"Small" Update will have HUGE impact! (Valheim: News)

[@KoQNodfan]

I welcomed the more difficult combat for a while but it started getting a little much when 90% of my play time was spent slaying the charred. Trying to gather resources for building, making gear, and making food just turned into a whole play session fighting and making 0 progress on my set goal. One that really started making me mad was getting Fiddleheads for cooking my food. I was going through food so much from dying. I had no chance to really farm Fiddleheads. Also from dying my stats plummeted so I ended up turning down the death penalty and I am a guy that just likes to play on the default Difficulty.

[@admiralspandy]

Same man. I like a challenge, but it's a bit much and made it less fun. Struggling to just get around and accomplish anything because you're always fighting is too much. I'm geared up now, so I'm slaying pretty good, but it's all I do. Laying down pathways of campfires has helped, but it feels like an exploit. And don't get me started on my stats. I've been thinking about turning down the penalty, but maybe I'll wait to see how this update feels.

[@gregutz4284]

Prepare more/better

[@admiralspandy]

@@gregutz4284 Thanks tips, any more worthless advice?

[@gregutz4284]

@@admiralspandy quit crying

[@gregutz4284]

@@admiralspandy put the difficulty slider on Easy

[@hill2hell]

Well the hardcore players won't be happy but, for casual people like me this is great. Last time I was in the Ashlands. I was dodging all over the place because of almost 10 vultures on me at all times. 🤣

[@swahini]

if they complain they can just up the difficulty

[@thorsmith59]

I just wish they would balance the mage vs melee player. Playing solo as a melee is so frustrating that I've stopped playing. Not everyone wants to use magic. You hit the feelings about it spot on. Who wants to play if it stops being fun?

[@admiralspandy]

I like going mage myself, but I agree, both should feel good and I don't think melee feels as good as magic. Perhaps not being swarmed all the time will help so you can focus on just 2-3 enemies at a time, rather than 10.

[@lowrider6419]

I used mistwalker+shield, heavy armor and bonemass power, + instant hp and stamina potions. Also a lot of bow 🏹 usage. It feels not so bad.

[@thorsmith59]

@@lowrider6419 I did pretty much the same and it's okay for a while but eventually its just gets grindy and repetitive. In other words it stops being fun.

[@fireknight013]

There's a Floating bug, where when you try to climb the flametal spire you slide as if it's sinking before you ever even hit it.

[@admiralspandy]

Yup, experienced that. Had some unfair deaths that set me back. I like the idea of some kind of danger mechanic to mining, makes it different and interesting, but I think the ground around it being lava is enough. Perhaps they can reduce the yield from a node, but have it not sink. Or there can be other sources for it on land that are unstable and you have to mine it slowly or it explodes.

[@Excuzerr]

Yep experienced this too. I also noticed it on a leviathan too.

[@gregutz4284]

I think there's a sliding bug in general. I'll be standing looking at a construction piece and my toon will slide off a surface..

[@Boris82]

Would be great if they can Fix that asap... I actually started sliding over the lava.

[@cjimmersive6955]

I think it's the same bug as when we're on a Leviathan as a group; I get the sliding issue. Only it's not so dangerous to fall in the water if you have stamina mead. Lava on the other hand... EDIT: oh sorry someone already commented about the leviathan connection.

[@NbKXStorm]

Thank god for the change to the metal spires, I won't miss this at all. From my testing though, the mob spawn reduction was way too much. It's way too easy now, from my time wandering around over the biome today. There were times that I went upwards of fifteen minutes without seeing a single mob.

[@sebastiank5934]

Farming ashwood has been a nightmare for me. I've had chains of hitting a one tree just to stop and kill six enemies. This gets old fast. I've killed almost every spawner on my Ash island and it feels like the spawn rate never changes.

[@DM-rb2qt]

I dislike the lava leviathan change. They should just add a modifer to the new mod menu that disables sinking leviathans. Could apply to ocean and ashlands both.

[@GamingwithKristi]

That was tied to a bug so it will depend if they find another way to fix it I suppose.

[@ankha6415]

Ashlands was a bit too extreme, with it being common to pull 7 mobs with a single action. My biggest issue was the 2 star warriors almost 1 shotting me.

[@todd5purlock497]

If they decide to change the flamemetal spires they should make it so they'll come back up after a few in game days

[@GamingwithKristi]

That would be great.

[@cjimmersive6955]

Some people are saying that Ashlands is getting nerfed, and that might be true of the whole biome, but each individual creature is just as difficult, IIRC. It's just reducing the volume of enemies as well as the change to the flametal. I think the goal should be to do what they've been doing with Valheim all along: at default game difficulty, make each new biome a struggle if you are fully geared from the previous biome, and then it gets manageable or easy [spoilers] when you complete the gear from the new biome. And it should be near impossible if you have the gear from earlier biomes than that. People who want a hardcore experience can turn up their game difficulty, and that will affect the play in every biome evenly. Also flametal mining results in too many deaths due to random lava ejections and the weird sliding bug. I thought I would be clever and ride out with my Asksvin to collect the flametal that I mined, but I can't collect them while riding. And when I stand up on the back of the Askvin, he twitches from time to time, causing me to slide into the lava. Too many deaths to lava.

[@swahini]

im still waiting for this update, anyone got news about its release date?

[@ICGull]

Thanks for the news, Kristi! Especially for the info regarding the reason for the flametal spire nerf. Im a casual solo player and not particularly good at combat 😅 But I like the spires sinking. It adds to the fun. The other changes I welcome very much! I have lowered my skill loss in the settings, honestly. I die so much 😁

[@watts619]

soo happy they are doing this so i can enjoy and explore the ashlands because all i am doing is dying and going to get my stuff back 80% of the time i am there.

[@inferno9103]

Leave metal as it is. Awesome mechanic

[@GamingwithKristi]

They did that b/c of a bug. It may come back. We'll see.

[@inferno9103]

@@GamingwithKristi haven't seen this bug even once

[@mannemannen7211]

Crap.....its too easy now. its hell when u first arrive and i got very excited of that fact since u really had to make a solid effort just to get a portal going. once u got ur new materials it had a huge impact and u learnt the enemies movements and damage outputs. after that it went smoother and smoother. to change to easier should be a setting in those "world creation" menus for sure but i do NOT want it to be easier then it is now. the decreased spawn will mean so much less chaos and that was part of the fun for me. im just really disappointed with this. its supposed to be near endgame difficulty and they nerf it to less than mistlands since u can actually see in the ashlands.

[@jjkthebest]

I play mostly for the building. I'm fine with it being nerfed.

[@Boris82]

Has this nerf already happened? Or is it tested on test server first?

[@GamingwithKristi]

Test branch

[@Boris82]

@@GamingwithKristi Thanks Well personally im happy to see a little bit of a nerf because i agree with what you said in your video.

[@Grubnar]

"Good news everyone!"

[@socialmediainfo-um6hw]

It’s not that hard 😂. I just built a wall from the ground and they can’t do nothing to my base or my teleporter 🤷🏽‍♂️

[@Mornblade]

Ashlands is not fun. Valheim is not Diablo.

[@adammaysz4324]

but the problem is for melee gameplay against groups cause you donr have the stamina to even perfect parry all the charred and if you get hit theee times you are dead in most cases

[@mikelund327]

It’s fun with wild magic😁

[@TheSonicfrog]

After watching several Ashland videos, I have zero interest in going there solo. I even have reservations going with a buddy. Just looks like never ending combat ... no thanks!

[@longjohnlongdong4692]

That’s what it’s supposed to be like it’s a war zone. Not a place to run around and skirmish. We are literally sieging fortresses

[@longjohnlongdong4692]

I honestly thought it was fine the way it was. Turn your game difficulty down if needed. Once you get the new gear it’s easy. That being said I always play with my wife she’s the mage I’m the tank. But I do think if spawns are reduced it would make exploration of the biome better because it is a beautiful bright biome. Ashlands is supposed to be a war zone constantly so I hope it still feels like that and not just another place to explore and have small skirmishes

[@NbKXStorm]

I feel exactly the same way about this. I struggled at first until I got all of the new weapons/armors. And just got a relative feel for everything. And I was used to it, it felt like it was in a good place. But now? The biome almost feels like a ghost town.

[@VenatorStellorum]

I think this is a really reasonable take, so far I've seen one other Valheim content creator who conversely thought it was a really bad update because they rolled in with 100 stats in all the magic skills from grinding and stomped all over everything without dying once so I'm sure they probably think this change is silly. Most of us don't have the time or patience to grind skills up to 100 so I thought that was a pretty ridiculous take. Tweaking the spawn intervals and chances allows Irongate to leave the individual mobs as difficult but also allow people who don't have overpowered 1000+ hp shields and four gigachad skeleton summons to enjoy the combat without getting overwhelmed.

[@GamingwithKristi]

Thanks! =) Yeah, most ppl don't play like that. And now I want a four gigachad skeleton! lol

[@adammaysz4324]

melee gameplay was unbearable you dont have this much stamina to get rid of all the enemies at times and one mistake and you lose half health, magic builds are so much easier

[@VenatorStellorum]

@@adammaysz4324 I agree completely, went in as a melee plus bubble shield with one health/stam/eitr food each and was getting rolled on the regular by huge swarms, now having swapped to a pure mage summoner/control it is way easier even with low skills but not as enjoyable

[@johnholland9371]

Difficult is fun. Ridiculously punishing is not. Tweaking and balancing is fine.

[@Masonxord827-EAS]

Hello, it’s Mason, your sons friend, sorry I left his school, but tell him I’ll be back next year😊

[@lu4415]

Thanks for the video. ❤ I think nerfing the spawn rates is a good thing. The combat is hard, the mobs are dangerous ,and I like it. But not begin able to explore and make progress because dozen mobs were sapwning just minutes after clearing a space was a hassle. It should be more manageable now.

[@admiralspandy]

Yeah, I don't want them to nerf the enemies themselves, I like how strong they are. There are just too many that it's taking away the fun.

[@ShakeN_YT]

What about the lagg?makes dodge and trying to survive almost impossible sometimes. Maybe less enemies fix that🤔

[@swahini]

on xbox at least, valheim needs a major performance buff cuz everytime i enter my village it lags alot

[@rickmalinger5361]

I run double health 1 eiter food build and found Ashlands was pretty fun. But looking at lower health stam builds or mage builds going in I think it could be pretty rough. The damage you take is crazy. I just hope they don't make it completely empty like the mistlands. I think a 25% reduction in spawns would be good. And reduce mob detection or hearing so it isn't as obnoxious ex: fighting a valkyrie then getting ganked by the entire area. I think reducing the cost of parrying would help as well depending on the weapon of course. And when parrying increase the speed of the following retaliation attack.

[@mannemannen7211]

simple saying: hey want to please streamers that havent fully understood combat and enemy ai. bleh! im angry for them making this a cakewalk endgame that is easier than mistlands.

[@abelgonzalez158]

Made my landing at ashlands the other day, my god it was never ending battle after battle with more battle and my food would run out before the mobs did

[@swahini]

me and my friend got destroyed when we landed in ashlands xD and it wasnt even a big island

[@JondarKorric]

Ashlands was fine. the only difficult part was sailing in and out of the Ashlands.

[@reticentdeity2149]

I think it's super disrespectful to the players who play this game a lot by hiding behind the excuse that "some people have lives and don't play video games all the time." It's not fair for those who love this game to castrate the experience by constantly complaining about the difficulty then moving on to other games or other things because of "time constraints" and leaving behind a broken game for those who still want to sink their time into it. There were already difficulty sliders to make it easier for casual players, yet that wasn't enough and now it ruins the base difficulty for everyone else. You can't argue it the other way either because raising the difficulty changes playstyle as all enemies hit like a tank and have too much health on harder difficulties. This is just another nerf to appease casual players who won't even stick around long enough to enjoy the changes.

[@GamingwithKristi]

Well it wasn't meant disrespectfully. I'd be dissing myself if so as I have almost 4,000 hours in Valheim. Lol! I think my point on that is more that devs do need to accommodate the "typical" player b/c that is the bulk of who plays games. Perhaps you and I are extremely into Valheim, and Iron Gate certainly does their best to support the core community. But the hard core fans aren't always representative of the majority of players. Even though we can be quite vocal too. hehe So it makes sense that they need to moderate "Normal" mode to be normal for the majority. But honestly, I'm surrounded every day by die-hard Valheim fanatics and I've only seen maybe 2 ppl complain about them making these adjustments. I think it will be viewed positively overall.

[@GTB_PR00]

As someone who loves valheim and likes the challenge, spending 30minutes fighting to make 30ft of progress every time I go in the ashlands gets old very fast. Yes it does get easier with end gear, but thats not a reason to waste my time.

[@gregutz4284]

​@gtbpr_00 you're the complaining casual OP is talking about

[@Boris82]

The game is in early access. We know they will change things. I welcome the nerf because i play the game solo and ashlands is absolutely crazy with spawn rate. I have a small asksvin farm on the beach and I can't even put walls up to protect them because i'm CONSTANTLY being harassed by enemies. It's not normal.

[@aidanatkinson7717]

Bro you sound like an entitled child, the majority of people don’t like or want valheim to feel like a chore to make progress. People with jobs, school, social lives, and families don’t have the time to “grind”. And yes casual players are the majority in this game so stfu about casual players ruining the game. If you wanna make it difficult, download some mods because they exist. If your playing on console the game is already too hard as it is. Womp womp

[@Le_Mao_]

I don’t really agree with the Ashland’s being too difficult, but then again I don’t know if I fall into your definition of hardcore player, what features would define that? Just curious, not hating

[@GamingwithKristi]

Idk that I have a totally clarified definition. I guess basically someone that has so much time and experience in Valheim that they can accomplish things much more easily than the average player. I suppose it could also just be someone who is super good at combat. =) Thanks for watching!

[@redbarron1212]

Eh, me and the boys didnt have much of an issue on normal difficulty. One 1 ranger, 1 mage, 1 tank. We killed Reto and Fader same game session

[@redbarron1212]

You got bread, mistake supreme and stuff mushrooms for food? You gotta up that. Roasted crust pies, piquant pies, and marinated Greens are the only thing that should be in your stomach in the ashelands. Plus a lingering health, lingering stamina, poison resist, and barely wine

[@raisnhed]

I’m so happy that Ashlands is being nerfed. It’s one of my favorite looking biomes and I’d love to build some badass looking castle or something but it’s almost impossible to do anything other than fight because of the constant enemies.

[@lowrider6419]

It took me 4 days from landing to boss, 3 times I drowned in lava, mining ore, 2 times I was cornered and 1 time in a boss battle. I have adapted to the ashlands but I welcome the changes.

[@GamingwithKristi]

Impressive

[@dylangriffiths5284]

For those out there that were ok with the spawn rate during ptb & release, just don’t destroy the spawners, deactivate your map, crank up the difficulty to very hard, crack open your can of monster & away you go. For the average players and anyone else on solo, good luck out there, this will help by the sound of it.

[@Vasilio1000]

Good news indeed. Probably when it hits the main branch I will finally bring myself up to visit the place for some exploration. From what I saw on YT there was simply no point of going there solo (it's the only way I play) since I am not a fan of fighting, and fighting was basically almost the only thing Ashlands provided in huge amounts. I have no problems with enemies and fighting as such but I definitely do not want to do it constantly; besides, fighting in Ashlands is clearly mage-build favoured (a bad deviation from the previous approach where all weapons were more or less equal), and I am mainly a traditional melee/bow viking who only occassionally throws an odd fireball. So far in Ashlands there was practically no room for exploration and other activities that make playing Valheim solo enjoyable for me.

[@chernobyl169]

This is going to go far toward making Ashlands not feel cheap anymore. Watching enemies spawn nearby two or three times PER TRIP isn't funny.

[@admiralspandy]

I get it's supposed to be tough, but the balance hasn't been right. It's doable, but my buddy and I found we got burned out after not too long, and going solo? $#*&. Games are first and foremost supposed to be fun. Ashlands made Valheim less fun, and this is from someone with 1200 hours in it. There are modifiers for those who want a more hardcore experience, but that shouldn't be the baseline. I'm sure they'll find the right balance. Who knows, maybe this will be too much of a nerf and they'll turn it back up a little.

[@GamingwithKristi]

I agree. It's good that they are adjusting.

[@GorthaurUdun]

I really hope this was done due to tech issues and not to pander to ppl who dont know how to change game settings. If the game is too hard... play it on easy mode. otherwise why even have the option?

[@GamingwithKristi]

I think that their point is that the normal mode should be for the masses and if you want it harder that you should turn it up to hard mode. They need to moderate the standard mode to the standard level player.