Valheim late joiners: onboarding a new player to an old world

A new player joining a Valheim world where the group has already killed five bosses starts with nothing in their pockets and level 0 in every skill, but walks into a world that behaves as if they had done everything. The world keys are already set, so raids are drawn from the late-game table, and the base next door is full of Black Metal. That mismatch is the whole problem. The fix is a short plan: decide how much the group gives them, give them a safe place to start that is not in the path of late-game raids, and agree the kit rules before anyone opens a chest. With that in place, a newcomer can catch up to the group in a few evenings rather than being carried through a game they never really played - or quitting in the first week.

This post assumes the server is already running. If it is not, the Valheim dedicated server guide covers setup; boss progression on shared servers explains the world keys in more depth than is needed here.

What a late joiner actually inherits#

Valheim splits progress into two places, and a newcomer gets one and not the other.

The left column is shared and already at the end of the game. The right column is the newcomer's own and starts empty. Characters are stored on each player's own machine, in characters_local, not on the server - the savedir and file locations guide shows exactly where. Two consequences matter for onboarding.

First, recipes are learnt per character by picking up materials. A new player standing in a base full of iron will not see the iron mace on their workbench until they have held iron themselves. Handing them one bar is enough to unlock the recipes that need it, which is a quick way to show them what exists.

Second, the map is per character too. They will arrive with a black map in a world everyone else has charted. A cartography table in the main base fixes this in one click: everyone who has used it writes their exploration to it, and the newcomer reads it back. If your world uses the nomap key, there is no map at all and this step does not apply.

A third thing to know: a player can arrive with a character from another world. Nothing in vanilla stops a fresh face showing up in full Padded armour carried over from their own single-player save. That is not cheating as far as the game is concerned, and the group has to decide whether it is acceptable - covered below under kit rules.

The raid problem, and the one setting that fixes it#

Raids are what make a late-game world dangerous for a beginner. In the default rules, which raids can happen is decided by the world's keys, and a raid is aimed at a player who is in or near a base. A newcomer who builds a little hut in the Meadows on their first night is a valid target, and with Yagluth and the Queen dead, the table includes raids that will kill a character in starter clothes in seconds.

There are three ways to handle this, and they are not exclusive:

• Do not let them build alone at first. A raid needs a base nearby. A player who sleeps in the main base, which has defences and a group, is far safer than one in a lone hut.
• Switch to per-player raids. The playerevents world key, set with -setkey playerevents at launch, makes raids scale to each player's own progress instead of the world's. A newcomer who has killed nothing draws early raids; the veterans keep drawing late ones. This is the right setting for almost any server that takes on new players over time, and it can be added to an existing world with a restart.
• Lower raids for everyone. -modifier raids less or muchless reduces how often raids happen. It helps, but the raids that do come are still the late ones, so it is weaker than playerevents for this purpose.

# Added to the existing launch line (or the Startup tab) and restarted-setkey playerevents

How raids are picked, and what each boss key enables, is the subject of raids and events on Valheim servers. Turning on playerevents does not reset anyone's progress and does not remove any building; it only changes which raid table a target player is judged by. World modifiers in general are covered in Valheim world modifiers and presets.

Choosing how much to carry them#

Every group lands on one of three approaches. It is worth saying out loud which one you are using, because the arguments come from people assuming different ones.

1. Fully carried. The group hands over a full set of current gear, food and a portal to the endgame base. The newcomer skips straight to playing alongside everyone. Fastest, but their skills are at zero, so they hit like a child with the best sword in the game, and many players find this unsatisfying within an hour.
2. Guided catch-up. The newcomer plays the early biomes themselves, with help: a starter kit, a guide for the first boss or two, materials from the group's surplus, and an escort through the dangerous parts. This is what most groups end up wanting.
3. Fully independent. The newcomer plays from scratch with no handouts, often in a separate area of the map. Suits people who joined specifically to play the game; works well with playerevents.

The guided route is the one this post is built around. It respects that Valheim's early game is worth playing, and it takes roughly as long as the newcomer wants it to.

Bosses deserve a note of their own. A boss that is already dead can be summoned again - altars still accept offerings - so a newcomer can fight Eikthyr and the Elder themselves. The world key is already set and nothing changes in the world, but they get the trophy, the drop and the fight. The summoning items for each boss are in the table in the boss progression post. Note that creatures and bosses gain health when more players are nearby, so a newcomer fighting Eikthyr with four veterans standing around is fighting a tougher Eikthyr; let them fight with one or two helpers, not the whole group.

A safe starter area and a guided route#

On a long-lived world the starter area is usually picked clean. Copper near the spawn has been mined out, the nearest crypts have been looted, and the trees around the main base are gone. That is fine for veterans and a dead end for a newcomer. Before they arrive, spend twenty minutes setting up:

• A starter hut near the main base, inside its defences or close enough that a raid aimed at the newcomer is fought by the group. A bed, a fire, a workbench, a chest with the starter kit.
• A portal to an unspoiled Meadows or Black Forest area. Older worlds often have fresh copper and tin a short sail away. A portal there lets the newcomer play the early game in a part of the world that has not been stripped.
• Map pins for the essentials. Their own map is blank until the cartography table, so the table is the first thing they should use. Pin the trader, the boss altars, a known copper deposit and a crypt nobody has emptied.
• Portal labels that make sense to a stranger. A portal hub with tags like hub2b is meaningless to someone on their first night. Rename the ones they will use. Portal rules and teleport restrictions has the detail on tags.

A guided route then looks roughly like this, and can be shortened at any point the newcomer wants:

1. Evening one: Meadows and Eikthyr. Basic tools, a few deer trophies, the first boss with one helper. They unlock the Antler pickaxe and can mine copper.
2. Evening two: Black Forest. Copper and tin from the fresh area, Bronze gear, the Elder with a helper. The Elder drops the Swamp key that opens sunken crypts, so they leave with their own.
3. Evening three onward: Swamp, Mountains, Plains. The group escorts iron runs and silver runs, or shares surplus. Each boss fight is optional; the gear is what matters.

The point is not to make them do everything. The point is that each step teaches them something they will need when they are standing next to the group in the Mistlands.

Catching up skills#

Skills are the slow part. Gear can be handed over in seconds, skills cannot. A few things speed it up without cheats:

• Skills rise fastest at low levels. The experience needed for each level grows as the level rises, so a newcomer's first few levels in a weapon come quickly, and the gap to the veterans narrows faster than the raw numbers suggest.
• Stay Rested. The Rested buff, from sitting near a fire and shelter, also speeds up skill gain. A newcomer should leave the base Rested every time.
• Use the skill you want to raise. Valheim raises each skill by using it: running raises Run, jumping raises Jump, hitting things with a sword raises Swords. Pick one weapon type and stick with it.
• Low death penalty while learning. The death penalty drains skills on death. If your world runs -modifier deathpenalty hard or hardcore, a beginner dying repeatedly in the Swamp is a miserable loop. Consider lowering it for the whole world, or at least agreeing that the group recovers tombstones for them.

What does not work on a vanilla dedicated server is raising skills by command. raiseskill is a devcommand, and devcommands do not run on a vanilla dedicated server even for admins. With the ServerDevcommands mod by JereKuusela an admin can use it, but think hard before you do: a newcomer with level 70 Swords on their first night has been carried in the most hollow way possible. Devcommands explained covers what each command costs on a shared world.

Kit rules: what the group gives and what it does not#

Most friction with late joiners is about gear, not skills. A clear, short rule set avoids it. Write it in the group's chat or on a sign next to the starter chest.

Food deserves its own line. In Valheim, health and stamina come mostly from food, not from levels. A newcomer eating three late-game dishes has several times the health they would have on Meadows food, which matters more for survival than armour. Feeding them from the group's stores is the single most effective thing veterans can do, and it costs the group very little.

On imported characters, there is no server-side switch in vanilla to block them. Characters live on the client, so the only enforcement is the group's agreement - or a server-side character mod, which changes how the server treats character data and has its own trade-offs. For a group of friends, the agreement is enough.

Admin setup before they connect#

The server side of onboarding is small, but it is worth doing before the newcomer turns up rather than while they wait.

• Allow list. If the server uses permittedlist.txt, their ID has to be in it before they can connect. On a crossplay server that means the platform-prefixed ID, such as Steam_76561198012345678 or an Xbox_ ID. The easiest way to get the exact form is to let them try once and read it from the log; the list files guide covers the format.
• Version and mods. They need the same game version as the server. If the server runs BepInEx mods that must be on clients, they need the same mods at the same versions, which on a modded server is the most common reason a first join fails. An r2modman profile code is the quickest way to hand over the exact set - see Thunderstore and r2modman for groups.
• How to join. Give them the address and password, or, on a crossplay server, tell them where to find the join code, which changes on every restart. Failed to connect errors covers what goes wrong on the first attempt.
• Wards. If the group's bases are warded, add the newcomer to the wards on shared buildings, or they will not be able to open chests or use doors. Wards and griefing has the detail.

On RE:NODE, the allow list and the other list files sit in the server's folder and open in the in-browser file manager, so adding an ID is an edit and a save; the files are re-read while the server runs. The Startup tab is where -setkey playerevents goes if you are adding it to an existing world. Take a backup before you change world keys or modifiers - backup slots come with every plan, and restoring is one button.

When a newcomer is not enjoying it#

Some late joiners bounce off a mature world regardless of how well the group prepares. Common reasons and what helps:

• The group is always in the Ashlands and they are alone in the Swamp. Schedule one evening a week where veterans play with them at their level. Valheim is a co-operative game; a newcomer who plays alone for a month is playing single-player on a slower connection.
• They feel the world is someone else's. Give them a building plot near the main base that is theirs to design, and a project the group needs - a farm, a dock, a better portal hub. Ownership of something in the world changes how a newcomer feels about it.
• The difficulty is too high. If the world runs hard modifiers chosen by veterans, consider easing combat for everyone for a while. Modifiers can be changed with a restart and progress is untouched.
• The world is the problem. Sometimes the honest answer is that a long-lived world is exhausted near the spawn and too far along for a group that keeps adding people. A fresh world, with characters carried over by those who want to, is a legitimate choice - see resetting a Valheim world while keeping characters.

FAQ#

Does a new player get credit for bosses the group already killed?

The world does: global keys are set once, so raids and boss-dependent trader stock already reflect the kills. The character does not get the trophy, the drop or the power stone unlock unless someone gives them the items or they fight the boss themselves, which they can because altars still work.

Can a new player use the Forsaken powers the group already unlocked?

Yes, if the trophies are already hung on the sacrificial stones at the spawn. Powers are chosen at those stones, and any player can select one there once the trophy is in place. The cooldown is per player.

Should we just give them the best gear?

Usually not all at once. With zero skills the best gear helps less than people expect, and skipping every biome tends to make the game feel empty. A kit one tier above their current biome, plus shared food, is the common middle ground.

Will playerevents make raids easier for the veterans too?

No. Each target player is judged by their own progress, so veterans who have killed late bosses still draw late raids. It only changes things for players who have not reached those bosses themselves.

Can a player bring a character from another world?

Yes. Characters are stored on the player's machine and work on any server, inventory included. Vanilla has no switch to stop it; agree a rule as a group if it matters to you.