Originally posted by Macdallan:

Unfortunately you made mistakes and now you're paying for those mistakes. Lost time, lost gear, lost skill is the punishment for dying. It's supposed to be a brutal survival game, and it really isn't that bad for the most part. The one aspect that could be considered brutal kicks in when you mess up big and die. It's like that for a reason, it's not supposed to feel good when your character dies. Too many games make it too easy to recover, and honestly it's usually not really all that bad in Valheim. Your stuff isn't deleted. Your character isn't reset to zero skills. It could be a lot worse.

You have options. You can do what wizard_of_woz suggested. You can grab some of your old gear and go get your stuff back carefully. Build a small base with a spawn point nearby so if you die again it won't take long to get back to it. You can make new stuff or upgrade your previous gear a little and just move to the next biome, the next resources. It's pretty rare that you absolutely need everything fully upgraded. Grab enough ore for a good shield and weapon then move on - carefully.

If you spent 2 hours trying to get your gear back and failed to do so then you've got to try something different. This game rewards planning and preparation, and sometimes you just have to cut your losses if you can't figure out a way to recover your gear. If you don't want to use dev commands (cheats) to get your stuff back, and none of these options appeal to you then you also have the option to ask another player to jump in with you to help you get your stuff back.

As for the tin and copper mining grind maybe you're spending too much time doing the same thing. Collect 10 or 20 ore, go back to the smelter then go hunting. Find a burial chamber. Build something. Just do something else while it smelts. Then go grab 10 or 20 more ore later and repeat. Don't sit in one place grinding ore all day or you will probably get bored. I don't find tin all that bad because you can find a few nodes as you explore and you aren't sitting in one spot harvesting for a fairly long time. Copper, and later iron, are the worst because they do take a bit more time. Still, you don't have to collect all that much copper since there's no need to fully upgrade a full bronze set of gear unless you're really struggling with the Elder or combat in general. I do think they could give a better bronze yield instead of the current 3:1 ratio and if they did it would cut down on the grind significantly without making progression too easy.

think you missed the point of the thread. I'm frustrated with how long it takes to gather resources. Doing something else for a while doesn't do anything to alleviate the issue. It still takes a ridiculous amount of time to gather what I need.

I know it's my fault I lost my gear. I know there are multiple ways I could try to get my gear back. That isn't the issue.