That place I throw game stuff

Fun game, good game 👍

Can't wait for the north to open up soon :D

Various mismatched and incomplete thoughts on the ashlands and Fader~ Not really critiquing because I'm seconds off my win, just kinda rambling on what I liked or thought :)

Fader was fun! I really dug his fight like the entire time tbh.

I had mentioned that the Queen felt like a return to what the bosses were clearly supposed to be- fights that played well in the gamespace Valheim's combat encourages (parrying and melee primarily) but Fader really doubles down on revealing how limiting Yagluth's moveset so severely made him such a less fulfilling fight For Me (subjective).

Fader ALSO revolves around "get off me" style moves, but unlike Yagluth who links his two cooldowns together in a way that gives you very little uptime- and primarily utilizes a "get off me" move that puts a fire pit under himself and then SITS IN IT REFUSING TO MOVE-

Fader's get off me tools leave you with TONS of opportunities to both make openings- GREED openings- or otherwise have an impact on what's going on in the fight.

Meteors are meteors, on their own no real complaints- I did feel less 'forced off' by Fader's over Yagluth's but that was a prep issue (no fire mead against Yag).

But the big improvement in my eyes comparing this one aspect of both fights is Fader's "fire pit" vs Yag's lol

Yag just drops it on top of himself and says "No fun allowed for 10 seconds".

You can cheese that with mead- but not on higher difficulties and not if you have no mead (obvs).

Fader on the other hand has the classic "The bad falls where you stand- YOU control where the bad is and isn't" mechanic and it feels great!

YOU are in control if the fire is covering all of melee range- you could have dropped it around the perimeter of the arena or walked slower so it didn't cover much area at all! Or the circling one you can run to get out of it etc :D

You can also manipulate the specific "fire spike bad pit" move to help clear out the adds he spawns- it's great!

Beyond that he has enough extra moves like 3 melee attacks (parry bait to keep you in the action! Or dodge bait too) and a fire breath- the benefit of this being that he has 'more to do' so he doesn't just repeat "Spike fire, meteor, spike fire, meteor" similar to how Yag does things- AND, again, you control the spike fire's impact- GREAT FUCKING STUFF!!!!

So Fader was fun as hell. Genuinely had a great time. Ended up running back to my base to refresh rested once but otherwise was a clean fight that I enjoyed quite a bit :)

Now, the Ashlands? A bit more complex but I ain't about to just go "BOOOO" or whatever lol

In truth it did kinda follow a similar difficulty curve as the swamp for me- where it started out ROUGH (hello draugr archers killing me more than any other enemy in the game before I made swamp tier gear) but after getting resources it becomes managable- and once you "finish" the zone it becomes much easier.

The Ashlands is kind of a 'more hardcore' level of the swamp curve that doesn't really hit "easy" so much as "relaxed, but watch out for multi stars". Maybe easy is still the right word if I feel relaxed in it lol, unsure how to describe it.

The entrance SUCKED, but in a shock the system way that I found some real enjoyment in- but I wouldn't say getting feint attacked by warriors for a stagger lock combo with another enemy was 'fun', or that I'm particularly looking forward to the stress of beaching your ship on future plays lol- just that it was nice having a difficulty bump 'overall'.

I liked how progression was spread around a lot more here than I did the mistlands.

The mists locked all progress behind getting 5 cores, THEN you're allowed to have fun.

The Ashlands give you a few avenues of progress in a small selection of ways that felt nice.

Land and get some wood and stone? NEW BUILDING STUFF!

Go into a cave? STONE PORTALS!

Kill any normal enemy? NEW AMMO!

Kill any fauna? UPGRADED FOOD! (immediately, btw, even killing a serpent just gets you good grilled food immediately, more after getting flametal for lvl 6 cauldron)

Mine some metal? TONS OF UPGRADES ALL OVER THE PLACE

Do a fort (late game for the region) NEW UPGRADES TO WEAPONS- AND UPGRADES FOR GEAR IN GENERAL (lvl up your black forge)

And then of course tack another upgrade on killing some valkyre.

The only bottleneck they have is the bloodstone being the only of the 3 gems that 'matters' to upgrade your forge- and that being RNG in forts. But that bottleneck is still only locking away 1 level of gear if I recall correctly- I think you can still slot gems before that but even then- you can still MAKE good gear before that.

Ashlands sprinkles new little buffs all over the content as opposed to locking all of it behind 1 item (and then sprinkling it 'lightly' over 1 mine 1 'farm adjacent' and bug parts).

AND I LOVE THE MISTLANDS LOL

Just really shows how GOOD and SPREAD OUT progression can be for a zone lol

Directly after the bottleneck zone you get THE ASHLANDS.

You feel 'at risk' longer in the ashlands than I'm used to in zones, because the quantity (and quality when stars are concerned) of enemies is ABSURD. Like ABSURD ABSURD lol

But that's also kind of the fun of it once you finally climb that flametal and gemstone grind and get some fully upgraded things on ya.

also pseudo cheesing a bit by slapping tons of campfires randomly 'near' my bases to lighten things up ever so slightly

I would mostly just say it's an oppressive zone, but a fun one. And the progression design is WONDERFUL here.

Overall I'd say the Ashlands is probably one of my favorite zones. It's hard not to be when it's SO DIFFERENT just in how it assaults you lol

But if I were nitpicking, I'd mostly just say charred warriors are assholes when they are double starred and no amount of high end gear and great food changes that lol, ouch.

A bit of a toothless criticism but this was never aiming to be a criticism- it was me saying what I enjoyed about the ashlands and more specifically Fader himself.

Fader was a fuckin' delight.

Because if someone was more prepared or luckier or had a different reaction to the swarm I encountered they might not see it as much.

And if they were worse off they might see it as frustrating.

But for me, I had this tense pull up to the shore, only for the second I landed- all hell broke loose.

Running, trying to grab some of the supplies I put in the boat (couldn't get it all!), fighting tons of things, running more, throwing down a makeshift portal, taking a breath at home, coming back and doing a dash back to the boat-

boat gone (destroyed)

The Fight For The Boat Grave begins

Finally I start throwing down chests and the like in an effort to save everything from the boat crates

It gets a couple points for being like, 'creative'? or "almost diegetic" in its design like all the parts of the equation just incidentally exist so the system exists almost like it spawned from the ether?

Like there is definitively a 'fishing system' at play, but it really just feels like "There are fish models over there, I want to push or pull them over here, and fishing 'kinda' helps 'kinda'."

It feels more like fish are there, coincidentally. And the rod exists, more or less.

So there's fishing.

End of design.

Genuinely feels more rewarding just gaming the system by using the much more robust and thoroughly "designed" building systems to build your way into accidentally catching fish.

Mistlands was a delight!

I just finished it up a bit ago, I've just been gathering some more eitr and marble for fun before sailing out to see the Ashlands.

love my silly eitr box.

I'm sure, logically, it makes more sense to just build it in the open (like my first "temp" one) to let all the sparks go into open air- but I think it's funnier to go "Oh that's my magic hurt box. I whack it with a hammer every once in a while because of all the sparks inside."

Anywho- my thoughts on the mistlands- I overall enjoyed it a ton.

Both the Plains and the Mistland had a good 'shift' in how progression goes compared to just "Go grab metal and make stuff" but both also had some things I'd put a notch on and say could be better lol

The Plains has the whole "Where the fuck is the boss" issue where the stone just doesn't exist (I stand by it should be attached to fuling villages and not fuckin' stonehenges lol).

And the Mistlands has a weird progression wall which definitely did make the experience lesser than it could have been. Like I liked it a lot, PROBABLY my favorite region so far, but just looking at it from the end point I'd have had much more fun if I was "allowed" to use the toys for more of the experience lol

Black Cores being hidden in dungeons that are sometimes difficult to find (My first mist APPEARS to have only had 1 or 2 dungeons total with less than 5 cores despite being BIG, my boss mistlands had plenty of them- mostly around the shore)- and ALL progression toys being locked behind ONE item, kind of diminished how much playing around you're afforded until you've either lucked out or spent a little too long exploring.

this is workshop-able. Maybe adding a 'new' dvergr lantern that's extremely visible and spawns on the mine tiles exclusively, or maybe something 'in' the mines naturally disperses the mist around the mine so you look for the clear spots- but I really don't know- it's like a half issue- I think it's a problem that it bottlenecks ALL toys and that they spawn infrequently inside already difficult to find dungeons- but ehhhhhhhhh. Maybe it'd be better without that block, maybe it's not that big a deal, I'm one to say it'd probably be more fun if you didn't have one item locking all crafting.

I don't hate it, again- potentially my favorite zone so far.

It just kinda made a big chunk of my mistlands experience be "Using plains stuff and desperately looking for a needle in the mist-haystack."

Moving on from that though- there's some stuff I really really like about this zone :D

Some basic stuff!

Mining is a delight!

They took the "Mine under a big vein and then hit it once to shatter it all" mechanic and made naturally occurring 'veins' that are perfectly shaped to make that happen.

To be fair, the 'veins' in the mistlands that I'm on about aren't really progression-y. You need to mine soft tissue, which isn't conducive to this 'mechanic'- but IS still a fun resource to gather.

I'm positively speaking about the marble itself- a building material rather than a primary crafting one- and the ribcages are DIRECTLY MADE to provide that shatter rush lol

Big fan.

Also the sap- I appreciate that resource and how it feels like a twist on farming.

I also kinda dig how it requires you to get some metals into the area- because nearly every mist I've run into is alongside some plains, so you can pretty reasonably set it all up without thinking about doing a big boat trip or having pre-cognition (being told a tip or having played it before).

I dig the giant weapons, I dig the visuals, I didn't really dig the landscape At First but the second you get a feather cape I dug that too (Toss the jump mead on there and pop deer forsaken and you just have a delightful time jumping around).

Oh and luring bugs into the Dvergr is fun.

I wish I'd had noticed that I could make the black metal pick earlier too- I didn't notice that until I had 5 cores already and I could have been gathering a TON of marble and soft tissue but alas- I can do that now lol

What else. Oh, the boss! And the enemies in general I suppose.

The bugs- I like them, fun to fight, fun to parry, good stuff.

The morrowind reject Gjall, I liked them until I swapped to the root chest (Good tip btw) then I dreaded them whenever I wasn't pocketing a fire mead lol

That too- I dug how this region was the first to encourage me to do a mix set from a prior region.

I was doing just fine with full padded, I have died in this region like 3 times and 2 of them were "I went through a portal and got spawn camped with my weapon unequiped or because I didn't eat because I was dumb), but I was curious if I could make it even safer since I fell low a good couple times when confronting starred bugs-

Root chest made that a non issue. I enjoy that, thinking and paying attention to what past equipment did- noice.

Anywho- the boss was a great time, enjoyed all her moves, honestly I think she's a bit of a relief to me.

Because Yagluth's design was highly hostile to direct face to face skill expression lol Not necessarily a bad thing to be different at all, but I did not dig the 'options' that seemed most likely to be effective when I felt, I guess entitled? to be given a fair wack at things in melee range?

Yagluth has no parryable attack to better manage your health/stamina, it's all magic and 2 of them are just "You have to move now or you'll burn to death (unless cheese)".

I think 2 get off me moves that both buy him time which burns the cooldowns on said get off me moves is a bit much.

You can end up in a loop like I did where uptime is a myth! lol

So Yagluth kinda seems like a guy you either cheese with mead (I would have lol), or mindlessly shoot until he dies- well or truly learn his AI and exploit it by forcing lasers for openings or whatever. SKILL ISSUE, I HAVE NOT SAT DOWN TO "SOLVE" HIM BECAUSE I ONE SHOT HIM ANYWAY SO WHO CARES lol

I'm not saying the guy had no openings- rather I'm saying his moveset feels incomplete and his 2 get off me moves 'pseudo' link together to force no opening while burning through his own "get off me" cooldowns lol

I had no fun fighting that guy because his moveset and whatever luck I ran into made a head on fight tedious as hellllllllll.

Queen?

Queen is a much more normal fight lol

Can you parry?

Then you can enjoy the benefits of parrying and just beat the shit out of her and have a good time lol

Enough rambling for now- zone was really fun! I like it!

I'm gathering some more eitr so I can maybe play with the magic stuff in the ashlands!

Also to upgrade my stuff lol- I accidentally didn't make any mechanical springs the whole time I was here- so I beat the zone with level 2 stuff because you can't make the 2nd black forge upgrade without springs lol

So need eitr~ Gotta go grab some tissue and marble :)

In the Plains it felt like 15 minutes after arriving I had finished all my progression and was "ready for the boss", only for the next day+ of playtime being slogging through exploring multiple plains desperately looking for the boss or his stone.

The "Get better gear! Get better food! Unlock more building options!" phase of the Plains was HIGHLY MEGA ULTRA ACCELERATED because it's basically just "Did you kill some goblins? Clear a tar pit? You got everything! Congrats!"

Sure, there's some very literal farming involved, but you get what I mean. It was fast.

The Mistlands though, where the fuck are these mines lol

I found 1 mine after all my exploration so far and it IMMEDIATELY gave me a stone telling me where the boss is.

It also, through the entire mine (smaller one), had ONE core (a couple boss summon items too but one core).

Progression in the mistlands (IE: Getting better gear and being able to improve your stuff) is locked behind making the new crafting tables.

Which all require 5 cores a pop (you can repurpose the initial 5 but you need 5).

So instead of ALL THE PROGRESSION.... where boss?

I have ZERO PROGRESSION ALLOWED FOR YOU! Anyways, here's the boss if you want :)

lol

Looks cool, on paper I like his simple moveset, fun music.

In practice I ran into a fuckin' AI loop that made that the slowest, slog as hell, boring as shit fight ever made.

I could have prep'd against it, brought a ton of good arrows and just made it a different kind of slog, or apparently if you're playing under hard/very hard you can cheese him with fire resist- but "slog or cheese" isn't a great dichotomy lol

Like I agree, I like prep, I do prep- I'm just saying a 'straight forward, counter his moveset' approach feels good every time and I'm not putting down how fun being an archer in games can be, but if a boss exists that comes down to "Just stand away and pepper it until you win" that's not you 'doing' it most of the time- even Moder you shoot her plenty but then what? SHE LANDS, AND YOU PLAY THE GAME AND COUNTER HER ATTACKS AND IT'S A BETTER FIGHT FOR IT LOL

MY experience was "Run in and hit him 1 time, he does the get off me fire move, move away. The fire disperses I hit him 1 time he does his OTHER get off me meteor attack, I avoid it. The cooldown for his first get off me attack is now over so the process repeats FOREVER."

There were obviously some "roar for mildly annoying adds" or "shoot a laser that sometimes is an opportunity to attack and sometimes I'm positioned so I just have to avoid it" but 90% of that slog of a fight was just "1 hit, GET OFF ME, 1 hit, GET OFF ME, 1 hit, CD over so GET OFF ME"

Laaaaaame experience.

Again, I feel like the tiniest adjustments, like having the 2 get off me attacks share a cooldown and giving him a fallback "swipe" attack to use when you're too close but he can't use his get off me moves would be infinitely better.

It'd also give the player some basic skill expression where you can parry or dodge the swipe to better take advantage of the opening.

But instead my entire fight was just running in circles because his cooldowns kept lining up- trying to entice him to use them next to each other so I'd get an IMMENSE like 3 seconds to hit him before one of the cooldowns finished- and then like 3 times in the fight where I got behind him and was finally allowed to hit him for more than a second lol

SO CLOSE. Not a fun fight for me. TINY ADJUSTMENTS and bam I think he'd be there for me, but whether it was luck, or a skill issue where I should have recognized an opening I don't feel like I was getting (I mean hehas like 3 attacks and a roar, not sure what opening I missed other than ai manipulating him to stack cooldowns or getting behind him) IDK

Skill issue or whatever.

He didn't kill me though lol

Just bored the shit out of me as I ran in a circle for a year.

SO CLOSE, but what's here added up to a not fun deal. Damn.

Yagluth or whatever is driving me up a wall in a way all the prior bosses didn't, and looking into it, they SINCERELY need to rework how his boss stone spawns, this is horrendous.

It should spawn in the little goblin towns! At a high if not 100% chance like what the hell, bud!

What do you MEAN it's like a fucking 0% chance spawn at the stonehenge POIs???

I've explored like 12 of those with nothing!

I've thoroughly explored A METRIC TON of plains in my world!

DAYS of gameplay dedicated to this search!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN

The stone needs to spawn more, full stop lol

For literally every prior boss I knew where the boss was and usually I was at the doorstep BEFORE fully maxing out 'progression' for that zone.

I finished progression for the plains like 33 REAL LIFE HOURS OF GAMEPLAY ago! AND STILL CAN'T FIND THE ARENA OR STONE.

THAT'S NOT COOL. lol

I was avoiding using any outside help- I heard Valheim has a world save upload map deal like a handful of other games, but jeeeeeeeez, MAYBE, DUDE.

It isn't some "wow, you made the game unplayable" decision or nothin', it's just an inconvenience and one that can be 'improved' in the future if it's ever deemed a real issue-

but the specific outcome I've landed on, which was made statistically more likely to happen based on their RNG decisions- isn't the most fun way to interact with the plains!

Entering the new biome, having the fun progression phase, then being fully upgraded- having NOTHING LEFT to grind in the area, HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS OF BLACKSTEEL, CHESTS FULL OF TAR FOR FUTURE DECORATIONS- and then look around and go "Huh.... wait a minute. Where the fuck is the boss?"

Dumb outcome lol

I'm just salty I can't find the goober. I'm debating on using the save deal and just looking up the nearest one because this is getting a bit ridiculous. I've been nearly to the extremes of my world and found all the merchants and all that jazz- every plains I circle around to see if I spot some fingers, then I hop on and explore all the stonehenges and still eludes me.

Knowing my particular luck, now that I've complained about it I'll find it on the next plains I check lol

Lancer's favorite food is fried rice :)