Vampire crafting survival game V Rising is better played with other people. I don’t say that lightly. I prefer playing games alone, and even I recognize it’s better with at least one other person. So, that means you have to set up a server.
When I say “set up a server” I mean setting up someone’s client to act as a host. You can certainly rent a dedicated server or, I suppose, just have a dedicated server running, but those things cost money. A dedicated server has the benefit of running constantly, allowing others to log in and out whenever they feel like without relying on the host to be available. These settings still apply when you rent or host a dedicated server, but I just wanted to stress that there is a difference.
However, if everyone’s all right with playing at the same time as the host, you can just create a private game. When you create a private game, the world you’re hosting is only available when you’re online and logged into the game. It’s also reliant on your computer’s hardware, which is something to take into consideration. A lot of players building a bunch of castles everywhere is going to be extremely taxing on your performance, so if you’re running an older rig, maybe aim low.
To make a long story short, just pick the “Normal” preset for the default recommended settings.
There are three presets for private games: Relaxed, Normal, or Brutal. Relaxed is good if you don’t want you or your players to lose. If you just want to experience powerful dominion over the game’s world, that’s what you want. Normal will present some challenge and is what I recommend as the default experience. Brutal will make the world much more dangerous, so maybe only choose that once you and your friends have more experience under your belts.
Otherwise, you can tweak all the settings yourself by going to “Advanced game settings” under those options. In fact, I’d invariably suggest you go to advanced game settings anytime you set up a server, as it gives a lot more options.
As a note, you can change server settings after setup, but it requires that you edit a config file using a text editor. Unless you’re confident with doing so, you may want to consider your options carefully before launching.
General server settings
The most obvious options you need to consider when setting up a new server are player count, clan size, and global chat.
Before this however, consider the LAN option. LAN (local area network) is useful if everyone you’re playing with is in the same house under the same network (or using a virtual LAN). If you’re not accepting anyone from the internet, and everyone is connected to the same router or wireless hotspot, then you can use this to reduce latency.
Likewise, if you’re playing alone, you can just check off solo and have the world to yourself.
The player count and clan size are going to depend on your group, though you will want to consider your hardware when choosing player count. The more players, the harder it will be on your performance. You may not even want clans if you know everyone in your group, but if you’re allowing outsiders from the internet, then you’ll maybe want them to be able to create their own clans.
Finally, Global Chat enables everyone on your server to talk to one another. If this is disabled, you can only speak to players in your vicinity or in your clan.
World settings
World settings in V Rising affect the environment you play in. These include things like how long the days and nights last and what drops happen.
You mostly need to consider what kind of pace you want your game to move at. I’d generally recommend leaving the “Day Time Length” – the overall length of the day – to medium or higher, as shorter days feel far too brief to me when it comes to allowing exploration.
“Day Length,” on the other hand, dictates the percentage of the day that the sun is up. If you shorten this, nights will dominate, and you’ll have more time to move about the world freely. For the sake of immersion, I usually leave this on default. If you prefer to be all-powerful, then a shorter day is more in line with your goals.
PvP or PvE
One thing to consider when setting up your server is whether you want players to be able to harm each other. PvP (or player versus player) will allow others on your server to create clans and wage war against anyone else who logs in. PvE (player versus enemy) only allows players to attack NPCs in the environment.
Obviously, which you choose will be based on your group’s dynamic and if you’re allowing strangers.
You can turn PvP on and off completely in the third tab of the advanced game options. However, you can also tweak it to only happen on certain days of the (in-game) week. You can also choose if players can be looted once defeating, and if castles can be attacked. If you leave Castle Raids off, then players at least have a safe haven.
Progression
Most of the other advanced server options in V Rising relate to how quickly you can accomplish things or how powerful you start off as or become.
This means you can tweak yields from resource nodes and make it so that you get more when you collect. This also goes for blood yield, which is a separate option. Alternatively, you can set it so that building and crafting use fewer resources. Either way, this means you can get through the game faster. You can also change inventory stack sizes so each player can carry more.
Likewise, you can change how much health a player has, how much damage they do, and how quickly durability is lost in armor and weapons. This directly affects difficulty.
There are also options for castles, including how big they can be and how much territory they get for each tier. While this also affects progression, you may want to also consider the power of your hardware. If you just max out the floors and territory so player can create the grandest castles possible, you may find performance drops significantly once everything is built.
Finally, you can change the starting level, equipment, and resources. If you don’t want to start a new game from scratch, you can turn these up to skip all the early phases of progression. Otherwise, leave them at default so that you have to build your way up as normal.
Selecting a prebuilt ruleset
If this is too much to consider, you may want to use a ruleset when you start a server in V Rising. These are buttons at the bottom of the advanced game settings screen.
V Rising comes with a number of pre-defined rulesets. Mainly, these are for PvP, as it gives a number of options for how to balance it to certain situations. However, there are also settings for starting PvE at various levels.
If you have a ruleset that you really enjoy using and don’t want to have to set it up each time you create a new server, you can save your advanced settings with the “Save New Ruleset” button at the bottom of the advanced options.
