disappointed with the magical direction

[bacon]

valheim exists in a fantasy universe; there's a giant tree branch in the sky and you start the game being carried by a giant bird woman, after all. but at its core, it's an intuitive and fairly realistic survival game. gather resources, build shelter, eat good food and perform better, explore, fight, improve. work up through a tech tree that somewhat parallels human history: hunter gatherer, bronze, iron, textiles, etc.

magic introduces arbitrary and non-intuitive design. find the mcguffin and put it in the other mcguffin to craft the mcguffin item. the design becomes unbound, no longer grounded in any real allegory. cooking food in a cauldron, being able to craft different things with hard vs regular wood, weaving linen, etc. are all real things that have intuitive benefit to a survivor.

like the devs said in the rock paper scissors video, magic is "just ranged with particle effects." the look of the mistlands is now glaring and cartoony instead of understated and immersive. people already used to complain about the draugr fang glow, which looks like nothing now compared to the garish purples, blues, and oranges from the trailer footage we've seen.

i will give grimmcore credit for telegraphing for a few weeks now that people will either "love or hate" the direction. they knew this was a departure from the spirit of the existing game, in both concept and art direction. like everyone else who waited this long, i will play it, but i feel let down.

i also think it doesnt make sense from a progression perspective to introduce an entirely new mechanic in the 6th and now final biome. magic, just like other aspects, like cooking, mining, archery, melee, building, sailing, etc. magic needs to be brought along slowly, teased out. now, theres no magic for 5 biomes, and then suddenly the 6th biome is overly geared towards magic. seems forced and artificial. they should have introduced some minor magic elements in the earlier biomes to build up the player first. it shouldnt be that hard to back-fill a few earlier eitr foods and entry-level staves in blackforest, swamps, mountains, and plains, to teach and develop the player, including the supporting passive skill bars.

"more of the same" isnt a bad thing when the game is so good. wasn't looking for this new direction at all, and it doesnt bode well for ashlands and deep north, which will likely have to follow the magic direction to support the usual power creep in biomes.

edit: restatement for people newer to this thread:

1. realism: valheim previously had a fairly realistic and logical tech progression following ancient human development. hunter gatherer, then metal working, etc. "mana-fueled fireballs omg" is not a realistic tech progression that occurs after weaving linen in plains. giant colored particle effects are not consistent with the immersive forests and waterways that make the game feel like camping and surviving in a strange land. nor are autonomous security ballistas.

2. "spellcasting" vs "magic": i probably should have focused more on the term "spellcasting" rather than "magic," as many people seem to believe anything fictional is magic, and therefore "anything goes." terminology aside, it's clear the devs have admitted this is a different direction that is NOT consistent with previous design. they have said so themselves. maybe you like the new direction, but you cant claim it isnt new.

3. power creep: mistlands is another example of missed opportunities for sidegrades and will create more forced obsolescence. "just skip magic" doesnt work when the game becomes balanced to assume you will take advantage of the next tier of equipment. i would include feather cape in this. i was looking forward to feather cape NOT having frost resistance so you have to make the choice whether you want frost or feather falling. but now that cape completely obsoletes all others. throw your old gear out, it is sub-optimal no matter your play style.

4. man vs nature: you are basically born into the world naked and homeless, and need to explore and use your human cunning to rise above the (super) natural world. taking on a lightning stag with just a flint spear makes you feel like an underdog who has risen to the occasion. wielding those same elemental powers makes it feel like you are being tainted by the very world you are seeking to conquer, hence why magic requires you to kill and harvest NPC flesh.

[kerestyche]

Fully agree with OP. Afraid that Valheim is to lose it's unique atmosphere... kinda saw it coming when devs started adding "cool" things despite breaking the spirit which the originally released game had.
Nothing lasts forever, I guess.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by kerestyche:

kinda saw it coming when devs started adding "cool" things despite breaking the spirit which the originally released game had.

Like "Eyescream"?

[Mjarr]

Originally posted by MOKA:

agreed, not a fan of magic ether how one can just pull it out of his a__, and if its true that they are aiming for true official multiplayer magic is going to be really damageing for pvp and progression balance.

1. PvP is\was more of lolafterthought that you can do than having anything resembling anything related to balance.
1a. even outright "kusoges" of fighting games have probably better PvP balance than Valheim does in its current state. I do not say that lightly.
1b. As far as magic implementation is concerned, it is basically combination of mistlands-tier gated content how you can do even some magic in the first place and that's that.

That being said, I do agree a bit that the way magic is done is handled is in a way, lazy. It is basically just having an idea but turning it into unityjank-tier interpretation relative to this and that. Do this and that and now you have basically ghetto-assault rifle in something that tried to at least have 0.0001% bit more rooting relation to its source material? Yes, it stands out quite a bit relative to the other content.

But then again if we are getting completely pedantic, considering Valheim as a game somehow "authentic" folklore and historical experience makes as much as sense as considering Wolfenstein is authentic academic history of WW2. It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fanfiction fantasy. Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions but "muh history" is really, really, really questionable argument to hang on for a game that starts leaking than entire old bluewater navy in ye olde sail days once you hit mountains or plains.

Once again looping back to earlier post, I was expecting some kind of magic to take place in players hand sooner or later, and I can understand what they went with mistlands, but the way it comes across as lazy unity assetswap in a major update... definitely making it just odd to say the least.

[Forcedge]

I mean there's plenty of characters from norse mythology that have magic. Thor literally shoots lightning out of his hammer. If you played GoW Ragnarok literally everybody in the game has magic.

I don't think magic was ever an issue, I think the spellcaster thing is the issue. They are turning vikings into spellcasters instead of the berserkers we all want to be.

However with closer look at the patch notes I'm seeing a new greatsword recipe along with other weapons and heavy armor. I think we are jumping to conclusions too fast

[UncleAcidic]

"if you take a step back and look at what is going on, Odin cut off this branch a long time ago. it's (Valheim) not close to the Yggdrasil tree anymore, it's far out in space or somewhere so the vikings that come here should be progressing in a different way and probably not turning out like vikings in the end. they should be more like, godlike creatures. it's supposed to be your epic saga that vikings at home in midgard would tell about."

this is an almost direct quote from Grimcore when he was asked by Jade PG in a stream interview about the difference in feel for mistlands and the new magic system.
there's a bit more context so here's the video. skip to 37min in for this part.
https://youtu.be/mc2vQKYHqGA

[OneEye]

im excited that there is more than just melee and bows to play around with. Hell man they have a lot of the game left to create and this "magic class" only has 3 abilities so far. Heck you can outright ban people using it on your server if you dont want it.

[Tharkkun]

Originally posted by bacon:

Originally posted by Tharkkun:

Or they just didn't want to let the cat out of the bag with the all new staves and particle effects. There's like 324234243 people excited about it and 3 that are mad. :)

do you really think millions of people bought this game to wait almost 2 years to get a magic staff? this is a total betrayal of the game's initial direction, an unwanted escalation from low fantasy to high fantasy.

Who knows what brought you to this game. It was EA and very much in development and change. It came off as a fantasy game to me and a better Dark and Light and made by something other than a Chinese company.

They've sold 4 million copies and we have about 20 unique posters so I'll bet there's a lot that are pumped for this.

[grimr]

perhaps magic could be introduce earlier lord knows we could use an edge over the asses in the swamp. Fire magic cold help out with the elder since they won't upgrade fire arrows at all and so i had to kill him with bronze arrows. Just need some frost magic for swamp.

[OneEye]

Wonder how many teleporters people who don’t like magic use.

[bacon]

Originally posted by OneEye:

Wonder how many teleporters people who don’t like magic use.

portals are just fast travel.

people seem to think anything that is fictional is "magic," and that once you have "magic," then anything goes. you need to be a little more discerning.

[oldschooldiablo]

Originally posted by grimr:

perhaps magic could be introduce earlier lord knows we could use an edge over the asses in the swamp. Fire magic cold help out with the elder since they won't upgrade fire arrows at all and so i had to kill him with bronze arrows. Just need some frost magic for swamp.

swamps is really not that hard. gear your self up for it. i do agree tho would be cool to see magic a bit earlier in game. swamps imo wouldnt be a bad place for that to start showing up in some ways.

[Dragens.Euci X]

portals, magical weapons, monsters, magical potions, dragons, Golems already in the game

"I DoNt LiKe ThE MaGiCaL DiReCtIoN"

[Flash]

I've changed my mind about buying this game.
What the hell are the magic wands...

[BrokenDoop]

I completely agree, especially with the part about magic only being introduced so late in the game, it feels super forced and goes against what the devs have said in the past about adding this kind of stuff.

I wouldnt say magic goes against the theme of valheim its just the way they implemented it, it feels lazy and is literally just ranged attacks with particles.

[.eReN.]

Originally posted by BrokenDoop:

I completely agree, especially with the part about magic only being introduced so late in the game, it feels super forced and goes against what the devs have said in the past about adding this kind of stuff.

I wouldnt say magic goes against the theme of valheim its just the way they implemented it, it feels lazy and is literally just ranged attacks with particles.

Yup, runes and runic magic would be GREAT addition to the game (imagine improving your armor with runes, giving it new abilities like fire resistance or bonus to defence)
but they decided to give us some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ trash magic staffs turning our Viking into Wizard of the Forgotten Realms.
I wonder what will be next? Will ashlands let us shoot plassma out of our butts? Or we will get lightsabers and force?