i had to sail half way across the map to the nearest trader.

theres a website where you can see your seed map, and have it mark where the traders and bosses are on your seed. check that out

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

If the search gets so long you don't want to play, go ahead and go to the map website https://valheim-map.world/

There, enter your seed number. You can select "no terrain" and only select "spawn" and "trader" to get an idea of what direction to go without spoiling the whole map. I did that after circling every island next to the start island and decided I was losing my interest in playing if I was just going to spend my next few play sessions wandering aimlessly in a boat.

That's what I did when I was about ready to enter the plains and still hadn't found him.

@OP: Keep in mind the first trader location on the map you explore is where he will be.

I’m a 1/2 dozen play thought I have never not found the merchant by sailing along the coast. The distance from the shore that he pops up is generous

Found the Elder marker, it was right on the other side of a stone tower I already searched earlier today. It's pretty far out, maybe across water, I don't know. But I also made a bronze axe and finewood bow and some furniture, so I'm getting there. :p

merchant should have a unique vegvisir like the bosses, change my mind

If the search gets so long you don't want to play, go ahead and go to the map website https://valheim-map.world/

There, enter your seed number. You can select "no terrain" and only select "spawn" and "trader" to get an idea of what direction to go without spoiling the whole map. I did that after circling every island next to the start island and decided I was losing my interest in playing if I was just going to spend my next few play sessions wandering aimlessly in a boat.

i think it took me about 200 hours to find the merchant on my first world. though a lot of that was spent learning the game and building a good basecamp.

2nd world it only took 30 hours

When your exploring by boat make sure you get close to the shores of new land masses. When you actually enter the new zone enough for things to spawn on shore the game will update your map with the merchant if he is on that landmass. on my first world it turned out I had sailed right by him earlier in the game but was on the wrong side of the water channel between the islands for the map to update with his locaton.

Originally posted by Nightweaver20xx:

Found the Elder marker, it was right on the other side of a stone tower I already searched earlier today. It's pretty far out, maybe across water, I don't know. But I also made a bronze axe and finewood bow and some furniture, so I'm getting there. :p

grats on the progress :)

i found it useful to keep portal materials in the boats storage. dropped on every so often and was able to go back to baecamp at night. If there isn't a player in the area you leave your boat and portal in the game doesn't update the area so no mobs spawn to attack your stuff.

As to the boss beign far away. When I found the swamp boss it was literally on the oposite side of the world from where i was at the time, right near the edge. And then the mountain boss was way up at near the top. Next land mass above it was Frozen North. The RNGoddess was having some fun :)

Originally posted by Nightweaver20xx:

I have now been exploring The Black Forest in my main save for over 4 hours total. I have found half a dozen burial chambers, been killed by a few trolls, and probably covered a square mile or more of map, but I have not found either the vendor or any vegvisirs for The Elder, let alone his altar. I have full bronze armor and more treasure than I can even store. I don't know where the hell to go next, but I'm afraid it might involve a boat.

Hahaha. 4 hours, that is literally nothing. And yes it probably involves a boat.

The randomly spawning vendor is probably one of the more frustrating aspects of the game imo. I just plug the map seed for my world into the online map generator so I can find him, because it's total random chance to find him otherwise.

Imo, you should be able to build a hitching post or something at your main settlement that will summon the trader instead. Plus it makes more sense for a merchant to actually be near his customers vs. some random spot in the woods somewhere.

In my first play-through it took me over 100 hours to find the Trader, if I would have turned right I would have found him nearly straight away but being me I went left. Moder was the worst though, nearly 230 hours to find her. Yet in my new play-through I saw a Tower on the side of a very steep mountain and thought "I bet that's hard to get to" then I realised what that mean't and I found her nearly straight away.

It's really amazing how Valheim goes from easy mode in the meadows, finding and killing Eikthyr to a vertical cliff increase in difficulty to find and kill The Elder. Doesn't feel balanced to me.

Originally posted by Nightweaver20xx:

It's really amazing how Valheim goes from easy mode in the meadows, finding and killing Eikthyr to a vertical cliff increase in difficulty to find and kill The Elder. Doesn't feel balanced to me.

The RNG of the world creation gives each world a unique feel to exploration.

Normally I try to create bases based on logistics but for the first time in about 20 worlds I really was forced to ship ore all over the place. Not a terrible experience at all but definitely different from my "norm".

Well there is a lot of work in upgrades that need doing in the Black Forest anyway so there isn't much point in rushing to find the Elder either.

And if you think the difficulty is rough going from the Meadows to the Black Forest you are in for a surprise when you hit the Swamps and Plains.

Just look for the red info disk to interact with by a stone tower or in a crypt and the closest one to you should get marked.

Oh, I've been looking, I know where they're supposed to spawn, and like I said I've been in half a dozen burial crypts and probably the same number of stone towers looking for the thing. Nothing so far, but I'll keep looking.

Trader generaly spawns 8 KM away from starting point of map. You can find him easy if you just go in circle araund that area and icon should show on map.

(be sure you carry portal mats in your boat -- some copper also to set up a new base)

In meantime you can also just map the map this way. (and look for swamp dungeons from sea and also mark those for future iron)

Elder spawn location stone could be found near stone towers or inside dungeons. Its not 100% as its rng.
Morder location is more pain to find tho.

Oh and watch out for water snakes