Windows Valheim (Steam)

[Huntn]

Crude, why buy it today?

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In beta, Valheim has sold 3 million copies in two weeks, Ka-Ching! for the developers. When you first look at it, it appears to be retro-gaming, character models are crude, building styles are limited. This is a open world survival game, it’s competition are titles like ARK: Survival Evolved, and Conan Exiles, both, more visually polished than Valheim. Players have expressed hesitance to spend $20 for such a game, however, it has attractions. You defeat bosses to acquire abilities as far as I know, building related like portals.

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• Character models are crude, primitive.​
• Maps are procedurally generated.
• Landscapes, the environment can be quite attractive.
• Nice environmental effects.
• The starter zone is absolutely huge.
• The land can be terraformed.
• Grind is minimal compared to the competition that requires you to chop down three forests and mine vast quantities of stone and minerals to build a base.
• Building pieces are not nearly as polished, limited compared to the competition.
• Building construction is unique and compared to the competition superior, building pieces are more flexible in how they are assembled.
• Fast travel is limited, requiring a portal.
• Can pay for a server, invite friends to your game, or play solo.

 

[maflynn]

Is this something you can play solo or is strictly a co-op game?

 

[Huntn]

Is this something you can play solo or is strictly a co-op game?

Solo and Co-Op. Several cool things about this game, your solo character can go to anyone’s server for just a session and maintain stats. Every time you start you are telling your character where to go, your game or someone elses or a paid server. You can move anything on your person I think from server to server, but maybe not iron?

Since maps are procedurally generated, each one is unique and you can have several maps all relying on one leveled character. Trees and rocks do not respawn. My understanding that when dungeons are stripped of cores, there will be no more to find there. Cores offer a leveling function, I believe. So you have motivation to explore. The map is quite large with 4 biomes, which can be spread around, so one zone is not one contiguous space.

The starter zone is The Meadows which has both meadows and forest. Watch out for big blue trolls. you’ll likely first see them in the Black Forest. They can be killed with about 40 wood arrows. Run and gun arrow.

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

I've been playing this with firends fornearly 2 weeks straight its an amazing game. I have also played solo and enjoyed it as well. Highly recomended.....if you have windows.

 

[Huntn]

I’m checking out:

9 Best Valheim Mods to Install - Slyther Games

Start downloading some of the best Valheim mods with our list showing you which ones are worth getting. Tons of quality of life fixes.

www.slythergames.com

I've been playing this with firends fornearly 2 weeks straight its an amazing game. I have also played solo and enjoyed it as well. Highly recomended.....if you have windows.

What do you think makes it stand out? I’d say:

• Less grind for material gathering at least it feels that way.
• Consequently trees don’t have to respawn, but there are lots and lots of trees.
• More flexible build system.
• More realistic smoke mechanic with camp fires/hearths in your house and being wet debuffing you a bit.
• Nice environmental effects.
• Serene atmosphere.

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

I’m checking out:

9 Best Valheim Mods to Install - Slyther Games

Start downloading some of the best Valheim mods with our list showing you which ones are worth getting. Tons of quality of life fixes.

www.slythergames.com

What do you think makes it stand out? I’d say:

• Less grind for material gathering at least it feels that way.
• Consequently trees don’t have to respawn, but there are lots and lots of trees.
• More flexible build system.
• More realistic smoke mechanic with camp fires/hearths in your house and being wet debuffing you a bit.
• Nice environmental effects.
• Serene atmosphere.

I think you hit the nail on the head about the lack of "grind". My friends and I have been saying the same thing. The things that are usually grindy in other survival games, seen to be absent here. Such as not having to wait for ages for things to cook/smelt etc. 100% recycling on building parts. No overly complex building materials. No constantly looking for food incase you die. But turns the things that have to be grindy into fun, mini-game like activitiess. For instance chopping trees has a dynamic almost dangerous feel to it. Mining iron requires fun dungeon raids. As are getting key components for the smelter. Food is no-longer this "do this or die" chore, but a "how can I get the best combination".

The game also has bosses which are challenging, scale in difficulty with the number of players, and serve as an orientation for the game. Rewarding exploration.

Then there are small attentions to detail like the smoke, weathering effects. You can even make a working sundial! But cloudy days and mountains will even defuse the shadow.

Then there is just the art direction, its THICK. Each forest feels like a forest. Procedual games are hard to nail without everything looking the same. But they have nailed the generation. The art style is fantastic, proving once again realistic graphcis are not what make a game great.

Honestly Its just a solid game.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

I just added this game to my Steam wishlist based on some of your comments.

Most games with heavy crafting requirements are too tedious for me. Clearly some people enjoy that.

I'm here to be entertained by a video game not to weed its garden for two hours. I do that already in the real world.

I knew a famous computer scientist/mathematician and I asked him once if he ever played Sudoku. He replied that he analyzed the game and thought it looked too tedious so he never played it. He was enthusiastic about crossword puzzles.

This is the quandary I have with a lot of the video games that have heavy crafting requirements.

 

[garnerx]

I just added this game to my Steam wishlist based on some of your comments.

Most games with heavy crafting requirements are too tedious for me. Clearly some people enjoy that.

I'm here to be entertained by a video game not to weed its garden for two hours. I do that already in the real world.

I knew a famous computer scientist/mathematician and I asked him once if he ever played Sudoku. He replied that he analyzed the game and thought it looked too tedious so he never played it. He was enthusiastic about crossword puzzles.

This is the quandary I have with a lot of the video games that have heavy crafting requirements.

Generally I hate crafting in games. Give me a quest or mission to earn the item I need, that's fine, but don't make me scour the map searching for resources. That's not gameplay, it's work.

I like the look of this one, though. The good thing about Steam is that it's really easy to get your money back if the game isn't to your taste, so I'm going to try it when I've got a couple of hours and refund it if I find it too crafty.

 

[Huntn]

I just added this game to my Steam wishlist based on some of your comments.

Most games with heavy crafting requirements are too tedious for me. Clearly some people enjoy that.

I'm here to be entertained by a video game not to weed its garden for two hours. I do that already in the real world.

I knew a famous computer scientist/mathematician and I asked him once if he ever played Sudoku. He replied that he analyzed the game and thought it looked too tedious so he never played it. He was enthusiastic about crossword puzzles.

This is the quandary I have with a lot of the video games that have heavy crafting requirements.

This is what I say about games, they are meant to be fun, not a job. If I was really living in a survival situation, I would not mind making hundreds of runs into the forest to build a base, but I won’t volunteer to do this for a game.

Grind has always been my enemy. When I first started playing ARK:Survival Evolved and learned that taming a top tier dinosaur took 12 actual hours, I was like Bull Crap! And there was some outlandish time for hatching eggs, I rebelled. So if you were playing on a server run by a purist, this is what you were faced with. I knew people who would pull all nighters to hatch an egg.

Fortunately that game has admin settings that allow you to scale those time frames back significantly, including your solo game, along with being mod friendly, so that with modded arrows you could tranquilizer a high tier dino with 10 treated arrows instead of 400.

In addition, some games like Minecraft offer a creative mode, and other games like ARK, have a console that allow you to use admin commands to summon resources if you want to treat it like creative mode minus the resource gathering grind.

Another example would be the wood and rock requirement were such that you’d have to chop down 3 forests to build a base. Games like ARK and Conan Exiles acknowledge this by having resources respawn. So the trees you clear cut would be back very quickly.

In Valheim, you get realistic amounts of wood from a tree so resources like trees do not have to respawn, making the game feel more realistic. That said, depending on how sensitive to grind you are, there is some, so you still may not care for Valheim.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

In addition, some games like Minecraft offer a creative mode, and other games like ARK, have a console that allow you to use admin commands to summon resources if you want to treat it like creative mode minus the resource gathering grind.

The resource gathering grind is one of the dreadful characteristics of No Man's Sky. Spending most of your activity mining elements from the toxic alien landscape with your scanner. At least there's a Creative Mode that lets you tool around the universe without the tedium.

In Valheim, you get realistic amounts of wood from a tree so resources like trees do not have to respawn, making the game feel more realistic. That said, depending on how sensitive to grind you are, there is some, so you still may not care for Valheim.

I'm still very much on the fence. I may eventually delete it from my Steam wishlist; Valheim is at the very bottom of the list right next to Cyberpunk 2077.

I can understand collecting some artifacts to unlock a puzzle like in some of the Resident Evil titles.

I just don't understand collecting resources (whether it be points, money, monetary equivalents, etc.). I have a real-life vegetable garden. If I want to diddle with resource gathering and asset management, I can just go to my garden or log into my brokerage account.

 

[Huntn]

The resource gathering grind is one of the dreadful characteristics of No Man's Sky. Spending most of your activity mining elements from the toxic alien landscape with your scanner. At least there's a Creative Mode that lets you tool around the universe without the tedium.


I'm still very much on the fence. I may eventually delete it from my Steam wishlist; Valheim is at the very bottom of the list right next to Cyberpunk 2077.

I can understand collecting some artifacts to unlock a puzzle like in some of the Resident Evil titles.

I just don't understand collecting resources (whether it be points, money, money-like equivalents, etc.). I have a real-life vegetable garden. If I want to diddle with resource gathering and asset management, I can just go to my garden or log into my brokerage account.

But gaming is for escapism, fun, and excitement. Now this is a Valheim thread, if you want to talk Cyberpunk 2077, I'd love to hear any complaints you have over here (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cyberpunk-2077-discussion-spoilers.2281148/), but maybe you have already done that. It's a game with faults, and is being criticized, but overall I am very impressed with it and call it a worthy purchase.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

But gaming is for escapism, fun, and excitement.

And that is precisely why games with heavy resource management and crafting suck. There's no escapism in a game that essentially duplicate what happens in real-life.

 

[garnerx]

I picked this up for a quick go and I'm already past my two hour refund time, so I think it's pretty good. The thing that sold me on it was when I built a roof over my camp and the fumes from the fire collected under there, choking my character until he busted a hole to let the smoke out. Very cool.

I haven't gone very far, made some trees fall like dominos, smashed some wild boars and walked into my own camp fire a lot.

Some things I don't understand yet: What are you meant to do with broken tools? (I just throw them away but they stay there on the ground.) If you build something in the wrong place are you really just meant to attack it with an axe?

 

[TheFluffyDuck]

Some things I don't understand yet: What are you meant to do with broken tools? (I just throw them away but they stay there on the ground.) If you build something in the wrong place are you really just meant to attack it with an axe?

With the hammer selected, middle click on the thing to destroy it for 100% refund.

There is a repair button at the workbench. The good news is its free to repair things. So in the words of every Youtuber, "smash that button".

 

[garnerx]

I've been building a tower. I have no idea why...
I'd like to get up to that big tree in the sky but I'm not sure if it's just scenery.

 

[francisbaud]

425K peak concurrent players during the week-end, not bad! I like the simple yet effective features in Valheim: terraforming, building, portal placement, sea travel, underground dungeons, boss fights... Very fun to watch on YouTube!

 

[Erehy Dobon]

I just noticed in my Steam wishlist that this title has the Early Access tag.

[slowly backs away]

 

[garnerx]

I just noticed in my Steam wishlist that this title has the Early Access tag.

[slowly backs away]

Buy it, play it for up to two hours, refund it if you think it's no good. Steam refunds are instant, there is zero risk. This is far from your typical early access game.

 

[Huntn]

I've been building a tower. I have no idea why...
I'd like to get up to that big tree in the sky but I'm not sure if it's just scenery.

View attachment 1738022

Just be careful you don't go crazy building. A friend built not all that big of a base in the realm of bases and when you get within 50' of it as it starts to draw in, you get vertigo as the frames drop to a crawl. After it's done drawing in, it's not so bad.

 

[garnerx]

Just be careful you don't go crazy building. A friend but not all that big of a base in the realm of bases and when you get within 50' of it as it starts to draw in, you get vertigo as the frames drop to a crawl. After it's done drawing in, it's not so bad.

I noticed it was starting to drop frames when there were a lot of fog effects and multiple light sources, so I've stopped building that base. Also, some of the oldest panels in the base were very low on health, despite never having been attacked, so I assume it will collapse naturally in the end.

I killed the first boss, so I'm going to build a new base in the next area. I'm not sure how to transport all the resources from my chest in this place to wherever I end up next, though.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Buy it, play it for up to two hours, refund it if you think it's no good. Steam refunds are instant, there is zero risk. This is far from your typical early access game.

Nah, the primary reason I put games in my wishlist is because I refuse to pay full price. All Steam games eventually go on sale.

I already have enough purchased games to keep me occupied for years.

Besides, this looks like a game that might benefit from thoughtful modding. That takes time (and interest from players).

And most newly released games are full of bugs, courtesy of the videogame industry's unenthusiastic interest in software QA today. This will be a better game in six months.

 

[Huntn]

I noticed it was starting to drop frames when there were a lot of fog effects and multiple light sources, so I've stopped building that base. Also, some of the oldest panels in the base were very low on health, despite never having been attacked, so I assume it will collapse naturally in the end.

I killed the first boss, so I'm going to build a new base in the next area. I'm not sure how to transport all the resources from my chest in this place to wherever I end up next, though.
View attachment 1739551

The portal is good for things other than metals if I am not mistaken.

 

[Huntn]

Nah, the primary reason I put games in my wishlist is because I refuse to pay full price. All Steam games eventually go on sale.

I already have enough purchased games to keep me occupied for years.

Besides, this looks like a game that might benefit from thoughtful modding. That takes time (and interest from players).

And most newly released games are full of bugs, courtesy of the videogame industry's unenthusiastic interest in software QA today. This will be a better game in six months.

I look forward to modding to make quality of life better. One would be to allow metals though portals, and make metal lighter.

 

[groove-agent]

I just noticed in my Steam wishlist that this title has the Early Access tag.

[slowly backs away]

I too avoid early access games - for most games it should be renamed "pay to develop". However if you read the Valheim reviews (overwhelmingly positive btw) you'll see that most say this game is more solid than a lot of released, non-early access games. For $19 (CDN) I gave it a try. Now me and most of my gaming friends play it. It's a blast, and the attention to detail in this game is a credit to their development team.

 

[Huntn]

I just noticed in my Steam wishlist that this title has the Early Access tag.

[slowly backs away]

Early access can be a gamble, but I’ve got a lot of playtime out of a couple games in early access- ARK:Survival Evolved, taming dinos can be fun, and Conan Exiles which has excellent building.

Valheim does not have the best graphics, but the environment rendering is different and nice and it does have some innovative features for a survival game based on base building. I really like that I don’t feel like I have to cut down a forest to build a base, consequently resources do not have to respawn, but when dungeons are emptied, they stay emptied. Sometimes this is dealt with by creating a second map, and easily transferring your character there to do some dungeons. And since maps are procedurally created, you can use the seed number to create an identical map where you already know the lay of the land.