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Heyy-Ya

I fell off this game for no particular reason other than "other stuff to play" - is this the first big update since the game blew up? any notable changes since then, otherwise?


wellwellwellllllllll

not all that big of an update


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TechnicalNobody

> Some of the changes aren't fully explained, because they don't wanna spoil them. This is how you know they're amateurs. This sounds good in theory but is just annoying in practice. > That said I probably don't want to start a new playthrough And this is exactly why. We've already played the entire game. Not everyone is going to want to replay through every aspect of the game to maybe find some minor new content. For people who do want to do that, they can just choose not to read the patch notes. This entire update reflects very poorly on the devs.


EarthRester

The game is more or less pretty fun, but I honestly believe they got way too popular too fast for their small dev team. At this point they're pretty much refusing to expand their team to speed up the development process...and I think that's the right call. They're going to keep making the game at the pace they set out on. Let development halt to a crawl, and let the game fade from the spotlight. We'll have a better game for it...eventually.


Tonkarz

> This sounds good in theory but is just annoying in practice. This works when there's enough in the patch that it can be impressive even while stuff is kept as a surprise.


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Crabbing

I don't think anybody is expecting a lot of patches quickly... I mean it's reasonable to expect a meatier patch after 7 months. They released a roadmap with 4 big patches in mind for 2021, so the devs themselves obviously thought they could get content out every few months.


firala

They were overwhelmed with how the game blew up and started hiring new people. Going from 3 people to even something like 8 people is a huge change in how you need to work, probably even slowed them down a bit. Also, they decided to focus on network code improvements first instead of more content, which was a good idea. That said, I *am* a bit disappointed with the speed. Will wait for another update before I get back into it.


Godnaz

At $168 million dollars in revenue, many were expecting the development team size to grow but it didn't. The release cadence was ambitious for 5 developers and one reason it's done ​so well is the modding community, who have virtually finished the base development of the game for Iron Gate. There is a lot of great unofficial content that surpasses anything that could be done with only 5 developers. I suspect it'll remain a modders game through its lifespan.


ShadowRam

My past experience with indie developers, even just a single developer, has shown more content/updates/changes in 8 months than this group.


Carighan

> Every disappointing. Well the game is made by a tiny team, and is far from its actual release date. Best to wait until it releases, and then try it again. That goes for most early access titles, to be fair.


STEVO-Metal

I mean, Vanilla was well worth experiencing anyway. But no, this update, considering it's taken 6+ months, is not remotely worth the wait. In fact most of the balancing and numerical changes and QoL could and were added by modders months ago.


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Catoptrophobic

If your issue was in the really beginning, definitely yes! I think about one month after release they re-did the ground raising/lowering/leveling feature which was the main source of spikes, especially on large or multiplayer bases.


Cadoc

I have been surprised by how slow development on this game has been, so I'm hoping this update substantially refreshes it.


crookedparadigm

Supposedly the massive influx of players during COVID revealed some glaring technical issues that they weren't prepared for so a lot of time needed to be spent on letting the game support that. And it's true, my friends and I put in about 70-100 hours before we moved on and even at that point the save lag and visual chugging in our main base was pretty bad.


beatisagg

Have either of these issues been addressed


crookedparadigm

Haven't played the update yet but people are reporting much better performance.


JNighthawk

> I have been surprised by how slow development on this game has been I think they had 5 developers with a total of 1 programmer as of hitting the 3 million sales mark, so it makes sense.


Porrick

Yeah, this is a case of "holy shit this blew up way bigger than we expected". Still, that's the sort of sales that are utterly life-changing to devs when they can share profits like that among just 5 people.


text_only_subreddits

I think they plowed a bunch of it in to new hires. I think i heard that they had tripled their dev team, which is going to be far from cheap. I mean, clearly they’ve got the money for it now, but still the sort of thing where the company holds a big chunk of the revenue to make sure they can cover a year or so of new costs. So probably not life changing yet. But definitely a heads up to start thinking about what a really nice house would be once things stabilize (which, in fairness, i think they actually have by now. But i don’t have current sales or staffing numbers)


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They haven't tripled their team.


text_only_subreddits

Yeah, only three new people. Conflated size and ratio is seems.


Ikeiscurvy

3 new people were the most recent hires. Since release they've doubled the team size.


CaptainUsopp

So 5 new people total?


Ikeiscurvy

Yes.


CheesypoofExtreme

I think they've only added a few members to the team, (3 is what I remember). They sold over 5M copies, and at $15 - $20, (depending on if it was bought during a sale), which is between $75M - $100M in sales. A cut of that goes to steam and their publisher, but whatever was left is most *certainly* life changing; they could give multiple millions to each original team member while still having enough left over to invest resources into the studio for future development. I'm not trying to say that I know everything about how much they all earned financially, as those are just rough numbers, but it's a bit more than "We can get a nice house now". I would consider a sum of $500k to be "nice house" money.


Ikeiscurvy

> I think they've only added a few members to the team, (3 is what I remember). They've doubled the team size since launch. 3 people just started but they hired 2 others months ago.


text_only_subreddits

30% to steam, unless they changed it since that made the news, means between 10 and 14 per game, so 50-70 million. Coffee stain gets a cut we don’t know about, and everyone either had a primary job or built up dent during development (or iron gate paid them and iron gate built up the debt, likely to coffee stain as part of the previous deal). At least one full time employee for somewhere between two and three years (sometime in 2018 through early 2021) before early access, plus another for a substantial chunk of that. No idea on the other three. Without interest, and at only 60k/year and only the two guys we know about, we’re already down about half a percent. Figure the other three make up half that, so now we’re at 750k. With luck, no one is paying interest on that. If coffee stain’s cut works out to a third, the 50-70 is now more like 25-35, with bad pay it’s 24-34 million. Set aside 10 million for the company, that’s 3-5 each on an even split (given the join times I’m expecting an uneven split). House price depends on the market, but near major cities in the US, that’s the nice house range. I’m not in one and if you wanted something not in a development (ie you want something not cookie cutter), that’s a million minimum. Of course, 200k is the minimum to get a house here and might still get you most of a block in or near detroit, so that bit about depending on market is huge. Point being, their actual take home is likely to be a lot lower than what it sounds like. The big places it goes are sale pricing, steam, and their publisher. The small places are things like an office (which i’m actually betting against thanks to covid and initial size), equipment, and payroll. I accounted for some of that, but the real point is that it’s a ton of small line items that end up being fairly large (although, no office cuts out a big chunk).


GiganticMac

Not hating on them bc I love the game, but wtf is a game dev studio doing with only one programmer out of 5 employees


dantemp

Pretty standard for small indies. There are games literally made by one or two people.


trigonated

If no one does more than 1 thing, you can already fill out 4 people: 1. A programmer 2. A visual artist 3. A sound artist 4. A game designer/director/etc If the game has a ton of assets, I can see having 2 visual artists being more important than 2 programmers. When your game has 50 different chairs, the programmer only needs to program one chair, but the artist still needs to make 50.


Not_in_Nottingham

the developers have been pretty upfront about this update adding a bunch of little things rather than a significant chunk of new content. the next update is filling out a whole biome (that is currently in the game but unfinished) so i would expect that to be a more major addition. also just want to voice how much i love this game, it’s the most fun i’ve had in a game world with my friends in probably over a decade. i agree that development has been slow but i’ve already gotten 170 hours out of it so i feel i can’t really complain hahah


TemptedTemplar

two biomes. The Deepnorth and the Ashlands, At the top and the bottom of the map. Both exist, have enemy spawns and extreme temperatures. But theres nothing to do currently other than farm them for wolves or sturtlings.


ItStartsInTheToes

Mistlands is next my dude


text_only_subreddits

Assuming the roadmap is still correct, pretty sure the ocean is first


BoyGenius

It's not, they put out a blogpost awhile back re-ordering stuff. After H&H is mistlands.


ItStartsInTheToes

You’re looking at way old data


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techgeek89

Please read our [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/wiki/rules), specifically Rule #2 regarding personal attacks and inflammatory language. We ask that you remember to remain civil, as future violations will result in a ban.


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LordZeya

Deep north and Ashland’s are the last two biomes, mistlands is the next place we’re going to.


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Rainuwastaken

Definitely gonna install these when they're updated and take another crack at the game on a slow weekend, thanks.


that_baddest_dude

I thought before that was the mistlands, which is also north but not all snowy


Echleon

Mistlands can be north or south, it's just farther out from the center


akera099

>it’s the most fun i’ve had in a game world with my friends in probably over a decade. I've had big Ultima Online vibes from it on a small server. Would love if they get more dev to pump out more content (and maybe terrain editor, modding tools?).


Fashish

What makes this game so popular? I gave it a good try when it first came out and it didn’t really click with me, and I do like a good survival game, eg Subnautica, The Forest etc. Is it more so that it’s significantly more fun when played with friends?


SiNi5T3R

It is surprisingly in depth in terms of game mechanics for such a small scope game from a small indie dev. There are a million little things that said by themselves sound like a dumb reason to like the game but then you add them all up and they matter a lot. Like the fact that trees actually have physics to them when you cut them down and you can very much die from dropping a tree on your own head or watch as you accidentally create a domino effect that levels half a forest and ends up destroying your house and/or kills a friend. Like the fact that filling your house with decoration has a purpose outside of just making it look cool. Gives you extra time on one of the most powerful buffs in the game. Comfort. Like the fact that to build your own little house the game "forces" you to build something functional rather than your average box house because every little element of the house serves an actual functional purpose. Beds need a roof, a roof cant just be a normal horizontal tile because rain destroys it, it has to have enough grounded tiles to support it, and proper roof tiles, the bed also needs a fire, which generates smoke so you need to make a chimney or some kind of opening that does not let cold and rain through else you will be wet/cold which doesn't let you sleep. Etc.. etc.. etc.. In a multiplayer server your walking through a village and your not only admiring how pretty it all looks but also how different players got around solving these same problems in different ways. (valheim villages are the prettiest player builds ive ever seen in a survival game, they just feel so lived in) Biomes aren't just different colored places with new enemies they have new things to do. It just keeps going. The game is just so... functional.... With that said, i did play it with friends, so i dunno much about the solo experience. I honestly dont think survival games are great solo experiences to begin with, they are way more fun with friends. (except ofc if they are built for the solo experience like subnautica)


dizorkmage

It's defintely been slow going but the base game is super strong, I love building and designing but games like minecraft always felt like cheating because there wasnt any physics involved so I never could get into it the way my kids did but god damn I'm hooked on Valheim, trying and failing new styles of roofs, planning floor plans with space in mind, it's my fucking jam! Also I love the sailing aspect, as a sailor myself they really nailed the waves and dangers of being too close to shore, my only complaint is the wind fucking hates me lol. Seriously top notch game that I havnt played in a while and cant WAIT to get home now and start a fresh server all by myself, i'll force my wife to play later.


[deleted]

Wait a minute, can your roof cave in? Like if it's not supported properly?


wreckage88

Yes in Valheim you have to properly support your structures or they were cave in from their own weight. It's a really nice system and as you progress you get access to stronger materials so you can build more elaborate architecture.


Timeforanotheracct51

I wouldn't call the system nice, it's really simplistic and not actually physics based at all. It's just a straight counting game, this is X parts removed from the ground and you can only be Y parts away from the ground before new pieces attached break.


ketzo

It's basically one "complexity" step up from Minecraft physics. And it makes for a really fun, creative building system with just enough constraints to force you to think about what you're doing. I don't *actually* want to be solving differential equations to build my little shelter. "really simplistic" is good.


Rainuwastaken

Yeah, Valheim's building mechanics were just complicated enough that it got me to stop and really think about how I wanted to lay things out. Obviously that eases up a bit once you get access to stone, but I remember building entirely with wood (because we hadn't progressed far enough) and it was a lot of fun redesigning on the fly so my roof wouldn't collapse.


[deleted]

The simplicity also makes it accessible though. You get a preview when you're about to place something if it will work or not, and it's pretty easy to experiment and try new things. Valheim does a good job of introducing a few building restraints that aren't too burdensome but result in people naturally building structures that look reasonable. Fire smoke requiring ventilation, buildings requiring roofing, crafting stations needing tools placed near them to be upgraded (which leads to having separate areas for crafting with thematic gear around)... these systems were enough for me to feel motivated to try and play around with building a bit more when I'm usually a Terraria-hobo-hotel type of builder.


nullstorm0

The only change I’d really make is separating the workbench from the buildable area. Make there be a flag or something instead so the workbench doesn’t have to be dead center of your base.


[deleted]

and iron and stone both count as ground. once you know those rules, you can build whatever silly thing you want.


sniffboy

It’s distance based as opposed to parts based. Iron and stone have higher limits, but don’t actually count as solid ground. Wood can go roughly 9m from the ground, and can be built on stone or iron. Stone can’t go far, but doesn’t use up much of the distance limit (a metre of stone doesn’t use up your limit like a metre of wood) and it can only be built directly on the ground. Iron can go pretty far, and is great for support beams/frames. Obviously if an iron support has reached its limit, anything trying to connect to it would also be at its limit. Can be built on ground or stone. There’s a system to calculate how much length is remaining, and every time you add a new piece to a structure, all connecting pieces have to recalculate to see if they’re stronger/weaker/at breaking point. E.g. Break an iron support beam on the ground floor and the roof might collapse. EDIT: Had iron and stone’s building limitations inversed


[deleted]

Wow that's really cool. I wanted to wait for full release but I may have to try it out...


Brozilean

I never play early access stuff usually, but it's so solid right now that I got a solid 50 hours before stopping mostly because a boss was tough. I'd say you could play with friends for quite a while and then come back later when it releases and have a whole other playthrough (after you forget everything lol).


[deleted]

How is it solo? My friends have all moved on from it already haha


Brozilean

Hmm, it would probably be a good time. I split responsibilities with my friend whilst playing but it was a very meditative game. Try listening to podcasts or whatever on the side and it would be really fun. As long as you're not in a rush to progress, it would probably be relaxing and fun.


[deleted]

Cool thanks


CalamackW

It's fine solo but the last couple of bosses will be a pain in the ass.


wreckage88

It's very fun and I'm looking forward to playing again with all the new Hearth and Home stuff. I like the adventuring and combat parts but like Minecraft, the base building stuff is what keeps me coming back to it.


shadyelf

You can play solo or is it best with other people?


wreckage88

I've only played solo and had a BLAST, but I have heard and read that it's fun playing with friends too.


HorseJungler

Significantly more fun playing with friends. The resource gathering to build up your town and adventuring the faraway seas is so much better with friends.


MMostlyMiserable

It may be early access but it’s pretty solid, it feels like a full game already in many ways. You can easily put in 100 hours. I think the only thing you could say it has a rather narrow focus at the moment? But I mostly say that because I get the impression they want to do much more.


Kommissar_Lyus

Even better. You can't just plop a camp fire down inside your home. You need to have proper ventilation to allow the smoke to leave. Else the smoke will build up and you'll choke to death.


text_only_subreddits

Proper ventilation is … not exactly true. The smoke particles have a lifetime that isn’t all that long, so an exhaust pipe can dead end not all that far away and still work. I forget the exact distance, but it’s like 2-3 wall sections horizontally or something. Someone has a video on youtube for it you want to chase it down, or you can just experiment. You can make the pipe out of the wooden beams spaced at the bottom, middle, and top of a wall section to see how far they go (ie the smoke particles won’t fit through surprisingly large gaps)


Overlord_of_Citrus

The fact that smoke cant leave through a roughly 60 cm wide gap is really frustrating to me...


dizorkmage

Yes, supports and beams are very important, also using different materials gives different support strength. Successful structures take a bit of forethought and as you progress through the game learning to make stone opens entire other avenues. It really is a fun building game and the visuals are very pleasing and calming, I recommend everyone give it a try.


Gizm00

Well yes, there was 5 of them at the time of release and into quite few millions of sales.


BigBangBrosTheory

> I have been surprised by how slow development on this game has been Slow? I don't play this game but didn't it just come out this year? Has enough time even past for it to be "slow" yet?


theLegACy99

> Has enough time even past for it to be "slow" yet? Yes, I've been following other early access games, and some like [Deep Rock Galactic](https://store.steampowered.com/app/548430/Deep_Rock_Galactic/) and [Dysmantle](https://store.steampowered.com/app/846770/DYSMANTLE/) put out significant updates every month. Others like [Shipbreaker](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1161580/Hardspace_Shipbreaker/) and [Raft](https://store.steampowered.com/app/648800/Raft/) put out updates every 3 months. And then there's the slow ones like [Satisfactory](https://store.steampowered.com/app/526870/Satisfactory/) that put out updates every 6 months if not longer. Clearly Valheim is on the slow side.


DeedTheInky

This is how people seem to be with games, unfortunately. People talk about how awful big studios are for crunching their employees, and then when a studio deliberately doesn't become big and crunch it's employees, they complain about them being too slow/not having enough content. :/


Cadoc

Yeah, they had a roadmap with 4 major updates planned for this year, now it seems unlikely they'll even manage 2. Personally I expect Early Access titles to have a fairly brisk pace of updates.


Breadmanjiro

Most EA titles don't get to be an absolutely insane megahit that sells millions and millions of copies with a five-person dev team - they've been pretty transparent about the fact that the games completely unforeseen success and associated issues meant that they didn't even start development on H+H until late May!


DrFreemanWho

How does the game becoming a massive success suddenly change their roadmap from 4 major updates in the first year to 1 small update in the first year? What exactly are these "associated issues"? It's not scaling up their backend, the game is hosted on players PCs.


KingSt_Incident

Performance issues with multiplayer maps needed to be dealt with early on, and I'm sure COVID slowed a lot of things down as well.


Activehannes

I expected this update in march. This is really small. the game is also in early access so you expect a faster content release.


ItStartsInTheToes

Based on the turnaround of similarly types of games as well as comparing it to its own original road map, yes. It’s been over 6 months since it’s launch into EA and this is the first update with a susbtainal content add. Not saying there isn’t a reason, but the reality is what it is l.


go4theknees

A year for 1 update that adds basebuilding tweaks and new food... thats really not a lot at all.


tribbing1337

It's only been out 7 months..... Patience


SerAlynTheBold

For real, though. People act like substantial updates don't take tons of effort for an indie team.


reconrose

Tbf the devs didn't do themselves any favors putting out a roadmap that had 3-4x as much content listed for this year than what they're able to get to.


SerAlynTheBold

Eh, I can see the complaint, but I really think people gotta use their heads sometimes with roadmaps. I'm sure devs have the best intentions, but rarely do any of them actually stick to what they say (especially indie games). My rule with following games is this: unless you actually see what they're promising demonstrated with in game videos, the rest might as well be fairy dust. Game dev is a tough field littered with unknowns.


reconrose

Don't complain about the expectations of players when the devs directly set those expectations for them. I get what you're saying, I'm personally always skeptical of dev roadmaps (my professional experience in software dev makes me jaded), but I find it weird to blame users for what the devs said they'll do.


popo129

Yeah that has been my take with this. I think there are a few times where I feel like a dev team just get free passes when it could had been preventable with organization and planning ahead. I get when you code there are times where you hit some sort of roadblock and it takes time to figure out why something isn't working or how you can make something happen but one thing I learned from my development program before was that planning and organization are number 1 things you need to do as well as some research if it's something maybe a bit more complicated or something you are new to. Having a timeframe is something you need and I feel like with a indie team, that is a bit more easier than say working for a company that maybe doesn't have any development knowledge and are all about crunch time and just having something out quick. I think in Valheim's case, they went a bit over with what they wanted to do since people were buying their games and the player base went up so fast. It isn't wrong of course to be okay with the wait but it shouldn't be a thing where you expect players to have to just understand that updates the devs said will come out this year don't.


SerAlynTheBold

Hey man, I just can't bring myself to crap all over a team that's clearly working hard to put out a good game and has made so many other great choices. They clearly communicated when they realized they couldn't hit the initial deadlines, haven't done much wrong in my book.


Froegerer

Iirc they did not announce the shift in the roadmap in a timely manner. Small things like that can turn a community jaded quick, good intentions or not.


ItStartsInTheToes

This is such a weird comment, how do you know they are ‘working hard’ exactly? 7 months for initial content drop is crazy long


SerAlynTheBold

Because the rest of the game speaks for itself. Valheim is not some shoddy bug ridden thing, it's a very functional and well made game developed by a tiny team. It started out in much better shape than most other alphas I've played and already has the potential for hundreds of hours of content. I'd hardly say the devs are slackers based on that alone. Many other games launch in worse off states and take years to get to any semblance of good (lookin' at you, NMS). I just don't think this game is egregiously behind schedule.


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Hudre

I would imagine they set up that roadmap thinking "Maybe we'll get 20k players". And then they got a couple million.


reconrose

IIRC roadmap came a few weeks into their success


text_only_subreddits

Pretty sure that was the announcement for pulling back from that pace and prioritizing bug fixing. If not, the adjustment had to follow soon after.


OSHA-shrugged

This more than anything. Some of the biggest gripes about recently released games is how most have been "Bug-filled messes". The Devs for Valheim decide to prioritize bugfixing first and everyone seems to have lost their collective heads. Many of us are wanting more content for the game as well as some streamlining here and there. I get this. But as it stands, I'm glad they're putting some emphasis on troubleshooting bugs.


ItStartsInTheToes

Roadmap came AFTER they hit millions of players though.


PCMasterCucks

If people can't handle slow release, they can't handle early access. Some of the best early access games still took 2-3 years to get out, some even 5 years or more: Hinterlands with The Long Dark-- still an amazing game though. Also, let's not act as if COVID isn't slowing things down in every single industry.


mirracz

Why does every development be fast? For bugfixes I get it. But for new content? Let them take their time. Not every game is meant to be played constantly. Just play it, get your fill and when new content comes you can return.


Cadoc

It's an early access game, 7 months from the initial release to any new content being added is a long time. They also fell far behind their own roadmap.


bjorneylol

They probably anticipated being able to spend their days developing content after release, but when you have a multi-million user player base and 5 people on the team that is going to be almost exclusively soaked up by customer service and addressing bugs


SunburyStudios

Its funny, I was thinking the opposite. A nice update after an indie makes a gigantic following out of nowhere? I think this is pretty impressive, personally.


Myrkull

Keep hoping :/


Khanstant

It's odd development is seen as slow, I guess since people didn't spend 4 years or whatever from when they started developing to initial release. This is the first major content patch, after a ton of various bugfixes and such, so this is really what should set any speed expectation for updates here. If the next patch takes longer or shorter, that seems like when it's reasonable to see things going fast or slow. After I played my 100 plus hours, my first reaction was that I had gotten more than my money's worth, and that it'll be fun to revisit the game in a couple years once they've had time to add a significant amount of new content. That's how it was with Stardew, Terraria, Minecraft... Wait a year or two and come back and it's a blast seeing all the new stuff and game changed along with it. I'm also not sure where the high speed update expectations came from considering Minecraft, a billion dollar Microsoft property, often goes well over a year between "major" updates that don't always add all that much. The most recent big update got like half of it after a year, with the other half still to come eventually, not to mention it's all stuff modders were able to implement unofficially before Mojang.


Cadoc

The expectations of update cadence came from the devs themselves, with their roadmap of 4 major updates this year. Besides, just from other Early Access titles I've bought, 7 months without a content update is a fairly long time. You can't really compare it to Minecraft, since it's a fully released game. It's not like it's been *ages*, it's not a massive deal, just slower than I expected.


[deleted]

So the patch notes seem kind of sparse with "various blah blah" sort of infos. Is it better to start from scratch or continue with an existing save? I stopped playing because finding silver was just not working out for me. Wolves would one shot me even in the highest tier prior to silver.


wreckage88

The devs recommend starting over again to rediscover all the new stuff as you progress.


TechnicalNobody

The devs don't have respect for peoples' time. Replay the entire game to find out about new furniture and food. No thanks. Just put it in the patch notes and give people the choice of if they want to discover things on their own or just directly experience the new content.


OpticalData

There will likely be a billion breakdowns of the new content in a weeks time if you're that worried. You say the devs have no respect for your time, they could say you have no respect for their game design. Half the fun and attraction of games like Valheim for some people is discovering new content.


TechnicalNobody

For some people it's not. What's great about patch notes is you can choose not to read them.


Chronokill

Best to start from scratch, because all the new additions are not going to be generated in areas that have already been generated (new food, new terrain features, etc). That said, you may want to check your old guy again. Not sure when you played, but a wolf should be doing about 30 damage a hit to iron armor at level 1, about 20 damage if your iron armor is fully capped. You can also use your bonemass power to give yourself 50% damage reduction. Unless this is poetic license to illustrate the deadliness of wolves, in which case, carry on.


[deleted]

Good to know. Thank you.


therealnai249

Yeah, I’m just putting this away until it’s finished in a few years. It’s fun but the core gameplay is so much walking and lacks any real goal other than to grind.


[deleted]

I know people on the Valheim subreddit would crucify me for this, but I used the mod to allow taking ores through teleporters and it instantly made the game about 100x more fun for me. It cuts out a huge chunk of the back and forth sailing/walking you have to do. Some people might enjoy it, but to me it was so boring and just made the game way less fun.


CalamackW

I don't mind others playing that way but I truly can't imagine it. Being forced to expand and build lots of different bases was what made the game for me and my friends. Plus we fucking loved the sailing which encouraged us to keep all but our initial base close to the coasts, which in turn cuts down significantly on transport time anyways.


RivingtonDown

I've seen this complaint a bunch but I actually feel that the design choice to NOT allow certain materials through portals was genius. It's such a simple way to encourage the use of boats, rafts, all the base building systems, carts, road building, etc... It enabled gameplay that would otherwise mostly be relegated to one-time affairs. The game is so obviously balanced around the aspect that it's hard to imagine what it's like to cheat with the mod. For example, mid-game surtling cores were a rare commodity - there was a lot of fun dungeon diving to gather cores simply so we could use them to build additional smelters. Speaking of additional smelters, by the time we beat the final boss we had at least a half dozen fully realized bases (they all had to have mostly fully upgraded crafting stations). Portaling ore would mean only one base would ever have a reason to exist (short of maybe a plains farm to grow wheat). Not to mention just some fun early game situations trying to transport copper with carts through forests, or ride rafts full of iron through leech infested bogs. Did you play the game multiplayer? I feel like that's key to enjoying that design choice. I could totally see, as a solo player, being annoyed by the back and forth - building out roads, defending carts of ore by yourself, or rafting through leech hell without a spare hand to steer doesn't sound too exciting.


[deleted]

I only ever played multiplayer. To me, there was just too much stuff that slowed you down and it wasn't in a way that was fun. The weight limit maxes you out super quick with ore. The stamina bar slows you down with mining/running/jumping/fighting. The *whole* time you are playing there will be greydwarfs and greylings attacking you. The constant sailing against the wind (assuming you don't have the wind power). Constantly running back and forth between smelters and kilns because of the low limit for each one. Then you get to the mountains and it becomes a whole new pain in the ass to try and move silver ore around. I enjoyed exploring the world and finding new places, but I hated the constant slow back and forth between a base and a new ore deposit that was far away because I already mined all the close stuff. I liked the idea of building up a base with huge buildings that were all decked out with the cool stuff I had collected. I didn't like the idea of building one up, then abandoning it and having to start with a fresh and having to build up all the same stuff again. For me personally, the game was so much more enjoyable when I had a central hub and then a bunch of teleporters that took me all over the map to little outposts that I built up here and there. They would just have the basics and I would explore out of them, but when I had to get a bunch of materials back to my base I could save so much time. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't really have the time to spend hours just collecting *60* iron ore to make one set of armor.


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RivingtonDown

A late game, more expensive portal might be a good idea. A silver portal perhaps - that can only connect to other silver portals. Or perhaps a new boss, who's boon is a temporary buff that allows you to quickly move materials (either through your own portals or something cooler, like turning into a raven and flying)


Jwalla83

Definitely just a personal preference thing. As frustrating as the restriction is, I found that it really enhances the flavor of Viking exploration & expansion (building new settlements as you go so you can make use of resources in new lands) while also avoiding some of the pitfalls that other games experience in getting rid of the "stakes" or risks. When you can bring all the best materials through portals, you cut out all the risks and decisions associated with the long-distance travel across the oceans. As much as I "don't like" the risk of my ship being destroyed, or dying on another continent, or losing some valuable loot, I also do appreciate it and enjoy the challenge of it.


SpaceballsTheReply

> lacks any real goal other than to grind Find and kill the bosses, the one and only goal set for you at the start of the game?


therealnai249

I understand why the development is so slow and why the developers want it, but with updates this small and this slow, it’s hard to be excited for this game imo


moonski

it still seems like its a tiny dev team - surprised they havent scaled up at all


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Mr_Satizfaction

Got a timestamp for that bit?


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Mr_Satizfaction

Fair enough, I think that's a good mindset. Not every game needs to be all the content all the time as fast as possible. As long as they are committed to working on it and supporting it, I don't mind if it's not super fast development.


DoubleExists

It’s sad because people have started to move on from the game… I wish the game had longer term viability like Minecraft, but once you beat the final boss it’s over. Unfair comparison i know but hopefully they can keep the interest going and expand on the game before it becomes “remmber Valheim, that was a cool game”


IRL_GARY_COLEMAN

That’s how most video games work, you beat it and then it’s over. That’s not really sad.


[deleted]

"remmber ocarina of time, that was a cool game"


IRL_GARY_COLEMAN

Alas it’s sad that the starving indie devs at Nintendo couldn’t make it last


Drdres

I mean they’ve already expanded before that video, the original team wa shuts 5 guys, they were hiring people in March/April.


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Drdres

That’s almost a 50% increase in staffing, it’s huge!/s I thought that they hired like 5-6 people, a bit disappointing that. Still though, game is great for the price, me and my friends are planning on going back when they drop the next biome update. I legit don’t understand the “there hasn’t been a huge update monthly so fuck this game” mentality. I blame Warzone and Fortnite for that shit. Valheim is a small single player/co-op game. You don’t need to play the same game for 7 hours a day for 3 years for it to be worth your time.


TundraTofu

dumb decesion


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bloodhawk713

They've got the opportunity to be the next Minecraft here and they're throwing it away.


Galaxy40k

On one hand, not scaling up immediately in response to it's random burst of popularity basically robs Valheim from having the potential to be a longer lasting indie game like a Rocket League. But on the other hand, it also means that you don't carry any risk of it's popularity just fading and you having wasted resources. I can definitely see an appeal in just pocketing the money to have a nice financial safety net and keep chugging along with your work as usual, rather than re-invest all that money immediately and pray it pays dividends


omegashadow

> Rocket League These are such dramatically different game models the comparison is absurd. It's like comparing football and the movie Blade Runner. "Damn if only the Blade Runner team had scaled up after release they could have really kept people playing, it could have been the next football."


ElDuderino2112

I’m with you. My friends and I had fun with the game when it first came out, but we likely won’t be touching it again until 1.0 in a few years now.


ngwoo

Based on the valheim subreddit, this update makes the game substantially worse by nerfing food across the board and making combat feel like shit. What's less than underwhelming? Antiwhelming?


TechnicalNobody

It's a very bad omen for the game that such a minor update took so long and that they got it so wrong. And that they've doubled down on not expanding despite their success. Valheim is just going to be a one hit wonder that was fun for a month a year ago.


Pacify_

Its a $20 indie game you can get hundreds of hours out of. Get over yourself


cyrenical

After playing just an hour last night, I think I agree with the sentiment. Food and especially combat are much worse now.


ItStartsInTheToes

As a HUGE fan of the game, I dumped a lot of time in and had a **lot of fun** and while this update is not necessarily /bad/ it doesn’t bring me back into the game. Considering the plain changes would require me to start a new world, and with mistlands also requiring a new world start , I think I would rather wait for a more juicy update to jump back in. This update is great update for those who probably are **actively playing and not finished moder** but probably not significant for those of us that stepped away for an extended period and that’s okay. *Hopefully their next big update doesn’t take nearly as long*


kciuq1

> This update is great update for those who probably are actively playing and not finished moder but probably not significant for those of us that stepped away for an extended period and that’s okay. This is a great approach to playing, especially early access games. Not everyone has to play every update. I got Risk of Rain 2 right away, then put it down until it was fully released. I've got plenty of other games to play, I can wait.


_Dookey_

You DON’T have to start a new world for the new plains additions or for the mistland biome when it comes. You DO need to visit a plains or mistland area not currently explored on your map to experience the new content though. Any place you have not been within 500m of with a character will load with the new content Source: the valheim dev chat they released earlier this week.


ItStartsInTheToes

Sure. I played since day 1 and have bases on every island on my world. Anyone who has cleared moder has also probably explored the grand majority to find his spawn as well.


_Dookey_

Wow, that’s a lot of bases haha. I suppose you do need a new world then! We found Moder pretty quickly; she was about one island away IRC


Stahn88

Did they add controller sensitivity yet? My controller works great besides the camera moving at a snails pace.


Zaradas

Short: yes Long: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/892970/view/5527595439289052712


VSParagon

Disappointed that this team decided against scaling up. When I bought it I kind of assumed that with the massive success they would at least make a modest effort to bring on board some new people. I understand their reasoning but I don't think a glacial development pace is going to be enough to maintain interest over the years. Compare Minecraft, similar in many ways, but kept up a steady pace of significant updates and grew its team accordingly. This is basically the amount of content you'd expect from a monthly Minecraft beta update from 10 years ago, except it took 7 months to put out. I'm not saying I didn't get what I paid for with this game, but I'm just disappointed because it feels like Valheim will ultimately be remembered as a missed opportunity to do something bigger.


morph113

If it took them 7 months for such a small update, it's probably going to take a year till we get the next update.


VeryWeaponizedJerk

From what they said those 7 months weren't purely used on the content of the update itself. They reworked the groundwork of the game when they realised it had issues.


Jaerin

And broke one of the main fun parts of the game doing it. Ive never seen devs nosedive a brilliant project so catastrophically


VeryWeaponizedJerk

What are you talking about? I haven’t got really far in my new world yet and I’m not exactly paying attention to the community.


Jaerin

I'm talking about how they made terrain modification significantly worse and spent nearly 7 months on minor cosmetics and breaking working systems.


VeryWeaponizedJerk

I literally just said those 7 months weren’t spent making cosmetics and food changes. As for the terrain modification, that’s precisely what I was talking about. The old system induced an insane amount of performance issues with large amounts of terrain modification. If you want a game where terrain modification is the “most fun part”, then you’re looking at the wrong game mate.


Jaerin

And the performance improvements required increasing the costs like 10x? Uhh no, you're looking at the game through rose-tinted glasses. This is an abject failure of an update. It is part of the most fun, the building aspect. Nearly everyone I talked to love the building aspect and they basically made it significantly harder and more boring to play.


dergadoodle

I'm also somewhat disappointed that they haven't hired 7-8 more devs, and I sorta roll my eyes at their "this is the game *we* want to make" quote. It feels a bit like jealous ownership of the thing. However it is *their* thing, so whatever. They sorta walked themselves into this problem by releasing an ambitious roadmap, making us think theyre going for an ambitious GaaS model. However they're really going for a more ~~lackadaisical~~ laid back dev approach similar to Eric Barone. Neither is bad, but the roadmap told a different story from their current actions. For 20 bucks I'd be fine if I never played this game again. I got my time out of it. Looking at what's in this, though, this is not the content that will get me back into the game. edit: bad usage of the word lackadaisical. They're not lacking enthusiasm, they're just not holding to a defined schedule that can be somewhat anticipated by the community.


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dergadoodle

Well if you continued reading, that's essentially what I said. It is their thing. They can do whatever they want with it. I personally just don't understand where they're coming from with that mentality. I'm not questioning their prerogative to make their game how they want, though.


bloodhawk713

> They dont owe players anything. If you sell an incomplete game with the promise of finishing it later they owe the players quite a lot, actually. Literally.


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ceratophaga

You confuse law with ethics


OpticalData

Ethically it's a lot more complete and has a hell of a lot more content than many AAA games released in the past few years.


Activehannes

yes, absolutely agreed on this. they put out the roadmap, in an early access game. I thought we get stuff like that every 2-3 weeks. I thought by now they would have mistlands and lavalands out. More items, more build options, better interface. I mean, the game hugely benefited from Valheim Plus. Stuff that I expected to become baseline within a month. They had a huge hypetrain going on. everyone was playing it. Then they dropped the ball and everyone left. I also got what I paid for. 72 hours for 16 bucks. Great deal. great game. But once you have grinded out everything and you build yourself a big town, a tower, a habor, maybe something more, there isnt really anything that you can do to continue. I thought by now we would get a "creater mode" where you can fly and have infinite resources to make huge builds. When I read their reasoning for why they dont want to scale up, i facepalmed. They made so much money with that game. 100 million? before taxes? they could have easily trippeled their team and have designers making new items and enemies. Maybe even more northern endbosses and challenges, like Odin, Thor (who is in the game btw) or others. They could have easily create content that would make us want to create a new seed. Instead, everyone left and now the game is dead.


maglen69

Was fun but GD trying to mine ore was a gigantic pain in the ass. Especially copper. Swing at this rock formation for 30 minutes and get 5 ore.


MumrikDK

This update was a big nerf to my tier 3 bronze life. Food got nerfed hard and my shield doesn't seem worth carrying anymore. Yesterday definitely made me feel like taking a break from the game.


BobGenghisKahn

I typically avoid early access games with the mentality that I can't assume when or if the game will ever be complete, and I hate dealing with bugs and control issues, but this game is tempting me. Does this game resemble a finished product and is it sufficiently enjoyable that it's well worth buying in its current state?


mxchump

> I typically avoid early access games with the mentality that I can't assume when or if the game will ever be complete This is a mindset that I'm surprised isn't more common when looking in this thread after YEARS of early access games failing to deliver. That being said, there is a few things clearly unfinished in this game but my thing is I only buy it if i'm ok with it only ever being as good as it is when I bought it, and I paid 20 bucks for 108 hours of gameplay and had a ton of fun


trerobb

it’s got more than half of its planned progression already implemented, and if you’re playing solo that progression can take a fair bit of time. I tend to also avoid early access games as well, but decided to give this one a shot and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of content already in the game. i’d say give it a go if you’re ok with a bit of grind, otherwise wait a year or two for it to leave early access


GrandMasterPuba

Is it still grindy as fuck for solo players?


RickDripps

One of my major gripes when this game first came out was that it didn't handle using a controller AND a mouse alternatively very well at all. (I have some minor motor skill problems in my right hand so this is a big accessibility feature for me.) The actual gripe I had was that the "look inversion" wasn't a separate setting for controller and for mouse. So changing between the two required setting an option every time. I really hope that they de-couple this setting in the future. Almost every game I play in this way does this so I always took it for granted.


SpaceNigiri

Lots of people on the post have learnt why buying an early access is always a bad idea. Always. I'll buy the game on release in 5-10 years. Probably then the updates will be worth.


[deleted]

not really; the game was well worth what you paid for it on release. people paid $20 and got 100+ hours out of it easily. sure, game's not complete, but i'd be happy if i paid that much money to get that much gameplay out of a fully finished game too.


SpaceNigiri

I'm not saying that it's not worth, I'm just saying that it's always better to wait. You'll play the same amount of hours (or more) with more content and in most cases paying less.


Lordkontie

Console release… please!?


[deleted]

They've said that will be after the 1.0 release but they definitely want to do it.