Valheim Terraforming for Dummies

All I have learned on how to flatten ground effectively in Valheim.

Hoe 101: Understanding the Tool

If you see a vertical line at the center, the terrain at the location is lower than the one you are standing on.
If parts of the circle do appear, the terrain at those locations is higher than the one you are standing on.
Start by leveling the terrain you are standing on and note how the leveled terrain is square, not circular. If you build along these lines, you'll avoid ragged edges alone terrain elevation changes.

Getting Started

After you found the direction of the terrain by doing an initial flattening, dig down a little bit to get the terrain level. Alternatively, raise the terrain. Notice: there's a limit to how far down you can dig. I believe the limit is 20m.
When you dig, you dig sections of 2m by 2m, even though the terrain grid is smaller than that.
You can use poles and floors from the location you dug to find the ideal starting height for leveling.
Make sure the starting location is leveled.
Using a floor helps make sure you are leveling the terrain around you to the right height. Remember Hoe 101: if the circle lines are not appearing, the terrain at those points is higher than the one you are standing on.
Remember from Hoe 101: if there's a vertical line at the center, then that terrain is lower than where you are standing.

Flattening an Area

The maximum distance you can aim the hoe is 7m (the signs are placed confusingly every 2m -- sorry about that).
Also note the ideal height for poles and floors. If you place vertical poles directly on the ground they'll go too low and cause issues for floors.
Use poles as a guideline for terrain that needs flattening. It's more effective than floors because you can see where they are too high or too low, and aim at the terrain.
If the vertical line is still showing after you have leveled a couple of times, you need to raise the ground at that location.
Beware that raising the ground often raises it too much, and may also raise the surrounding terrain. So always back away to a location you can see it's at the right height, then level again from there.
If, on the other hand, the terrain remains too high after leveling, you'll need to use the pickaxe on it. You get the pickaxe after the first boss. Beware that digging down may lower the terrain too much. Digging terrain in front of you instead of below you may cause it to collapse around, raising the ground you are standing on. Use the poles to keep track of the right elevation, and good building!

[MyChemicalPichu😊😊😊]

i have a bug where a huge hole keeps appearring and sometimes being normal, or sometimes it inverts upwards,

[Prison Mike]

nice

[Dan]

To everyone complaining about formatting: I agree! I could not figure out how to align the images the way I wanted.

[Mr_Chode]

f, nice

[Stixx]

this is a very great guide me and my friends keep sharing this one in our communty.
thx for making it and keep up the great work

[Arasa]

A fun tip i learned is that holding shift changes the hoe action from "Increase/decrease to my current elevation" to "increase/decrease to the center of the circle I'm hoeing"

[uniquegamer25]

Thank you for the info:. Often times it takes a moment to get used to certain tools in the game you've made it easier.

[Varlotto]

IF YOU WANT TO REMOVE DIRT THAT ISN'T GOING AWAY GET THE PICKAXE IT CAN BREAK THE ROCKDIRT THAT'S NOT REMOVED BY HOE it's hard to read the guide and i didn't check to see if pickaxe was even brought up in this

[itsmylesfr]

Good guide, and the problem isn't your guide it's the feature. Hoping they smooth out this feature in the future and building as a whole, some objects are really odd acting when placed together and a lot of walls like to float but won't let you place one under them, making you have to raise the ground in awkward ways. This game is great but the building features need to be shown some love and fixed.

[You Touch My Tralala]

Great guide. Needs some work on the formatting. It did take me a bit to figure out how the hoe worked, but now I confirmed that I was right.