New player questions

[BenchWarmer]

Hello. Just got the game tonight.

1. Does this game have surround sound? Can you tell the location of animals by the direction of the sounds they make? Most games these days do not have this.

2. I use mouse/keyboard. Is there any way to change the controls so that moving the mouse controls the direction my character faces? Right now, moving the mouse acts like mouse-look.

Thanks.

[Brew]

For #1, yes of course. Sound is important; you can also tell the type of animal from its sound. The sounds you make are also important. Noise can attract creatures.

For #2, moving the mouse steers your character when you are moving; mouse looks when you are still. Have you tried steering while moving?

[GunsForBucks]

Sound works best with headphones. Turn music off. I always do this for situational awareness for sound. I have sound cloud headphones with surround sound but honestly I get better situational positional sound with the surround sound off. The simulated reverb thing just messes with position to me. My one friend with the same headphones swears it is better for him with it on. So IDK try both.

Right click mouse to hold block. This will lock the camera to "forward" so you can spin around.

[GunsForBucks]

The game is set up by default so you can block the way you are looking and dodge the way you are moving. Dodge is holding block and jumping at the same time.

Works really well for combat. I wouldn't want my camera locked forward by default though. That would be more like driving a car type game where you always want to look forward for the most part.

[Lil Puppy]

A and D keys are not TURN left/right, they are Strafe left/right. Which means that your mouse is your directional control, just like the majority of games beyond the mid-90's that adopted FPS controls and camera mechanics. Holding the right mouse button is BLOCK because there's combat, but it will also lock the camera to the character direction. This is not a first person game, locking the camera to the character in a third person game is a bad deal.

So yes, this is a third person mouse look control with default FPS mechanics for WASD, and no, it can't be changed. At least not without some hardcore mods to do it. Best to get used to it so you can play other games optimally.
I used to change things like invert the mouse, put my wasd controls on the numpad and all kinds of things but it gets tedious doing that with games, and the ones that don't support that kind of thing were very difficult to play so I abandoned it and only tweak the things that don't conform to normal control schemes now. I hate 3rd person cameras that are configured incorrectly (low angle, too high angle, no zoom -too far, too close, bad position -not enough to see above the character, too much behind it, etc), but this game does it just right. I just hate it when games are like "hey I see you haven't moved the camera manually for a second, here, I'm going to put it to where I think default position is! hahahahaha".

[GunsForBucks]

Originally posted by Lil Puppy:

A and D keys are not TURN left/right, they are Strafe left/right. Which means that your mouse is your directional control, just like the majority of games beyond the mid-90's that adopted FPS controls and camera mechanics. Holding the right mouse button is BLOCK because there's combat, but it will also lock the camera to the character direction. This is not a first person game, locking the camera to the character in a third person game is a bad deal.

So yes, this is a third person mouse look control with default FPS mechanics for WASD, and no, it can't be changed. At least not without some hardcore mods to do it. Best to get used to it so you can play other games optimally.
I used to change things like invert the mouse, put my wasd controls on the numpad and all kinds of things but it gets tedious doing that with games, and the ones that don't support that kind of thing were very difficult to play so I abandoned it and only tweak the things that don't conform to normal control schemes now. I hate 3rd person cameras that are configured incorrectly (low angle, too high angle, no zoom -too far, too close, bad position -not enough to see above the character, too much behind it, etc), but this game does it just right. I just hate it when games are like "hey I see you haven't moved the camera manually for a second, here, I'm going to put it to where I think default position is! hahahahaha".

Totally agree with your sentiment on cameras in games... this game really does do it right. One of the mass effect games put me off of third person games for years ... wow it was bad. Ha ha

On the control side... I adopted using a joystick for movement in games like this. Mouse Joystick rather than mouse keyboard. I program my games for the joystick on the joystick software so I can leave all my games default but still have custom set ups for each game.
Just an idea for your control preferences. It gets messy when you make a lot of changes to default control settings, especially if returning to a game after a clean install or something.

[Zep Tepi]

Sound is extremely important in this game. Everything makes a sound. It will save you from randomly stumbling upon things that will smash you, and it will help you locate your next meal. This is not a game that you blast your music to, unless you want to miss out on important cues.

Movement works great. I am a lefty and I do map everything to the number pad, everything except the toolbar, which can't be remapped. That's my one gripe, but I manage reaching for those keys well enough.

[BenchWarmer]

Thank you for the answers.

I'm having fun exploring Valheim, but still afraid of the dark. Hope to get over that soon. I just made my first workbench, so the world should open up a lot more for me now.

One thing I found odd was the character creation screen. It's ugly. As I looked at it last night, I wondered if I had bought the wrong game. lol The game itself looks great.

How is it that Valheim weighs in at only 1GB? Every other game out there is many times bigger. Is it because of no videos?

Thanks again.

[GunsForBucks]

Originally posted by BenchWarmer:

Thank you for the answers.

I'm having fun exploring Valheim, but still afraid of the dark. Hope to get over that soon. I just made my first workbench, so the world should open up a lot more for me now.

One thing I found odd was the character creation screen. It's ugly. As I looked at it last night, I wondered if I had bought the wrong game. lol The game itself looks great.

How is it that Valheim weighs in at only 1GB? Every other game out there is many times bigger. Is it because of no videos?

Thanks again.

Small textures and reusing assets. Really the game design is brilliant, they do so much with so little.

[Trakehner]

Procedural Generation is a big part of it only being 1GB.

[kaypy]

Originally posted by BenchWarmer:

still afraid of the dark. Hope to get over that soon.

I don't recommend that. Unless you find a given biome really easy in the daytime, a healthy fear of the night will help keep you alive.

[Zep Tepi]

Originally posted by BenchWarmer:

One thing I found odd was the character creation screen. It's ugly. As I looked at it last night, I wondered if I had bought the wrong game. lol The game itself looks great.

True, the characters don't look like much. After awhile you don't really think about it because they're covered in armor anyway. Some people use mods to change that up.

[Flare |UKCS|]

I also found the character screen ugly, and wondered why this game was so popular but now it has a charm of its own that I like, I even tried a mod for higher res textures and they were good but the game lost its charm for me so I reverted to default again.

Some none spoiler tips to help you out :

- On the mini map (top right) you can see which biome you are in, at the start it is Meadows a relatively safe area.
- Do NOT rush, take your time there is no timer running so dont feel like you need to rush to stuff.
- At the workbench tab you will see a hammer tab sticking out, it is the repair button and you can repair all the basic items there for free, no resources used at all.
- You can see your action keys (bottom right), typically with a weapon its left click to attack, right to block and middle mouse for special if the weapon has such (like a spear can be thrown), and dodge is hold block, press space and a direction.
- Try break up your activities so you dont get stuck in a rut of grinding, take time to hunt, to explore or to spruce up your home.

Welcome to Valheim warrior.

[electricdawn]

Here are some good tips for your start. Good luck and welcome to Valheim, fellow viking!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/0/5144805327259514367/

[retsam1]

Originally posted by BenchWarmer:

Thank you for the answers.

I'm having fun exploring Valheim, but still afraid of the dark. Hope to get over that soon. I just made my first workbench, so the world should open up a lot more for me now.

One thing I found odd was the character creation screen. It's ugly. As I looked at it last night, I wondered if I had bought the wrong game. lol The game itself looks great.

How is it that Valheim weighs in at only 1GB? Every other game out there is many times bigger. Is it because of no videos?

Thanks again.

Game as a stylized look intentionally. Its just something you're going to have to accept.

As for the file size for the game, that's arguably tied into said stylization but also the fact that it is on unity, uses a procedurally generated map system, doesn not have all biomes of the game, assets, game mechanics/features yet in the game.

This is an unfinished game of course its, well, that's what early access pretty much is.

I wouldn't expect it to get to tremendously bigger though with all that said but certainly don't expect ark sort of things with this game in size regards.

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Regarding night, oh boy, I'm just going to warn you right now, night is only a fraction of the fears you're going to experience then. Mobs of course do come out more at night if you don't sleep, but different biomes also have different lightly and other things.

Meadows (your current biome) is the tamest perhaps in those terms.

Swamps tends to be the first breakpoint for most (this is the 3rd biome in the progression) with regards to scare/challenges. Its semi dark and rainy all the time and night is much darker.

When mistlands biome's full assets are added in the future(6th its arguably the darkest to date(see vid pics of it now as it is in game and you'll see.

So steel yourself, take your progress as slow a pace as you wish(there's no rush) and prepare well before you do any thing really.

Good hunting to you.

[Rungar]

listen to the crow!