4Game

So let me start by saying that anything I say in this post, is not a critique or something I think of as being bad or even things that should change. I just simply do not enjoy it. Also, let me add that I started playing Valheim after I was told it was like a 3D Terraria, a game that I have thousands of hours in and would likely call my favorite game ever. I didn't even buy Valheim, it was gifted to me with that description. So I had 0 expectations other than the ones I was given.

Okay, so let's just run down my list. And if you want to tell me to just Get Gud, don't bother, and just go ahead and tell me that this game is not for me instead.

I can't stand dying. This is my biggest issue. I have nearly 100 hours in Valheim, across so many different saves. I'll have a ton of fun in the early game, when things aren't so hard, or whatever. But the instant I die, lose everything, run back, and die again, that's it. Save is dead. It's just not fun to me to run back and forth over and over again, knowing that each time I fuck up getting my shit back I am being punished even more each time. Portals don't help much at all in terms of maintaining enjoyment for me. The issue isn't the distance, it's the dying repeatedly causing me to lose a bunch of skills, or having to make multiple full sets of armor and weapons again just to survive the trek meaning I have to grind for more materials at which point my items may as well just permanently break upon death. I think it's mostly a mental thing. Nothing turns me off from a game more than the feeling of losing progress. It's why I don't like rougelikes. It's just so immensely frustrating to me.

I really don't care for the sailing. I don't have anything to add to that, I just find it extremely boring and uninteresting. It reminds me of Wind Waker, having long stretches of blue with little to no content to experience while you're actually on the boat. I imagine that has a lot to do with being a mostly solo player. I have no idea how it works with others but hopefully I'd imagine they could contribute to rowing, to speed things up a bit? And also just the fact that you can keep each other company, which would undoubtedly help.

And lastly, I find the game just massively grindy. And in many ways just outright disrespectful of my time. This is definitely a petty thing but why does it take 30 minutes to tame a boar? I'm probably MASSIVELY wrong, and if so THANK GOD. But as far as I'm aware, you have to be near the boars while they acclimate? Like right up against their pen? I tried leaving them alone and coming back and their tameness didn't increase when I tried that on my earliest saves. And so what I've done on every save since is stand right there for half an hour while I did real life chores. Absolutely riveting gameplay.

The portals not letting you transfer ores bothers me on a narrative or lore aspect but it makes sense with the intended gameplay loop as far as I can tell. Exploring, establishing bases, and exploiting the natural resources. That sorta thing. It's just that everytime I teleported in my full bronze armor, with my bronze tools, and then I pick up some rock and the game says "nope you can't teleport with metal" it feels so confusing and jarring. It doesn't feel like there's any reason for it to happen other than arbitrary gameplay restrictions. This is the least of my issues though honestly, I think there should just be one of those big runestones or whatever explaining that you're like refining the evil energy or some shit out of the ore. Just some lore or narrative explanation other than "those rocks can't go in the circle."

The reason I'm so fed up over these things though is because I love every other aspect of Valheim. The aesthetic, the building, the music, the (land) exploration, all of that. It sucks to find so much enjoyment in those elements and be so turned off by the things I find intrusive. I would mod the game, if that's an option. I know there either was an update, or it's on the way, so I assume most mods are currently out of date or will be very soon.

Edit: I downloaded a couple mods and tweaked them to my liking. ValheimPlus and ServerSyncDeathTweaks. Too many things in ValheimPlus to mention, but in DeathTweaks I set it to keep my equipped and hotkeyed items. I think that this is a happy medium to keep the intended feel of the difficulty while removing most of the tedium. I kept skill loss enabled as if I'm keeping equipment, I should lose something more than just wood and stone.