Movement, Speed & Noise in Valheim: The Numbers Behind Sneaking and Running
Every way you move in Valheim has three numbers attached: a speed, a stamina cost, and a noise value that decides how far away things hear you. Walking makes 15 noise, running makes 30, and sneaking makes none at all — which is the whole reason stealth works. Heavy armour then multiplies your movement penalty, but only on the modes that are not already free. Here is the full table and what it means in practice.
On sourcing. Iron Gate do not publish these values. The figures below come from the community Valheim wiki, and can change with any patch.
The Movement Table
| Mode | Speed | Noise | Gear penalty applies | Stamina/sec |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slow walk (C) | 1.6 m/s | 15 | 1× | 0 |
| Walking | 4 m/s | 15 | 1× | 0 |
| Sneaking | 2 m/s | 0 | 0× | 1.25 – 5 |
| Encumbered | 2 m/s | 15 | 0× | 5 |
| Running | 7 – 8.75 m/s | 30 | 1.5× | 4 – 8 |
| Swimming | 2 m/s | 15 | 0× | 3 – 6 |
Three things in that table change how you play.
Running takes the gear penalty at 1.5×. A 20% armour speed penalty reduces walking to 3.2 m/s but running to 4.9 m/s — so heavy armour costs you far more when running than when walking. The heavier you are, the smaller the gap between walking and running becomes.
Sneaking and swimming ignore the gear penalty entirely. Plate armour does not slow your sneak. That makes stealth approaches viable in the heaviest gear you own — a genuinely useful and little-known fact.
Running skill matters more than it looks: the range 7 to 8.75 m/s is a 25% speed difference earned purely by running, and the stamina cost halves across the same range.
Noise, and Who Hears It
Noise in Valheim is measured directly in metres. "A player that creates 40 noise will attract creatures from 40 meters away."
Three rules govern it:
- Noise does not stack — "instead the highest value is used." Doing two loud things at once is no louder than the louder one.
- Noise decays at 4 per second.
- Noise follows the player or creature that made it.
And a detail that surprises people: players cannot hear noise. "Players cannot detect noise as it is not related to in-game sounds." What you hear through your speakers and what the noise system is doing are unrelated.
Crucially, hearing never alerts a creature — it only makes it choose you as a target and come looking. Alerting requires sight.
What Creatures Can See
Most creatures see 30 metres with a 90-degree cone and become alerted at 20 metres. The exceptions are what matter:
| Creature | Sight | Alert |
|---|---|---|
| Lox | 15 | 6 |
| Boar, Neck | 20 | 6 |
| Deer | 25 | 25 |
| Draugr, Draugr elite | — | 10 |
| Blob, Oozer, Yagluth | — | 30 |
| Drake, Wraith | 40 | 30 |
| Eikthyr | 40 | 40 |
| Serpent | 50, 360° | 20 |
| Bonemass | 50, 80° | 50 |
| The Elder | 50 | 50 |
| Moder | 60 | 60 |
Two entries deserve attention. Leeches and Serpents have a 360-degree view angle — there is no behind them. And Deer alert at 25 metres, further than most predators, which is why they bolt before you are anywhere near bow range.
Stealth works by shrinking both numbers. "Stealth reduces a creature's alert and view range based on the visibility bar" — and for a crouching player, the line-of-sight check uses the player's centre rather than their eyes, so low cover works better than it looks.
And alerted creatures lose their blind spot entirely: "Alerted creatures have full field of view and can see behind their backs." Once it knows you are there, flanking does nothing.
Turning, Acceleration and Water
Turn speed is 300 degrees per second on land — and 100 while swimming. That threefold reduction is why serpent encounters feel so helpless: you cannot turn to face them at anything like normal speed.
Acceleration is quick on land and slow in water:
- Maximum walking speed in about 0.2 seconds, running in about 0.4.
- Swimming reaches 72% in half a second, 92% in one second, 99% in two.
Running through shallow water is heavily penalised. At 0.4 metres depth or more, running speed is reduced 67% of the way back towards walking speed — about 5 m/s with no skill and no armour penalty. Shorelines and marsh are slower than they look.
Two more movement facts worth knowing:
- Knockback moves you at a fixed 10 m/s, overwriting existing movement in that direction.
- The Frost effect slows movement by up to 90%, wearing off gradually — averaging about a 65% reduction over its duration.
Practical tips
- Sneaking makes zero noise; everything else makes 15, running makes 30.
- Noise is a distance in metres, does not stack, and decays 4 per second.
- Hearing never alerts a creature — only sight does.
- Sneaking and swimming ignore the armour speed penalty entirely.
- Running takes the gear penalty at 1.5× — heavy armour costs you most when running.
- Serpents and Leeches see 360°. Moder sees 60 m. Deer alert at 25 m.
- Alerted creatures can see behind themselves.
- Turn speed drops from 300°/sec to 100°/sec while swimming.
Running your own Valheim server
Movement and detection are per-player systems, but the routes, shortcuts and safe approaches a group learns are shared knowledge that only accumulates on a world everyone returns to. A gamever Valheim server keeps that world online around the clock for up to 10 players, takes one-click backups, and updates automatically so client and server versions never drift apart.
Conclusion
Valheim attaches a speed, a stamina cost and a noise value to every movement mode. Walking is 4 m/s at 15 noise and no stamina; running is 7–8.75 m/s at 30 noise and 4–8 stamina; sneaking is 2 m/s at zero noise. Sneaking and swimming ignore the armour speed penalty, while running takes it at 1.5× — so heavy gear costs you most in exactly the mode you use to escape. Noise is measured in metres, does not stack, decays at 4 per second, and never alerts a creature by itself — only sight does that, and most creatures see 30 metres in a 90-degree cone, alerting at 20. The outliers run from Boars alerting at 6 metres to Moder seeing 60, with Serpents and Leeches watching a full 360 degrees. And once alerted, a creature can see behind itself, so flanking stops working the moment it notices you.
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