You know,I wonder if there's a connection to some of the disappointment and when the last time was that someone actually picked this game up and played it. Kind of like how we remember something a certain way in our mind then we come back to it after a length of time and find that it wasn't as charming or enchanting as we recall and become a bit disillusioned.

For my PTB playthrough I found myself moving somewhat briskly through the first 5 biomes as i'd done it quite a few times before. When reaching mistlands I definitely felt my excitement turn to frustration which reminded me of trying to dock in the swamp with dragur, skeletons, leeches and blobs ready to greet you with death. This time it was mist, death blimps, mutant bugs, and deadly terrain.

I had to remind myself several times that there's no reason this should be easier or similar to any previous biome because this was end game. I can see where players get the feeling that mistlands departs too heavily from the previous biomes. It subverts your melee combat style, it pushes you to stack stamina to traverse its terrain, it cuts your sight off and forces you to use other senses to calculate risk, and in some case can just downright dog pile on you if a poor choice was made.

However, in the end I think it highlights the path the devs wanted to go down very well. Magic is the star of the show and it appears we'll see more of it as we move into the last 2 biomes where traversal and enemies will once again require creative solutions to overcome. The new biome does an excellent job presenting a challenge and giving you the tools to overcome it if you can endure the initial difficulty. I do hope the devs continue to push into the more fantastical side of viking lore and give us even more powerful magical items that enhance traversal and combat.

Sorry to anyone that feels disappointment with this update. I know there are a lot of people that thought this was some kind of medieval high fantasy soulslike survival sim or something along those lines. I'm sure there are players who misunderstood this to be some kind of live service game that had big plans for constant ongoing updates and multiplayer expansion. There's people that also think it's a casual base building sim.

As open-ended as valheim can be at times, it cannot be all things to all people without disappointing someone somewhere. For the casual player mistlands feels "too punishing". For the player that overindulged themselves on the game initially, they notice more flaws in the game then they do qualities. To the player who created unrealistic expectations about this update it feels underwhelming to them. For the player that likes the Souls style melee combat of this game mistlands feels like too much of a departure. To the casual base builder mistlands isn't fun to build in "because mist." etc. etc.

In the end valheim has always been a viking power fantasy that pits you against powerful enemies and challenges you to conquer them with the tools you have at your disposal. The challenge increases with each new biome and will continue to do so until the inevitable ending of the game. That's it. There's no broader scope to this project. No big plans to make this some kind of multiplayer hit, base builders dream or open-ended create-your-own viking experience. That's a long way to say that the developers haven't lost sight of what valheim is, you have.

Originally posted by Udrakan:

Intro

Our group of 3 have enjoyed replaying the game again a lot, however after a day in mistlands we are considering to quit.

some points

-the terrain is very cliffy and annoying to run through
-devs still haven't fixed not being able to hit mobs slightly below you
(combines with terrible terrain)
-after a day in the mistlands we have only found 2 dungeons and 3 cores total
-the mist doesn't get cleared fast enough by the wisp when running forward, often leading to running blind in it
-we still have to find 2 cores to craft 1 of the new crafting tables and then 5 more cores for the next one, but we have only looted 3 and are already considering leaving the game

conclusion

It feels like the devs are trying to artificially prolong the time you spend in this last biome and the mechanics and costs seem to be created in a way to annoy player, rather than give interesting obstacles to play around. Exploring this biome is pure suffering composed of waiting for stamina (despite having every stamina boosting thing sorted out), weird movement using viking magnetic boots running up 80° inclines and trying to find small structures in a thick mist, where a mist-revealing item doesn't fly fast enough to catch up with you. This is by far the most annoying biome and I'm considering either uploading the save to a page that shows the location of dungeons or cheating in the cores in SP (especially if friends decide to stop playing, then I'll cheat the cores in and try finishing the last boss on my own).

Art and music of the biome feel alright, but not memorable and a bit similiar to black forest. Mobs are tanky, but don't deal enough damage, so they are mostly nuisances while sprinting through them, looking for the damn cores. Friendlies are a nice new thing.

fin

This forum acts like a school class that has been left unsupervised by the teacher for too long. Don't take it personally.

I have 1.200 hours+, I'm kind of a "fan" - I loved the game from the first minute I logged in, I nearly finished my second Mistlands run, I also like the concept and artdesign of Mistlands, also the difficulty level.

But you are right, the progress system is somehow broken - after my second Mistlands run, this time solo, took my time to make exact notes - differences main game/addon - it's clear.

I think you are missing something that Valheim offered you in pre Mistlands and - I believe - that is the reason why you/many others are annoyed. Valheim developers neglect the core features that create excitement through success competency and value creation and instead add kindergarten features like Magic and Sniper Rifles. Maybe you find my reviews or other posts - I already described this more precisley.

This all could have been delivered as DLC afterwards, why they are doing this now is beyond me, but I think they are done with the game. They have no idea what they're doing anymore, no innovation/ideas or how this is supposed to fit into the main game - they've lost touch with the game, the community and everything around it.

The multiplayer code is still peer-2-peer garbage and from 4-5 players each dedicated server collapses when players are in the same area. And it's advertised as a coop game. This is what I would call a "core" problem, if you want to release it to the X-Box next month... I can't believe any X-Box player is willing to script his dlls for a better game experience.

I almost feared it. I'm so sad about everything.

I think that's it for me with Valheim, too, but it's going to be a long time and a long goodbye - probably many more tries before I completely shelve it.

I had the same feeling with Gothic 3 and the same process. I tried to torture myself back in the days through it 5 more times, as enamored as I was with the game series. Today I still play the 1st and 2nd part, but I don't touch part 3 anymore. It's gone forever. And guess what - Piranha Bytes was gone too and never touched Gothic again.

Takes a little while to figure out how to deal with it but then it's fine, easier than the plains probably and more fun.

I did not like it at first, now it's growing on me. Kinda like the swamp. I DO think a big problem is the inability to hit mobs that are slightly below you due to constantly fighting on unlevel terrain. My solution has been to move the fight to more level terrain....

Originally posted by autumndragonfalling:

Takes a little while to figure out how to deal with it but then it's fine, easier than the plains probably and more fun.

The ♥♥♥♥ no

Originally posted by Crepytor_HD:

Originally posted by autumndragonfalling:

Takes a little while to figure out how to deal with it but then it's fine, easier than the plains probably and more fun.

The ♥♥♥♥ no

Idk man. If I had a choice between a deathsquito proctology exam and my visibility being somewhat cut off i'd choose the later.

Meanwhile the choice is between a slightly annoying bug and having my visibility cut off entirely.

Originally posted by FissionChips:

Meanwhile the choice is between a slightly annoying bug and having my visibility cut off entirely.

They did a really good job on the deathsquito. Just like in real life, when you can see them they're little more than an annoyance. It's when you can't see them as you're running around in your undies trying to get your gear back that they STRIKE. They gain +10 to visibility when naked just like the real ones I swear.

Mistlands would've worked so much better as box canyons than just random cliffs everywhere. It kills the aesthetics just walking into the mists and finding yourself flat faced against a cliff wall. You could've still had the cliffs etc but they would branch out from the main biome area.

Originally posted by fiese Fee™:

Originally posted by Udrakan:

Intro

fin

Yea, just leave it, the challange seems not for you.

True. Cheated the stuff in and beat the boss that way. I will gladly put the game away for another year or so and see if the devs keep confusing hard with annoying.

1. So jump a lot. There's a new stam regen potion.
   
2. Yes, but, pick your ground. There is enough space for fighting.
   
3. Ok, so you expect they took a year to develop a day of content? Seems unlikely.
   
4. The mist is absolute bull and I modded that. I'm not quitting or putting up with not being able to see.
   
5. Once you get 5 cores you can rotate through the new things (like your first kiln/smelter), none are needed to build the others.

It feels like you're trying to speed run the last biome. Which is fine, but,

For mobs on lower levels, equip axe and press middle mouse button, good for those unopened seeker spawn eggs too.

Originally posted by Udrakan:

-the mist doesn't get cleared fast enough by the wisp when running forward, often leading to running blind in it

The wisp seems to be an actual separate entity. It will move ahead of you in the direction you are facing and moving, but the game (like all other games and virtually everything in this world) lacks precognition and cannot predict where you're going to go, so it will lag behind if you change directions a lot. Using the new sword to remove the mist has much smaller area but it's always focused on the player, so you can take your pick.

Overall, planning your actions more carefully will negate all of those problems, especially by the time you can craft the new cape, except bad dungeon loot RNG, which has been present in the game since the beginning. So long as you find at least one core and a fragment in dungeon, it's good.

First mine I visited had 1 core and 3 1-star seekers. I felt that was very unfair and likewise wanted to find another game. But visiting these forums plus some very good YouTube content showed that this was actually just a little below average but not at all unfair. So the second mine had 1 core in the lobby and I was ready to turn around. But there was a room guarded by a 2-star soldier with 3 dverger gates. After about 24 hours of fighting the soldier each of those gates had a room with 3 cores. And I am one of the worst combat players in this game if not the worst so a speedrun is out of the question. It will be very grindy and tedious to a lot of folks who prefer faster paces to the game. At some point IGS will introduce configuration management and that will probably let players and multi-play admins do a lot more customization of the experience. Until then, skol!

Originally posted by Udrakan:

Intro

Our group of 3 have enjoyed replaying the game again a lot, however after a day in mistlands we are considering to quit.

some points

-the terrain is very cliffy and annoying to run through
-devs still haven't fixed not being able to hit mobs slightly below you
(combines with terrible terrain)
-after a day in the mistlands we have only found 2 dungeons and 3 cores total
-the mist doesn't get cleared fast enough by the wisp when running forward, often leading to running blind in it
-we still have to find 2 cores to craft 1 of the new crafting tables and then 5 more cores for the next one, but we have only looted 3 and are already considering leaving the game

conclusion

It feels like the devs are trying to artificially prolong the time you spend in this last biome and the mechanics and costs seem to be created in a way to annoy player, rather than give interesting obstacles to play around. Exploring this biome is pure suffering composed of waiting for stamina (despite having every stamina boosting thing sorted out), weird movement using viking magnetic boots running up 80° inclines and trying to find small structures in a thick mist, where a mist-revealing item doesn't fly fast enough to catch up with you. This is by far the most annoying biome and I'm considering either uploading the save to a page that shows the location of dungeons or cheating in the cores in SP (especially if friends decide to stop playing, then I'll cheat the cores in and try finishing the last boss on my own).

Art and music of the biome feel alright, but not memorable and a bit similiar to black forest. Mobs are tanky, but don't deal enough damage, so they are mostly nuisances while sprinting through them, looking for the damn cores. Friendlies are a nice new thing.

fin

Yea, just leave it, the challange seems not for you.