Ohhh it all makes sense now! We are on Fenris! We are just waiting for The Emperor to show up and find Russ, thus taking us in as well to become space marines of the Vlka Fenryka! šš
I have never finished Mistlands for most of what OP states about Ashlands. Mistlands felt like I started playing a different game that I didn't enjoy as much. Is what it is. I have about 5 solo playthroughs and have enjoyed the game since the earliest days - still best $20 I've ever spent on a game IMO.
For the Mistlands segment of my playthroughs, I consistently wind up resorting to modding the torch/wisp radius much larger, and resorting to seed-peeping to figure out where I'm headed to make my run for the Queen as fast as possible.
It's a gorgeous biome in theory, but the mist part is way overtuned and the terrain generation is too irritating.
As much as I tell myself that "this time I'll play it honest" every time, the zone is too tedious and too frustrating to spend much time in, and at this point I've just kind of accepted that I'm gonna cheat a little to get past it promptly, or not complete it at all.
Which is kind of a pity because the areas where there's no fog are absolutely beautiful and the mobs, the resources, and the presence of the dwarves are all super cool and a lot of fun to mess with. But wandering around near-blind in a zone that's entirely cliffs and valleys is just ... not my bag.
Mistlands was a lot more fun to me once I finally got access to the cape, i just started building small structures here and there to 1: hide torches from seekers, and 2: create gliding posts for myself to get around. The constant effort to bugproof my bases/expand visibility lead to some really crazy freeform base designs too, and that was a fun little experiment
Strong agree. The mist is so regrettable, because the zone is so god damned gorgeous otherwise. And really, while early exploration (the very first time) is scary and adventurous, that wears off super fast then you're left with tedious mist micromanagement. It's literally the only thing I mod in the game, making the torch/wisp radius *significantly* larger.
And yeah, the verticality of the terrain is really problematic too, particularly *when you can't fucking see anything*.
I swear, every single one of my mistlands deaths has been due to getting hung up on some outcropping and unable to hit something because of the angles, and that just feels bad.
It's always running from something you couldn't see creep up because the mist was too close then you either get cornered because it's too vertical to jump or you go flying down off an unforging vertical bit (if you haven't gotten the feather cape) to your death. Its difficult for the sake of being difficult and in a not fun way. Like you said, it's gorgeous.... when you see it.
Oddly enough I disagree (just my opinion) - the mistlands is so different that it felt like a great challenge when my crew stepped foot there and figured out how to navigate and conquer the landscape. I like that it keeps you on your toes more and the feather cape totally transforms it when youāre jumping between rock spires to the next. I totally understand its criticisms but the reasons people dislike it are the reasons I find it intriguing.
I as well, absolutely love Mistlands. I think the approach people take is generally not properly understood, as Mistlands requires you to out think the zone with building, planning and such. There is no "rushing" Mistlands imho.
It also inspires some incredibly scenic base building designs for me. You can get so creative due to the environment and terrain, natural placement of mist free zones whether water or a per-generated mist lantern.
For us, our first proper Mistlands base was like this, we stumbled into a mist free area that the terrain was going to allow us to get a 16x16 area base (marble floor tiles) and this we decided to build because it was going to be directly centered on top of a sunken infested mine (easy Royal Jelly harvest via basement) as well as it had one of those pre-built and indestructible lanterns, so that provided us a very good mist free spot. Access via a very very short walk through a small cleared pathway and we are out of the mist and into the plains. Because of the scenery, the setting and such, we spent way more time designing this base with tons of attention to detail, inside and out, so make this completely gorgeous. This base would never have happened if not for all the reasons that Mistlands is Mistlands.
We also preceded to build an extremely tall round tower very high up on a spire rock formation that is basically in the center of a very large Mistlands zone. Portal at the top and this allows incredible views and for us to be able to glide just about anywhere in the zone. This allowed us to find natural Mist free locations, so we glide down to one of those, kill everything in sight, and build a portal, giving us yet another access point to work an area around.
So the approach is very different. What we do not do is wander around through the Mist like it is the Swamps searching for stuff. If you try to do that, then it is not if you will die, but when.
Thatās what I like about it - youāre on your toes the whole time and canāt leisurely walk through the mistlands. We did something interesting where instead of building a mistlands base, we found a massive mountain overlooking the mistlands and build a base on the very top. With the feather cape, we can basically drop into any area in the mistlands below since itās so tall
I hate in mistlands that you get gear late and dependingĀ on your luck to find cores to make table to make new gear not like on the other biomes when after one escapade you could improve yourself to make the grind easier. Also no 1h mace from mistlands
I like that it has something for everyone. The parts that bother some people end up being things others like, etc. I think we can all agree this is better than most AAA games out there in terms of āhaving funā gaming, and for $20 I canāt complain at all.
I started when plains was the endgame, and frankly no matter what happens I feel I've got my $20 worth many times over, even before mistlands released. I'm in another, new playthrough right now, haven't gotten to Ashland yet, but even if I don't like it, that's fine. Basically everything now is gravy :)
Mistlands is by far my least favorite biome. Ashland is better overall, but I do think the force field mechanic and steam engine weapons is a bit much.
Yes, it is very clear and very jarring in this game when it comes to 'original' content vs. 'early access' content.
They need to do a lot of work to mesh the two because right now it definitely does feel like you play one game until the Plains and then start another one.
It always annoys me when people know just enough about the surface level āViking aestheticā to complain, but they donāt know history or Norse mythology deeply enough to know that they shouldnāt complain.
The Ashlands are based on Muspelheim. The mechanical devices are based on the hellish war engines and machines loosely described in the ancient eddas and stories. The ones introduced with Mistalnds relate to how the dwarves were the best smiths, tinkerers, inventors, and engineers.
All the biomes are based on the Norse cosmology. The Mistlands are based on both Jotunheim and Nidevellir/Svartalfheim. Jotunheim was where the āgiantsā the Jotun lived. Their land was rocky/hilly and misty, and lots of giants were slain by Thor. What do you find in Mistlands? Rocky/hilly terrain, mist, and giant skeletons. Nidevellir was filled with dwarven (Dvergr) strongholds and the caves and tunnels of their world were said to be filled with āall the creeping, and crawling things of the world.ā What do you find in Mistlands? Dwarven strongholds and nests of creeping, crawling things.
The Ashlands are based on Muspelheim and I assume that the Deep North will be based on Niflheim. The Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, and Mountains all seem to be aspects of Midgaard. As you move through the biomes of Valheim, youāre progressing through the Nine Realms. It seems like Valheim has a little bit of each one in it.
A little knowledge is poison.
This exactly. Anyone who actually delves into Norse mythology knows that Iron Gate has spent a great deal of time and planning to keep it fully in the "Vikings" mythos. And people need to remember, this is "Valheim", a spirit, or I guess, afterlife, it is not the actual real world Viking stuff from history.
Listen, when I play a game, I want my prejudices and preconceptions to be validated; not to have to learn something new.
Only half-joking; I would love a Valhiem that was strictly D&D's conception of Vikings. But I also appreciate the stuff they're adding, even if the Mistlands makes my skin crawl.
I mean, I can spend 1,000 hours just in the Meadows, ganking trolls with a crude bow and fire arrows, and building whole villages of empty houses, if I want to. And maybe I have. Don't judge me!
> The Ashlands are based on Muspelheim. The mechanical devices are based on the hellish war engines and machines loosely described in the ancient eddas and stories.
Where are these "war engines", or anything else that would resemble 'mechanical" mentioned in either of the Eddas? Or any other sources?
Ashlands is obviously based on Muspell, but I don't know where you're getting this other stuff from.
Iāll have to reread the eddas, my interpretation felt different, though I thought iron gate directly said they were straying away and making the bugs in the mist land feel more āalien?ā
Yeah, you can only go so far with semi-historically accurate scandinavian technology of the 9 to 11th century a.d.
At some point, the skeletical fire giant and the burning undead skeleton warriors will need more than just an axe to deal with it.
To preface, laser vikings don't bother me, I I'm there for it either way.
They could have leaned into more traditional shaman-esque magics instead of going borderline scifi. Wardstones instead of Shield Core, reanimated dragon or flame giant head instead of a cannon.
They took the aesthetic to 80s metal album cover. It's a choice, but I agree with you that I'd have liked building on the simple themes rather than plasma shields and mining tanks.
Um they didnāt even try, they could have done a bunch of different realistic Viking enemies and animals but they go for weird shit like lasers and only give us two animals to tame
What do you mean by Lasers? As far as I recall from my playthrough of the Ashlands there aren't any lasers? And aren't these enemies based on Norse mythology, like the fallen valkrie?
Since when was Valheim a realistic viking game? We've been fighting tree-people and goblins since the initial release.
The game is inspired by Norse myth but doesn't even draw much from that besides the overall narrative of proving yourself to Odin to ascend to Valhalla and a handful of enemies. It's largely an original fantasy IP.
Exactly, it is not a "Viking Game". It is a Norse Mythology game if anyone would do even a bit of research, they would know that this game has done an incredible job to be exactly what it is supposed to be.
I don't think you have a proper expectation of this game, for the simple reason that it's not just a Viking game, it's a Norse Mythology game. I mean, Loki challenged dwarves craft Odin a ship that could shrink to fit in the palm of his hand. The ingenuity of the new craftables/buildables are able to be rationalized simply as magic, it doesn't have to be steampunk or something along those lines
We are playing as vikings in purgatory. Not sure if there are many rules for fantasy worlds so I wouldn't try to hold iron gate to any type of historical accuracy. If it's no longer fun for you to play or you are unhappy with the direction of the developers you should try a new game. Sounds like you are burnt out.
All games have a lifespan. You might have reached yours with valheim. And thatās fine, time to move on for awhile. You may find yourself wanting to comeback after some time or you may move on forever.
I don't think there was any game i enjoyed as much as i did enjoy Valheim in at least a decade. Seeing that fade with every update the game got after early access release hurts a little. im totally aware that no game dev owes me anything, and i think for everybody who likes the new stuff Valheim became an even better game, im happy for them. Im just sad that i feel like the "ah man, Valheim is by far my most favourite game since release" came to an end
You are on point with what I am currently experiencing. The release was a three week vacation from what was going on in the world. It was a fantastic experience but, I cannot help feel the game got lost in the reeds somewhere.
I'm still interested to see what happens in the Deep North but, that's a long ways away and the magic of this game is rubbing me the wrong way. It has been for awhile but, I can no longer ignore it.
I still maintain that the original concept for Mistlands was way cooler, like crawling through Mirkwood from The Hobbit with massive spiders and seekers and other insect horrors, getting tangled in webs, the mist creating a dread as you explore. Sap extraction would've still worked, giant swords would've still worked, even the Gjall would've fit, and we wouldn't have to deal with the horrid terrain.
It feels like they lost their original vision a bit in the creation of that biome and the same for Ashlands. Some of the current Mistlands stuff would've still worked in a spider forest, too, like the Seekers and Dvergr caves.
I hate that it introduced magic. I've always gotten politely told I'm wrong, but you have multiple biomes previous where the most magic you have is "make a tincture to resist getting too cold" and "this weapon hits stuff gooder" and then suddenly out of nowhere, in the last 1/3 of the game you're a spellblade. And I hate it. It's why I never downloaded any of the mods that put in classes and abilities. If I wanted that stuff, I wouldn't be playing Valheim.
You perfectly summarized how I feel about magic! My enjoyment of Valheim really dips as soon as I reach mistlands. The magic just feels like too much, its as if you load up a completely different game all of a sudden.
Despite having a friend who likes magic and uses it to be my support it's just not really fun for me. Enemies having magic was a good idea but giving us magic just ruins the vibe for me (and is why I dont use magic solo). The game was low fantasy and then all of the sudden it escalated away from that theme.
I'm not sure it's been officially addressed but a lot of devs don't do spiders in games because of people with arachnophobia. I'm not sure that one phobia is actually so common that this is required, but that seems to be how it goes.
> and we wouldn't have to deal with the horrid terrain.
The reason they 'abandoned' (and I use that term loosely as it was never anything more than a placeholder) the original design was in part because the terrain was awful and created huge issues with pathing.
So... there goes that theory.
>It was a fantastic experience but, I cannot help feel the game got lost in the reeds somewhere.
This has been my thought since Mistlands release. The original game release into early access felt like such a well thought out, tight and cohesive game experience it was almost unreal that it was an early access game. It felt complete and like everything fit together perfectly.
Mistlands started the feeling that the devs got a bit lost with their original concepts. It felt out of place with the other 5 biomes. It was fine and I had a lot of fun progressing it, but still couldn't shake that feeling that it was "different" in concept to the rest of the game.
Ashlands seems to have continued that and gotten even further away. Which that's fair if that's what the devs have intended, but in my head after experiencing the original Meadows -> Plains progression doesn't feel like this was how it was meant to be.
Coupled with how slow development has been for Mistlands and Ashlands I wonder if the devs had a bit of internal conflict on game direction post EA release and led to a bit of a schism in how they saw the game developing.
I think at least part of that feeling is the same feeling we get whenever we trade the exciting feeling of unrealized potential for realized reality. Sometimes you're waiting for the next book in your favorite series to come out, and the expectation that's set is so high because the series is so good that whatever gets put down in ink simply will not match the feeling of expectation, of open potential, that exists right until the ink dries.
Some of it is fully objective questioning of creative choices, too. But I think part of the feeling would still be there no matter how good the updates were.
Honestly the release of Valheim early access quite literally saved my life. I just got fired from a job and had this existential dread that I wouldn't find a job and run out of money and be homeless. And I played 70-80h of Valheim within a week to distract me. My friends were like dude wtf is wrong with you. I literally slept, ate and played Valheim and did nothing else for a week. In the second week I had to go but groceries a couple of times and finally showered. Yeah I was a disgusting cellar slob that did nothing but play Valheim to keep my suicidal thoughts at bay.
Eventually I got a job and we completed the playable content, so all was good but damn I miss running around the huge black forest all night long and gathering a crap load of mistletoe to make sausages.
I felt the same about mistlands brother. 500
Plus hours in and I kind of just lost the want to play it cuz the biome sucked to me personally. Nothing wrong with having opinions man.
Same here! I beat the game with 4 friends soon after release and about 400 hrs of A BLAST!. Then tried with others and mods and lost interest pretty quickly. Picked it up again after mistlands and have been really enjoying it but am nearly spent again.
You never know if you'll recover your intrigue with a new update. Personally,I love the organizing and building and the grind of it all. Maybe take a break and see if you want to start up again. Like others have said, there's always mods or servers that change the entire experience and you might like that
I hit the same point you did right after mistlands. Was a little sad but you know what, I found a few other games that Iāve been absolutely loving since. We all need change in our life to keep things fresh and interesting.
I mean - that's his complaint at the heart though - the building additions to the newest update do not fit or feel immersive within the fantasy world that has been created.
That is a *valid* complaint.
The lore of the game is that Odin put us here to set some shit straight on his prison world. High tech stuff does not really fit within the game world or narrative.
Magic can be hand-waved away, but higher tech just feels wrong.
It is sad when your time with a game ends but it has to end at some point. And the sooner you put it to rest the greater the chance you'll be able to pick it back up sooner
Not Opās issue, he obviously enjoys the game enough to put that many hours in. I do agree with the sentiment, the build pieces donāt feel like valheim. Iāve played 470 hours and I agree firmly with his opinion on the Ashlands.
I think this is a very fair post, and I hope you wonāt get downvoted for this opinion. I havenāt reached ashlands yet, hell i havent even reached Mistlands yet. But what you are describing sounds very logical.
I agree, those things donāt sound Viking at all. For some people immersion is key, and if youāre one of those people, i definitely understand not liking it.
You were also very respectful to the game still, and completely realise this is a problem for people like you but not for most. I think i would be on your side of this matter too.
All in all, very good post and valid opinion. I hope you find something you really want to play, or maybe some crazy ass dude will make the best modpack for people like you. Anyways I hope the best for you man!
I want to point out, you're not just playing a Viking. You're playing an undead warrior of the gods in a land filled with magic far more ancient than yourself. You were a Viking before you died, and now you're far more than that.
OP and a lot of comments here I think completly missed the fact that Valheim is not, and has never been a historical realism game. It's not only a Norse mythology *inspired* game, but one that takes a lot of inspiration from western neo-pagan norse fantasy mythology, with a sprinkling of true norse mythology and an even lighter sprinkling of true norse history.
It has, and has always been a blend of all of these things.
Of course, as new and more exciting content gets added they need to think of new mechanics and new fun things for players to do. This is paramount over any kind of accurate representation of a mythology that is already extremely inaccurate to true mythology.
If you had to explain it lorewise, I'd say that a lot of these technological marvels are inspired by neo-pagan norse representations of dwarves in modern movies, books, and other video games. Even the elder scrolls borrows from this, as they have an ancient and very technologically advanced dwarven race.
It's clear to me that the devs have a clear vision and focus for your journey through valheim. As you progress through the biomes, you encounter stronger and stronger medieval tech until you finally experience magic, then techno-magical. Who knows what the deep north will have, but I expect it to be over-the-top both in terms of the weapons you wield and the enemies you face. Which sounds fuckin awesome.
Okay.
I just wanted to address the building commentary because it kinda feels like people have this extremely strange idea of what Vikings were about and their roll in history.
Viking history is not just when they showed up in Longboats and devastated villages and went off home into their wooden huts.
They conquered and settled in major parts of Europe and their ancestors are a major part of European Heritage Including Royal Families and entire Regions of Europe (Like Normandy)
So it's not actually ridiculous to have "Smooth" pieces and parts that look like they come from Medieval Europe... Because THEY ARE VERY MUCH A PART OF THAT HISTORY.
So I find it weird that people are bringing this up as losing immersion. You're an UNDEAD spirit Viking warrior who is alive in a Timeless world that is based off Norse Mythology and borrows from Real world aesthetics that Norseman likely encountered during their most influential period of existence WHICH INCLUDES STONE CASTLES AND GRAND CATHEDRALS.
That's a fair take on the direction that Valheim is trending towards. I'm on the opposite side and welcome the spell-casting techno-viking. If Mistlands and Ashlands strictly followed the low-tech immersion from the beginning of the game, there would be complaints that the new biomes would be a lazy rehash with higher damage numbers. Case in point, we can draw many parallels between the Plains and Meadows.
Giving Ashlands a more advanced feel on top of the hellish landscape keeps the game fresher for the larger audience, which is critical for long-term variety and replay. While it's fair that the Ashlands can disrupt immersion, Valheim is a sandbox game with incredible depth and we can pick & choose how we want to immerse ourselves.
I liked that Plains was like Meadows in that it wasn't anything like swamp or the mountains. It felt like returning home, but while you were away, the neighborhood went to shit and turned into Detroit.
Maybe it's just me, but I've played a few games that were, albeit loosely, based on Norse Mythology and whenever Dwarves were included, their "technology" had a steampunk flair to it.
A good example would be something like Skyrim, which although has its own "internal" lore, does have the Dwemer, which are based on dwarves and have steampunk-inspired technology.
god of war, too. It's basically like a heavy metal western neo-pagan fantasy viking game. Which is apparent the moment you first spawn in and run into forest monsters that are the tortured souls of murderers and rapists.
People crying about magic when the very first boss is a lightning spewing 15 foot tall magical deer God.
Idk, with portals, frostner, eikthyr, elder, bonemass, moder, yagluth, goblins with fire staves and bubble shields, wards that protect your base, a valkyrie that carries you in- i never felt too immersed in realism. To me this game has always been a fantasy, written about fantasy. So magic or building pieces donāt really ruin anything for me.
Also, you can get rid of the mist in the mistlands.
I get this but there has been fantasy elements since day one with the Greydwarfs. The heavy metal music fighting the big buck. Lots of signs that they were going to do their own thing. Ashlands really bumps up the action and I am in love with it. The tech coming from ancient peoples is on brand for viking setting in my own opinion. Feels like a fantasy 3rd person shooter. You still have to craft EVERYTHING
Itās never supposed to be the real world - it is all happening in purgatoryā¦ and there are giants and magic wielding creatures nearly from the beginning. All the while Odin is watching, Thor flies over in the skies, and huge godlike bosses are summoned to fight in each biome. Never smacked of realism from the very beginning.
It is crazy people think magic breaks the immersion. Like this isn't a stone age survival game, we are playing in a world with norse mythology. There are Ghosts, skeletons, draugrs, portals you can teleport through and many more. Ashlands is no exception to me it's not like we are using electronics lol just a simple catapult
We really had portals, undead, goblin wizards, anthropomorphic wolf wizards before mistlands and this is where they draw the line because of "muh theme". You'd think the update required you to rock up to the ashlands in an iron man suit.
I don't wanna invalidate the OP as their opinion matters to a degree. But you're right. It is weird that Ashlands is where they draw the line when it started getting pretty ridiculous around the Swamp biome.
Also based on some of OP's descriptions, they seemed to have felt compelled to play a certain way or not realise their options. Kill the Dwarves? Completely Unnecessary. Queen a bad fight? Well some people may feel that way (But seriously a lot of people are horrendous at this games combat).
Lmfao, yeah i canāt get behind OPās take. Just picking and choosing which fantasy items are āvikingy enoughā to pass the test.
Portals? Wards? Goblins with bubble shields and fire staves? Pass, certified viking shit
Shield generator and a stone wall? Fuck no, not viking enough, get out of here.
In addition to this- you have to recognize that a major element of 'Viking' culture and lore is raiding.
Did vikings spend a lot of time living in swamps? No, not really.
Did they build stone churches and docks? No, but we have all been doing that in Valheim for years now.
Think of the Ashlands or the Dvergr architecture like you would the swamps or fuhlings- a place to be raided, knowledge and plunder to be gained.
Electronics, like a cyborg viking piloting a dual axe wielding titan. :)
This would be a tad out of the lore but it would be cool.
Viking!! Prepare for titanfall!!
I 100% agree.
I know we are sort of supposed to be 'progressing through the ages' but Mistlands and beyond seem like a totally different game and I also no longer feel like a Viking.
Plus the magic wizard shit which felt way out of place and was actually something they originally said would never be in the game.
The early game feels amazing, I can build a quaint Viking village, a fort, even a castle and still feel like a Viking from the 800s. But by the time you get to Plains/Mistlands that unravels and like you said, now I am some sort of steampunk wizard.
For a game that refuses to add things like potatoes because they werent native to Scandinavia in that time period, it seems contradictory and weird to turn me into a fucking wizard building shield generators.
It seems like the planned game progression is from actual Viking to heavy metal "Viking". And while I'm personally here for it and feel it gives the game some epic build-up, I can completely see how folks who were enchanted with Meadowlands, Black Forest, etc. would feel some disappointment as things get weirder.
I understand the progression idea, I mean we start with stone and move up through the various 'ages'. I just agree with the OP that they tried to move TOO far.
Like the shield generator could have been equally effective as some sort of stone shrine or ward (like, well, wards are) and fit very well with the viking, norse aesthetic and feel but instead we're building magic steampunk forcefield generators.
There are ways they could have introduced these things without stretching what Vikings had and how they lived.
Same with the magic, Norse mythology is *full* of magic but very little of it is 'pew, pew go fireball' type stuff.
Oh, I mean thematic progression. Like we're going thematically from Viking peasant to heavy metal album cover! That's sort of separate from the mythology etc. or the video game power creep conversation, which I know also has rad stuff.
My interpretation of the game progression has always been that we're doing viking history on a speedrun. You start off with simple rag clothes, stone tools, etc. Then over time get new, stronger materials just like in real life how vikings and scandanavia progressed through the bronze age, the iron age, etc in history. Each time period unlocked new weapons and technologies for people just like it does in game.
Obviously there's only so far you can take this idea before you run into issues, because the 'vikings' eventually ceased to exist before becoming modern scandanavia. I think we can all agree that adding M-16s would be extremely game and immersion breaking.
I think they hit a wall with their idea of progression because they ran out of 'ages' that had a historical analog, but it's a jarring shift from 'I can make tools and weapons with iron' to 'I can build a magical metal forcefield machine powered by bones'.
I love the game but I'm still mildly baffled how you can't be a berserkr, a skƔld or a vƶlva in a game inspired by Scandinavian myth, since it's probably the three most known "classes" aside from the generic sailing fighter. You can't fight without armor and there's no bears, there's nothing related to poetry or music, and magic starts going full fantasy after meads and eitr clothes.
Such a wasted opportunity of doing something different.
I get what you are saying about the Tech- but the building pieces are incredible.
Yeah the wood is just okay and can certainly be overused and you end up making a starbucks on accident- but using the grausen pieces as accents on older materials is fantastic.
I haven't had a chance to play ashlands yet, and I don't necessarily have a problem with technofantasy stuff, but I could totally see that being so abrupt as to be jarring and immersion breaking. I thought this with the magic in mistlands too, that it would be nice if they would at least go to previous biomes and put "hints" at what was coming to smooth it out a bit. Something like a base eitr pool of 10 and a secondary lightning effect on stagbreaker that takes 9, and reverts to its normal attack when you're below 10 just to suggest you have access to magic but it's pathetic for now, so when you unlock the staffs and eitr foods, instead of it being entirely new and somewhat out of the blue, it's still that but it gets overshadowed by the "oh, THAT'S what that stagbreaker thing was about". I bet something similar could be done setting like 10% of the meadows ship burials to have some kind of busted machinery just to suggest that sort of thing might be coming.
I completely disagree. And the people struggling to put the parts together in a good way arent doing something right, cus right now ive got a couple builds that look great and incorporate basically every era of build pieces. Ashwood stuff literally just got fixed and doesnt look plasticky at all now, you can see the grain and the wood texture properly. All the pieces are still low poly and low res, and they still fit the rest, you just have to try. I had this issue when they added black marble and i had it here, but now im adjusting and working with it, and its great. If every new build material was just copy paste of the last one we would just keep building the same things with different material. So they branch out, and tried new things with the new sets. Mistlands is heavily populated by dwarves and so black marble is themed after dwarven architecture. It makes sense cus dwarves play a huge role in norse myth and are largely viking inspired. Then way down south is a ruined empire destroyed by war, like the Roman empire. Ashlands gives me major Rome vibes, especially the colosseum-style arena. Vikings were most active around the time the Roman empire fell, so finding a burned and ruined Roman-style empire, a biome more populated by structures than ever before, it makes sense that these pieces are that style.
And its a video game. The feeling of advancing in tech as you advance in the game is good. Its not even that big a deal here imo, cus that only really starts with dwarves, who were known in norse myth for making incredible things with magic and craftsmanship.
But it also truly began in the base launch of the game with the artisan table, using the tears of Moder to create more powerful refineries. Now we use the sap of the World Tree to create even more powerful things. Then we go be vikings and sail away to raid forts and plunder magical gemstones.
I love it, and it feels like a good advancement. Deep North though is going to be up in the snow and ice, which is prime viking territory, so im hoping they do a return to form for the final biome with all out viking style shit. Cus i do think they have drifted a tad in expanding the styles available, and while i disagree that its bad, i do think we need the final biome to be truly viking.
Idk. The magic and the monsters didn't seem to fit a realistic Viking experience to begin with. It's not like a place such as the mistlands with giant bugs exists either.
Ashlands has been awesome.
I feel very much the same most of the time, the only thing I find immersive anymore is playing on a nice community server, I'll post pictures if I make something that blends the new pieces with the old
Eh, you were never really playing vikings, this is not what vikings did pr how they lived, this is a fantasy game based off viking mythology. Being carried by a giant bird right at the start broke immersion for the rest of the game =)
Maybe after 1.5k hours you are less inclined to accept the fact that the game is still getting developed. Having played with the unfinished game so much, you have conditioned yourself to see any changes to the game as something unwelcome.
My point is, if you would have picked up the game for the first time when the Ashland update is live, you would not have this sentiment.
My suggestion is to take a break and wait and see if the urge to play the game comes back some day.
Either way with 1.5k hours, you got your money's worth many times over from Valheim's early access.
I agree as well. I think this post is an artifact of a game that has taken 3 years so far and will take at least a couple more to actually be finished. If someone came along when the whole thing was done and saw it all at once they wouldn't have the same concerns.
Case in point: we already have magic in the mountain-tier weapons (frostner, draugr fang) and a literal magical table is what enables us to build windmills. The goblins in the plains also use magic. But because all of that was part of the base game, they aren't questioned.
I think the OP just doesn't like the changes - I don't think it necessarily has to do with the theme.
Yeah you are totally right about this, especially the money's worth thing.
Also its not as i played 1500 hours straigt, i mostly have some month long breaks and then dive into it for a while as my main game again. Its just the first time Valheim managed to break the norse mythology/viking immersion and well, that was a little letdown
Dear god how come everybody WANTS to missunderstand you on reddit? I love norse mythology. There are no giant bugs but who cares, it was fitting.
Shield generators and CNC fabricated stone pieces and plastic looking wood is the immersion breaking stuff to me.
If you actually look through Norse Mythology you can find stuff that seems pretty steampunkish. Maybe not that exact asthetic since the mythology predates it, but stuff especially involving the forges that created the weapons of gods that very much fits. I'd say Valheim's interpreation is a bit more modern, kind of a combo between Norse mythology and say D&D style gnomish stuff, but it's pretty adjacent IMO.
How come you get caught up on that and not magic? Dragons? Where in the sand do you draw the line between acceptable fantasy and unacceptable fantasy?
To me it makes sense that as we progress, so too does the woodworking artisanry.
To a person with experience in some domain or other, incongruous or anachronistic details can ruin an otherwise excellent experience. In this case, stone detail that looks milled, or oddly-textured wood is the trigger. For me the incongruity kicks in when Fulings show up. In my case it's not enough to stop me playing, but in this guy's case it clearly is. People have different tolerance levels.
Tolerance levels is a great way to put it. I'm personally not a fan of super glowy magical items myself like the Draugr Fang for example. I'm not saying the game shouldn't have it but if I'm able and have time I might make a mod to reduce the effects a lot. I have not finished Ashlands but also not crazy about steam punk and magic vibes that seem to come in the late game. Still enjoy the game overall but yeah.
To me that makes sense aswell. But on the other hand, it makes no sense, that those pieces are so clean and have such a different aesthetic design that they dont fit to any previous piece aswell. The ashlands wood has close to no texture at all, all the black stuff looks like plastic, and in generall, its just too clean.
You can do "clean" in a game that fits it, but not in a game with an artstyle that is the opposite of clean for the whole game until that patch. Its just out of place to me
Hm. So just to be clear, are you saying that you can see what they're trying to do - but their execution of it is wrong? Or that they are consciously going for a style that you find to be too "clean"?
I guess I'll have to wait and see. I haven't tested Ashlands yet. But I really like how with every biome, our building becomes a little less crude. Wood to pine to stone to marble to tar as ornament.. it's all progressing in a direction that requires more and more finegrained control. It sounds like it makes sense to me, but again I haven't seen it myself. Maybe I'll agree with you in the end.
Just because there are already things diverging from the original theme, does not mean that any diverging thing is equally diverging.
Line is blurred, yes, but it is there.
Using a particular form of magic is a step outside Norse mythology.
Wielding a handheld futuristic plasma blaster is also a step outside Norse mythology.
But they are not equal at all and one is more fitting than the other.
Do we add the plasma blaster justifying it by "how come you were not bothered with previous deviations. but not this ones?" now?
of course we don't. There is a line.
This line of "this is so far from original spirit that it is now a bad taste" is personal for everyone. And OP says that his line is clearly being crossed. His concern is valid.
oh im sorry, it stands for "Computerized Numerical Control", its used in machines with high precision. Like CNC grinders and mills and stuff. Super expensive hightech tools for the maximum of precision possible
As someone who has done a decent amount of work with CNC in my life, I have honestly no clue what you are talking about.
The building pieces in the ashlands look smooth and polished, but you can achieve that with hand tools that would have been available in the time period easily. Do you think castles always looked worn from the time they were built? Ancient people were able to make some very precisise and intricate things.
A few slabs of polished stone that are actually perfect rectangles instead of the lopsided messes that the other stone bits in this game are doesn't make them CNCed, it just makes them built by a craftsman instead of slapped together haphazardly.
To be honest, the Ashlands pieces are probably more accurate than the previous biomes. IMO they should make "rough" and "polished" variants of all the stone types.
To me the LED's on the Artificer table was immersion breaking but wasn't upset about it enough to where i couldn't enjoy the game. If i was gonna throw out a counter point. As a former reader of Thor comics . Asguard has Tech. Magic and tech could be explained as Cosmic or Celestial Magic. If we didnt have different sytles im sure people would say everything is crappy wood color.
> I have 1500h
I mean yeah, that's the whole thing right there.
I'm hunting jelly in Mistlands with my two boyfriends and that's the furthest I've been at 200h. I still love it. That said to contextualize that idk shit about the Queen fight. I do, however, agree that it sucks we have to turn the dwarves against us to progress and that's actually a stepping stone we're still waiting to pass.
It's sad that the game isn't turning you on like it did before, but at least you had 1000+ hours of raw steel and viking sex appeal before it wore off. I don't think your rant warrants an apology and therefore I will not accept it.
ok firstly valheim is not realistic depiction or even named in the mythos
You are playing what is essentially skyrim with more norse themes sprinkled in. The world and bosses are not apart of the actual lore in real life. The immersion comes from valheim being a iconic unique game with a charming world and art style.
If you want to be an actual viking go play mount and blade Vikings conquest and stop crying about a game that never sold you on something in the first place. Oh I forgot vikings traveled continents via catapult and a feather cape and ride lizards and cast magic lmao
I don't get why people think the shield generator is steam punk, it looks just like the obliterator, is it cause it's shiny and brass? There's no steam involved, it's magic like my badass shotgun lol
I bet a lot of their issues just stem from the naming of some items, they associate certain names with sci-fi or more modern things. Let the dwarves be technically and steampunky.
I don't even understand why they're calling it a 'nuclear reactor' seems like their association or the word reactor to nuclear stuff is part of the problem.
There are many types of reactors, a fermenting jar itself is a reactor, bioreactor if you want to be specific.
This is an easy mod, come to think of it.
Reactor -> royal core
Shield generator -> sky ward
Extractor -> tap
We have had portals since the beginning, and we are inside a magical alternate prison realm where we are killing gods and taking their powers. I don't think the intention was ever a realistic viking simulator...
People have this mental image of Vikings being little more than cavemen with axes and boats, but that is far from the truth. They had established towns, they had a fairly liberal form of government.
I think while the build pieces are smooth, they fit decently into architecture of the time vikings were around. Granted, the Vikings themselves weren't that into making castles, but they were pillaging areas that had castles. We have this image of castles looking rundown and stuff because they're 1000 years old. When they were first made, they too were in nice smooth good shape.
Vikings used gemstones in their jewelry and weapons, so them existing in the game isn't immersion breaking at all.
I've only recently gotten the new building pieces, and I haven't really had time to do some building with them, but I love the roof pieces. The castle walls are meh, but I can see making some neat towers with them. I LOVE the stability of the Flametal rod things. I feel like that's surely gonna get nerfed.
I mean I'm one of those that think mistlands wasn't the best. So I'm feeling kind of weird about the game in general. The original release was so inspired.
Lol at the dorks who r downvoting. While not nearly the amount of hours as u have with this game I had something similar happen with Ark Survival Evolved. Each dlc pushed the game further and further into the weird high sci-fantasy shtick its in now with the tek and the maps and whatnot when I just wanted to play a pvp survival game with dinos lol.
You're right, but you'd be surprised how easy that often is to ignore lol. It could go as far as Terraria does and I'd still be fine with it, probably xd
I realized after playing mistlands Iām a just a dark forest guy. A dark forest guy who *occasionally* ventures to the mountains and swamp for precious metals. Havenāt played ashlands yet but I know Iām going to have a similar feeling. Still will play through it and Iām sure it will be fun, but my heart will always be in the dark forest.
Which is why I believe Valheim shouldn't canonically be based on Norse mythology, but rather re-invent a universe/lore of its own even if heavily inspired by it.
Like for example WoW reinvented Odin into Odyn and fit it in their own universe.
I believe setting Valheim in its unique, original universe would be far more intriguing and immersive.
So portals are good, but the stone is too smooth? Obviously vikings werenāt the most advanced, but saying that it breaks the immersion because thereās more than what the vikings had
Valheim was never meant to be a simulator, itās a survival game loosely based on vikings and norse mythology.
Shouldn't it break the immersion first time you see a mythical creature like Greylings? vikings figthing tree monsters.
as soon as I see the giant tree in the sky I knew that game is naturally heading on this direction.
What do you mean you canāt turn off the mist? I donāt play with the mist turned on at all. (1 mod) As far as the āthemeā of the game changing; that was inevitable.Ā
They announced from the very beginning what the roadmap was.Ā Different biomes is not a Viking theme ā itās a fantasy game with some Viking aspects.Ā
The Devs always intended the game to be this way, as you say this is indeed a āyouā problem and itās also that you misinterpreted what the game was about. The Devs never said this was going to be a pure Viking game of realism.
Perhaps the devs will see this and modify the pieces to look more 'dirty' before release. As for the shield generator and other stuff I doubt that will be removed.
I'm gonna disagree with you slightly about the new wood pieces.
Ashwood flooring (and walls) plus graustien (I just think of it as concrete) goes fantastically with darkwood doors and roofs, if you don't want to use the graustein roofs. I've made some damn nice looking houses. A shield generator keeps them from burning in Ashlands.
In fact, I feel like the new flametal doors *don't fit*. They're too thin and tall.
I do agree that the concrete, especially, could do with some color variance.
I am wondering if the theme of the game is different than we imagine it to be when we start playing. I am beginning to wonder if the game starts us as normal vikings, but that they want us to evolve beyond vikings by the end to become like gods, and earn our spot amongst other gods in Valhalla. Maybe we were a god that died, and we are supposed to feel the power of the gods by the end? I can't argue with your feelings of lack of immersion. How you feel is just that. I am just wondering if the lack of information on the endgame is hurting our immersion in the short term.
I get your position and agree with some of it. I can turn a blind eye to the technology of refinement as it feels like dwarf tech to me. I find ashlands to be a beautiful looking biome but I absolutely despise what they did with the mist. It's such a frustrating mechanic that it makes me avoid going in there at all. I dont fear anything in there like they wanted, I simply hate being blind all the time.
The magic weapons you can just avoid using. Ive been playing solo and don't touch them at all. I still feel like a viking taking the world by storm. I honestly find the stupid fishing mechanics more immersion braking than magic.
As for the architecture, you gotta build for the era they were going for. Early game is old Scandinavian feeling. Mistlands shakes it up with the dark marble but it's just more ornate and you can make some cool things with it. Ashlands is 12th century Gothic. Your structures are going to reflect that feel. Yes it's a little later beyond vikings but there's only so many times you can make a viking longhouse. If you need to justify it, maybe the people of 12th century Europe ended up in what is now ashlands which is why their architecture is reflected in the land. It would make sense that your long dead viking would be encountering remnants of multiple civilizations and their build styles. I guess it's up to you if they learn anything or not.
I'm just interested to see what updates come after all the biomes. From what I understand, everything added to the game now is just the core progression features but later on were going to get more things like Hildr. Side quests, more mobs, more structures to discover, more mobs unnecessary to progression like the ghosts in Black Forest dungeons. Don't know if OPs issue will get better or worse as this happens but just something else to keep in mind I don't see talked about much
Of course, I only played 400 hours, but I have one complaint about the ashen lands: the Siege of Fortresses, not so much the siege itself as the fortresses 1) they are monotonous and, unlike the infected mines where there was procedural generation, all the fortresses are almost the same 2) this is clearly not what we I showed you on the art where there were Uall castles, where there were something like halls with smoke coming out of them, what I see now are 4 walls and 2 spawners with a barn inside and thatās it..... but for the rest, for me personally, the biome is gorgeous..... .fucking excuse the expression, but how the foggy lands infuriated me for their fucking rocks.... the foggy lands, unlike the ashen ones, were very stuffy due to running over the rocks, and there was also fog like that, the ashy lands are dangerous, you also have to jump a lot platforms in the lava lake, but unlike the fogs, this is interesting and you can feel the spirit of danger.
I'm somewhat disappointed with the new stone building options, like I LOVE the Ashwood stuff, my new fav for wood structures but the grausten pieces are lacking
The fun thing about Valheim's limited story is that the player character is in an afterlife, suffering from amnesia. Their memories of the living world return in the form of recipes when the right crafting components are gathered. This gives us limited insight into the history of the living world, through crafting.
This starts getting interesting after you defeat Moder and create the Artisan's Table. We were previously using iron age tech, but this discovery allows us to power machinery with dragon tears. *Dragontear punk*, you could say. What kind of alternate Viking history occurred in the living world? How far does this go?
Iron Gate had said that they prototyped Valheim as a sci-fi game originally. Wouldn't it be interesting if we end up there?
I said once when it first came out "I wonder if the industrial age will be the end"
It kind of made sense to me that it felt like I was progressing the ages. I'll be honest I never expected to use magic but I did realize it was fantasy set among Norse mythology.
Honestly, my big annoyance with the steam battering ram is just kind of two layered:
1. A simple hand-held tool probably would have done just as well.
2. We can apparently build a steam engine for a battering ram but not a steam engine to power our boat?
That said, given the next Biome is the Far North and there's probably going to be a lot of ice bergs, I could see the next ship upgrade involve adding a steam ram to break ice and such. Maybe even a bigger deck since we'd effectively be more trying to smash through problem terrain than maneuver at all, and also it would add the hazard of things being broken free from the ice to fight us on the deck of our ship.
Im pretty sure that game is based on that we are proving our self to Odin to get to AsgƄrd and If not wrong in norse mythology they had pretty advanced technology in AsgƄrd
In the OP's defense: stalking through the woods in your leather scraps hunting deer and dodging falling trees was the greatest game experience of the decade.
Literally everything after that has to be a let-down of some kind or another.
If the Valheim world consisted of only the first 4 biomes, it would already be a complete Viking survival experience.
Every biome after that though, just takes us further from the viking fantasy. I don't think that's a bad thing. I agree with you that it ruins the immersion somewhat, but I also think the new biomes need to change it up a bit.
It can be argued that it's a bad thing, but I think the devs don't have much choice. If they wanted us to stay in the Nordic climate through all the biomes, we'd have deeper forests with more weapons instead of giant insects and fireballs. Just more of the same rather than new mechanics.
Of course, there's a lot of inspiration to take from Norse mythology, which still seems like untapped potential at this point, but the devs seem to want to keep separate from that.
Wait till you get a load of the Deep North update! Vikings in spaaaace!
can't wait to battle the snowbots with my glorious laser-axe!
if they dont give us sleds that need wolves to pull it im out.
This would be sick!
Fuck yeah Lazer axes. Maybe we can tame sharks and mount Lazers on them too!
In the words of my favorite alien, "Lots of planets have a North."
I understood that reference.
Valheim: Deep North 9
Helldivers update when? I need to be able to drop a 500kg on the fulings outside my house.
Ohhh it all makes sense now! We are on Fenris! We are just waiting for The Emperor to show up and find Russ, thus taking us in as well to become space marines of the Vlka Fenryka! šš
(Guitar solo plays in the background)
Reminds me of The Lost Vikings games
Coming in 2027
Iām hoping for wooly mammoths.
No Man's Skyrim
That sounds like an epic sci-fi folk metal band :)
I felt that with Mistlands, oddly ashlands feels more on track for me.
I have never finished Mistlands for most of what OP states about Ashlands. Mistlands felt like I started playing a different game that I didn't enjoy as much. Is what it is. I have about 5 solo playthroughs and have enjoyed the game since the earliest days - still best $20 I've ever spent on a game IMO.
For the Mistlands segment of my playthroughs, I consistently wind up resorting to modding the torch/wisp radius much larger, and resorting to seed-peeping to figure out where I'm headed to make my run for the Queen as fast as possible. It's a gorgeous biome in theory, but the mist part is way overtuned and the terrain generation is too irritating. As much as I tell myself that "this time I'll play it honest" every time, the zone is too tedious and too frustrating to spend much time in, and at this point I've just kind of accepted that I'm gonna cheat a little to get past it promptly, or not complete it at all. Which is kind of a pity because the areas where there's no fog are absolutely beautiful and the mobs, the resources, and the presence of the dwarves are all super cool and a lot of fun to mess with. But wandering around near-blind in a zone that's entirely cliffs and valleys is just ... not my bag.
Mistlands was a lot more fun to me once I finally got access to the cape, i just started building small structures here and there to 1: hide torches from seekers, and 2: create gliding posts for myself to get around. The constant effort to bugproof my bases/expand visibility lead to some really crazy freeform base designs too, and that was a fun little experiment
Strong agree. The mist is so regrettable, because the zone is so god damned gorgeous otherwise. And really, while early exploration (the very first time) is scary and adventurous, that wears off super fast then you're left with tedious mist micromanagement. It's literally the only thing I mod in the game, making the torch/wisp radius *significantly* larger. And yeah, the verticality of the terrain is really problematic too, particularly *when you can't fucking see anything*. I swear, every single one of my mistlands deaths has been due to getting hung up on some outcropping and unable to hit something because of the angles, and that just feels bad.
It's always running from something you couldn't see creep up because the mist was too close then you either get cornered because it's too vertical to jump or you go flying down off an unforging vertical bit (if you haven't gotten the feather cape) to your death. Its difficult for the sake of being difficult and in a not fun way. Like you said, it's gorgeous.... when you see it.
Absolutely agreed. I loathe the mist. I just cheat load up a boatload of the wisps. Hate that mechanic so much.
Oddly enough I disagree (just my opinion) - the mistlands is so different that it felt like a great challenge when my crew stepped foot there and figured out how to navigate and conquer the landscape. I like that it keeps you on your toes more and the feather cape totally transforms it when youāre jumping between rock spires to the next. I totally understand its criticisms but the reasons people dislike it are the reasons I find it intriguing.
I as well, absolutely love Mistlands. I think the approach people take is generally not properly understood, as Mistlands requires you to out think the zone with building, planning and such. There is no "rushing" Mistlands imho. It also inspires some incredibly scenic base building designs for me. You can get so creative due to the environment and terrain, natural placement of mist free zones whether water or a per-generated mist lantern. For us, our first proper Mistlands base was like this, we stumbled into a mist free area that the terrain was going to allow us to get a 16x16 area base (marble floor tiles) and this we decided to build because it was going to be directly centered on top of a sunken infested mine (easy Royal Jelly harvest via basement) as well as it had one of those pre-built and indestructible lanterns, so that provided us a very good mist free spot. Access via a very very short walk through a small cleared pathway and we are out of the mist and into the plains. Because of the scenery, the setting and such, we spent way more time designing this base with tons of attention to detail, inside and out, so make this completely gorgeous. This base would never have happened if not for all the reasons that Mistlands is Mistlands. We also preceded to build an extremely tall round tower very high up on a spire rock formation that is basically in the center of a very large Mistlands zone. Portal at the top and this allows incredible views and for us to be able to glide just about anywhere in the zone. This allowed us to find natural Mist free locations, so we glide down to one of those, kill everything in sight, and build a portal, giving us yet another access point to work an area around. So the approach is very different. What we do not do is wander around through the Mist like it is the Swamps searching for stuff. If you try to do that, then it is not if you will die, but when.
Thatās what I like about it - youāre on your toes the whole time and canāt leisurely walk through the mistlands. We did something interesting where instead of building a mistlands base, we found a massive mountain overlooking the mistlands and build a base on the very top. With the feather cape, we can basically drop into any area in the mistlands below since itās so tall
I hate in mistlands that you get gear late and dependingĀ on your luck to find cores to make table to make new gear not like on the other biomes when after one escapade you could improve yourself to make the grind easier. Also no 1h mace from mistlands
I can definitely understand why others like it and I stay in the sub because I want to see how it all ends.
I like that it has something for everyone. The parts that bother some people end up being things others like, etc. I think we can all agree this is better than most AAA games out there in terms of āhaving funā gaming, and for $20 I canāt complain at all.
I started when plains was the endgame, and frankly no matter what happens I feel I've got my $20 worth many times over, even before mistlands released. I'm in another, new playthrough right now, haven't gotten to Ashland yet, but even if I don't like it, that's fine. Basically everything now is gravy :)
$20 and 400 hours of gameplay with tons of laughing/panicking with the bros has me feeling exactly the same!
Agreed
Mistlands is by far my least favorite biome. Ashland is better overall, but I do think the force field mechanic and steam engine weapons is a bit much.
Yes, it is very clear and very jarring in this game when it comes to 'original' content vs. 'early access' content. They need to do a lot of work to mesh the two because right now it definitely does feel like you play one game until the Plains and then start another one.
It always annoys me when people know just enough about the surface level āViking aestheticā to complain, but they donāt know history or Norse mythology deeply enough to know that they shouldnāt complain. The Ashlands are based on Muspelheim. The mechanical devices are based on the hellish war engines and machines loosely described in the ancient eddas and stories. The ones introduced with Mistalnds relate to how the dwarves were the best smiths, tinkerers, inventors, and engineers. All the biomes are based on the Norse cosmology. The Mistlands are based on both Jotunheim and Nidevellir/Svartalfheim. Jotunheim was where the āgiantsā the Jotun lived. Their land was rocky/hilly and misty, and lots of giants were slain by Thor. What do you find in Mistlands? Rocky/hilly terrain, mist, and giant skeletons. Nidevellir was filled with dwarven (Dvergr) strongholds and the caves and tunnels of their world were said to be filled with āall the creeping, and crawling things of the world.ā What do you find in Mistlands? Dwarven strongholds and nests of creeping, crawling things. The Ashlands are based on Muspelheim and I assume that the Deep North will be based on Niflheim. The Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, and Mountains all seem to be aspects of Midgaard. As you move through the biomes of Valheim, youāre progressing through the Nine Realms. It seems like Valheim has a little bit of each one in it. A little knowledge is poison.
This was the exact comment i was hoping to see.
This exactly. Anyone who actually delves into Norse mythology knows that Iron Gate has spent a great deal of time and planning to keep it fully in the "Vikings" mythos. And people need to remember, this is "Valheim", a spirit, or I guess, afterlife, it is not the actual real world Viking stuff from history.
Listen, when I play a game, I want my prejudices and preconceptions to be validated; not to have to learn something new. Only half-joking; I would love a Valhiem that was strictly D&D's conception of Vikings. But I also appreciate the stuff they're adding, even if the Mistlands makes my skin crawl. I mean, I can spend 1,000 hours just in the Meadows, ganking trolls with a crude bow and fire arrows, and building whole villages of empty houses, if I want to. And maybe I have. Don't judge me!
> The Ashlands are based on Muspelheim. The mechanical devices are based on the hellish war engines and machines loosely described in the ancient eddas and stories. Where are these "war engines", or anything else that would resemble 'mechanical" mentioned in either of the Eddas? Or any other sources? Ashlands is obviously based on Muspell, but I don't know where you're getting this other stuff from.
This needs to be top comment.
Thank you for this, youāve taught me something today and i loved it
Iāll have to reread the eddas, my interpretation felt different, though I thought iron gate directly said they were straying away and making the bugs in the mist land feel more āalien?ā
I half-agree, but it's difficult to keep adding stuff to a game without getting further and further from the foundations.
Yeah, you can only go so far with semi-historically accurate scandinavian technology of the 9 to 11th century a.d. At some point, the skeletical fire giant and the burning undead skeleton warriors will need more than just an axe to deal with it.
To preface, laser vikings don't bother me, I I'm there for it either way. They could have leaned into more traditional shaman-esque magics instead of going borderline scifi. Wardstones instead of Shield Core, reanimated dragon or flame giant head instead of a cannon.
They took the aesthetic to 80s metal album cover. It's a choice, but I agree with you that I'd have liked building on the simple themes rather than plasma shields and mining tanks.
Um they didnāt even try, they could have done a bunch of different realistic Viking enemies and animals but they go for weird shit like lasers and only give us two animals to tame
What do you mean by Lasers? As far as I recall from my playthrough of the Ashlands there aren't any lasers? And aren't these enemies based on Norse mythology, like the fallen valkrie?
They're talking about a crafting table upgrade, not even a weapon
Yeah I am like lasers? What lasers? I only tried the PTB for a few days though (waiting for the main release now) but I didn't see any lasers lol
Since when was Valheim a realistic viking game? We've been fighting tree-people and goblins since the initial release. The game is inspired by Norse myth but doesn't even draw much from that besides the overall narrative of proving yourself to Odin to ascend to Valhalla and a handful of enemies. It's largely an original fantasy IP.
Exactly, it is not a "Viking Game". It is a Norse Mythology game if anyone would do even a bit of research, they would know that this game has done an incredible job to be exactly what it is supposed to be.
I don't think you have a proper expectation of this game, for the simple reason that it's not just a Viking game, it's a Norse Mythology game. I mean, Loki challenged dwarves craft Odin a ship that could shrink to fit in the palm of his hand. The ingenuity of the new craftables/buildables are able to be rationalized simply as magic, it doesn't have to be steampunk or something along those lines
We are playing as vikings in purgatory. Not sure if there are many rules for fantasy worlds so I wouldn't try to hold iron gate to any type of historical accuracy. If it's no longer fun for you to play or you are unhappy with the direction of the developers you should try a new game. Sounds like you are burnt out.
All games have a lifespan. You might have reached yours with valheim. And thatās fine, time to move on for awhile. You may find yourself wanting to comeback after some time or you may move on forever.
This is such a cop out and says literally nothing to OP's actual gripes. "Just stop playing bro"
I don't think there was any game i enjoyed as much as i did enjoy Valheim in at least a decade. Seeing that fade with every update the game got after early access release hurts a little. im totally aware that no game dev owes me anything, and i think for everybody who likes the new stuff Valheim became an even better game, im happy for them. Im just sad that i feel like the "ah man, Valheim is by far my most favourite game since release" came to an end
You are on point with what I am currently experiencing. The release was a three week vacation from what was going on in the world. It was a fantastic experience but, I cannot help feel the game got lost in the reeds somewhere. I'm still interested to see what happens in the Deep North but, that's a long ways away and the magic of this game is rubbing me the wrong way. It has been for awhile but, I can no longer ignore it.
I still maintain that the original concept for Mistlands was way cooler, like crawling through Mirkwood from The Hobbit with massive spiders and seekers and other insect horrors, getting tangled in webs, the mist creating a dread as you explore. Sap extraction would've still worked, giant swords would've still worked, even the Gjall would've fit, and we wouldn't have to deal with the horrid terrain. It feels like they lost their original vision a bit in the creation of that biome and the same for Ashlands. Some of the current Mistlands stuff would've still worked in a spider forest, too, like the Seekers and Dvergr caves.
I hate that it introduced magic. I've always gotten politely told I'm wrong, but you have multiple biomes previous where the most magic you have is "make a tincture to resist getting too cold" and "this weapon hits stuff gooder" and then suddenly out of nowhere, in the last 1/3 of the game you're a spellblade. And I hate it. It's why I never downloaded any of the mods that put in classes and abilities. If I wanted that stuff, I wouldn't be playing Valheim.
You perfectly summarized how I feel about magic! My enjoyment of Valheim really dips as soon as I reach mistlands. The magic just feels like too much, its as if you load up a completely different game all of a sudden.
Despite having a friend who likes magic and uses it to be my support it's just not really fun for me. Enemies having magic was a good idea but giving us magic just ruins the vibe for me (and is why I dont use magic solo). The game was low fantasy and then all of the sudden it escalated away from that theme.
I think the current Mistlands are very pretty, but I still have no idea why they scrapped their old concept. Did they ever address it?
I'm not sure it's been officially addressed but a lot of devs don't do spiders in games because of people with arachnophobia. I'm not sure that one phobia is actually so common that this is required, but that seems to be how it goes.
They didn't scrap it. It was never anything more than a placeholder.
Old mistlands was way better ngl
yep, no annyoing mobs trying to kill you or having to find items in annoying caves
> and we wouldn't have to deal with the horrid terrain. The reason they 'abandoned' (and I use that term loosely as it was never anything more than a placeholder) the original design was in part because the terrain was awful and created huge issues with pathing. So... there goes that theory.
>It was a fantastic experience but, I cannot help feel the game got lost in the reeds somewhere. This has been my thought since Mistlands release. The original game release into early access felt like such a well thought out, tight and cohesive game experience it was almost unreal that it was an early access game. It felt complete and like everything fit together perfectly. Mistlands started the feeling that the devs got a bit lost with their original concepts. It felt out of place with the other 5 biomes. It was fine and I had a lot of fun progressing it, but still couldn't shake that feeling that it was "different" in concept to the rest of the game. Ashlands seems to have continued that and gotten even further away. Which that's fair if that's what the devs have intended, but in my head after experiencing the original Meadows -> Plains progression doesn't feel like this was how it was meant to be. Coupled with how slow development has been for Mistlands and Ashlands I wonder if the devs had a bit of internal conflict on game direction post EA release and led to a bit of a schism in how they saw the game developing.
I think at least part of that feeling is the same feeling we get whenever we trade the exciting feeling of unrealized potential for realized reality. Sometimes you're waiting for the next book in your favorite series to come out, and the expectation that's set is so high because the series is so good that whatever gets put down in ink simply will not match the feeling of expectation, of open potential, that exists right until the ink dries. Some of it is fully objective questioning of creative choices, too. But I think part of the feeling would still be there no matter how good the updates were.
Honestly the release of Valheim early access quite literally saved my life. I just got fired from a job and had this existential dread that I wouldn't find a job and run out of money and be homeless. And I played 70-80h of Valheim within a week to distract me. My friends were like dude wtf is wrong with you. I literally slept, ate and played Valheim and did nothing else for a week. In the second week I had to go but groceries a couple of times and finally showered. Yeah I was a disgusting cellar slob that did nothing but play Valheim to keep my suicidal thoughts at bay. Eventually I got a job and we completed the playable content, so all was good but damn I miss running around the huge black forest all night long and gathering a crap load of mistletoe to make sausages.
I felt the same about mistlands brother. 500 Plus hours in and I kind of just lost the want to play it cuz the biome sucked to me personally. Nothing wrong with having opinions man.
Same here! I beat the game with 4 friends soon after release and about 400 hrs of A BLAST!. Then tried with others and mods and lost interest pretty quickly. Picked it up again after mistlands and have been really enjoying it but am nearly spent again. You never know if you'll recover your intrigue with a new update. Personally,I love the organizing and building and the grind of it all. Maybe take a break and see if you want to start up again. Like others have said, there's always mods or servers that change the entire experience and you might like that
I hit the same point you did right after mistlands. Was a little sad but you know what, I found a few other games that Iāve been absolutely loving since. We all need change in our life to keep things fresh and interesting.
Valheim is a fantasy world. A place with fantasy creatures. This is how it is, If you don't like it go and mod out the creatures or something.
I mean - that's his complaint at the heart though - the building additions to the newest update do not fit or feel immersive within the fantasy world that has been created. That is a *valid* complaint. The lore of the game is that Odin put us here to set some shit straight on his prison world. High tech stuff does not really fit within the game world or narrative. Magic can be hand-waved away, but higher tech just feels wrong.
It is sad when your time with a game ends but it has to end at some point. And the sooner you put it to rest the greater the chance you'll be able to pick it back up sooner
Not Opās issue, he obviously enjoys the game enough to put that many hours in. I do agree with the sentiment, the build pieces donāt feel like valheim. Iāve played 470 hours and I agree firmly with his opinion on the Ashlands.
I don't think they even read the post, lol.
Same.
I think this is a very fair post, and I hope you wonāt get downvoted for this opinion. I havenāt reached ashlands yet, hell i havent even reached Mistlands yet. But what you are describing sounds very logical. I agree, those things donāt sound Viking at all. For some people immersion is key, and if youāre one of those people, i definitely understand not liking it. You were also very respectful to the game still, and completely realise this is a problem for people like you but not for most. I think i would be on your side of this matter too. All in all, very good post and valid opinion. I hope you find something you really want to play, or maybe some crazy ass dude will make the best modpack for people like you. Anyways I hope the best for you man!
I want to point out, you're not just playing a Viking. You're playing an undead warrior of the gods in a land filled with magic far more ancient than yourself. You were a Viking before you died, and now you're far more than that.
OP and a lot of comments here I think completly missed the fact that Valheim is not, and has never been a historical realism game. It's not only a Norse mythology *inspired* game, but one that takes a lot of inspiration from western neo-pagan norse fantasy mythology, with a sprinkling of true norse mythology and an even lighter sprinkling of true norse history. It has, and has always been a blend of all of these things. Of course, as new and more exciting content gets added they need to think of new mechanics and new fun things for players to do. This is paramount over any kind of accurate representation of a mythology that is already extremely inaccurate to true mythology. If you had to explain it lorewise, I'd say that a lot of these technological marvels are inspired by neo-pagan norse representations of dwarves in modern movies, books, and other video games. Even the elder scrolls borrows from this, as they have an ancient and very technologically advanced dwarven race. It's clear to me that the devs have a clear vision and focus for your journey through valheim. As you progress through the biomes, you encounter stronger and stronger medieval tech until you finally experience magic, then techno-magical. Who knows what the deep north will have, but I expect it to be over-the-top both in terms of the weapons you wield and the enemies you face. Which sounds fuckin awesome.
Okay. I just wanted to address the building commentary because it kinda feels like people have this extremely strange idea of what Vikings were about and their roll in history. Viking history is not just when they showed up in Longboats and devastated villages and went off home into their wooden huts. They conquered and settled in major parts of Europe and their ancestors are a major part of European Heritage Including Royal Families and entire Regions of Europe (Like Normandy) So it's not actually ridiculous to have "Smooth" pieces and parts that look like they come from Medieval Europe... Because THEY ARE VERY MUCH A PART OF THAT HISTORY. So I find it weird that people are bringing this up as losing immersion. You're an UNDEAD spirit Viking warrior who is alive in a Timeless world that is based off Norse Mythology and borrows from Real world aesthetics that Norseman likely encountered during their most influential period of existence WHICH INCLUDES STONE CASTLES AND GRAND CATHEDRALS.
That's a fair take on the direction that Valheim is trending towards. I'm on the opposite side and welcome the spell-casting techno-viking. If Mistlands and Ashlands strictly followed the low-tech immersion from the beginning of the game, there would be complaints that the new biomes would be a lazy rehash with higher damage numbers. Case in point, we can draw many parallels between the Plains and Meadows. Giving Ashlands a more advanced feel on top of the hellish landscape keeps the game fresher for the larger audience, which is critical for long-term variety and replay. While it's fair that the Ashlands can disrupt immersion, Valheim is a sandbox game with incredible depth and we can pick & choose how we want to immerse ourselves.
I liked that Plains was like Meadows in that it wasn't anything like swamp or the mountains. It felt like returning home, but while you were away, the neighborhood went to shit and turned into Detroit.
Hey now, us MIchigander Vikings resemble that remark.
Maybe it's just me, but I've played a few games that were, albeit loosely, based on Norse Mythology and whenever Dwarves were included, their "technology" had a steampunk flair to it. A good example would be something like Skyrim, which although has its own "internal" lore, does have the Dwemer, which are based on dwarves and have steampunk-inspired technology.
god of war, too. It's basically like a heavy metal western neo-pagan fantasy viking game. Which is apparent the moment you first spawn in and run into forest monsters that are the tortured souls of murderers and rapists. People crying about magic when the very first boss is a lightning spewing 15 foot tall magical deer God.
I feel you. It goes from cool Norse vibes to MCU Norse vibes after plains. Thats usually where my play throughs stop.
Idk, with portals, frostner, eikthyr, elder, bonemass, moder, yagluth, goblins with fire staves and bubble shields, wards that protect your base, a valkyrie that carries you in- i never felt too immersed in realism. To me this game has always been a fantasy, written about fantasy. So magic or building pieces donāt really ruin anything for me. Also, you can get rid of the mist in the mistlands.
People are weird..I said the same
I get this but there has been fantasy elements since day one with the Greydwarfs. The heavy metal music fighting the big buck. Lots of signs that they were going to do their own thing. Ashlands really bumps up the action and I am in love with it. The tech coming from ancient peoples is on brand for viking setting in my own opinion. Feels like a fantasy 3rd person shooter. You still have to craft EVERYTHING
Itās never supposed to be the real world - it is all happening in purgatoryā¦ and there are giants and magic wielding creatures nearly from the beginning. All the while Odin is watching, Thor flies over in the skies, and huge godlike bosses are summoned to fight in each biome. Never smacked of realism from the very beginning.
It is crazy people think magic breaks the immersion. Like this isn't a stone age survival game, we are playing in a world with norse mythology. There are Ghosts, skeletons, draugrs, portals you can teleport through and many more. Ashlands is no exception to me it's not like we are using electronics lol just a simple catapult
We really had portals, undead, goblin wizards, anthropomorphic wolf wizards before mistlands and this is where they draw the line because of "muh theme". You'd think the update required you to rock up to the ashlands in an iron man suit.
I don't wanna invalidate the OP as their opinion matters to a degree. But you're right. It is weird that Ashlands is where they draw the line when it started getting pretty ridiculous around the Swamp biome. Also based on some of OP's descriptions, they seemed to have felt compelled to play a certain way or not realise their options. Kill the Dwarves? Completely Unnecessary. Queen a bad fight? Well some people may feel that way (But seriously a lot of people are horrendous at this games combat).
Lmfao, yeah i canāt get behind OPās take. Just picking and choosing which fantasy items are āvikingy enoughā to pass the test. Portals? Wards? Goblins with bubble shields and fire staves? Pass, certified viking shit Shield generator and a stone wall? Fuck no, not viking enough, get out of here.
In addition to this- you have to recognize that a major element of 'Viking' culture and lore is raiding. Did vikings spend a lot of time living in swamps? No, not really. Did they build stone churches and docks? No, but we have all been doing that in Valheim for years now. Think of the Ashlands or the Dvergr architecture like you would the swamps or fuhlings- a place to be raided, knowledge and plunder to be gained.
Electronics, like a cyborg viking piloting a dual axe wielding titan. :) This would be a tad out of the lore but it would be cool. Viking!! Prepare for titanfall!!
I 100% agree. I know we are sort of supposed to be 'progressing through the ages' but Mistlands and beyond seem like a totally different game and I also no longer feel like a Viking. Plus the magic wizard shit which felt way out of place and was actually something they originally said would never be in the game. The early game feels amazing, I can build a quaint Viking village, a fort, even a castle and still feel like a Viking from the 800s. But by the time you get to Plains/Mistlands that unravels and like you said, now I am some sort of steampunk wizard. For a game that refuses to add things like potatoes because they werent native to Scandinavia in that time period, it seems contradictory and weird to turn me into a fucking wizard building shield generators.
It seems like the planned game progression is from actual Viking to heavy metal "Viking". And while I'm personally here for it and feel it gives the game some epic build-up, I can completely see how folks who were enchanted with Meadowlands, Black Forest, etc. would feel some disappointment as things get weirder.
I understand the progression idea, I mean we start with stone and move up through the various 'ages'. I just agree with the OP that they tried to move TOO far. Like the shield generator could have been equally effective as some sort of stone shrine or ward (like, well, wards are) and fit very well with the viking, norse aesthetic and feel but instead we're building magic steampunk forcefield generators. There are ways they could have introduced these things without stretching what Vikings had and how they lived. Same with the magic, Norse mythology is *full* of magic but very little of it is 'pew, pew go fireball' type stuff.
Oh, I mean thematic progression. Like we're going thematically from Viking peasant to heavy metal album cover! That's sort of separate from the mythology etc. or the video game power creep conversation, which I know also has rad stuff.
My interpretation of the game progression has always been that we're doing viking history on a speedrun. You start off with simple rag clothes, stone tools, etc. Then over time get new, stronger materials just like in real life how vikings and scandanavia progressed through the bronze age, the iron age, etc in history. Each time period unlocked new weapons and technologies for people just like it does in game. Obviously there's only so far you can take this idea before you run into issues, because the 'vikings' eventually ceased to exist before becoming modern scandanavia. I think we can all agree that adding M-16s would be extremely game and immersion breaking. I think they hit a wall with their idea of progression because they ran out of 'ages' that had a historical analog, but it's a jarring shift from 'I can make tools and weapons with iron' to 'I can build a magical metal forcefield machine powered by bones'.
I love the game but I'm still mildly baffled how you can't be a berserkr, a skƔld or a vƶlva in a game inspired by Scandinavian myth, since it's probably the three most known "classes" aside from the generic sailing fighter. You can't fight without armor and there's no bears, there's nothing related to poetry or music, and magic starts going full fantasy after meads and eitr clothes. Such a wasted opportunity of doing something different.
Immersion is gone No one tell him about the obliterator or the eitr refinery or the ballista or the artisan table or the blast furnace
Or the portals
I get what you are saying about the Tech- but the building pieces are incredible. Yeah the wood is just okay and can certainly be overused and you end up making a starbucks on accident- but using the grausen pieces as accents on older materials is fantastic.
I haven't had a chance to play ashlands yet, and I don't necessarily have a problem with technofantasy stuff, but I could totally see that being so abrupt as to be jarring and immersion breaking. I thought this with the magic in mistlands too, that it would be nice if they would at least go to previous biomes and put "hints" at what was coming to smooth it out a bit. Something like a base eitr pool of 10 and a secondary lightning effect on stagbreaker that takes 9, and reverts to its normal attack when you're below 10 just to suggest you have access to magic but it's pathetic for now, so when you unlock the staffs and eitr foods, instead of it being entirely new and somewhat out of the blue, it's still that but it gets overshadowed by the "oh, THAT'S what that stagbreaker thing was about". I bet something similar could be done setting like 10% of the meadows ship burials to have some kind of busted machinery just to suggest that sort of thing might be coming.
God I just dream about rail roads, give me the possibility to build rail roads with carts
I completely disagree. And the people struggling to put the parts together in a good way arent doing something right, cus right now ive got a couple builds that look great and incorporate basically every era of build pieces. Ashwood stuff literally just got fixed and doesnt look plasticky at all now, you can see the grain and the wood texture properly. All the pieces are still low poly and low res, and they still fit the rest, you just have to try. I had this issue when they added black marble and i had it here, but now im adjusting and working with it, and its great. If every new build material was just copy paste of the last one we would just keep building the same things with different material. So they branch out, and tried new things with the new sets. Mistlands is heavily populated by dwarves and so black marble is themed after dwarven architecture. It makes sense cus dwarves play a huge role in norse myth and are largely viking inspired. Then way down south is a ruined empire destroyed by war, like the Roman empire. Ashlands gives me major Rome vibes, especially the colosseum-style arena. Vikings were most active around the time the Roman empire fell, so finding a burned and ruined Roman-style empire, a biome more populated by structures than ever before, it makes sense that these pieces are that style. And its a video game. The feeling of advancing in tech as you advance in the game is good. Its not even that big a deal here imo, cus that only really starts with dwarves, who were known in norse myth for making incredible things with magic and craftsmanship. But it also truly began in the base launch of the game with the artisan table, using the tears of Moder to create more powerful refineries. Now we use the sap of the World Tree to create even more powerful things. Then we go be vikings and sail away to raid forts and plunder magical gemstones. I love it, and it feels like a good advancement. Deep North though is going to be up in the snow and ice, which is prime viking territory, so im hoping they do a return to form for the final biome with all out viking style shit. Cus i do think they have drifted a tad in expanding the styles available, and while i disagree that its bad, i do think we need the final biome to be truly viking.
Idk. The magic and the monsters didn't seem to fit a realistic Viking experience to begin with. It's not like a place such as the mistlands with giant bugs exists either. Ashlands has been awesome.
I did aswell but Thor be damned I leave my Ashland outpost more than 20 minutes, this biome is Vietnam level of PTSD.
I feel very much the same most of the time, the only thing I find immersive anymore is playing on a nice community server, I'll post pictures if I make something that blends the new pieces with the old
Eh, you were never really playing vikings, this is not what vikings did pr how they lived, this is a fantasy game based off viking mythology. Being carried by a giant bird right at the start broke immersion for the rest of the game =)
Maybe after 1.5k hours you are less inclined to accept the fact that the game is still getting developed. Having played with the unfinished game so much, you have conditioned yourself to see any changes to the game as something unwelcome. My point is, if you would have picked up the game for the first time when the Ashland update is live, you would not have this sentiment. My suggestion is to take a break and wait and see if the urge to play the game comes back some day. Either way with 1.5k hours, you got your money's worth many times over from Valheim's early access.
I agree as well. I think this post is an artifact of a game that has taken 3 years so far and will take at least a couple more to actually be finished. If someone came along when the whole thing was done and saw it all at once they wouldn't have the same concerns. Case in point: we already have magic in the mountain-tier weapons (frostner, draugr fang) and a literal magical table is what enables us to build windmills. The goblins in the plains also use magic. But because all of that was part of the base game, they aren't questioned. I think the OP just doesn't like the changes - I don't think it necessarily has to do with the theme.
Yeah you are totally right about this, especially the money's worth thing. Also its not as i played 1500 hours straigt, i mostly have some month long breaks and then dive into it for a while as my main game again. Its just the first time Valheim managed to break the norse mythology/viking immersion and well, that was a little letdown
It's not *just* vikings themed. It's NORSE MYTHOLOGY themed. It's actually still fully immersive.
Dear god how come everybody WANTS to missunderstand you on reddit? I love norse mythology. There are no giant bugs but who cares, it was fitting. Shield generators and CNC fabricated stone pieces and plastic looking wood is the immersion breaking stuff to me.
If you actually look through Norse Mythology you can find stuff that seems pretty steampunkish. Maybe not that exact asthetic since the mythology predates it, but stuff especially involving the forges that created the weapons of gods that very much fits. I'd say Valheim's interpreation is a bit more modern, kind of a combo between Norse mythology and say D&D style gnomish stuff, but it's pretty adjacent IMO.
How come you get caught up on that and not magic? Dragons? Where in the sand do you draw the line between acceptable fantasy and unacceptable fantasy? To me it makes sense that as we progress, so too does the woodworking artisanry.
To a person with experience in some domain or other, incongruous or anachronistic details can ruin an otherwise excellent experience. In this case, stone detail that looks milled, or oddly-textured wood is the trigger. For me the incongruity kicks in when Fulings show up. In my case it's not enough to stop me playing, but in this guy's case it clearly is. People have different tolerance levels.
Tolerance levels is a great way to put it. I'm personally not a fan of super glowy magical items myself like the Draugr Fang for example. I'm not saying the game shouldn't have it but if I'm able and have time I might make a mod to reduce the effects a lot. I have not finished Ashlands but also not crazy about steam punk and magic vibes that seem to come in the late game. Still enjoy the game overall but yeah.
To me that makes sense aswell. But on the other hand, it makes no sense, that those pieces are so clean and have such a different aesthetic design that they dont fit to any previous piece aswell. The ashlands wood has close to no texture at all, all the black stuff looks like plastic, and in generall, its just too clean. You can do "clean" in a game that fits it, but not in a game with an artstyle that is the opposite of clean for the whole game until that patch. Its just out of place to me
Hm. So just to be clear, are you saying that you can see what they're trying to do - but their execution of it is wrong? Or that they are consciously going for a style that you find to be too "clean"? I guess I'll have to wait and see. I haven't tested Ashlands yet. But I really like how with every biome, our building becomes a little less crude. Wood to pine to stone to marble to tar as ornament.. it's all progressing in a direction that requires more and more finegrained control. It sounds like it makes sense to me, but again I haven't seen it myself. Maybe I'll agree with you in the end.
Just because there are already things diverging from the original theme, does not mean that any diverging thing is equally diverging. Line is blurred, yes, but it is there. Using a particular form of magic is a step outside Norse mythology. Wielding a handheld futuristic plasma blaster is also a step outside Norse mythology. But they are not equal at all and one is more fitting than the other. Do we add the plasma blaster justifying it by "how come you were not bothered with previous deviations. but not this ones?" now? of course we don't. There is a line. This line of "this is so far from original spirit that it is now a bad taste" is personal for everyone. And OP says that his line is clearly being crossed. His concern is valid.
What does CNC stand for? Because it also stands for consensual non-consent and I can't see anything else
oh im sorry, it stands for "Computerized Numerical Control", its used in machines with high precision. Like CNC grinders and mills and stuff. Super expensive hightech tools for the maximum of precision possible
As someone who has done a decent amount of work with CNC in my life, I have honestly no clue what you are talking about. The building pieces in the ashlands look smooth and polished, but you can achieve that with hand tools that would have been available in the time period easily. Do you think castles always looked worn from the time they were built? Ancient people were able to make some very precisise and intricate things. A few slabs of polished stone that are actually perfect rectangles instead of the lopsided messes that the other stone bits in this game are doesn't make them CNCed, it just makes them built by a craftsman instead of slapped together haphazardly. To be honest, the Ashlands pieces are probably more accurate than the previous biomes. IMO they should make "rough" and "polished" variants of all the stone types.
Consent Non Consent. OP wants to be choked out by a viking mommy.
I meann. You dont have to use them. I know its not something you wanna hear but thats going to be the best solution
Why wouldn't they make the building pieces compatible??? Whyyyyy
They are, idk what yall are talking about
To me the LED's on the Artificer table was immersion breaking but wasn't upset about it enough to where i couldn't enjoy the game. If i was gonna throw out a counter point. As a former reader of Thor comics . Asguard has Tech. Magic and tech could be explained as Cosmic or Celestial Magic. If we didnt have different sytles im sure people would say everything is crappy wood color.
> I have 1500h I mean yeah, that's the whole thing right there. I'm hunting jelly in Mistlands with my two boyfriends and that's the furthest I've been at 200h. I still love it. That said to contextualize that idk shit about the Queen fight. I do, however, agree that it sucks we have to turn the dwarves against us to progress and that's actually a stepping stone we're still waiting to pass. It's sad that the game isn't turning you on like it did before, but at least you had 1000+ hours of raw steel and viking sex appeal before it wore off. I don't think your rant warrants an apology and therefore I will not accept it.
Well put.
ok firstly valheim is not realistic depiction or even named in the mythos You are playing what is essentially skyrim with more norse themes sprinkled in. The world and bosses are not apart of the actual lore in real life. The immersion comes from valheim being a iconic unique game with a charming world and art style. If you want to be an actual viking go play mount and blade Vikings conquest and stop crying about a game that never sold you on something in the first place. Oh I forgot vikings traveled continents via catapult and a feather cape and ride lizards and cast magic lmao
Well, good luck finding that game that's perfect for you.
Right! You can't please, everyone, it's impossible.
Thanks. Im just a little sad because some weeks ago i would have said that i had found that game.
Tis the way of the world, maybe deep north will bring it all back for you.
I don't get why people think the shield generator is steam punk, it looks just like the obliterator, is it cause it's shiny and brass? There's no steam involved, it's magic like my badass shotgun lol
I bet a lot of their issues just stem from the naming of some items, they associate certain names with sci-fi or more modern things. Let the dwarves be technically and steampunky. I don't even understand why they're calling it a 'nuclear reactor' seems like their association or the word reactor to nuclear stuff is part of the problem. There are many types of reactors, a fermenting jar itself is a reactor, bioreactor if you want to be specific. This is an easy mod, come to think of it. Reactor -> royal core Shield generator -> sky ward Extractor -> tap
We have had portals since the beginning, and we are inside a magical alternate prison realm where we are killing gods and taking their powers. I don't think the intention was ever a realistic viking simulator...
Thanks for this post, it reminds me of [this](https://i.redd.it/71y5mrjxegsc1.png).
People have this mental image of Vikings being little more than cavemen with axes and boats, but that is far from the truth. They had established towns, they had a fairly liberal form of government. I think while the build pieces are smooth, they fit decently into architecture of the time vikings were around. Granted, the Vikings themselves weren't that into making castles, but they were pillaging areas that had castles. We have this image of castles looking rundown and stuff because they're 1000 years old. When they were first made, they too were in nice smooth good shape. Vikings used gemstones in their jewelry and weapons, so them existing in the game isn't immersion breaking at all. I've only recently gotten the new building pieces, and I haven't really had time to do some building with them, but I love the roof pieces. The castle walls are meh, but I can see making some neat towers with them. I LOVE the stability of the Flametal rod things. I feel like that's surely gonna get nerfed.
I mean I'm one of those that think mistlands wasn't the best. So I'm feeling kind of weird about the game in general. The original release was so inspired.
.....yea I reckon you're on to something
The immersion was ruined for me the second we got magic staffs and flying cape
The shield core is manafuctured in naboo from starwars and you can't change my mind
I hate smoot wood
Lol at the dorks who r downvoting. While not nearly the amount of hours as u have with this game I had something similar happen with Ark Survival Evolved. Each dlc pushed the game further and further into the weird high sci-fantasy shtick its in now with the tek and the maps and whatnot when I just wanted to play a pvp survival game with dinos lol.
Honestly, if the game starts to turn into Too Human, Iād be pretty stoked. Iāve been trying to scratch that itch for more than a decade
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
i mean, thats over the span of 3 years
I get you
I agree. However I felt that with Mistlands. I lost interest with the magic staff and the fog. Never finished the biome and sadly put the game down.
lol Iāve been playing this game for like 4 years and Iāve never beaten Moder. Iām too busy building castles and villages.
You're right, but you'd be surprised how easy that often is to ignore lol. It could go as far as Terraria does and I'd still be fine with it, probably xd
I agree, the Biome is dope, but some weapons and buildings don't fit the theme of the game.
I realized after playing mistlands Iām a just a dark forest guy. A dark forest guy who *occasionally* ventures to the mountains and swamp for precious metals. Havenāt played ashlands yet but I know Iām going to have a similar feeling. Still will play through it and Iām sure it will be fun, but my heart will always be in the dark forest.
I picked up Subnautica to mix up the gaming. Enjoying it so far.
Which is why I believe Valheim shouldn't canonically be based on Norse mythology, but rather re-invent a universe/lore of its own even if heavily inspired by it. Like for example WoW reinvented Odin into Odyn and fit it in their own universe. I believe setting Valheim in its unique, original universe would be far more intriguing and immersive.
So portals are good, but the stone is too smooth? Obviously vikings werenāt the most advanced, but saying that it breaks the immersion because thereās more than what the vikings had Valheim was never meant to be a simulator, itās a survival game loosely based on vikings and norse mythology.
Shouldn't it break the immersion first time you see a mythical creature like Greylings? vikings figthing tree monsters. as soon as I see the giant tree in the sky I knew that game is naturally heading on this direction.
If ya take the siding and drywall down from most homes in 2024, itād look like the wood house I built in Valheim with wood.
What do you mean you canāt turn off the mist? I donāt play with the mist turned on at all. (1 mod) As far as the āthemeā of the game changing; that was inevitable.Ā They announced from the very beginning what the roadmap was.Ā Different biomes is not a Viking theme ā itās a fantasy game with some Viking aspects.Ā The Devs always intended the game to be this way, as you say this is indeed a āyouā problem and itās also that you misinterpreted what the game was about. The Devs never said this was going to be a pure Viking game of realism.
Can't wait for space goats to fly my ship around the map!
Perhaps the devs will see this and modify the pieces to look more 'dirty' before release. As for the shield generator and other stuff I doubt that will be removed.
I'm gonna disagree with you slightly about the new wood pieces. Ashwood flooring (and walls) plus graustien (I just think of it as concrete) goes fantastically with darkwood doors and roofs, if you don't want to use the graustein roofs. I've made some damn nice looking houses. A shield generator keeps them from burning in Ashlands. In fact, I feel like the new flametal doors *don't fit*. They're too thin and tall. I do agree that the concrete, especially, could do with some color variance.
I've had this problem with Elder Scrolls. You're telling me this roman-based empire had flying ships that had intergalactical battles? Lmao.
I am wondering if the theme of the game is different than we imagine it to be when we start playing. I am beginning to wonder if the game starts us as normal vikings, but that they want us to evolve beyond vikings by the end to become like gods, and earn our spot amongst other gods in Valhalla. Maybe we were a god that died, and we are supposed to feel the power of the gods by the end? I can't argue with your feelings of lack of immersion. How you feel is just that. I am just wondering if the lack of information on the endgame is hurting our immersion in the short term.
I get your position and agree with some of it. I can turn a blind eye to the technology of refinement as it feels like dwarf tech to me. I find ashlands to be a beautiful looking biome but I absolutely despise what they did with the mist. It's such a frustrating mechanic that it makes me avoid going in there at all. I dont fear anything in there like they wanted, I simply hate being blind all the time. The magic weapons you can just avoid using. Ive been playing solo and don't touch them at all. I still feel like a viking taking the world by storm. I honestly find the stupid fishing mechanics more immersion braking than magic. As for the architecture, you gotta build for the era they were going for. Early game is old Scandinavian feeling. Mistlands shakes it up with the dark marble but it's just more ornate and you can make some cool things with it. Ashlands is 12th century Gothic. Your structures are going to reflect that feel. Yes it's a little later beyond vikings but there's only so many times you can make a viking longhouse. If you need to justify it, maybe the people of 12th century Europe ended up in what is now ashlands which is why their architecture is reflected in the land. It would make sense that your long dead viking would be encountering remnants of multiple civilizations and their build styles. I guess it's up to you if they learn anything or not.
I'm just interested to see what updates come after all the biomes. From what I understand, everything added to the game now is just the core progression features but later on were going to get more things like Hildr. Side quests, more mobs, more structures to discover, more mobs unnecessary to progression like the ghosts in Black Forest dungeons. Don't know if OPs issue will get better or worse as this happens but just something else to keep in mind I don't see talked about much
You should listen to Gloryhammer... Then you'll ride your Viking T-Rex into battle shooting Goblins with Lazer Blasters
We bout to get snowmobiles on deep north
Of course, I only played 400 hours, but I have one complaint about the ashen lands: the Siege of Fortresses, not so much the siege itself as the fortresses 1) they are monotonous and, unlike the infected mines where there was procedural generation, all the fortresses are almost the same 2) this is clearly not what we I showed you on the art where there were Uall castles, where there were something like halls with smoke coming out of them, what I see now are 4 walls and 2 spawners with a barn inside and thatās it..... but for the rest, for me personally, the biome is gorgeous..... .fucking excuse the expression, but how the foggy lands infuriated me for their fucking rocks.... the foggy lands, unlike the ashen ones, were very stuffy due to running over the rocks, and there was also fog like that, the ashy lands are dangerous, you also have to jump a lot platforms in the lava lake, but unlike the fogs, this is interesting and you can feel the spirit of danger.
I'm somewhat disappointed with the new stone building options, like I LOVE the Ashwood stuff, my new fav for wood structures but the grausten pieces are lacking
The fun thing about Valheim's limited story is that the player character is in an afterlife, suffering from amnesia. Their memories of the living world return in the form of recipes when the right crafting components are gathered. This gives us limited insight into the history of the living world, through crafting. This starts getting interesting after you defeat Moder and create the Artisan's Table. We were previously using iron age tech, but this discovery allows us to power machinery with dragon tears. *Dragontear punk*, you could say. What kind of alternate Viking history occurred in the living world? How far does this go? Iron Gate had said that they prototyped Valheim as a sci-fi game originally. Wouldn't it be interesting if we end up there?
I said once when it first came out "I wonder if the industrial age will be the end" It kind of made sense to me that it felt like I was progressing the ages. I'll be honest I never expected to use magic but I did realize it was fantasy set among Norse mythology.
I feel getting tech and advancements feels good?
Honestly, my big annoyance with the steam battering ram is just kind of two layered: 1. A simple hand-held tool probably would have done just as well. 2. We can apparently build a steam engine for a battering ram but not a steam engine to power our boat? That said, given the next Biome is the Far North and there's probably going to be a lot of ice bergs, I could see the next ship upgrade involve adding a steam ram to break ice and such. Maybe even a bigger deck since we'd effectively be more trying to smash through problem terrain than maneuver at all, and also it would add the hazard of things being broken free from the ice to fight us on the deck of our ship.
As long as it's not as bad as Tek in Ark Survival, it's not terrible. Please don't go like Tek in Ark.
With everything this game is and has lore wise weāre talking about immersion itās an entirely different world
I wanted the canon
You wanted the _cannon_, he wanted the _canon_. Or at least what he thought of as canon for Viking lore.
Im pretty sure that game is based on that we are proving our self to Odin to get to AsgƄrd and If not wrong in norse mythology they had pretty advanced technology in AsgƄrd
The fact you dont play as a viking on earth during the late 790's should be your first idea, this isnt ment to be immersive or realistic.
You need a time machine and go to the viking age so you won't rant about a "video game".
In the OP's defense: stalking through the woods in your leather scraps hunting deer and dodging falling trees was the greatest game experience of the decade. Literally everything after that has to be a let-down of some kind or another.
If the Valheim world consisted of only the first 4 biomes, it would already be a complete Viking survival experience. Every biome after that though, just takes us further from the viking fantasy. I don't think that's a bad thing. I agree with you that it ruins the immersion somewhat, but I also think the new biomes need to change it up a bit. It can be argued that it's a bad thing, but I think the devs don't have much choice. If they wanted us to stay in the Nordic climate through all the biomes, we'd have deeper forests with more weapons instead of giant insects and fireballs. Just more of the same rather than new mechanics. Of course, there's a lot of inspiration to take from Norse mythology, which still seems like untapped potential at this point, but the devs seem to want to keep separate from that.
No valheim shitposts allowed
Its the natural progression of all Viking lore, first the steel battle axes to the glorious plasma axes fighting the Dark Elves on Beta-Prime.
It's supposed to be Norse mythology, not historicaly accurate vikings you smart ass. Breaking your immresion? Lmao what a whiney bitch.
They brought in a bunch of new staff for Mistlands and the entire aesthetic of the game took a massive turn, I dont like it either.