Personal opinion on some problems in game face and suggestions to fix ’em (long post?)

I've been playing for quite a while, still in my first playthrough (170h), so I haven't played as much as some people in this subreddit, but honestly after a while playing a game I suppose one can really 'get used' with some of the problems that game has. Some problems that while you are fresh you see things with a different perspective. So I'm kind of bringing this "beginner fresh" view of the game and some problems I can still see.

Also, I really love this game. It's been definitelly my favourite game for the past month, and I've been playing exclusivelly Valheim with my friends. The problems I think Valheim faces, that I'm about to mention here, isn't suppose to flame the game or trash it in any way, I actually think these are some pretty important points that the development team should address to make the game even better.

First I'll list the problems, then I'll offer some suggestion on what measures could be taken to fix the problems mentioned. That said, these are the problems I think this game has:

• You can't play with a group of friends on different speeds.
  • If a friend progresses too far, it increases the difficulty of raids globally
  • The group that doesn't progress with the fast progressing group feel left behind and whatever effort they made feels meaningless (for a lot of people this means removing game's fun).
    • A 'technology' upgrade (evolving from bronze to iron, for example) render bronze items useless. The player that grinded bronze ingots feels like his efforts were for nothing.
• Game progression is somewhat linear and after awhile becomes predictable: go to new biome, do stuff there, kill its boss, move to the next one. You may also leave everything behind.
  • Some people enjoy the "nomad" lifestyle, but for me personally I prefer building one single strong base that gets increasingly bigger with extra tools, space, features, tables…

So, if whoever is reading this don't think this are problems at all, because I get that some people might thing these are not problems, there's also room to twist the problem and blame it on the players: "well, just create two worlds then, a faster progressing one and a slow progressing one", or: "well duh, you don't need to move bases, you can still live in a same base and travel with portals, bring minerals with your boat and so on…". And I get it, these are valid suggestions, and this is exactly what we've done. But this is not the point, it would be absolutely amazing if a larger group of friends could play in the same world without one killing the experience for the other group.

After all of this being said, what are the suggestions I bring that I think this game could profit from it:

• Upgrades should feel more rewarding: Weapon and armor upgrades should be more expensive and more powerful, and could upgrade even further (up to level 5 or 6 maybe?).
  • In a way we get, for example, a Bronze Armor level 3 being more powerful than Iron Armor level 1. (or maybe bronze level 4 being more powerful than iron level 1. the point is not the actual numbers but the concept)
  • This way we'd make it so the player that grinds bronze like a sicko would still feel his effort was for something instead of "well, why did I grab this s**t then if now we have iron?"
  • Upgrades could also have a visual element to it: An upgraded Frostner has more ice over it than a level 1 one. A Draugr's fang would glow brigther. Bronze items would look more polished and shine more…
  • With this we could get a smoother item progression and whoever invested on an "old" equipment can choose to stick with it
  • Extra benefit: 'Unique' sets (such as the root equipments) could be viable in late game scenarios. Even though it gets SICK EXPENSIVE to get it to level 5 or 6, but who really really wants to be a bowmaster could grind roots (and maybe silver or some other stuff?) to upgrade it to maximum.
• Biomes should be developed in a way that they don't necessarily progresses linearly but also "laterally".
  • What I mean is. Say first biome is a Meadows (level 1 biome), second biome is Black Forest (level 2 biome)… Third biomes could be Swamp AND mountains (two level 3 biomes). Not necessarily one being stronger than the other but they come with unique challenges and rewards. Assuming we have poison and rain/wet protecting gear and/or capes like we have frost protecting gear and capes, if we focus on surviving and exploring the swamp we'd probably not be ready for the montains and vice versa.
  • Being the biomes structured in such a way, this phylosophy should also apply all gears that comes out of exploring said biome. What I mean is: Silver shouldn't be objectivelly better than iron, but rather has unique properties that on some occasions make it better. Ex: Silver has extra damage vs undeads and werewolves (fenrings? ulves?). Silver armors could not be as heavy as iron, have lower durability, and some other properties… Iron on the other hand could give extra defense, better durability, but no extra properties besides high defense, being heavier and making your character slower when compared to silver.
    • Game could have a couple of level 3 biomes, several level 4… I think the game could explore more "sideways" progression.
• Whenever players get raided, raids should not only consider the highest boss level killed, but rather the 'player level' of the players that live in that area.
  • In this case I have no idea on how to deal with this, but I'd say maybe look for beds to check what are the armor, damage, technology of the players that live there, or maybe just read the actual players that are there on the given moment and calculate a "power level" based on equip and highest damaging weapon to give a 'fair challenge' raid?
    • Yeah, sorry in this case I don't have a clear-cut suggestion but this should deffinitelly be looked on.
• Flax and Barley shouldn't be locked to grow on Plains biome. I get and really enjoy the idea of some features simply working better on some biomes, such as windmills mowing faster in plains, but having a feature lock for a single biome personally I think its a no-go.
  • Also having some plants that grows faster on cold biomes, some other that grows faster on hot ones, humid ones… would be super cool! Would bring an extra depth to the game, would make the player ponder even more pros and cons on where to set up a new base. But hard-locking the ability to grow certain crop on a single biome I don't think its a good idea.

Honestly this are the most important ones. I also have some extra suggestions on some other things I'd really like to have it taken a look, if you've been agreeing with what I've been saying it may also interest you this couple of extra points:

• We could have an exploring accessory? An item that while you have it weared (replaces the belt?) your map draw distance gets increased.
  • When ship-exploring the game, your see distance goes farther than the map draw distance. I can already see the mountain but that mountain doesn't get drawed in the map. Maybe an item that increases the distance would be a nice addition.
• The game kinda has accostumed us with "whatever the hell you do your character gets better on doing it". So some things that are not skills and don't get upgraded on use that I think it should:
  • Dodging: when you dodge foes you could train your dodge and it starts to cost less stamina, and/or faster dodge, bigger distance or something. (your dodge should improve on usage).
  • Farming/agriculture: The more you plant, you evolve to be able to farm different plants, maybe after a certain level you can now plant mushrooms, or thistle, or berry bushes… Maybe cap onion or turnip to a certain level too. Maybe your crops grow faster or yield more seeds given your level (I don't know, you are more experienced farmer so now your crops grows healthier?)
  • Sailing: Sailing the boat could improve your overall boat speed, acceleration, turn rate, boat health… I don't know. but improving your sailing would be nice.
  • Parry: Parry and block should be separate skills. Some shields are fit for blocking, some other are fit for parrying, you may even parry without a shield, so they should be separate skills. (higher parry skill maybe cost you less stamina? increases success-parry window?)
  • Taming: as you become an 'animal master', as you feed them, tame them, you get better at it: taming time reduces as you become better at it, also your tamed animals health/damage/speed could be increase… Maybe at higher levels you can even make boars follow you as if they were dogs? Not sure, but as a whole I think taming could also become a skill.
  • Fishing: As you fish, you get better at it. Maybe fishes grab faster, maybe you can throw the bait further, maybe some specific fishes can only be caught at a certain level…
  • Heavy load: As you use heavy armor more and more, your character gets more and more used to it and it may even increase your overall item weight load.
    • The goal here is not really to make it so after awhile you walk normally with an iron armor set, it should always weight on your character and make it slower, but rather then 25% slower it improves to 15% slower or something. The increase in load only as much to compensate slightly on your armor being heavier and letting you carry similar amounts to who uses light armours.
• The fishing aspect of the game is something that I think could be as 'core' as farming is and I think it could be improved a lot. We could have different fishes that provides different attributes. Maybe there are some fishes that give you pretty cool stuff but you can only find them in the deep ocean, or some specific biome shores, so you have to sail to a far distance to fish and come back with a load of cool and seafood of different species.
• Skill exp curve: I think it could go with a rework. I think the curve should be steeper and increase faster, but also how much exp you gain should improve with that specific matter damage/efficiency.
  • For example: yeah it gets increasingly (way) harder to gain blocking but as you progress your enemies deal more damage, which means you block heavier damages, which grants you more exp. So your block-earning experience should scale with blocked amount rather a fixed exp gain per successful block.
• Black metal drop is way too consistent. Drop rate could be lowered a little bit. It ends up that the bottleneck for evolving isn't really the black metal but rather your Flax growth to make threads? We can very quickly grab into a bunch of black metal.
• Final and Controversial: This game could also benefit from an 'Almost dead' state that a lot of survival and/or shooting game has. Your character falls to the ground, you have 15 seconds of "s**t I'm dying" and someone needs to rescue you with a potion, mead, food, first aid kit, or something. If rescue doesn't come, you effectivelly die.
  • We've had a bunch of scenarios that someone just gets near-instantenously killed and no one can do anything to rescue/help the ambushed player (as it is already dead). In once case a player got ambushed by a mosquito (early in the game, a plains that was near a black forest). and on early game mosquito = instant death. It feels sad and unfair to instantly just die out of nowhere specially when you don't know about the game nor what killed you. Afterwards we learned "stay the f away from the plains", but having a way to rescue the ambushed player would definitelly have improved the game experience.

I hope you guys enjoy my suggestions, also really hope the developers get to see this and maybe implement some of these changes. As I said in the beginning I think this game is absolutely amazing and I wish nothing but the best for it. It actually surprises me that the game is still in 'early access' stage, it makes me wonder what the dev team is holding for the future. After finishing this campaign I can really see myself coming back after a couple of months (maybe years?) to see what's new and how the game has been developing.