Mistlands is Unfun
I like Valheim. I could overlook a bunch of inconvenient game mechanics because the game was fun, however mistlands completely breaks it for me.
Mistlands specific complaints.
Remember to keep these points in mind when thinking about the next complaint. Alone, these individual complaints are not so bad; together is what makes this content something hard to enjoy.
• Enemies are ridiculously strong; there's no point of "blocking" when you are forced to perfect guard.
• Add in the atrocious lag, assuming because it's still public test, this is even more punishing than it should be.
• Makes the skill loss even more punishing.
• Losing ALL gear makes it even worse.
• The visibility loss is an unfun mechanic.
• It wouldn't be so bad if it was to hinder you as you initially explore the mistlands.
• The wisplight only pushes back mist from IT'S location; as you move and it trails behind you, it means you're barely able to see anything ahead of you.
• You NEED benches to put down wisp torches that then only push back mist in a 6m radius.
• Dying here is even worse than any other area due to the mist and losing your wisplight upon death. Keeping multiples is also needlessly annoying as they will not stack in boxes, so even if you recover it, great, you ultimately wasted materials, time and chest space.
• Visibility loss and enemies being unaffected by terrain is awful. Combine this with lag, needing to perfect block and sliding down terrain because you need to recover stamina/chug mead like a raging alcoholic is just tedious. Wolves were bad in the mountains, but at least you weren't dealing with a constant visual debuff unless there was an active blizzard.
• Strong enemies requiring elemental attributes to deal decent damage creates powercreep.
• Really like those fists? Screw you, seekers are resistant, deal ton of damage, have a quick headbutt and require perfect guard. Better switch to an elemental weapon or bring a mage friend.
• Reading other threads and comments, apparently the mistwalker just takes care of everything, so why bother with anything else?
• Raise Dead seems extremely undertuned for mistland content.
• Staff of Protection's bubble is extremely nice, however, its small range makes keeping a party alive an endeavor.
• Magic in general is both very strong and underwhelming.
• Outside of mistland, mages trivialize enemies for the most part.
• Inside of mistlands, everything is a damage sponge while MP costs are high given how much damage things take.
• Meads in general have a very short duration with a large cooldown, given the other problems. The best mead looks to be lingering stamina. Eitr mead is the most underwhelming, especially if you are caught against a group of seekers and there's a ** or *** in that group.
• False choice of friendly dvergr.
• If you want to engage with the magic system, you are forced to turn a settlement or two hostile.
• The magic system in general has too many barriers.
• You cannot cast magic without having mistland food. Even if you have gear, you always have the innate eitr of 0.
• Ballistas are hostile to everything and have the slowest firing rate I have ever seen. A complete waste of time and resources.
• I watched a low level greyling just sidestep the missile and couldn't help but facepalm.
• Cannot attune to a ballista to set it to not fire at the person who set it down; why can't you attune similar to the warden? Unlike V Rising, this is not a PvX game, it's survival. The only change I read about it was its radius/range of fire, not who it attacks, so I assume this is still the same since the minor patch.
Non-Mistland Specific Gripes.
• Livestock are a pain to transport and require needless amounts of finessing to move.
• Basically, get a boat, put it against an incline, push animal into boat. Sail off to your base.
• Why is there no barge or something for transporting them? Especially if you have a seed that you like, but say, you want a wolf, but the land you made your base on has no mountain, you are now forced into finessing two wolves onto a boat and hoping nothing dumb happens (like them walking off and into the water).
• Cannot easily configure servers.
• Tired of using a boat to transport metal and want to allow it through portals? Tough luck! Finding the server config to change this setting is hard to find and rife with misleading guides.
• However, going to a single player file and abusing devcommands there and bringing material back is still more readily available, making a reason to not make server config easier to access a questionable decision.
Obligatory, I don't care if a design choice was intended or not and doesn't excuse it from criticism. If it's not fun, it ultimately makes the game something that sits in your library and unplayed if you bought it and future choices ruin it. Mods shouldn't be needed to fix a decision that was implemented (I guarantee you that a mod to fix the ballista will be made and will be a popular install). Again, I want to point out that any of these complaints when, looked at in a vacuum, are not terrible. It's how they compound against the other that make this content unbearable.
Mistlands specific complaints.
Remember to keep these points in mind when thinking about the next complaint. Alone, these individual complaints are not so bad; together is what makes this content something hard to enjoy.
• Enemies are ridiculously strong; there's no point of "blocking" when you are forced to perfect guard.
• Add in the atrocious lag, assuming because it's still public test, this is even more punishing than it should be.
• Makes the skill loss even more punishing.
• Losing ALL gear makes it even worse.
• The visibility loss is an unfun mechanic.
• It wouldn't be so bad if it was to hinder you as you initially explore the mistlands.
• The wisplight only pushes back mist from IT'S location; as you move and it trails behind you, it means you're barely able to see anything ahead of you.
• You NEED benches to put down wisp torches that then only push back mist in a 6m radius.
• Dying here is even worse than any other area due to the mist and losing your wisplight upon death. Keeping multiples is also needlessly annoying as they will not stack in boxes, so even if you recover it, great, you ultimately wasted materials, time and chest space.
• Visibility loss and enemies being unaffected by terrain is awful. Combine this with lag, needing to perfect block and sliding down terrain because you need to recover stamina/chug mead like a raging alcoholic is just tedious. Wolves were bad in the mountains, but at least you weren't dealing with a constant visual debuff unless there was an active blizzard.
• Strong enemies requiring elemental attributes to deal decent damage creates powercreep.
• Really like those fists? Screw you, seekers are resistant, deal ton of damage, have a quick headbutt and require perfect guard. Better switch to an elemental weapon or bring a mage friend.
• Reading other threads and comments, apparently the mistwalker just takes care of everything, so why bother with anything else?
• Raise Dead seems extremely undertuned for mistland content.
• Staff of Protection's bubble is extremely nice, however, its small range makes keeping a party alive an endeavor.
• Magic in general is both very strong and underwhelming.
• Outside of mistland, mages trivialize enemies for the most part.
• Inside of mistlands, everything is a damage sponge while MP costs are high given how much damage things take.
• Meads in general have a very short duration with a large cooldown, given the other problems. The best mead looks to be lingering stamina. Eitr mead is the most underwhelming, especially if you are caught against a group of seekers and there's a ** or *** in that group.
• False choice of friendly dvergr.
• If you want to engage with the magic system, you are forced to turn a settlement or two hostile.
• The magic system in general has too many barriers.
• You cannot cast magic without having mistland food. Even if you have gear, you always have the innate eitr of 0.
• Ballistas are hostile to everything and have the slowest firing rate I have ever seen. A complete waste of time and resources.
• I watched a low level greyling just sidestep the missile and couldn't help but facepalm.
• Cannot attune to a ballista to set it to not fire at the person who set it down; why can't you attune similar to the warden? Unlike V Rising, this is not a PvX game, it's survival. The only change I read about it was its radius/range of fire, not who it attacks, so I assume this is still the same since the minor patch.
Non-Mistland Specific Gripes.
• Livestock are a pain to transport and require needless amounts of finessing to move.
• Basically, get a boat, put it against an incline, push animal into boat. Sail off to your base.
• Why is there no barge or something for transporting them? Especially if you have a seed that you like, but say, you want a wolf, but the land you made your base on has no mountain, you are now forced into finessing two wolves onto a boat and hoping nothing dumb happens (like them walking off and into the water).
• Cannot easily configure servers.
• Tired of using a boat to transport metal and want to allow it through portals? Tough luck! Finding the server config to change this setting is hard to find and rife with misleading guides.
• However, going to a single player file and abusing devcommands there and bringing material back is still more readily available, making a reason to not make server config easier to access a questionable decision.
Obligatory, I don't care if a design choice was intended or not and doesn't excuse it from criticism. If it's not fun, it ultimately makes the game something that sits in your library and unplayed if you bought it and future choices ruin it. Mods shouldn't be needed to fix a decision that was implemented (I guarantee you that a mod to fix the ballista will be made and will be a popular install). Again, I want to point out that any of these complaints when, looked at in a vacuum, are not terrible. It's how they compound against the other that make this content unbearable.
6:13 pm, December 4, 2022