4Game

Context

Campfires are often recommended to use to suppress mobs as they are smaller, and much easier to hide compared to workbenches, and they don't aggro mobs.

The wiki corroborates this:

Most player base structures are attacked on sight by hostile enemies that can path to them. Only exceptions are campfires, bonfires, and both kinds of brazier.

I myself, like many other experienced players, give this advice endlessly in every thread I can to help people unaware, to save them the frustrations from mobs and raids.

I have been challenged by anecdotal evidence that they have seen campfires being targetted and attacked.

There must be some grain of truth in every anecdote. So, instead of brushing it off, I did the science.

Test

The method was simple:

1. Build a workbench (control), standing torch (control), and a campfire, all next to each other.

2. Spawned in a mob and got it to become alert.

3. Get video of all of this.

Results:

Campfire Aggro Test 1

The mob beelines the workbench immediately and destroys it, then immediately beelines the standing torch and destroys it.

Then it goes idle with the campfire completely ignored.

"Cool, just as expected!". But I can't just leave it there. I had to try to make it aggro the campfire.

Science demands it!

So I try to aggro it again, made the mob see me, and fly out of range, and it immediately aggros and attacks the campfire, destroying it!

"SO COOL!!" I thought, it changes everything we knew!!…"BUT WHY?!?!?"

So… I tried to recreate it. I did the exact same steps, but this time I used "the ground is shaking" event.

Test 2

Campfire Aggro Test 2

The trolls behaved in the exact same way. They beelined the workbench and standing torch, and then go idle, ignoring the campfire.

I do the same thing as last time, get in range of them to aggro them, then fly away out of range, and again, they immediately aggro and destroy the campfire!!

Wooo +1 for science…..BUT STILL WHY?!?!?!

Why did it only aggro and attack the campfire on only the 2nd instance of being alert?

Revelations

So, I delved deep into the archives (wiki), and found this:

Random structure within 10 meters is selected as the target if:

The creature is in "Unable to attack the target" mode.

Target creature is a player that can't be reached.

So to put this into simple terms, the first aggro, when they were locked on but no longer able to attack me, switched to Priority Structures such as the workbench and the Torch.

The moment they destroyed them, there was nothing left for them to aggro as I was too far away for them to lock on to me.

The 2nd time I aggroed them, they were locked on to me, and as soon as I left their range, their AI defaulted to any random structure, and because the only structure in the vicinity was the campfire, they aggro'd and destroyed the campfire!!

Conclusions

So this explains all of the reports of people seeing mobs destroy campfires.

If the mobs were aggro'd on to the player but couldn't reach them, such as they were across a moat, on a wall, seen from a window inside etc, and if there are no other priority structures in their reach (such as workbenches), they will default to the closest thing near them, even if it's a campfire!

People who have never had their campfire destoyed, are most likely people who afk inside the base, and are never seen by the mobs, so are never locked on by a mob, meaning they will never default to the "plan c" of attacking any random thing near them.

So in conclusion: Mobs don't aggro campfires if they can't detect the player.

Use this information as you will!

Science in games is so cool!

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 🙂

(Also, thanks to u/Sertith who suggested the original idea. I haven't had this much fun in Valheim in a long time!)

My next study will probably be on Tin. Respawnable? Or not?…