I'm just not really sure what the change is meant to achieve. Blocking was a pretty simple and functional system already. It facilitated skillful play and presented meaningful choices. It didn't have the sort of problems that require an overhaul to fix.

Now I'm worrying about a stagger bar in addition to the stamina bar, which is lower since I'm stacking health food, but not really because stamina generation comes from resting, not food. My wooden shield was ineffective against anything larger than a boar. I had to rely on footwork to clear a crypt and kill a troll, but I might as well use and atgeir then.

The single line from the patch notes doesn't help. How does current maximum hp greatly affect your ability to block attacks? What's the stagger bar for? What does it represent? What exactly is meant by "overhauled"? What are we supposed to be doing differently compared to before? Are timed blocks still a thing? What's the difference between large and small shields now, and how does it compare to before?

So this is where I'm at now. I simply don't understand what the game is trying to do or is asking of me now. I solo completed everything this game had to offer in the spring. Some of the bosses needed tweaking, but the basics were rock solid. Even so, I am willing to relearn this game's systems if need be as it develops. But I can't do that if the only thing I know is that my shield doesn't protect me anymore.

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

I'm just not really sure what the change is meant to achieve. Blocking was a pretty simple and functional system already. It facilitated skillful play and presented meaningful choices. It didn't have the sort of problems that require an overhaul to fix.

Now I'm worrying about a stagger bar in addition to the stamina bar, which is lower since I'm stacking health food, but not really because stamina generation comes from resting, not food. My wooden shield was ineffective against anything larger than a boar. I had to rely on footwork to clear a crypt and kill a troll, but I might as well use and atgeir then.

The single line from the patch notes doesn't help. How does current maximum hp greatly affect your ability to block attacks? What's the stagger bar for? What does it represent? What exactly is meant by "overhauled"? What are we supposed to be doing differently compared to before? Are timed blocks still a thing? What's the difference between large and small shields now, and how does it compare to before?

So this is where I'm at now. I simply don't understand what the game is trying to do or is asking of me now. I solo completed everything this game had to offer in the spring. Some of the bosses needed tweaking, but the basics were rock solid. Even so, I am willing to relearn this game's systems if need be as it develops. But I can't do that if the only thing I know is that my shield doesn't protect me anymore.

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

I'm just not really sure what the change is meant to achieve. Blocking was a pretty simple and functional system already. It facilitated skillful play and presented meaningful choices. It didn't have the sort of problems that require an overhaul to fix.

Now I'm worrying about a stagger bar in addition to the stamina bar, which is lower since I'm stacking health food, but not really because stamina generation comes from resting, not food. My wooden shield was ineffective against anything larger than a boar. I had to rely on footwork to clear a crypt and kill a troll, but I might as well use and atgeir then.

The single line from the patch notes doesn't help. How does current maximum hp greatly affect your ability to block attacks? What's the stagger bar for? What does it represent? What exactly is meant by "overhauled"? What are we supposed to be doing differently compared to before? Are timed blocks still a thing? What's the difference between large and small shields now, and how does it compare to before?

So this is where I'm at now. I simply don't understand what the game is trying to do or is asking of me now. I solo completed everything this game had to offer in the spring. Some of the bosses needed tweaking, but the basics were rock solid. Even so, I am willing to relearn this game's systems if need be as it develops. But I can't do that if the only thing I know is that my shield doesn't protect me anymore.

you should not be eating only health food :T i have always mixed 2/1 depending on the situation. 2 stamina + 1 health for the open areas, and the opposite for the dungeons

Shields deserved massive nerf, they were beyond insane and made 2h weapons completely pointless.

Originally posted by Sono:

apparently it calculates some formula with your max health, combined with the block strength, and if a shield has it like the serpent shield a damage reduction vs a damage type. Problem is how exactly max health affects it i have no idea on. It's also possible early game shields were made worse with some kind of shenanigans, as my late game characters received a max of 2 damage through a black metal shield from a Golems smash, with only about 70 health.

Yeah, I read something about max health factoring in to the blocking equation now. It shouldn't be a big part of it, but it means you need to stack health more than stamina if you want to tank damage with a shield.

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Shields deserved massive nerf, they were beyond insane and made 2h weapons completely pointless.

Massive nerf? No, but I think shields needed balancing. Two handed weapons were never pointless. Some people love the atgeir or stagbreaker, both can be extremely useful.

Shields are useless now. If you use a shield pray the game doesn't stagger you for instant death. You're better off dodging.

Originally posted by Mike:

So here is my first experience since the new patch. First of all i have to mention, that i did one entire solo and 2 co-op runs with my girlfriend before this new patch. Today after the update, we decided to do a fresh co-op run incl. fresh characters. This time actually with 2 more people, so we were 4.

First we were positive on the new food variety during the early game. Most of us ended up using the boar, deer and the neck meat. we quickly noticed, that something is off in terms of stamina. No matter what you used, it felt awful and even with a knife you ran out way too fast. Yes, by now i know that we should have used at least one kind of stamina based food, so we gonna imrove on that next session. But i believe there could be something fundamentally off.

But here comes the kicker for me: I ususally like playing the tanky route, means as much HP as possible and a round shield to parry the shi* out of everything and their grandma. During all the previous playthroughs, solo and co-op, i had literally 0 deaths on my counter and felt comfortable with that way to play the game.

During our first session today, we engaged our frist 0 star troll. Brave and secure as i usually am in my playstyle and after almost 300 hours playing this game, i engaged this troll for my team so they can shoot him from afar. This time i actually decided to take a tower shield instead, since i heard that a lot of HP and some other tower shield specific changes, will make them more viable. So to come to the point, i was walking into the trolls face with a fully upgraded wooden tower shield, leather armor, a filled stamina bar of 60 and a HP bar that was around 120, expecting in my wildest dreams that maybe 15-30 damage come through. No, i received over 70 damage THROUGH my shield, as if i would not even have one in front of me. I also did not even receive any stagger on my character and immediately ran away from him. The newly implemented AI pathing did the rest and he followed me straight into a formation of trees, that would have saved me before, because the troll had to walk around them. Realising that, i started to panic and additionally got stuck on a single bush that was in my way.

Needless to say i was a little disgruntled to receive my first death in Valheim like this. Yes, it is early access and im going to hope for changes and also test a lot more to re-find my playstyle. But god, this felt awful. And now i kinda fear for the higher tiers in terms of enjoyment, heck, even for the enjoyment of the whole game.

Did you raise your blocking skill before hand? I bet it effects how much you block just like others effect how much damage you do.

No, i believe i only had 3-5 blocking skill. But again: I am pretty sure, that i could block the majority of a trolls damage before the new patch with the same blocking skill, by using a fully upgraded round shield or tower shield to parry/block. I know you are not supposed to face tank a troll at this point, since the expected 15-30 damage through the shield are still a considerable amount, no matter before or after the new patch.

I just do not want to believe, even we are talking about wooden shields, that the intended damage is 70 to come through any of them, when the base damage of a blunt troll is 60 (around 70 in 4 player co-op).

Originally posted by Mike:

No, i believe i only had 3-5 blocking skill. But again: I am pretty sure, that i could block the majority of a trolls damage before the new patch with the same blocking skill, by using a fully upgraded round shield or tower shield to parry/block. I know you are not supposed to face tank a troll at this point, since the expected 15-30 damage through the shield are still a considerable amount, no matter before or after the new patch.

I just do not want to believe, even we are talking about wooden shields, that the intended damage is 70 to come through any of them, when the base damage of a blunt troll is 60 (around 70 in 4 player co-op).

is it still that base damage? They might have changed how much damage it does.

Before the patch it was definitely 60 damage on a zero star blunt troll. If they changed the damage to 120 or something, then it would make more sense. But good luck with me enjoying tank with that kind of "damage tweaking" in the higher tiers.

That's a funny story, no need to be salty just laugh and smile, good work on dieing, keep it up!

Until someone posts some numbers with damaged blocked as shield training goes up it will be hard to really figure out what is going on.

As @Myrkana posits it could be that part of the balance was to actually make training up block worthwhile (it was not really needed before to still effectively block a noticeable amount of damage).

apparently it calculates some formula with your max health, combined with the block strength, and if a shield has it like the serpent shield a damage reduction vs a damage type. Problem is how exactly max health affects it i have no idea on. It's also possible early game shields were made worse with some kind of shenanigans, as my late game characters received a max of 2 damage through a black metal shield from a Golems smash, with only about 70 health.

The food changes are acceptable for me, but they've absolutely murdered shields and shield play. I'm up in the mountains and the only viable strategy is to mash attack against wolves because blocking or parrying them just means you get stunlocked, staggered, zero stamina and killed. If the viable solution is "just attack through enemies hitting you" that's bad game design. If you got caught without stamina previously, you could at least buy some time and space to recover, but now it's just instant death.

pretty much and combine that with the health/stamina issue, combat sucks bad at the moment. But hey, maybe they will "rebalance" again.

So here is my first experience since the new patch. First of all i have to mention, that i did one entire solo and 2 co-op runs with my girlfriend before this new patch. Today after the update, we decided to do a fresh co-op run incl. fresh characters. This time actually with 2 more people, so we were 4.

First we were positive on the new food variety during the early game. Most of us ended up using the boar, deer and the neck meat. we quickly noticed, that something is off in terms of stamina. No matter what you used, it felt awful and even with a knife you ran out way too fast. Yes, by now i know that we should have used at least one kind of stamina based food, so we gonna imrove on that next session. But i believe there could be something fundamentally off.

But here comes the kicker for me: I ususally like playing the tanky route, means as much HP as possible and a round shield to parry the shi* out of everything and their grandma. During all the previous playthroughs, solo and co-op, i had literally 0 deaths on my counter and felt comfortable with that way to play the game.

During our first session today, we engaged our frist 0 star troll. Brave and secure as i usually am in my playstyle and after almost 300 hours playing this game, i engaged this troll for my team so they can shoot him from afar. This time i actually decided to take a tower shield instead, since i heard that a lot of HP and some other tower shield specific changes, will make them more viable. So to come to the point, i was walking into the trolls face with a fully upgraded wooden tower shield, leather armor, a filled stamina bar of 60 and a HP bar that was around 120, expecting in my wildest dreams that maybe 15-30 damage come through. No, i received over 70 damage THROUGH my shield, as if i would not even have one in front of me. I also did not even receive any stagger on my character and immediately ran away from him. The newly implemented AI pathing did the rest and he followed me straight into a formation of trees, that would have saved me before, because the troll had to walk around them. Realising that, i started to panic and additionally got stuck on a single bush that was in my way.

Needless to say i was a little disgruntled to receive my first death in Valheim like this. Yes, it is early access and im going to hope for changes and also test a lot more to re-find my playstyle. But god, this felt awful. And now i kinda fear for the higher tiers in terms of enjoyment, heck, even for the enjoyment of the whole game.