Originally posted by Augoeides:

Originally posted by Macdallan:

Yep, they fixed something that wasn't intended in the first place. There's never been a need for excessive terraforming anyway.

90% of the time I spend playing these games is building elaborate structures I can be proud of, whether they're practical or not. I like to have a place that attaches me to the game, and excites me to come home to after exploring, plus the drive to advance the game, so I can make more elaborate additions to my home.

To me, making the game needlessly grindy for what your both describing as "excessive" and pointless, is only more confusing, because if the terraforming has such little effect on progression and gameplay, then there was no need to remove it in the first place. Plenty of mechanics in other games started out as "bugs" that were eventually accepted as features. The combo system that is featured in pretty much every fighting game to date, is the result of a "bug" in the original Street Fighter, that allowed people to land multiple hits in succession.

Anyway, if I'm going to dump 100+ hours into building a castle, I don't see any reason to make me mine stone or whatever for hundreds more hours than I have to, for no reason. Making a game more tedious doesn't make it more fun or immersive. Worse yet, I have OCD and perfectionism, so I frequently tear down walls or entire structures, if the symmetry is wrong or "weird", which means more grinding.

The only reason to fix the "bug", would be game balance in multiplayer, except Valheim isn't a PvP-oriented game, it's a sandbox. And last I checked, building is what you do in a sandbox.

Even in a SP game there needs to be balancing. It's good now. Regarding how grindy it is - opinions differ.

If you tear down a building, you'll get all your building materials back, so it's forgiving in that regard.
If all you want is to build - you can use mods or commands to give you resources and skip all 'grindy' parts. It's a SP game so no one would care.
If you want the intended game experience, you'll have to gather resources as intended, it's a part of the game. Most resources for buildings come fairly easy, but there's a progression to it, so you won't be able to build castles from the start. ..unless you're using mods.

The fixed bug, I didn't even notice. I terraform a bit to flatten the land or raise seafloor for bridges, but it's fairly easy and this part doesn't require any particular grind imo. Castle walls and floor require more stone and grind in the end, at least for me.