Case for doing a run without using portals

[[RR] bazkie bloemist]

If you are playing without building any portals, you'll notice that going on an adventure carries way more weight, because you can't just hop back to recoup. It feels more dangerous, and you need to manage things more deliberately.

And for those who like building: When not using portals, you suddenly have an incentive to build more big bases around the world, as you can't just hop back for resources, so all these 'hubs' need to be fully functioning.

And lastly, not being able to fast-travel makes the world feel bigger. It sometimes feels really lonely when you're far away from home. Pretty epic!

So if you lost the feeling of excitement in the game, or if you were looking for an idea for a fresh run, give it a try!

[CombatWombat]

I'm pretty torn about portals. On the one hand I completely agree with you, on the other hand it just gets grindy like hell and drawn out without portals.

[Faceplant]

I completely agree, and I can't even imagine the game with portals anymore. I have a very mature starting world that has portals scattered all over it, but every time I do anything in it I almost immediately get bored.

There's very little challenge if you can drop a portal anywhere you go and hop home at any sign of danger. You barely have to think about your inventory, since your chest room is 30 seconds away. You never have to think about where you're going to pass the night. You never have to worry about your weapons breaking due to overuse and having to defend yourself with your bronze axe or a stone axe as happened to me during a particularly challenging time.

If you really don't like sailing, it's probably not for you, but it completely changes the nature of the game, in a good way IMO.

[Nerevar]

at first i tought portals where dumb. but on the other hand when i noticed they have restrictions on certain stuff it made more sense. and after i notice how large the gameworld is they made more sense to me.

and then when i found black marble in the mistlands i was glad portals existed. why? marble can currently ONLY be found in the mistlands. thus building with it anywhere but the mistlands just wouldnt be PRACTICAL without portals.

i think that you have to establish a fast travel system yourself is actually a really great idea or rather compromise for a fast travel method. all bigger open world games had fast travel in some form. it just wasnt braindead like bethetics became after oblivion. map fast travel is trash. its just trash. its nothing but easier to use cheatcodes.

meanwhile a portal only goes ONE way and you need to bring it there first aswell.

what i am not a fan off is POCKET PORTALS. its simply too easy to make one material wise. they should cost way more resources and also require resources you cannot teleport. that would make it more balanced imo without actually removeing them. the devs have atleast rejected any kind of metal teleporting suggestions adamantly and gave as a reason that they dont want the game to become portalheim entirely basically.

i think they have a good base balance already in regards to fast travel. way better than other games of this type (aside the forest where fast travel isnt even needed as the map simply isnt big enough to justify it in the first place and it would ruin the setting and mood of the game on top)

i like tcs idea. if i ever do a new character i might try that. useing my existing one for it makes little sense as he is too strong already for it to be a challenge.

[Jaggid Edje]

The same thought occurred to me, but I've done a playthrough of NMS with the teleporters removed and found it to be a love-hate thing. While the increased sense of adventure, exploration, etc. is nice without a fast travel mechanic, there are times you just don't really want to spend (literally) hours of real time merely to get from one of your own bases to another.

An idea I had was to set a limit of how many total portals can be constructed and to remove the return of materials on deconstruct, as well as increase the construction cost itself. With a limit of something like 1-per-boss slain and no return of materials, you'd still be able to use portals for main base locations, but couldn't use them as a crutch for 'everything'.

[Faceplant]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

The same thought occurred to me, but I've done a playthrough of NMS with the teleporters removed and found it to be a love-hate thing. While the increased sense of adventure, exploration, etc. is nice without a fast travel mechanic, there are times you just don't really want to spend (literally) hours of real time merely to get from one of your own bases to another.

An idea I had was to set a limit of how many total portals can be constructed and to remove the return of materials on deconstruct, as well as increase the construction cost itself. With a limit of something like 1-per-boss slain and no return of materials, you'd still be able to use portals for main base locations, but couldn't use them as a crutch for 'everything'.

I've never played a game of NMS without using teleporters, but I play NMS essentially like I do Valheim, in that I live in my freighter, so I don't think restricting portal use would be much different. You also now can carry entire planets in your inventories in NMS, which makes having bases redundant for the most part. For me, they're just placed to go to pick up resources.

[Foxglovez]

House rules work wonderfully in this game. It's great to see how creative players can be.

The best thing about this game is folks get to mostly do what they want. . . Which is much nicer than having random players who think they know everything and how everyone else should play make rules for us all. Not that anyone in this thread would ever consider wanting to make rules for other players, cough cough. Ner, err never, nope, no one would do that.

[jonnin]

I see the adventure and challenge, but my time is limited too. Having to stop to break rocks and cut trees every 10 min for rested buffs gets old. Having to stop to chunk all the stuff I can't keep seems frustrating. Having to fight bosses without a real rested bonus. Having to walk for 45 min across 0 challenge black forest/meadows to get home. Having mistlands gear that breaks quickly.
The cons just outweigh the pros. Yea it would be cool to an extent to plan your weight and food and gear for each outing, and to boat a bit more etc. But lets take yesterday... decided to get my hat, and needed hot and cold biome fish. I had avoided going there so far, due to going there messing up the area when it gets updated, but a small dip won't ruin the map. 45 min of sailing to catch 1 fish. For that I needed normal food, mats for a boat, mats for a portal, a fishing rod, fishing food, and bait. My inventory was so full that I literally only had room for 1 or 2 fish, and since they come in 5 sizes, and it breaks if you don't have a free inventory slot even if it would have stacked... not a pretty adventure. Instead I dropped a portal and came back for the rod and food, which I ate at the home while re-resting before popping back. And now I can go back there without a 45 min sailing trip that did nothing but burn time. I mean I killed 2 serpent on the way, but they are a joke with the crossbow.

Can you justify 30-45 min of nothing accomplished to someone with a full time job and a caretaker 24/7 on top of it? Is there some adventure I am missing in there?

[[RR] bazkie bloemist]

Hey guys it's just an idea I shared, some people will like it, some people won't. I like adventures to be slow and tedious, I'm in it to enjoy the process, not to reach the game's goals primarily. But we all play games in our own way, which is cool.

[Faceplant]

It is definitly not for everyone, and it is a slower pace. You also make different choices about things like hats. :-) (I don't even know wha the fishing had does)

Rested buff against bosses, for example. I fought two bosses yesterday (bonemass and moder). bonemass wasn't much, but for moder, I dug a cave under a large rock (actually multiple rocks next to her alter and put a fire, bed and chests in there. Even with a 12 minute buff, I only had to refresh it once, and the rock had been pretty much destroyed by then, but the fire hadn't gone out (fortunately, and she even landed in it once!), and the bed was still covered, so it all worked out.

That said, I'm currently planning on moving my base out to a yagluth alter that is near mistlands, and that is always a long, drawn out process, especially since I also play nomap, which tends to make travel take longer (sometimes much longer).

Anyone else play nomap? We really should start a thread on alternate play styles. I've learned a few things the hard way that could save others time and frustration, like the burial chambers, crypts, and maybe mines can change your orientation when you enter/exit, which means that underground Vegvisir will point you in the wrong direction sometimes. I only learned that when I found two in visual distance from each other, and they pointed different directions!

[Stellar Remnant]

I recently started playing Core Keeper, which also has portals. However, portals in Core Keeper are not 'plop and go'. After being placed, they must charge up for 20 minutes before passage is permitted.

I think Valheim could benefit from a similar feature. Once a portal is placed, you should need to charge it up with some special ritual that consumes some rare items. Maybe even use surtling cores as fuel for it. One passage = one core consumed.

[[RR] bazkie bloemist]

Yeah it would be cool to see a middle ground like that!

@Faceplant8, what do you mean by nomap; just not the M-button-map, or also no minimap?
I never thought of it but playing without map does sound interesting! I'm sure it makes things more immersive!

(and thanks for mentioning that rotation bug, I had never noticed that! that's pretty nasty :D)

[Faceplant]

You can turn off the map entirely using the /nomap command, which gets rid of both maps. It is much more immersive, but can be challenging at times.

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by CombatWombat:

I'm pretty torn about portals. On the one hand I completely agree with you, on the other hand it just gets grindy like hell and drawn out without portals.

What gets grindy? Maybe farming yeah, maybe felling trees but otherwise you travel lighter and build smaller bases, thats less grind to me.


I'm in the middle of a no portal run and its quite fun. Would be great to have few QoL things changed but otherwise vanilla is plenty prepared already for this.

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

The same thought occurred to me, but I've done a playthrough of NMS with the teleporters removed and found it to be a love-hate thing. While the increased sense of adventure, exploration, etc. is nice without a fast travel mechanic, there are times you just don't really want to spend (literally) hours of real time merely to get from one of your own bases to another.

Yeah but we dont need a base per biome or w/e. For 3 biomes straight im using one base now, and im (literally) down like an hour of sailing and time spend on more careful preparation. Well within normal RNG when it comes to finding stuff with portals.

I mean yeah it takes more time, but only farming feels like actually wasted time.


And im solo, this would be exponentially easier with more people... next big patch im 100% gonna push for my "group" to try no-portals, maybe even no-map, but the no map might be a further streach... ooor it could be good because we'd stick together better. :)

[Renlish]

I either go big or go home with my base building and farming, so portals (and yes, modding portals) are a must for me. I tried the "no portals" thing and was just about falling asleep with the time it took to do everything. It's not for me though props to those who happily play that way. :)

[Tanyon]

It's crazy how different we all can be in our taste. I went the other way. I increased xp gain by 50% on all skills, increased stam regen by 50%, increased food buff and armor by 25% and made it so we can teleport anything through portals. lol. We are still like 55 hours into this play-through and just got to the mountains really enjoying spending time doing things we actually want to do.

No portals just sounds like you wanna play a boating sim lol. I couldn't imagine doing it but I'm glad that the game offers the ability for us to play how we want. <3