It is a grind fest. But really once you get a Karve, you could simply sail and find other continents. Many have a least some type of meadows area which would be save to take on if you already played up to get the Karve. Sailing in this game is awesome. Simple controls and the look and feel is elegant. Love that part. I don't do it a ton, so its stays as a treat. Like a vacation from copper mining. You have to rotate what you do to keep it from becoming a rut.

Should add that there are dangers and dos and don't to sailing early, but don't want to give any spoilers. There can be a lot of frustration with this game. But if you have played the genre you know the deal.

Best part of game is when your slightly over matched. Then you have to maybe draw stuff out and create your advantage via terrain. But it doesn't take long and an area becomes fairly easy again.

I'm not big on grinding. I don't mind chopping wood. If you do it at night, you can multi-task. You can level up your fighting skills cause the sound of chopping brings every creature down on you from half a kilometer away. I found this annoying when I was trying to build an outpost overnight. But after that you can almost kill stuff and fell trees with the same blow. I prefer to instead switch to a weapon that needs leveling to finish off the mobs and then switch back to an axe again for the trees. Only takes a second to go back and forth like that but there is a lot of XP to be had from the night time mobs.

Its the mining that wears me out. But there is a risk involved with mining. A troll or golem if looking for obsidian can surprise you if your down in a hole or trench and out of stamina from pick axing. So to skip over it too much would be making things too easy perhaps.

I'd prefer if the veins were more pure so you didn't get 400 rocks to 40 copper or whatever it might be. Just so I don't spend days in a row getting a couple upgrades. I have 300 hours in, so what I like outweighs what I don't by far. There are ways to find your own balance how you play through it.

I clearcut black forests that are anywhere remotely near any base or outpost of mine.

Because those stupid greydwarfs don't know when to back off, but they don't like being away from their trees.

It’s fun single player by default. That said, you can also mod it to be however much of a grindfest as you want.

The Valheim Plus mod let’s you change virtually any modifier for drops, exp gain, etc. It has a granular config file that has everything disabled by default, allowing you to enable only what you want.

Originally posted by 82DK developbomb:

the grinding i dont mind doing it. But if it becomes repetitive and frustrating, like a job... i hate it.

Yes, that's exactly how I feel. Logging in to play now feels like doing chores. I'm doing housework chopping, digging and cooking in order to explore, but then exploring punishes you for wandering into new areas before you're overprepared (with more chopping, digging, cooking) or bores you were repetitious biomes you've already exhausted chopping and digging. I'd use mods or console commands but that really ended Conan Exiles for me, unlimited wealth. Conan needs to struggle.

But I've had 200 hours of fun in Valheim for AU$28. It's hard not to give the game 10/10... -but I did.

9.5 / 10. Buy it, play it, quit it in frustration months later.

Give it a go. There is quite a lot of resource gathering, but when you get bored just use the devcommands to spawn what you need and can't be bothered to grind-to-get.

If you enjoy base-building and exploration then it's great, and if you don't then it's not for you.

Totally solo player, never played it multi. Lots of things you can do, but grinding for resources is always there. Wish there were more crafting as it seems concentrated on building for most part, but a definite good deal for the price.

Originally posted by 82DK developbomb:

If one feels any progression trought the grinding i dont mind doing it. But if it becomes repetitive and frustrating, like a job... i hate it. I talked about Stardew Valley becouse i think: the game is basically founded on grinding, but on the fun one.

The vanilla game has many features, some of them have been found to have grind that some players don't really like. However the game does have a LOT of QoL mods that are just focused on saving time. There's several for planting crops that vary from semi auto to full automatic planting. Also some players don't like the amount of time sailing in order to transport metals which won't allow them to go through a portal. Mods for that as well.

It's a game that allows for a high degree of customisation if you so choose. Otherwise chances are possible you'll experience something that you don't like.

I swear Valheim is actually easier in singleplayer than it is in multiplayer.

Very easy and fun for a single player. Grinding resources is a fairly large part of the game. Your always cutting wood, mining ores and gathering food.

Originally posted by stvlepore:

Very easy and fun for a single player. Grinding resources is a fairly large part of the game. Your always cutting wood, mining ores and gathering food.

If one feels any progression trought the grinding i dont mind doing it. But if it becomes repetitive and frustrating, like a job... i hate it. I talked about Stardew Valley becouse i think: the game is basically founded on grinding, but on the fun one.

the amount of grind depends on how much stuff you make and upgrade;
you don't HAVE to fully upgrade all weapons and armor; you don't need to
make all the weapons either just ones that you like

also grinding wood or ore gets easier and faster with better tools

Myself I play solo 95% of the time and have over 700 hours in the game now, SO, For $20 and 240,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam could be a great indicator something is 'gone right' for this game, I think you'll like it. :-)

Originally posted by 82DK developbomb:

Originally posted by stvlepore:

Very easy and fun for a single player. Grinding resources is a fairly large part of the game. Your always cutting wood, mining ores and gathering food.

If one feels any progression trought the grinding i dont mind doing it. But if it becomes repetitive and frustrating, like a job... i hate it. I talked about Stardew Valley becouse i think: the game is basically founded on grinding, but on the fun one.

You are definitely grinding to a goal. Your looking for x quality armor so you need x amount of iron to get it. As was said, it’s up to you somewhat.

I've been a console player most of my life and Valheim was one of the first new games I got for PC and even though I've only played it a few times so far I think it'll be fun game to play solo even though most of my friends play it together. I guess it's up to what you wanna do :)

cutting wood is damn fun in this game... 950 hour later & i still love it