I think some of the frustration with the inevitable betrayals in the Valhalla story comes from the nature of video games. Like, the direct participation in the narrative, the fact that you sometimes get to make decisions
In a movie, it makes sense for Eivor to have blindspots, to ignore red flags. Movie Eivor could be self-contained, everything could make sense through the lens of how they see the world.
In a game, where much of the character's personality is given over to the player to shape, it's frustrating to have no ability to spot the red flags.
And what frustrates me is that it's a solved problem in game narrative design. Other games navigate that space by allowing you to try to get ahead of the shithead character who is obviously gonna fuck you, but they get the upper hand on you and weasel out. Which lets the plot move forward and stokes the fire of your resentment. It's a tried-and-true recipe! It works!
I think valhalla has a few moments that are genuinely pretty good for the "journal updated" genre but then it also has a lot of moments that continue odyssey's "baby's first mass effect" vibe
Why does the shop sell fishing guides (when the fisherman hut will tell you the location of fish for free) but not hunting guides? I see rabbits and foxes everywhere, but it seems like knowing where bears are would be knowledge worth paying for
Anyone know how to unlock the 3 outer skills branching off the center Fate/auto-assign skill? Get all the other skills? Internet is failing me in answering this.
After one of the patches there were 3 skills that connected to those, but Ubisoft said we weren't supposed to have access to them yet and took them out, but the connecting "nodes" are still there even though you can't buy them.
my problem with him is the same as the Sigurd writing, it's the sudden, massive change in character/attitude. He's friendly and jovial all through Norway and then the first scene you get with him in England he's sullen and antagonistic. It's really jarring just like Sigurd's flip between Ledercester and Oxenfordshire.
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SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
This is a pretty cool ARG thing for a very well hidden piece of gear
(spoilers for some key items in Valhalla)
also i am mega pissed that if you undress your Man-Eivor to see his yummy pects as i'm sure we all did he then covers them up and shivers from the cold that little asshole
i just managed to get a used copy of this for the ps4 and lord it looks like shit but wevs.
is there any point to breaking crates?
There are a couple of times where the way through is hidden by boxes and crates and such.
On the other hand, sometimes there are snakes in the boxes and crates and such!
i just managed to get a used copy of this for the ps4 and lord it looks like shit but wevs.
is there any point to breaking crates?
There are a couple of times where the way through is hidden by boxes and crates and such.
On the other hand, sometimes there are snakes in the boxes and crates and such!
i just managed to get a used copy of this for the ps4 and lord it looks like shit but wevs.
is there any point to breaking crates?
There are a couple of times where the way through is hidden by boxes and crates and such.
On the other hand, sometimes there are snakes in the boxes and crates and such!
I wrapped this up today. 135 hours. I bought the season pass at launch and I don't think I have it in me to play those DLCs when they drop. this game was too fucking big
I officially finished.
125 hours.
Every single zone, every quest, every single arc, every treasure, mystery, artifact and every single icon on each map cleared.
The "conquer england" storyline was pretty lackluster at the end? Like I'm not sure I fully realized I was in the final "Fight for england" battle until after it had happened.
The ending of the Order was also pretty lackluster, not even giving me the aspasia treatment and allowing me to still kill Aelfred if I wanted to.
The order overall didn't really grab me. None of them seemed particularly devoted to their cause. They were all just like "I'm here because I'm here".
Most of them weren't particularly difficult either, even the overseer level ones. Like they pretty much all went down in one arrow to the head.
It was really weird how completely nothing the water was. There was barely any treasure in it. There was essentially no water based combat, and even when you did have to swim in the water (in england) there were no threats, at all.
The side quests were the worst part of the game. Literally the only one I could describe to you is the crazy cat lady house, because they were, with very rare exception, all just "go up to this person, either talk to them, kill them, out-drink them, or follow them for a few minutes and then success". They were all just boring.
The game mechanics were good and not so good. I liked the fighting and I liked the exploration and building up my settlement and I grew to love Eivor. But I was a bit bummed that stealth was a bit weakened compared to odyssey. Like in Odessey I could, if I wanted to try, clear out an entire castle with no-one knowing better. But here a lot of the times people see me from near impossible angles, whistling is basically useless, and assassinations from stealth still outed you.
I would strongly recommend not bothering with the extra xp/silver. By the end of the game I had completed every single ability in all three trees, and had racked up 172 Mastery points as well.
The Asgard/Jotunheim stuff was really cool. I hoped for more but what we got was still fun. The jotunheim special mechanics of "you have to approach from this specific way to be able to see what you need" were really cool. I loved Fenrir's design.
The real world stuff just really bummed me out. Three games I've been with Layla and she's gone, just like that, like a chump.
And now this prick Basim who tried to kill Eivor and Sigurd, who tried to kill me, is alive and well with an immortality imbuing staff just like he planned, exploring Eivor's deepest memories and feelings as he wants, and will definitely be returning in future games.
It's just..a bummer.
Overall I really enjoyed my time in the game. I think it's a bit better than Origins, but nowhere near Odyssey.
I conquered all of London whilst only doing a handful of story missions. That burned me out for a bit (it grew exceedingly repetitive) and I didn’t play the game for an entire week, but in the end I felt it paid off as I hurtled through the story after that and it kept the narrative feeling nice and tight.
I grew to really love the stealth in this game. Playing as Jacob always felt such a disappointment after Evie.
In general I really loved the gameplay. The grappling hook was great and made ascending a few places far less tedious. Pretty much all of the controls (eagle vision, the combat, etc.) I preferred to Origins. I would’ve been disappointed with Origins had I played Syndicate first, I think.
I really loved the characters. I appreciated the humour in the game and Evie/Jacob’s sibling banter.
I also liked the difficulty rating/system. I actually conquered quite a few of the areas when under-leveled, which felt very satisfying, and caused me to get really creative at times. At first I skipped most of the bonus objectives but by the last couple of chapters I was able to complete them and that felt rewarding, too.
What I felt Origins did better: Well, far more variation and more interesting collectibles. Good grief, did Syndicate grow really tedious at times. I also missed puzzles like the Papyrus puzzles.
Now I’ve gone back to the Ezio trilogy. Oof, this looks great for 2009 but is still a huge step back, graphically. And the controls feel a lot clunkier. But so far it’s still fun to play, and I like how the missions are moving along.
I officially finished.
125 hours.
Every single zone, every quest, every single arc, every treasure, mystery, artifact and every single icon on each map cleared.
The "conquer england" storyline was pretty lackluster at the end? Like I'm not sure I fully realized I was in the final "Fight for england" battle until after it had happened.
The ending of the Order was also pretty lackluster, not even giving me the aspasia treatment and allowing me to still kill Aelfred if I wanted to.
The order overall didn't really grab me. None of them seemed particularly devoted to their cause. They were all just like "I'm here because I'm here".
Most of them weren't particularly difficult either, even the overseer level ones. Like they pretty much all went down in one arrow to the head.
It was really weird how completely nothing the water was. There was barely any treasure in it. There was essentially no water based combat, and even when you did have to swim in the water (in england) there were no threats, at all.
The side quests were the worst part of the game. Literally the only one I could describe to you is the crazy cat lady house, because they were, with very rare exception, all just "go up to this person, either talk to them, kill them, out-drink them, or follow them for a few minutes and then success". They were all just boring.
The game mechanics were good and not so good. I liked the fighting and I liked the exploration and building up my settlement and I grew to love Eivor. But I was a bit bummed that stealth was a bit weakened compared to odyssey. Like in Odessey I could, if I wanted to try, clear out an entire castle with no-one knowing better. But here a lot of the times people see me from near impossible angles, whistling is basically useless, and assassinations from stealth still outed you.
I would strongly recommend not bothering with the extra xp/silver. By the end of the game I had completed every single ability in all three trees, and had racked up 172 Mastery points as well.
The Asgard/Jotunheim stuff was really cool. I hoped for more but what we got was still fun. The jotunheim special mechanics of "you have to approach from this specific way to be able to see what you need" were really cool. I loved Fenrir's design.
The real world stuff just really bummed me out. Three games I've been with Layla and she's gone, just like that, like a chump.
And now this prick Basim who tried to kill Eivor and Sigurd, who tried to kill me, is alive and well with an immortality imbuing staff just like he planned, exploring Eivor's deepest memories and feelings as he wants, and will definitely be returning in future games.
It's just..a bummer.
Overall I really enjoyed my time in the game. I think it's a bit better than Origins, but nowhere near Odyssey.
Yeah, the ending is super weak:
Finish final zone (without even getting the head asshole): Now go do the all the extra random stuff. The End!
Basim is hopefully in for a surprise, though. Eivor was Odin/whoever reborn, so hopefully Eivor turns back up and kills him again. Or maybe Miles will first thing next game! It seems weird they trust Basim, they saw what he did and where he came from. Pretty dumb of Eivor and his brother to leave him alive for that matter.
But the story, especially the modern day one, died with Desmond so not too surprising it's full of stuff like this.
Still plugging away at Valhalla. I'm enjoying it about as much as Origins and Odyssey. It's good but long. I do think it has curtailed some of the longness of Odyssey by getting rid of side quests, and just having Mysteries. Those are basically short stories, they all have a little twist or something to make them interesting.
Did anyone else do the one with counting stones in a circle? I think it was in Cent. That was legit disturbing.
Slow start, strong middle, abysmal ending by basically all metrics except one little quest at the end
Basim was an interesting character and really compelling in the midgame until he was reduced to a two-dimensional villain at the end of the Norway plot. I spent the whole game spitting in Odin's single functioning eye and Basim not recognizing that sucks! The way Eivor is perplexed by Basim's reaction even during the fight and even when describing his death to Hytham suuuucks
Sigurd doesn't apologize for being a rampant dick and the game just tells you maybe the true betrayal is all the little betrayals you did along the way. Which, hey, sure, kissing his wife counts, but decking him for being a shit and not supporting him when he was giving an artist maximum jail time? Why is the game guilting me for that when he was framed for being in the wrong?
Aelfred is a slimy bastard who gets Eivor's friends killed via betrayal and sneaking around, and and retires to the countryside and you don't even get a satisfying kill out of of the Order stuff. Eivor literally burnt a town because she expected more betrayal out of the guy but she leaves him to bake cakes in the swamp? What?
Also I had no impression the final battle was the final battle and assumed there was one more but nope. Instead they're gonna kill leaders who should have been at home sending thegns to fight their battles, and Eivor will be a shitty atheist at their funeral all like "WELL THEY'RE GONE FOREVER, LET'S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD" in front of their dead bodies before she lights them up?? (And Hunwald as a Christian may have wanted other rites...)
Everything after meeting Sigurd on the dock was bullshit, honestly, aside from the wedding which at least brought back a little of the fun from midgame. The game is at its best when it's Eivor and pals playing off new characters and showing you a little more about the world. I thought the twist of Aelfred starting the Templars was interesting but the game just....lost a lot of joy.
I do have one lukewarm take which is that I was actually kind of cool with, as a lady, not having to engage with the gender dynamics/difficulties of playing as female Eivor, while I know that was sort of an Issue at release
I realized partway through that it was a little more fun to me as a power fantasy to, well... be perceived as equal and a strong leader without highlighting the additional problems a lady Viking might have (and similarly for other ladies like Soma)
It would definitely have been possible to have a compelling version of the game where Lady Eivor has additional motivation due to her gender! But honestly, it was fun to play as this strong, sometimes scary woman who is loving and supportive to her friends and terrifying to her enemies. I realize Male Eivor might have been more forgettable with a lot of the same traits, but Female Eivor has a sort of raw fierceness to her that I really enjoyed once the game let her warm up a little (figuratively and literally).
i guess they chose the ending point they did because they didn't want to end on aelfred beating the danes a couple months later? but they end on a bummer note anyway, it doesn't feel like much of a victory, so why not end on the more climactic bummer.
with sigurd i don't think him leaving is meant to be a "bad end" the game is just tracking your loyalty to him. being loyal to him may or may not be worth it to you
I do have one lukewarm take which is that I was actually kind of cool with, as a lady, not having to engage with the gender dynamics/difficulties of playing as female Eivor, while I know that was sort of an Issue at release
I realized partway through that it was a little more fun to me as a power fantasy to, well... be perceived as equal and a strong leader without highlighting the additional problems a lady Viking might have (and similarly for other ladies like Soma)
It would definitely have been possible to have a compelling version of the game where Lady Eivor has additional motivation due to her gender! But honestly, it was fun to play as this strong, sometimes scary woman who is loving and supportive to her friends and terrifying to her enemies. I realize Male Eivor might have been more forgettable with a lot of the same traits, but Female Eivor has a sort of raw fierceness to her that I really enjoyed once the game let her warm up a little (figuratively and literally).
Kassandra had this too, but I think Eivor gets to show more range because she is a leader and member of a community. Kassandra, for most of Odyssey, is just a solo operator. I think Kassandra was more easygoing, just trying to make a living, where Eivor seems to be put in situations where she's spitting insults and vowing revenge and other high-drama stuff. Or maybe it's just Vikings are in their feelings more than Greeks. Vikings definitely win the insult game hands-down.
I flipped between the Eivors at the beginning and while female Eivor isn't as much of an improvement as Kassandra is over Alexios there's a very harsh, raw quality to her voice that you don't get with female protags a lot, I really liked it. Could really sound like her throat was torn up by years of shouting orders on the boat or just shouting at people.
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And two days later Dag is like "You think you're in charge? What would SIGURD say?"
Why would they make Sigurd say that thing DIRECTLY to Dag for Dag to just completely ignore it?
Man actually fuck this game
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
And because I'm playing with lady eivor, my canon is that he's a misogynistic prick.
In a movie, it makes sense for Eivor to have blindspots, to ignore red flags. Movie Eivor could be self-contained, everything could make sense through the lens of how they see the world.
In a game, where much of the character's personality is given over to the player to shape, it's frustrating to have no ability to spot the red flags.
And what frustrates me is that it's a solved problem in game narrative design. Other games navigate that space by allowing you to try to get ahead of the shithead character who is obviously gonna fuck you, but they get the upper hand on you and weasel out. Which lets the plot move forward and stokes the fire of your resentment. It's a tried-and-true recipe! It works!
Seeing all her decisions. Seeing everything she does for the settlement in general.
And then choosing to interpret all that as a quest for personal glory at everyone else's expense anyway.
I still gave him the axe.
I would advise not doing so. I'm currently going through Cent, which is a recommended power level of like 130ish.
I'm at 340.
After one of the patches there were 3 skills that connected to those, but Ubisoft said we weren't supposed to have access to them yet and took them out, but the connecting "nodes" are still there even though you can't buy them.
(spoilers for some key items in Valhalla)
so many steps
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
is there any point to breaking crates?
But otherwise not much
hell no game i will not partake of your hate
There are still hostile animals to deal with but you can totally skip the obligation to shoot any of the harmless ones
good children are awful especially yours
There are a couple of times where the way through is hidden by boxes and crates and such.
On the other hand, sometimes there are snakes in the boxes and crates and such!
This seems like an asshole bit of game design
well, ubisoft
Well, valuable for one mystery quest in a sewer, anyway
Lesson learned...don't set exploration to the highest difficulty when you don't even realize what it does.
they must have lost the rest of the scattagories cards
125 hours.
Every single zone, every quest, every single arc, every treasure, mystery, artifact and every single icon on each map cleared.
The ending of the Order was also pretty lackluster, not even giving me the aspasia treatment and allowing me to still kill Aelfred if I wanted to.
The order overall didn't really grab me. None of them seemed particularly devoted to their cause. They were all just like "I'm here because I'm here".
Most of them weren't particularly difficult either, even the overseer level ones. Like they pretty much all went down in one arrow to the head.
It was really weird how completely nothing the water was. There was barely any treasure in it. There was essentially no water based combat, and even when you did have to swim in the water (in england) there were no threats, at all.
The side quests were the worst part of the game. Literally the only one I could describe to you is the crazy cat lady house, because they were, with very rare exception, all just "go up to this person, either talk to them, kill them, out-drink them, or follow them for a few minutes and then success". They were all just boring.
The game mechanics were good and not so good. I liked the fighting and I liked the exploration and building up my settlement and I grew to love Eivor. But I was a bit bummed that stealth was a bit weakened compared to odyssey. Like in Odessey I could, if I wanted to try, clear out an entire castle with no-one knowing better. But here a lot of the times people see me from near impossible angles, whistling is basically useless, and assassinations from stealth still outed you.
I would strongly recommend not bothering with the extra xp/silver. By the end of the game I had completed every single ability in all three trees, and had racked up 172 Mastery points as well.
The Asgard/Jotunheim stuff was really cool. I hoped for more but what we got was still fun. The jotunheim special mechanics of "you have to approach from this specific way to be able to see what you need" were really cool. I loved Fenrir's design.
The real world stuff just really bummed me out. Three games I've been with Layla and she's gone, just like that, like a chump.
And now this prick Basim who tried to kill Eivor and Sigurd, who tried to kill me, is alive and well with an immortality imbuing staff just like he planned, exploring Eivor's deepest memories and feelings as he wants, and will definitely be returning in future games.
It's just..a bummer.
Overall I really enjoyed my time in the game. I think it's a bit better than Origins, but nowhere near Odyssey.
I conquered all of London whilst only doing a handful of story missions. That burned me out for a bit (it grew exceedingly repetitive) and I didn’t play the game for an entire week, but in the end I felt it paid off as I hurtled through the story after that and it kept the narrative feeling nice and tight.
I grew to really love the stealth in this game. Playing as Jacob always felt such a disappointment after Evie.
In general I really loved the gameplay. The grappling hook was great and made ascending a few places far less tedious. Pretty much all of the controls (eagle vision, the combat, etc.) I preferred to Origins. I would’ve been disappointed with Origins had I played Syndicate first, I think.
I really loved the characters. I appreciated the humour in the game and Evie/Jacob’s sibling banter.
I also liked the difficulty rating/system. I actually conquered quite a few of the areas when under-leveled, which felt very satisfying, and caused me to get really creative at times. At first I skipped most of the bonus objectives but by the last couple of chapters I was able to complete them and that felt rewarding, too.
What I felt Origins did better: Well, far more variation and more interesting collectibles. Good grief, did Syndicate grow really tedious at times. I also missed puzzles like the Papyrus puzzles.
Now I’ve gone back to the Ezio trilogy. Oof, this looks great for 2009 but is still a huge step back, graphically. And the controls feel a lot clunkier. But so far it’s still fun to play, and I like how the missions are moving along.
Yeah, the ending is super weak:
Basim is hopefully in for a surprise, though. Eivor was Odin/whoever reborn, so hopefully Eivor turns back up and kills him again. Or maybe Miles will first thing next game! It seems weird they trust Basim, they saw what he did and where he came from. Pretty dumb of Eivor and his brother to leave him alive for that matter.
But the story, especially the modern day one, died with Desmond so not too surprising it's full of stuff like this.
Did anyone else do the one with counting stones in a circle? I think it was in Cent. That was legit disturbing.
Slow start, strong middle, abysmal ending by basically all metrics except one little quest at the end
Sigurd doesn't apologize for being a rampant dick and the game just tells you maybe the true betrayal is all the little betrayals you did along the way. Which, hey, sure, kissing his wife counts, but decking him for being a shit and not supporting him when he was giving an artist maximum jail time? Why is the game guilting me for that when he was framed for being in the wrong?
Aelfred is a slimy bastard who gets Eivor's friends killed via betrayal and sneaking around, and and retires to the countryside and you don't even get a satisfying kill out of of the Order stuff. Eivor literally burnt a town because she expected more betrayal out of the guy but she leaves him to bake cakes in the swamp? What?
Also I had no impression the final battle was the final battle and assumed there was one more but nope. Instead they're gonna kill leaders who should have been at home sending thegns to fight their battles, and Eivor will be a shitty atheist at their funeral all like "WELL THEY'RE GONE FOREVER, LET'S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD" in front of their dead bodies before she lights them up?? (And Hunwald as a Christian may have wanted other rites...)
Everything after meeting Sigurd on the dock was bullshit, honestly, aside from the wedding which at least brought back a little of the fun from midgame. The game is at its best when it's Eivor and pals playing off new characters and showing you a little more about the world. I thought the twist of Aelfred starting the Templars was interesting but the game just....lost a lot of joy.
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
I realized partway through that it was a little more fun to me as a power fantasy to, well... be perceived as equal and a strong leader without highlighting the additional problems a lady Viking might have (and similarly for other ladies like Soma)
It would definitely have been possible to have a compelling version of the game where Lady Eivor has additional motivation due to her gender! But honestly, it was fun to play as this strong, sometimes scary woman who is loving and supportive to her friends and terrifying to her enemies. I realize Male Eivor might have been more forgettable with a lot of the same traits, but Female Eivor has a sort of raw fierceness to her that I really enjoyed once the game let her warm up a little (figuratively and literally).
3DS Friend Code: 0216-0898-6512
Switch Friend Code: SW-7437-1538-7786
with sigurd i don't think him leaving is meant to be a "bad end" the game is just tracking your loyalty to him. being loyal to him may or may not be worth it to you
Kassandra had this too, but I think Eivor gets to show more range because she is a leader and member of a community. Kassandra, for most of Odyssey, is just a solo operator. I think Kassandra was more easygoing, just trying to make a living, where Eivor seems to be put in situations where she's spitting insults and vowing revenge and other high-drama stuff. Or maybe it's just Vikings are in their feelings more than Greeks. Vikings definitely win the insult game hands-down.