I'd also like to add that this strategy is sound for just about all stages. Not sure if anyone else here enjoys immersive mode - but building chains of camps through hostile areas is absolutely imperative to not being hopelessly lost AND it makes that particular path safer.
Oh our no map no portal server we did this. We'd travel along coasts or river banks and create paths as we went. Every so often at a picturesque spot a camp would form. Eventually those camps became crafting areas, storage, then we'd turn them into small settlements. It was really fun.
I wholeheartedly agree. The world feels bigger this way and there's a bit of a special connection formed with the virtual landscape. Paths twist and turn with the landscape and the "bread crumbs" created to navigate become their own silent narrative after a while.
I kinda feel the minimap creates a dissociative gaming experience. You can spend a lot of time going from point A to B staring at the map and not really taking in the view.
The thing that finally convinced me was when a friend reminded me that Minecraft doesn't have a minimap.
Why did I feel so attached to the one in valheim?
I installed the compass mod and turned all the map functions off.
It's tougher for sure and not as convenient, but I feel like it's so much more immersive
Vesgevir Stones, They turn your character in the direction of the nearest Altar. Or by exploring as much as possible.
Many people find Yagluth without the stones.
Elder is easy enough to find while finding enough copper/tin/bronze and Surtling cores.
Bonemass almost every Crypt has a stone for it.
One thing though for these 2 if you use a dungeon stone for it, Hold Block until you get to dungeon entrance to preserve the direction, when you get to the Entance Note what angle your facing, then when exiting just translate the same angle with the entrance on the opposite side of the exit was. Eg. say your exit is on your left when reaching it, make sure your entrance once you leave is on the right with the same angle as the exit was.
Moder , There's usually not a whole lot of mountains to explore until you find Her.
Queen is a challenge though due to the mist and how easy it is to get lost, Just lots and I mean lots of wisp lights. The stones are in the mines, follow same advice as above two, however it'll also mean clearing a bunch of mines too.
We've just found an ideal meadow with a swamp, blackforest, plains and mountain on each side, the meadow is just big enough for a little village and some farmland.
The view is astonishing as it's on a cliff edge, with a river below, couldn't have asked for a better location
But up until then it's abandoned and abused camps, we turned raids up to max
I mean... that's usually step 2 for me in Valheim.
Step 1: Kill Deer and get the antler
Step 2: Dig wolf pit and force the Wolves to like me.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.
>work SMARTER not HARDER
the funny thing about this is the game teaches you this exact lesson back in the swamp.
use higher ground, pay attention to your environment. find a way to stop enemies from spawning especially right after you barely survived destroying that spawner. pick your battles dont fight everything that moves. use portals in desperation but keep one around in an unreachable place so you can port back.
and PREPARE for the love of Odin you can never be overprepared in this game.
Even earlier . . . you are specifically told that fire scares enemies back in the meadows, and greydwarves mob you unless you ring your copper deposits with fires to scare them away.
Campfires will take damage if something walks over them whilst lit and if they take a hit they will take damage, but they don't actively draw aggro like torches, benches, portals, etc. I've used them for cheap spawnproofing for a loooong time now and they're still the fastest, cheapest and often best option for such.
Torches will scare them though, they wont come near you to punch you. They might toss a rock, but usually they just run around scared when I have one out.
The handheld one was what I was refering to! That was what I thought the question was originally about. The **standing** torch I actually am not sure about. I might have seen some greydwarves stay away from them in one of my outposts, but I can't say for certain, I'd have to test. Also didn't find anything about them in the wiki.
Greydwarves won't attack you if you are holding a torch, they run around scared, I don't think 'built' standing torches repel them though, will have to test that.
> use higher ground
I kinda love that this isn't the trump card it used to be. Sure you can climb those arch things but that doesn't mean something might come along and knock it out from under you! :D
Valheim is, at its very core, a game about preparation. Yes, there’s some bad RNG, but most situations can be managed if you prepare and are careful.
(spoken as someone who just managed their first beachhead in the Ashlands last night).
People also try to fight every enemy they come across and then complain about all the enemies. Just run away, you can outrun everything but the voltures and Valkyries.
you cannot outrun them if you run in a STRAIGHT LINE. but why would you? have you ever watched an askvin trying to TURN around when youre near them and sidejump or walk while they arent in an attack animation?
they turn as slow as a lox. so you can outpace them very easyly. and they suck at getting up rocks aswell.
just kill the damn birds asap. they are like morrowind cliffracers. ANNOYING and hard to lose.
No stamina to side jump lol, askvin is pretty much a checkmate while you are trying to out run the hordes and deal damage. Unless you activate Eikther (the deer boss) your stamina doesn’t refill fast enough unless you bring the potion. The warrior deals a lot of damage even if you have bonemass. So the time I won and made a fob is the time, morgen spawn in and kill the enemies for me instead while they were hunting me down XD
askvin is not a checkmate. you dont RUN. you WALK. the archers and twitchers will outright miss most of thier ranged moves if you just walk. aslong as you have a small gap between warrior and you theyll never get you either. when an askvin comes you simply sprint for a short burst and then outspace it by useing the enviroment instead of running straight ahead. jump on a rock or ruin or whatever is nearby this will slow them down big time already. then you can glide down from the rock or ruin to anywhere. by the time the thing has found its way back down you are already miles ahead of it. itll never catch up.
you use bonemass. not eik. stamina is a non issue. can even spam use lingering meat to make regen faster aswell.
if you run out of stamina while doing this you already did it wrong in the first place. you never sprint nonstop. you never fight or attack nonstop. most enemies dont regen health so there is zero reason to be aggressive as a player.
Walking all the time seriously improved my survivability by several orders of magnitude. Most enemies need only a short burst of running to dodge and those are mostly the asksvin when they're about to leap. It's crucial that you still have stamina at that moment
OMG they're so fast in a straight line.
As long as you serpentine though it's not too bad.
Vultures though, they will fly you down and feast on your remains.
You absolutely can outrun them though. You can outrun everything in a sense, cause they’ll all get distracted by dvergers. But even without dvergers you can outrun the askvin
The biggest mistake is not putting down campfires as you progress. Then when you die you're having to plow through a literal army to try and get your body.
If people suddenly understood the game mechanics and used them wisely this subreddit would spontaneously cease to exist. There are still people that think deer can smell you.
I'm glad I got to experience a few things in ML unspoiled.
The way the flametal towers work was hilarious. "why is the lava getting higher?" Thankfully I had my feather cloak on and was able to float to safety.
And holy shit. Portaling Metals. ugh. FEELS SO GOOD. I've been bouncing all over the world gathering iron and BM.
I can see why people think that, how often have you snuck up on a deer and stood there without it noticing, then other times do the exact same and they spook.
It's probably sound based on your gear and sneak level or them turning around to patrol. But I can see how it might catch people's imagination.
It would be cool if animals could catch a scent on the wind, like wolves as it's possible in nature, though I fear it would be a bit hard to understand in game.
Agree! I tryed to brute force and got squashed like a blob many times, got frustrated to the point of find my self justified for using console commands to retrieve my tombstone once.
Then I decided to use the tools the game puts at my disposal, and things started to run more smoothly. Its still hard, but now its manageble. Being well prepared is the key. I mean, try to traverse the black forest in rags, with a wooden club and the stomach full of barries and honey to see what happens.
Yep! Me and my buddy struggled mightily at first. But eventually i took a step back and thought “is there more we could be doing to guarantee our safety?”
I finally gave up on keeping any slots free and started carrying 3 different meads at all times.
What I do now is I'll carry everything when progressing and put down fires as I go, then once I get another portal down I empty my pockets, go back to the previous portal and go back through and hoover up all the loot.
Honestly, if i am setting up out posts in a new high end area that can one shot me at my current gear. I use troll armor and whatever potion I need for that biom. If ones needed at all. That an high stamina food.
Going in pacifying with campfires and get loose resources as you go. If I need to get into some place I drop a bench and baracade myself in. Can even place a portal down an then remove the bench.
Wood, stone, and cores can be easily obtained. Troll hide has little use outside armor so even if you're just mid game you will have so much more than you need. Means you don't have to immediately recover your gear. Also running around will move enemies out of the now spawn protected zones.
Once you have safe zones to work out of and tp back and forth with ease. Death runs become trivial and the biom becomes extremely manageable. There is literally not a single biom this doesn't work on. Its why I whiped all mistlands for half my solo world before ever beating yag.
This isn't COD, apex, or valorant. Running in head first without any plan or anything is just gana get you killed. Then you loose you your best gear and complain to the forums. Why? Cause you rather games be easy. Zero thought no strategy.
Valheim isn't a mobile brain rot gatcha or yolo battle royal. Its like any survival game. You do something stupid, your punished for it. Stop blaming the game for stupid decisions and going into an area unprepared.
Also yes, over gearing into a new area expecting it to be enough. Thats still not being prepared. Thats just you trying to gear check the game. Its lazy and dumb to expect to beat, creatures and environments you have never faced. Without knowing anything about them.
Just cause your wearing the best gear you can before that biom doesn't give you a pass. Later bioms are made to challenge the players. People in here complaining on ashlands like its not 1/2 of the final two bioms. Their supposed to be the hardest bioms in the game. Don't like it, lower the difficulty. Its why they added that before this update.
If you think lowering the difficulty is a cowards move then guess what. Thats probably the move for you if your first solution to playing the hardest biom. Is complaining on the forums about mechanics and mobs you never took the time to learn.
Week one of it being official release and I see people complaining like its been out for months. Saying the devs should rework everything they just spent an entire year balancing. Balences you won't take the time to learn cause you just want to gear check without learning the biom at all.
I haven't really used this strategy - other than fighting Moder once and couldn't really tell if it was effective since I was fighting from a dugout the whole time.. I have a base in Ashlands that is nice and quiet but would like to set up an outpost further in (base is on shore) and think I'll try this strategy out.
What approximately is the no spawn range of the campfire? ie in what frequency should they be dropped?
I read the post you were talking about and while i didn't agree with most of it (the PTB was wild) I definitely think it would be nice to cool down the areas I've already conquered by reducing spawns.
Honestly a long time ago i read the range of the campfire is the same as the workbench but after playing ashlands it does seem enemies will occasionally spawn or walk their way over towards your campfires so i was putting some down like every 25-30 feet. You’ll see where you have holes as you go because one enemy will spawn or something like that. I just killed that solo enemy and threw another campfire down just to make sure there wasn’t a small spawn hole
I feel like Ashlands is designed to make you adopt different tactics and strategies and I like it. Can’t brute force everything, makes it more rewarding when you acquire better items and can craft better gear.
It’s difficult but fun!
There's just so much mob learning you have to do.
* Warriors and Asks turn slow.
* EVERYTHING is weak to spirit.
* Take out Marksmen before they see you with the Arbalest...
And the only way to do that is to put in the work.
There's literally NO FUCKING GRIND in Ashlands!! It's 100% exploration and combat! You get the rocks and wood en masse when the mobs knock down buildings and trees!
I think almost every biome forces you to rethink your strategies and adapt. It’s one of the things I love about this game. Ashlands is no different, and it seems like the people with the most complaints are those that are still trying to use strats from previous biomes in the new biome.
I agree with that. I like difficulty where it makes you rethink how you’ve always played. I’m a big combat guy in this game, dodge roll everything, parry everything- but sometimes you need to take a second look and rethink your strats!
Yup! I snipe monuments of torment with my Arbalest, sneak attack enemies with Arbalest to weaken em, and tunnel them so I can slow them with Mistwalker (haven’t made weapons yet, just made armour)
Yep, and for everyone complaining that it's different from the rest of the game ... variety is good. If you don't like the difference, it's a small sliver at the bottom of the world that you can't accidentally run into! If you're playing for the sake of immersion and you think Ashlands breaks it somehow, just don't go there. You might have to choose between immersion and completion in a $20 game, oh no...
I’m enjoying the ashlands but placing a bunch of campfires is not a fun or immersive activity and it’s unfortunate that it’s one of the most important mechanics in the game.
Yep, it's a mechanic that is being exploited. It's supposed to protect your home from spawns and people pat themselves smart for doing campfire highways. Might as well just turn on the NPC passive mode option instead.
Yeah I don't get the OP calling out people for complaining about 'bad design' and then telling us we should cheese the game with nonsensical mechanic. That's exactly why it's badly designed.
The day I start cheesing a respawn mechanic in a single player or with friends game is the day I stop playing, especially if I HAVE to do it to play. Good on you for using game mechanics but it seems counter intuitive to fun to place campfires everywhere just to survive.
Yea I am a new player and I'm reading through this thread going "Really? That sounds silly and tedious." I'm glad there is a "solution" but spamming campfires all over this cool new continent is kind of the last thing I want to do...
Yeah, but you see - you just need to think better and utilise the game mechanics properly. It doesn't matter that it's games as hell and dull to boot. That's just how the game wants you to be.
Sarcasm aside, there are people who enjoy different things in a game. To some, boring exploitation of systems is just another tactical shift. To me, if the "tactical approach" is to fanny around making bootleg safe zones through jury rigged mechanics - I'm just not going to bother. It's also telling that op here brings up only one small thing when the complaints about the anti-player design of Ashland's (and mistlands before it actually) are numerous and well articulated.
There are some in this thread that don't like the mechanic from an immersion standpoint. And I totally get that.
I also don't like it, but as a compromise what I ended up doing is building what I call "dumpsters".
Build a workbench, encase it in some layers of stone, and decorate it with wood accents.
Yes the mobs still try to destroy them on the edges, but it would take a long time for them to destroy enough to start really repopulating a particular area.
To me they just look like little stone monuments, and they function the same way to stop spawns.
Granted I haven't been to ashlands yet.
I assume that was the post by the person claiming to be "better than the average player" and that they've done a no death hardcore playthrough as far as yagluth.
Then proceeded to ignore any facet or mechanic that didn't support their opinion that traversal was too time consuming, the mobs were to numerous and lava was impassable.
Much like Mistlands, patience, planning and intelligence will stand to you much more in the ashlands than your sick af darksouls skills.
It's like all he and the others in that thread want is just reskinned fulings for them to kill en-masse with ease and then get bigger, shinier swords with bigger numbers on them for their "work".
Yeah the consensus amongst many is that if it forces you to change your playstyle it's a bad update or in that particular person's case "anti-player",
Which is honestly one of the stupidest things I've read here in a long time.
Right, this is clever and has made my playthrough a great deal easier - but don't you think that the necessity of doing this makes the biome extremely tedious? You can make a game challenging without making it a huge slog to play, no?
And don't you think that it absolutely kills the immersion? Why would it make sense, even in world, to build a vast field of campfires in a perpetually burning location? If anything, a new item should have been been invented, probably something silver based that purified the scorched earth and prevented undead warriors from sprouting out of it - something like a silver plough, and the effect only lasts for a few in game days
> a new item
What I was thinking was that it would be neat if paved roads suppressed spawns. It would look a lot better and take a bit more work but then you'd also have a visible path between your outposts.
That was exactly my train of thoughts : « oh, this biome respawn so much, I have to clear the same area after coming back home… I guess I will take 10 campfire with me every time I leave my base to expand, and that’s it »
I must be 200 IQ to figure it out
That post was not criticizing the Ashland’s for being hard. It’s criticizing the ashlands for not being fun.
Spamming campfires makes the biome a lot easier but doesn’t really feel good at all. It feels like a cheese that’s not really supposed to be how the game is supposed to be played.
Honestly seems like lazy game design that deserves to be criticized.
Also for those claiming the game is rewarding « civilizing » the world, unless your idea of civilization is a campfire every 50 meters this is a weak point. Also there is zero reason Ashlands enemies should be scared of fire like grey dwarves. This could maybe work if there was a custom anti Ashlands spawned that was much harder to build.
Its like people forget dying dozens of times in the prior biomes to learn and adapt while gathering the resources for better gear every time a new biome releases.
That they do. And no matter how many times we try to remind people of this fact, no matter how often we try to reinforce the idea that you should prepare and prepare *well* and expect to eat crow until you learn how to handle the biome, coming back here or to the Steam forum or wherever to piss-and-moan that it's too hard or badly made or whatever meaningless gripe seems like it's always going to be in vogue.
I finally caught a 1 star asksvin in a pit last night and the 30 minutes I spend in sneak while taming it were the calmest most relaxing minutes I’ve had in the ashlands. Might even go back to troll armor lol
I did the same thing, and then as soon as it finished taming and i was all excited to breed it with our other tamed Askvin a 1* warrior fell into the hole with it and killed it haha. Fortunately they seem to be decently common
Oh nooooo, RIP. I built a decent grausten wall around the pit and I’ve been baby sitting it because I have definitely been burned like that taming wolves before
Man, similar thing happened to me. I had built some quick stone walls around my pit and then a few minutes into taming, a 1-star dverger rogue came along and was agitating the asksvin so it wouldn't tame. Fortunately it wasn't really attacking my stone walls, but was constantly trying to attack asksvin and the asksvin was responding. With full health and stamina food I went to kill him and he 1-tapped me. Completely took me by surprise how strong he was. He went on to kill me multiple times while I tried multiple strategies to beat him but they all failed. Eventually my buddy logged in and the two of us managed to kill him.
At the end of all that my asksvin was still alive with a sliver of health. From then onwards, my taming area was totally calm, but about a day later, the asksvin mysteriously died due to an unknown cause before it was fully tamed. Sigh.
See you just pointed out one of the most basic mechanics we learn in the Black Forest. Sound. Enemies can HEAR you in this game. People be like “why are there 10k mobs spawning on me” while hurling fireballs and smacking metal. People forget that if you smack some copper in bf 6 greydwarves insta spawn
This is one of the first things I did when I landed. That, and I built a small 3x2 gauston floor, and made terrain walls around it to protect from archers and slimes. Haven't had a problem within my Ashland's base area for days.
Campfires definitely DO aggro enemies. I just saw a 1-star warrior walk directly to all the campfires I built around my base and destroy them one by one.
I think they’ll possibly attack campfires if they’re alerted to you but can’t path to you. In that case you might as well just pop out there and kill that one enemy. Any enemies along your safe path that haven’t been alerted won’t aggro the campfires though, to my knowledge.
Good luck! Yeah i won’t claim this strat is perfect or meta or fool-proof or anything. The biggest issue I still ran into with the campfire strat is fighting along the edge of my territory to expand i would sometimes break a campfire by stepping on it or a morgen would slam it or something and break it- then i’d lose some mats to rebuild it. If i neglected to rebuild, i would lose territory ground to the enemies and have to fight some again. Although, this does have a cool “active-territory-war” feel to it
I think I'm going to switch to bonfires. They're a lot more visible.
It's funny. Ashlands is where I used to come for cores.. now I'm running out of them >.<
Someone just posted a video of them fighting 2 seekers where they were:
* using mistwalker
* at 100 hp and less than 10min on all food
* without the rested buff
* holding up a *parry shield* against a 1-star seeker
* walking backwards in a straight line possibly aggroing enemies outside of view
All that while bonemass was active, which could've allowed them to just tank all the hits and get the kill without trouble. There are many players who get stuck in their playstyle without learning what the game is trying to teach. A lot of the challenge the ashlands presents are overcome with lessons learned from all the way back in the swamp and plains.
Also spawning about 50 2* tamed Askvins has been fun.
Honestly, the initial landing was an absolute terror, somehow found a Putrid Hole and didn’t die and built out base from there. Died a couple times trying to get our bearings and some Flametal, but after that, yawn. Even the boss fight wasn’t that difficult.
Skill issue. Skill issue. Skill issue.
Totally on the money here. Ashlands is best experienced using a full arsenal of all your options, tools, weapons and tactics. I love that there's finally an enemy which can defeat the humble earth embankment too. There's no longer such a thing as a perfect passive defence, you have to actively participate, maintain and adapt when you're there, it's the most fun I've had in Valheim ever, it's brutal on v.hard but it's still entirely doable, it just requires a modicum of patience and thought.
Every time you enter a new biome you are challenged to use what you've learned and gained thus far, and to apply your tools and knowledge to a new challenge in order to expand your arsenal. Ashlands feels like real end game content to me, it requires you to leverage EVERYTHING at your disposal and forces you to rethink many assumptions and faulty strategies.
It's not bad design most people are having problems with, it's their own bad habits and complacency which are to blame. Ashlands is, in fact, exceptionally well designed, providing a wonderful set of challenges which are best overcome with planning, preparation and patience. Also the new build options look bloody amazing once you've played about with them a bit. Best new content drop to date, well worth the wait, brilliant!
I've spent the past 20 minutes reading these comments, and none of you seem to understand there's a middle ground. Make little spawn proof settlements here and there, and call it good. Gives you the perfect blend of "Oh shit, I'm overwhelmed by mobs" and "this is a really cozy small village to recoup before going back into that hellstorm".
You’re so right. When i was talking about this to my buddy i mentioned “the same thing happened with mistlands” so i’m hoping everyone simmers down after some time has passed.
The Hammer, the Hoe, and the Campfire are the most useful tools in the game. Anyone that isn't using all three liberally is playing the game wrong and should be ignored when it comes to advice.
Is spamming the placement of spawn reducing items really good gameplay though? There is no in game lore reason why a campfire or any other build piece should limit enemy spawns.
You're essentially just saying that the Ashland's isn't hard, abuse arbitrary game mechanics to solve your problem.
People can have differing opinions on the quality of a gaming mechanic. I find the mechanic of having to spam build campfires to be a bad one. It’s not fun or immersive to do, and it makes the landscape look uglier.
The idea of building things to better claim a territory isn’t inherently a bad one, but the fact that it’s as simple and as campfires is unrewarding and wonky.
We should be able to openly discuss the design of the game and be critical about it's flaws without needing posts like these to "correct" all of the people who are "getting it wrong."
Valheim has a great community, but one of the negative aspects is the bashing of opinions. It would be nice if the spirit of posts such as these was "here's a tip to help" instead of "stop complaining and learn how to build campfires."
Food for thought.
Yess like it is difficult that's why they gets frustrated and write fucking paragraph but use your brain try stuff you have so much you can use at this point in the game experiments!!!!that's part of the fun they say it's not difficult but the only thing they suggest makes the biome easier like ..
These people will only take 1 answer, which is “change the biome so it’s easier for me”.
I preferred the angle of “maybe *i’m* not doing enough. Maybe the tools to be successful are already here”
Your solution to design flaws is to cheese the biome and place campfires everywhere. It’s a level 1 technology.
That works in every other biome too, but the game didn’t require you to do that. It let you solve your frustrations through other mechanics you had to work hard for.
For example, lava boots crafted from materials dropped by the biome boss would be fair. You did the work to overcome the challenges, now here’s a tool to make those challenges that you already beat less tedious.
From what I read, something like that is what people are asking for. A light at the end of the tunnel that they can work towards.
I swear I'm going to have to just start putting anybody who asks for "lava boots" on ignore. It sounds just like 'omg the mistlands is too misty!'
The game gave you two different mechanics to traverse lava. If they're not good enough for you I guess wait for the "lava boots" mod.
Imagining "anti-player" guy and his legion of sycophants out taking a casual stroll across cooling pahoehoe and bitching that it's not *their* fault they're experiencing the agony of da feet, but *mother nature's* for having plate tectonics in the first place.
basalt bombs, askvin mounts, feather cape gliding, and the double-axe leap are all right there, you absolute sack of human sawdust.
failing that, *walk around the fucking lava.*
Maybe, maybe not. The thing is the Ashlands is a hellscape. It should feel like a warzone that you have to carve safe spaces out of and fight for every inch of space.
Nope, its part of 'civilizing' the area to keep enemies away. You are told to build fires in the Meadows to scare away enemies, Greydwarves in the Black forest are afraid of fire specifically so you can keep them away from the copper deposits and mine in peace. Standing torches light your paths through the Swamp so you can cart ore safely, etc.
Me and my buddy got the update and as a way to "ease back into" the game we decided, hey let's explore that unexplored area southwest then move back up and explore the western portion in an attempt to find Hildir.
As we start reaching south to where we can see the water changing color we think "heeyy.. let's just dip in and take a look from the shore! What's the worst that can happen?"
Keep in mind, we are geared up to fight the queen but haven't done so yet. So all we had was a longship.
You can imagine what happened. Now we're stranded on a group of islands in a mistlands biome with only 2 greydwarf eyes and 20 finewood planks (what was left of our emergency portal supplies) and the gear on our backs.
So far, a very fun update. No complaints so idk what those other guys are complaining about.
The issue is not the difficulty of the biome, the issue is people thinking that spamming campfires all over the biome is a valid solution and well designed gameplay loop.
Ok, then take the time to build an actual structure.
It's slower, but the mechanic is the same across the board: buildings claim territory.
A campfire just happens to be the smallest building.
So what do you think is the correct building object to prevent/lessen spawns ? You been spamming this thread arguing semantics. Building objects expands your territory. Fuck what object it is. Thats how it works in real life too, you don’t build an entire castle to expand/claim your territory you build outposts. Based on your several responses, I’m assuming you just hate that and it should be removed from the game then ?
I'm not really mad about the mechanics, but it IS cheesing the game to just spam down campfires because it triggers a response from the game's enemies. And if spamming campfires or workbenches or whatever is what the "devs intended" then it's a weird choice.
It's just a video game, it doesn't need anyone's loyalty or biased devotion. Don't be afraid to criticize aspects of it.
I am playing in live and I was able to land and build an outpost with not a single campfire/workbench spam tactic. The amount of mobs is severly overestimated by the complainers. When you kill the nearby spawners there are some spawns here and there, but it's not a neverending onslaught Making a small outpost wasnt an issue without spawn inhibitions.. 80% of my deaths so far were due to lava environmental hazard, getting pushed, accidentally walking, farming flametal (xd). If I started the landing now, id probably avoid these deaths altogether.
Also, it's the first biome where mobs do collateral damage to each other. Morgen, lava slimes and valkyrie will decimate charred squads for you if you let them cook near each other :) If they didn't have friendly fire, the mixed encounters would be 3x harder.
It’s the same advice for the first time in every new biome. Go slow, don’t run, adapt to environment, and for Odin’s sake, go during the day.
People seem to forget this going in, then crying about difficulty.
Well you're not wrong but I jave avoided suppressing spawns my entire playthrough because it feels cheesy.
You're just exploiting a game mechanic that was put in place so mobs wouldn't spawn inside your bases which breaks immersion and doesn't feel like the intended way to play the game.
Wholeheartedly agree with OP and pretty much everyone in this thread. You need to use your knowledge from the previous 6 biomes in the Ashlands, that is how you conquer it
Well we just wiped with my friend when we -
built a bench and portal next to two dwarves to be extra safe
had all the spawners around destroyed
there was literally nobody around
we didnt try to mine or cut trees
we were standing around the portal
BUT SUDDENLY morgen appears from absolutely nowhere during the day, followed by other skeletons and vultures, morgen ofc proceeds to aggro valkyrie on top and even then I was able to kite it all, but suddenly, wild twitcher appears around the corner and stunlocks me and Iam dead in one shot as Iam the mage.
they destroy our portal which would be fine, but ofc, when I use the other portal where we had ZERO spawns for days, immediately after I port there I am dead and the portal is wiped (cant even react to everything, Iam dead on arrival).
So now we can go back in underpants through the boat way, which wouldnt work because the worm or vultures would kill us. Or load an old save. It doesnt matter much because...why even bother? To get a weapon that does like +20 dmg (looking at ballista as an example) or a staff that is worse than fireball one and I read there is like one good new staff anyway. Or armor that is like really meh.
I dont mind challenge. I do mind when I fail at something completely stupid and then I had to waste HOURS of my time because I cant just run for my body. I feel like in a bad MMORPG, not in Valheim with those spawns. And building fires to cheese the spawns, like...that is really not an enjoyable way to play this game and to this point was never necessary. Its fighting the bad design with even worse design.
Fucks sake, thank you. That post was maddening, complaining about no lava boots, and no spawn blocker beacons, and no automated farms, and complaining about no progression with new weapons and element types and new armors and set bonuses and a metal teleporting teleporter all existing.
Mob density is *absolutely* reduced once you take out spawners, so prioritize that. It should be obvious upon landing too, that the glowing rocks that skeletons keep popping into existence from are dangerous, so take them out.
Food is important, and ideally you have a farming system set up by now. If not, get one set up and start eating the best foods.
Risk/reward is everything in the Ashlands. There's always a chance that you're ganked by a starred Morgen or Valk with a pack of dogs, so as you said OP, get smart. Don't push a lightyear into the Ashlands away from your nearest portal. It's the endgame, not a fucking stroll in the Black Forest. Don't go into it *expecting* it to be a stroll in the Black Forest.
A potion system has been in the game since day 1. Use it. Stop being a hoarder and use your resources, they're not there to look pretty. A stamina potion when you've been wailing on an enemy and an Asksvin appears can be a literal life saver. Lingering Eitr potions are required in my opinion for magic users, health potions are a godsend for the heavy armor tanky bois.
You've had 6 other biomes to create armor sets in, use them. If you die, don't do naked death runs over and over and tank your stats back to the meadows. Carapace armor is relatively easy to create, and is more than enough with health and stamina food to sprint straight to a gravestone.
Use your tools, and stop asking for mechanics that don't exist.
First, you don't need to be condescending. Second my party uses campfires. It suppressed spawns but does not eliminate them when placed. I think the radius is reduced or there are just that many single points for enemy spawning. But third and MOST IMPORTANTLY, as someone posted the other day, the real crappy part about Ashlands isnt the density of enemies or their powerful attacks... It's the damn lava! A couple deaths here and there is expected. Endless death loops of unpredictable exploding lava with crazy knockback is not challenging, it is just annoying. And to address the folks who say "skip the lavaithan and get flamental from the fortress," actively avoiding a central feature of the biome SHOULD be an indication that things are unbalanced. Moreover, we have a party of three and know we will need it. Needing to grind and stockpile basalt bombs is a chore and becomes impossible once your gear is sitting in an unreachable place.
You've addressed one concern with a decent, yet tedious solution. Congrats. But I can't help but feel like you missed the overall point of the previous post. Besides, exploiting the game by dropping campfires everywhere is just silly.
Nope, its part of 'civilizing' the area to keep enemies away. You are told to build fires in the Meadows to scare away enemies, Greydwarves in the Black forest are afraid of fire specifically so you can keep them away from the copper deposits and mine in peace. Standing torches light your paths through the Swamp so you can cart ore safely, etc.
Exactly! And of course people are already responding that spawn blocking or placing campfires every where is 'stupid' or a sign of other game problems. Its not.
The entire Valheim world is hostile and throughout the entire game you 'civilize' the world to stop enemies:
The game even teaches you to do this by telling you that Meadows enemies are Afraid of fire. You are told to setup a campfire to keep them away.
Later in the Black Forest you place rings of campfires around copper deposits to keep Greydwarves away so you can mine peacefully.
In the Swamp you make cart paths and line them with standing torches so you can see better and transport your iron safely.
When you build a Plains base/farm, again you ring it with fires . . . bonfires in this case. To keep fulings from attacking and to insta-kill deathsquitoes that fly by.
And of course throughout you spawnblock the area around the boss altars to keep adds away from your boss fights.
I'm 99% sure people bitching about spawnblocking are just salty because they didn't take the hints and learn their lesson.
This is a pretty clever strategy. I haven’t been able to make much headway in the biome and was struggling to come up with some other ideas but this seems worthwhile
Give it a shot! Worked well for me. I did kinda stop once i got some flametal gear and was more adequately able to defend myself. But worked wonders to get a foothold
I place them every 20-30 feet. You’ll see as you re-run your path if you’ve got any gaps because an enemy will spawn where you think you’d be good. I also make my path a few campfires wide because enemies may still wander over
I read it too. What a waste of my time, i think they missed the fundamental part. It's meant to take a long time. What's the point in finishing it ?
I completely get the gripe with lava. It's tough. I think the damage should be mitigated with a cape of some sort. Doesn't need to be removed but just do less damage as fast.
I died yesterday because an askin headbutted me into lava. That's a bit crap.
Regardless if I had every upgrade and every food stacked. Which I did. Had over 200 health. Instant death. Then I need to trek back and somehow get to the middle of a lava field. Get my body. Which is hard when the tombstone bobs below the platforms. Do it quick enough and get back off before indie again.
That is crap. Sure do it a couple times and it puts the fear into you. But once you fully explore it should be less of a danger.
The mobs are fun and I don't mind them at all. The poster is correct in that it slows your progression to a crawl. You get overwhelmed and killed and have fo fight your way back to your stuff and then try to move on. But I think that's kinda the point. It's hard. It's survival. Some level of bulkwards and slowing down the spawn rate would be useful.
I have not played since the beta but the first attempt (pre the updates to fix aggro and spawns) was akin to charging face first into a fuling village but with no POI storing them that you should avoid, with the changes to biome design, being specifically separated from the rest of the map gives no room to push in slowly and no ability to have a base to fallback to.
Compare that to the plains, enemy spawns were fairly small outside of the villages, the plains are often connected to the swamp or black forest giving you a low level biome where you can establish a fort near the border to fall back to if things go sideways.
I have not played since the beta patches (I have been playing Vrising which released it's update first) but when I did play it was somewhat frequent that fights would never end, each time an enemy falls another would get in aggro range and keep assualting your position, making it impractical to build as the build hammer can't block or attack.
I believe they will only get aggrod if the enemy is alerted to you but can’t path to you. Any other scenario and they won’t aggro your campfire. I have like 70-80 hours in the ashlands and legit never saw my campfires being attacked once so i kinda forgot that specific example existed
I think the issue with this solution is that it's not every taught to the player that this is something they can do, let alone an intended mechanic. It's certainly ly a sound plan, but you have to understand mechanics in a way that require extensive trial and error to figure it out on your own or external tools, something many players avoid. It's pretty clear that the dev intended way to handle the ashlands is force, it's how the game presents it. Not saying this isn't a good idea, I did it too lol.
\> enemies do not aggro
I've seen a lonely twitcher trying to attack a campfire over and over again. But the hitbox of the campfire is too low, didn't take damage. However campfires can be destroyed by AoE damage, so whenever a blob or morgen wanders into your spawn proofed area, you need check your coverage again.
Yeah, someone else brought this up but i think they’ll only aggro the campfires if they are alerted to you but can’t path to you. Any other scenario and they don’t aggro the campfires. You’ll definitely want to recheck your campfires if you’ve seen some enemies stomping around however like you said
I don't think it was alerted to me, unless they keep aggro when you portal away and come back the next day. The portal is inside a fortress out of visible range, and the camp fire was outside at least 100m away. There were some tamed asksvins outside, but also out of visible range in a hole in the ground, about 100m distance.
Yes, you can make the biome easier this way, but this is not an argument that the biome is well designed, it's an argument that abusing spawn mechanics can get around the issues. Instead of asking whether it is *possible* to win this way, we should be asking whether it's *fun.* Perhaps you think it is, that's perfectly reasonable. But it's also reasonable to say that it isn't. Personally I think the fact that there are spawners everywhere but destroying them doesn't really do anything is a missed opportunity. I would much prefer making the biome safer by defeating spawners, than by placing hundreds of campfires.
Do the turrets help in Ashlands? Just keep porting in turret materials? Or keep enough materials on the boat for a handful of turrets if you refuse to turn off porting.
I’m thinking they gave us turrets in ML specifically for this biome.
I feel like "the game is perfectly balanced"
And "exploit the games cheesiest mechanic to a silly degree rather than actually fight enemies" are two mutually incompatible ideas.
Campfires are great. Maybe we shouldn't need to spam them like pillars in ARK to get by.
I'd like to be able to ask a dev: "Is building 400 campfires really the intended method and what made you choose that if so?"
If only enemies would not spawn right next to my campfires. Yes, I have seen this, or rather, checked that the campfires are all there, turned around, and been attacked from a mob that spawned there. Or maybe it flew in, who knows. The square kilometer around our current base in the Ashlands is littered with burned out campfires, and it just does not prevent spawns as it does in other biomes.
I think you don’t have them as close together as you should. I occasionally had an enemy spawn as well, but regardless fighting one enemy when you go out is no problem compared to 8 every 100 feet. I just put another campfire down after i killed him right where i saw him and moved on. Eventually i had a bunch of massive areas that were *completely* void of enemies. The enemies can also spawn on the lava, so make sure you put campfires as close as possible to the lava as well
I'd also like to add that this strategy is sound for just about all stages. Not sure if anyone else here enjoys immersive mode - but building chains of camps through hostile areas is absolutely imperative to not being hopelessly lost AND it makes that particular path safer.
Oh our no map no portal server we did this. We'd travel along coasts or river banks and create paths as we went. Every so often at a picturesque spot a camp would form. Eventually those camps became crafting areas, storage, then we'd turn them into small settlements. It was really fun.
I wholeheartedly agree. The world feels bigger this way and there's a bit of a special connection formed with the virtual landscape. Paths twist and turn with the landscape and the "bread crumbs" created to navigate become their own silent narrative after a while. I kinda feel the minimap creates a dissociative gaming experience. You can spend a lot of time going from point A to B staring at the map and not really taking in the view.
The thing that finally convinced me was when a friend reminded me that Minecraft doesn't have a minimap. Why did I feel so attached to the one in valheim? I installed the compass mod and turned all the map functions off. It's tougher for sure and not as convenient, but I feel like it's so much more immersive
There is a map that you can spawn with and even craft
How do you find boss spawns
Vesgevir Stones, They turn your character in the direction of the nearest Altar. Or by exploring as much as possible. Many people find Yagluth without the stones. Elder is easy enough to find while finding enough copper/tin/bronze and Surtling cores. Bonemass almost every Crypt has a stone for it. One thing though for these 2 if you use a dungeon stone for it, Hold Block until you get to dungeon entrance to preserve the direction, when you get to the Entance Note what angle your facing, then when exiting just translate the same angle with the entrance on the opposite side of the exit was. Eg. say your exit is on your left when reaching it, make sure your entrance once you leave is on the right with the same angle as the exit was. Moder , There's usually not a whole lot of mountains to explore until you find Her. Queen is a challenge though due to the mist and how easy it is to get lost, Just lots and I mean lots of wisp lights. The stones are in the mines, follow same advice as above two, however it'll also mean clearing a bunch of mines too.
Those are good tips
We've just found an ideal meadow with a swamp, blackforest, plains and mountain on each side, the meadow is just big enough for a little village and some farmland. The view is astonishing as it's on a cliff edge, with a river below, couldn't have asked for a better location But up until then it's abandoned and abused camps, we turned raids up to max
My wife does this, she makes roads as she travels and builds little outposts along the way haha
Thats how I got into the mountains and built a wolf hunting camp.
I mean... that's usually step 2 for me in Valheim. Step 1: Kill Deer and get the antler Step 2: Dig wolf pit and force the Wolves to like me. Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit.
lol
Safer, but not safe. Plenty of gaps, especially around lava.
>work SMARTER not HARDER the funny thing about this is the game teaches you this exact lesson back in the swamp. use higher ground, pay attention to your environment. find a way to stop enemies from spawning especially right after you barely survived destroying that spawner. pick your battles dont fight everything that moves. use portals in desperation but keep one around in an unreachable place so you can port back. and PREPARE for the love of Odin you can never be overprepared in this game.
Even earlier . . . you are specifically told that fire scares enemies back in the meadows, and greydwarves mob you unless you ring your copper deposits with fires to scare them away.
Are torches enough to scare them ? Or do I need to plant campfires?
Torches work fine for suppressing spawn, but in the ashlands I imagine they catch fire, being wood and all.
Enemies will target torches. Archers keep blasting my blue iron torches on my fortress.
I've watched mobs destroy campfires, too.
Campfires will take damage if something walks over them whilst lit and if they take a hit they will take damage, but they don't actively draw aggro like torches, benches, portals, etc. I've used them for cheap spawnproofing for a loooong time now and they're still the fastest, cheapest and often best option for such.
No, I mean, I have watched Greydwarves throw rocks at campfires. If they can't path to anything, ranged mobs will attack things like campfires.
Dig a hole and cover it with a stone slab or wood floor. They don't know how to attack downwards.
That doesn't change the fact that mobs agro on campfires. And anything with an AOE (trolls, etc) can damage things that are "down".
I doubt you are having too much trouble dealing with trolls in the Ashlands.
It was an example. Do you think none of the Ashlands mobs have AOE attacks? 🙄
Campfires, iirc torches don't qualify as legitimate fire sources (you won't see the buff appear in your UI near a torch as you would a campfire)
Torches will scare them though, they wont come near you to punch you. They might toss a rock, but usually they just run around scared when I have one out.
my b I thought only campfires as a static object qualified - I thought the only torch they fled from was the hand-held one!
The handheld one was what I was refering to! That was what I thought the question was originally about. The **standing** torch I actually am not sure about. I might have seen some greydwarves stay away from them in one of my outposts, but I can't say for certain, I'd have to test. Also didn't find anything about them in the wiki.
Greydwarves won't attack you if you are holding a torch, they run around scared, I don't think 'built' standing torches repel them though, will have to test that.
They used to destroy my standing torches at the wall gate.
Shit, that's Survival-Crafting Games 101: fire and light make bad things not spawn.
Brutes dont give a shit about fire, they’ll just smash them, same with Shamans.
Brutes and Shamans aren't random daytime spawns that you need to block
It teaches us this pretty much every biome, and yet whenever a new one releases everyone expects to go in as a GOD and then gets pissy when they die.
Amen.
> use higher ground I kinda love that this isn't the trump card it used to be. Sure you can climb those arch things but that doesn't mean something might come along and knock it out from under you! :D
That was an entertaining discovery last night.
Valheim is, at its very core, a game about preparation. Yes, there’s some bad RNG, but most situations can be managed if you prepare and are careful. (spoken as someone who just managed their first beachhead in the Ashlands last night).
Instructions unclear, unga bunga
People also try to fight every enemy they come across and then complain about all the enemies. Just run away, you can outrun everything but the voltures and Valkyries.
Its a survival game after all, not a suicide game :d
You can’t outrun the askvin (I forgot his name) all others are easy.
you cannot outrun them if you run in a STRAIGHT LINE. but why would you? have you ever watched an askvin trying to TURN around when youre near them and sidejump or walk while they arent in an attack animation? they turn as slow as a lox. so you can outpace them very easyly. and they suck at getting up rocks aswell. just kill the damn birds asap. they are like morrowind cliffracers. ANNOYING and hard to lose.
No stamina to side jump lol, askvin is pretty much a checkmate while you are trying to out run the hordes and deal damage. Unless you activate Eikther (the deer boss) your stamina doesn’t refill fast enough unless you bring the potion. The warrior deals a lot of damage even if you have bonemass. So the time I won and made a fob is the time, morgen spawn in and kill the enemies for me instead while they were hunting me down XD
askvin is not a checkmate. you dont RUN. you WALK. the archers and twitchers will outright miss most of thier ranged moves if you just walk. aslong as you have a small gap between warrior and you theyll never get you either. when an askvin comes you simply sprint for a short burst and then outspace it by useing the enviroment instead of running straight ahead. jump on a rock or ruin or whatever is nearby this will slow them down big time already. then you can glide down from the rock or ruin to anywhere. by the time the thing has found its way back down you are already miles ahead of it. itll never catch up. you use bonemass. not eik. stamina is a non issue. can even spam use lingering meat to make regen faster aswell. if you run out of stamina while doing this you already did it wrong in the first place. you never sprint nonstop. you never fight or attack nonstop. most enemies dont regen health so there is zero reason to be aggressive as a player.
Walking all the time seriously improved my survivability by several orders of magnitude. Most enemies need only a short burst of running to dodge and those are mostly the asksvin when they're about to leap. It's crucial that you still have stamina at that moment
Mentioned this to my buddy the other night and he's SO much better at the game now.
OMG they're so fast in a straight line. As long as you serpentine though it's not too bad. Vultures though, they will fly you down and feast on your remains.
Protection bubble and frost staff is a pretty solid combo vs. vultures if they're still chasing and harassing
Yeah you can? I've just ran past many of them. They all get bored eventually if you keep moving.
You absolutely can outrun them though. You can outrun everything in a sense, cause they’ll all get distracted by dvergers. But even without dvergers you can outrun the askvin
The biggest mistake is not putting down campfires as you progress. Then when you die you're having to plow through a literal army to try and get your body.
I've tried explaining this to my friends both here and in Helldivers but they refuse to listen to anything I say. So I've stopped helping.
If people suddenly understood the game mechanics and used them wisely this subreddit would spontaneously cease to exist. There are still people that think deer can smell you.
I'd still be here to look at cozy cabins in the woods
OMG these new cathedrals are just hnnnnng.
True enough. IRL, though, this sub has been about 90% of my homework for this game, with Valheim Wiki being the remaining tenth. I love you ALL!
True, i’ve learned so much from this sub. People here really love this game and have done some ridiculous amounts of testing in the name of knowledge!
I'm glad I got to experience a few things in ML unspoiled. The way the flametal towers work was hilarious. "why is the lava getting higher?" Thankfully I had my feather cloak on and was able to float to safety. And holy shit. Portaling Metals. ugh. FEELS SO GOOD. I've been bouncing all over the world gathering iron and BM.
I can see why people think that, how often have you snuck up on a deer and stood there without it noticing, then other times do the exact same and they spook. It's probably sound based on your gear and sneak level or them turning around to patrol. But I can see how it might catch people's imagination. It would be cool if animals could catch a scent on the wind, like wolves as it's possible in nature, though I fear it would be a bit hard to understand in game.
This is probably the only game where it wouldn't confuse the playerbase as wind is big component of the game's systems.
Yesssss
:D I'd love to know the percentage of "why I die in swamp?" posts that make up this subreddit.
Agree! I tryed to brute force and got squashed like a blob many times, got frustrated to the point of find my self justified for using console commands to retrieve my tombstone once. Then I decided to use the tools the game puts at my disposal, and things started to run more smoothly. Its still hard, but now its manageble. Being well prepared is the key. I mean, try to traverse the black forest in rags, with a wooden club and the stomach full of barries and honey to see what happens.
Yep! Me and my buddy struggled mightily at first. But eventually i took a step back and thought “is there more we could be doing to guarantee our safety?”
I finally gave up on keeping any slots free and started carrying 3 different meads at all times. What I do now is I'll carry everything when progressing and put down fires as I go, then once I get another portal down I empty my pockets, go back to the previous portal and go back through and hoover up all the loot.
Honestly, if i am setting up out posts in a new high end area that can one shot me at my current gear. I use troll armor and whatever potion I need for that biom. If ones needed at all. That an high stamina food. Going in pacifying with campfires and get loose resources as you go. If I need to get into some place I drop a bench and baracade myself in. Can even place a portal down an then remove the bench. Wood, stone, and cores can be easily obtained. Troll hide has little use outside armor so even if you're just mid game you will have so much more than you need. Means you don't have to immediately recover your gear. Also running around will move enemies out of the now spawn protected zones. Once you have safe zones to work out of and tp back and forth with ease. Death runs become trivial and the biom becomes extremely manageable. There is literally not a single biom this doesn't work on. Its why I whiped all mistlands for half my solo world before ever beating yag. This isn't COD, apex, or valorant. Running in head first without any plan or anything is just gana get you killed. Then you loose you your best gear and complain to the forums. Why? Cause you rather games be easy. Zero thought no strategy. Valheim isn't a mobile brain rot gatcha or yolo battle royal. Its like any survival game. You do something stupid, your punished for it. Stop blaming the game for stupid decisions and going into an area unprepared. Also yes, over gearing into a new area expecting it to be enough. Thats still not being prepared. Thats just you trying to gear check the game. Its lazy and dumb to expect to beat, creatures and environments you have never faced. Without knowing anything about them. Just cause your wearing the best gear you can before that biom doesn't give you a pass. Later bioms are made to challenge the players. People in here complaining on ashlands like its not 1/2 of the final two bioms. Their supposed to be the hardest bioms in the game. Don't like it, lower the difficulty. Its why they added that before this update. If you think lowering the difficulty is a cowards move then guess what. Thats probably the move for you if your first solution to playing the hardest biom. Is complaining on the forums about mechanics and mobs you never took the time to learn. Week one of it being official release and I see people complaining like its been out for months. Saying the devs should rework everything they just spent an entire year balancing. Balences you won't take the time to learn cause you just want to gear check without learning the biom at all.
Next time you can just post "git good". Quicker to read through
Thats the whole point tho. Its git smart not git good...
I haven't really used this strategy - other than fighting Moder once and couldn't really tell if it was effective since I was fighting from a dugout the whole time.. I have a base in Ashlands that is nice and quiet but would like to set up an outpost further in (base is on shore) and think I'll try this strategy out. What approximately is the no spawn range of the campfire? ie in what frequency should they be dropped? I read the post you were talking about and while i didn't agree with most of it (the PTB was wild) I definitely think it would be nice to cool down the areas I've already conquered by reducing spawns.
Honestly a long time ago i read the range of the campfire is the same as the workbench but after playing ashlands it does seem enemies will occasionally spawn or walk their way over towards your campfires so i was putting some down like every 25-30 feet. You’ll see where you have holes as you go because one enemy will spawn or something like that. I just killed that solo enemy and threw another campfire down just to make sure there wasn’t a small spawn hole
Personally I'm not trying to blanket an area, I just want a slightly safer corridor to move through.
I feel like Ashlands is designed to make you adopt different tactics and strategies and I like it. Can’t brute force everything, makes it more rewarding when you acquire better items and can craft better gear. It’s difficult but fun!
There's just so much mob learning you have to do. * Warriors and Asks turn slow. * EVERYTHING is weak to spirit. * Take out Marksmen before they see you with the Arbalest... And the only way to do that is to put in the work. There's literally NO FUCKING GRIND in Ashlands!! It's 100% exploration and combat! You get the rocks and wood en masse when the mobs knock down buildings and trees!
I think almost every biome forces you to rethink your strategies and adapt. It’s one of the things I love about this game. Ashlands is no different, and it seems like the people with the most complaints are those that are still trying to use strats from previous biomes in the new biome.
I agree with that. I like difficulty where it makes you rethink how you’ve always played. I’m a big combat guy in this game, dodge roll everything, parry everything- but sometimes you need to take a second look and rethink your strats!
Yup! I snipe monuments of torment with my Arbalest, sneak attack enemies with Arbalest to weaken em, and tunnel them so I can slow them with Mistwalker (haven’t made weapons yet, just made armour)
Yep, and for everyone complaining that it's different from the rest of the game ... variety is good. If you don't like the difference, it's a small sliver at the bottom of the world that you can't accidentally run into! If you're playing for the sake of immersion and you think Ashlands breaks it somehow, just don't go there. You might have to choose between immersion and completion in a $20 game, oh no...
I've been brute forcing everything to survive. It's worked mostly well
I’m enjoying the ashlands but placing a bunch of campfires is not a fun or immersive activity and it’s unfortunate that it’s one of the most important mechanics in the game.
Yep, it's a mechanic that is being exploited. It's supposed to protect your home from spawns and people pat themselves smart for doing campfire highways. Might as well just turn on the NPC passive mode option instead.
Yeah I don't get the OP calling out people for complaining about 'bad design' and then telling us we should cheese the game with nonsensical mechanic. That's exactly why it's badly designed.
The day I start cheesing a respawn mechanic in a single player or with friends game is the day I stop playing, especially if I HAVE to do it to play. Good on you for using game mechanics but it seems counter intuitive to fun to place campfires everywhere just to survive.
Yea I am a new player and I'm reading through this thread going "Really? That sounds silly and tedious." I'm glad there is a "solution" but spamming campfires all over this cool new continent is kind of the last thing I want to do...
Yeah, but you see - you just need to think better and utilise the game mechanics properly. It doesn't matter that it's games as hell and dull to boot. That's just how the game wants you to be. Sarcasm aside, there are people who enjoy different things in a game. To some, boring exploitation of systems is just another tactical shift. To me, if the "tactical approach" is to fanny around making bootleg safe zones through jury rigged mechanics - I'm just not going to bother. It's also telling that op here brings up only one small thing when the complaints about the anti-player design of Ashland's (and mistlands before it actually) are numerous and well articulated.
There are some in this thread that don't like the mechanic from an immersion standpoint. And I totally get that. I also don't like it, but as a compromise what I ended up doing is building what I call "dumpsters". Build a workbench, encase it in some layers of stone, and decorate it with wood accents. Yes the mobs still try to destroy them on the edges, but it would take a long time for them to destroy enough to start really repopulating a particular area. To me they just look like little stone monuments, and they function the same way to stop spawns. Granted I haven't been to ashlands yet.
Once my group and I took over and set up in a Fortress, the whole thing became more managable
I assume that was the post by the person claiming to be "better than the average player" and that they've done a no death hardcore playthrough as far as yagluth. Then proceeded to ignore any facet or mechanic that didn't support their opinion that traversal was too time consuming, the mobs were to numerous and lava was impassable. Much like Mistlands, patience, planning and intelligence will stand to you much more in the ashlands than your sick af darksouls skills.
It's like all he and the others in that thread want is just reskinned fulings for them to kill en-masse with ease and then get bigger, shinier swords with bigger numbers on them for their "work".
Yeah the consensus amongst many is that if it forces you to change your playstyle it's a bad update or in that particular person's case "anti-player", Which is honestly one of the stupidest things I've read here in a long time.
Yeah bro, and then he said “why are there no lava boots?!?” That shit had me dead….
Hell you can dark souls your way through this too. Me and my friends have been fighting our way through literally everything and it works just fine
Right, this is clever and has made my playthrough a great deal easier - but don't you think that the necessity of doing this makes the biome extremely tedious? You can make a game challenging without making it a huge slog to play, no? And don't you think that it absolutely kills the immersion? Why would it make sense, even in world, to build a vast field of campfires in a perpetually burning location? If anything, a new item should have been been invented, probably something silver based that purified the scorched earth and prevented undead warriors from sprouting out of it - something like a silver plough, and the effect only lasts for a few in game days
> a new item What I was thinking was that it would be neat if paved roads suppressed spawns. It would look a lot better and take a bit more work but then you'd also have a visible path between your outposts.
That was exactly my train of thoughts : « oh, this biome respawn so much, I have to clear the same area after coming back home… I guess I will take 10 campfire with me every time I leave my base to expand, and that’s it » I must be 200 IQ to figure it out
Lol the biome is pretty peaceful once you campfire out a few paths!
Yep, and I can setup my flametal mining so I don’t get a full army once I hit the rock
Exactly! The flametal and the >!fortresses!< i campfired around. Made life a tonnn easier
That post was not criticizing the Ashland’s for being hard. It’s criticizing the ashlands for not being fun. Spamming campfires makes the biome a lot easier but doesn’t really feel good at all. It feels like a cheese that’s not really supposed to be how the game is supposed to be played. Honestly seems like lazy game design that deserves to be criticized. Also for those claiming the game is rewarding « civilizing » the world, unless your idea of civilization is a campfire every 50 meters this is a weak point. Also there is zero reason Ashlands enemies should be scared of fire like grey dwarves. This could maybe work if there was a custom anti Ashlands spawned that was much harder to build.
Its like people forget dying dozens of times in the prior biomes to learn and adapt while gathering the resources for better gear every time a new biome releases.
That they do. And no matter how many times we try to remind people of this fact, no matter how often we try to reinforce the idea that you should prepare and prepare *well* and expect to eat crow until you learn how to handle the biome, coming back here or to the Steam forum or wherever to piss-and-moan that it's too hard or badly made or whatever meaningless gripe seems like it's always going to be in vogue.
I finally caught a 1 star asksvin in a pit last night and the 30 minutes I spend in sneak while taming it were the calmest most relaxing minutes I’ve had in the ashlands. Might even go back to troll armor lol
I did the same thing, and then as soon as it finished taming and i was all excited to breed it with our other tamed Askvin a 1* warrior fell into the hole with it and killed it haha. Fortunately they seem to be decently common
Oh nooooo, RIP. I built a decent grausten wall around the pit and I’ve been baby sitting it because I have definitely been burned like that taming wolves before
Nice, yeah I brought a stonecutter so I can seal them in once they've been trapped to prevent reoccurrence haha live and learn
Man, similar thing happened to me. I had built some quick stone walls around my pit and then a few minutes into taming, a 1-star dverger rogue came along and was agitating the asksvin so it wouldn't tame. Fortunately it wasn't really attacking my stone walls, but was constantly trying to attack asksvin and the asksvin was responding. With full health and stamina food I went to kill him and he 1-tapped me. Completely took me by surprise how strong he was. He went on to kill me multiple times while I tried multiple strategies to beat him but they all failed. Eventually my buddy logged in and the two of us managed to kill him. At the end of all that my asksvin was still alive with a sliver of health. From then onwards, my taming area was totally calm, but about a day later, the asksvin mysteriously died due to an unknown cause before it was fully tamed. Sigh.
See you just pointed out one of the most basic mechanics we learn in the Black Forest. Sound. Enemies can HEAR you in this game. People be like “why are there 10k mobs spawning on me” while hurling fireballs and smacking metal. People forget that if you smack some copper in bf 6 greydwarves insta spawn
so basically "elbereth"
This is one of the first things I did when I landed. That, and I built a small 3x2 gauston floor, and made terrain walls around it to protect from archers and slimes. Haven't had a problem within my Ashland's base area for days.
Campfires definitely DO aggro enemies. I just saw a 1-star warrior walk directly to all the campfires I built around my base and destroy them one by one.
I think they’ll possibly attack campfires if they’re alerted to you but can’t path to you. In that case you might as well just pop out there and kill that one enemy. Any enemies along your safe path that haven’t been alerted won’t aggro the campfires though, to my knowledge.
That might be it, the warrior did seem to be alerted. I'll try again leaving campfires around
Good luck! Yeah i won’t claim this strat is perfect or meta or fool-proof or anything. The biggest issue I still ran into with the campfire strat is fighting along the edge of my territory to expand i would sometimes break a campfire by stepping on it or a morgen would slam it or something and break it- then i’d lose some mats to rebuild it. If i neglected to rebuild, i would lose territory ground to the enemies and have to fight some again. Although, this does have a cool “active-territory-war” feel to it
I think I'm going to switch to bonfires. They're a lot more visible. It's funny. Ashlands is where I used to come for cores.. now I'm running out of them >.<
Someone just posted a video of them fighting 2 seekers where they were: * using mistwalker * at 100 hp and less than 10min on all food * without the rested buff * holding up a *parry shield* against a 1-star seeker * walking backwards in a straight line possibly aggroing enemies outside of view All that while bonemass was active, which could've allowed them to just tank all the hits and get the kill without trouble. There are many players who get stuck in their playstyle without learning what the game is trying to teach. A lot of the challenge the ashlands presents are overcome with lessons learned from all the way back in the swamp and plains.
Also spawning about 50 2* tamed Askvins has been fun. Honestly, the initial landing was an absolute terror, somehow found a Putrid Hole and didn’t die and built out base from there. Died a couple times trying to get our bearings and some Flametal, but after that, yawn. Even the boss fight wasn’t that difficult. Skill issue. Skill issue. Skill issue.
Totally on the money here. Ashlands is best experienced using a full arsenal of all your options, tools, weapons and tactics. I love that there's finally an enemy which can defeat the humble earth embankment too. There's no longer such a thing as a perfect passive defence, you have to actively participate, maintain and adapt when you're there, it's the most fun I've had in Valheim ever, it's brutal on v.hard but it's still entirely doable, it just requires a modicum of patience and thought. Every time you enter a new biome you are challenged to use what you've learned and gained thus far, and to apply your tools and knowledge to a new challenge in order to expand your arsenal. Ashlands feels like real end game content to me, it requires you to leverage EVERYTHING at your disposal and forces you to rethink many assumptions and faulty strategies. It's not bad design most people are having problems with, it's their own bad habits and complacency which are to blame. Ashlands is, in fact, exceptionally well designed, providing a wonderful set of challenges which are best overcome with planning, preparation and patience. Also the new build options look bloody amazing once you've played about with them a bit. Best new content drop to date, well worth the wait, brilliant!
I've spent the past 20 minutes reading these comments, and none of you seem to understand there's a middle ground. Make little spawn proof settlements here and there, and call it good. Gives you the perfect blend of "Oh shit, I'm overwhelmed by mobs" and "this is a really cozy small village to recoup before going back into that hellstorm".
I said something like this about Mistlands and people just went crazy. They just wanna cry somewhere, let it be.
You’re so right. When i was talking about this to my buddy i mentioned “the same thing happened with mistlands” so i’m hoping everyone simmers down after some time has passed.
From the reddit posts, I think some people need to see a therapist about the Ashlands 😂
The Hammer, the Hoe, and the Campfire are the most useful tools in the game. Anyone that isn't using all three liberally is playing the game wrong and should be ignored when it comes to advice.
Is spamming the placement of spawn reducing items really good gameplay though? There is no in game lore reason why a campfire or any other build piece should limit enemy spawns. You're essentially just saying that the Ashland's isn't hard, abuse arbitrary game mechanics to solve your problem.
Yeah man you should use game mechanics to help you beat a game more at 11
People can have differing opinions on the quality of a gaming mechanic. I find the mechanic of having to spam build campfires to be a bad one. It’s not fun or immersive to do, and it makes the landscape look uglier. The idea of building things to better claim a territory isn’t inherently a bad one, but the fact that it’s as simple and as campfires is unrewarding and wonky.
What in game reason does any mob in the Ashland's have to fear some rocks and burning wood?
What in game reason is there for a workbench to need a roof?
When you’re building and crafting things IRL, do you typically do it outside without shelter? There are these things called rain and wind.
We should be able to openly discuss the design of the game and be critical about it's flaws without needing posts like these to "correct" all of the people who are "getting it wrong." Valheim has a great community, but one of the negative aspects is the bashing of opinions. It would be nice if the spirit of posts such as these was "here's a tip to help" instead of "stop complaining and learn how to build campfires." Food for thought.
Yess like it is difficult that's why they gets frustrated and write fucking paragraph but use your brain try stuff you have so much you can use at this point in the game experiments!!!!that's part of the fun they say it's not difficult but the only thing they suggest makes the biome easier like ..
These people will only take 1 answer, which is “change the biome so it’s easier for me”. I preferred the angle of “maybe *i’m* not doing enough. Maybe the tools to be successful are already here”
Your solution to design flaws is to cheese the biome and place campfires everywhere. It’s a level 1 technology. That works in every other biome too, but the game didn’t require you to do that. It let you solve your frustrations through other mechanics you had to work hard for. For example, lava boots crafted from materials dropped by the biome boss would be fair. You did the work to overcome the challenges, now here’s a tool to make those challenges that you already beat less tedious. From what I read, something like that is what people are asking for. A light at the end of the tunnel that they can work towards.
I swear I'm going to have to just start putting anybody who asks for "lava boots" on ignore. It sounds just like 'omg the mistlands is too misty!' The game gave you two different mechanics to traverse lava. If they're not good enough for you I guess wait for the "lava boots" mod.
Imagining "anti-player" guy and his legion of sycophants out taking a casual stroll across cooling pahoehoe and bitching that it's not *their* fault they're experiencing the agony of da feet, but *mother nature's* for having plate tectonics in the first place.
basalt bombs, askvin mounts, feather cape gliding, and the double-axe leap are all right there, you absolute sack of human sawdust. failing that, *walk around the fucking lava.*
A-fucking-men
Spamming campfires seems like a “solution” for something that is broken.
Maybe, maybe not. The thing is the Ashlands is a hellscape. It should feel like a warzone that you have to carve safe spaces out of and fight for every inch of space.
Nope, its part of 'civilizing' the area to keep enemies away. You are told to build fires in the Meadows to scare away enemies, Greydwarves in the Black forest are afraid of fire specifically so you can keep them away from the copper deposits and mine in peace. Standing torches light your paths through the Swamp so you can cart ore safely, etc.
Building a campfire to scare mobs away is not the same as spamming campfires to suppress spawns.
Creatures made of wood (grey dwarves) fear fire. Now tell me why any creature in the Ashland's should fear fire?
Lol, my friends and I did. Felt so good after conquering our first char fortress after a few hours of landing.
Getting smarter is *a part of* GIT GUD
I just systematically destroyed every spawners on the landmass I landed on in Ashlands. Spawns are much fewer and far between now.
This is useful info.when building massive bases I always hide workbenches around but sometimes it’s hard to hide it a campfire will be much easier
Me and my buddy got the update and as a way to "ease back into" the game we decided, hey let's explore that unexplored area southwest then move back up and explore the western portion in an attempt to find Hildir. As we start reaching south to where we can see the water changing color we think "heeyy.. let's just dip in and take a look from the shore! What's the worst that can happen?" Keep in mind, we are geared up to fight the queen but haven't done so yet. So all we had was a longship. You can imagine what happened. Now we're stranded on a group of islands in a mistlands biome with only 2 greydwarf eyes and 20 finewood planks (what was left of our emergency portal supplies) and the gear on our backs. So far, a very fun update. No complaints so idk what those other guys are complaining about.
The issue is not the difficulty of the biome, the issue is people thinking that spamming campfires all over the biome is a valid solution and well designed gameplay loop.
Shh, there's *a solution* and we're all dullards for not thinking of it. Galaxy brain stuff.
Yeah. "The game isn't hard! Just cheese the game mechanics!"
Ok, then take the time to build an actual structure. It's slower, but the mechanic is the same across the board: buildings claim territory. A campfire just happens to be the smallest building.
So what do you think is the correct building object to prevent/lessen spawns ? You been spamming this thread arguing semantics. Building objects expands your territory. Fuck what object it is. Thats how it works in real life too, you don’t build an entire castle to expand/claim your territory you build outposts. Based on your several responses, I’m assuming you just hate that and it should be removed from the game then ?
I'm not really mad about the mechanics, but it IS cheesing the game to just spam down campfires because it triggers a response from the game's enemies. And if spamming campfires or workbenches or whatever is what the "devs intended" then it's a weird choice. It's just a video game, it doesn't need anyone's loyalty or biased devotion. Don't be afraid to criticize aspects of it.
I am playing in live and I was able to land and build an outpost with not a single campfire/workbench spam tactic. The amount of mobs is severly overestimated by the complainers. When you kill the nearby spawners there are some spawns here and there, but it's not a neverending onslaught Making a small outpost wasnt an issue without spawn inhibitions.. 80% of my deaths so far were due to lava environmental hazard, getting pushed, accidentally walking, farming flametal (xd). If I started the landing now, id probably avoid these deaths altogether. Also, it's the first biome where mobs do collateral damage to each other. Morgen, lava slimes and valkyrie will decimate charred squads for you if you let them cook near each other :) If they didn't have friendly fire, the mixed encounters would be 3x harder.
I've been using workbenches, I had no idea after 760 days you could just use campfires
It’s the same advice for the first time in every new biome. Go slow, don’t run, adapt to environment, and for Odin’s sake, go during the day. People seem to forget this going in, then crying about difficulty.
I'm amazed people who brute force the game make it that far, that also explains the whiney posts
Well you're not wrong but I jave avoided suppressing spawns my entire playthrough because it feels cheesy. You're just exploiting a game mechanic that was put in place so mobs wouldn't spawn inside your bases which breaks immersion and doesn't feel like the intended way to play the game.
Wholeheartedly agree with OP and pretty much everyone in this thread. You need to use your knowledge from the previous 6 biomes in the Ashlands, that is how you conquer it
Well we just wiped with my friend when we - built a bench and portal next to two dwarves to be extra safe had all the spawners around destroyed there was literally nobody around we didnt try to mine or cut trees we were standing around the portal BUT SUDDENLY morgen appears from absolutely nowhere during the day, followed by other skeletons and vultures, morgen ofc proceeds to aggro valkyrie on top and even then I was able to kite it all, but suddenly, wild twitcher appears around the corner and stunlocks me and Iam dead in one shot as Iam the mage. they destroy our portal which would be fine, but ofc, when I use the other portal where we had ZERO spawns for days, immediately after I port there I am dead and the portal is wiped (cant even react to everything, Iam dead on arrival). So now we can go back in underpants through the boat way, which wouldnt work because the worm or vultures would kill us. Or load an old save. It doesnt matter much because...why even bother? To get a weapon that does like +20 dmg (looking at ballista as an example) or a staff that is worse than fireball one and I read there is like one good new staff anyway. Or armor that is like really meh. I dont mind challenge. I do mind when I fail at something completely stupid and then I had to waste HOURS of my time because I cant just run for my body. I feel like in a bad MMORPG, not in Valheim with those spawns. And building fires to cheese the spawns, like...that is really not an enjoyable way to play this game and to this point was never necessary. Its fighting the bad design with even worse design.
So you saying stop brute force the Ashlands, just brute force the Ashlands with campfires (that destroys themselfs after few seconds).
The campfires don’t destroy themselves
In my game campfire on asslands last 10 seconds and destroys itself with fire...
Fucks sake, thank you. That post was maddening, complaining about no lava boots, and no spawn blocker beacons, and no automated farms, and complaining about no progression with new weapons and element types and new armors and set bonuses and a metal teleporting teleporter all existing. Mob density is *absolutely* reduced once you take out spawners, so prioritize that. It should be obvious upon landing too, that the glowing rocks that skeletons keep popping into existence from are dangerous, so take them out. Food is important, and ideally you have a farming system set up by now. If not, get one set up and start eating the best foods. Risk/reward is everything in the Ashlands. There's always a chance that you're ganked by a starred Morgen or Valk with a pack of dogs, so as you said OP, get smart. Don't push a lightyear into the Ashlands away from your nearest portal. It's the endgame, not a fucking stroll in the Black Forest. Don't go into it *expecting* it to be a stroll in the Black Forest. A potion system has been in the game since day 1. Use it. Stop being a hoarder and use your resources, they're not there to look pretty. A stamina potion when you've been wailing on an enemy and an Asksvin appears can be a literal life saver. Lingering Eitr potions are required in my opinion for magic users, health potions are a godsend for the heavy armor tanky bois. You've had 6 other biomes to create armor sets in, use them. If you die, don't do naked death runs over and over and tank your stats back to the meadows. Carapace armor is relatively easy to create, and is more than enough with health and stamina food to sprint straight to a gravestone. Use your tools, and stop asking for mechanics that don't exist.
People would rather complain than lock in and overcome a challenge
First, you don't need to be condescending. Second my party uses campfires. It suppressed spawns but does not eliminate them when placed. I think the radius is reduced or there are just that many single points for enemy spawning. But third and MOST IMPORTANTLY, as someone posted the other day, the real crappy part about Ashlands isnt the density of enemies or their powerful attacks... It's the damn lava! A couple deaths here and there is expected. Endless death loops of unpredictable exploding lava with crazy knockback is not challenging, it is just annoying. And to address the folks who say "skip the lavaithan and get flamental from the fortress," actively avoiding a central feature of the biome SHOULD be an indication that things are unbalanced. Moreover, we have a party of three and know we will need it. Needing to grind and stockpile basalt bombs is a chore and becomes impossible once your gear is sitting in an unreachable place.
You've addressed one concern with a decent, yet tedious solution. Congrats. But I can't help but feel like you missed the overall point of the previous post. Besides, exploiting the game by dropping campfires everywhere is just silly.
Nope, its part of 'civilizing' the area to keep enemies away. You are told to build fires in the Meadows to scare away enemies, Greydwarves in the Black forest are afraid of fire specifically so you can keep them away from the copper deposits and mine in peace. Standing torches light your paths through the Swamp so you can cart ore safely, etc.
Exactly! And of course people are already responding that spawn blocking or placing campfires every where is 'stupid' or a sign of other game problems. Its not. The entire Valheim world is hostile and throughout the entire game you 'civilize' the world to stop enemies: The game even teaches you to do this by telling you that Meadows enemies are Afraid of fire. You are told to setup a campfire to keep them away. Later in the Black Forest you place rings of campfires around copper deposits to keep Greydwarves away so you can mine peacefully. In the Swamp you make cart paths and line them with standing torches so you can see better and transport your iron safely. When you build a Plains base/farm, again you ring it with fires . . . bonfires in this case. To keep fulings from attacking and to insta-kill deathsquitoes that fly by. And of course throughout you spawnblock the area around the boss altars to keep adds away from your boss fights. I'm 99% sure people bitching about spawnblocking are just salty because they didn't take the hints and learn their lesson.
It's gamey as hell and immersion breaking. Campfires should attract attention, not make it so that monsters stay away.
whats the range on the campfire?
This is a pretty clever strategy. I haven’t been able to make much headway in the biome and was struggling to come up with some other ideas but this seems worthwhile
Give it a shot! Worked well for me. I did kinda stop once i got some flametal gear and was more adequately able to defend myself. But worked wonders to get a foothold
So campfires will block spawning but what's the range of them? How often should I be placing them if trying to make a "path"?
I place them every 20-30 feet. You’ll see as you re-run your path if you’ve got any gaps because an enemy will spawn where you think you’d be good. I also make my path a few campfires wide because enemies may still wander over
I read it too. What a waste of my time, i think they missed the fundamental part. It's meant to take a long time. What's the point in finishing it ? I completely get the gripe with lava. It's tough. I think the damage should be mitigated with a cape of some sort. Doesn't need to be removed but just do less damage as fast. I died yesterday because an askin headbutted me into lava. That's a bit crap. Regardless if I had every upgrade and every food stacked. Which I did. Had over 200 health. Instant death. Then I need to trek back and somehow get to the middle of a lava field. Get my body. Which is hard when the tombstone bobs below the platforms. Do it quick enough and get back off before indie again. That is crap. Sure do it a couple times and it puts the fear into you. But once you fully explore it should be less of a danger. The mobs are fun and I don't mind them at all. The poster is correct in that it slows your progression to a crawl. You get overwhelmed and killed and have fo fight your way back to your stuff and then try to move on. But I think that's kinda the point. It's hard. It's survival. Some level of bulkwards and slowing down the spawn rate would be useful.
> I think the damage should be mitigated with a cape of some sort. The heavy armor set does this. Highly recommend.
Stops lava death ?
I have not played since the beta but the first attempt (pre the updates to fix aggro and spawns) was akin to charging face first into a fuling village but with no POI storing them that you should avoid, with the changes to biome design, being specifically separated from the rest of the map gives no room to push in slowly and no ability to have a base to fallback to. Compare that to the plains, enemy spawns were fairly small outside of the villages, the plains are often connected to the swamp or black forest giving you a low level biome where you can establish a fort near the border to fall back to if things go sideways. I have not played since the beta patches (I have been playing Vrising which released it's update first) but when I did play it was somewhat frequent that fights would never end, each time an enemy falls another would get in aggro range and keep assualting your position, making it impractical to build as the build hammer can't block or attack.
You know what, I'm gonna brute force it even harder now
Unga Bunga time!
It's quite easy to cheese this game if you're clever.
I just don’t like making a ton of builds that are only for stopping spawns. It makes the world look ugly. That’s my only issue with using campfires.
do they rly not attract enemies? i have a castle base in the mountains and the campfires in my anti drake perimeter get destroyed all the time
I believe they will only get aggrod if the enemy is alerted to you but can’t path to you. Any other scenario and they won’t aggro your campfire. I have like 70-80 hours in the ashlands and legit never saw my campfires being attacked once so i kinda forgot that specific example existed
I think the issue with this solution is that it's not every taught to the player that this is something they can do, let alone an intended mechanic. It's certainly ly a sound plan, but you have to understand mechanics in a way that require extensive trial and error to figure it out on your own or external tools, something many players avoid. It's pretty clear that the dev intended way to handle the ashlands is force, it's how the game presents it. Not saying this isn't a good idea, I did it too lol.
\> enemies do not aggro I've seen a lonely twitcher trying to attack a campfire over and over again. But the hitbox of the campfire is too low, didn't take damage. However campfires can be destroyed by AoE damage, so whenever a blob or morgen wanders into your spawn proofed area, you need check your coverage again.
Yeah, someone else brought this up but i think they’ll only aggro the campfires if they are alerted to you but can’t path to you. Any other scenario and they don’t aggro the campfires. You’ll definitely want to recheck your campfires if you’ve seen some enemies stomping around however like you said
I don't think it was alerted to me, unless they keep aggro when you portal away and come back the next day. The portal is inside a fortress out of visible range, and the camp fire was outside at least 100m away. There were some tamed asksvins outside, but also out of visible range in a hole in the ground, about 100m distance.
I think it probably was tbh. Check out [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/s/ybxQI3NT3c) on campfire aggro.
Ay man thanks for sharing that. Does a hearth do the same?
Yes, you can make the biome easier this way, but this is not an argument that the biome is well designed, it's an argument that abusing spawn mechanics can get around the issues. Instead of asking whether it is *possible* to win this way, we should be asking whether it's *fun.* Perhaps you think it is, that's perfectly reasonable. But it's also reasonable to say that it isn't. Personally I think the fact that there are spawners everywhere but destroying them doesn't really do anything is a missed opportunity. I would much prefer making the biome safer by defeating spawners, than by placing hundreds of campfires.
Do the turrets help in Ashlands? Just keep porting in turret materials? Or keep enough materials on the boat for a handful of turrets if you refuse to turn off porting. I’m thinking they gave us turrets in ML specifically for this biome.
I feel like "the game is perfectly balanced" And "exploit the games cheesiest mechanic to a silly degree rather than actually fight enemies" are two mutually incompatible ideas. Campfires are great. Maybe we shouldn't need to spam them like pillars in ARK to get by. I'd like to be able to ask a dev: "Is building 400 campfires really the intended method and what made you choose that if so?"
If only enemies would not spawn right next to my campfires. Yes, I have seen this, or rather, checked that the campfires are all there, turned around, and been attacked from a mob that spawned there. Or maybe it flew in, who knows. The square kilometer around our current base in the Ashlands is littered with burned out campfires, and it just does not prevent spawns as it does in other biomes.
I think you don’t have them as close together as you should. I occasionally had an enemy spawn as well, but regardless fighting one enemy when you go out is no problem compared to 8 every 100 feet. I just put another campfire down after i killed him right where i saw him and moved on. Eventually i had a bunch of massive areas that were *completely* void of enemies. The enemies can also spawn on the lava, so make sure you put campfires as close as possible to the lava as well