Skill drain upon death

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

Hello folks! Thanks for taking time to read this topic.
Got a question here, but here's a bit of a story first.

I got to a point in the game where you realize the difference the skills bring into the day-to-day basis. For instance, after getting my swords / bows / blocking over 50, I started to notice just how huge the difference is (especially, the latter, for me), compared to lower skill levels. Obviously, it takes quite some time to get there, but it's very rewarding once you do. The story so far is that I was returning back to my base after a pretty long adventure and got stuck in a texture between two trees. Silly me, I thought I could jump through them. While I was grabbing my axe, a troll came... So, I've managed to parry his first strike and while he was recoiling, I started chopping the wood, but then a 2nd troll came. Long story short, I got killed and lost quite a lot of skill points (that I spent hours farming for). Well, death's to be expected when you lose focus, so I just returned, gathered my stuff, took revenge upon the trolls and returned to the base. Fast forward around 15 or so minutes, a friend invited me to join him. So I joined and saw this "the forest is about to screw your stupid crap, moron"; in come the draugur, and then I get killed again (the immunity to skill drain buff was off already). So I've lost hours and hours of skill training in a manner of 30 or so minutes.

I understand that, according to the concept of this genre, death must be punishable in Valheim (sadly, this is my 1st and only survival game that I've ever played), but I cannot begin to express just how much I hate when the game forces you to play additional hours into it. It's like those mini-games in action games that have you hammering a button for 20 times in a quick succession to uhm... open a door or something. Whenever I feel that the game makes such artificial reasons to just return to mind-boggling farming, I... well, I don't think this is a good hallmark.

So, the question so far is: has anyone found a way to stall the skill drain? Maybe there's an item or a skill later in the game that does that? Any way at all? Because this de-incentivizes playes to actually spend time on leveling skills, knowing that the more time they spend on it, the more they will lose in an unfortunate event of their deaths.

Perhaps, it would be better in this case to remove skills from the game in the first place?




EDIT: As for 11th of March, 2021, there is no method to manage the skill drain in game, apart from mods and console commands. Thank you all for participating!

[Cryptix]

I don't think you should lose levels at all. I think that losing all your gear is good enough.

It's like "hey, you just got killed by a thing that's better than you are, in response we will make it harder for you to beat it in the future!" just seems kinda off to me.

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

Originally posted by Paid_Didnt_Win:

The skill drain is brutal, especially at higher levels... I don't think removing skills is the answer, but simply tempering the drain loss or providing ways to regain the skills back, perhaps.

I understand there needs to be consequences for deaths but losing hours and hours of progress can be quite frustrating.

Originally posted by Cryptix:

I don't think you should lose levels at all. I think that losing all your gear is good enough.

It's like "hey, you just got killed by a thing that's better than you are, in response we will make it harder for you to beat it in the future!" just seems kinda off to me.

You folks are right. This is basically my point, except put in a more eloquent way =) Thanks for sharing. Hope the devs notice this.

[Cryptix]

Originally posted by Paid_Didnt_Win:

The skill drain is brutal, especially at higher levels... I don't think removing skills is the answer, but simply tempering the drain loss or providing ways to regain the skills back, perhaps.

Maybe levels can be picked back up when you loot your own body. That might be more reasonable.

[Soulbite]

One idea might be to "lock out" X number of levels rather than losing them completely, unlocking/regaining them over time or when getting XP in them (but not having the locked out levels be lost or affect gaining further skill, just not give you the benefits until you've met conditions to regain them)

[Nex]

I sailed somewhere I shouldn't have. There is killer bees, wraiths, zombies, spear throwing goblins everywhere. I went on a five death streak. I play solo and I have bad luck. I don't even care about stats at this point. I gave up on them. This game punishes you worse than Dark Souls as far as making you feel like leveling is pointless.

[Erdo]

I am a little bit confused. I have skill drain immunity the whole time, playing solo. Is it suposed to be that way?

[Erdo]

I don't watch my stats, so I am not sure if this is just bugged system message or actually bugged immunity.

[Tam]

Curent system if fine, get better jesus christ, stop trying to make evrtything easier.
In fact character should have lost all skills upon death since this game is called BRUTAL, but i do not see anything of that in the game.

[DD The Pumpkin King]

I stopped worrying when I got smacked by a log wielding troll after getting hung on something.

Pretty sure I lost 5 or so levels across the board so if it's going to punish that hard I won't bother.

It's not too big a deal, the difference between 1-100 in terms of weapon damage is 3 times your starting value. Not really worth grinding the skills specifically for that.

[Gopher]

the game just needs customization options for when you're creating a world/hosting a server. Would be nice if we could put extreme/not at all on these features.

[Solitus]

Repairing costs no resources.
When you die, all your gear is stored safely, and indefinitely with a marker so you can recover it.
Maybe the answer is selectable difficulty levels, but this game already is very forgiving. There needs to be some penalty for failing, or you might as well be playing with cheats on.
But not everyone wants to play that way, so make it a toggle.

[jgraham0331]

Does anyone know the exact penalty and is it the same at all levels? Is it a percentage of skill level or does it depend on what level the skill is? Do you lose 20 levels from 100 or only 5 or 10? What about if your skill level is 2?

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

Originally posted by Paid_Didnt_Win:

Originally posted by Tamm:

Curent system if fine, get better jesus christ, stop trying to make evrtything easier.
In fact character should have lost all skills upon death since this game is called BRUTAL, but i do not see anything of that in the game.

elitist edge lord post....
anime profile pic, yep, checks out.

Yeah, I was waiting when someone with a "git gud" comment shows up, lol =)

[lllllllll]

bunch of casuals trying to change the single "brutal" mechanic this game has cuz "i dont like it im bad". holy sht

[SleeprunnerInc]

Think about it this way..
No matter how many times you die, your corpse will still be there to pickup.
The marker will always indicate your last known death so keep that in mind.
In dark souls, die twice in a row and you lose ALL your souls which are basically your EXP.
In this game losing your skill levels isn't that big of a deal considering you get them back pretty darn easily without much risk VS dark souls.

Of course I can understand that there will be an optionable toggle later on in teh future.
But for now, it's pretty well balanced.