No Portal playthrough reaction and notes.

This was the last harvest before setting sail to the final boss. Never did I return here.

First I'd like to preface this and state that I've played 1174.5 hours on Valheim as of today. Three complete playthroughs, lots of building and fishing. First time solo and blind. Second time with a friend group of 3 to 7. Third time solo no portal. Many false starts, experiments and short lived Hard Core runs. So surly all this played time has given me much more insight into planning a No Portal playthrough than a new player would have. So please take this into account when understanding my point of view and reactions.

If you don't use portals, boats and carts become really cool. Portals are obviously better and make the boats/carts feel like a stupid chore. Ultimately leading to questions like "why can't I just teleport ore instead". Questioning the very development of the gameplay loops existent in Valheim.

Without them your strategy will change, become much more linear. Nomadic. Instead of building one central mega base with fast travel hub. You will take what you can carry after you beat a boss and push onto the next continent. Not just build a small base, but rebuilding completely. You recover all martials from work/crafting stations so no need to farm for those mats again. Just build up until you feel comfortable. Then start searching for that next boss marker. Rinse and repeat.

I'd say it lengthens the game and that time is spent mostly building. And for me that's really what's special and fun about this game. Landing on a foreign shore and digging in. Carving out a new homestead. Only staying long enough to slay the boss. Then off to another adventure.

Also I never had to do any serious corpse runs. Because I wasn't over extending into areas without support. Getting a portal that I dropped on a shore smashed. Getting killed and spawned back at the sacrificial stones. Beds/camps become a much bigger mechanic you use as well.