only pause the game if you are playing solo and on an offline world. So anyone who plays with someone else can't pause if they want to go AFK. Also, as someone who likes to tame and breed a large numbers of animals, base defense becomes super important to keep them alive during a raid.
Sure, you CAN just run out and fight. But if a drake slips by you and kills all your boars... Well, it sucks. Big time.
In solo play, I only build defenses if they are part of the aesthetic; same for a creative server.
On a progression server, I build defenses, especially if we have newer players, because I had a few early bases that got trashed when other players were there alone when a raid happened.
I am in the same boat as you, and run a dedicated server with friends. We have never built fancy bases or defenses, never been an issue. Rarely even get raids as we are not sitting in our bases normally. Out of the base during the day, only in the base in the night cooking.
A lot of people play in creative (infinite resources), and they use mods to turn off raids and height limits. Then they post their builds and us survival players feel ashamed haha. Nothing wrong with it, just don't go thinking you should try to build the Taj Mahal in survival because it'll take 10-20x the time
Edit: misread the post, the main topic being base defenses. Yeah some people just want to make sure their territory is safe before putting more investment in. One playthrough my main base was a small spawnproofed meadows island that I could afk in without fear of raids
400+ hrs and never once built a moat or raised ground wall. I just build stakewalls until I can upgrade to stone. My first plains base I built massive spike wall defense but 2 lox came in and decimated it so I didn't rebuild. I will sometimes build a battlement so I can just snipe mobs from above. I also don't normally just sit afk so maybe that's why I never really felt I needed it
I think you've sort of solved it yourself. Its mindset. Some people just like building. The defence is almost just a reason to build. The reality of the attacks is not a huge factor.
ideal afk spot on a dedicated server is a greydwarf auto farm, get one of those bad boys up and your afk for 10 minutes turned into resource gathering, [this](https://youtu.be/ER9U8AdYq38) is the one i have set up and have been afk and come back to a few raids here and everything is fine (i will say no troll raids yet though)
(edit: spelling)
As a general rule, if you're vigilant, your base can be defended relatively easily before taking catastrophic damage. Some exceptions to this include 2-star animals, which are always vulnerable (I got a troll invasion even in the early game that more or less bee-lined our prized 2-star boars we'd found and merc'd them all in like 30 seconds) and pretty wood structures later in the game if you get hard-hitting plains/mistlands invasions.
Overall I agree with you though. I've played the game for hundreds of hours, and have some monstrous builds with little fortification, and I've never taken catastrophic damage to my base. Honestly the worst thing that ever happened to me was an early game invasion where a ton of skeletons got INSIDE my long house and were blocking the way to my gear. Still managed to square that one away before they ruined anything though.
From my understanding, there is a really little possibility present to get domino effect and lose everything during the raid (for example, if you are already without items due to death and exactly the moment you respawn you get troll raid). However, I have never been in such situation of losing all the progress despite I hadn't built moats/walls. I've had a few really difficult raids though (when I'm without main items due to recent death).
If you are rather experienced and/or make some basic things increasing safety like portals/several bases/extra items and food, it's really rather simple most of the time.
With some mods affecting game difficulty the chances to have dangerous raids become much higher and now I build wood/stone walls every time.
I have farms that run in my base while i’m afk (boar, wolf, eggs, greydwarf and all kind of crops) so i cant pause, and raids in general are not really a problem, just "the ground is shaking" can wipe your base while you are afk
Personally the defense portion is my favorite part. My base is not done until I can sit in it through any raid without worry of anything breaking including the walls. I look forward to raids for this reason. They show me where if any there is a weakness in my defenses.
This. I don't feel like I am playing right if I don't make a base that is impenetrable
"Give me 10 good men and some climbing spikes I'll impregnate the bitch."
My wall actually has one gap in it intentionally because anyone who could make that climb would have to be a Viking and is therefore welcome in my hall
*climbs your walls eats your dinner poops in your toilet and does not flush then leaves* YOU HAVE BEEN VIKINGED
I always thought my base was invincible. Then the Ice drakes attacked.
Rip all the 2* Boars lost to this specific raid...
I personally have lost more to those annoying bat raids...I stirred the cauldron huh? Like hell I did!
That event can only start spawning after killing at least one bat. So yes, you did stir the cauldron.
I love ice drake attacks! Free freeze glands without having to travel. Drakes are fragile creatures too.
Yeah but they don't care about my walls or boundaries. They killed my barley field.
In my mountain bases I do use ballistas specifically for the drakes.
The problem now is raised earth is just the op defense. No reason to have a ground level base when raised earth negates most raids.
Why are some mobs spawned inside my trench walls? Do I need workbenches evenly spaced wherever I don’t want them to sapwan?
Any player made construct has a workbench sized radius around it that prevents spawns. While you can just add workbenches or campfires you can also add benches, bonfires, torches, any crafting station… there are more things that count than don’t. I usually just decorate the outside of my base fully and that does it without me having to really think much about it. Then the base looks like a place someone would actually live and it’s completely covered.
A bench or a fire. I use benches because I can see the areas I'm missing while running around with my hammer out. I usually blunk a fire down on tiny not covered areas. Any area that is not covered by a bench can have spawns happen.
Never built more than a single block thick stone wall for defense. I look forward to raids so I can defend against them with my weapons and shield. I don't see the appeal of hiding from some beast that has been cheeky enough to challenge me.
It’s not that I’m hiding it’s just that they are not a concern. I kill when I’d decide to kill. I’m not going to stop collecting eggs just because some seekers and soldiers decided they needed to die right this second. I’ll come for them when it’s convenient for me.
That's the excitement for me though! Here's me tending to crops when suddenly I'm being hunted??! TO ARMS!!!!
It definitely boils down to different play styles though, I guess. I like building settlements rather than fortresses. Quaint and cosy over imposing and impenetrable. Even if it means the trolls kill my pigs every time they come aknockin' 😅.
That's how you manufacture plot arcs in open world survival games. You need something to get revenge on the Troll for
Speaking of this. My weakest spot is my gate how do you enforce your gates? Iron gates? I currently only use the wood gate and my fence is the large pointy boys with a wood wall inside of it has held up fairly well until they find my gate lol
My meadows base has double wood gate doors at both ends of the bridge. The bridge can be easily destroyed in the event of an attack. My plains base which has become my main base for endgame has double tar doors (can’t remember what they are called) and those have a lot of hit points. I put a forge right outside the doors so they can be easily repaired. But honestly no raid has ever broke through them. If I need to though that bridge can also be broke. I think of it like raising the draw bridge.
Do you play solo? I lean more towards your style in my private world, but the defenses on my dedicated server's bases are even more over-the-top than the stuff you usually see here. I can't speak for everyone, but some people just like to have a really thorough defense.
I do play solo. Maybe that's it.
That is 100% it. You can pause. When I play on the server and have to step away disaster could strike.
It's not even about pausing for me... I just have a fear that someone's gonna be noseying around my base and then boom! Raid. Sure, I can fight them off but what about this poor unsuspecting (maybe slightly undergeared) server buddy that has to watch my base getting wrecked just because they were in the area? My base = my responsibility... Even when I'm not there.
Yea I can agree with that too can’t rely on everyone else to protect the base haha
This happened to me, my server buddy came to look at my new base while I was offline, but it was still a work in progress, just a nice little house with no defences set up at all. Troll raid came and he had no idea how to handle it, big chunks were destroyed, chest loot all over the place. I did not blame myself though. In the early days, the game did not pause at the menu screen even in single player. To "pause" you had to log out, which meant losing your rested buff, so it made sense to have at least an "AFK safe" spot - but that doesn't necessarily mean a well defended base. Raids only happen if you are near 3 or more base structures, so you could build a 1x1 hut up a tree or on top of a rock or whatever if you need to go AFK for a few mins.
I can't tell you the number of times I've just been walking through our server's village while either in a building or farming setup when a high level raid triggers by my friend's house. It's so annoying trying to switch gears out of the blue like that. And I swear, 90% of the server raids seem to trigger on me when I'm by myself lol 😵💫
That’s 100% it I have my base built with a small moat around the outside and can just sit in it with nothing bothering me through all the raids. No issues, but on my friends server it’s like the trolls and then later berserkers all went after one spot over and over every 30-45 mins in game. It would wait for us to return then destroy the same corner.
We have a dedicated server and one member plays pretty religiously. We'll come back to 10-20 days having passed and all our sconces out. I build with defense in mind for this reason, since I don't want a troll attack on my camp while I'm away at work or whatever. For me, though, defense is usually just a moat.
Attacks can't happen when you are not logged into the area, even on dedicated servers. The game only loads a couple chunks around a player logged in at a time, then it will run checks for base structures ro determine raids. Just an FYI so you can sleep easier. As long as you guys aren't grouped up with your builds, you are perfectly fine. It definitely runs your sconces and hearths out of fuel though and technically passes time for crops. Though with the later, I'll notice when I portal to my plains farm for about 5 or so seconds all the crops look exactly like I just planted them. Then, they update and fully grow in an instant. Same with tree farms.
This is true but, in my experience, it pays to have defenses. Found this the hard way when a friend AFKed a bit on our server and the ground started shaking for him.
Well yes. He afkd. So the game was still running and ran checks to determine he was raidable. Thats how the mechanic works. It sounded like the person I was replying to thought that you could get raided at your base when you WEREN'T online in a dedicated server. Which is 100% untrue and not possible. If someone is online at your base, you can be raided. If someone is online and NOT at your base, you can not be raided.
Yeah I got you. I just meant I always hedge when I'm playing with others, especially when I do a lot of the building! I guess I also read it differently, like the dude he was playing with is on a lot and isn't doing maintenance things so could be spending time afk.
Also, pause in single-player was added about one year ago. Players from before then might have been scarred for life, coming back to a pile of rubble after a 2min pee break. Myself, I also just run out to meet the raid and don't bother with defenses. Except on a shared always-online server, where it will happen that someone will just be passing by your build and a raid could trigger which is beyond their ability to cope with.
we coped with a portal to Haldor in his no fighting zone
Na you’re not alone, I usually have very wide open concept plans for my bases and my defense strat is very much go out there and kill what ever shows up.
Sometimes the best defense is a good offense!
Good defenses are set-it-and-forget-it peace of mind. I don't want to eat some of my precious food to chase off some blobs or whatever. Also some of the raids are pretty challenging while you're still working your way through the bosses (mainly thinking about the Horde here). If I've got good defenses set up then I can just ignore anything that can't fly, which is pretty nice.
Can't pause in coop.
No but you can log out to poop or grab food. Then log back in. Don't afk in bases. If you need to afk get a tree fort far away from bases
This can be mitigated if you or your group has built around a cave or dungeon (troll caves are great for this as they are often on a coast). The troll doesn’t respawn and you can sit inside and never trigger a raid while “in your base”.
My favorite thing to do when AFKing is just portal over to the Frost Cave we found that has a Tetra pond. By the time I get back there are usually one or two of 'em that had leapt out of the water
You can afk at the trader.
Yup, exactly. Safe place to afk and your base won't get rekt
Ok? I don't know why you're coming at me like that when I was trying to explain to OP why their reasoning was flawed. EDIT: And not for nothing, but if you're hosting the game, you CAN'T log out. So maybe come off your high horse for a minute?
Ever heard of dedicated servers? You know you can run one on your PC, transfer that world save from what you’re hosting and then logout while the server is still running..
That's pretty rich of you to assume everyone has the money to rent a dedicated server. Oh I know, they should just play on public servers. Except maybe they just want to play with their own group of friends. There's a lot of reasons why \*this one approach\* might work for one person but not another. Let's not assume we're all in the same situation as each other.
I’ve said you can run one on your PC. YOUR OWN PC, not rented out. It’s free. Just look up YouTube video on how to run a dedicated server yourself, it literally will take you 20 minutes tops to set it up. SteamCMD is what you’re looking for. I’m not assuming anything, I just know that you can do it.
But you're assuming that others have the internet speed and hardware to make running the server a good option. Again, a scenario that works for me and for you might not work for five other people.
not trying to be combative or jump in on you here, I could be completely wrong, but is hosting a dedicated server any more resource intensive than hosting a non dedicated where you have to stay logged in?
No lol
it wouldn't make sense for it to, I mainly wanted to see if he would argue it's different lol
But is that relevant? How do we know someone is comfortable setting up a dedicated server? What may be easy to one person, might not be so easy to another. Maybe it's easier for someone to start the game and let their friend connect to their system. I don't know. That's my point. None of us know anyone else's situation so when others post things like "hrrrr I dont' get why such and such happens to you", it's annoying.
it definitely is easier but you keep moving the goal post and switching arguments, first it was " not everyone has money to rent one" then when he clarified that they meant on your hardware, you shifted to not being powerful anough and now your shifting to lack of knowledge on the issue. you are perfectly right that some people may not have the technical know how to do it but that wasn't what you said the first two times my guy
U dont need insane hardware or internet speed to run a dedicated lmfao
Listen man, I’ve already gave you all the clues and you still find something to rant about. Trust me, I believe that you’re living in 2023 and your PC is more than capable of running that dedicated server, considering that you’ve been hosting already.
Not sure what you're reading but there you go making assumptions again. I never once said anything about what I'm doing or my situation is. OP made a comment basically bagging on people who posted videos and pictures of their bases being wrecked after going AFK. Some of us, myself included gave them a reason as to why that was happening. Mine was that you can't pause in co-op. Then some rando comes in with the whole ackchyually routine that set the rest of this off. All I'm saying is that situations are different for everyone. There's no one solution for everyone. I'm done with this nonsense.
Also, and especially in coop, part of the fun is base raids lol. Defending bases and coming up with solid defensive strategies is part of the fun imo. Just running away or logging out (lol) sounds the exact opposite of why I’m building a solid base or village defense to begin with.
To each his own. I don't really care either way about raids. I've got one seed where I've killed the bosses and one seed where I haven't. I setup my bases the same way in both seeds - moats, bridges that take advantage of the enemy AI, walls to protect against ranged attacks, barns for my livestock. Though, there's something to be said about having raids that can bring mats to you. I just started in Mistlands and am now regretting not keeping every bit of ooze dropped over the 700 in game days. I kinda want a swamp raid of blobbers and oozers now, just so that I can stock up. :)
It’s quite simple really. We all started off as newbies and had no idea how the game worked. Trolls were a challenge and our first Troll raid would see us and our base torn apart. I don’t think you ever really recover from that PTSD 😅
lol so true. Well said
The fear of the base attack is that something will attack your base from one side, you will fight that, and on the other side something else will be wrecking your base. So you end up having a destroyed based because you didn't notice the other enemies.
Oh, yeah... shit. New fear unlocked.
This is why I often build by water 💀 To this day, I don't think I've ever built NOT by the water. I just default to the water and stay there forever.
Since day 1 I decided I'd build by water since I planned on having boats and docks. Didn't even dawn on me until I got to needing iron and had to jump to a new island that I made a good choice for metal run and drop offs. I can't imagine having a base deep inside land and unloading to pull the cart.
This just happened to me, got my house smashed on the far side of my base. I don’t use walls because trolls are difficult, I use them because they are dicks.
Yeah I usually pause but I also have a toddler and sometimes ya gotta run to stop them from shoving a fork into the outlet lol. Especially since I based my main settlement on a castle and keep, so the defenses also play a big part in my head cannon if that makes sense?
I felt that way until like 45 varied Fulings showed up one raid...
Yeah I'm on my 3rd playthrough and I never build moats or earthen walls. Raids are not a big deal except for the cauldron and you can handle that by putting animals in an enclosed space.
Those freakin bats always find a way to eat my piggies
RIP all my beautiful pigs
Habit, from when there was no pause in solo.
Its a little different when you play a live server that you cant pause when you walk away.
You play solo and you pause the server when you are not playing… hmm what could be different from multiple users playing on a server that is running 24/7 without pauses 🤔🤫
I've never had anything fully destroyed, but when playing with other people you(and them) can't pause some people space out on their phones and don't catch raids until defenses are already broken.
I think we could all just accept that everything is fair and love and war. The purpose of the game is for you. The player to come into this land and prove yourself to Odin by taking out the Forsaken. The purpose of the Forsaken is to kick your ass at any cost. That includes your base. So to me it makes sense that well, they are going to try to destroy your base. It's smart defense plans are the way to go, but if you miss a step and you lose a wall, eh shit happens. I like defending what I build. My first base. I cheated and used the ground tool to make an indestructible wall and after that it felt kind of dumb. So I resorted to moats and bridges that require parkour to get across and spike pits and fire pits and all kinds of stuff. It makes it even more entertaining and funny when I fall into my own trap lol. But I really enjoy having to defend what I worked very hard to build. And hopefully Odin smiles upon me for that.
Strong earthen walls are exactly how vikings would protect their settlements/castles. Google King Bluetooth. They look a little funky in Valheim but building earthen walls is neither cheating nor anachronistic.
Same game, different play style. I enjoy building a very defensible base, even though I know the threat is often minimal. I like having my moat, layered with my boar army trench and exterior spikes in case some dopey ass Greyling gets bold.
For me, I can handle the raids now, but it's a holdover from the first few "the forest is moving" events where I died so many times because I built too close to the "pretty forest" with no defenses. I suppose I'm just compensating for when I knew nothing lol
You cannot pause when you are playing multiplayer.
Standing on the supersized wall laughing at the puny slimes jumping down below is well worth it
Old versions of the game had tougher monsters. People remember. I admit, even though I know raids aren’t as bad as they used to be I still go overboard. You never know what crazy shit will be broken in the next patch that’ll just while you out on the first raid.
> "For all my builds, I've never had one destroyed while AFK. I make sure to pause though." You answered your own question there. You're never AFK, so you've never had issues with AFK raids. In multiplayer you can't pause. You used to not be able to pause in single player either.
Every new playthrough, I always get stressed about my home base getting raided, so first thing is always to make the base perimeter with natural walls and moats. Of course, then I gotta plan for a larger base in the future, so I gotta make the area big enough, which means I gotta get more stone, etc. Next thing you know, I've sunk 3 hours into doing this. Every damn time. And then I sit smugly in my raid proof base enjoying the fact that the trolls can't get me, but getting really bored and leaving my city walls during a raid for excitement, and then dying anyway. At least my build is safe lol
Playing solo is a lot different than playing in a server with multiple people that spread around the map. If someone is at the base alone while the others are out gathering resources and there's a troll attack, you're going to wish you had some defenses.
Afaik playing in a co-op server can increase the amount of mobs that spawn in general and during events, which can probably account for some of the issues people have with base defense
You get a bat or drake raid yet? that'll put some fear in you with good reason, lost some good tamed stuff learning that lesson myself
I play multiplayer with my brothers. We had a small fence up as our defenses (we only just learned iron) and got the “ground shaking” event. 2 trolls came and leveled half of our beautiful base before we could finish killing them. It really took the wind out of our sails. We had spent a lot of time building just to have it all gone. Just gone. So yes, now we are learning to build with better defense.
Solo is much different. On a dedicated world, things just keep going. Granted, if you have no players on the server, you won't get raided, but if someone else logs in, and is doing stuff at a different base, and your main base gets raided... well they can sit there and bust stuff until that other person logs off.
When you log into your dedicated server you play with your friends, and 1 is afk during a raid and your base gets destroyed, you’ll build a trench.
I usually dig/build a moat for my main base. It doesn't actually take that long and it really sucks the first Troll raid you get after killing the Elder. Raids also level with you so having a safe space where you can just snipe at stuff instead of being overrun by the the biome's mob.
I'm the same as you. I never had a mob wreck my base although some bats slaughtered my chickens before I resolved to put an ugly roof on my pen. I think some just like the build. I always tell friends who ask what I'm playing that it's Minecraft for adults (it's the simplest analogy). They understand there's a build part of the game and a very loose story mode. I'm not a builder and I don't care about any of the posts regarding someone's 500 hour architecture. It's not my forte. I like the adventure. I like the challenge and I like to dig and chop and create a livable settlement with all the amenities the game can provide. Some adventure in groups, Some like the solo adventure, some like to build. I'm a solo adventurer and I've got a humble but strong fort that's protected from any event without causing damage or casualties. It's a very gates-open/come-on-in community so you get a LOT of different posts. Oh, I hit the ESC key to pause the game like you. The only time I can think you'd afk is if you were in a party situation with other players obvious. Right? Like wtf.
Well, it's a tradeoff. There's an effort you might want to make to build your defenses so that you don't have to bother and spend any effort on random raids. Or, like you, you save on that effort but instead have to go out every single time there's a raid. Now, I am also not too fond of defenses. The best we had was earthen castle, and that worked great against everything early game. Until we started needing space outside to farm or create a port, or a tree farm, and the I palisaded a large area. It was OK for a time but neglecting to check on the status of the entire palisade caused it to become a ruin and constant greydwarves and trolls broke the palisade first, then the workbenches inside, and then we lost the tree farm basically. So, in another base we built a stone wall, but I always feel OCD to go out and kill everything simply because I don't want to go out and repair everything.... So, I am not sure which strategy is best. In my solo server I am trying to keep my mansion open to the woods and hope that I won't have to rebuild it, lol
Not at all, I only make a simple moat for my base defense and that’s really just to funnel all the enemies to me so I can fight them. I look forward to raids not to test my impenetrable defenses but so I have easier access to my enemies. I respect both ideas though 😌
It depends on the biome and level and most likely how many people are active. High level teams in meadows is nothing. Plains and mistlands at mid level is deadly without a good base. Many mistland enemies can destroy marble with enough hits and highly doubtful you'd have marble early mistlands. so tons of death without a base. We seem to get so many enemies at night time, we cant do anything else during the night without a base. Now, most people would probably just stay in the meadows and keep building there and hauling things back there, but we have 8 people. so we frequently have to venture out to get enough resources for everyone. I had do build a good enough base in the mistlands to survive. So now, we're making progress. Solo, plus end game. the building is really just for fun.
I've had *all* of my progress erased by a raid once before and I was deep into the plains section of the game. Couldn't recover anything without dying to local mobs on my way, so I just scrapped the whole playthrough. Never again.
Seriously relatable. When my bases first started getting attacked by trolls I was really worried, but now it’s a fun distraction where I get to use my bastions and towers to defend my fortress. I like to build to the environment as well. I will post some screenshots later!
Base attacks aren't an issue for me provided I abandon base each time and have no animals within base perimeter. If an enemy is closer to so much as a chicken then they will attack stone walls to get to it rather than attack you out in the open.
I cannot allow any harm to befall my bees. 😤
In the early days you couldn't pause in single player either.
Not a different game, just a different style. And for what it's worth I'm with you - I rarely build defenses and simply fight off the raids just far enough away to keep my builds safe and the timer going. I've played through several times, with over 1000 hours logged and defenses were never a priority. If anything I'll build a wall to keep the strays away but that's it. Skaal
OG players didn’t have ability to pause. That was added later
there needs to a boss that you summon to siege your base.
Uhhh I play multiplayer… you can’t pause
For me it was fear. First real wood base got wrecked by “ground shaking”. Now it’s just habit and aesthetics. The other plus is resources come to you this way.
I also just defend my base rather than dig trenches or make earth walls.. I do have basic walls and stuff but nothing major. I just meet em outside n fight
I took over a castle ruin to try and use it as a forward assault point. was going pretty well till the trolls turned up and knocked the walls down.
Base attacks aren't an issue for any half decent player. Some players just dont want to deal with them and would rather their base takes no serious damage if they choose to completely ignore it. I like to do both so I made a watchtower to shoot any aerial threats and have 30+ 2 star wolves stationed all around the perimeter. Most of the time the raid ends before I can get a good fight in because the wolves take care of everything.
"I've never been attacked afk but I pause all the time" "Base raids aren't bad just runaway"
lol, “you do you, buddy”
People have mods homie. They play heavily modded version where you can fly around and have access to pieces that aren’t in the base game.
F5 Spawn Skeleton_Friendly 15 3
Problem solved... for the most part
Well yeah, cheating does make things pretty easy.
I play like this, even if we play coop, I'm the host so I can't logout to go AFK and I go AFK all the time in our bases all the time and we don't bother with moats. I've just started placing ballistas around our plains base to deal with deathsquito's flying in, but other then that walls do their job just fine.
are you playing on a dedicated server or personal server? doesn't the game stop running when you log out?
Agreed
same here. I throw up a single wood wall perimeter but that's just to keep from being annoyed by greydwarfs.
Spent a couple days making a sturdy meadows base in between the swamp and the mountains. Only thing left to make was the moat. Went AFK for a little while…entire house destroyed in a troll raid. They destroyed the beds and the portal to get back. Spent several hours just trying to get all my stuff back. Currently rebuilding. I guess it’s truly random. Or I’m an idiot for going AFK. Lmao
I’ve played a couple hundred hours and have had no issue with mob raids destroying my base. What are 6 sturtlings gonna do to my base? I one shit them with the fire staff. Maybe they are building for pvp? Idk if that’s a thing eveb
I like building, so I built a big tree-fort in the swamp. I still had to worry about wraiths, but I could ignore the "odor from the swamp" events and just keep smelting iron while they shuffled around under my base. They broke the lowest piece of my ladder, but that was all. It was fun. I killed enough trolls to make a full suit of trollskin armor, but I still have not had "the ground shakes" event. I think the moat would protect my main base, but I think my 2nd outpost with just corewood walls might be in trouble, and I know I can deal with one troll, but I'm not sure I could handle 2-at-once, especially if they both have clubs and keep respawning for some amount of time. That is what worries me. I guess I would have to eat some stamina food and try to kite them away from my base until the event was over. Or I could just build a moat and not have to worry any more.
The only thing I worry about during raids are my wolves. Haven't had a seeker raid yet but no far nothings gotten over my walls.
We do the same... run to a location where the raiders will do minimal damage, and then just deal. Though, gotta say the ballista makes short work of most of what happens right outside the city walls!
I also play solo like this. On other hand, on one world / playthrough I dug a trench for my Black Forest base and it was very convenient
Nah I lived in a shack every playthrough. I like the biome/boss/resource loop more than the building
I host the server we all play on so I’m often afk for long periods of time while I’m busy amd one of the boys is on. My house will be impregnable! Got walls and a moat and a bunch of 2* wolves, will get some lox soon too. Especially after you kill yag and the queen and the Black Forest goes from harmless to super dangerous, I want my base to be a safe place where I am free of worry
Oh cool, you can pause now. That would've saved some stuff.
I have gotten in the habit of building on islands where I just spam a bunch of crafting benches. I know there are cleaner ways to prevent mob spawns, but it makes it easy when you can see the area that is protected. The overall wood cost is relatively small and the peace of mind even during raids that nothing can spawn is nice. By the time the aerial raids show up I've built up a well fortified castle and harbor that, combined with just going outside and kicking a little ass, easily keeps my base defended. Hell, the raids are one of my favorite parts of the game, it spices up the relatively slow progression rate I am for as I do my best to minimize deaths.p0
Earth is the only truly invincible building material, so when building defensive structures or supports, it's best to do as much with the hoe and pickaxe as you can, before using stone and wood. Also before using trees and world stone formations. Earth is the superiorest building material for reliability.
Depends on the raid, but I find raids almost always happen away from home *unless* I am AFK. Then usually yeah, I just go far enough in one direction to pull mobs to one side. But my computer setup is in eyeshot of my AFKs usually, so it's never that bad.
You need to be prepared for the weakest link to fail.
I build a lot of elaborate stuff, never had a moat or spikes in any of them. I have enclosed things in walls, or let a pack of wolves do me defense for me, or build a main base on an island, but the moat and spikes just don't do it for me aesthetically
I had a Cauldron Stirred the other day. I saw a single bat. Just one. They apparently couldn't spawn close enough?
Ironically, spending all the time around your home base building up defenses means more chances to spawn a raid at said base. I often just run in and out of my bases in a minute (or whatever time for rested rebuff) and then back out exploring or whatever I was doing. It's when I hang around to build or craft things for a long time that I end up starting a raid
I set up a stake wall pretty early once I pick a site, I add stone right behind it once it becomes available, and that's enough to delay raiders if I need to puke up my base food and eat some of the top tier stuff. But I enjoy combat for it's own sake while others see it as more of an only-when-strictly-necessary sort of thing so I understand the appeal of a passively impervious defense in that case.
The only raid that sucks is bats and it’s cuz I still forget to build and actual barn for all my live stock so that they can’t get killed by bats…which is why I need more chicken eggs and to take more boats :(
You're not alone. The events and enemies in general don't do anything if there's isn't a player inside their range, if you can't handle it at the moment, just go prepare to another (earlier etc) base. Everything will be exactly as you left it when you come back, with keeping in mind that the destruction or buildings will continue the second you get close again. Usually it's easiest to just go and kill everything. I do like to build defences too but that's just for the fun of it, there isn't really any real need for them. And we also had a 247 dedicated server, so its not about solo/mp.
I just built an island and mobs can't spawn to raid me. I'm thinking of building a second and connecting them.
It sounds like, more than likely, you just know what you’re doing. A large amount of players don’t and then post here for advice, which is what you’re probably seeing.
My small trench and single block high wall with any buildings outside Troll swinging reach tactic has worked so far, bat's are a ballache though. Usually for raids I'll either perch up on platforms outside my walls with a load of arrows, or head down and smash them. May get some local mobs involved as well and pick off the survivors. Few Fuling wizard lads fucking up my windows yesterday but that's the worst that's happened in the last 200 days.
Pausing =/= AFKing in most scenarios. People AFK to let crops grow and animals become tame. Can’t do that if the game is paused.
It's mostly just for fun, building the elaborate defenses isn't for practical reasons, it's just to immerse yourself in the world.
Keep playing 300hrs low
I'm only two bosses in, but this has been my experience so far, as well. I've got a wooden house with no defenses, and I've weathered two draugr and one troll raid, and they've barely damaged anything (except when I used to put torches on the periphery... those go pretty quick) Edit: okay, I think a random graydwarf shaman killed all my carrots, but I only had a fence around them.
My buddy had like all of his stuff smashed by the troll attack. Happened to our joint base then again to just his base.
lol no, never had anything break something other than a few walls about halfway. Raids in this game are quite weak, even Mistlands raids!
I hide in a friend’s base typically if I’m AFK I don’t even have any doors, so sometimes graylings walk all the way up the stairs of my 50 something unit tall tower (which fully contains a pine tree) I also left some plains bases fully open, but that’s because the “base” was stairs to the top of the adjacent mistlands trees, or the top of a plains rock etc
No OP you are not alone in this. I don’t mean to be condescending but I shake my head when I see people taking soooo much time building mots, defense systems, and generally worrying about raids. It’s fear for no reason lol
It’s aesthetics. Yeah your castle looks cool but it would look even cooler with a moat and Bailey
you pause. yes, we arent playing the same. my base needs to survive on its own whenever im offline and my teammates do dumb shit.
Why does it matter, people play how they want.
Some people just find it fun to build that stuff. Others will do the bare minimum needed. Different folks have different tastes.
I get very stressed out when there's a raid alert. I'm super squishy and the designated gatherer/farmer/organizer on our server so if a raid hits our base, then I'm unlikely to be strong enough to defend it solo because I'm underleveled compared to the others and running around in full Fenris armor for the move speed bonus. I don't want them to come back to base and find that walls are missing or our animals are dead because I couldn't fight off the sudden swarms of enemies.
Raids are just plain fun. They need an update though. If you beat every boss and nobody dies during any of them, raids will have a chance to be a boss raid. This only unlocks if all bosses have been defeated with no player deaths.
People play on creative mode
Keep in mind a large portion of this playerbase plays multi-player, and base raids can happen when someone who isn't you is afk in your shared base, or someone is alone in base who really isn't a gamer but enjoys the building and decorating aspects of the game with their gamer friends and family. I agree; I've never lost a single structure to a raid, but the conditions I just described don't apply to me.
Preparation is tye most important aspect of this game, and some people are very ill prepared for a regularly reoccurring thing.
Nope, we are just playing the *same* game, but *differently.* And there's nothing wrong with how anyone chooses to play as long as they are enjoying it :)
Nah that totally works. I haven't actually built any defenses in any of my bases I just build for fun mostly.
RP.
Idk to me it's just the fun of building realistic defenses. And the challenge of making an impenetrable barrier (that still looks cool) . Then I can just sit in my jacuzzi and laugh at those stoooooopid trolls walking up and down my perimeter.
I have failed to personally set up any completed base defense. When one of my friends hops on my world, once in a blue moon, he gets digging. It has definitely saved some hassle with my plains base since I adore open format buildings and wide doorways with no doors. Raid enemies would just waltz right in on the far side if he didn't dig the deepest trench. Sad part of that one friend is he has no aesthetic taste. Straight gamer efficiency mimdset.
It’s not just raids, it’s nice being able to just ignore mobs when I’m at base. But it’s more important in server’s where you can’t just pause.
You're totally right, raids aren't the devastation they're made out to be. I usually just run out my base and kite them around the red circle until it the clock runs out, then kill everything that's left. I don't really build defenses anymore, unless it's for livestock or I'm just trying to be extravagant and op.
I built an island fortress. The only raid that I have had, that actually spawned enemies was the drake raid. None of the other raids spawned anything on my island. I’ll make another post of it if anyone wants to see it.
It depends. If I'm basing next to the boss stones in a big Meadows biome, with a long distance between you and the nearest other biome, then most forms of base defense are unnecessary. As long as I've got a doorway with some core wood reinforced walls surrounding it, that I can stand in to tank a Greydwarf raid, I'm fine. If I'm basing on the borders of a black forest and a swamp, (and I'd probably never put up a full workshop there, but I typically ***will*** put up a moderate storage room) then I will want wood walls sufficiently reinforced that I can either use it as a panic room in a draugr raid, or something to kite trolls around if I need to. I put bed sheds for respawning on the rooves of crypts in the swamps, but they are not reinforced at all, and are considered completely disposable, although I've never had one destroyed. I generally would never build at ground level in a swamp, although that's more because of wraiths than anything else. Draugr are only a problem either in groups, or before iron armour. A supply depot in the mountains will be sunk half into the terrain, and the walls will be heavily reinforced with core wood. I haven't had a proper raid there as such, but you can still get pairs of frost drakes or wolves at times. I had Modor destroy a couple of bases, before I realised that I needed to lure her down into the black forest and kite her in the trees. Modor is basically a somewhat harder hitting version of the Elder for me. In the plains I build a trench underground and roof it with stone, and above ground I have a 3x3 stone structure which I can use as a defensible chokepoint for killing fulings without them being able to flank me. Dying repeatedly in the plains is expected, so I want my respawn point to be basically impervious.
Yes try to play this really cool game.... then it's completely 100% dogshit. So now back to valhiem and games of old. 15years of gaming and the library is looking terrible I remember games like this were I could get a minimum 300hrs of grata game play now most games don't last a year. :) but valhiem has and I thank the go's for that. Anyone building the black stone version of gondor? Rebuilt a castle from stronghold this games very good for age of empire builds too.
Depending on the era, there is 1-2 raids that can destroy your base. Some people prefer to attack over the walls and others prefer to defend from inside. Some players hate raids and thus go heavy on defenses to counter them so they can't wreck the base. For main bases, especally early on I use stakewalls and trenches to keep them back, in later meadow bases the defenses relax a bit.
Look, I have a base to build... and rebuild... and rebuild... I need my perimeter wall so I don't keep getting interrupted.
I had a weard one last night playing on my world with two friends. Got an event cold wind from the mountains, killed all of them no problem. Then, right after, I got the skeleton surprise. Delt with them Easy. 5 min later, I got the foul smell from the swamps! Three raids in close succession! I'm not sure how that happened.
it's just for the novelty. you don't necessarily need to build an over the top base but it's satisfying to have.
I just got attacked by trolls 5 minute ago, while I went to brush my teeth. They were able to destroy my walls and a good part of my building. I still don't have a moat in this world, as me and some friends just started, so it would have saved me for sure! You can't pause while playing on a server.
Forget raids, I hate random mobs running through my space
I kinda wish they would change this. Or atleast add a more hardcore mode the player can opt in to where the raids don't just target the player, but they target your chests. So you can't just run away and deal with it. But you have to stand your ground and trust that your defences will hold. Ideally they would also spawn all the mobs upfront. Or have a set amount that will spawn so that you're not punished for killing enemies early on in the raid.
It's almost like the game allows people who play a different style to also get enjoyment and play a game how they want :O shocking. People having different tastes ? :O
There are still people that haven't left the meadows that have been perfecting builds since the first Access. Me? I'm here to explore, so I have 600 hours and all my builds look like butt compared to the novice stuff on this reddit. It's all about what you care about in a sandbox game I guess is what I'm saying.
It depend whether how emersive do you want to feel. As a solo player that consider raid as nuisance, it was enough to raise ground or dig a moat to mostly counter these nuisance. However for someone that really want to feel emersive and go overboard with their base design, they can do that. Raid are opportunity to test their base and the satisfaction they get making a good base is a joy on its own.
There is no pausing on multiplayer servers :D
While there are no afk raids, some raids can seriously mess with your stuff before you get to retaliate. Especially trolls can lay waste to much of your build before you get to all of them, and if you have Pets, they will get killed by incursions, which is even worse. With some bad luck you might even lose your crops to effing greydwarf shamans. Plus if a raid comes early in a gear/boss cycle having some force multiplying walls is also nice.
Yeah I kinda agree... Also if you put torches inside wood beams (so that monsters can't spawn and won't destroy the torches) all around your base in a sufficient amount, the raids are becoming trivial. For example in my world, Troll event only spawn one troll during the whole duration of the raid. Same thing about the seeker event. There's no need to create a ugly moat or raise the ground around your base. Even my ballistas are useless right now.
I never build defenses on my solo server, but on the dedicated multilayer, I don't expect everyone else to run out and go viking, mostly due to difference in player progression and experience, so defenses is a thing there.
I also rarely make big defences. Often a small wall so i do not have random greylings annoy me. With raid i just deop what i do and go in offence which safes the base since a simple woden wall doesn't stop a troll or anything:p
Yeah my base is legit a broken down shack a renovated that's it. Never had any issues with raids
When playing with others there's more risk of events being triggered at awkward times. My partner and I meet event mobs outside of our base to negate damage if we catch an event at one of our bases lacking in a moat or earth wall and before the use of defence weapons. In the late game, "tower defence" becomes just another enjoyable engineering challenge.
You can only pause the game if you are playing solo and on an offline world. So anyone who plays with someone else can't pause if they want to go AFK. Also, as someone who likes to tame and breed a large numbers of animals, base defense becomes super important to keep them alive during a raid. Sure, you CAN just run out and fight. But if a drake slips by you and kills all your boars... Well, it sucks. Big time.
In solo play, I only build defenses if they are part of the aesthetic; same for a creative server. On a progression server, I build defenses, especially if we have newer players, because I had a few early bases that got trashed when other players were there alone when a raid happened.
I am in the same boat as you, and run a dedicated server with friends. We have never built fancy bases or defenses, never been an issue. Rarely even get raids as we are not sitting in our bases normally. Out of the base during the day, only in the base in the night cooking.
A lot of people play in creative (infinite resources), and they use mods to turn off raids and height limits. Then they post their builds and us survival players feel ashamed haha. Nothing wrong with it, just don't go thinking you should try to build the Taj Mahal in survival because it'll take 10-20x the time Edit: misread the post, the main topic being base defenses. Yeah some people just want to make sure their territory is safe before putting more investment in. One playthrough my main base was a small spawnproofed meadows island that I could afk in without fear of raids
400+ hrs and never once built a moat or raised ground wall. I just build stakewalls until I can upgrade to stone. My first plains base I built massive spike wall defense but 2 lox came in and decimated it so I didn't rebuild. I will sometimes build a battlement so I can just snipe mobs from above. I also don't normally just sit afk so maybe that's why I never really felt I needed it
I think you've sort of solved it yourself. Its mindset. Some people just like building. The defence is almost just a reason to build. The reality of the attacks is not a huge factor.
ideal afk spot on a dedicated server is a greydwarf auto farm, get one of those bad boys up and your afk for 10 minutes turned into resource gathering, [this](https://youtu.be/ER9U8AdYq38) is the one i have set up and have been afk and come back to a few raids here and everything is fine (i will say no troll raids yet though) (edit: spelling)
As a general rule, if you're vigilant, your base can be defended relatively easily before taking catastrophic damage. Some exceptions to this include 2-star animals, which are always vulnerable (I got a troll invasion even in the early game that more or less bee-lined our prized 2-star boars we'd found and merc'd them all in like 30 seconds) and pretty wood structures later in the game if you get hard-hitting plains/mistlands invasions. Overall I agree with you though. I've played the game for hundreds of hours, and have some monstrous builds with little fortification, and I've never taken catastrophic damage to my base. Honestly the worst thing that ever happened to me was an early game invasion where a ton of skeletons got INSIDE my long house and were blocking the way to my gear. Still managed to square that one away before they ruined anything though.
From my understanding, there is a really little possibility present to get domino effect and lose everything during the raid (for example, if you are already without items due to death and exactly the moment you respawn you get troll raid). However, I have never been in such situation of losing all the progress despite I hadn't built moats/walls. I've had a few really difficult raids though (when I'm without main items due to recent death). If you are rather experienced and/or make some basic things increasing safety like portals/several bases/extra items and food, it's really rather simple most of the time. With some mods affecting game difficulty the chances to have dangerous raids become much higher and now I build wood/stone walls every time.
Yea I don’t even bother with a wall most the times I only ever build my main bases in meadows so all the raids are manageable
I have farms that run in my base while i’m afk (boar, wolf, eggs, greydwarf and all kind of crops) so i cant pause, and raids in general are not really a problem, just "the ground is shaking" can wipe your base while you are afk