4Game

https://i.imgur.com/o9cePUC.png

Biome Tiers/Teirs, it's a common argument that once you have seen a Dark Forrest you have seen them all, and since the dev team is small I was trying to think of things I would like to see that are probably not a big dev time investment but that would give the players good added value to the game.

The first thing I thought of was adding a Tier system to the Biome generation and spawners found within them, using the image I have uploaded you will understand what I am talking about when I say distance from spawn should dictate biome level.

So as an Example, the first Forrest you find will be in the Tier 1 ring, this will spawn all the usual mobs, all level 1(zero stars) and drop regular loot, regular plants will grow and loot amounts will be normal.

If we go a little further and move into the Tier 2 some changes will be visible, first of all 30% of hostile mobs will spawn at level 2(1 star) and obviously drop more loot, a second change would be that the plants growing will be larger and drop more when picked, as an example think about the little red mushrooms in Tier 1, in Tier 2 they might have a different visual look larger and when picked drop more than one item, this step up in mob difficulty and plants would happen again at Tier 3, with the mushrooms having a new cool skin, looking a little larger and again dropping more, and the mobs now with a 30% chance of being 2 stars, and a 30% chance of being 1 star .

Most of this should actually be fairly simple dev wise, some new skins, and a tweak to the spawner's code that simply checks how far it is from the spawn point on the map and spawns the appropriate stars based on that distance.

These types of small changes would make exploring further afield feel more dangerous and rewarding , risk v reward, explore a Tier 3 plains biome and have constant streams of 1 and 2 star goblins, but they will drop loads more metal so worth the fight.

Expanding on the above but taking up a chunk more dev time you could use the tier's as I explained them to spawn different enemies, maybe a tier 3 plains spawns new mobs, like baby sqeeto swarms, that visually look like a cloud of tiny flys that when they attack you they apply a dot from the hundreds of little bites, and the only way to kill them is with a fire/torch as they are so tiny arrows and swords don't connect.

I think one of the things I love most about Valheim is its potential. cant wait to see what the devs have in store.