Been navigating the new content solo since dec 6th & am disappointed it will be modified.
Initial setbacks were many. We did not defeat Yagluth [to avoid triggering seeker raids on our home bases in the plains], so navigation was treacherous without the wisplight. Enemies were more difficult than anything I was used to in terms of mobility & raw damage. It was far easier to unexpectedly die in a split moment from a flurry of hits than in the plains. What's worse, my typical method of setting up portal-safehouses [digging into a boulder & building a raised stone front] was not at all safe in the Mistlands. Seekers flew over my fortifications & destroyed my only portal on the continent, causing huge setbacks. At one point we even rolled back our server.
But the Mistlands were awe-inspiring from the start. Alien vegetation & a purple sky; peaks and valleys stalked by man-sized insects & strewn with the corpses of giants. The palpable fear of death made each run memorable & intense; death is penalized far more severely here than in any souls game. After a few days of play, I became accustomed to operating there. An escape route must always be marked & kept in mind. To that end, campfires can be seen through the mist, helping to navigate while preventing enemy spawns; if they are placed as one explores, the Mistlands become progressively safer. It is now possible to farm & explore without much interruption from enemies in the areas previously visited. Dungeons can be spotted from atop the giant stone peaks everywhere.
With some time devoted to amassing the best pre & post update food items and fully upgraded padded armor/frostner, all the new [ground] mobs are easily dealt with once their behavior is learned. In open space, their patterns are exploitable; in dungeons they can be individually kited back to the entrance & killed, retreating thru the door if necessary. NEVER fight on uneven terrain (for there is usually not enough stamina to position/flee & attack). I have not spent time learning to fight gjall yet; I have them killed by kiting them back to dverger bases. Here is some recent footage of a search for new dungeon/clearing it .
After all this, I was sad to hear about the nerfs to enemy behavior etc. Not only because they are currently very fight-able, even alone & under-geared… but also because having seekers circle instead of come close to attack will make them more, not less difficult to deal with.
The raid nerf makes a bit more sense, as there are no means to protect bases against flying mobs [& it is illogical to place the burden to do so upon players who did not design their bases with this in mind]. But at the same time, it is sad there will NEVER be seeker raids at my plains base. Given that trigger conditions for all the raids can currently be controlled in-game, perhaps this was best left as-is; why not just kill yagluth after the queen or on a different map to avoid [seeker raids] if you wish? We kept drakes from killing our boars by completing moder before bonemass in this same manner.
Meanwhile the singular change that would make perfect sense is absent: ballistae still target friendlies.
This post has been meandering, but I suppose I would like to express my disappointment at the nerfs. The design of Mistlands stood out to me as a long-time player of this game & I am sad the incredibly careful, satisfying approach this content required, mainly due to the multitude/aggressiveness of enemies & new threats to home bases, will be mitigated.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/zpywaa/love_the_update_sad_to_hear_about_the_upcoming/
