Originally posted by bacon:

valheim exists in a fantasy universe; there's a giant tree branch in the sky and you start the game being carried by a giant bird woman, after all. but at its core, it's an intuitive and fairly realistic survival game. gather resources, build shelter, eat good food and perform better, explore, fight, improve.

magic introduces arbitrary and non-intuitive design. find the mcguffin and put it in the other mcguffin to craft the mcguffin item. the design becomes unbound, no longer grounded in any real allegory. cooking food in a cauldron, being able to craft different things with hard vs regular wood, weaving linen, etc. are all real things that have intuitive benefit to a survivor.

like the devs said in the rock paper scissors video, magic is "just ranged with particle effects." the look of the mistlands is now glaring and cartoony instead of understated and immersive. people already used to complain about the draugr fang glow, which looks like nothing now compared to the garish purples, blues, and oranges from the trailer footage we've seen.

i will give grimmcore credit for telegraphing for a few weeks now that people will either "love or hate" the direction. like everyone else, i will play it, but i feel let down.

i also think it doesnt make sense from a progression perspective to introduce an entirely new mechanic in the 6th and now final biome. magic, just like other aspects, like cooking, mining, archery, melee, building, sailing, etc. needs to be brought along slowly, teased out. now, theres no magic for 5 biomes, and then suddenly the 6th biome is overly geared towards magic. seems forced and artificial. they should have introduced some minor magic elements in the earlier biomes to build up the player first.

"more of the same" isnt a bad thing when the game is so good. wasn't looking for this new direction at all, and it doesnt bode well for ashlands and deep north, which will likely have to follow the magic direction to support the usual power creep in biomes.