Valheim+ is your answer. It's a highly customizable mod to cater the game to the experience you want. My buddy and I made the following changes:

Greatly increased the amount that forges and kilns can process at once. It's not faster, but now we don't have to babysit them. We can load them up and go adventure.

2 more rows of player inventory and 10x stack sizes. We kept encumbrance the same. This game is asinine with inventory. Most of our time was just sorting it especially since there's not "quick stack into chest" or auto sort options.

50% increased stamina regen across the board. Walking around enemies for 80% of combat waiting for enough stamina to dodge/parry and swing back isn't fun.

We enjoy the game's difficulty, but not the grind. There are tons of options. Customize it how you like!

At the end of the day, either you like making bases and building stuff, or you are going to find the game short and simple. There isn't much to the gameplay beyond collecting materials and killing bosses as you are doing. Building amazing bases can while away weeks of your time for each one; getting from bonemass to moder may take you 3 days tops and half that is waddling ore back to your base.

The silver grind seems way more lighthearted than the iron grind was. I also burnt out during the swamps. Everything was very dark and dreary. But the mountains are much nicer (even when its a blizzard), and finding and mining silver is much more tractable than clearing sunken crypts.

It certainly helps being able to just yeet a cart off the side of the mountain you're working on.

I would guess you have way over prepared for your battle with Bonemass. And with all that over prep you can get into a rut (well for some).

All you need is a banded shield, an iron mace and some poison resist potions to beat it down. As for armor -Troll is more than adequate.

Most boss fights really only require a few 'at tier' gear pieces to win, but many players are afraid of skill loss and don't want to push the envelope so to speak so they grind and grind in preparation and risk becoming bored.

Not that over preparation is bad if you like to do it (or are a completionist) it is just not necessary.

And in general survival type games are about getting better gear so you can go out and get even better gear to allow you to survive longer in more hostile places that might have even better gear. It is the loop.

@SiEgE I take it you don't use polearms, 2H hammers or Battleaxes? Stamina, at least for me, is the key in using these. With their AoE you can keep mobs away so you 'dont get hit' and don't need the extra health, but you do need the stamina as their use drains it quite quickly. So 2 Stamina 1 Health is my general combo for combat.

I guess I'm just built different.. I don't ever feel like I'm "grinding" I love exploring, finding new things, advancing my tech. I mean to be honest this game-play loop is like many others.. I'm not sure what you expected.

Yes you advance gear, food etc for the next biome then get new food, gear for the biome after that ... but exploring the biomes.. that to me is so much fun I love them all with the exception of Swamp. Which I tolerate just long enough to get out of.

There are very little elements in the game which could serve as pointers as to how prepared and geared up a player needs to be in order to progress. In survival games it's something you need to learn yourself, for your own playstyle.

Currently there doesn't seem to be much harm in taking a break and continuing later. I've had the same world going since the beginning and never had any issues with it. In a way it's actually been quite the opposite, provoking me to explore further to discover tar pits and frost caves which couldn't generate on the regions I had explored before those features were implemented.

Originally posted by Cobretti:

The armor grind isn't necessary and can save you quite a bit of farming time. If you think about it, armor is just insurance against making mistakes. A lot of players prefer to run light armor for the mobility and focus on not getting hit. I'd rather do that as mining makes me fall asleep.

I've tried that.
Light armor and mobility-oriented weaponry(knives) works well in early biomes, but at swamps and later on they become rather pointless. It's missing 2 or 3 tiers of light armor. Irongate made a fun functionality split in food, but the stamina-oriented food has no (yet?) actual use, unless you're a 100% archer, or if you're doing a long run from point A to point B. Trying to be 100% archer when you have bosses like Bonemass is rather pointless. Also being a stamina-oriented eater is a death sentence in a poison-riddled biome like swamps.
I'm yet to see a proper utilization of stamina-oriented gameplay, because for now, I see it utterly lacking past the third biome.

Originally posted by Sorrow:

I've carved out a comfortable main base area, defeated Eikthyr and the Elder, gotten to mostly Iron Gear, and I should be ready for Bonemass after just a couple more swamp dungeons. The problem is that I'm losing motivation.

I often do "gameplay breaks". I never play the game right away as I buy it. I often give it a "taste play" for like a day or so, to then "abandon" it for weeks or even months(who am I kidding.. some games are sitting around for years). Later, I'd pick the game back up once I reach "the mood". "Taste play" is necessary for "the mood" to even appear.

Originally posted by Sorrow:

I don't know what I thought the mid-game would entail, but it seems like each biome/boss is just a repetitive grind for a few resources to get better armor or gear so you don't get one shot by the Forsaken in that area. Should I push through and try to rekindle the fire, or should I put it down for a while until I have renewed interest?

Games like Valheim are best played with long breaks, because they are satisfying your "build-loot-grind" crave. If you're not letting that crave to build up because you're playing other similar games, or is playing Valheim for too long, you might get exhausted very fast.

Originally posted by Sorrow:

Are cool things coming up next in the biome after swamp?

Yes, they are, but the gameplay process will be mostly the same. If you're looking for a DRASTIC change of actions - you ain't gonna find any.

Originally posted by Sorrow:

Give me reasons to want to keep going please.

The game imposes a very strict survival, "use all the resources you can get" focus on the gameplay. Which means you have to play slow and cautious of your decisions. If you'll just rush through the game, you might fail a bunch, drenching the last ember of interest.
If the main and basic gameplay mechanics like fighting, gathering, crafting, (re)building and discovering are irritating you and giving you no satisfaction, you'll be good just dropping the game on spot.

The iron grind is quite possibly the most egregious chore in the game, and it even has the audacity to come back for later biomes/construction. Unfortunately, while the next biome in line (mountains) does have a lot of cool new stuff (even some cold new stuff, hah), it also features the silver grind... Which, while not as bad as iron, still requires a huge amount of mining if you want to actually explore the new weapons instead of just going for 1-2+armor. Some of the armor costs can be taken down by exploring frost caves for the resources to build the rather handy fenris set, but that's highly RNG dependent and can end up being just a differently-flavored grind, rather than a reduction to the total.

...but then after the mountains, you hit the plains biome where everything hits like a truck and is extremely deadly, but the material cycle is so much smoother and you end up "accidentally" progressing by just playing the game. ...except for the armor, which needs iron again because ha ha screw you.


A huge amount of the grind can be trimmed down SIGNIFICANTLY if you already know a thing or two about the equipment and what/how much of something you'll be needing further on. But if you don't know that already and just want to explore and try new things, it becomes prohibitively expensive.

The midgame does sadly fall prey to a lot of padding and grind, and the fact that a lot of this happens in as oppressive an environment as the swamp and its crypts certainly doesn't help motivation much. Plains, as mentioned, loosens things up quite a bit and is actually quite pleasant once you adapt to the difficulty spike and how the critters act. Then there's mistlands, which... Uhhhhh...

Well, it's certainly not the same *kind* of grievance! I choose to believe that it's just going through some growing pains and will get ironed out a bit more in time, and it's not what I'd call the be-all end-all "I quit because of this broken biome" level I see people talking about, but... It certainly has its aggravation.

The bright side is that the main upgrade materials for the mistlands can be freely transported through portals, and there's some really cool stuff to unlock and play around with. It's just a bit of a bumpy start getting to the point where you can actually start, y'know... *Unlocking*.


I'd say keep going a bit until you've beaten Bonemass and started venturing into the mountains, as the change of pace and environment really helps freshen things up a bit. But if you find the silver grind to be wearing on your nerves too much, take a breather and let the game sit for a while.

Additionally, if you want to focus on good effective gear without spending all your time repeating the same fetch quest, here's my recommendation for what equipment to shoot for that provides a decent spread of gameplay while being highly cost-effective:

Wolf cloak (tiny bit of silver, and killing some wolves. Should be first priority for the cold resist)
Fenris leggings (involves exploring the frost caves in the mountains)
Root harnesk (killing abominations in the swamp)
Iron/Drake/Padded helmet (primary resource gathering, so iron/silver)
Frostner (mostly just silver, and it is somewhat expensive to fully upgrade, but this thing can carry you straight through to mistlands gear)

A bow. This is where it gets a little funky, as the silver-tier Draugr Fang is a dang good bow, arguably the best in the game currently, but the iron-tier Huntsman bow has a special unlisted quality that makes it the ultimate sniping weapon and a MASSIVE boon to clearing out features in the plains in an efficient and painless manner. If you have the time/resources, try both out and see what you like. Otherwise don't worry too much about which one you get, as both are really good.

If you can spare the resources, a silver shield is also really solid and highly recommended (and relatively inexpensive). But the iron buckler can actually carry you pretty far if you're good at parrying.

The bosses get more interesting from a mechanic point of view starting from Bonemass. They are ridiculously easy prior to that, assuming you don't cheese the bosses in which case they are all easy and boring.

The armor grind isn't necessary and can save you quite a bit of farming time. If you think about it, armor is just insurance against making mistakes. A lot of players prefer to run light armor for the mobility and focus on not getting hit. I'd rather do that as mining makes me fall asleep.

Originally posted by CrazyGoblin:

A huge amount of the grind can be trimmed down SIGNIFICANTLY if you already know a thing or two about the equipment and what/how much of something you'll be needing further on. But if you don't know that already and just want to explore and try new things, it becomes prohibitively expensive.

When it comes to grind and avoidance of "time wasters", people often do some things by mistake:

1. Dying too much reduces skillpoints, which in consequence reduces:
- Movement speed
- Damage reduction by blocking
- Damage to ore veins
- Damage to enemies
- etc.
Basically, it reduces your progress, making everything even harder and more time consuming than it was supposed to be. So, avoid "dying 3 times in a row" cases like a plague.

2. People are afraid/feeling lazy about moving their base. They often waste A LOT of time on ore hauling. It takes few hours less to just grab everything with you into a new biome. Or at the very least, install yourself a metal teleportation unblocker mod and save yourself literal hours of being stuck in the open sea. Some people like it and thus are protecting it in discussions, but if you find yourself "drifting away" for Youtube vids during the first 1/5 of the path, it says a lot. I don't see it as a "problem someone needs to fix". I see it as a bad decision made by the player, but since most players are dumb, lazy and prefer oversimplistic decisions, 99% of them just cannot see it as their own mistake.

3. People don't "optimize" their decisions. Like, when you need some bronze, some people would return to their main base and go to their original copper/tin sources, and then haul ores to their main base for crafting. Same for sudden iron or silver needs. All you need to do is to go around your current biome's islands and find all the resources there, within 5-15 minutes of walking/floating. Teleports are giving people too much confidence to make such silly backtracking. I think that is why devs think teleports should be removed, and I completeley agree with them. Teleports do help with backtracking reduction, but because of metal tp prevention, it gives people too much reason to stick with "main base" concept.

4. Oh, and there are tricks to dig faster. If you dig up earth around the vein to make it float above the ground, it'll have no support, and thus will save you 5-6 additional swings of a pickaxe per automatically destroyed segment. Should be very handy when dealing with silver ore. It doesn't work if there are too many segments, though, so hack em up into smaller chunks, or they'll not autocollapse.

You do not say anything about how challenging the game is for you. Perhaps consider self-imposed rules that will actually turn Valheim into the advertised "brutal exploration and survival game".

Things like noportal, nomap, permadeath runs (aye, perhaps a lil too much at this point) or come up with your own challenges...

- survive in plains just on deer stew and cloudberries (as in you're not allowed to eat better food)
- avoid killing passive creatures that give you or enable biome-specific foods
- change your primary weapon for a low-tier one of the same kind
- spend the night at a new place
- take a peek at biomes out of order (you've been to the swamp, survey the nearest mountain)
- make it your mission to 'save' a passive creature that is being chased by an aggressive one (e.g. help poor deer escape from skeletons)
- mine just enough of what you need, don't be a hoarder; go do something else and go back to mining when in need of that specific resource
- find ways to make NPCs 'team up' with you (this is massively fulfilling and fun when you reach a certain biome)

...your imagination is the limit :-)

Once you are ready for it, the noportal, nomap or permadeath options require such a different use of your brain that Valheim almost feels like a brand new experience.
I think the opportunities are out there, one just needs to find those that work the best with one's needs. :-)

a wall of text wouldn't motivate me

so in short:
Don't spoil your adventure by looking at other people or videos, unless it's a beautiful build inspired by a movie, because in my case nothing motivates me more than re-watching Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series.

Or get some extra spice like mods, don't let the burnout to take away your enjoyment.

And well... Valheim is a very unique game, you will comeback to it anyway.

Like life you have just passed thru the "Honeymoon Period" now you think you know whats in store.. ,, The fire needs to come from within.
Personally im very much enjoying the struggle without cheats, mods or too much wiki hunting.. but thats me. Its visually stunning.. mountains are their own challenge as is the plains.. cant speak for Mistlands still not heading there for a while till its debugged a bit more .. Just enjoying the journey not that keen to rush rush to the end..oh btw solo as well. Skall !!