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!

[Hobo Misanthropus]

LIke Faceplant, I'm torn on Portals too. On one hand, I do like them conceptually, they aren't a "Free" fast travel, and have some restrictions that still make you use the boat and build multiple bases. On the other hand, the restrictions feel arbitrary. Like why Ores and ingots, but not the armor and weapons made from them?

If I were to do portals, I would have full terminator rules: No metallic objects at all, including armor and weapons, or specifically some weapons. Certain weapons and armor that use no metallic ingredients, like Light Leather armors, would still allow you through the portal. Or, in a softer approach, using a portal degrades your metallic equipment by 50% of its remaining health. Just something that makes the rule feel a little more logically consistent.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Originally posted by Iacelebrendinen:

I cannot imagine playing this game without portals. I loathe the restrictions that are default
placed on the portals with a fury. They need to do something to fix the portals. Either just take the restriction off or make a higher level portal that works like it's supposed to. As it stands having to ship or cart all of my metal home or building entire new bases at every metal source is so tedious it makes me quit if I die in transit. I am filled with such rage at the mere prospect of having to deal with that when the portals could just make it so much easier.

There is absolutely no reason for those restrictions to exist. None. There are excuses, but that is all they are. Either the dev team needs to nut up, get rid of the portals entirely and make a serious effort to make travel not tooth-pullingly awful, like cut the metal needed to make and upgrade gear down to a tenth of what it is, or just fix the damnable portals and let psychotics mod the things out if they really can't resist the allure of the obviously necessary convenience of not having to take literal hours out of your day doing nothing but staring at a striped sheet.

I am filled with enough irrational rage at the thought that this requires modding to fix that it makes me want to quit the game. If you don't want to implement a mechanic properly then don't waste the time doing it in the first place.

wow man, way to show how you can't read the room.
i dare say you read none of the comments here and just went on your rant based on OP's post.

you realize there's mods that does EXACTLY what you want right? there's even mods that allow you to bring wolves through portals if you so desire, but don't you dare try to dumb down the vanilla version of the game by suggesting that portals should simply be unrestricted.

games like valheim need restrictions or it would be a snorefest.
for my part, after playing my very first playthrough using portals to go everywhere and then doing several playthroughs without them, i can attest to the fact that no-portal playthroughs are a lot more interesting.

different strokes for different folks and all that, but your post really upsets me tbh.

[Jaggid Edje]

When the person ranting and raving calls the people who have the opposite view 'psychotics' I can only just appreciate the irony.

[Omnicast]

Sailing is a snoozefest. The oceans are barren and devoid of life.

Not using portals is an absolute no go for me. Wasting time traveling between islands is horrible.

Now if only this game had waypoints like Diablo and maybe portal scrolls.

Waypoints can only spawn on large enough islands. The must be activated via sacrifices or whatever. Maybe some kinda defend that location for 5 mins from waves of mobs in that local. Also the starting sacrificial stone hedge should count as a Waypoint.

The buildable portals can be gated behind a Portal Boss. Some kinda enemy that thinks with portals... maybe it portals in enemies right on top of you. Pack of 2 Star Wolves? Swarm of mosquitos? Fuling Berserkers dropping down from the portal on the ceiling? Multiple Portals spawning on the ground that sends you to the moon?

Make it change the Boss Arena too. Like the floor shift and the environment changes. Maybe it's raining one second before it changes to snow. Then the next second everything is on fire as if you popped into the ashlands.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Originally posted by Omnicast:

Sailing is a snoozefest. The oceans are barren and devoid of life.

Not using portals is an absolute no go for me. Wasting time traveling between islands is horrible.

Now if only this game had waypoints like Diablo and maybe portal scrolls.

Waypoints can only spawn on large enough islands. The must be activated via sacrifices or whatever. Maybe some kinda defend that location for 5 mins from waves of mobs in that local. Also the starting sacrificial stone hedge should count as a Waypoint.

The buildable portals can be gated behind a Portal Boss. Some kinda enemy that thinks with portals... maybe it portals in enemies right on top of you. Pack of 2 Star Wolves? Swarm of mosquitos? Fuling Berserkers dropping down from the portal on the ceiling? Multiple Portals spawning on the ground that sends you to the moon?

Make it change the Boss Arena too. Like the floor shift and the environment changes. Maybe it's raining one second before it changes to snow. Then the next second everything is on fire as if you popped into the ashlands.

there's more to no-portal runs than dealing with an empty ocean.
you should try it and see for yourself how different the game works when you can't simply have a back-pocket access to your base and thus all your stuff.

we've already gone over this in the thread if you bothered to read through it.

once we made that mistlands portal, it was like our main base was always just right around the corner, in our back pockets so to speak, with access to everything we would need to make the game easier to overcome.
suddenly we no longer had to ration food and potions. we no longer needed to worry about inventory space and which tools/weapons to bring, we no longer were at risk of ending up in a situation where we'd have to run naked into mistlands to retrieve our corpses because we could just head back to base and get some older gear and make another wisplight on the fly.

when you don't use portals you need to think about.
- logistics
- time of day
- inventory space
- food rationing
- potion rationing
- item durability
- prioritizing materials to bring home (not as simple as simply filling ship with metal only)
- prioritizing items to bring with you on your trip
- your actual characters safety along with your ship
- the fact you cannot simply grab new stuff from your base to make corpserun easier (no food, no items, no nothing, unless you play smart and bring extra equipment and food/potions for storage as backup in case you die in a horrible spot)

etc. etc.

"sea boring" is not a good counter argument if you want to diffuse the idea that portal vs. no-portal is a better/equally challenging experience.
using portals is playing the game on ez mode, and there is no question about it.
you realize this once you play through the game without using them.

[ling.speed]

Originally posted by Iacelebrendinen:

I cannot imagine playing this game without portals.

Everyone has their preferences, thou irrational anger is often base for therapy in many cases, so regardless of our views here please take care of yourself!

I can understand where you could be coming from with the issues with portals, we are often spoiled for fast gameplay these days. But if you actually do a deep dive into how much you are getting from them, most of the portal functions are not even needed to play normally.

Like its not even that much slower playing with the portal limitations or even without them altogether. With some map rng luck you could play just as fast without portals as with unlocked ones. The time wasted on sailing back is offset by moving through portal and then around the base every few minutes, hoarding less useless stuff and otherwise wasting time.

Portals give you more options and cushion the falls but thats it. When you stop making mistakes, and start planning ahead they loose their advantage. Thats how us psychotics adults play, that curse will come to you too.

There is absolutely no reason for those restrictions to exist.

The reason they exist is that Valheim is not Minecraft with Vikings, it never tried to be, its its own thing. A challenge thrown to the player, like Dark souls but with base building. You can find irrational ideas in any game, thats because its a *game*. Its not a movie, not a blank document, its interactive media.

Valheim portals block stuff for same reason you can't push whole line of pawns at the same time in chess, despite how armies moved IRL. And thats what makes chess great, not bad.

[lorifel]

By the way I think one of the good uses for portals is a very high tower where a pair of portals allows you a quick travel from the ground level to the top and back.
I once had a base with 8 floors and boy was it painful to go through all these ladders each time I heard a Greydwarf throwing stones at my front door!
Fortunately the descending became much easier when I got the Feather cloak =)

[skOsH♥]

I like my nomadic playthrough where I basically have to keep everything on me. It's a nice challenge.

Although I have been considering just making an endless chain of bases across the map with paths and whatnot...eventually making the map look like skyrim or something lol

[Zothen]

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.

True. The game content is already streched to the max just by mindless grind. Its sad how monotonous and dull the world actually is when youre not distracted by grind for a moment.

[Omnicast]

Using a portal isn't ez mode. It's Time Saving Mode. Running through low level zones that doesn't pose a challenge doesn't make the game fun.

Anyways it doesn't matter I don't plan on doing a no portal run. Not enough time in my life to waste anymore. This is why I stopped playing MMOs.

[lorifel]

Originally posted by Omnicast:

Using a portal isn't ez mode. It's Time Saving Mode. Running through low level zones that doesn't pose a challenge doesn't make the game fun.

Playing without portals just means that you have to invent other ways of saving time without using portals all the time. It makes you plan more, travel less.

[Pantstron]

no portals isn't as bad as it sounds, i'm not sure why there's a lot of stories of it taking forever to sail. i usually can always make it to the other side of the map in a full days sailing. how is that a long time? and on the way you can get chitin and serpent meat. so instead of planning outings to get serpent you'll be getting it naturally in abundance.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Originally posted by Omnicast:

Sailing is a snoozefest. The oceans are barren and devoid of life.

Not using portals is an absolute no go for me. Wasting time traveling between islands is horrible.

Now if only this game had waypoints like Diablo and maybe portal scrolls.

Waypoints can only spawn on large enough islands. The must be activated via sacrifices or whatever. Maybe some kinda defend that location for 5 mins from waves of mobs in that local. Also the starting sacrificial stone hedge should count as a Waypoint.

The buildable portals can be gated behind a Portal Boss. Some kinda enemy that thinks with portals... maybe it portals in enemies right on top of you. Pack of 2 Star Wolves? Swarm of mosquitos? Fuling Berserkers dropping down from the portal on the ceiling? Multiple Portals spawning on the ground that sends you to the moon?

Make it change the Boss Arena too. Like the floor shift and the environment changes. Maybe it's raining one second before it changes to snow. Then the next second everything is on fire as if you popped into the ashlands.

"The sea is boring" he said, while staring at a loading screen.

lol

lmao even.

This is call of duty thinking. Every second has to be action packed with explosions and gunfights.

The Ship, and sailing in general serves as an amazing pacing element. The anticipation of heading to a new frontier, not knowing what you'll find, or, on a return trip, time to reflect on a job well done, with a cargo hold full of loot. There's so little ocean in this game, if you're ever on the water for more than 10minutes, that's a skill issue on your part. sorry bub.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Originally posted by Omnicast:

Using a portal isn't ez mode. It's Time Saving Mode. Running through low level zones that doesn't pose a challenge doesn't make the game fun.

Anyways it doesn't matter I don't plan on doing a no portal run. Not enough time in my life to waste anymore. This is why I stopped playing MMOs.

so you basically ignored the 5+ points i made in favor of my argument that its more challenging due to the fact you need to plan more, and just replied with "no u".
k.

[Ghevd]

If certain crops weren't locked to specific biomes I'd say a portal free game would be doable and fun.

My three farm bases are miles away from one another though and I would hate to have to sail for an in-game day just to harvest more barley.