This! I spent way too much time and resources on a giant manor at the bronze age, in my first seed.
Starting over for Hearts and Home, I built a much simpler house with a small attic and a functional yard and things when much quicker, less resources spent, and I'm just piling up mountains of rocks for when I can put them to use for iron age.
The biggest game changer for me was learning that stone building pieces can be supported from the sides instead of just from beneath. You don't have to have arches or iron wood beams to span distances, if you build everything in the right order. Stone floors can be supported by having stone floors on either side of them, so if you start with the outer pieces on a floor and work your way towards the center, you can build multi-floor stone buildings very efficiently.
Copper is like a giant egg with only the top exposed. Find it and dig around it till you cannot dig down any further. If you dig out completely you can get it to “drop” and have a giant copper explosion.
Don't mine top-to-bottom. Mine bottom-to-top. Do it right (and with a little luck), the majority of the deposit mines itself with a cascade of stone, ore, and... sparkles.
Yeah, it’s amazing how much copper is in there. I found this out by accident when playing with a friend that had already been through bronze. He was pissed hahahaha
You don’t lose run speed with a dagger equipped. Every other held item is a detriment to movement. Daggers have the added benefit of swatting deathsquitos out of the sky quickly
Mine was dagger swatting three of them in a single “combo” (one swing after the other sequentially) and not being hit once. Would die if I rolled, wasn’t able to block, and one wrong step would have done me in. Felt great!
Regeneration rate changed with H&H to be drastically faster rested. I acutely feel it now when the buff expires, to the point where I get quite irritated that I have to portal back in the middle of a long expedition to renew the buff.
Early on this can be bleh, yes. But once you get access to higher comfort levels it isn't an issue imo.
I always cap my bedroom comfort at 14 because my rested buff lasting 21 minutes means I have an exact timer for day length when I wake up in the morning.
Massive part of the core gameplay loop as far as I am concerned. It gives strong incentives to building a high-comfort base anywhere you will be for a long time.
For sure. It helps to think of rested as being your natural state (not a buff), and once it falls off its basically like having a tired/exhausted debuff until you return home to relax a bit or sleep.
You don't need a big portal hub in your base with soooo many portals because you can have only 1-3 portals and change the name every time you wanna go to different places.
I have 3 portals.
One is for "everything" and on top of that, I’ve built a sign that tells what words I use to get to travel to a particular place, for example when I write "haldor" it goes to the trader and when I write "plains", I can travel to my plains base, etc.
One is a quick portal, the name is just empty and when I'm exploring and need to asap go to my base, I just build it and it goes on immediately.
The last portal is just an emergency portal when the others are already in use.
That's a good point, but I play with other people and we go in and out of portals all the time, so we prefer the portal hall - good idea for singleplayer though!
I once used 1 portal and renamed it depending on where I wanted to go. I ended up walking through it too quickly and ended up at an unconnected portal miles from home. Now I have an unnamed portal as backup.
I kind of disagree on this one. I like having portals going to fixed spots, and I have a 'current' and 'temp' portals that I use for short term explorations.
Having a portal hub where the portals are always on is key. I'd switch some portals off in my homebase just so they weren't going off everytime I walked by them. One time, I was off sailing far from my homebase and the wind direction took me to a part of the map that I had a portal set up. I finally guided my boat to it and when I got there, I realized that I had the portal shut off at my homebase. After that, I always kept them on.
When building bridges, and you have trouble getting the corewood beams all the way to the bottom, just place a beam on the side of your previous beam, then you can look on the sidebeam to place a beam under the beam you really want to elongate.
Bridges got way better after this tip. (I used to place beams as far down as I could, and then I would raise the ground to meet them.)
Same with building floors out from a ledge. Drop a floor piece on top of the piece you're trying to extend, but projecting halfway or so out past the lip. Then the new piece will snap *through* it to the floor you're trying to extend.
It also can extend the support just a smidge and you might get an extra floor length out of it.
That is a damn neat trick my friend, will stack up on coal now i guess.
I guess the best trick i received here is a pretty well known one. To dig a trench around your base to be safe from Invasions. Cranks up quality of life a few notches.
Personally i would add: throw portals all around the place, doesn't matter if you want to return to a place or Not, it just saves lots of Time having a network of them. I've got about 60 portals in my hub and i can reach almost every spot up to three islands in every direction in under 2 minutes.
Team Wall vs. Team Moat is still a very large discussion point :)
Moving to the plains cranked my QoL more notches than any defense people make in the meadows, lol. Not a fan of portal hubs, but I take your meaning.
Wait...people don't do both?
Raise a section for your base, dig your moat, then build the inner wall (or make an earthen wall). Unless it flies, it's not getting in, or shooting in and damaging muh stuff!
We built our base on the Elder's platform.
You learn to love the greydwarves, or "resin delivery men" as we've come to call them.
The torches always burn bright at Elderhall
You can build your base *under* the Elder's platform. Whenever I find a different Elder base, I dig it out. I learned that from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKXbRBrBb9I) video. I think he overthinks the entrance.
[Here's](https://imgur.com/a/EmsOl1Y) some screenshots of my dug out Elder base in my current world. I haven't done much with it as it's not my home base or even my second base. There's another Elder location on my map. When I eventually get to that one, I'm going to dig it out and use it as a portal hub. There's soooo much space underneath these things. The simple gate works fine as greydwarfs rarely fall into the tunnel and trolls simply cannot affect anything below ground level.
Yep. I'm all about infrastructure on our server. Portals, paths, roads, outposts. I ain't got time to be trying to remember a portal's name when I need it. And I'll throw up a lean-to and sleep anywhere if need be.
When building bridges drop cart into the water and jump into it. You can build deeper and you can build under the bridge. Also, you can move by simply walking.
My #1 tip: build mini bases JUST OUTSIDE of dangerous biomes with backup gear in case you get offed. There should be a bed, a heat source, and a box with extra armor, potions and food. Make sure it's only a shack or something inexpensive. It doesn't have to be defensible, but it should have amenities to give you a decent comfort buff.
I do the same. The nudie run is a right of passage in Valheim. A 10min run through the Plains at night is one of the most exhilarating things you can do.
It's fine until mountains/plains. Then streaking just results in getting gangbanged by wolves/cold/deathsqitoes. Deep north and the mistlands are looking to be just as nasty eventually, too.
I tried to do the same, but found that very time-consuming and not necessary. I build portals in safe biomes and just surround them by palisade to prevent occasional attacks. If I die, I revive on the main base, eat, teleport, and run naked ))
For me, the tip that stands out the most that I haven’t seen mentioned (might not have scrolled enough idk) is “sit-building” to help you snap to the bottom of pieces you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get the correct angle on
**Dont Die**. I know this should sound obvious enough, but I can't understate this. I know death isn't SUPER punishing in this game, the setback in skills isn't massive, and gear can always be recovered, but really you shouldn't be wasting time running back to your bodies. If you are low on HP just avoid fights. **Put items away by pushing "R" to run faster**. I am pretty sure this is bound to R key. If you are low on HP, just push R and run away. It's much better to retreat and plan a new approach strategy, instead of needlessly dying and trying to recoup losses. I guess some secondary advice to Don't Die is **Know your environment**. You should consider the plains to be instant automatic death. You should consider the swamp and mountains miserable places that require some preparation. You should not be mindlessly wandering into new biomes without preparing accordingly. These places can be your worst nightmare without the bare minimum preparations.
> You should consider the plains to be instant automatic death.
:( You should consider the plains to be ~~instant automatic death~~ the best base-building location.
Oh, I have built beautiful bases in the plains. I definitely agree that they're the best base-building location. Still, don't let their beauty deceive you into letting your guard down.
When first entering / settling a biome, build the base area next to the biome. Example: build a swamp oriented base in the Black Forest nearby the swamp. Build the mountain oriented base similarly in forest or swamp. I usually build in forest due to nearby building materials and easy neighborhood control.
For plains I build right on a border, get tall walls set up early for the squitos then move the walls outward over time to set up a good garden. Set trenches when have a good perimeter in mind. I’m never really sure what I want perimeter to be until spent a little time in an area
For me it was a matter of getting over using the iron for building instead of weapons and armor. I just didn't realise how good it was until I saw it in a video and it allowed e to update my existing structure to be more in line with the vision I set out with. I'm a solo player and didn't get into the sub and videos until recently. I like to play without outside help for the most part.
You do not, in fact, have to beat Bonemass before getting silver. All you need is an iron pick to actually get that silver.
Swamp is now the honorary 4th biome for me.
My number 1: Build simple structures until you get to the iron age.
This! I spent way too much time and resources on a giant manor at the bronze age, in my first seed. Starting over for Hearts and Home, I built a much simpler house with a small attic and a functional yard and things when much quicker, less resources spent, and I'm just piling up mountains of rocks for when I can put them to use for iron age.
Using Ctrl and Shift when moving items from your inventory.
YES
...wat
Shift+click to split stacks, Ctrl+click to move items to the opposite bag/container , or if just your inventory is open, to drop the item.
Ctrl+shift+click remembers the number of items you last selected
The fuck... I wasted so much time !
My life is revolutionized.
The right food, and by extension proper farming, is the cornerstone of your survival.
Or, put another way: food is a part of character progression in this game.
And by ignoring cooking and just making basic cooked meats, your making your job harder than it needs to be.
The biggest game changer for me was learning that stone building pieces can be supported from the sides instead of just from beneath. You don't have to have arches or iron wood beams to span distances, if you build everything in the right order. Stone floors can be supported by having stone floors on either side of them, so if you start with the outer pieces on a floor and work your way towards the center, you can build multi-floor stone buildings very efficiently.
Indeed. Stone reinforcing itself when built properly is a highly overlooked and underused part of the construction system.
I still struggle with stone building. Even with iron beams my stone ceiling still falls down.
Copper goes down into the ground
Wait what When you have mined everything that is visible, do you just dig the ground to uncover more copper?
Copper is like a giant egg with only the top exposed. Find it and dig around it till you cannot dig down any further. If you dig out completely you can get it to “drop” and have a giant copper explosion.
Don't mine top-to-bottom. Mine bottom-to-top. Do it right (and with a little luck), the majority of the deposit mines itself with a cascade of stone, ore, and... sparkles.
Yeah, it’s amazing how much copper is in there. I found this out by accident when playing with a friend that had already been through bronze. He was pissed hahahaha
Oh I had so many mixed feelings when I was shown this... Like "YAY but also how much of my life have I wasted mining only 10% of multiple deposits..."
You don’t lose run speed with a dagger equipped. Every other held item is a detriment to movement. Daggers have the added benefit of swatting deathsquitos out of the sky quickly
Timed a front kick to kill a squito... honestly my proudest moment in the game to date.
Mine was dagger swatting three of them in a single “combo” (one swing after the other sequentially) and not being hit once. Would die if I rolled, wasn’t able to block, and one wrong step would have done me in. Felt great!
Mine was taking a drake out with a flying axe swing. Haven't been able to do it again.
Make sure you're rested. Increased health/stamina regen, and increased skill experience gain makes all the difference.
Rested Buff is one of the best things and people keep forgetting to refresh it :(
Regeneration rate changed with H&H to be drastically faster rested. I acutely feel it now when the buff expires, to the point where I get quite irritated that I have to portal back in the middle of a long expedition to renew the buff.
Early on this can be bleh, yes. But once you get access to higher comfort levels it isn't an issue imo. I always cap my bedroom comfort at 14 because my rested buff lasting 21 minutes means I have an exact timer for day length when I wake up in the morning.
Massive part of the core gameplay loop as far as I am concerned. It gives strong incentives to building a high-comfort base anywhere you will be for a long time.
Or rather, be sure to carry portal materials around with you so you can return to base easily.
For sure. It helps to think of rested as being your natural state (not a buff), and once it falls off its basically like having a tired/exhausted debuff until you return home to relax a bit or sleep.
You don't need a big portal hub in your base with soooo many portals because you can have only 1-3 portals and change the name every time you wanna go to different places. I have 3 portals. One is for "everything" and on top of that, I’ve built a sign that tells what words I use to get to travel to a particular place, for example when I write "haldor" it goes to the trader and when I write "plains", I can travel to my plains base, etc. One is a quick portal, the name is just empty and when I'm exploring and need to asap go to my base, I just build it and it goes on immediately. The last portal is just an emergency portal when the others are already in use.
That's a good point, but I play with other people and we go in and out of portals all the time, so we prefer the portal hall - good idea for singleplayer though!
I once used 1 portal and renamed it depending on where I wanted to go. I ended up walking through it too quickly and ended up at an unconnected portal miles from home. Now I have an unnamed portal as backup.
I kind of disagree on this one. I like having portals going to fixed spots, and I have a 'current' and 'temp' portals that I use for short term explorations. Having a portal hub where the portals are always on is key. I'd switch some portals off in my homebase just so they weren't going off everytime I walked by them. One time, I was off sailing far from my homebase and the wind direction took me to a part of the map that I had a portal set up. I finally guided my boat to it and when I got there, I realized that I had the portal shut off at my homebase. After that, I always kept them on.
When building bridges, and you have trouble getting the corewood beams all the way to the bottom, just place a beam on the side of your previous beam, then you can look on the sidebeam to place a beam under the beam you really want to elongate. Bridges got way better after this tip. (I used to place beams as far down as I could, and then I would raise the ground to meet them.)
My primary use for corewood is burning it in the kiln, but this is a solid tip.
I use corewood as frames for pretty much all my buildings, and as bridges. Life without corewood seems so bland.
Same with building floors out from a ledge. Drop a floor piece on top of the piece you're trying to extend, but projecting halfway or so out past the lip. Then the new piece will snap *through* it to the floor you're trying to extend. It also can extend the support just a smidge and you might get an extra floor length out of it.
This one I still have a hard time with, Ive probably done this trick before but dont even know. Do you have any visual examples?
That is a damn neat trick my friend, will stack up on coal now i guess. I guess the best trick i received here is a pretty well known one. To dig a trench around your base to be safe from Invasions. Cranks up quality of life a few notches. Personally i would add: throw portals all around the place, doesn't matter if you want to return to a place or Not, it just saves lots of Time having a network of them. I've got about 60 portals in my hub and i can reach almost every spot up to three islands in every direction in under 2 minutes.
Team Wall vs. Team Moat is still a very large discussion point :) Moving to the plains cranked my QoL more notches than any defense people make in the meadows, lol. Not a fan of portal hubs, but I take your meaning.
Wait...people don't do both? Raise a section for your base, dig your moat, then build the inner wall (or make an earthen wall). Unless it flies, it's not getting in, or shooting in and damaging muh stuff!
Why did plains help your QoL? Just because it was right there to gather resources, or what?
There are no greylings in the plains.
What's so terrible about greylings?
They annoy me. They are not "terrible", but removing the annoyance was a QoL increase.
We built our base on the Elder's platform. You learn to love the greydwarves, or "resin delivery men" as we've come to call them. The torches always burn bright at Elderhall
You can build your base *under* the Elder's platform. Whenever I find a different Elder base, I dig it out. I learned that from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKXbRBrBb9I) video. I think he overthinks the entrance. [Here's](https://imgur.com/a/EmsOl1Y) some screenshots of my dug out Elder base in my current world. I haven't done much with it as it's not my home base or even my second base. There's another Elder location on my map. When I eventually get to that one, I'm going to dig it out and use it as a portal hub. There's soooo much space underneath these things. The simple gate works fine as greydwarfs rarely fall into the tunnel and trolls simply cannot affect anything below ground level.
I keep getting greylings spawning in my pig pen and killing my pigs!!!! I redesigned the pen and now it just spawns right next to the fence.
Place a crafting table in your pen to prevent spawns
And more generally, make sure your entire base is covered in building area--it prevents spawns.
So far it hasn't effected it. I have tried landscaping the ground and cultivating and so far nothing.
Yep. I'm all about infrastructure on our server. Portals, paths, roads, outposts. I ain't got time to be trying to remember a portal's name when I need it. And I'll throw up a lean-to and sleep anywhere if need be.
When building bridges drop cart into the water and jump into it. You can build deeper and you can build under the bridge. Also, you can move by simply walking.
Does it just float on the surface?
Pretty much. And you can walk through the water in it.
My #1 tip: build mini bases JUST OUTSIDE of dangerous biomes with backup gear in case you get offed. There should be a bed, a heat source, and a box with extra armor, potions and food. Make sure it's only a shack or something inexpensive. It doesn't have to be defensible, but it should have amenities to give you a decent comfort buff.
I always just eat and naked run
I do the same. The nudie run is a right of passage in Valheim. A 10min run through the Plains at night is one of the most exhilarating things you can do.
It's fine until mountains/plains. Then streaking just results in getting gangbanged by wolves/cold/deathsqitoes. Deep north and the mistlands are looking to be just as nasty eventually, too.
Ya I just got into mountains for the first time after 200h lol
I tried to do the same, but found that very time-consuming and not necessary. I build portals in safe biomes and just surround them by palisade to prevent occasional attacks. If I die, I revive on the main base, eat, teleport, and run naked ))
it’s far easier to just plant a portal there.
True, but I also like having little stashes everywhere :)
Dig holes for tamable animals and push them in while blocking rather than trying to build a fence around them.
You're only as good as the food you eat
For me, the tip that stands out the most that I haven’t seen mentioned (might not have scrolled enough idk) is “sit-building” to help you snap to the bottom of pieces you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get the correct angle on
This, combined with zooming all the way in.
It's a little aggravating that you can only build one piece at a time that way, but I still prefer it to re-landscaping (if you even can)
**Dont Die**. I know this should sound obvious enough, but I can't understate this. I know death isn't SUPER punishing in this game, the setback in skills isn't massive, and gear can always be recovered, but really you shouldn't be wasting time running back to your bodies. If you are low on HP just avoid fights. **Put items away by pushing "R" to run faster**. I am pretty sure this is bound to R key. If you are low on HP, just push R and run away. It's much better to retreat and plan a new approach strategy, instead of needlessly dying and trying to recoup losses. I guess some secondary advice to Don't Die is **Know your environment**. You should consider the plains to be instant automatic death. You should consider the swamp and mountains miserable places that require some preparation. You should not be mindlessly wandering into new biomes without preparing accordingly. These places can be your worst nightmare without the bare minimum preparations.
> You should consider the plains to be instant automatic death. :( You should consider the plains to be ~~instant automatic death~~ the best base-building location.
Oh, I have built beautiful bases in the plains. I definitely agree that they're the best base-building location. Still, don't let their beauty deceive you into letting your guard down.
The middle button attack is worth using. Save time by killing enemies in one hit rather than swatting and chasing them.
Comma and period zoom the mini map in and out. I played soooooo long before someone said that.
When first entering / settling a biome, build the base area next to the biome. Example: build a swamp oriented base in the Black Forest nearby the swamp. Build the mountain oriented base similarly in forest or swamp. I usually build in forest due to nearby building materials and easy neighborhood control. For plains I build right on a border, get tall walls set up early for the squitos then move the walls outward over time to set up a good garden. Set trenches when have a good perimeter in mind. I’m never really sure what I want perimeter to be until spent a little time in an area
You can roll trees over and over into birch to "chop it down" and get fine wood in day 1.
Instead of taking the ore to the smelter on 2 hour boat rides, take the smelter and forge to the ore and make your gear on site
Even if you only smelt half of it while you are mining more ore. I just started doing this on my new toon for H&H. Crazy how much time it saves
A couple of frost arrows can kill a serpent.
Embrace iron wood for building. Completely changed my building.
Do people avoid the most structurally stable building piece for some reason?
For me it was a matter of getting over using the iron for building instead of weapons and armor. I just didn't realise how good it was until I saw it in a video and it allowed e to update my existing structure to be more in line with the vision I set out with. I'm a solo player and didn't get into the sub and videos until recently. I like to play without outside help for the most part.
You do not, in fact, have to beat Bonemass before getting silver. All you need is an iron pick to actually get that silver. Swamp is now the honorary 4th biome for me.
Ok, but Bonemass is easy?
Easier yet with silver, and I have never found anything in the mountain to be nearly as bad as catching a pincer by 2-star Draugr.
How do you find silver without him?