Building quite honestly sucks

[Saturn]

While simultaneously the thing I've done the most, building is likewise the thing I despise the most about the game. Don't get me wrong, there are so many things wrong with Valheim, but the building just doesn't have any logic to its "wrongness". There ostensibly seems to be a building limit, but then it's not universal across the game or tied to relative height from the ground nor relative height of the landscape. Then there's the problem of things that have sufficient support still breaking for no good reason. My 10+ hour castle has holes in it that are seemingly random in occurence, but which refuse to take any stone or wood structure. Compounding these issues, is the fact that building, especially stone building, requires such a tremendous amount of materials.

All in all, very frustrating building mechanics if you want anything more than a wooden shed...

[Khloros]

Are you using wood iron frames?

[Ewenomi]

Watch some youtube builds. There are methods to increase the integrity system you probably haven't even contemplated. For example, did you know that it you place an iron gate, before you place your stone block, the iron gate increases the structural strength of the stone block, allowing you to build higher? Some guys used two giant boulders in the Plains as scaffolding and built over 40 stories high. See what others have done and how they did it before just saying it doesn't work.

[#Plungerhead]

if you join the games discord channel and check out the screen shots of peoples builds, i'm sure they will disagree with the OPs comments - in my opinion the building is extremely good with taking in consideration structural stresses.

[Caduryn]

Does OP plays the same Game we do......?

[Khloros]

So TBH the best way to build in this game, is to actually go about it like you would IRL.

Find a nice level area and get your foundation down, If you have a stone cutter, a stone foundation is like the best. Then you want to use your strongest material to build your vertical supports. Then build your horizontal beams then lay your floors, then your walls.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Ewenomi:

Watch some youtube builds. There are methods to increase the integrity system you probably haven't even contemplated. For example, did you know that it you place an iron gate, before you place your stone block, the iron gate increases the structural strength of the stone block, allowing you to build higher? Some guys used two giant boulders in the Plains as scaffolding and built over 40 stories high. See what others have done and how they did it before just saying it doesn't work.

That's a bug with the iron gates. Another person discovered that iron gates stacked on top of each other can support each other infinitely and continually count as base ground. See here for how to get it to work.

https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/m01m3d/i_present_to_you_the_highest_treehouse_that_ever/

In short, don't rely on iron gates as if it ever gets patched your building will be destroyed.

Originally posted by Saturn:

All in all, very frustrating building mechanics if you want anything more than a wooden shed...

Building doesn't have to do with build height. There are builds constructed on the skybox of the game itself. It has to do with how many pieces each piece can support and it starts counting from the ground level. All those "blue" pieces you see when hovering over them with the hammer out are grounded pieces, pieces directly touching the ground or some stable piece of terrain. You can begin building from those points as if you are on the ground floor, usually up to 5 pieces outward. Connecting lower pieces to higher pieces with beams is a way to minimize the number of pieces counting from a grounded piece to the highest piece you have, and using larger blocks like the 4x2 stone wall is a way to build higher since five walls stacked on top of each other are much taller than five 2x1 walls. The core wood poles are very tall and can aid in construction support while the iron wood ones can support even more pieces attached to them. In short, you need to make your tallest points connected to the ground by the shortest route of touching connected parts. I usually build against a tree or mountain to alleviate this problem as any part of the mountain will again count as ground level and it's very easy to extend a support beam for your walls that will artificially count as a ground level piece for supporting structures.

[KOSOTA]

Building just works fine, and it's one of my favourite things to do in Valheim. When I started it was difficult, but now when I understand how everything works, it is very easy to build large or tall structures without them falling. You just need to use proper materials, like "iron poles" which gives a lot of strength to the structures.

[Ewenomi]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

That's a bug with the iron gates. Another person discovered that iron gates stacked on top of each other can support each other infinitely and continually count as base ground. See here for how to get it to work.

https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/m01m3d/i_present_to_you_the_highest_treehouse_that_ever/

In short, don't rely on iron gates as if it ever gets patched your building will be destroyed.

How do we not know that was a purposely designed bug so that Players could build a 'Gate' way to Vahalla?

[DeLindsay]

If you think construction sucks then either you haven't gotten far enough into the Game to discover superior construction pieces or this isn't the Game for you. Base building in Valheim is vastly superior to Games like Fallout 4 (ease of placement, lack of restrictions, etc) but even the Devs have said they have a lot more coming when it comes to the Content portion, that includes Base building.

[Saturn]

Originally posted by Ewenomi:

Watch some youtube builds. There are methods to increase the integrity system you probably haven't even contemplated. For example, did you know that it you place an iron gate, before you place your stone block, the iron gate increases the structural strength of the stone block, allowing you to build higher? Some guys used two giant boulders in the Plains as scaffolding and built over 40 stories high. See what others have done and how they did it before just saying it doesn't work.

I haven't really done that, no, but I guess my main frustrations are from the fact that none of this is explained very well to players. I've played the game a ton, but from all my own experimentation any stand-alone building always runs into weird bugs where some random piece just won't be placed, despite it being technically supported by several structural things. The whole way that integrity is explained is also not really very useful, since some things that show up as green will break, while some that show up as red won't... I guess that's what it boils down to for me. The building shouldn't need a third-party source to be explained, that should be contained within the game honestly, but I'll consult some videos and see if there's a way to combat the 15-block limit i've run into with a lot of my buildings.

[Specimen197]

Building is fine, you need to pay attention to the colors of each piece you place; then you wont have holes.

[Saturn]

Originally posted by Khloros:

So TBH the best way to build in this game, is to actually go about it like you would IRL.

Find a nice level area and get your foundation down, If you have a stone cutter, a stone foundation is like the best. Then you want to use your strongest material to build your vertical supports. Then build your horizontal beams then lay your floors, then your walls.

That's honestly what I've been doing and it doesn't seem to work consistently for me, which is what led to my post. But I appreciate the suggestions nonetheless, at least you didn't just reply some toxic non-constructive bs like most other replies on this forum ..

[Macdallan]

I can understand if you don't like it. I had some trouble with it at first and thought it wasn't a good system. Once I what I should have been doing that opinion changed and I don't mind the system at all. Could it be better? Yeah. Does it need to be changed? Not really. Does it suck, as you claim in the OP? Certainly not. There's a learning curve and sometimes people get stuck halfway up that curve.

You said you're working on a very large structure, and I haven't done that, so you're probably running into more issues than I ever have. There are some amazing builds you can search, though. Someone even made a 1:1 Valheim version of the Millennium Falcon. Whatever issue you're having it's probably something you can work around if you have the right materials and knowledge. I hope you figure out what you're doing wrong and can finish your build.

As others mentioned they're going to be improving or adding to the building system with the hearth and home update, whenever that's done. Who knows how much more we'll be able to do when it is? :)

[zacharyb]

What are you trying to build exactly?

If it's a second floor and everything around it shows green but it keeps breaking try placing a wall or pillar underneath it so it's actually supported. If it doesn't break at that point and still shows that it's green or yellow then delete the things underneath it and it shouldn't break. I use that trick for second floors and windows.

[Ashley]

Yes the system has limitations but there are ways to learn them.