In your opinion, what is the learning curve for an infrequent player?

[AgentFwoop]

Title.

I'm not saying I suck at video games, I'm just... you know... too busy to grind. Hehe...

[Zep Tepi]

It's not bad if you take it slow and don't rush. Get to know your current biome and improve your gear and food before moving up to the next one. When you get to a new area use an abundance of caution until you get used to it, don't just run around and expect it to be fine. Make bases or portals as soon as you enter a new area so you don't have to walk as far to get your stuff back. Look at guides if you get stuck, especially for the bosses. Beware of falling trees and don't park your boat in a swamp.

Improving your gear is a bit of a grind though. This is one of those games where it's the journey that counts, not the destination. If you're only interested in beating the game then you might not enjoy it as much.

[BananaBob]

well the learningcurve is sureley there but its not that hard; the grind tho... well there is quite some grind ... not like you usuall MMO but if you compare it to singleplayergames like skyrim or so, it might feel a bit grindy

[blprice61]

The only time pressure in Valheim is what you bring with you. Any feeling of 'grindiness' comes from the player trying to achieve P amount of progress in T amount of time. Since the game has yet to reach release, there is no 'win' condition to be achieved. Any and all goals set are arbitrary.

Take your time, do what you find to be fun, enjoy the game.

[knighttemplar1960]

If you've played games like this before its not bad. Usually the first time you face each type monster is enough to figure out how they attack so you'll know how to defend the 2nd time. The monsters telegraph their attacks very obviously so after that first time you just have to figure out what types of damage the monster resists and what type its weak to.

There is a quite a bit of grinding for resources. Most resources have to be prepared and then finished resource condense raw resources by quite a bit. Exploring, hunting, and mining will take up quite a bit of your time while you are outside and gardening and smelting will take up quite a bit of your in base time.

[Cap'n Bells]

concentrate on NOT dying..and its manageable,,,there will be deaths..but only fight when u have/want to..keep the best food you can with you

[Soulstinger]

It very much teaches you as it tells a story of how much effort it took and takes to be self sufficient in this sort of setting.

[Megahurts]

Bookmark a good Wiki.

[The Big Brzezinski]

I think the big barrier is organization. Knowing what you have, what you still need, where to go get it. Until you learn to speak the game's language, you'll probably spend more time than is fun just wandering around not knowing what to do.

[Cooperal]

For the progression side of things it is really simple. Your character populates their list of craftable items by memorising two things. You memorise crafting materials by holding them at least once, and you also memorise crafting stations (or tiers of crafting stations) by standing in their area of influence at least once.

Every time the game detects that you have memorised all the prerequisites for an item, it will straight up tell you how to then make it and permanently add it to your list of craftables.

The combat it easier again. If you are moving there are very few things that can actually touch you.

It's more of an investment game. A lot of time can be spent hauling materials or hitting away at a metal vein, which anyone with two braincells can do.

[shadain597]

Some people like to say that the combat is easy, and while it isn't terribly complicated, I think it's fair to point out that it also isn't very forgiving of mistakes. In some games, it's normal to trade hits with enemies; this is not really one of those. A few hits is often all it takes to bring you to the brink of death against enemies in the biome you are currently progressing in, even without running into starred enemies. And if you, as an inexperienced player, accidentally wander into a later biome, your death is almost guaranteed.

Surprises are most often what gets you killed, like finding out a group of enemies has some stars in their ranks only after you start fighting, or having your fight draw additional, unexpected attention. The biggest danger might be wandering into a new biome for the very first time, because even if you maxed out your gear leading up to this, it's barely adequate for the new surroundings, and you aren't familiar with the new enemies. Having to figure out new enemy movements and attack patterns while wearing the previous biome's gear is a recipe for getting killed, especially if you rely on parry shields.

Always keep a relevant Forsaken Power handy when wandering into a biome while still using equipment/food from the previous biome, and when in doubt, beat a hasty retreat---discretion being the better part of valor, or however that goes. Live to fight another day? That sort of thing. Having to make a corpse run isn't fun, and if you die often enough your character skills will suffer.

[Viceroy Günther von Lichler]

Its completely manageable, everything comes at you in chunks and reaching the next "tier" takes many hours so you have time to learn.
The only thing that kinda rushes at you a bit early and brutally are trolls.