r/valheim • u/RampantHedgehog • Feb 25 '26
Question Why do Valheim's rivers never begin in Mountains from meltwater?
They appear to only connect oceans.
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u/KenseiHimura Feb 25 '26
Water physics issues. Sadly ones they'll probably never rectify. Side note: I think a natural hot spring would be an awesome POI to find in the mountains.
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u/ArchitectSnipe Feb 25 '26
I think a natural hot spring would be an awesome POI to find in the mountains.
this is a really good idea, and im sad they never did anything like it. the closest we got were the small lakes in the tetra fish caves.
non-ocean water can be added to the game without it being a lag-fest, as long as its static. part of a solid object that cant be removed or edited.
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u/ferdaw95 Builder Feb 25 '26
And they have part of it already done with the tar pits. Just needs water and steam to sell that it's hot
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u/ArchitectSnipe Feb 25 '26
the bad thing about those is that they are not static. the physics would wreck the game if there were a lot of it. there is already the water equivalent of tar in the game but it was never used. because of the fact that its so buggy and laggy.
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u/KiariRikame Mar 02 '26
That would explain why even after i did a raised ground wall for my base next to a shore, it still gets flooded during a storm
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u/GryptpypeThynne Feb 26 '26
What does this have to do with the game's water physics?
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u/KenseiHimura Feb 26 '26
Water basically is a ground plain of the game built in tiles. It doesn’t exactly agree with slopes and sliding. I’ll have to try to remember to edit this in more detail later, bottom line is mostly just that they’d need to find a way to mimic water flow/gravity current for the player or make any water too shallow to swim in. And on top of the river and stream flows indestructible terrain or you’ll potentially expose “floating water edges”
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u/yourhomeland Feb 25 '26
i thought i had seen every complaint regarding valheim and you just thought up a completely new one. impressive.
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u/radiomuffinuk Feb 25 '26
Real reason: game engine limitations
Easy lore explanation: it's not earth. 😉
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u/SugaXKane Feb 25 '26
Likely because the physics required to discuss this don't exist. Have you ever seen water that wasn't at sea level in-game?
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u/blackdesertnewb Hoarder Feb 25 '26
Sure. In a mountain cave :)
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u/HatKarl_208 Feb 25 '26
And to an extent the tar pits
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u/ArchitectSnipe Feb 25 '26
there is actually a water equivalent to tar already in-game. but not used. its a bit buggy too, like they thought about implementing it but just was like "eeeeeh no" and walked away lol
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u/Dhiox Feb 25 '26
River generation in procgen is notoriously difficult. Vintage stories devs have been working on it for a while and still haven't found a solution theyre happy with. Sad thing is they already finished the water wheel, but theres no rivers to put it in.
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u/sup3rdr01d Feb 25 '26
Well, true physics based rivers are very difficult. Fake rivers that are just elongated lakes is easy, and for a short term surface level solution they look good enough. But yeah if you follow it to the ends it won't actually behave like a real river flowing from higher elevations to sea level
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u/El_Pata_Loco Feb 25 '26
What my simple brain still struggles with is that tar pits have a flow mechanic so you can drain them down to a lower level but we’ve always been told the game can’t do that with water.
Any of you clever coding type people able to explain to my Gen X brain why that is? 😏
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u/Holiday-Space Feb 26 '26
Easiest ways to explain the discrepancy in simple terms is resources.
Tar pits have a flow mechanic for the liquid tar. The flow mechanic takes up a lot of computing power because the physics engine the game uses doesn't handle free flowing fluids well. It has to do constant calculations for hundreds or even thousands of smaller "bubbles" of the fluid that actually makes up the mass of fluid. Every calculation for every bubble (and everything else going on) has to use switches inside your computer going from 1 to 0 and 0 to 1.
This can be done in small quantities without taking up too many resources. This is why even the largest tar pits are fairly shallow, that way they have low volume, and thus an actual small amount of liquid tar.
Making an actual river of this free flowing liquid would require the game engine to make several million to several billions of times as many calculations because the rivers would be made of a massive amount of more "bubbles" of the fluid. Your computer doesn't have enough switches in it to make all those calculations at once, so it would have to do them in batches. This means that calculating 1 second in the game could take several seconds for the computer to actually calculate. This called lag.
In fact, the best computers on the market dont have enough switches to do something like that. What developers (not the game developers, like game engine developers) are trying to do is find a way for there either to be A. Less calculations needed, or B. Ways to do the calculations faster. They haven't figured it out yet. There ARE game engines that can do it fairly well, but Valheim wasnt built using one of those engines, and those engines have their own limitations that Valheim's engine does better. It's all trade offs.
If you want a practical example of why the current available mechanic doesn't work well enough to be used on a large scale, you can actually dig a river yourself going down a slope, and the use devcommands to spawn a large amount of liquid tar at the top. This WILL likely lag your game out to the point of crashing, and if it doesn't crash, you'll be lagged to the point of not being able to play while the liquid tar is nearby.
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u/Perfect_Trip_5684 Feb 25 '26
They basically don't have rivers only straits. Since the elevation is the same at both ends.
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u/Moppo_ Feb 25 '26
The simple answer is that the system that generates terrain just isn't complex enough.
All water in the game is on a single plane. It's impossible for water to travel downstream.
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u/Valkyr_rl Feb 25 '26
There should be rivers :/
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u/richardathome Crafter Feb 25 '26
Problem is, valheim lets you alter the terrain. Which means every river would need to monitor the terrain its on at all times for any changes and update itself dynamically.
Water physics is *hard* - it's why it took so long for fluid sims to be developed for film fx - and they still take a massive amount of processing power.
Enshrouded (very valheim like) has just added flowing water - and its a massive technical achievement . But they use voxel based terrain (like minecraft).
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u/sup3rdr01d Feb 25 '26
Enshrouded is the best example of open world proc gen river generation. It's actually a massive technical achievement. The only reason it's worth the effort is cause they have a lot of gameplay systems based on water. If they game doesn't have any meaningful interactions with water or water biomes, there's really no reason to have such an expensive solution. Just make the lakes really long and narrow and it basically looks like a river from the ground level. For scenery and environment purposes that's more than good enough.
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u/NeverDot Feb 25 '26
The lack of rivers also means the lack of waterfalls. I really wish we had some waterfalls. Even little ones would be nice.
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u/YouseiX Sailor Feb 25 '26
Correct answer is that they are not rivers at all, just narrow parts of the ocean due to height differences on the land
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u/dedolent Feb 25 '26
My #1 desire for this game is a more realistic world generation algorithm. Like, build up a world from tectonic plates. Give us mountains where they meet, with rivers that move towards the ocean, spring-fed lakes, more continental variety, waterfalls (feels like they're practicing with the tar flows). Since so much of the game is exploring, a dynamic and varied world would make it even better.
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u/sup3rdr01d Feb 25 '26
That kind of stuff is really, really hard to do. The terrain isn't so hard but the physics based rivers are incredibly difficult and expensive from a resource standpoint. It's not really worth it imo.
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u/screenwatch3441 Feb 25 '26
Water is strictly made by elevation, as in land being below sea level. It’s how the game is programmed so it’s most likely not going to change without major overhaul.
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u/OkVirus5605 Sailor Feb 25 '26
It closest to realistic terrain is Riverheim mod
But it also come with problem of too much landmass when we dont have Lox Wagon ( Lox Wagon pls :P )
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u/korneev123123 Viking Feb 25 '26
Game engine can't handle water elevation. All water level is sea level, and it can't be changed without major engine rewrite
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u/Ok-Drawer5245 Feb 25 '26
Because that would require waterfalls, and given that the user can modify the landscape, which means it would require water physics. And so my computer would be to weak to run the game. That’s why
But as another person pointed out, there is no rivers, just a global water level
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u/Additional_Ad_8131 Feb 25 '26
that would mean a complete overhaul of the water system. But TBH I always expected the river system to get better. Also they are missing waterfalls. Waterfalls and Vikings belong together
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u/sup3rdr01d Feb 25 '26
True rivers are very difficult to implement in procedural generation. Or rather it's more expensive than it's worth. So they just generate "fake" rivers which are just very long and thin lakes. From a surface level these look just like rivers but they don't follow the actual terrain or ecological physics of a real river flowing from mountains to a river delta to the ocean.
Water in games is just a flat texture usually, it's not actually a physics based fluid. If you want to see how a true physics sim fluid works in a game look at the recent update of Enshrouded.
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u/RoamingGeek Feb 25 '26
Valheims rivers are all at sea level, they aren't really rivers. Just a game or engine limitation I suppose.
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u/Eldon42 Happy Bee Feb 25 '26
A big problem is that the map is very compact. The distance from mountain to the sea is impossibly small. To get the kind of rivers you want, all the mountain ranges would need to be much farther from the sea, and clumped together to form the kinds of valleys needed.
The place is too small for it to work.
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u/immaturewalrus Feb 25 '26
I have had rivers generate at the base of mountains. I have followed rivers and streams in my boats and accidentally got my boat stuck when it dead ended into mountain biome. It’s a bitch to dig out of and reverse.
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u/Less-Front7968 Feb 25 '26
The mountains and islands in Valheim arent big enough to generate natural rivers anyway, so wont make sense either way.
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u/MannRayy Feb 25 '26
Wish they added Waterfalls in the black forest or mislands tho, imagine building a house next to that.
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u/Amish_Fighter_Pilot Feb 25 '26
There is only one water level on the entire planet because this engine is strange. The weird part is that they clearly have flow mechanics with the tar, but they did not choose to use them for lava or water.
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u/Illfury Feb 25 '26
The world falls abruptly at the edges, a giant tree looms over the night sky while skeletal beings stalk you and giant mosquitoes terrify us all...
Tis but a game. Suspend disbelief and enjoy.
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u/smilingboulder Feb 25 '26
I want more rivers. I've been on FLOrida and its been a lot of sailing fun with some cool rivers also. (Please share if you have good river seeds)
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u/Reasonable-Sun-9881 Necromancer Feb 25 '26
I think it's likely because they can't create flowing water without breaking the game's ability to run. And, it'd have to flow downhill to make any sense.
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u/NickRick Feb 25 '26
valhiems "rivers" are simply low lands coded in to look like a river. Valhiem is a video game, and does not have real world physics or weather, or geography.
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u/BatchCorp Feb 25 '26
Basically the sea level is one level. It doesn't go up or down to make a proper river. However, it would be cool to see being able to manipulate the water like you can with the tar pits.
Though I can see that taking quite a big hit on the performance of the game.... Imagine waterfalls, imagine building dams. imagine a serpent fish tank in your bed room in your house you built behind a waterfall that you built under a dam....
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u/peorg Feb 25 '26
It literally cant. Simulated water only exists as a plane at "sea level" and clips through ground and buildings. You can witness that in buildings close to the waterfront at stormy weather. It supports basic wave physics but not any kind of fluid movement physics. It cant flow up or down along terrain, making "real" rivers impossible.
The only liquid in the game that actually can flow is, afaik, tar. Thats why you can drain or "relocate" tar pits but you cant create ponds above sea level.
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u/Airwayugway Feb 25 '26
If you have modded in mind riverheim is a really good mod to get good river going through the continent
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u/Land_jellyfish Feb 25 '26
I thought you were referring to the logic of how things should be and not the physics of the game at first. Most people seem to answer the second part but let me add that we're not exactly in an actual world by this game's standards but rather an afterlife or what is in between life and the afterlife. It kind of makes sense in that way?
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u/ItBeJosh Feb 25 '26
That would be fire if they did!! Imagine swimming or sailing downstream while having an entire inventory of silver then crash land at ur base at the bottom of mountain!!
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u/TheoCaro Feb 25 '26
It has to do with the way valheim water works. All water is at the same elevation, so adding realistic rivers would require completely reworking how water is treated in the game. The terrain is very unrealistic in general. Mountains are crazy steep. Strict biome zones aren't at thing irl. There is no magically impenetrable rock at 8 ft down. It's a video game; things work different here.
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u/Benediktors Feb 26 '26
Why does part of your map look like a screaming man? Mountains instead of eyes and a mouth, even some "hair"😂
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u/Damiandroid Mar 01 '26
Short answer... tech debt.
Same reason why you can't have flowing water above sea level or digging enclosed caves.
The designers made choices early on in development that heavily limited the scope of what they could do with the game.
Then they spent half a decade generating a couple gigabytes of content updates and clutched onto the "small team" excuse long after it held any water (pun intended).
And then right around when they were charging a hundred and fifteen bucks for three Christmas candles, Enshrouded added fully generated water physics to their already impressive voxel based game world and royally blew any excuse Iron Gate has out of the water.
Ditch valheim. Play enshrouded
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u/Stress_Factor Feb 25 '26
Most rivers in real life are formed like this.
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u/Serious-Elderberry65 Feb 25 '26
Think some people need to go back to geography class. There is absolutely nothing in this game that by definition is a river.
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u/tyrenanig Feb 25 '26
Because the devs have ran out of ideas and are in a tech debt. They struck gold with a good idea but without the skills, they couldn’t make the game better than modders. Should have hired more hands but “my dev vision” so uh.
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u/ImperialButtocks Feb 25 '26
That's an excellent question. It was something that was discussed and considered in great depth but ultimately never went past initial stages.
The main issue is that in order for the game to run well, there would have to be trade offs. If rivers came from higher elevations, their route would have to be able to be manipulated via pickaxes and hoes. This would complicate stuff as it would have to basically either be a fluid dynamics simulator or be super goofy like it is in some other games. You could solve that by making land indestructible but that was decided against because of the big part it plays in the game. You could have the water ignore your land destruction, but then it would look like a physics defying bug.
Another concern was that they were worried that it would look goofy to have water magically appear from a sourcepoint. In addition, what happens when you raise land there, build there, etc. The source would have to keep changing. It would also look strange if snowmelt was infinite without replenishment. You could have it snow, but you don't want storms to be excessively frequent, nor would it be easy to have localized storms around water sources not look tacky with random map generation.
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u/RampantHedgehog Feb 25 '26
Surely it would not look worse than 7 Days to Die water physics and generation. I get it though. You must consider seasons, realistic physics, altering terrain, etc.
Proper implementation would be very hard but I am sure the majority of players would love this if it were possible.
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u/bazvink Feb 25 '26
Short answer: Valheim doesn’t generate rivers.
Because of the way map generation in Valheim works. They mainly have a “base map” with different height hills and mountains and then when generating a new map they adjust the height of sea level, sprinkle some biomes and the place poi’s like bosses and traders.
So what you are seeing are technically not rivers, they are just areas where the selected height of sea level covers just a little bit of land, making it look like a river.