4Game

As it currently stands, even the "simple joy" of animal farming is nothing short of a hair-pulling venture in Valheim; something many vikings have come to realize in experience.

For an arguably tiny-by-contrast-of-labor payoff ("accessible" meat, buggy attack dogs, both with limited spawning restrictions), a viking can spend hours trying to work around animal AI that will do nothing short of fighting with the player to try accomplishing their goal.

Farming, and especially animal farming, is generally considered to be a staple in many survival crafters, and having co-operative animal AI seems the bare minimum to expect from another in the genre (actively following you with food, having leads or harnesses to drag them along), so why is it so excessively frustrating in a world where you're taming and bending the wilds to your advantage?

The Problem: Moving and Keeping Livestock

An anecdote on Boar Farming:

After spending half an hour taming a prized one-star boar in a box by my first base, and deciding to move to greener pastures over the hill, I attempted to Abyssal Harpoon them along.

The boar literally never let the line slack, leading to my stamina plummeting by the time we neared the new pen. Seconds from getting inside, the line breaks, and they sprint at full speed all the way back, past my first base, to their original spawn point at a runestone.

The Possible Solutions:

1. Remove the Abyssal Harpoon's damage and stamina drain on tamed animals (bandaid fix).
2. Add a Leash (drag) or Shepard's Staff ("follow me!") item for tamed animals.
3. Add a Ship Harness item to allow for water transport on Karves and Longships (wolves can currently be dropped on board, but it's quite risky), possibly based on unused player slots (benches) on the ship.
4. Change how an animal perceives its "home place"; updating a home territory behaviour flag when it's been in one specific area for a few days to prevent the running-back issue.

The Problem: Animal Friendly/Combat AI

An anecdote on Wolf Farming:

The idea of having a wolf pack ready to maul down Moder was enough for me. But I'd had enough by the time I'd managed to actually catch and tame a few. Between ignoring the Follow command and constantly getting stuck on terrain, they weren't worth the effort of obtaining in the end. I wish I'd just done the fight without all that prep in a useless pack.

The Possible Solutions:

1. Fix up terrain pathfinding and line of sight rules; currently a wolf with a single piece of wall between it and a target will sooner attack the wall.
2. Ironing out their Follow/Stay commands, potentially by means of invisible leashing, where they can't break a certain distance (and wind up Unfollowing automatically), and teleport/rubberband to the player if that distance is reached.
3. Prioritize animal targeting based on what a viking has attacked/been attacked by, if on Follow.

I'm hoping Hearth and Home will be taken as an opportunity for Iron Gate to take a look at all the more homely aspects of viking afterlife, and not just building and cooking. Laying out a better groundwork for animals would certainly make later additions – like cattle or sheep – easier, especially in terms of loosening player frustrations and encouraging them to return to a life of husbandry proper.

Feel free to add in anything that came to mind for you, or a suggestion to improve on the above!