TL;DR; Want less essay and more picture book?
I run and I've been collecting a little bit of data as folks have been generating seeds these past couple of months. I wanted to share some of the top seeds from 1.5 million world generations
Top 10 Most Searched Seeds
These seeds have all been searched thousands of times. Most of them are from articles that show up in google searches for "Best valheim seeds" and similar.
| Seed | Number of Times Generated | How good is it really?1 |
|---|---|---|
| 30205 | Top 13% of seeds | |
| 13772 | Top 61% of seeds | |
| 8065 | Top 40% of seeds | |
| 5361 | Top 50% of seeds | |
| 5145 | Top 88% of seeds | |
| 4123 | Top 61% of seeds | |
| 4873 | Top 90% of seeds2 | |
| 4724 | Top 71% of seeds | |
| 4029 | Top 90% of seeds | |
| 4006 | Top 65% of seeds |
- This was evaluated by how close the bosses were to spawn on average compared to the other million seeds. Lower numbers are better. (Evaluated at version 1.150.3)
- In this case saying something is in the top 90% is equivalent to saying something is in the bottom 10% (aka really bad)
Top 5 Closest Boss & Trader Seeds
These aren't exactly the best possible seeds, but they are the seeds which require the least amount of travel to go to the closest of each boss. The World Version is important since worlds generated in different versions may have bosses in different locations. (Note that v0.150.3 is equivalent to v0.153.2)
| Seed + Version | Average Boss Distance from Spawn |
|---|---|
| 1483 | |
| 1538 | |
| 1538 | |
| 1545 | |
| 1555 |
Sadly this doesn't take into account land pathing vs. water, so while these are all very close they usually involve sailing.
Top 5 Furthest Boss & Trader Seeds
Again, these aren't the worst possible seeds, but they are the seeds which require the max amount possible of travel to the various bosses. Definitely gives you the opportunity to really enjoy that sailing experience.
| Seed + Version | Average Boss (& Trader) Distance from Spawn |
|---|---|
| 4816 | |
| 4815 | |
| 4788 | |
| 4762 | |
| 4745 |
Personally I'm partial to #2 dsaij3242R, that's quite a lot of sailing! I was surprised to see "5biomes" on this list.
Highest number of maypoles
Out of 1.5 million seed generations, there are two that have 6 maypoles. Note that the version you generate the world in is critical and there is only a single seed so far recorded that has 6 maypoles in the latest Valheim version!
| Seed + Version | Maypole Count |
|---|---|
| 6 | |
| 6 | |
| 5 | |
| 5 | |
| 5 |
There are ~15ish other distinct seeds with 5 maypoles, and then its down to 4. Wondering what a maypole is?
Tallest Mountain
Valheim's generation algorithm samples an "infinite" plain of noise to generate the terrain. Cool right? Except the possible generation coordinates are actually in a very small area so it turns out that all possible maps are in a very small area. This means that there's very little variation as far as tallest mountain, most land, most water. Still here are some seeds that contain the "tallest" mountain. (Not including generated stones, towers, etc.) To date Valheim has not made any changes to land generation over time so world version isn't important here (yet).
| Seed | Mountain Height | Coordinates |
|---|---|---|
| 506.75 | (1596, 7596) | |
| 506.33 | (4332, 8148) | |
| 504.3 | (5436, 7716) | |
| 503.96 | (708, 8580) | |
| 503.4 | (564, 8532) |
Once again the low variance in Valheim terrain shows itself. The average tallest mountain point is about ~427. Still, the flattest maps have a peak of only ~300.
Most Land vs. Most Water
Again there is very little variation in land. Out of 1.5 million seeds, the seeds with the smallest amount of land are about 20.7% land, and the seeds with the highest amount of land have about 24.4% land. So at most any given seed will vary ~4% from any other seed.
| Seed | Percent Land | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 24.401% | #1 Most Land | |
| 24.38% | #2 Most Land | |
| 20.739% | #1 Most Water | |
| 20.743% | #2 Most Water |
About
is my unofficial, fan made site which allows folks to instantly see their entire map without even needing to load Valheim. It can display dozens of useful locations such as:
- Locations of bosses
- Potential locations of the trader
- "Boss Stones" (Vegvisir) which point the way to the Boss
- Dungeons
- Maypoles
- Leviathans
- And much More!
For folks looking for something a little more role-play friendly the terrain can be hidden using the "Fogged" layer and only the pins they're ready to reveal can be selected.
Introducing Lobbies!
For folks playing together it can be hard to collaborate and plan in Valheim given that there currently isn't a map table or any way to share pins (without mods). Using a lobby in you can collaborate with any number of other players on a single map. Lobbies can be shared in "edit" mode for collaborators, or in "view" mode for folks you'd rather just look.
Add Custom Pins
Cross Off Existing Pins
Share your world =)
A quick FAQ
Q: What data was actually collected?
I only collect a very tiny amount of data on generated seeds, and only seeds which at least generate the bosses and trader. On those seeds I collect the closest-to-spawn position of all bosses+trader along with the % of land, the highest point, and the maypole count (only if the user generated maypoles).
Q: Help, when I use your site the terrain is wrong!
When your terrain is wrong that's because your seed isn't right for some reason. The best thing to do is to use the seed extractor
Q: Help, when I use your site a Maypole (or other location) is missing/misplaced!
Likely you have selected the wrong world version. Remember your world version is the version of the game your world was first created in!
Q: What's next for ?
Next up I'll be fleshing out the "download" feature to provide a new way to download generated maps. This new way will allow users "raw" access to the heightmap, location positions, biome map, etc. This could allow other interested folks to do their own detailed analysis. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/ncaic2/generating_15_million_valheim_seeds/
