Tips for New Players

[bufossil]

1. In the very first raid, there are five ovens with switches in them to open the inaccessible chest on a pillar. Some of the ovens are covered with boards. There is no order or sequence to the switches, just get all five.

2. If you want more resources (and character levels), repeat the previous raid. Repeat as often as you want to. After you kill the boss and come back to town, you can do it all over again. (Not all raids are repeatble, but many are.)

3. When you see the circle glowing in the lower left, that is the rage bucket. Hit both bumpers to go into a rage and do a tiny bit more damage.

4. If you press and hold the "A" button, the attacks are as fast as pressing "A" as quickly as you can.

5. The circle with the number in it in the upper left is your level. You can see the blood filling up over time. When the blood reaches the top, you level up, and a plus sign appears.

6. After four or five raids, you get a merchant in town. He can sell very good items for you, better than what can be forged in town by the blacksmiths. You can shuffle what the merchant sells by logging out of the game, clicking Continue, and coming back in.

7. If you have enough gold, you can purchase whatever resources you need (such as those green jotunjarn gems) from the merchant. When you view what the merchant is selling, click the Trade Resources (coins) icon on the left. You can also purchasee runes from him, that level up as you do.

8. There are times during raids when a group of allies join you. If you use any AOE or mass attack on the enemies, it hits your allies as well.

9. Be sure to break about everything for extra resources, including mining carts, boxes, barrels, or whatever. Mining carts, for example, often yield both wood and iron.

10. A "menhir" is a specifically-arranged pile of gray rocks. There is usually a giant skull on the ground in the front, and a tall slender spire in the back of the arrangement. They are very difficult to see, but worth destroying for the resources. A Vanirite shrine looks like a stone statue kneeling in front of a large tombstone. You see these gray menhirs and shrines from the side and back, in low light situations. For example, the skull on the menhir looks like a nondescript sphere most of the time.

11. Someone created maps of all dungeons and posted it as a guide on Steam. It is written in German (Missionsziele und Artefakte), but the maps are still worth looking at.

12. A lot of the game takes place in low light environments. Recommend that you go into options and increase the light of the game at least two notches to see what you need to see (such as the gray menhirs and shrines).

13. There are times when you are in environments that damage you. For example, crystals can damage you with electrical damage. And when you get closer to the crystal, you take more damage. Stay as far away from the source as possible (same for fire, ice,poison,etc.).

14. Anything you pick up can be sold for resources. Keep and equip any piece of gear that is better than what you have, sell the rest.

15. There are often times when the path before you branches off in two directions. Usually you can see the icon that identifies the main path for you. Take other secondary path first to get all the loot, then come back and take the main path.

16. If you make a horrific mistake selling something to a crafter or merchant in town, do not forget that you can pick "Load" from the game's menu, and restart the game at a point in time prior to the mistake.

17. One of the things you collect in every raid are 3 iron skulls. They are always in gold-inlaid chests, or in chests that seem to glow with light from the inside. These chests are often partially hidden in a tent, behind wooden boards, or even behind stone barriers that give you just a tiny glimpse of the hidden chest.

18. You can level up the blacksmiths and crafters in the village five times. If you follow the main story line, and do what the game says, you will get what you need to "upgrade" the village artisans. Start with the weaponsmith first, and work your way back to the runesmith.

19. When you finish a game, you can start a new one with the same character. All of the gear and weapons from the earlier game will carry over, but not the resources (gold, iron, wood, jotunjarn gems). The fabulous weapons (like Skathi's bow) that you had in the previous game will be instantly overshadowed by anything you find or can create in the new game. If you stored any gear in the chest in the village, it will be worthless in the new game (except to break down and sell).

20. You don't really need to know anything specific about the bosses at the end of each raid, except for two. The Bishop of the Sky you run from. You can't hurt him. Run to the end of the raid. And Grimnir's second form becomes vulnerable when he falls down in front of you (once every 60 seconds or so). The rest of the time he is invulnerable.

Hope that helps.

[MightyGrue]

so did you like it?

[bufossil]

I did like it. I did not encounter any bugs that some people talk about on the forums. The whole game functioned just fine all the way through.

I liked it that I didn't have to repair armor, I could go back and repeat a raid for resources and blood points, i could run around whenever i wanted to look for hidden resources, i could purchase pretty much what i needed with the merchant in the village, i could decide which runes i wanted to use, i could easily compare a loot drop with what i had equipped, and i did not have to look on the web to figure something out every 5 or 10 minutes like some RPGs and ARPGs (i looked some, but not very often).

Overall, an enjoyable game.

[Skybreaker]

Hi everybody.
Thank you @bufossil for your awesome work and contribution to this game and community
Please keep it up!

-cheers

[RageOfPerun]

Nice tutorial. As I am nearing my 1st play through, I have this observation, at the beginning the game seems pretty hard at times(jarl difficulty), it took me over a dozen tries for the 1st Jokul, but mid way through(if you do some hunts) it becomes almost too easy, right now I am breezing past all the frost and fire giants with Mjolnir in hand :D

[Tomkatt]

Originally posted by bm3173:

so did you like it?

It's a blast. Not too deep on the thinking or strategy, but a fun action title, and the character dialogues are often hilarious.


================================

Some of my own tips to add to the OP:


1. Looking at the different classes' skills is a must to check out what you might want to play. I rolled Odin on my first play, thinking magic and 2H weapons would be great, but honestly it wasn't for me. Now I'm rolling Tyr I think (Sword 'n Board) and it's so much more fun. Find the class that works for you.

2. Practice dodging. The dodge timing is later than you think, and a successful dodge tends to be right at the moment the attack would have hit you. Rolling early gets you hit.

3. Wear armor appropriate for the area. In exposure areas, light/cloth armor is the way to go. It's got 30 exposure resist. In poisonous areas, take poison resist gear. If you find yourself taking too much damage in light/cloth gear, use medium armor (15 exposure resist), but watch the exposure meter and frequently stop for campfires. Never wear heavy armor in exposure areas.

4. Heavy helms are great. Wear heavy helms. There's no speed penalty (unlike armor), and they shore up a light armor build's overall defense.

5. When there's no area effects like poison or cold, use medium armor unless your class benefits from heavy armor. Heavy armor makes rolling really hard and you move much slower. If you are going heavy armor, go full tank. Dodging the hit works better in this game than soaking it up with armor, especially where bosses are concerned.

6. Line up your special attacks to kill multiple enemies at once whenever possible. You get increasing amounts of bonus blood (experience points) for double, triple, and multi-kills.

7. Try different weapons, even within your class where applicable. Swords are weaker than axes and maces, but attack much faster. Axes have low crit, but high crit damage and are the middle option between fast swords and slow maces. Maces attack slowly, but have high crit rate (double that of axes), but lower crit damage. Similar differences apply for 2H weapons for most (other than Odin, since Staves and polearms are it).

[RageOfPerun]

1. Use the Bloodbonus stat to level up faster

2. Only upgrade 1 skill tree till it's full before you put points in a 2nd(obviously don't use more than 2 skill trees, or you won't have nowhere near enough points to get good at anything)

3. Don't rush, explore all nooks and cranies(some secrets are hidden behind destructable objects) and don't leave blood lying behind(it's XP lost)

[Alrekr Ironhand]

Sorry this is a bit of a necropost.

Utgard is a pain, and there's almost always one thing I can't find on every run through it, whether a skull or a troll totem. But what really ticks me off is the forced bad choice at the end. According to the seeress, it is a bad idea to take Draupnir. But there is no option I can find to NOT take Draupnir. You cannot complete the raid without taking Draupnir, and then the seeress immediately calls you a greedy idiot for doing so.

Does anyone know of any other way to complete this, or is it just another scripted forced choice, like walking into the dark room halfway through Half-Life that you KNOW WITHOUT ANY POSSIBILITY OF DOUBT is a trap?

And if you can't complete the raid without taking Draupnir, then why is it a freaking achievement? The achievement should be finding a way to NOT take Draupnir.

[Swifty Magee]

Got Vikings: Wolves of Midgard as Humble Choice's mystery game for last month, and I read this thread just now. There's a few good tips the OP and other users have made. Wish it was a legit guide for the game...would give it a thumbs up and a helpful award.

[DARKO]

Thanks for sharing, i'm half thru game and so far i love this game. I was looking for decent diablo like game and this one is amazing for such low price!

Its not dumb easy and i like challenge, when FIRST boss kick my ass i was like wtf, but then figured out how to beat him and it was so satisfying :D

Again thanks for good tips.

[Loosewire]

Best advice I've found so far, thanks everyone. :)

[maryloo68]

Hey there, does anyone know if there is an explanation somewhere that let's you know about the ratings of the armour, weapons, etc. Like some items have higher ratings but why are some numbers red or green? And what is critical chance, etc? I don't play a lot of these games so am new to the jargon. Thanks a lot.

[Mineswee]

currently I'm playing the game and I found that you can wear the heavy armor ---> IF <--- you get a ring or something else that gives +35% roll speed which is probably my single most important stat given by my items because you become so much more mobile its silly. so you don't need to resist the cold or whatever because you are so fast you can just easily roll back to a safe spot before it becomes a problem and you take very little damage for the last like 8 raids I haven't even had to use my potion container (granted im playing on normal difficulty however on the flipside im also not very good)