It is a survival game. You will want to become a Viking prepper. There is no tutorial other than the bird who comes to visit you but he's not very helpful the first time through because folks don't actually take what he says very seriously. Going to the second zone is best done after you have killed the first boss, and your gear is BiS for meadows.

You are rewarded for being curious and cautious. If you have other survival games in your arsenal then this game won't be too hard. If it is your first one I would suggest spending some time watching a few videos on Valheim. We were all in the same boat you are in a year or more ago so the forums were alive with all the new discoveries we made, all the new tips and tricks. Not so much at this time so unless you are very curious and clever it can seem pretty daunting.

If you are in a hurry you are screwed. There are the occasional speed runners who do everything in a big fat hurry but they mostly have a fairly good knowledge of the game.

Since we have no worthwhile information on what gear you are wearing, weapons at what level, what food you are eating, whether you have made a hut your own, we have to guess your needs. But my guess is that a lot of the information in the game is getting walked passed. Just cuz you don't know what you don't know --- yet.

So, go watch a few videos on learning the game, or keep struggling. Some folks like the struggle, others, not so much. The game is a bit grindy but very doable solo and you may well come to really like it once you have a bit more under your belt.

You're going to feel this difficulty jump in each biome. Your first steps will be rough as new and tougher enemies bear down on you, and you'll need to be very careful for a while if you want to survive. Then you acquire new materials that make stronger weapons, stronger armor, and better food. Once you've firmly established yourself in the newest gear and upgraded it a couple times, then you can walk through the biome like you own the place.

Like when you walk into the Black Forest, the greydwarfs are everywhere, a bit more tanky, and the occasional troll will be a serious battle. Then you get some troll/bronze armor, bronze shield and weapons, better food made from the cauldron with the carrots you found and grew, and now you're mowing down greybeards by the dozen. Trolls are dead in 10 seconds. Nothing is a threat.

Then you take down the Elder, and it's off to repeat the process in the Swamp. Repeat the process in the Mountains. Repeat the process in the Plains. Repeat the process in the Mistlands. All of it the same, but new every time.

As has been pointed out, the jump between each biome is fairly significant.

Valheim really is a game of preparation or foolhardiness, whichever is your preferred playing style. The first option is grindy but necessary if you want to have an easier time of things.

As a solo player, these would be my 3 top tips for all progression through each biome:

1. Max out all work benches per biome as soon as you can.
2. Max out your current gear and armour before moving onto a new biome. (Do yourself a favour and look up the vulnerabilities of the mobs you encounter so you can fight them effectively.)
3. Prepare the best possible food that you can make.

---

4. For the Black Forest in particular, if you can manage it, sneak in and snatch any and all materials that you can find but remember that the more noise you make, the more mobs will find you, particularly at night time.

5. UTILISE THE RUINS IN THE FOREST. I cannot stress that enough. Make shelters along the way and mark them, that way you have somewhere to run to for cover or to sleep. Moving around the Black Forest at night is a bad move for lowbies.

6. When searching for copper, make sure you dig out the node completely - they're huge and go deeper than you think. This will save you a lot of searching because you can generally get most of the copper you need for making out your gear from one node.

7. Stick to the forest coasts when searching for tin, it's usually the safest part of the Black Forest. Tin is generally found in the shallow waterways you might find in forest valleys, too, however going inland can run you into more mobs that you possibly don't feel like dealing with.

8. Troll hunting in caves is the easiest way to get troll leather. You can cheese it by jumping in and out of the cave every 30 seconds or so. They won't follow you out.

Hope that helps.

The dark forest should definitely not be easier. =D Just be careful exploring until you gear up. Mind the wet and the cold ;-) and don't run out of stamina.

getting overwhelmed by the next biome and over coming it is kinda the point, i think forest to swamp was the harder one imo

Originally posted by NyuneNyuni:

getting overwhelmed by the next biome and over coming it is kinda the point, i think forest to swamp was the harder one imo

I'd agree with this, the Black Forest to Swamp transition is the biggest so far, mostly due to the biome-wide debuff of being wet, plus the big increase in threat posed by the enemies, both how hard they hit and the poison. Time will tell how the Plains to Mistlands transition stands, but I'm expecting it to be close to the Black Forest - Swamp transition.

Dark forest to Swamp is worse

I wouldn't even know for the other biomes.

If you go to dark forest with unupgraded items then yes you'll struggle.

Keep chasing a few dears, tame boars, upgrade basic armor and weapons and you'll be ok.
You struggle because you are trying to rush.

I also thought it was a very natural progression going to the dark forest. First time I felt out of my league was in the swamps.

get good

Use your sneak skill when entering any new biome and listen carefully. Everything makes some kind of noise. Once you know what those sounds mean, you can either avoid or hunt whatever it is. Don't walk around like you own the place until you've set yourself up in that biome's gear.

As for meadows vs dark forest, you should be wearing deer armor, have a crude bow, a shield and a flint weapon. Your weapon has a combo attack with the third hit dealing more damage. Dogding and moving around works for the greys and it will work for you too, and if you use the small shield at the last possible instant, it will give you a bonus. Or, use the tower shield if you aren't sure about getting the timing exactly right. Put it away when you don't need it because it will drastically slow you down. That's usually enough to take down a normal grey. Try to take them out before their buddies arrive. Run away from anything else until you can upgrade. Stay away from the pink clouds and the large caves for now.

Your goal is to get your armor rating at least to 10, and then carefully raid a crypt. You will need to bash some skeletons to upgrade the deer armor first. Clubs work better on skeletons than other weapons, but they will fall to the third hit whichever one you use, as long as they aren't starred. Use your shield and hide behind trees for the archers. The giant blue guys make great starter armor, but killing them is a more advanced skill. Take advantage of your bow, the terrain, and even your pick ax to stall them long enough for the bow to work.

And always beware of the trees.

fighting:
-fire scares grey dwarfs
-shield and club should be effective against skeletons. stag breaker is unnecessary and is really more for hitting skeletons through walls in the narrow crypt hallways.
-avoid troll until you have bronze buckler and spear, unless you want to kite forever with arrows.
-stay away from grey dwarf spawners unless you are sure you can destroy them if you push in.
-use spear throw against grey dwarf shaman to target him first in a mixed group.
-if you dont like what you see in the first crypt, retreat and try another one. dont keep dying to the same 2 starred skeleton.
-priority for early bronze is buckler.

exploring:
-mark crypts, troll caves, and grey dwarf spawners. don't mine your first copper near these locations.
-make cart paths on the shore (sea level) and bring copper from inland down to the main shore path. this is as opposed to making long winding paths through the middle of the forest which will be confusing and difficult to defend. try to explore from the shore, as you cannot get surrounded because half of your sight line is water. tin is along the shore also.
-bring enough materials with you to make a shelter on the run, to recharge rest. dont run back and forth to your main base every time you need new rest. if you are cold, wet, and not rested, everything will be harder. use some of your early bronze to make a cart, which not only helps you bring metal back to base, but helps you bring your camping supplies out to the mining site.
-when mining, take a few swings and then look around to see if you aggroed anyone. mining has extremely large noise radius.
-if you are really broke, remember you only need 5 cores to smelt, as you can deconstruct kiln and smelter to swap the cores back and forth.

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

Use your sneak skill when entering any new biome and listen carefully. Everything makes some kind of noise. Once you know what those sounds mean, you can either avoid or hunt whatever it is. Don't walk around like you own the place until you've set yourself up in that biome's gear.

As for meadows vs dark forest, you should be wearing deer armor, have a crude bow, a shield and a flint weapon. Your weapon has a combo attack with the third hit dealing more damage. Dogding and moving around works for the greys and it will work for you too, and if you use the small shield at the last possible instant, it will give you a bonus. Or, use the tower shield if you aren't sure about getting the timing exactly right. Put it away when you don't need it because it will drastically slow you down. That's usually enough to take down a normal grey. Try to take them out before their buddies arrive. Run away from anything else until you can upgrade. Stay away from the pink clouds and the large caves for now.

Your goal is to get your armor rating at least to 10, and then carefully raid a crypt. You will need to bash some skeletons to upgrade the deer armor first. Clubs work better on skeletons than other weapons, but they will fall to the third hit whichever one you use, as long as they aren't starred. Use your shield and hide behind trees for the archers. The giant blue guys make great starter armor, but killing them is a more advanced skill. Take advantage of your bow, the terrain, and even your pick ax to stall them long enough for the bow to work.

And always beware of the trees.

i didnt know different weapons deal different damage to enemies :)

Originally posted by SeeFights:

Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

Use your sneak skill when entering any new biome and listen carefully. Everything makes some kind of noise. Once you know what those sounds mean, you can either avoid or hunt whatever it is. Don't walk around like you own the place until you've set yourself up in that biome's gear.

As for meadows vs dark forest, you should be wearing deer armor, have a crude bow, a shield and a flint weapon. Your weapon has a combo attack with the third hit dealing more damage. Dogding and moving around works for the greys and it will work for you too, and if you use the small shield at the last possible instant, it will give you a bonus. Or, use the tower shield if you aren't sure about getting the timing exactly right. Put it away when you don't need it because it will drastically slow you down. That's usually enough to take down a normal grey. Try to take them out before their buddies arrive. Run away from anything else until you can upgrade. Stay away from the pink clouds and the large caves for now.

Your goal is to get your armor rating at least to 10, and then carefully raid a crypt. You will need to bash some skeletons to upgrade the deer armor first. Clubs work better on skeletons than other weapons, but they will fall to the third hit whichever one you use, as long as they aren't starred. Use your shield and hide behind trees for the archers. The giant blue guys make great starter armor, but killing them is a more advanced skill. Take advantage of your bow, the terrain, and even your pick ax to stall them long enough for the bow to work.

And always beware of the trees.

i didnt know different weapons deal different damage to enemies :)

You can tell when an enemy has taken damage from something they're weak to (or a hit to a weak spot) from the color of the damage numbers that appear: grey means a resisted hit, white is normal, and yellow is critical.

Things like spear and arrows deal piercing damage; clubs deal bludgeoning, and blades deal slashing. You can mouse-over weapon icons for a tooltip pop-up that will tell you the damage type and average amount dealt, along with any additional bonus damage types and effects (such as Spirit damage or a poison/slow effect).

Originally posted by SeeFights:

i just feel like having the tutorial so much easier (i understand it is meant to be easy but not too easy) is just a bad representation of the game (for me anyway)

Like take example your statement about cooking, to get the best foods you need the cauldron, the cauldron doesnt provide the best of the best but its enough, for this you need bronze, you get bronze where? oh yes the death forest.

Okay fermenting lets make potions...oh you need bronze -_-

See what im getting at?

The game requires you to go there as its natural progression but it just throws so many things at you it doesnt do the tutorial justice, i didnt even know parrying was a thing OR how to do it until like my 25th hour in...

All games with tutorials don't represent accurately the rest of the game. See Modern Warfare games for example. In the tutorials you have to shoot cutouts that don't shoot back.
Meadows are the "safe biome" of the game. A place where you know that, aside from pesky mobs that will bother you, there's no danger. It's the place where it's safe to build, safe to run back to and safe to land when sailing so it will never represent what the rest of the biomes are. If there's a difficulty jump somewhere I'd say it's from the forest to the swamp because of the status effect and the terrain.

Regarding food and progression it's very MMOish and I don't like it either but that's how gear check mechanics work. It's linear. In biome 1 you'll find a very specific set of gear and food but it won't be the best of the game because on biome 2 you have new gear and food. Same for biome 3 and so on and so forth. Enemies are the same, once you get gear from biome 4 greydwarves from biome 2 will be harmless.

I don't think it is. It's just that meadows is the "tutorial" biome as not a single enemy poses a threat to you unless you stand still.
But once you go to the dark forest real battle starts and that's when the bubble pops. As in you can't keep playing like in the "tutorial". You have to dodge or parry, assess danger, don't pick fights you can't win and use the different types of weapons you have. And also try not to get surrounded. In the meadows enemies don't spawn in big groups, but in other biomes they do and they can easely overwhelm you if you go Leroy Jenkins mode.

As for tips:
- The combat in this game is merely a gear check. Let's call each biome 1,2,3,etc. If you're in biome 3 but have biome 2 level gear maxed you can confront enemies there with caution. If your gear is not maxed or you still have biome 1 gear it will be extra difficult. If you have biome 3 gear it will get easier as you level it up and if you have biome 4 gear in biome 3 you can tank enemies and almost even ignore them while you mind your business.
- Food plays a big role on top of the gear. Not just for health but more stamina means hitting and running more before you get winded. Make sure you get the best foods before exploring.
- Bow with fire arrows on Dark Forest is basically easy mode. If you see shamans kill them first.
- I see a lot of people that favour using shields and parrying for combat. I prefer using knockback area weapons. 2H hammers can kill enemies through walls (very handy in dungeons, I wouldn't go into a dungeon without the first 2H hammer you can craft unless you get good with shields) and in the open you can wait for the enemies to charge their blow, back up out of their range and then wind up your attack that will knock them back. This way small enemies will never touch you, even if they're many. Against bigger foes I use bow always even if it's less efficient (I'm not risking getting 100-0'd).

Originally posted by Ɣɪ¢♰ɪɱƧ:

I don't think it is. It's just that meadows is the "tutorial" biome as not a single enemy poses a threat to you unless you stand still.
But once you go to the dark forest real battle starts and that's when the bubble pops. As in you can't keep playing like in the "tutorial". You have to dodge or parry, assess danger, don't pick fights you can't win and use the different types of weapons you have. And also try not to get surrounded. In the meadows enemies don't spawn in big groups, but in other biomes they do and they can easely overwhelm you if you go Leroy Jenkins mode.

As for tips:
- The combat in this game is merely a gear check. Let's call each biome 1,2,3,etc. If you're in biome 3 but have biome 2 level gear maxed you can confront enemies there with caution. If your gear is not maxed or you still have biome 1 gear it will be extra difficult. If you have biome 3 gear it will get easier as you level it up and if you have biome 4 gear in biome 3 you can tank enemies and almost even ignore them while you mind your business.
- Food plays a big role on top of the gear. Not just for health but more stamina means hitting and running more before you get winded. Make sure you get the best foods before exploring.
- Bow with fire arrows on Dark Forest is basically easy mode. If you see shamans kill them first.
- I see a lot of people that favour using shields and parrying for combat. I prefer using knockback area weapons. 2H hammers can kill enemies through walls (very handy in dungeons, I wouldn't go into a dungeon without the first 2H hammer you can craft unless you get good with shields) and in the open you can wait for the enemies to charge their blow, back up out of their range and then wind up your attack that will knock them back. This way small enemies will never touch you, even if they're many. Against bigger foes I use bow always even if it's less efficient (I'm not risking getting 100-0'd).

i just feel like having the tutorial so much easier (i understand it is meant to be easy but not too easy) is just a bad representation of the game (for me anyway)

Like take example your statement about cooking, to get the best foods you need the cauldron, the cauldron doesnt provide the best of the best but its enough, for this you need bronze, you get bronze where? oh yes the death forest.

Okay fermenting lets make potions...oh you need bronze -_-

See what im getting at?

The game requires you to go there as its natural progression but it just throws so many things at you it doesnt do the tutorial justice, i didnt even know parrying was a thing OR how to do it until like my 25th hour in...