7 Valheim beginner tips for the best life after death

Valheim is good at telling yourself what to do next, or at least that there is something to do. It’s a lot less clear How You’re supposed to do anything, and that’s what makes getting started intimidating.

In this Valheim Tips and Tricks Guide, we list our best pieces of advice for your first few hours. We’ll tell you how to work towards definable goals, find new craft recipes, gather resources, manage your inventory, and eat groceries to improve your health and stamina.

For a more detailed guide on how to get started ValheimThe first boss of Eikthyr, check out our guide to Spawn to Eikthyr.

Treat bosses as targets

Valheim is a giant sandpit, and it’s incredibly easy to get distracted to explore, hunt, collect, or play with your architectural muscles. There are goals, however, and as you work towards them, stay focused.

Every boss – the Forsaken one you summon and defeat – requires preparation, and that preparation leads you through Valheim‘s complex technology tree.

For example, to defeat the first boss, Eikthyr, you need better weapons. To make better weapons you will need special resources and a workbench. A workbench needs a house. A house needs a fire. And so on. The entire game is an elaborate stack of dependencies, and preparing for your next battle gives you a clear path through them.

Instead of blindly wandering around and building with the nebulous goal of getting ready, focus your efforts on one particular fight at a time. In fact, we have an Eikthyr guide that will help with just that.

Resources and creatures appear based on rules

You will collect a lot of resources Valheim. Fortunately, there are a number of rules you can learn to find pretty much anything, and that saves you a Your from time.

Some rules are obvious, for example, that wood is near trees or stones are on the ground. Others require more observation. Flint is a good example: it only occurs near or in the water. If you want flint, look for water.

Creatures work the same way. Boars tend to be near water. Deer spawn in the biome of the meadows. Skeletons appear near burial chambers.

When gathering resources, look for similarities – your surroundings, the landscape, or even the time of day. The rules may be subtle, but learning them makes things easier for you.

You smell so watch the wind direction

In the lower left corner of your minimap is a small arrow showing the current wind direction. You will also see some white stripes in the game world that represent the wind.

Animals – especially deer – are sensitive to smells. If you are upwind, a deer will run away long before it sees you. Staying stealthy while hunting means being aware of the wind (and your stench).

Gather resources to learn new craft recipes

Learning new craft recipes is easy Valheim. All you have to do is pick up an ingredient. Picking up a piece of wood and a stone at the start of the game will unlock the stone ax, bat and hammer – your first set of tools. If you find Flint, you’ll unlock the next set.

Collect at least one of everything to unlock new recipes. You don’t have to fill your pockets with everything you can find, however. In this point…

Focus on what you need to collect

Your inventory only has 32 slots, and your armor, clothing, and tools occupy several of them. Space is tight. After all, you are also burdened by the weight (although that takes a long time).

Just record everything you need to help you achieve your next goal. Being prepared is nice, but (to paraphrase Alanis Morissette) having four stacks of stones when all you need is one flint won’t help you.

There are things you will always need, like wood to build with or food to eat, but don’t be a hoarder. Focus on what you are need right now. A dozen mushrooms last a long time, so maybe you don’t stop picking everyone you see.

Don’t build a villa when a tent is enough

During your first hours (and probably days) in ValheimFocus on usefulness rather than sophisticated architecture.

Most of the time, a lean-to (a very simple structure that looks more like a woodshed than a house) will help you flawlessly – like when you first built a workbench. Don’t make things too complicated and (still) waste your time (and wood) building a mansion.

Likewise a quick and temporarily Roof and bed camps are often all you need when you’re weak, new and exploring. Save the architectural expression for a central base camp.

Still, it’s nice to have a warm place to sleep between expeditions. A house with a door, walls, roof, fire, and some basic amenities will give you that rested effectwhich increases your health and stamina regeneration for a while.

Eat different foods to improve health and stamina

You will start Valheim With a basic health of 25 … points (?), You have a pretty limited stamina meter. You will both quickly get away with it.

Eat food to increase health and stamina. The mechanics here are a bit tricky though.

Image: Iron Gate Studio / Publication of Coffee Stains via Polygon

Eating increases your maximum health and stamina for a set amount of time and heals you on every tick (a unit of time in the game of around 10 seconds in the real world). You will see all of this when you hover your mouse over a (food) item in your inventory (as in the picture above).

You can eat up to three different things at the same time. All of their effects are active and stackable. You cannot eat any other food until the timer runs out. The symbols to the left of your health bar help you to keep track of things.

Eating instantly increases your stamina, but it doesn’t instantly cure you. It only increases the maximum number you can regenerate health to. This is weird so let’s talk about how it works with raspberries.

You have 25 health. You eat a raspberry and your max health increases by 10 to 35. But you don’t have 35 health yet. Over time (ticks) your health will regenerate to your new max of 35. (Check the duration in your inventory to see how long your new max health will last.) First increase the meter and then fill this meter .