So as usual, all of the big name releases I spent so long waiting for came out, and were enjoyed, and are waiting more DLC.
In the mean time I picked up Valheim on a whim, and have been loving the hell (hehe) out of it. It was pre-release, and looks like it in a few places, but is very solid all in all for an Indie pre-release. I only just now found out it is a new darling, having sold 4M copies and hit 500k concurrent steam users for 5th place all time peak record.
Anybody playing it?
I guess I should say a bit. It’s a bit like a 3d Terreria in the early days. Survival, building, plot advancing. It’s hard to explain why it’s so compelling(which I why I haven’t mentioned it much here). But finding out it is a common feeling, I gotta ask how many here found it as well.
It is PC only, and doubt they even dreamed of considering console, but with this much success, maybe they are gonna.
It’s a more-or-less bog-standard open world crafting/survival game. Its key differences are that it’s got an artistic low-poly style, the environments are enormously atmospheric and, as far as these games go, it generally respects you. (As in you can just fix your tools, you don’t need to rub ingots on your pickaxe).
Also the combat requires a Dark Souls-esque measure of patience and timing.
It’s been a very pleasing time-waster with my wife.
I would disagree that that it is bog standard survival.
I and I would most strenuously object to the combat being compared to that cathedral of try-hard obfuscated QTE reaction bullshit that the Dark Souls idiom pretends is interesting.
I supported an MMO in Kickstarter that’s in alpha testing (and looking good) and someone in the forum for that game mentioned Valheim. That was the first time I’d heard of it. I watched a trailer for it and it didn’t look very good, so I dismissed it. I’m curious what sets it apart from all the other survival games out there (and there are a lot). Aside from Subnautica I haven’t seen a game in that genre that really pulled me in.
I cannot really disagree in any way. as I said in my OP I cannot really describe in meaningful words exactly why this game is so much more compelling to me that so many other games that left me bored.
But I do want to make the point, and I apologize That I realize I may have been obnoxious in my earlier reply but I do want to give people the chance the look into this game, and the game is the farthest possible thing from the Dark Souls, or general FromSoft dynamic, and I cannot emphasize that enough. There are zero similarities.
It’s okay if you don’t like Dark Souls, but it’s a useful shorthand for what I now have to express in longer terms and I’d like to ask you relax a little bit.
Combat starts off easy enough when it’s just Graylings and boars. However, once you get to fighting Greydwarf Brutes, or anything past that (draugr, wraiths, trolls, wolves, etc.) you need to mind your stamina, keep your guard up, and attack only at opportune moments while avoiding being flanked. You’ll get dismantled in a hurry if you’re impatient, and some of them have attacks that will blast through your defenses anyway.
This is exactly how I played Dark Souls, by the way. Patient, methodical, shields up, well-timed counter-attacks. And it works as a sort of shorthand, because there’s a number of games described as “souls-like” where you get punished heavily for over-extending, leaving your guard down, being unprepared.
If there’s another term you want to use, I invite you to share it. But past the meadows, and especially past the dark forest, the odds of you getting killed up go up dramatically if you’re not careful, even with area-appropriate gear.
I don’t want to start a feud, but I am completely at a loss how anyone could compare it to Dark Souls.
Yes, there is a distinct difficulty curve increase as you go through the biomes.
but you never need to; you can build palaces in you own world. Or hook up with friends and never leave the space you started with as you construct a palace, and then a city. As I said Terraria yes, Minecraft, hell ya. even No man’s Sky. But Dark Souls as a comparison is just utterly baffling and misleading to me. This game has more in common with Super Mario than Dark Souls.
It is a seed generated world, with seeds you can find online if you don’t like yours.
Survival game. That is the general term. But with RPG progression mechanics ; area difficulty spike matched to equipment difficulty curve.
But this is a more interesting,in so many ways I am surprised I am this defensive but I have to object as much as possible and as strongly as possible to the FromSoft comparisons, because it is simply not comparable.
He’s not comparing the game to Dark Souls, he’s comparing the combat mechanics to those in Dark Souls. Personally, I find that to be a useful comparison. I also find Assassins Creed: Valhalla to have Dark Souls combat mechanics, and I think it’s great, but the game itself is nothing like Dark Souls. Having to be deliberate with your combat is a good thing compared to button mashing.
On the other hand, I’m not a fan of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, because it has much more of the Dark Souls style game play, not just the combat. Having to wade through a bunch of canon fodder just to be killed by the local mini-boss over and over again is not something I find enjoyable. But it’s not the combat that makes it this way, it’s all the other stuff like the inability to be able to save except at designated points, the fact the enemies respawn when you die so you have to fight them all over again, having to recover your XP from where ever you were last killed, etc.
The problem with Dark Souls, IMO, is that fighting IS the game, and if you’re not great at fighting, then you won’t like the game. There is also only a few paths to take and you eventually come up against a foe you can’t beat. If you’ve taken all possible paths to an unbeatable foe then the game becomes very frustrating. Other games can employ DS style combat mechanics, but by providing more to do, more options, more ways to approach a problem, they can be much more playable.
AC Valhalla I absolutely agree with you, it has boss combat like Dark souls in some cases , But Valheim is not even close.It gives you every chance to build an arena to your liking once you find the boss before your force the spawn.
WELL MY WHOLE POINT IS SHIT CAUSE I CANT MAKE A SPOILER HERE
And I am building for the 5 boss as we speak;
plus ultimately at release they are gonna be tuned for multiplayer parties!
So, what part of the bosses are Dark Souls? where you have to do twiddly little shit? You played Dark soul bosses because you wanted to, I guess, but that isn’t the game. The game Is really damn easy at the moment and they are tuning it.
When I heard “Dark Souls combat”, I don’t think hard combat, I think unforgiving combat, combat where if you slow down for a second - if you miss a step - if you forget your next move - you’re dead, and you have to play the last 15 minutes again and again and again. It means that you have to be perfect, and while I can be good at “very good” I absolutely suck at “perfect”. I like combat where I have to think and plan, but I prefer combat where I can screw up a bit and still win. You can’t do that in Soulslike games.
Really? I’ve skipped Dark Souls because I was intimidated by it’s reputation of the combat being frustrating, but literally the only thing I remember about Jedi: Fallen Order besides basic plot are the environmental interactions and puzzles. The combat didn’t seem memorable or particularly difficult at all. I think maybe I had a problem with an inquisitor but that’s honestly the only time I remember dying in combat.
I fought a boss on the first planet, apparently if I held off and leveled up first to get better powers it might have been a trivial fight but I was determined to do it. It ended up being a Dark Souls kind of fight, where one slip would kill me and I had to react perfectly. I died numerous times but eventually beat the creature.
So I guess you could say there are moments where it might feel like Dark Souls depending on how you play. I must be a masochist. (What am I saying, of course I am, I actually enjoyed Dark Souls.)
I’ve had it for about a week, thus far putting about 5 hours into it. I’m a sucker for “survival” games, but as a way-past-his-prime elder, I’m NOT up for twitch combat.
I did just fine the first 3 hours, building my shelter, then a proper…uhh, cottage, I guess, incrementally (had trouble with ground leveling, but not a deal-killer).
But starting around hour 4, even in the same initial starting area, I’m getting swarmed by 3-4 of those grunt things and dying pretty frequently. Before, their aggro distance was pretty small, and if they did attack it was singular or by twos, and I had no trouble dispatching them. Now I’m overwhelmed, even with boosted stamina from eating venison.
I’m not enamored of the building; it’s OK, but things like a decent roof seem hard to snap and place correctly, even with the shift-placement that allows you to place off-grid.
For times when I just want to focus on gathering resources and building my hut/shack/cottage, I just turn on God mode. I’m not proud of that, but I’d rather focus on the gathering, building, and hunting/eating than being harassed by goblins.
So while I went into the game with high hopes and expectations, my enthusiasm has tempered. Most everyone I read says they’re already on boss number gazillion, so I’m confident that the failing is mine.
Nothing wrong with that when it comes to enjoying PvE games (or just mess around after finishing a game). One of these days, I’ll go back to Metro 2033 with an unbreakable gas mask but I don’t know if I still have a save that would let me pick up where I quit in frustration over those fragile masks.
I’ve been playing a ton of Valheim over the past two weeks, and for the most part I’ve really enjoyed it. I kinda fell out of love with it a bit, though, when I went after the second boss.
The first boss wasn’t too hard- I managed to kick its butt pretty quickly. The second boss was on an island across an ocean from my starting area, so I had a lot of time to prepare. I made a full set of upgraded bronze armor, with all that that entails. I built a ship, and traveled across the ocean. I set up a new base on the island, and (after a quick trip to another island for fine wood) I connected it to my other bases through a portal.
Finally, I felt I was ready. I went over and activated the boss… and he kicked my ass in about three seconds. All of the stuff I was carrying was on my body… and the boss doesn’t despawn. He’s just sitting there, camping my body. I died several more times trying to grab my stuff, and never managed to do it.
So now I’m setting up my armor and gear all over again. Luckily the infrastructure is there. However, given how fast the boss killed me, and the fact that he won’t despawn, I can’t prepare for him. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to kill him unless I’m extremely lucky. This has kind of dampened my enthusiasm for the game- it went from fun to tedium, in the space of a three-second fight.
