Let's be honest. Valheim isn't improving.

[TXI]

Take this as a discussion out of worry for the future of the game to the devs. This is not hate, just annoyance that simple changes we've asked for have been ignored for NEARLY 2 YEARS NOW. I want to go over quickly why this game *CAN* be exhausting, boring and downright trash. This is from a returning player who had 2 max characters and is playing 1 new one.

1. Grind
The grind is terrible. I'm sick of it. They refuse to improve it. The Seeds make it unbearable and confusing. The first example is moving from the plains to the black forest. Within day 1 you are highly pushed into making a base ASAP and making it as defendable as possible, after putting all that time into a base you don't want to abandon it, however usually this base will not be in reach of either the black forest or the swamp. This leaves 2 options: A) Run around the map in hopes the regions are close to your base. B) Set up multiple bases harboring goods that you'll need, never having a clear base. I chose to do A, the black forest is 7 minutes away meaning I have to walk there and back, costing me 14 minutes of my time. The base inventory allows you to hold basically nothing, so by the time you come back, you can make one upgrade to your bench. 30+ minutes for one upgrade. The teleporter rule is still in place showing the devs do not care about how the COMMUNITY feel. The most downloaded mod on nexus is the one disabling the ore restriction on teleporters, nobody likes it, why is it still in? So the devs can milk play time. On top of that greydwarf spawns are still abysmal, not that they're hard to fight or too strong, but they get attracted from miles away and swarm you, causing early playtime delays and unfun deaths if you can't escape (or run out of torches). This is also an issue in the swamp with Draugrs. We have Troll Hide armor and the sneak ability but Greydwarves, skeletons and draugrs seem to find you anyway. making the sneak ability useless for most cases. All these anti-fun properties make Valheim a boring grind with more risk than reward.

2. The RNG; Maps, Enemies, Merchant. (Continuation)
It's terrible. One of the worst gameplay designs possible when the DEVS are incompetent at it. Yes it adds flavour and uniqueness, it also adds frustration. Enjoying Valheim is determined SIMPLY BY ONE RULE; if your seed is good. If it's bad, the game is boring, trash, unfun, insanely annoying and sometimes downright unplayable. I've had moder and bonemass fights spawn at the edge of the map, making it inaccessible until I make the best boat going (useless if the wind mechanic is against you btw). Another key annoyance of RNG is drop rate. If you want a wolf coat you need a trophy, how do you get it? Kill 1 wolf. Or 10. Or 30. Or 50. Or 100. There needs to be AT LEAST a net to say "once 10 wolves killed = drop trophy" because it's unfair to have to grind for one item that long. This is a problem with a lot of drops, like the skeleton shield requiring skeleton heads. Dungeons are the third RNG annoyance, sometimes a dungeon can have 15 enemies and 0 loot. This is mainly a problem with surtling core hunting, sometimes I get 0, sometimes 9. It's not fair to make people go into dungeons with nothing in them. People can meat ride and say "yeah but you can't expect it everytime" yes I can. The game is long enough without needing to hunt that long just to make a damn furnace. Fourth is of course the merchant RNG, I have a unique fix for this. Most people say "more merchants" or "spawn them closer" no. Let us save gold and pay the damn guy to come stay at our base somewhere. Then we have access to him whenever we need him, the right price the desired item, right? I feel like most players would enjoy that.

3. Motes of Transport
Nearly EVERY other survival game allows you to get mounts either early on or mid-game. Cars and horses with Rust, dinosaurs with Ark, Horses and Rhinos in Conan Exiles. Most mounts can carry items and are fast. In Valheim we have... Lox. Slow, can't carry anything, more of a burden than anything. Keep in mind the other games have SET maps, Valheim is randomised, it could take you up to 30 minutes to find a region you need. Give us mounts. Deer, Boars, Wolves, even damn trolls if you have to. Maybe a sled or carriage pulled by them? Boats are slow and most don't work unless the wind RNG is in your favour, plus the obvious downside is it can't go on land, shocking, right? It's insane the devs haven't given us mounts for an RNG generated map which could have the player running for hours.

4. The devs need to listen.
The developers of Valheim abandoned their original update goals, Mistlands being the biggest update, arguably the only "BIG" update since launch. Listen to us, at LEAST if anything, get rid of the teleporter rule, nobody likes it, nobody thinks its fun. second most important is fixing map RNG. Put some rules in the code that "micro" regions can't be allowed, finding a region only for it to be a tiny island is depressing, bigger regions = more chances for the things we NEED. Make a rule that the boss fights must not be too far from the spawn point. Decrease spawn rates for greydwarves and other annoying creatures that offer nothing except time wasting. Or at least make the sneak mechanic more intricate and detailed so we can ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ avoid them.

Thanks for reading guys. If you disagree, fine, let me know why. I feel as if I've been fair about the game here, especially after waiting so long for changes to happen and them not doing it.

[Lil brekky]

Publicado originalmente por FissionChips:

All legitimate complaints, none of which op mentioned.

Right and in that sense I agree with the spirit of the OP: it's pretty worrisome that certain game "features" have gone unaddressed and untouched while development slowly chugs forward into more content - oftentimes emphasizing the faults of those "features". I do not think this game is in good hands. I *do* think that the enthusiastic modding community is a fantastic form of feedback that IG has been disregarding. It's free real estate!

[Dampback]

I can agree with some things, I think mounts are a tad over rated but its a fair point. There are more or less QoL things i dont like or the simplicity of enemy AI and their spawning. The audio pisses me off but what I dont like is while the later biomes have plenty of new content, the old biomes become almost useless save a little harvesting, there should be a way to make the previous biomes more interesting in later game play.

For instance, instead of a swamp key you could make it a Dungeon Key (or whatever you want to name it) and instead of unlocking just dungeons for the swamp it could unlock dungeons in the forest and meadows, but youre blocked from the until you get the key, so make them harder

idk wishbone could lead you to more secrets in all previous biomes, just bury a sarcophagus in random spots in all biomes and wishbone will let you know where to dig, you can then open the sarcophagus and have it lead into a hidden tomb. A bit half assed but it could work

Those are... just random quick thoughts im sure there are better ideas

IDK thats what annoys me, and their blatant disregard for audio balancing

[Eightball]

@Lilbrekky Part of the game has always been seeking out the bosses. How close do you want them to be? What is not an 'obscene' distance for you?

I have no issues with the boss hunt as it is so it seems more of a personal like/dislike and not a fault with the game.

And yes, there are things that could be 'fixed' like your iron grate example. but it is not game breaking in any manner. Will they be fixed as the game develops? We can hope, but until 1.0 arrives everything and anything is subject to change.

Ultimately there is a large difference between trying to help make a game better and trying to fundamentally change it.

And as to the game giving players too many excuses not the play I suppose you could use that rather broad argument on any game. For example Rust (a game the OP mentions) has offline raiding. Many players really dislike it, but just as many think it is fine and it has always been in game. So even if you like PvP and base building everything else Rust has to offer you could use offline raiding as an 'excuse' not to play.

Personally if a game interests me I try it. If I find some game mechanics that make my experience less than enjoyable I move on. I don't really need any 'excuse' other than the game was not for me.

Good thing there are enough games out there that we can all find one we like, that checks all our game 'boxes', that we don't need to continue to play one that frustrates us so much as this game obviously frustrates the OP. Life is too short.

[Commando]

Mods make this game 1000% better. Try it. r2modman is the place to go.

[FissionChips]

To be fair iron grates not passing smoke should really have been fixed when bats raids were introduced, so bats can't fly through chimneys. I get not fixing things straight away, game is still being developed, but if you're adding something new that makes the fix more important why would you wait?

[Sokaku]

As a relatively new player, I disagree. I didn't buy the game so that I could expect to progress from new player to tackle the Mistlands within a week. Can you do it? Sure, will it feel grindy and artificially slowing you down? Yeah. it probably will.

But as a new player where I'm introduced to a game world to figure out and grow into, I have to say that the balance within the game is pretty damn good compared to other games. I don't know where everything I need will be, so I'm not going to expect to set up a single "forever home". Sure, you want to set up something you'll feel safe in, but that doesn't require ages, just gathering wood to make log walls which are more than enough to deal with meadows enemies and even Forest raids until you defeat the Elder. Ultimately you learn what works and what doesn't, sometimes quite brutally, but it's never "game over". It's only frustrating when it happens the 2nd time, and that just means you didn't learn from the 1st.

I personally hate survival games with ridiculously unrealistic inventory systems. There does need to be a balance between limiting what you can carry and making it ridiculously arduous to get any amount of material moved. If a game provides vehicles for carrying loads then I prefer seeing limitations and needs for storage & transport solutions as opposed to just carrying everything I could possibly need on my person. Where the only inconvenience would be if I die off somewhere.

Instead in Valheim there is a sense of developing logistics for gathering and production, and there are plenty of options to use or combine. Carts and paths work perfectly fine, as does sailing. Even with the Karve you get 4x30 ore, plus whatever you can carry. If you want to take a bit more risk then you can easily overload yourself, or use various tricks to carry carts or cart boxes on-board for extra storage. Loading up a boat is simple. Use a cart to transport the ores to dock/shore. Set up a chest next to your boat and transfer everything into the chest. Hop into the boat and transfer the goods into your chest and load up your inventory and set sail. When you get back to base, have a chest to unload everything in one go. Done. Using that trick on a more long distance voyage where you might be sailing through the night or storms, notably more risky especially if you're in a rush.

Alternatively you can set up or move smelting and crafting stations at a closer location so that you can be doing the majority of work with the upgrade/grind process on-site rather than hauling ores back.

I dunno, it's like people expect to play like minecraft where they can spend 3 days underground loading stacks upon stacks of iron & Diamonds scour the Nether for skulls & suchetc. then trot back over to their base to craft and build in big chunks. So Valheim takes a bit more time and thought/planning, but frankly that's what makes it feel more like an actual world to spend some time in.

[BoneMassive]

The devs seem overall disinterested in their community. There is little communication or engagement with the players and little testing. But I am happy with the game because of of the awesome modding community.

[oldschooldiablo]

Publicado originalmente por fastforward:

Publicado originalmente por TXI:

I never said the games not for me or that I dislike it, the game is good under all the anti-player moves. Valheim Plus has 861k downloads, that's more downloads than this game ever peaked at, and it fixes the issues named in this discussion here. Maybe you got lucky with your seed? I don't know, but for all 3 of my seeds not having transport has been a very depressing experience. Also having a dungeon capable of having no loot is time waste, who goes into a dungeon just to "explore" it? They do it to get progression items, if that dungeon is the only one in that region you are then forced to run 20~30~40 minutes to another one. That's why they all need something.

if you get frustrated just because you didnt find a surting core in a dungeon, you have a very low limit for frustration. wait till you land in meadows and suddently a buzzing mosquito out of nowhere bites you.
game should never guarantee success. rng is great because there are those dungeons where one can find tons of cores, and ofc there are dungeons where there are no cores. making all dungeons give the median amount of cores would be worse than it is right now. the feeling of success when getting alot of cores should outweigh the frustration when finding none. but some people get frustrated too easily. idk. i like exploring. sometimes i go in the burial chambers just because there is one and i want to put a crossed burial marker on my map.

This.

[HazyMyst]

I so LOVE this game. The graphics are amazing and yeah maybe the grind is tedious, but it is a survival game after all. There are some things I love about Mistlands but also some things that are a bit too fantasy in my opinion. I am looking forward to Ashlands and hope that it has a more realistic feel rather than magical. I actually have two servers; one for building given the fact that I find it very relaxing along with viking music in the background. So when I need a break from building I go to the server where we have killed the bosses and love the unexpected surprise of the raids. This game is brilliant and the devs have done an amazing job putting it all together. So carry on all you Vikings!

[Triggerd_Noob]

I completely disagree. I think it is improving and have seen it first hand after not playing for 7-8 months. I came back a couple weeks ago after Hearth and Home and Mistalnds. The game is much better now.

[bacon]

trader RNG is probably the only thing i would consider revisiting. that in the amount of fenris hair in caves to make werewolf armor.

[jonnin]

A lot of this is self inflicted.
learn from doing, and improve. Make your base near water, boat to the ore and back. You can haul 4 stacks in a karve, which you can make after your first trip into the BF. You can haul at least 1 more stack on your person. With a cart box or two, that goes up to 12 or more stacks if you want to do that. Your boat is your mount. Its fast, and most maps have lots of water access. Hauling stuff back to the spawn point from the black forest 2 islands over using a raft or huffing it across a 50 mile trek is self inflicted pain. Avoid this.

there are bad seeds, but most are average and fine. Every boss has multiple alters in case one is badly placed, another will do. Its very rare for all the alters to be badly placed for all the bosses on every seed you make. Its rare for every seed you make to give so much trouble. Ive had bad seeds, given up on at least 2/ 15 or so maps. It takes < an hour to get going again on a new map and its not a big deal: you can move all your old stuff over easily with a few trips and have a full rested base with all your crafting stations and head off to check out the new world in really short order.

portaling ore is available from a mod or various other ways. If it means that much to you, use the cheats for it. Many players don't use portals at all, even without ore. So trying to say this is demanded by everyone is overstepping. Many people want it, many people don't want it, and a lot of people don't care either way. You would need a large participation of average players (hard to get in and of itself, because most forum people are here to gripe) in a survey to make such a claim.

I will say it again. If you want to shorten the grind of getting all the stuff and being done with all the bosses, fine. There are multiple ways to beat the whole game in a week or less. Then what? The fun and gameplay are in the journey, not the destination. A fully geared viking can't be killed apart from abject stupidity (like forgetting to eat) and all that is left at that point is base building for fun or exploring for fun, no challenge left.
And the amount of time making food?! I grill some bug meat and some bunny meat, and eat either a salad (minimal farming effort) or eitr stuffed shroom (minimal effort as well). An hour of farming and cooking lasts 1-2 weeks real time days. You have to wait on the farm to grow, but it doesn't need you to stand over it. The best foods are for bosses or high risk. Fully geared, you can manage with a lot less.

[vanflyhightanzek]

That's cute you call this a grind game given you even compared it to ark. lmao sorry ark is a grind game this is far far far from a grind game. In ark you are pushed to build a base just the same and unless you increase harvest amount you are grinding for that resource. Not to mention food in that game under default settings prime meat goes bad in 1 min food doesn't go bad in this so the grind is far less. The rest of the post is all just a personal opinion from you.

[{O|G} Erik the Red]

Honestly, 105 hours seems kinda low for two maxed characters and a new one (900 hours here, across a few runs: one major run each update, ie, Launch, Hearth+Home, Wolf Cult, Mistlands, and a few filler runs to experiment with mods, overall less than 10 altogether.) It sounds like you are trying to rush through things as is, and you are complaining about grind, and the time it takes to get things done.

Yes stuff is random. Yes you have to explore to find more stuff. You can shelter and base however you want, but no, it doesn't have to be in the center of the world and built on Day 1 (Rome wasn't built in a day...). Personally I spend a lot of time scouting out for aesthetically pleasing locations before I start a build for a main base (or outlying outpost). You either got to build more practically near the resources you want, or you gotta bring the resources to where you want to build (which may indeed take some time). Deciding how to best transport those resources is also a practical issue in question, but one that can be seen through. Whether you need a boat to sail, portals to take what you can through, a cart and a road for ore, or simply some stamina foods and just plain book it to run through the forest with as much ore as inventory and weight will let you carry. Personally again, I spent a lot of time doing the latter with the Eikthyr power, stamina foods, run skill, weight belt, and later in game Fenris armor to transport and haul whatever ore i need; you can run across lengthy continents in under 5 minutes, blowing past enemies best left ignored while you focus on getting from Point A to Point B (likely, your base...). Carting goods by cart is really for the more dedicated resources hauls that you know you will be planning to haul in large amounts and are willing to prep for (clearing paths, leveling roads, building bridges), wherein investing so will help save you time later in the long run.

But again, it sounds like you don't want to invest the time that is required to play, to do things, to experience the world that is Valheim, into the game?

[a small rabbit]

Strongly Disagree.