Tips and Tricks to Survive the Early Game
V Rising recently hit Early Access on Steam and it’s proving to be a real fan favorite with over a million copies sold in the first week. The world of V Rising is cruel and unforgiving, particularly for young vampires fresh from the grave. These tips and tricks should help level the playing field.
What We Do in the Shadows
Vampires are nocturnal creatures, and sunlight tends to ruin their day. The day and night cycle in V Rising demonstrates this with brutal elegance. With standard server settings, each day/night lasts for 18 minutes each. During the night, vamps are free to roam the map causing mischief to their undead heart’s content. During the day, however, it is critical to keep to the shadows. Even a few seconds of exposure can lead to an untimely undeath.
My Home is My Castle
An immediate priority is to stake claim to some prime real estate and start building a Castle. The early game quests help unlock a bunch of new elements for the castle, ranging from a Sawmill for processing lumber through to a Tannery for making leather and a Grinder for turning stone into bricks.
Two things that are extremely helpful in making the Castle more homely is the Mist Brazier and remembering to shut the front door. The Mist Brazier burns bones and generates a suitably atmospheric haze around it, providing your (initially) roofless castle with protection from the Sun. Shutting the front door, meanwhile, stops wandering wildlife, curious poachers or fellow Vampires from wandering into the castle and caving your face in while you’re tidying up the inventory.
Boss Beatdown
There are 15 V Blood bosses in the starting zone of Farbane Woods. Bosses can be tracked using the Blood Altar, pointing you in their general direction.
Each boss has their own distinct move set and abilities. Some of them are particularly challenging, but all can be overcomed with careful use of movement, distance and abilities. Clanmates or random strangers are also very helpful in securing victory. Beat the boss and drain their V Blood to unlock new abilities, structures and recipes.
Power Overwhelming
There’s no XP system in V Rising. Instead, levelling up is achieved by improving your Gear Score. This happens organically through the early stages of the game, with the ongoing quest system providing plenty of opportunities to craft new and improved gear. It removes the grindy feeling, replacing it with a series of tasks that lead to upgraded gear along with new vampiric spells and abilities, castle structures and decorations.
You’ve Got Red on You
Vampires are also well known for their bloodsucking shenanigans. V Rising takes this in an interesting new direction, where absorbing the blood of different enemies provides different bonuses based on their character type and the potency of their blood. Bonuses can affect everything from move speed to crit %, and more powerful blood provides higher tiers of bonus.
The blood reserves drain off slowly, so regular feeding is a must. Run out of blood reserves and your undead body will start consuming itself instead.
Once the Vampiric Ability Blood Mend has been unlocked, blood reserves can also be consumed to activate a channelled heal over time. It heals 4% of total HP per second, which makes it great for topping up health outside of combat. Players can utilize the Vermin Salve as well for a small heal over time effect.
Bad Moon Rising
Blood Moons can occur randomly, and show as a blood red on the clock instead of the usual night-time blue. For one night only, the Blood Moon improves key stats, boosting the effects of the current blood type by 20%, movement speed by 10% and base damage by 20%. This is the best time to hunt more challenging bosses or, if you’ve got the Worker blood type, to go and clean out the mines.
Pimp Your Ride
The greatest time-saving trick in the early game is to get a horse as soon as unhumanly possible. It’s not risk free and will involve pushing into the Dunley Farmlands (a level 30+ region) far to the north of the Farbane Woods.
Use water canteens to keep your nag topped up or they’ll eventually pop their clogs, leaving behind a sad pile of bones and animal hide in their place. A secondary tip is to use autorun when mounted, and steer with the right mouse button, rather than trying to stumble around with WASD.
V Rising is available now on Steam Early Access.
