I take it back :)
I wish there was a less grindy mode where the game could be completed in about 50% less time, making it more 'about average' for RGP games, and then those who spent a little more time grinding could do a 'hardcore' no death pass.

As it is, it's pretty super grindy. And the amount of grind you'll do in most games for a hardcore pass still won't be enough for a many deaths pass in Valheim. So death is required many times basically.

And if you die it feels too demoralizing because you walk half way back across the planet and may well die getting there. And if you have extra gear to help you get there, then it's even more grindy, yet still not doable hardcore.

I love the game. Just think that a few new difficulty modes could be fleshed out to appeal to a wider range of preferences.

Originally posted by snugginz:

I take it back :)
I wish there was a less grindy mode where the game could be completed in about 50% less time, making it more 'about average' for RGP games, and then those who spent a little more time grinding could do a 'hardcore' no death pass.

As it is, it's pretty super grindy. And the amount of grind you'll do in most games for a hardcore pass still won't be enough for a many deaths pass in Valheim. So death is required many times basically.

And if you die it feels too demoralizing because you walk half way back across the planet and may well die getting there. And if you have extra gear to help you get there, then it's even more grindy, yet still not doable hardcore.

I love the game. Just think that a few new difficulty modes could be fleshed out to appeal to a wider range of preferences.

Death is absolutely not required, not sure where you generated this misconception.

There’s 3 easy steps to not die and not waste extra time:

1. Always have enough hp to take a few hits when away from your base, in the wild I’d make sure your food is replenished well before it runs out, if near danger or in a place where you don’t feel safe as soon as food starts to blink you better reapply it, I’d recommend 2 hp foods and 1 stamina food

2. Only fight mobs one at a time, aka only break defensive stance and attack when the only monster that can hit you is the one you are trying to kill

3. When fighting mobs that pose a threat, always let them attack first so you can parry them and prevent them from counterattacking you at all, you are practically guaranteed at least one safe swing at them before they recover and on 90% of mobs you can do a 3 hit combo before the parry wears off which typically kills them

Originally posted by Nascarman:

Originally posted by snugginz:

I take it back :)
I wish there was a less grindy mode where the game could be completed in about 50% less time, making it more 'about average' for RGP games, and then those who spent a little more time grinding could do a 'hardcore' no death pass.

As it is, it's pretty super grindy. And the amount of grind you'll do in most games for a hardcore pass still won't be enough for a many deaths pass in Valheim. So death is required many times basically.

And if you die it feels too demoralizing because you walk half way back across the planet and may well die getting there. And if you have extra gear to help you get there, then it's even more grindy, yet still not doable hardcore.

I love the game. Just think that a few new difficulty modes could be fleshed out to appeal to a wider range of preferences.

Death is absolutely not required, not sure where you generated this misconception.

There’s 3 easy steps to not die and not waste extra time:

1. Always have enough hp to take a few hits when away from your base, in the wild I’d make sure your food is replenished well before it runs out, if near danger or in a place where you don’t feel safe as soon as food starts to blink you better reapply it, I’d recommend 2 hp foods and 1 stamina food

2. Only fight mobs one at a time, aka only break defensive stance and attack when the only monster that can hit you is the one you are trying to kill

3. When fighting mobs that pose a threat, always let them attack first so you can parry them and prevent them from counterattacking you at all, you are practically guaranteed at least one safe swing at them before they recover and on 90% of mobs you can do a 3 hit combo before the parry wears off which typically kills them

It's not a 'misconception' that death is all but required. That's my opinion. And the majority opinion of the respondents that I happen to agree with. You're tips are welcome. But I still disagree that many deaths are not required for completion by most players.

And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that. Just that this balance and speed of progression to get powerful is more than a little slow for my preferences. I'm just scratching the surface and burning out at the same time. With 20 hours invested I'd prefer to be at least half way through by now. That's just my opinion.

Thanks again for the feedback all. Very helpful in setting realistic goals for challenge. I kind of wish the game had an actual hardcore mode. But then there would have to be tuned with less grind for mats to make it bearable. Hopefully someday. For now I'm perfectly happy with the challenging and sometimes brutal game design :)

It's feasible, but it really depends on how good you are. You have to already have an idea of what your equipment will and won't do. You have to train yourself to run when you'd otherwise try to get in another hit. You have to make sure that your stomach is never empty. It's not a good time to experiment with new things. Never take trees, campfire smoke, or fall damage while building for granted.

Pretty much only do it if you don't mind starting over a lot, or if you've played awhile and almost never die anyway. It could be something to do if you just love the game and want something to spice it up while waiting for Mistlands.

I was doing permadeath for awhile, but then decided to stop so that I could explore the new frost caves without worrying. I got as far as defeating Bonemass. You could do an alternative ruleset with one extra life per unique boss defeated, that way you have a little bit of leeway.

Too many variables... From your first run(s), you're very likely to die a good number of times, it's part of the learning process of the game. You do something, it doesn't work, you die. Then you realize how to not die, and you don't die.

As for completing the game... Also too many variables. What is "complete" in an unfinished sandbox? If the question is can you play hardcore once you know what you're doing and kill the current bosses without dying, then yeah probably. (I couldn't, last boss is tough but I'm sure people do it.)

Btw, you can remove those death markers on the map.

It varies a *lot* depending on whether you get into building. Builders are forever dying from forgetting to eat while jumping around the scaffolding.

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

If the only thing making you want to restart is your map, you can remove the death markers with a right click.

Thank you that's helpful.

Thanks for the helpful responses. I think it may not be a realistic goal for a first play through without many restarts. So I'll set 'hardcore' as a future goal. For now I think I'll just enjoy discovering the content :)

Great game BTW. Very immersive, challenging, and fun. Hope the devs keep the updates coming.

Hard to say about the average person.
I can give my own account..
90% or more of my deaths are from falling off my construction projects.
the other 10%, deaths by enemy, can be broken down into:
- food wore off
- too many enemy (usually a new character / not geared out problem, eg a spawner room)
- not paying attention (failed to dodge a mosquito in the middle of another fight etc)
- 2 starred nasty (spear thrower, etc)
- etc

or to sum it up, about 2% of my deaths were not caused by my own carelessness or stupidity.

In terms of number, I probably die about once every 8 hours or so of play. Slightly more than that when building up high, slightly less than that when gathering food etc.


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Hard core is not realistic. Stuff happens, and your first time, you don't know what all that even IS, let alone how to prep for it. After you have killed every boss one time and done a few of each type of cave/instance, sure, then you can give it a solid try.
Hard core is also not really RP. You are dead, in some sort of nutty afterlife, so dying and popping back up is perfectly legit as per the rules of the afterlife.
Anyway, try a minimal death run first. Keep track of when you died and why and what you should have done differently.

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the raft ladder works fine. I think you hit e or something to use it, it should tell you when you are close what to hit. Its not like a crafted ladder, you have to interact via a button.
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you can click to remove your embarrassing pirate flags on the map.

I have three seeds I play on. One is build (where I cheat the heck out of everything), one is normal game play (no cheats), the other is a hard rule set of my own decision with no cheats. All are modded with minor QoL and textures.

On a regular game I died a lot on my first couple days vanilla. I restarted after the elder and I'm around day 300 on one seed and I've only died three times? All to my own stupidity of course.... I am still searching for swamps in this seed. They are very rare.

On the more recent hard setting one... if a character dies, then I make another character in that seed. If the new one happens across a dead body with some goodies... then it's fair game to grab em. However, the chances are a brand new character isn't going to get to the goodies so easily. The goal is to go as many days as I can without being stupid, impatient or trying to be lazy to which this game can punish all three conditions quite severely. So far I'm on character three. First two had to deal with a skeleton at spawn. Now I'm 20-30 days in I think. On the hunt for burial chambers and a build site in the forest.

i was playing permadeath for a long time. i made it to black iron once. Just like in real life, ignoring your training and violating safety protocols is what gets ya killed.

my only two deaths in my original singleplayer playthrough were due to learning that you can’t just charge every mob with leather armor in my first burial ground and dying due to me not knowing serpents existed and running into one on a raft, both happened before I had like 8-10 hours in the game and both wouldn’t have happened now that I know what I’m doing

so it’s certainly possible to go deathless and honestly I don’t think it’s very hard considering I’ve still yet to die on single player again in this game and am like 100+ ig days past killing yagluth

In terms of hours to complete, if you go pure progression based to kill the bosses without building any more bases past your meadows base you can complete the game in 50-60 hours, take it a bit slower and it might take you 70-80hrs (it took me 88hrs to beat it but I build two very large bases late game which ate up quite some time)

I probably could not make it in Hardcore, at least currently. I am thinking a under 200 game days to kill all bosses is doable, if you are not goofing off a lot and base building.

If the only thing making you want to restart is your map, you can remove the death markers with a right click.