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You've got 1000 hours, which you really enjoyed, from this $20 game. Pretty good value still.
Yeah, there's a reason the devs said the Ashlands are going to be more brutal as the previous biomes. And why the tool-tip Raven told you to "Prepare for war!".
I guess you missed both warnings, eh?
Also, multiple spawn points can be destroyed; are you aware of that? Especially the Charred Spawners (ingame known as Stones of Torment) can be destroyed with a pickaxe or the fireball from the magic staff. Doing so may attract more monsters for a while, but once the spawner is destroyed it'll give you a lot more peace and quiet.
Then there's the spawn surpressing options of player made items that also help. You might consider using those two things for a change.
If you run out of stamina it can only be because of three things:
1) you didn't use the right food combination. Even as a full mage, having eaten one stamina food is a good idea
2) instead of using the common running, you've been sprinting and jumping way too often; thus depleting your stamina too fast and not taking enough time to have it regenerate
3) you didn't bring or didn't use the (lingering) stamina potions. While the normal stamina potions give you a full stamina burst once, the lingering ones increase your stamina's regeneration rate, making it a lot easier to manage your stamina.
More important, more as in the other biomes, sound matter in the Ashlands. Sprint around a lot and you will attract monsters and they will attack you. There are allies, however, so use them wisely to defeat the ones attacking you. And in case you need to escape, retreat in the direction you came from, not into where you want to go.
As for fighting near lava; yeah well, if you thought you can walk over / through molten stone and live you've playing the wrong game. If you see you're about to ganged up close to it, you run away, even if that means some of the monsters will chase you.
As for jumping out of the boiling water and no stamina; same I said about not having enough on land applies here. And the idea is a good one. The Ashlands are burning and there's lot of lava out there. It only makes sense to have the lava affect the water around the islands, meaning that water is boiling hot.
Ever realised you don't have to sail between the spikes at full speed? The slower the speed, the better the turning circle of the boat is. There's enough large gaps between the spikes to even sail through with half sails. There's no need to worry about the voltures as they are pretty easy to kill with a bow or with magic.
There's also not really much need to worry about the Bonemaw, as they are pretty easy to kill with a bow as well. And the Draker got a lot more HP as the longboat has, meaning it can deal with several Bonemaw attacks.
One of the first thing you need to do is to create a safe foothold there. The Dverger outposts, the area on top of a putrit hole are very good spots for a small outpost, large enough for a workbench and a portal. And make sure you mark the thing on your map so you can find it in pitch dark circumstances.
The moment an ashstorm hits the biome, return, jump through the portal to a main base, repair items, craft items, create food, sleep, but don't spend time out there. You can portal in to see if it's gone, and the moment it is, continue your exploration. And with enough mats for a workbench and new portal, it's easy enough to expand into the Ashlands without having to worry for an Ashstorm.
Pets
-- skeletons most of the time simply walk through the Lava and then you Die!
-- Your skeletons last 2 seconds in water they boil to death the AI is so dumb you'd think they would be able to avoid this but no.
It's not impossible at all, if you do things right.
Don't fight near lava, don't use all your stamina to sprint around, don't jump at each and every peak you encounter for a better overview and you got half your problem solved.
Put down temporary portals at secure (dverger outposts, on top of putrid holes) spots before heading into a new area to make sure body retrieval is a heck of a lot easier.
If you died to a large gang of mobs, look for a weapon that's able to do crowd control.
As for your friend respawning in the wrong location, what did you expect? If you reload a character save that wouldn't happen, but if you reloaded a world save, both! of you would respawn at the location that save is made. Which - as you already figured out - can have very nasty results.
As a matter of fact, it isn't.
I got the impression that despite your 1000 hours, you still haven't understood the mechanics of the game.
Which are:
1) Don't waste your stamina on sprinting and jumping when you can use the "common" running (around an object) to get to your goal.
Sprinting makes a lot more noise as the common running, meaning you will attracks monsters a lot more.
2) The entire game gives you the option to fight the monsters where you want to fight them, not where they want to fight you. The only exception to this are the bosses.
If you are being ganged up by monsters, you are fighting them at the wrong location.
Instead, retreat and fight them where you want to fight them. Deal with the hardest ones - Askvin, Morgen, Valkyrie, (some may have different idea's about the order of these three) Charred Warriors, Charred Marksmen, Charred Twister - first, before picking the easier ones.
3) When you're with other players, the monsters get more HP and hit harder, but don't spawn more. But that's the only disadvantage.
The advantage you have is that with friends you can actually set up how to support one another. Even two mages can perfectly support one another, as long as you make good agreements about who's doing what. One mage fighting a Morgen while the other dealing with a Valkyrie 100-200 meters away isn't a good idea. Both being 20 meters apart and dealing with the Morgen or Valkyrie, however, will get that monster down faster as when fighting it solo in a solo game.
Also, make sure you are using the right weapons. Most bone monsters are resistant to pierce. Which makes using a bow or even a crossbow pretty useless. Magic on the other hand does miracles; especially the ones doing blunt damage.....
As for the devs testing this game:
Smiffe (the community manager) has 5K+ hours in this game. So I think it's being tested by them alright...
And again about the playtime;
In the past weeks I've been following a streamer who did the entire journey to Ashlands from a fresh start. She too made some of the mistakes you made, especially when it came to stamina managemant; but she learned to adapt. The part up to Mistlands went pretty smooth, as that's simply a matter of using the same weapon (types) to get the job done.
Mistland was harder and it took her 4 hours to get the Queen killed. But she did adapt to the biome, created spare gear for the corpse runs and eventually found a playstyle making her comfortable.
For her too, Ashlands was pretty hard at the start. But she adapted to it, decided to leave the coastal area and head inland and because of that eventually managed to get to the final boss; which went down in about two hours.
Again, creating spare gear, trying out which weapons felt best for her, setting up outposts at area that were perfectly safe (on top of putrid holes, inside the fortresses, even on top of the sulphur arches), it all helped her to get to the final boss.
I guess that she died about 50 times in Ashlands, perhaps even more; which is also about twice the amount she died in the previous biomes.
The only time she got frustrated was when her body was camped by several Charred Warriors, making it impossible to get it back without the right gear to deal with those. And even then she managed to get that body back without using cheats.
Which, imho, isn't that bad for someone who's got 2-300 hours the most in Valheim.
The key to this game is not how fast you get to bosses and kill them. As a matter of fact, the faster you kill bosses, the more complicated the next ones will be, because you're underleveled to deal with them.
Swamp is the first speed bump and Mistlands the second.
Swamp teaches how important the rested bonus and stamina mangement are. And it's the most important lesson in the game.
Mistland teaches you that running (sprinting) around to get from A to B isn't a good idea because sound travels far and monsters will be attracked to it.
Ashlands combine those two things by throwing mobs at you until you learn to manage them.
And if you can't, you're the one doing something wrong, not the devs. So learn from it, because the Deep North will be a heck of a lot more difficult as Ashlands is / was.
Thorin
Also as i work for a Game developer i can tell you now Smiffe may well have 5k hours in the game but he is just one person who will do the same things and fight and play the game the same way over and over. hes not a team of people testing or thousands of players playing it and sending feedback. he is also has a job to look out for going a against the grain and telling it like it is inst always the smart thing to do if you an employee, that's why people with no connection to a company are the best you also have the factor of time. i am sure he will be raising these issue and gets told "yeah we don't have time to fix it" or "we'll fix it in post" . The Beta period was not long enough to address gameplay. that is simply to test if the game does not crash. it won't address gameplay issues to get things right.
Also i call BS on your lighting reply. if that were true that i need to take a portal with me for the storms. this would be the only level in the game where that was needed. its therefore totally true that the lighting during storms is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and they need to fix it
Yeah. I’ll keep playing but I am enjoying it a lot less now. It’s become a depressing chore.
The Mistlands and the Ashlands are more tedious than difficult, and tedium is not fun for the vast majority of people. There's ways to make difficulty fun, this is not it, as shown by the sizeable review score drop since the Ashlands has dropped.
I imagine the final Biome will be even worse. Knowing these devs, they'll make it so you need to hug a camp fire every 30 seconds or you'll freeze to death whilst also limiting your movement speed to half.
All valid points. The majority know the game is broken. The devs know the game is broken...hence the devs are fixing it. Be sure and check it out again after the fixes from PTB are in main branch.
No it's not.
The spawn rate is too high actually, and that's it.
Get away from the coast and the entire Ashlands region is a lot easier to deal with.
As for the rest, I went into Ashlands at day 1 of the PTB with a char from a previous playthrough and got my butt whooped, kicked and handed over to me.
Created a new character and set it up to get into the Ashlands without ending up as a corpse the first 5 minutes.
All went pretty well with that one, because I adapted to the circumstances, just like I pointed out in my previous post. Eventually that one died trice in the Ashlands so far. Twice because of a small stretch of lava hidden under a fallen tree, once because an Aksvin bumped me right back into the fire cast by a Valkyrie, while I just tried to get out of that.
When moving to the Ashlands, I used my longboat up to the point where the water turned red, went back to a nice "cozy" Mistland island, set up a small base with workbench and portal there, crafted the Drakar and went back into the Ashlands again.
I ignored the bonemaw or dealt with them using a bow, actually jumping into the water to collect the loot and getting back aboard the ship without even running out of stamina.
Voltures were shot down with the Spinesnap bow and the loot dropping in water was again picked up while I was swimming there.
My initial landing point was close to a Dverger outpost and I didn't have a problem at all. the li'l fellows offered some extra protection and when they died it was a piece of cake to destroy their ward, build a workbench and portal there, sail my ship back to my Mistland outpost and use portals to get into Ashland.
The Stone of Torment were a bit hard to deal with using a pickaxe, but once I learned about the fire staff being able to destroy them too, they became a piece of cake.
A Valkyrie is a piece of cake with a firestaff or a good (cross-)bow as well, as long as you keep moving and fight it at your terms.
So far the only two monsters giving me a headache are the Morgen and the Aksvin. But even those two can be dealt with.
So, is Ashland broken like claim? Not at all.
Is the spawnrate broken like you claim? Not at all.
Yes, the spawn rate is - even imho - too high, but with some good adaption can be dealt with.
The key to this game is that YOU adapt to the biome, not you forcing the biome to adapt to you. Because the latter is impossible.
If you don't want to do that, Mistland, Ashland and the Deep North will always be "too hard"; even when playing at the easiest possible difficulty.
Thorin
first off :
FUN IS SUBJECTIVE. thus the claim NOT FUN. is entirely meaningless as its just saying "i do not like this personally" which is fine. but never a good reason alone for any change.
there is some enemy spawnrate changes on the current test build. try them out. beware as askvin spawnrates are unchanged. pretty much spawnrates of anything more dangerous remains the same. changes arent final yet and devs are now on summer break.
ashlands was playtested.
solo and in a group. many many times.
devs wanna create a challengeing experience and wanna stay true to BRUTAL survival game as advertised.
if you cannot handle the default settings you can always adjust them downwards till they match your own personal skill level.
now onto the mistakes the tc keeps makeing.
ventureing at night. why? take shelter during nights. same for storms. take shelter or portal home. its a survival game. you arent supposed to be out full time. can you be? yes. but that in exchange of course RAISES THE RISK of fying by a great deal for nearly no gain. even the games own loading screens tell you this. entirely user error therefore. can be fully avoided all you need is patience. no reason for changes on this one at all. they make sense and can stay as is. they fit the games survival aspect.
this aint a major issue therefore but a purely personal problem on your end.
fighting near lava. a mistake you should make maybe ONCE. then never again. otherwise YOU havent learned anything from your mistake the first time. non issue. no reason for changes either. entirely user error.
flametal armor raises the reaction time to get out of lava by a moment btw. but this isnt terraria where you can down in lava for ages just because you have a certain item equipped.
outrunning flyers never worked well. in ANY BIOME. what made you even think it was a good idea in ashlands in the first place? i tought youre experienced?
sailing. you TURN your big ships despite playing for 1000 hours? still havent learned that actually rowing them backwards and turning is better and easier than trying to turn the entire big slow thing while going forward trough narrow gaps? you didnt sail much did you`? metal teleport enabled?
plus you make that sailing trip like ONCE. then never again since the stone portal exists and is very easy to aquire.
ocean water boils yeah. why jump into it? you have a ship thats immune to it. a large ship with alot of health. like. the sole reason to ever jump into the water is to collect bonemaw drops. and its very easy to get back into the ship after doing so withint time. the water doesnt boil you instantly. also again : onetime deal in most cases till you have a portal placed.
you play multiplayer. multiplayer is easier than solo. you still cannot handle it? people have been soloing ashlands just fine on default settings for months now. this is simply a case of either "not probaly prepared" or simply a lack of combat experience in total.
Very well said. I am a solo player. The mist lands is a ♥♥♥♥ biome that I am glad I never have to return to, but I learned what I had to their geared up and moved on.
The Ashlands However finally gives me the brutal onslaught I wanted from this game. It is a warzone, rest and periods of relief are short lived in a combat zone.
You cannot rush around this biome without kiting high volumes of enemies. Adapt or perish.
The sliders go both ways. I've been playing PTB for a while now, and find it about right for normal mode. I've run into plenty of very difficult situations, but the spawn rate is more manageable. The one charred fortress that I've found was extremely easy, but I have to think it was more RNG than the reduced difficulty of the PTB (no warlocks, just walked in and cleared the place).
I would like to find another charred fortress to verify my hypothesis, but I was thinking that it might be time to go back to try another run in my normal no-portal, no-map, hard mode now that I know what I'm facing.
And the most important question is have you found this version more fun? Given your mix of other settings, you certainly don't seem a person who wants Ashlands easy, just more manageable for your play style. I suspect that the sliders are in the works. The developers are not stupid and they certainly know what can enhance sales. When they return from their summer break, we might even see spawn sliders later this year - maybe along with the next crafting station upgrades and maybe even new concept art for Deep North. Lots to look forward to!
Yes. I've found it more fun, because I feel like I can make more progress. Prior to PTB I felt like I had to just keep moving through the gauntlet. Not because I couldn't fight what I was passing, but because if I stopped to fight everything I wouldn't get anywhere. In PTB it seems more manageable.
I've been in plenty of difficult combats in PTB. You can still hit concentrations that you have to deal with, they're just less frequent. I was able to find another charred fortress, but coming back I hit a spot with 3 asksvins, a morgan (later follwed by another morgan), at least 4 vultures, and at at least a dozen charred, with a valk in the distance that I was trying not to agro. When I got back, my level 4 mistwalker just has a sliver of life remaining!
From what I've read, PTB has less charred, which are just annoyances for the most part, but not reduced morgans, asksvins, and valk, which are more of a challenge. That seems reasonable to me.