4Game

even in its unfinished state, valheim is already one of my favorite games of all time. even so, i feel that there are additions that could be made to its core design elements that could make it even better than already is.

but first…

what is valheim exactly?

this seems like a dumb questions, but keep reading, trust me. valheim is a adventure sandbox, with focus on exploration and divided in different progression tiers. its terraria, but viking and 3D.

just so it happens that terraria is by far one of the best adventure-sandbox games out there(its also the one i have most hours clocked in). so lets analyze some elements that make terraria great, and how valheim can take some inspirations.

1 – exploration

in both games, exploration is in the core of everything you do. you need to explore to progress, to gather resources, etc etc. while terraria's map is way waaaaay smaller than valheim's map, it has a insteresting twist that adds even more depth to exploration: chests with "unique" stuff, pieces of equipment that you cant craft by yourself. on the other hand, exploration in valheim's map is somewhat barebones(yes, the game is in early acess, but im talking about the "finished" biomes here). taking the meadows as a example, there isnt much to do in it after the player advances to a certain progression tier. but what if it had, say, a very rare dungeon wich can only be unlocked after a certain boss? and what if this dungeon contains some unique stuff that, while it isnt game-changing, its certainly interesting to have?

now the player has some very interesting reasons to explore that little meadow tucked between the plains and swamp near the edge of the map.

2 – progression

here's a aspect that valheim actually does it in a more interesting way than terraria: the progression tiers(aleast the equipment and craftables) arent hard-locked, meaning you dont NEED to kill eikthyr to get bronze armor(but you probably should). but terraria also does somenthing that enables it to get a lot more mileage of its small map: the whole map changes with every progression tier. new enemies, even new biomes sometimes.

in valheim, the meadows will remain static through the whole game. sure some greydwarfs spawn at night, but other than that there's nothing new. now imagine that after defeating bonemass, bears start to spawn at the meadows(just brainstorming here), and they also drop unique resources(and with these new resources, new stuff to craft). now the progression is felt much more, independent of where you are on the map. it also works towards fixing the endgame exploration stuff i talked about in the last section.

3 – bosses

what reason does a player has to defeat a boss twice, other than the trophy? not many. once the elder drops the key, you dont NEED to kill it again. terraria gives the player loads of reasons to fight a boss repeated times, with bosses having loot tables full of unique equipment(along the required drops to progress the game). while i dont think valheim needs to dilute loot tables like that, its certainly interesting to have more reasons to fight them. what if the elder also had a chance to drop a greatshield that blocks poison damage or a bow that fires really fast? it might make the game more grind-y, but its the kind of stuff that helps to add mileage to content without adding any kind of new layer to it.

closing words

regarding things like sidegrades for equipment, i feel that the devs are aware of this aspect, considerign they already have started to add things like the root and cultist armor set, so i dont think its necessary to adress this point.