The new update feels like a scam

[NickIAm]

1. Charred fortress is not what was promised to us by all those fancy concept arts of the "Iron Gate". Usually concepts are polished to be better and not meant to become worse.
2. All mechanics are almost identical to the Black Forest: the spawners, the mobs.

It's been 1.5 years since mistlands and we got this ctrl+c → ctrl+v.

P.S. I've had fun with my friend untill Ashlands hit us with the insane spawn rates. After a few fixes we've managed to get new loot and finally upgrade our gear. The moment of realisation about copypasted work hit us was sad.

[ministrog]

i'd argue against it's a direct copy paste, but there are some things they have to copy. good example would be the ground. we're suppose to be heroic vikings so we kinda need the ground to be the same. i take your point on the ruins, both have loot of random junk. i personally like the ashland ancient pot loot in ruins. they got useful things like iron ingots which saved me one time. i forgot to bring 2 iron ingots with me when journeying around ashlands, but anyways. i think ashland is the first time they had "useless' loot, like rotten meat. i mean maybe it makes you vomit, but really... kinda useless. also minor healing potions... in ashlands... i'm only making this point since they wanted to NOT add useless stuff in valheim.

troll cave and putrids are also similar. again point taken.

the topography is where it's different. yes both have rocks, but in ashlands you also got lava lakes. they also got enemies that can terraform on death.

the weather in ashland is also trying to kill ya if you get unlucky and afk. it's so hot that vision is warped. imo they could do without the ash storm and the fog; straight copy pasta. they can keep the night dark fog (which as you know brings higher spawn rates and starred enemies)

food is interesting. in black forest, food found could be mixed with some meadows stuff to create BIS food. this was copy paste over to ashland but to a lesser degree. the one area they SHOULD copy paste they did less of it.

weapon acquisition is similar and different. in ashland you can stalk red dwarfs until they eventually die out and collect metal. you can find forts, ladder up and 'heist' metal. or you can do the same thing in black forest. clear and secure the area, prep your character for mining, and pray the spawns gods you get home safely.

[vandalism]

I think they focus too much on making it brutally difficult. There could be more variety in gameplay and mechanics.

Objectively speaking the ashlands is just the same as the other biomes with some new looking weather effects. The metal is just a copy paste of leviathan.

The monsters are new designs. The weapons and armor are new.

Realistically how long would some new meshes and textures take to create? There's new build pieces.

Was this realistically a 1.5 year project? I find it hard to swallow their pace. I have never made a game I guess so I don't know but it feels like they work slow.

Same thing as project zomboid with their build 42.

These companies build these timelines and pump expectations so much that it's only natural that we finally get the product and we are like... this is it?

Keep in mind fallout new Vegas was completely made in like 2 years. One of the bests of all time came out on a crunch deadline.

I get that iron gate is doing their own thing and I respect that they are not crunching in a negative way that some do but man what ashlands is vs what they sold us on is two different things.

[OLlama]

Originally posted by vandalism:

I think they focus too much on making it brutally difficult. There could be more variety in gameplay and mechanics.

My friends and I were heavily discussing this last night, and that was the full consensus.

The monsters themselves are pretty well visually designed and different. There was definitely some learning to do with a few of them to learn when to dodge/block, but it feels like they made the mobs lazily difficult by just increasing their health and damage. Not to mention how monsters are aggroing from out of Narnia. The second you begin finishing up the group of mobs you came across, all of a sudden there is a whole new wave coming at you. Mind you this is with no spawners in sight. Want to do a quick ore run? Nope, be prepared to be clearing mobs for 30 minutes before you can start mining. And then once you finish mining a node get ready to clear out some more or bee line your butt out of there.

I honestly think the Plains goblins were the best thought out monsters. It's like they are their own mmo party. They have big beefy tanky goblins, melee dps goblins, ranged dps goblins, and a support/dps caster goblin. Not to mention that they move around a ton which makes the fights feel dynamic. Ashlands just feels like meat sponge after meat sponge.

I love the sheer amount of new items, food, equips, and building pieces though. It's always a nice little dose of dopamine when you unlock a new recipe lol

[Urban Blackbear]

Originally posted by vandalism:

I think they focus too much on making it brutally difficult. There could be more variety in gameplay and mechanics.

Objectively speaking the ashlands is just the same as the other biomes with some new looking weather effects. The metal is just a copy paste of leviathan.

The monsters are new designs. The weapons and armor are new.

Realistically how long would some new meshes and textures take to create? There's new build pieces.

Was this realistically a 1.5 year project? I find it hard to swallow their pace. I have never made a game I guess so I don't know but it feels like they work slow.

Same thing as project zomboid with their build 42.

These companies build these timelines and pump expectations so much that it's only natural that we finally get the product and we are like... this is it?

Keep in mind fallout new Vegas was completely made in like 2 years. One of the bests of all time came out on a crunch deadline.

I get that iron gate is doing their own thing and I respect that they are not crunching in a negative way that some do but man what ashlands is vs what they sold us on is two different things.

Fallout: New Vegas started as a mod of Fallout 3. The entire engine was already in place.

[>< V ><]

Originally posted by Urban Blackbear:

Originally posted by vandalism:

I think they focus too much on making it brutally difficult. There could be more variety in gameplay and mechanics.

Objectively speaking the ashlands is just the same as the other biomes with some new looking weather effects. The metal is just a copy paste of leviathan.

The monsters are new designs. The weapons and armor are new.

Realistically how long would some new meshes and textures take to create? There's new build pieces.

Was this realistically a 1.5 year project? I find it hard to swallow their pace. I have never made a game I guess so I don't know but it feels like they work slow.

Same thing as project zomboid with their build 42.

These companies build these timelines and pump expectations so much that it's only natural that we finally get the product and we are like... this is it?

Keep in mind fallout new Vegas was completely made in like 2 years. One of the bests of all time came out on a crunch deadline.

I get that iron gate is doing their own thing and I respect that they are not crunching in a negative way that some do but man what ashlands is vs what they sold us on is two different things.

Fallout: New Vegas started as a mod of Fallout 3. The entire engine was already in place.

One could say something similar with Valheim and the Unity engine.

[Exodite-Dragon]

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Originally posted by Urban Blackbear:

Fallout: New Vegas started as a mod of Fallout 3. The entire engine was already in place.

One could say something similar with Valheim and the Unity engine.

What is backgammon but contemporary society's royal game of Ur?

[Davestiii]

Me i was disapointed in melee ... Caster get those new cool inferno Troll, Vines magic and all while melee just get the same old combo, no shield charge or shield counter/hit, no trust + dodge attack nothing ... Sneaking is also useless now in Ashland with the 30 mobs spawning around every 10 seconds which remove even more opportunity for melee build. himmin afl is still one of the best weapon because of the x 6 stagger power attack and lightning element counting toward stagger... So yeah it really is the same for melee.

Even the armor feel like the same ... Changing from one set of armor to the new one give 0 more defense until you upgrade it, just like Mistland before with padding armor. Only the cloak has seen a major change going from Mist to Ashland breaking the chain of Ctrl c + Ctrl V.

[Qobura]

not getting a buckler sucks but I understand the back-and-forth between adding towershield then buckler then towershield
the light armor is neat but the heat resist on the flametal is a slap in the face

the single biggest complaint I have is the specks of "lava" that are invisible until they kill you almost instantly, this should very very much not be the way it is.

[Einstine]

Originally posted by vandalism:

I think they focus too much on making it brutally difficult. There could be more variety in gameplay and mechanics.

That is often used to compensate for a lack of content. It must be quite a challenge though to balance a coop game like this across 1 to X players for difficulty.

[Kursor1]

The swarming issue is because its like the Black Forest- Make noise? Get critters. Cut a tree? Get critters. Mine stone/copper? Get critters. Do any of that at night? Get ALL the critters. :P So for Ashlands, dont damage the trees or ruins while fighting and portal home to sleep at night.

[Zathabar]

Not a scam.

But now I have played a bit my worst fears came to light.

Its frankly NOT as interesting as the Modded versions it pushed out. Possibly because modders "beat them to it" on most of their "ideas" some by 2 years...

I like the heat haze though. Thats the sort of visual trickery that would have made Mistlands more interesting to me but thats another dozen threads I guess.