4Game

Personally I think this this would be an amazing addition to the game and add a ton of replayability, as well as multiplayer fun as you and your friends build a fortress and then defend it from armies of monsters each night. The amount of enemies could also scale slightly with the amount of players too. We have invasions like this already and I personally think they are a highlight of the game. Combine that with traps like wooden spikes or the new bear traps, and there is a lot of fun to be had.

This is also a gamemode catered towards ENDGAME players that have already "beaten" Valheim and now grow bored of just building. It's for people who want a constant stream of content and the opportunity to improve at the game.

With Mistlands, we now have a pretty decent variety of weapons, armour and tools in the game. I personally think in the case of Valheim more = better because of this game's strong foundations and potential for amazing combat and exploration, but similar to Minecraft, Terraria etc, once you've done everything there simply isn't much of a reason to keep playing outside of building. This is a problem that applies to ALL games of this genre, so nothing to be ashamed about.

That's why I personally think a "Roguelike" approach to extra content could help. My idea is inspired by games like dungeon defenders or 7 days to die. Instead of spending your time just building a house, exploring, getting tons of gear and then logging off forever, you should instead have some sort of option for continual challenge that allows you to build up useful skill/experience rather than just equipment, if you want more combat and challenge.

Planning out which friend will go explore the swamp crypts for iron, which will build and which will gather wood before the oncoming army of enemies could be really fun. There are a lot of different ways to try and "Speedrun" to get the best gear in the shortest amount of time, and there is lots of replayability in doing so without getting too greedy and dying to powerful enemies.

In this mode death is not permanent and unlike the normal game, XP is not lost on death. However, once your monument to Odin is destroyed your progress will be reset and the game will be over.

In this mode, progression gates would also be less strict to encourage new ideas. You wouldn't need to kill Eikthyr to enter the forest, and you wouldn't need the swamp key to explore swamp dungeons, however the enemies may be enough of a progression gate on their own. These bosses may instead show up to directly attack your base!

The intent is to allow you + some friends to build and organise a big castle/fort/village and see how long you can survive against the increasingly large armies of Valheim. With the addition of NPCs, and traps, you could probably do it solo too!

Anyways, this is my idea for the game. I know plenty of people love the more peaceful default mode, which is why I suggest this be a different mode altogether. It is also hopefully quite easy to implement as there is already a system similar to this in game. I know that since the dev team is so small, ambitious ideas are usually off the table.