Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

Textures for things up close I do not find bad... I rarely even notice and don't tend to keep zoomed in all the way. The environment is beautiful without any mods.
The textures are for when zoomed in .. but frankly even if I did like modding I wouldn't put the strain on my machine for the visual and rather have in game performance/movement smoothness.

I feel completely the opposite. The HD texture packs totally transform the game for me, and I find it hard to play without them.

They also claim to actually improve performance. I haven't analyzed that in detail, but I run at 4k with a 4k texture pack, and it runs as well as with the low-res default textures.

I wouldn't necessarily lump a texture pack in with other mods either. It's really just replacing one set of images for another, so the chances of it breaking the game is pretty small, unlike other mods that change the game code.

Originally posted by 76561198017000758:

For me personally, I think it's the sense of going on an adventure that is filled to the brim with cozy moments in-between action and having so much to do during downtime that it encourages you to play at your own pace. For instance, I like coming back to my base after a long journey or after a big fight and settling my viking down by the fire for some rest and mead. Then it's time for loot organization, farm upkeep, cooking meals, and rotating the potions that I have fermenting in my cellar, as well as checking on any livestock that I may have. Just being able to enjoy the ambiance and peace around my base before going back out into the wild.

I think you've nailed it pretty well. Although I'm going to take a break for a while. I'll poke my head in again when the mistlands drops.

People continue to play games they have 'beat' for a very long time when those games have enjoyable (even if repetitive), relaxing or creative 'loops'.

It would be easy enough to name a number of such games many of which, by player numbers, are still considered very popular. And in many cases 'simple' mechanics keep more players engaged for longer times then overly complex ones (Stardew Valley is a good example of the former). Maybe because they can be more relaxing?

Personally I play perma-death now with no rush to the end boss. I also throw in 'weapon specific' runs sometimes to change things up (like only knives or -gasp- no bows).

Each time I croak I try something new on the next run even if its just a new building footprint for my outposts.

It is a game you can step away from for whatever life reasons might come and then pick up again without ever losing your 'connection' to the game world and your avatar.

I imagine your avatar just happily goes about farming carrots, breeding boars and fending off Greydwarves while awaiting your return.

Originally posted by Zathabar:

Honestly? These forums are the most interesting thing for me right now....

Games a delight to look at especially with a texture pack; but I've got 600+hours on it and done every boss multiple times, prolly wont play till SOME kind of new content arrives but its too good NOT to watch for those changes. So forum sniping it is ;)

Greetings

Planning to buy the game in this summer sale, that texture pack comes with the game? it's like an addon or some third party mod? please advise, thanks for your help!

Originally posted by Favret:

Originally posted by Zathabar:

Honestly? These forums are the most interesting thing for me right now....

Games a delight to look at especially with a texture pack; but I've got 600+hours on it and done every boss multiple times, prolly wont play till SOME kind of new content arrives but its too good NOT to watch for those changes. So forum sniping it is ;)

Greetings

Planning to buy the game in this summer sale, that texture pack comes with the game? it's like an addon or some third party mod? please advise, thanks for your help!

It is a third party mod unsupported by the devs.
Devs do not actively support modding at all although they don't try to prevent it either.
Modding is done at your own risk using third party software etc. I personally don't mod at all.

Textures for things up close I do not find bad... I rarely even notice and don't tend to keep zoomed in all the way. The environment is beautiful without any mods.
The textures are for when zoomed in .. but frankly even if I did like modding I wouldn't put the strain on my machine for the visual and rather have in game performance/movement smoothness.

Different challenges I set myself. 2nd play through was a speed run, then did no portals, messed around on MP for a bit and now doing no maps no portals. Next one I will use a mod to turn up the mob difficulty substantially with no maps / no portals and then whatever this community thinks of next, I will follow like a sheep.

These days I play almost exclusively with no portals and either permadeath or a limited lives house rule. Every run is unique, the game throws different sets of challenges and every session I end up experiencing something new. Like yesterday, when in early swamp era, kited an abomination out of the swamps and into the meadows where a veritable horde of neckers and a number of insane boars helped me kill him off with me only using fire arrows.

Players who say no portals is just making things longer by running the same route over and over just have no idea. For a trip of any real length I'm lucky if I come close to repeating the same path and count myself fortunate if things go smoothly. Quite often things don't go smoothly and that is where the epic portions of the journeys occur.

For an old rogue-like player like me, this game comes closer to achieving the holy grail of infinite replay-ability than most.

Great OP post btw...
"Play at my pace.!!! :-) " (edit: vanilla btw)
.. no grind like LostArk / War Thunder et al.. no manic attacks like Frozenheim..and zillions of world builder sims.. actual story thread (though minimalist) unlike Genshin and Lostark.. where its just a never ending sequence of unrelated stories.. my mission is to stay on one map and not explore too much so devs can .. well... develop the game :-) oh and no lights on while playing.. soon to move to headset sound as well..love being scared with low stam-health while mining something!!! and loving world daybreaks and dusks!! "Chill-axing"

I consider myself a "new" player, compared to a lot of other folks here on the forum. I've played 529 hours so far, and enjoyed every moment of it. My (adult) daughter and I were looking for something "new" to play and she asked if I'd ever played Valheim (knowing that I love survival/building/crafting games). I had not, so I got it and we started playing together. I fell in love with it immediately... the starting from scratch, building my first square box of a hut and trying not to die of smoke inhalation. Punching boars in the face because I forgot to equip my flint axe. Having a tree almost kill me when it landed on my head. Death by boar, drowning, setting myself on fire, falling off cliffs, packs of graydwarfs discouraging me from finding copper, then flat-out killing me when I did find it... and they brought Shaman friends. My daughter was the builder and I'd go out for materials, and we had an amazing time.... so I bought my son-in-law a computer and he started playing with us. My husband, not wanting to be left out bought himself a gaming computer and we decided it was time to get a server hosted because we didn't want to depend on any one person being in-game in order for the rest of us to play in our world we were creating. Then I gifted the game to my son and his wife. So now it's the 6 of us, having the times of our lives. Building, exploring, weekly dungeon runs, mining silver, clearing frost caves and all the fun stuff we can do together.

In between the expeditions, we all go our separate ways and work our own bases. Taming animals, growing crops, cooking food, making potions, sorting/organizing everything, smelting ore.... and when we just want to relax, we sit by the firepit I made at my "base" by a little inlet overlooking the ocean, with the sunset gleaming across the waters.... and just chat with each other in Discord. My daughter and her husband live on my property in their little house, but my son is in the Army and he and his wife are stationed in another state. My husband travels a lot for work, so it's nice when he comes home and we can all play together.

Valheim is an incredibly fun game... but it's not just a game for us, it's family time. It's not my first EA game, so I'm not going to get grumpy about new content not coming fast enough. As long as the Devs are still actively working on the game.... whether it's fixing bugs or creating new content, I'm fine with that. I didn't come into this game with a desire or need to "beat the game". I came because I enjoy exploring and building/crafting/farming and having critters. There are infinite maps (as far as I can tell), and there's an adventure waiting on every one of them.

I love the atmosphere, the weather effects, sailing during storms, the grind and stocking up on supplies with farming, hunting and foraging and most importantly I absolutely love the building system.

1800hrs here... things that keep me playing..

1. World crafting - the environment is just beautiful and dynamic, sounds.. everything is just done so well.

2. How casual it is - I am not out to prove anything in a video game, I just want to have fun. I am glad I don't need a team for a boss fight or they are so aggressive you need to swap aggro constantly to avoid a team wipe etc. Things like that will prevent me from playing again or playing in the first place. Remnant from the ashes is a good example of that, I finished the game and don't want to start again and wipe my progress since the boss fights were practically impossible solo.. so I'll probably never play it again even though I completed it and enjoyed it.

Basically waiting for something new to catch my eye while I play what I currently find most fun.. swapping between Valheim and Kerbal Space Program mostly. Really good games are so rare anyway so I just enjoy the ones I have.

I'm just waiting for the full release so I can do one more (probably final) playthrough.

I'm still building my huge ass settlement, I still need to fill it out. Then I have plans for another one. Been working on it on and off for over a year.

I LOVE the building aspect of the game so I enjoy surveying the land and exploring to find suitable areas to build big (and little) projects and then... yeah, basically everything else that you enjoy about it. I love tinkering in my home base, making sure my stores a full, that I have multiple sets of armour just in case I do something silly and can't rescue my stuff, farming lox, playing with my pet sea danger noodle, etc.

I am looking forward to the Mistlands update very much, but really only from an exploration viewpoint. I just hope we can tame the hares. :)

Honestly? These forums are the most interesting thing for me right now....

Games a delight to look at especially with a texture pack; but I've got 600+hours on it and done every boss multiple times, prolly wont play till SOME kind of new content arrives but its too good NOT to watch for those changes. So forum sniping it is ;)

Greetings