Why no stone/flint pickaxe?

[pk]

So I only started playing Valheim in November of 2021 and I've always been curious as to why there's no stone or flint pickaxe in the game (despite a stone pickaxe being available through devcommands). Does anyone know why they never added or removed these tools?

Assuming they wanted people to kill Eikthyr to begin mining ores, why not just have the stone/flint pickaxe only work on boulders so that players can gather stone and terraform before killing Eikthyr?

[blankitosonic]

Its most for the 2nd , eletrostag is some easy to kill anyway , deer meat , honey and boar meat
Crude leather or Leather set , crude bow or flint spear+wooden shield and there you go

[Cooperal]

I'd bet it is because of the other solutions that would have rendered those tools obsolete in no time at all.

You only need your bare hands to fulfil the necessity to gather flint and stone from the ground. Trolls can break boulders for you including copper and tin veins. And the antler pickaxe is easy to access within the first or second hour for repeat players.

I have little doubt that it would be easy to implement them, but you don't want to confuse the newbies with more items that run out of use in less time than it takes to acquire them. *cough* bronze equipment *cough*

[pk]

Originally posted by Cooperal:

I'd bet it is because of the other solutions that would have rendered those tools obsolete in no time at all.

You only need your bare hands to fulfil the necessity to gather flint and stone from the ground. Trolls can break boulders for you including copper and tin veins. And the antler pickaxe is easy to access within the first or second hour for repeat players.

I have little doubt that it would be easy to implement them, but you don't want to confuse the newbies with more items that run out of use in less time than it takes to acquire them. *cough* bronze equipment *cough*

As a new player I was actually more confused by not having a craftable pickaxe from the get-go, and the thing is that the stone pickaxe is already implemented in the game - it's just not craftable.

If it was about the pickaxe becoming obsolete, then why do they have a stone AND a flint axe? Why not just a stone axe OR a flint axe? There's a lack of consistent logic here and I'm just curious if there's an explanation.

And yes, of course it's easy to get the antler pickaxe, but I'm wondering why there's even a stone pickaxe in-game at all if it's not able to be crafted.

[electricdawn]

Well, I guess they planned for it and then saw that it would allow you to bypass killing 9V bambi. Thus, they decided to take it out.

Not sure what is hard to understand about that. Why would you need that thing anyway? You can't craft with stone yet, you can't use a smelter yet.

It would only be good as to bang at some rocks and gather a lot of stones. *shrug* I mean, ok, if that's what you want to do... ;)

[Quintium]

There is a good reason of why they do this. Game progression

The lore in the game is that you have forgot how to make things, such as tools. So the progression is to learn. And you learn as you pick up materials.

This is why boss 1 is nothing but a tutorial boss (and super easy to kill). Reason of why they also give you the pickaxe then, so you have it when you really need to go into Black Forest for Copper and Tin. "Two birds with one stone" (pun intended)

And stone really isn't needed until you hit iron age (Swamps) and you get the stone crafting table. Sure, campfires, but can easily be done by picking up stone from the ground. And there are spots in Meadows that provide a good amount of them.

In the end, just kill boss 1 and get the antler pickaxe.

[blankitosonic]

And one can do terraforming without stone , it needed just for spam elevations ...

[Twinkies]

Maybe they didn't want you digging holes before killing Eykthyr? He would be easy to trap in a trench or ditch. Maybe they realized that players will always do what they didn't expect them to do.

[pk]

Originally posted by electricdawn:

Well, I guess they planned for it and then saw that it would allow you to bypass killing 9V bambi. Thus, they decided to take it out.

Not sure what is hard to understand about that. Why would you need that thing anyway? You can't craft with stone yet, you can't use a smelter yet.

It would only be good as to bang at some rocks and gather a lot of stones. *shrug* I mean, ok, if that's what you want to do... ;)

That makes sense, but you can still bypass Eikthyr anyway - it just makes your playthrough a bit less efficient until you get enough bronze bars to make a bronze pickaxe.

Originally posted by Quintium:

There is a good reason of why they do this. Game progression

...

And stone really isn't needed until you hit iron age (Swamps) and you get the stone crafting table. Sure, campfires, but can easily be done by picking up stone from the ground. And there are spots in Meadows that provide a good amount of them.

In the end, just kill boss 1 and get the antler pickaxe.

I've already done a few runs of the game without killing Eikthyr just because I like the free meat event and I don't like starting the greyling invasion event. I also like to clear boulders and change land elevation before I start making a starting base, which means I have to wait until I find a troll so that I can make a bronze pickaxe. Despite knowing that they have tied the antler pickaxe to the boss, I still think having a boulder smasher from the start would make sense and wouldn't be more confusing or game breaking than not having access to one.

Originally posted by blankitosonic:

And one can do terraforming without stone , it needed just for spam elevations ...

I like to clear out boulders and set the elevation to my desired height, but if the developers' intention is to make it uncomfortable to build bases until the player has beaten Eikthyr (or made a bronze pickaxe) then fair enough I guess.

Originally posted by Zeppion:

Maybe they didn't want you digging holes before killing Eykthyr? He would be easy to trap in a trench or ditch. Maybe they realized that players will always do what they didn't expect them to do.

That's entirely possible, but so is completing the game without even fighting Eikthyr. Maybe the developers don't want people to cheese bosses, but honestly I don't think most people would bother as most of the bosses are quite easy.

Anyway, I guess the consensus is that a stone pickaxe is not necessary (which I somewhat agree with), so unless a developer chimes in I think we've pretty much solved the case.

[SilverSpeedy]

To make the player work for rewards and not be simple overkill game. Makes you build up in each tier before moving on to the next. Each boss unlock something new for better gear to craft. So blocking on pick axe in beginning stop players from getting too powerful early in the game. Even skipping other bosses.
Deer boss-basic gear, defeating the boss allow to mine copper/tin for bronze
Black forest boss-bronze/troll/copper items, defeating the boss allow mine iron
Swamp boss-iron/troll/root items, defeating the allows silver finding (silver is very powerful in swamp).
Dragon boss (mountain)-silver/fernis items, defeating the boss allow to make blacken metal bars.
Plains boss not sure what you get. Padded gear/fenris/blacken metal items.

If you did not kill each boss for drop items, you can become very powerful and then lower boss become a cake walk. Just like making haul ore around in a ship or even eggs. No short cuts. Makes the game more challenging then simple x for items. Working for rewards is better than having everything given to you.

[Subsonic]

Stone pickaxe is a legacy item that was phased out as the game evolved. Getting fixated on that is useless. As already noted, this is a progression game. That's really all there is to it. Technically you don't *need* to defeat any bosses before Moder, but if you do follow the progression then you'll be much more efficient in your quest to clear Valheim of Odin's enemies.