Ashlands. My thoughts

[[STK]]

Writing this while Morgen, 2 Asksvins and 1* Charred warrior are kicking me back to the Putrid hole. Noticed few things that could be looked into:

1. Spawnrate - Way too high. I haven't been able to go much further from the beach since every time I try there's at least 10 enemies zerg rushing me. I tried to count all the skulls on my map but they are overlapping so its kinda hard but there are like 30 or 40 in the span of 3 days. As a lvl 40 elemental mage I'm back to 20 or something and just switched to heavy armor since there just ain't enough dmg output from the wiz biz or stamina to dodge all the stuff coming at me. Would lvl 60 be enough?

2. Detection - From way too far. I get it that it's flat and you can see far but man, I'm getting spotted from air land and sea further than dropped item render distance. Just before a Morgen stepped into a lava and agrod me because of it from really far. I'm I at fault?

3. Performance - The instance count on barren ashlands is 10 000+ before building a single thing. Is 15-20 fps normal? I've tried all the tricks but 3070Ti just isn't enough these days. Could also be Linux issue. (Why not use Windows? I switched. Google "Microsoft Recall")

4. Recipes - Maybe think that one through. I'm getting new recipes that are immediately obsolete (marmelade). Also would be nice to have a filter by level and a search to find witch recipes can item be used in. Queen's jam just does not interest me anymore.

5. Spikes - I feel like they need a health boost. They break so often I just quit using them.
Yesterday I opened my base door to see that Morgen was spinning around in them and wrecked 5 spikes. How will I fix this with no ashwood?

6. Ashwood - Would love to use it more but on the first day the beach was cleared (by enemies) and no way to plant. Charred bone is like resin that goes straight into trash. Maybe few Charred guys got stuck into some ashwood twigs and can drop it half the time when killed?

7. Building - Inner corners for Grausten roof maybe? Could also benefit from more triangles. I do like the new blocks but it's getting harder to mix and match for interesting builds. I hope there won't be any squiggly roofs with next update. It would be a nightmare to get them fit.

8. Battering ram - I was trying to smash it into a door in reverse. Needless to say it didn't work. Not really intuitive. Bird could have communicated the instructions. Maybe i'm ruined by years of conventional battering ram designs.

9. Torment stones - What's the point? The spawnrate seems the same everywhere regardless after hitting anything. Destroying it doesn't seem to do anything. I could argue that it boosts spawning of other enemies.

What you think? Feel free to chime in. Is it skill issue or is something a miss?
Keep it civil.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by {O|G} Erik the Red:

Originally posted by Nerevar:

ill go over your points with numbers aswell to not get chaotic :

1. sorry to say this but : SKILL ISSUE. entirely. if you manage to die 30-40 times you ARE doing something wrong. horribly wrong. that death amount is normal for a valheim newbie. not for someone with 6 biomes and 100s of hours under thier belt.
weapon skills work the same as always : they peak at 75 skill.
.....
i assume youre playing defaults since you didnt mention anything in that regard. consider lowering your difficulty by you die THAT much. the default biome might be too hard for you.

I'm going to preface this with that for the most part I'm enjoying the biome, but I kinda disagree about the death rates. I've a thousand hours in the game, done about ten full solo runs, fresh start worlds and characters, playing on normal. But, I do die frequently such that I don't think I've ever had a (ingame) skill peak past 50, and that was likely the running stat. My current run I sped through the game's first biomes to reach the Ashlands, but still took 130 days. I'm now nearing 200 days for my first time exploring the Ashlands, which i think is comparable to the other runs i've done for first times exploring and learning a biome. Its probably natural to die more the first time, fighting against the unknown, but also, the biome is ratcheted up with the spawn rates (which i think is ok, thats the point) to simulate a never-ending war. I'm sure in future runs once i know what to expect I'll die a bit a less and play through the biome a bit quicker, but still will die more frequently there than in the other biomes, as probably by design. The enemies aren't particularly hard to kill, just that they hit harder. With the proper weapons too, its breezy; but the resistances aren't such that its restrictive if you choose to use other weapons. I main swords for this run, but the skill plateaus around 30, with death so often (crossbows is 12, spears maybe 20 or so). I don't actively try to level gear other than normally playing, as its prohibitively grinding and just to lose that progress anyhow every 5% skill loss. I'm not sure if grinding for skill levels would help significantly in slaying enemies easier and dying less or if just keep brute force play the game status quo as I have been.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3264597932

Originally posted by Nerevar:

5. ... elevation is your friend. was the same in plains. was the same in mountains. was the same in mistlands. was the same in swamp. players should know this by the time they get to ashlands.

6. ashwood needs a renewable source. just make the twitchers drop ashwood they are the greydwarfs of this biome afterall.

Except, I dunno about other worlds yet, but Ashlands is looking flatter than the plains. Yes there is elevation differences, but its gradual. And short of terraforming your own earthen walls, nothing is safe in the obstacle filled wasteland. Any grausten structure or outcropping gets soon blown up in short order. I haven't bothered to try and reinforce the area with a defensible base, and it was challenging enough establishing a beachhead with a stakewall as I learned the surrounding area. But the area outside my stakewall transformed from an obstacle filled charred forest to a clear barren wasteland; Its like D-Day and the Western Front vibes rolled into one. I've never had so much wood before Ashlands as I do ashwood and wood now.

I am just happy they don't have rifles and machine gun nests.

Originally posted by Nerevar:

9. ashlands spawnrate is supposed to be high because the biomes progression is SILLY fast and quickly over. the enemies are there to slow you down effectively.
too many players think they need to fight thier way trough the biome and kill everything they see while staying in place. this method of approach will not work at all.

I can't say if the progression is fast, but the enemies do slow you down for sure. Finding flametal around the lava fields and the fortresses further inland do seem to be the limiting factors to progressing, which requires venturing forth beyond the beachheads. However, I think the Ask armor set and askvin cape were nicely done, and the perfect godsend to mobility to navigate the Ashlands with.

useing the ask cape over feather is the first mistake many make as you cannot control the wind and thus windrun is very often doing absolutly nothing for you. it greatly reduces your ability to make use of the terrian aswell. ashlands has WAY more high up places than the plains had. we aint talking flat terrian here my dude. but objects that are on said terrian. big rocks are everywhere. there is ruin towers which are safe up above aslong as you dont try to climb the tower while beeing chased by a morgen or asksvin.

dying a bit more in a new biome is normal indeed. however : you clearly RUSHED the previous biomes as you said. because you choose to. sadly hours played past the 200 mark means very very little in regards to the player respecting valheim basics or beeing patient and careful. ashlands punishes brute force. any biome punishes brute force but ashlands does it harder than any other biome before it. brute force isnt smart behavoir by the player simply. its trying to mash trough. of course that will get you killed ALOT more than needed. but that is on the player themselfs ALONE. trying to blame the game for that (not saying YOU do that mind you its just speaking in generel) is a sign of a bad player who is unable to see themselfs as the source of most of thier mistakes and deaths. and that is simply a skill issue on that players end purely. the term skill issue isnt used to insult that player. its simply what IT IS. there is no simpler way to explain thier problems. and a more detailed response requires seeing the player in action.

crossbow skill beeing low is normal since you cannot level it before mistlands to begin with. and well. pierce dmg is not a good choice in this biome to begin with makeing crossbows kinda bad to bring overall (bow can get away solely due snap doing spirit dmg and frost arrows beeing the goat that they always have been since plains)

if people make new characters and new worlds and then rush trough the earlier biomes (which have nothing really new compared to before the update) thats thier choice. but that will weaken them on top of beeing underprepared aswell in alot of cases as they wanna get to the new stuff asap often. in that case you could aswell just keep playing your previous world and character. some people play this game like "seasons" in diablo. but only the player who only care about progression purely do that to begin with. building cool and useful bases isnt a thing for such players. as they never stick around for longer in any world for that to be worth doing.

other players are different. they keep playing thier worlds to explore the new content.

i have done both and i can see the appeal of both. but if you do the season reset thingy everytime yourself you have to accept to be off worse by default in regards to character power and preparedness. that is not something you can blame on the game ever. as you where not forced to do that. you made the choice. kinda like people who make the choice to play hardcore death penalty (thats something i will never do and have never done in most games i played as its way beyond my skill level to NEVER die)

but the simple fact remains that on default settings atleast 95% of player deaths can be avoided by just following the same basics in ANY biome. no matter if unknown or not. the result is automatically that your skills will be higher aswell (not that skills above 75 do much aside bows with 85)

the only skill i ever grinded up was block. but that was more the hours spend building a skeleton archer block trainer than actually grinding the skill as once youre done makeing the bunker the leveling process is.... stupid fast. and leveling block manually.... given blocking is not a good use of stamina due to the way this games combat works to begin with. didnt see much benefit from the skill beeing maxed to begin with afterwards. was actually more curious about the archer bunker working or not after seeing that video clip and its just hilarious to hear the THHUUMMMMMMBBBBB of 50 arrows or the sound of 50 parry chings at once.

[BIZaGoten]

Originally posted by Darren Daulton:

Originally posted by STK:

1. Spawnrate - Way too high. I haven't been able to go much further from the beach since every time I try there's at least 10 enemies zerg rushing me. I tried to count all the skulls on my map but they are overlapping so its kinda hard but there are like 30 or 40 in the span of 3 days. As a lvl 40 elemental mage I'm back to 20 or something and just switched to heavy armor since there just ain't enough dmg output from the wiz biz or stamina to dodge all the stuff coming at me. Would lvl 60 be enough?

Originally posted by BIZaGoten:

1. Agreed. The spawnrate is too insane and needs to be hotfixed.

"Spawnrate" is very intentional. It's not going to change.

What others have mentioned about "noise" and stealth, and clearing spawners should be considered if you'd like to stop complaining about "spawnrate" and learn the biome.

Bad design if so, the players need room to breathe in between fights.
The other zones don't have this problem and the game has been amazing.
I don't think easy/normal/hard difficulty existed when I started my world so I am assuming I'm playing on Normal difficulty.

[Rungar]

i think they ruined the game with the spawning in the Ashlands. I've played through this game many times and this is the first update i haven't bothered to complete. Maybe Valheim has jumped the shark or something. Its not a bad effort, they just chose to make it cheezy.

[Sono]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

Originally posted by HardcoreHarald:

It also would be nice if you could drag the battering ram into the fortress so that you can break the inner compartement door without having to destroy the ram and replace it in the fortress again

or you could leave the outer wall in tact and create a perfectly safe portal outpost.

perfectly safe until a valkyrie wonders over as you teleport in and bombs you mid loading

[[STK]]

So I've read all the comments so far and I have some updates. Right now I'm 617 hours into Valheim and Ashlands sure felt like 10 hours in. I've commited to building a whole new base to Ashlands and the more I've built the quieter it has gotten. I'm not raising any ground and using only walls and balistas (only 2 on one side). There was time when Valkyrs were trying to break in but not anymore. Venturing the Ashlands has gotten easier and the solution seems to be heavy armor, health potions and bonemass. When bonemass ends you go home. I'm also trying to make outposts further into Ashlands and utilize more portals. My big mistake was making the new mace since mistwalker works so much better. The bonemass itself feels unbalanced since the difference is so big. Right now the problem with enemies is not the ammount but the respawn speed. Also I think the difficulty scaling has been too fast and people are not ready for this sudden war experience. I get it that it's a warzone but the war is quite one sided. Maybe I should use summons to even the odds. I've attached a picture of the death skulls that I've gotten so far.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3265380738

[MidnightPaladin]

Here are some tips that might help. As in other biomes, building camp fires, work benches, and/or the shield generator will reduce spawn rates. Basically nothing will spawn around those items. Not sure what the range is, but seems to be 50-100 feet. Camp fires will gradually burn out, and then cease to have a "de-spawn aura." But on the positive side, they are immune to fire damage which is a big deal there. Also, enemies will not target them. Work benches are a basic. I always have one in every structure I build or take over. You have to be careful, though, because if exposed to the air above, they can catch fire in Ashlands and turn into coal. The shield generator works well, but is expensive to build.

Using that technique, and mostly based on work benches, I've made multiple bases that serve as good temporary shelters. They will not be attacked as long as the workbench and/or other crafting stations are not visible. Keep them locked inside. Although you can certainly do things that will attract enemies to them, and once that happens, they can do all sorts of damage. I avoid retreating to these bases once under attack.

Getting up on rocks can help, but all of the enemies can climb rocks. Sometimes it can force them to come single file. If there are a lot of enemies the rocks are not useful. The rocks will trap you more than help you. Better to run.

I don't typically build trenches or earthworks, because it feels like a cheat. The exception for me was building a pit to trap asksvins to tame them.

Chopping wood is a VERY DANGEROUS undertaking in Ashlands. Not only will your chopping attract enemies, but also falling trees from storms or trees damaged and knocked over in fighting will attract more enemies. Mining has the same effect.

Take out the spawn pillars from a distance. A bow works, or the staff of embers. It makes a huge difference. You will typically get attacked while doing that. But usually just a few enemies.

I have found that a mage build works pretty well. The bubble combined with 3-4 skeleton warriors is a big help. I like the ice frost in that combo. Staff of embers is good for solo, but with the skeletons it does too much AOE ground damage which harms your summons. Focus needs to be on shielding your helpers, while hitting with ice when you can.

Alternatively I also play with the sword. The green one is nice because it can freeze an enemy. Electricity is also really good in this biome.

I like the asksvin cape; good speed, dodge bonus, and armor. There are times when the feather cape is useful, such as exploring the tall ruins. Tip: You can take both. Switch as needed.

Build the stone portals as soon as you can. The wood ones tend to get destroyed in this biome.

I've played solo and also with one friend. Either way, if you're careful, you can establish a base and gradually work outward. You must be very strategic and go slowly.

[Humpenstilzchen]

Originally posted by MidnightPaladin:

Camp fires will gradually burn out, and then cease to have a "de-spawn aura."

This is not true. They will keep preventing respawns.

[NZ.Zero]

just picking one of those points ...

Originally posted by STK:

4. Recipes ....... would be nice to have a filter by level and a search to find witch recipes can item be used in.

.. yeah good idea, I was thinking this last night actually, for the forge and bench. The list is very long and it'd be good to filter by type ("shields" or "armour" etc) at least by biome.

[MidnightPaladin]

Originally posted by Humpenstilzchen:

Originally posted by MidnightPaladin:

Camp fires will gradually burn out, and then cease to have a "de-spawn aura."

This is not true. They will keep preventing respawns.

Thanks, good to know. I had just recently learned of this technique, the camp fires. In my own test, it seemed that when the fires went out, I had more enemies spawning. But if what you're saying is true, it was probably just coincidence.

[Ohm is Futile]

Here's what happened when me and my buddy reached the Ashlands:
1- vultures attacking us in the boat before we could even see any real land: we managed without dying, but concerning.
2- We found a rock on the shore and managed to hide the boat behind it and build a hard-to-reach portal.
3- Added a shield, dug a moat around the beach, started building up walls with the terrain around it.
4- Started adding torches all over to reduce attacks/spawns.

Then my buddy went exploring while I was finishing up the defenses. He got trapped in the falling animation trying to mine flametal and couldn't move: died. Before I could go and help him, a Morgen aggro'd on the base from quite far, broke some natural decor with its slam and roll animation, and eventually got inside the base that way.

Tried fighting it with Himminafl which should've been ideal, but it's a sponge with HP comparable to bosses. Eventually decided to just run and lure it away. It mostly worked, except this time we aggro'd a fallen valkyrie. Similar HP, can fly above fortifications.

Beachhead got invaded to the point we can't get in to get our stuff, not to mention enemies made it so the ground is littered with junk which gets autopicked up when you walk on it and then brings up the inventory screen when trying to recover your stuff instead of instantly giving you your stuff back.

We gave up. We didn't die that much, but we are done with the BS. I don't hate the game but I think the devs aren't the best at creating a healthy challenge vs just making things rather annoying.

[Steve]

Originally posted by Ohm is Futile:

Then my buddy went exploring while I was finishing up the defenses. He got trapped in the falling animation trying to mine flametal and couldn't move: died. Before I could go and help him, a Morgen aggro'd on the base from quite far, broke some natural decor with its slam and roll animation, and eventually got inside the base that way.

Tried fighting it with Himminafl which should've been ideal, but it's a sponge with HP comparable to bosses. Eventually decided to just run and lure it away. It mostly worked, except this time we aggro'd a fallen valkyrie. Similar HP, can fly above fortifications.

Beachhead got invaded to the point we can't get in to get our stuff, not to mention enemies made it so the ground is littered with junk which gets autopicked up when you walk on it and then brings up the inventory screen when trying to recover your stuff instead of instantly giving you your stuff back.

To address these three specifically:

* Building/fighting in the Ashlands will attract packs of mobs just like it does in BF with Greydwarves. Initially, let the fights come to you, and work on slowly securing the beachhead. (It won't be a quick endeavor unless you manage one of those sweet dual-spire spots at a point where the map has generated two sea spires very close together -- a fortunate find.) Mining flametlal can be a very hazardous task. Get what you get in a few swings and get gone. Don't get sucked in by the illusion of more. If you're gonna build a base down there, encase it fully (ceilings and walls) and use the shield generator. Shield generator is pre-Ashlands. You can make this before you even set foot in there.

* Lightning spear is not an ideal choice. Upgraded Mistwalker is excellent for melee combat initially in Ashlands given its frost and spirit damage profile. Break the bank on frost arrows. It's worth farming and it's worth leaving some damage on the table to start, until you start stacking piles of charred bones for charred arrows.

* This is where combat engineering can come in very handy. The Ashlands is a warzone. Build accordingly. Double-walling can be very useful, for example. As far as the item pickup ability goes, it is VERY important to toggle that off! It's easy to forget in the heat of the moment, but hitting V toggles item pickup.

You got this. You guys just weren't fully prepared for the landing. You don't wanna D-Day this ♥♥♥♥. Find a quieter landing spot, scope it out quietly for a bit to make sure there's lighter patrols, THEN establish yourself. Ditch the feather cape. Bring the firewine and Mistwalker.

[Ohm is Futile]

Originally posted by Just Steve:

To address these three specifically:

* Building/fighting in the Ashlands will attract packs of mobs just like it does in BF with Greydwarves. Initially, let the fights come to you, and work on slowly securing the beachhead. (It won't be a quick endeavor unless you manage one of those sweet dual-spire spots at a point where the map has generated two sea spires very close together -- a fortunate find.) Mining flametlal can be a very hazardous task. Get what you get in a few swings and get gone. Don't get sucked in by the illusion of more. If you're gonna build a base down there, encase it fully (ceilings and walls) and use the shield generator. Shield generator is pre-Ashlands. You can make this before you even set foot in there.

We pretty much did that. My friend would've very much liked to get out of there after mining a bit of flametal but got stuck in an animation which meant he couldn't regain stamina. That's a bug, but a pretty major one.

Originally posted by Just Steve:

* Lightning spear is not an ideal choice. Upgraded Mistwalker is excellent for melee combat initially in Ashlands given its frost and spirit damage profile. Break the bank on frost arrows. It's worth farming and it's worth leaving some damage on the table to start, until you start stacking piles of charred bones for charred arrows.

Himminafl is just about as ideal as it gets for the Morgen specifically. Still, the amount of HP even on a zero star is comparable to a boss. Killing it would've been a grind on the best of days.

Originally posted by Just Steve:

* This is where combat engineering can come in very handy. The Ashlands is a warzone. Build accordingly. Double-walling can be very useful, for example. As far as the item pickup ability goes, it is VERY important to toggle that off! It's easy to forget in the heat of the moment, but hitting V toggles item pickup.

I was hard focused on building up a safe zone for the portal. We managed to get to something reasonable though not final, but what are you supposed to do when stuff like Morgens and Fallen Valkyries can spawn near the shore and either just casually enter your base or chase you back into it? Enemies can go through the shield too and at some point you yourself need to be able to enter and leave your base.

Originally posted by Just Steve:

You got this. You guys just weren't fully prepared for the landing. You don't wanna D-Day this ♥♥♥♥. Find a quieter landing spot, scope it out quietly for a bit to make sure there's lighter patrols, THEN establish yourself. Ditch the feather cape. Bring the firewine and Mistwalker.

We were about as prepared as we could be. Tons of rock, stuff for a portal and shield, mistland gear, mead, wine, etc. Parked behind a rock which seemed safe enough, not to mention navigating near the Ashlands is both painful due to all the rocks and risky due to vultures being able to attack you on the boat quite a bit further from the coast. Scoping out more would've put us at risk of dying at sea.

We aren't sinking 5~10 hours more just to get our stuff back and make a safe zone. We had our fun with the game. Ashlands ain't it.

[Weyrlock]

Besides everything you all said that would be welcome, I actually have more problems with all the stone pillars at the sea of ashlands, which can make really difficult to explore it sometimes (I get they are a last resource to avoid getting burnt). Also I would be fine with ashlands spawn rate if in contrast, on Deep North, we get just a couple of enemies at any given moment but they're miniboss like tier.

[[STK]]

Originally posted by Ohm is Futile:

Here's what happened when me and my buddy reached the Ashlands:
1- vultures attacking us in the boat before we could even see any real land: we managed without dying, but concerning.
2- We found a rock on the shore and managed to hide the boat behind it and build a hard-to-reach portal.
3- Added a shield, dug a moat around the beach, started building up walls with the terrain around it.
4- Started adding torches all over to reduce attacks/spawns.

Then my buddy went exploring while I was finishing up the defenses. He got trapped in the falling animation trying to mine flametal and couldn't move: died. Before I could go and help him, a Morgen aggro'd on the base from quite far, broke some natural decor with its slam and roll animation, and eventually got inside the base that way.

Tried fighting it with Himminafl which should've been ideal, but it's a sponge with HP comparable to bosses. Eventually decided to just run and lure it away. It mostly worked, except this time we aggro'd a fallen valkyrie. Similar HP, can fly above fortifications.

Beachhead got invaded to the point we can't get in to get our stuff, not to mention enemies made it so the ground is littered with junk which gets autopicked up when you walk on it and then brings up the inventory screen when trying to recover your stuff instead of instantly giving you your stuff back.

We gave up. We didn't die that much, but we are done with the BS. I don't hate the game but I think the devs aren't the best at creating a healthy challenge vs just making things rather annoying.

I recently found out the V keybind for autopickup. This will help you get your stuff back.
If they would only add the stacking of same items when picking up stuff from totem. This is much needed feature imo.

Also I founbd out that if you can jump on one of those rocks that enemies can't get up you can stay sneaked and at some point the enemies will walk away. Not going to work when getting attacked from air tho.

Take a break and try again later. I've been taking longer breaks from the game and it seems to help. I'm less tilted or devs are doing those sneaky updates. Either way it helps

[Ohm is Futile]

Originally posted by STK:

Take a break and try again later. I've been taking longer breaks from the game and it seems to help. I'm less tilted or devs are doing those sneaky updates. Either way it helps

Oh we're taking a break alright. Not sure we're ever coming back. If I had to say something constructive:
- Make the shores a sub-biome with normal spawn rates, mostly charred and maybe the odd vulture for a looming threat that can't be blocked as easily.
- Tone down number/duration of hit and run cycles for enemies across the board. I was annoyed by greylings running around my early bases for ages and scratching the paint every now and then, I was rather sick of it when I got to fulings, and now charred twitchers just running all over the place are just aggravating. Give them stamina or something so we don't have to chase those kinds of enemies for a mile to kill them I dunno...
- Naturally occuring undestructible portals or something idk... Death taking everything you have even on the easiest setting (you keep your armor and only the tool you had in your hands) is not punishment, it's a chore. Even with higher resource multipliers farming for materials gets old, nevermind having to spend hours either running/sailing to get your stuff or making extra sets. Souls games are punishing but they don't waste your time quite like this.
- Too many enemies are damage sponges overall. Some get reasonable especially once you're geared for later biomes, but things like Morgen, Fallen Valkyries, and Seeker soldiers taking forever to kill is annoying. Enemies being tricky is interesting, having to whack/plink away at a regular enemy that has a ton of HP is not a test of skill but more of a test of patience.