I understand your frustration. I am new player too and just got this forest raid not long ago. The raid was very difficult without Stagbreaker. I can traverse Blackforest/Burial ground just fine. But this forest raid is another level. The mob combination (melee/stone throw/healer) are just too much for early level I think.

It can be quite frustrating. As I understand it you loose 5% off every skill when you die. This is hardly noticeable when you are starting out but can become an issue when your skills are leveled up.

Spawns at night go way up it seems. Any work you do is going to make some noise but using an ax or pick on anything makes a LOT of noise and draw every spawn in a 100 meter radius making mining at night a particularly wild time, Building isn't quite as bad but will still get you an above average amount of attention.

You can call the bosses up again as long as you have the sacrifice and will get the same drops but if you don't need or want those drops there is no compelling reason to do so.

It can be a hard game. I think a main reason for this is it requires a large amount of player adaptation and not as much character optimization, something that isn't that common in games in my experience. It also requires you pay attention. Forgetting to eat has been a fairly common root cause of death in my time playing.

Good luck with your game and remember to have fun.

Thank you for all your answers.

So it´s 5% skill loss per death. Gotta calculate which characters to grow, but I suppose they should be somehow specialized in certain weapons, not like my first allrounder.

What you explain not to do at night, is exactly what I did in a mindless meditative base building process, it just got a little dark too fast. I really didn´t expect the mob to be so angry and determined, just last day I became the animal whisperer who jumps through the fields like a bunny. Nothing can beat me in this game...I´m probably already overpowered. And then it hit me. Yes, That´s my lesson here.

I love the game mechanics and recognize how they´re intended. This is Rouguelike and I love it. It´s not even tagged as Roguelike.

A hard core survival gamer would not say this game is hard. Someone used to solitaire would say it is impossible. Its just going to depend on what kind of gamer you are. If you are patient and prepare yourself carefully before checking out new areas, its going to be at most mid to low difficulty. If you run headfirst at anything new to check it out right away, it could be said to have a moderate to high difficulty.

The game is only hard if you rush it. As far as I can tell, as long as you take the time to upgrade your gear as you progress into each biome the game is fairly easy.

It takes time and trial/error but it's not hard.

There is sometimes a serious disconnect between posts here complaining that boss so and so is impossible to beat and what you'll experience in the game if you just take your time to prepare.

this is a game of preparation so the more prepared you are the lower the difficulty will be.

Loss of skill points for the occasional death is meaningless unless you're playing an advanced character and repeatedly fail to learn from your experience. There are much more punishing games out there in the genre.

Meaningless sounds good, as I thought it´s very bad this was really frustrating. Dev could add some more detailed info on what happens on death ingame to prevent raising frustration about probably not as bad as it sounds - loss of stats.

And about BlackForest? Is this the right direction to go? My two starting islands both are huge with several directions I can go to - a never ending "island", so I don´t really know if I entered an area too high for my level (with all items level 2, a pick axe made from bone - no way to build a smelter with my work bench level 3 - so maybe mining in Black Forest is not necessary now, but I don´t know what else to do after killing the first "boss")

Black forest is the right way to go after you've put Eikthyr's trophy on sacrificial stones.

Originally posted by Rhapsody:

Black forest is the right way to go after you've put Eikthyr's trophy on sacrificial stones.

I found 2 of these sacrificial stones, is there even more Eikthyr´s to fight? I killed Eikthyr, hung the trophy up in the circle. So should I start to fight him again at the other sacrificial stone place?

Is the level of frustration normal: In a way, but that depends on the player's mentality (no offense intended). The perceived game difficulty increases with each "new" biome you enter - at least on your first playthrough.
Or did i enter an areas that I shouldn't enter yet: Black Forest is the next "intended" biome after the Meadows so i would say no - but i would advise to "gear up" as much as possible before entering the Black Forest. And i would also recommend that you kill Eikthyr before entering the Black Forsest.
Have I just been unlucky; No. When you first enter the Black Forest, it is full of enemies. The nights are even worse. Be careful, prepare and adapt to the new environment and to the new difficulty level. (Raids on your base(s) have a 20% (or so) chance to happen every 40-45 minutes (or so). For bases: setting up a fire or a workbench does not count as a base in the game, but if you build a small base with a fire, bed, workbench, etc. (several objects within a certain radius), then the game counts that arrangement as a base.
Dying: When you die ingame, you lose 5% of your current skill levels - so as Rhapsody pointed out, it is "cheaper" to die when your skill levels are still low. But you need to learn the game in a way - otherwise, it becomes a little bit frustrating. If you die once or twice when entering a new biome (or if you die in certain difficult situations like mob attacks or in certain dungeons) - that is really nothing to worry about. Learn, prepare, adjust, and lets them feel Odin's revenge ;)

MFG
CKTMC

Originally posted by CuriosityKillsTheMADCat:

Is the level of frustration normal: In a way, but that depends on the player's mentality (no offense intended). The perceived game difficulty increases with each "new" biome you enter - at least on your first playthrough.....

Thanks,

I just had difficulty to understand why the Raid on my tiny base never ended in the morning and the mob was chasing me after rebirth at the next close base in the meadows. As soon as I got half way towards my gravestone, the wholemob started running out of the forest into the meadows and chasing my naked 25hp self to death again.

Probably this scene lead to build-up of a little "frustration" as it would mean I need to really gear up again to even get a little chance of getting my belongings back. the mob was enormous with One or Two Red Eyed, One Green Poison Guy, and like 8 Blue Eyed plus 3 normal ones chasing me - even with full gear at this level, this is an impressive mob to deal with. They just killed me in first place, as I wasn´t prepared for the poison guy to poison me through walls of my 2x1 squaremeter bed sized tiny box house.

During the raid I went sleeping which worked, but the mob never left the raided "base" in this case - maybe this lead to a bug appearing?

My now paranoid impression is to better not try to get my belongings back and sort of restart my efforts.

I found 2 of these sacrificial stones, is there even more Eikthyr´s to fight? Every biome has an end boss - you need to find both the spawning location and the items so summon them.
So should I start to fight him again at the other sacrificial stone place? No, unless you want to have a nice looking trophy to hang on a wall (or wherever you like) or if you need more Antler Pickaxes.
Maybe this lead to a bug appearing? The base raids are time-based (90 to 120 seconds per raid, or so). Leaving the red circle (shown on the map; the are where the raid is happening) or sleeping during a raid does not end the raid. The only way to end a raid is that the raid timer reaches zero. Enemies may or may not disappear after a raid is over - but dont ask me why and when they disappear; i just kill them all as Odin demands ;).

MFG
CKTMC

So I don´t know..it´s early access..is this intended game mechanics or did I run into a bug festival? Why did they run out of the forest and chase me down like I´m a piece of pizza? That was scary and "frustrating", in a semi-positive way

And one more thing about bugs and Valheim: Of course this game has bugs (almost all games have them) - but Valheim is one of the most polished and bug-free EA games I have ever played (and i guess most other people who played the game will agree). When it came out, it was (and is) nearly bug-free (in the sense that you, the player, wont notice almost no bugs) and there was (and still is) nothing that prevents the game from being played as it was intended. The only buggy thing at release was the Multiplayer/server thingy - which happens quite often with new releases - but they fixed it within a few days after release.

Why did they run out of the forest and chase me down like I´m a piece of pizza? It is "their job" to hunt you and kill you - the enemies in Valheim are relentless when it comes to that. Report back when the "relentless" Black Forest enemies have become "annoying" to you - that is the point i think when you got the trick ;)

Don't enter or stay in new biomes at night. Stay rested. When you find a new resource head back home and see what you can upgrade or how much more material that upgrade will take and make all the upgrades (especially new foods) you can before you linger in the new biome.

The difficulty jumps are about the same from biome to biome if you do that in each new biome. Get all the upgrades you can for that biome before you take on the boss.