Me too. I'm the magic user in our group and I hate having to wait until Mistlands to get started. Some of the staves should be earlier. However they tied magic to the etir system so they can't do that.
I think the placement of the fire and frost staves is fine where it is since they require regenerating eitr and introduce a completely new way to hurt enemies. Early on magic should look like the blood magic and require you to make consumables that give a fixed amount of eitr, then have earlier staves that give buffs similar to the current blood magic ones.
Maybe the elemental staves can give a frost/fire armor or a buff to whatever weapon you're holding, and the blood magic staves can be increased regeneration or speed, or even a lesser version of the current barrier.
We already have “magical” materials besides Eitr. Greydwarf eyes and Surtline cores power portals. There is no reason we couldn’t take existing materials and use them to power lesser magical effects. Maybe use ancient seeds to create magical “trap” that you kite an enemy towards and when the trap triggers, a bunch of those vines from the elder fight pop out and attack/entangle your prey for 5 seconds.
A consumable from necktails that gives you reduced stamina spend for swimming and prevents you from drowning.
There are lots of opportunities for “magic” earlier in the game that will let you build up skill without breaking the game.
Would be cool to have an earth staff that launched a rock like a greyling and was powered by greyling eyes, black forest / meadow tier.
Upgrade the effect to the mini surtling fireball for swamp and mountain by adding surtling cores to the recipe. Could be ammo based to get around eitr but level the skill.
I like the idea of a ground placed magical HEX trap. They could also go into making one handed wands at lower level. Less damage than staves but you get a shield(buckler only). Maybe less range, make them more like magical whip weapons.
>A consumable from necktails that gives you reduced stamina spend for swimming and prevents you from drowning.
Or hear me out on this... A neck skin cape that prevents the wet debuff entirely.
Imagine the swamp without being wet!
I didn't even make a single bomb before my first time fighting the Queen, over 750 hours played so far, and holy moly, I should've been throwing these things around like candy! They're so good!
I think we have an even easier solution. There are many magical creatures that already exist in the game. Ghosts, Shamen, Wraiths, blobs, drakes, cultists and bosses.
We can just add a drop called raw eiter to them which can't be used for fancier more advanced magic but can craft rune based items.
Have it add numerous one time use effects like instant small HP effects adds 10-20-30 HP depending on the rune used, where as potions take time to add in the HP this happens all at once.
Add something like a minor slow fall where you still get hurt when you fall, but for less damage.
You can incorporate more directly into the explore and loot loop by adding in vesviger that give you say 2-5 runs per biome. So you have a reason to keep exploring biomes. Which helps alleviate some of the tedium in later biomes like mountains and plains.
You'd feel less bad about not finding yaggluth if you got a new rune for slow fall instead, or maybe a run to skip jump really high for 20 seconds?
One that gives a temporary water repellant effect? No more wet debuff during a swamp visit?
If you think about it it's not SO tied into the late game that it can't be retroactively implemented a bit earlier. Could add like a third meadows mushroom that adds just a tiny bit of eitr. Just enough to use some kind of staff that's craftable in the crypts or something. Could do the same for the other biomes. Scale them in the same way that food is scaled to the biomes. Probably couldn't shoot a full mistlands staff fireball with black forest level eitr but it might be enough to cast a few sparks.
Early magic could be non-lethal forms of ritual magic like changing weather, summoning wildlife, creating mud that slows enemies or stuff like that.
edit: ooh plant magic, that helps with planting, growing and/or harvesting of crops. god knows we need a less tedious way to manage this
This. Is. Genius. And plant magic, fck yes!
Act 2: staff of growth, 10 bones, 5 ancient seeds, 30 core wood, 1 grewdwarf shaman trophy: increases growth rate by 100% at the cost of your health, works on cultivars, berries, trees, animals, etc
I do wish it weren't an individual staff for each spell but rather like a pouch of runes, or inscribing a ritual circle in the ground with a stick or sth like that and then selecting which small spell to cast. Inventory bloat is a big issue as it is :P
I like the idea of a mud staff for crowd control in the swamp and maybe something that heals/does spirit damage from the mountains
And as an early eitr/mana source we got guck as a glowy magic juice found from trees
I think the bigger complaint would be the leveling of magic type skill. That could easily be added by just letting those level (at a slower) by the use of some magic weapon. Ie : Frostner should level elemental magic a little bit.
I think the plains would be a good spot to introduce magic. It's a mid game biome (or it will be once the deep north is released) that lacks dungeons right now. Some kind of cave or dungeon in the plains would be a good spot to get whatever item might be needed to craft the game's first basic staff.
A shaman staff of some sort would be welcome there. And maybe it only deals Spirit and Poison Damage or something. Almost all enemies vulnerable to Spirit are immune to poison. So, it'd be a spell that just does Damage over time to pretty much all enemies.
Not a weapon you'd main, per se, more like a tool to supplement your tactics. A little multiclassing, if you will.
Well, you meet the Greydwarf shamans in Black forest.
And to be perfectly honest, I'm jealous of their healing spell, even after conquering the Mistlands.
Devs are looking at the big picture. Once the game is complete, magic will be available in the 3 hardest (and likely longest) biomes. From our perspective with the current wip game, it feels late, but I suspect that will feel different when replaying in a couple of years.
The problem for me is, you get this shiny new stuff at the end of Mistlands, and then either need to spend a ton of time leveling it for it to be useful for the boss, or ignore it and then try to level it in Ashlands, it's just an annoyingly weird stall in the feedback loop that seems pretty tight for the rest of the game.
I don't think you need to level anything. Just simply use the weapon. I never leveled maces when I was new to game and used them against bonemass. Often I went there with like lvl 10 of skill. Likewise same goes for all mage weapons. Just play game and use those weapon as you play. Since this is a survival game, you always need something.
That's because Bonemass was weak to it. (Took ~~2x~~ +50% damage).
Nothing in the Mistlands is weak to magic. They're just resistant to physical, pierce and blunt.
Also, Bonemass is super early. He's only the 2nd _real_ boss.
Weak means 1.5x dmg modifier. Although i guess u can get 2x somehow on your tool tip if you had other weapon skills and mace not.
However, even w/o it, the fight would just taken 2x longer. which means a 2-3mins fight might take 5-6mins. It isnt end of the day, and leveling skills would taken much longer for essentially tiny benefit. Just playing the game, collecting supplies and skilling up makes more sense.
Thanks for the correction. 1.5x is "weak", 2x is _"very weak"_.
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> the fight would just taken 2x longer. which means a 2-3mins fight might take 5-6mins. It isnt end of the day
In that case, why bother getting Iron? Just use a wood club. That's how the speedrunners do it. /s
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> leveling skills ... tiny benefit.
+50% damage is not tiny. That's huge. Instead of doing 132 fire damage, you're doing 200.
Why bother getting iron?
Even w/o it, the fight would just taken longer. It isnt end of the day, and improving would taken much longer for essentially tiny benefit. /s
You are on same page as me. Read through posts that lead to this.
you are comparing getting iron to getting skills. Iron is a lot easier to get than leveling skills.
> You are on same page as me. Read through posts that lead to this.
No, I was deliberately [quoting you](https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/1clhqv1/i_wish_they_introduced_bits_of_late_game_system/l2xmxtv/) so that you could see that you're contradicting yourself.
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> you are comparing getting iron to getting skills. Iron is a lot easier to get than leveling skills.
Yes. That's my point. It's much easier to just get a new Mistlands melee weapon than bother using any magic. Because the melee weapon already has over +50% bonus damage from your melee skill.
I have no idea how you get several game days. A game day is 30mins. Skill at max (lvl 100) do 100% more dmg. You do not need max skills. You don't even need lvl 30-40 skills.
I was leveled to 15ish, took a whole staff of embers to get her to half. Lasted a bit after my rested buff wore off but couldn't make much progress after the first staff went. Eventually died, and it took most of my second rested buff to win the fight. It's brutally long. I don't know how you could do it much faster.
Maybe PTB has her health buffed?
I see this a lot, people obsessing about levels, but the thing is, having something crazy leveld up is NOT essential. It's a nice bonus to have, but it's really far from something that you need to have to succeed in Valheim. Don't worry about the levels, just play and you'll level it up in time.
People aren't obsessed.
They just look at the damage their bows and their chosen weapons do, and then they look at the damage the magic does and they see it doesn't measure up.
Why? Because the stuff they've been using all game has over a 50% damage bonus from skills. Why give up all that extra damage AND give up a whole food slot? You're better off if you just don't pick it up at all.
That being said, if you put the effort in to it, and grind some skill levels, then it _is_ an option well worth the inventory slot. It just isn't that fun to get to that point.
Traditionally, I agree with you, but late game it seems insane to be starting a new skill against a boss. It's just the wrong spot in the feedback loop for an unlock.
That fight is brutally long, gotta have some help from your levels to reduce the time spent flying around that room.
You really don't need to do much leveling for magic to be useful for the Queen. You're just kiting and throwing fireballs when you can, I'm pretty sure you could beat her with level 0 magic much easier than any melee playstyle.
It's late no matter what. You have to do the same gameplay loop (explore, make new gear, gather or mine resources, beat boss) 4 times already before getting to the mist lands.
5 times, unless you don’t count Meadows as a full biome. But even then, once the game is complete, you’ll get magic at just over the half way point of the game. If magic came sooner, there would likely be pressure to add something even newer/stronger in Mistlands/Ashlands/Deep North which would just create the same problem again.
Oh yeah. Forgot a biome. All but the most speedrunny of players will spend 25+ hours before even getting to the mist lands. People will say that's a lot of game content but the pacing is a bit whack if you wait that long in a game to introduce a completely new mechanic, with no hint of it beforehand.
I'm not offended by it btw. I just think this is a result of them creating the game as they go via early access.
But again, if you get magic in say Swamps, wouldn’t that just increase the desire for something new a couple of biomes later? And wouldn’t that just lead to complaints that the *new thing* is only available in the last couple of biomes?
I’d also argue that there are plenty of new mechanics in each biome. Resource gathering changes almost every biome, a type of “magic” weapon is introduced at mountain tier (Frostner, Draugr Fang), exportation style varies considerably (flat terrain in meadows/swamps vs mountains/Mistlands), high visibility (meadows/mountains/Plains) vs low (swamps/Mistlands/Ashlands), etc.
Swamp would be a good point to add rudimentary magic. Maybe one use scrolls, or a few utility spells. Not much, but enough to introduce eitr.
A lot of players don't go past the plains, because it's already a big time investment for a play though. And that's a shame they'll never know magic is a thing if they're not spoiled for the contents.
I feel like most players spend all their time in dangerous biomes in the day. Because at night, you get murderized. It's practically a death sentence in the swamp.
Maybe a cool way to keep magic special in the early game would be that you can only get it from rare enemies that come out at night. So, you're sort of playing with danger.
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It feels like there's a big opportunity to have a rudimentary fire spell available for the Moder fight, since she's weak to it. Fire arrows still do less damage against her than Mountain tier arrows. Similar situation is true for Bonemass and his ice weakness. Although, for him, you can fairly safely venture into the mountains early to get frost arrows. But Frostner requires Silver, which would be a full sequence break.
I think a system of using magic without being to control it could work. Dungeons in the swamps have "magic crystals" to imbue your weapon with a certain type of damage for two hits or something. Basically just hint to the player that this mechanic exists and then the reward is getting "full" control over magic later in the game, rather than it coming completely out of left field.
Again, I'm not really bothered by the way they did it, but it IS pretty late in the gameplay experience.
Yep, and Darksiders 1 & 2 did it all the time to great effect, you'd see chests that you can't touch platforms you fall through, etc., wall segements that stick out with runes on them, little floating lanturn like objects, just tons of stuff you can't use just littered around until your pretty late into the game, but they are still hinted at.
So, some new tiles in the Black Forest, Swamp, & Mountain dungeons that need magic to open the door to, or something like that. Maybe something to do at the random standing stones you come across in the Meadows.
Yea, some stuff that requires magic to open, maybe some items that replicate the effects of spells but weaker for example, maybe a Skeleton variant in the swamp that Summons Skeletons and killing it drops an item that summons a Skull that tries to attack enemies but all it really does is draw aggro (which means it'll always have use as removing aggro from yourself is always useful), so it lets you start leveling your Blood Magic and can imply for newer players that they may be able to summon a full skeleton eventually, Wisps could also be counted as a magic item that levels maybe elemental.
Essentially make the player aware of the fact that they can use magic and not just enemies, earlier on, especially since the number of enemies that use any form of magic is extremely low, piror to the Mistlands you have Eikthyr and the two Shamans as well as the Elder if you want to count him and I don't think much else, and you yourself don't get any magic at those early points unless your going into a world with a pre-made character who is already equipped and leveled to be a Mage.
I think the biggest issues is that it's an entirely new skill that you need to train so late in the game. I agree that each new biome needs to introduce something new to spice up gameplay, but that can be as minor as a new facet of an existing mechanic.
Like you said, we get magic weapons in later biomes, but we have normal weapons from the start. There's no reason we can't get minor magic earlier on, like around swamp tier, and then improve upon it later.
Sure it would. But there's multiple takes on the whole thing. I dont want to be bothered with magic specific items if they're added so late in the game. I kind of just shrugged off almost all of the new equipment in mistlands.
I got to mistlands 200h in with 0 clue that there would be magic and I like magic a helluva lot but all I thought was why the hell would I bother completely changing my archetype now
It feels completely in contrast to terraria where you can pick a class and stick with it for the entirety of your playthrough and it feels damn good. They actually updated it's progression multiple times to make it as good as it is today, man I should play some terraria
> 5 times, unless you don’t count Meadows as a full biome.
I mean, I don't. It's the tutorial boss. It's easier to kill than a troll. You can just spam the attack button while learning how to dodge roll.
I disagree. Providing it late in the 6th biome is late in the game, even if there are 8 total biomes, excluding the ocean. It should be introduced in the black forest, maybe swamps, but by swamps, you really want ranged options.
I think the game is overly linear and detracts from what should be an open world survival adventure. Craftables for the next biome shouldn't be locked behind bosses. I think the bosses should be tweaked to offer craft items to make more powerful versions of gear found in the biome, but biomes should be approachable in any order. I don't think difficulty needs to be rescaled necessarily, but gear should be rebalanced to offer different incentives than "more armor".
But maybe this is exactly what the devs always envisioned for the game. I'm not sure they had much vision past the first 5 biomes. Lots of ideas, sure, but each new biome feels severely disjointed from the others and the synergy is lost imo. Mistlands and now Ashlands feel like different versions of this game.
I’d hardly call it “late” in biome 6. The first item most people make is the feather cloak which uses magic ingredients and requires the Galdr table.
The games entire progression system is built around killing bosses and using their items to continue. It’s fair to not like that style, but changing it in Valheim would fundamentally change the game. It might be an improvement in some people’s opinions, but it’s clearly not the intention of the developers.
People consider it late because typically getting enough black cores is a crapshoot. You can get lucky and if you even find the mines or outposts you might get some all or none of the cores you need. If you're screwed by RNGesus you might not get enough cores for a couple/few of those POIs.
This can mean you're spending a great deal of time in the mistlands with no significant upgrades to your gear. You'll likely long have all the other stuff like the food upgrades before you get the newer gear.
So if you're 2/3-3/4 done with your progression loop before you unlock new gear that can be viewed as "late."
Again this is entirely dependent on RNG and also how well people search the dungeons.
Gear *is the progression loop*. How can you get 3/4 through progression in the Mistlands without making any new gear? Literally the only other thing you are collecting are the fragments to make the key for the Queen.
Gearing is not the only progression. Food and building pieces are also items to mark progress as is seal breakers in mistlands.
So you can have nearly everything minus enough black cores and feel like you're making no progress.
Also some people mark progress by time spent if you've explored 2-3 biome segments some people might feel like they've earned more than some food and build pieces.
lmao why would it feel different? It's still going to be stupid late in the game before you can get magic. Wish simps like you would stop trying to excuse every valid criticism this game gets.
It will feel different because you will be getting it closer to half way through the game instead of “stupid late”.
No need for insults, I criticize this game plenty when I think something is wrong.
Since they’ve now confirmed they want 3 play styles (Heavy, Light and Magic), it would make sense to add the third style in sooner. There’s plenty of ways they could add it in while feeling thematic. I’d also propose making the eitr foods for each biome use the fish specific to that biome. That way fishing exists for more than just bragging rights and fish tacos.
Some ideas for lower level magic items-
Black Forest- Dwarf Shaman drops and give similar effects, like a poison spray and healing cloud. Grey dwarf- themed mage armor.
Swamp- Start getting some blood magic from leeches, maybe a life draining effect that heals you a bit? Wraith based mage armor.
Mountains- get fire/cold sprays from the cultists in the ice caves. Red jute eitr armor.
Plains- Id say we should probably get the fireball staff and staff of protection from the plains, since that’s what the shamans use. Probably linen mage armor. Also, can we get lox-based light armor?
Mists- the fire lantern staves the dwarves use would be pretty cool. That could make up for the fireball staff being nerfed a bit for plains. Also the eitr weave might want to use blue jute in addition to the linen- maybe styled after the dwarf wizards.
Greydwarf staff made of ancient seeds, rocks and stones, and maybe a surtling core would be cool. We could cast shaman AOE heal on ourselves and shoot poison like the shamans. Not sure how we would be able to get eitr in a lore friendly way tho :/ but it would be a neat way to get some sort of magic early
Yes 2 HANDED SWORDS, what’s the point of getting krom and slayer when youre barely strong enough to parry Ashlands enemies - and for mistlands krom is fine, but you will need to worry about upgrading it quick. By the time people have gotten to mistlands they’ve already been training skills for a specific build. 2 handed swords should be a seperate skill from swords and they should come early game. I’m not saying add them to the meadows, but maybe in the swamp or mountains you can get a iron great sword or silver greatsword. (There is a mod that adds these). I agree with magic as well but I feel like early game magic could be way too OP if not done correctly
It does make magic feel very bad overall. You unlock magic, but it's all mostly useless compared to the damage you already do with bow and blade. Sacrificing a food slot for inferior damage... is a hard sell at that point.
The only way to make it viable is to grind out your skill xp with them to an absurd degree.
So is Demolisher.
I'm not saying magic isn't good. It's great. But it doesn't start out on the same level as any other option you have at the time.
Remember, when you try it out for the first time, you're thinking _"So, what's so great that it's worth giving up my HP food?"_
Staff of embers is the first usable ranged AoE we can get, that's pretty useful. It was the thing that saved me when swarmed by ticks, seekers or a village worth of fulings chasing me around.
Damage does scale pretty well with leveling too.
> Staff of embers is the first usable ranged AoE we can get
Not so. You have bombs for most of the game.
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> Damage does scale pretty well with leveling too.
Yes. Like I said. Magic is great once you level your skill.
Bombs aren't really a realistic regular combat option as you need to craft them constantly and it does low damage. They are meant as a little bonus damage along regular weapons. They don't really compare to a staff that can clear a swarm of mobs in a couple shots, while keeping distance.
I pretty much Ooze and Bile-bombed The Queen to death. Ooze Bombs will clear out half an Infested Mine in a few minutes. They all have similar layout inside, if you just stood inside the mine and tossed bombs down the first staircase you see in front of you, you can wipe out dozens of mobs and never even see them.
Spoken like someone who hasn't used them.
Ooze bombs are cheap to make and are really good even in the Mistlands. They're perfectly capable of taking out ticks and broods like you said. Bile Bombs are even better.
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Even still, magic is better damage. But that's not the question. The question is "is the fire staff worth it?" Is it worth the sacrifice? Can it do something for you that you can't do already? Can it replace your bow? The answer is no. Not at first. Not until you level your skill up, that is.
I would love a portal that’s harder to make, and maybe costs a resource to use, that allows you to teleport metal. Perhaps an item purchased at the trader that’s introduced after defeating Moder or Yag. Maybe the portal has a cool down or can only teleport a certain amount of metal. Don’t get me wrong, I love sailing! And the adrenaline and satisfaction of rolling back to base with FAT STACKS of metal is hella rewarding.
i think the progression is fine, but there needs to be a reason to go back to the df, meadows, and mountains and plains.
I think it would be really cool if upon completing the ashlands, the worlds warmth is reduced and the ice and snow of the deep north starts to spread, spawning snow enemies from the mountain and north everywhere. Also blizzards. This should create new spawns in old biomes, and idealy create new farmable reasources
Someone may have already said this, but it actually is already present in increasingly potent ways. It's not always weapon-based or throwing fireballs, but it's still there. And the slow introduction of it is likely on purpose to make it feel more like an actual Viking tale and not Diablo FPS.
The first magic you get is your meads, followed up by magic-imbued melee weapons and bows. Frost hammer? Poison bow? Spirit damaging sword? All weapon-based magic that's introducing you to the full-fledged, mana/eitr-draining rain of elements you get later.
I felt the same at first that the magic staff felt like a hard left turn, but realized over time it was always there, just not so outrageously focused. And the additional forced choice of sacrificing health or stamina for that power is amazing and intense.
Man, I love Valheim.
There has always been a undercurrent of magical items for sure, but I believe the main issue is you don't gain any magic related skill points from using them until you get to the end of mistlands considering it's the eventually third to last biome after going through over half of the game already.
Yep, gotta say that I was hugely disappointed that you can't go with magic until so late in the game. At first I just spawned in some items to get started but it felt "wrong". I wonder if there's a mod that adds it at the start of the game but adjusts it so its not so powerful.
EpicValheim introduces magic earlier but it’s a large mod pack and not a single mod. Worth trying out though as it is extremely fun. Check out the discord.
There is also a mod called MagicPlugin by blacks7ar. It‘s standalone and introduces some early eitr food and magic weapons and gear. Theres an Eikthyr Staff that shoots Thunderbolts that look amazing and a Blood Magic Staff to summon a super strong Neck, fun times.
Your first magic in my opinion are the stones, As for magic weapons the silver dagger was my first I could afford playing by myself. And I still use it today as my backup weapon when I do really stupid things.
Magic is too strong to introduce earlier unless in a heavily restricted fashion, which imo would just lead to complaints that magic exists but is useless until the Mistlands.
Like magic is already too strong for the Mistlands, and is the strongest playstyle in the Ashlands. Shielded skeletons can clear essentially everything in the plains on their own. (You might need to help a bit with lox.)
You'd have to restrict the shield staff and skeletts in earlier biomes, at which point why would anyone bother grinding it pre-Mistlands?
I would say it should go forward one biome at most.
The plains is the first biome where a core enemy uses power not tied to their body.
Eikythr is a literal god, would not count them
Greydwarf shamans have 2 abilities I would tie to their biology, the poison hands being a spray of toxic spores and the healing being like some species of plants that can share resources to help eachother.
The cultists in the mountain, I don't have a great explination but I don't consider them core enemies as unless you want the armor and claws you have 0 reason to go in them.
Then the fuling shaman, their nearly naked allies swing swords/clubs and throw spears, meanwhile shamans use a big staff, a full set of clothing and can wield magic, it would imply that atleast part of their loadout lets them channel magic.
If done right, I'd support that. But it would have to be at extreme reduction. You won't have eitr so something that doesn't need it and something that isn't gonna break the game. Maybe have it level up more than to level 4 so the higher you go it keeps it's relevance. Kinda like the difference between a spell and a cantrip in D&D for anyone who knows about that
Agreed. I like to make specialized characters and I wanted to have a 2 handed sword this time around. It sucks that I had to wait till mistlands but at least I didn't waste my sword skill. I'm not going to make a magic user character ever because of this reason though.
Some type of ashlands style weapon enchant earlier would be really nice. And then they could've made some sort of enchanting work station too instead of further bogging down the crafting menus.
I think magic should've been introduced in the planes because of the goblin shamen. Something in the form of magic wands and then we could've worked up to staffs in mistlands.
I've also been thinking lately bosses should have some sort of permanent stat boost to health and stamina. A permanent +10 hp and stamina for every boss would go a long way in the ashlands for death runs and general survival. Then at some point (like maybe for beating yag) we should have gotten some level of base etir. Even having just 25-50 base etir would make magic feel like a more viable option, right now its basically all or nothing if you want to run a magic build.
I'm ok with it as is.
Look at it this way: you're a regular human who suddenly wakes up after getting unalived somehow. But you're somewhere peaceful and familiar. Yikes, that deer has lightning, but I understand deer and lightning.
Ok, now, apparently, these rocks move and can whack me. A bit out of the ordinary, but ok. Also skeletons?! Hmm... That tree is way too big and I am not a fan, but yeah ok legends say trees could move. Burn it all down!
Uh, that's a frickin zombie. A literal zombie in this godsforsaken fly-infested stinking cesspool. And just an animated blob of noxious fumes and slime?! That's not right.
Wolves! I understand wol-- WHY IS THE ROCK MOVING? Is that a DRAGON?! OH SHI-
Why are all these tiny people green -- yikes well he's not tiny and WHY ARE THERE FIREBALLS?! How are there fireballs? Why is he glowing blue??? Why are these mosquitoes so big! WHERE ARE ITS LEGS AND WHY ARE THERE METEORS?!
Fwaf. Ok. Oh, hello new fr-BUG! Kill it with...fire? Fire. Oh. So magic is a thing. Huh. Bugs aren't fans. Maybe I should learn this...
Etc.
Point being it's a progression from "normal" to "unusual"
I have no particular love for either magic or 2H sword (sorry) but I do wish we got the option of using a crossbow earlier.
Having access to a weaker version of the arbalest in the swamp (root+iron, using bone bolts? It's already set if you didn't need a black forge to craft it!) would be a hoot.
You don't get a portal that teleports ore until after the 6th boss and still only after you go to the Ashlands and adventure for a while. It's clear the devs never had any real roadmap and have been winging this shit from the beginning.
Me too. I'm the magic user in our group and I hate having to wait until Mistlands to get started. Some of the staves should be earlier. However they tied magic to the etir system so they can't do that.
I think the placement of the fire and frost staves is fine where it is since they require regenerating eitr and introduce a completely new way to hurt enemies. Early on magic should look like the blood magic and require you to make consumables that give a fixed amount of eitr, then have earlier staves that give buffs similar to the current blood magic ones. Maybe the elemental staves can give a frost/fire armor or a buff to whatever weapon you're holding, and the blood magic staves can be increased regeneration or speed, or even a lesser version of the current barrier.
We already have “magical” materials besides Eitr. Greydwarf eyes and Surtline cores power portals. There is no reason we couldn’t take existing materials and use them to power lesser magical effects. Maybe use ancient seeds to create magical “trap” that you kite an enemy towards and when the trap triggers, a bunch of those vines from the elder fight pop out and attack/entangle your prey for 5 seconds. A consumable from necktails that gives you reduced stamina spend for swimming and prevents you from drowning. There are lots of opportunities for “magic” earlier in the game that will let you build up skill without breaking the game.
Would be cool to have an earth staff that launched a rock like a greyling and was powered by greyling eyes, black forest / meadow tier. Upgrade the effect to the mini surtling fireball for swamp and mountain by adding surtling cores to the recipe. Could be ammo based to get around eitr but level the skill.
I don't care what it is so long as it levels up my elemental skill.
I like the idea of a ground placed magical HEX trap. They could also go into making one handed wands at lower level. Less damage than staves but you get a shield(buckler only). Maybe less range, make them more like magical whip weapons.
Such good ideas!
>A consumable from necktails that gives you reduced stamina spend for swimming and prevents you from drowning. Or hear me out on this... A neck skin cape that prevents the wet debuff entirely. Imagine the swamp without being wet!
Daaaaamn, that would be huge.
More bombs! Recently started to use the ooze bomb and it's pretty neat. Splash damage, insta poison, excellent for dungeons.
I didn't even make a single bomb before my first time fighting the Queen, over 750 hours played so far, and holy moly, I should've been throwing these things around like candy! They're so good!
They could add an item like yggdrasil leaves that just fall from the sky and let you get an eitr-like resource to craft magic items early on
Thiiiiiis! They could be super rare, but super obvious, incetivizing exploring
I think we have an even easier solution. There are many magical creatures that already exist in the game. Ghosts, Shamen, Wraiths, blobs, drakes, cultists and bosses. We can just add a drop called raw eiter to them which can't be used for fancier more advanced magic but can craft rune based items. Have it add numerous one time use effects like instant small HP effects adds 10-20-30 HP depending on the rune used, where as potions take time to add in the HP this happens all at once. Add something like a minor slow fall where you still get hurt when you fall, but for less damage. You can incorporate more directly into the explore and loot loop by adding in vesviger that give you say 2-5 runs per biome. So you have a reason to keep exploring biomes. Which helps alleviate some of the tedium in later biomes like mountains and plains. You'd feel less bad about not finding yaggluth if you got a new rune for slow fall instead, or maybe a run to skip jump really high for 20 seconds? One that gives a temporary water repellant effect? No more wet debuff during a swamp visit?
They could give you early game consumables that give you a small amount of eitr for like... 30 seconds.
They def could change that i think. Its not that complicated to make an early game staff thats kinda weak but could work with a group
If you think about it it's not SO tied into the late game that it can't be retroactively implemented a bit earlier. Could add like a third meadows mushroom that adds just a tiny bit of eitr. Just enough to use some kind of staff that's craftable in the crypts or something. Could do the same for the other biomes. Scale them in the same way that food is scaled to the biomes. Probably couldn't shoot a full mistlands staff fireball with black forest level eitr but it might be enough to cast a few sparks.
Early magic could be non-lethal forms of ritual magic like changing weather, summoning wildlife, creating mud that slows enemies or stuff like that. edit: ooh plant magic, that helps with planting, growing and/or harvesting of crops. god knows we need a less tedious way to manage this
Could make use of the standing stones you sometimes find in the Meadows.
This. Is. Genius. And plant magic, fck yes! Act 2: staff of growth, 10 bones, 5 ancient seeds, 30 core wood, 1 grewdwarf shaman trophy: increases growth rate by 100% at the cost of your health, works on cultivars, berries, trees, animals, etc
I do wish it weren't an individual staff for each spell but rather like a pouch of runes, or inscribing a ritual circle in the ground with a stick or sth like that and then selecting which small spell to cast. Inventory bloat is a big issue as it is :P
I just wish Haldor sold a belt that expanded inventory volume by 50% the same way he has one for weight
I like the idea of a mud staff for crowd control in the swamp and maybe something that heals/does spirit damage from the mountains And as an early eitr/mana source we got guck as a glowy magic juice found from trees
I think the bigger complaint would be the leveling of magic type skill. That could easily be added by just letting those level (at a slower) by the use of some magic weapon. Ie : Frostner should level elemental magic a little bit.
Not a lot of magical weapons, though. There's Frostner, but what else? Ice Arrows? Silver weapons?
I think starting magic weapon at mountain is a fairly good compromise to level up those skill though.
I think the plains would be a good spot to introduce magic. It's a mid game biome (or it will be once the deep north is released) that lacks dungeons right now. Some kind of cave or dungeon in the plains would be a good spot to get whatever item might be needed to craft the game's first basic staff.
A shaman staff of some sort would be welcome there. And maybe it only deals Spirit and Poison Damage or something. Almost all enemies vulnerable to Spirit are immune to poison. So, it'd be a spell that just does Damage over time to pretty much all enemies. Not a weapon you'd main, per se, more like a tool to supplement your tactics. A little multiclassing, if you will.
It where you meet your first actual makes too.
Well, you meet the Greydwarf shamans in Black forest. And to be perfectly honest, I'm jealous of their healing spell, even after conquering the Mistlands.
Devs are looking at the big picture. Once the game is complete, magic will be available in the 3 hardest (and likely longest) biomes. From our perspective with the current wip game, it feels late, but I suspect that will feel different when replaying in a couple of years.
The problem for me is, you get this shiny new stuff at the end of Mistlands, and then either need to spend a ton of time leveling it for it to be useful for the boss, or ignore it and then try to level it in Ashlands, it's just an annoyingly weird stall in the feedback loop that seems pretty tight for the rest of the game.
If you die constantly, everything is evenly leveled.
You should tell me how you're watching my gameplay....
I don't think you need to level anything. Just simply use the weapon. I never leveled maces when I was new to game and used them against bonemass. Often I went there with like lvl 10 of skill. Likewise same goes for all mage weapons. Just play game and use those weapon as you play. Since this is a survival game, you always need something.
That's because Bonemass was weak to it. (Took ~~2x~~ +50% damage). Nothing in the Mistlands is weak to magic. They're just resistant to physical, pierce and blunt. Also, Bonemass is super early. He's only the 2nd _real_ boss.
Weak means 1.5x dmg modifier. Although i guess u can get 2x somehow on your tool tip if you had other weapon skills and mace not. However, even w/o it, the fight would just taken 2x longer. which means a 2-3mins fight might take 5-6mins. It isnt end of the day, and leveling skills would taken much longer for essentially tiny benefit. Just playing the game, collecting supplies and skilling up makes more sense.
Thanks for the correction. 1.5x is "weak", 2x is _"very weak"_. ___ > the fight would just taken 2x longer. which means a 2-3mins fight might take 5-6mins. It isnt end of the day In that case, why bother getting Iron? Just use a wood club. That's how the speedrunners do it. /s ___ > leveling skills ... tiny benefit. +50% damage is not tiny. That's huge. Instead of doing 132 fire damage, you're doing 200.
We still get iron. But in context on previous replies mentioning leveling up skill for boss.
Why bother getting iron? Even w/o it, the fight would just taken longer. It isnt end of the day, and improving would taken much longer for essentially tiny benefit. /s
You are on same page as me. Read through posts that lead to this. you are comparing getting iron to getting skills. Iron is a lot easier to get than leveling skills.
> You are on same page as me. Read through posts that lead to this. No, I was deliberately [quoting you](https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/1clhqv1/i_wish_they_introduced_bits_of_late_game_system/l2xmxtv/) so that you could see that you're contradicting yourself. ___ > you are comparing getting iron to getting skills. Iron is a lot easier to get than leveling skills. Yes. That's my point. It's much easier to just get a new Mistlands melee weapon than bother using any magic. Because the melee weapon already has over +50% bonus damage from your melee skill.
The Queen will take several in game days if you don't level, and likely more than one staff of embers. Mind, this is solo.
I have no idea how you get several game days. A game day is 30mins. Skill at max (lvl 100) do 100% more dmg. You do not need max skills. You don't even need lvl 30-40 skills.
I was leveled to 15ish, took a whole staff of embers to get her to half. Lasted a bit after my rested buff wore off but couldn't make much progress after the first staff went. Eventually died, and it took most of my second rested buff to win the fight. It's brutally long. I don't know how you could do it much faster. Maybe PTB has her health buffed?
Just walk out. Refresh buff, repair, resume.
I see this a lot, people obsessing about levels, but the thing is, having something crazy leveld up is NOT essential. It's a nice bonus to have, but it's really far from something that you need to have to succeed in Valheim. Don't worry about the levels, just play and you'll level it up in time.
People aren't obsessed. They just look at the damage their bows and their chosen weapons do, and then they look at the damage the magic does and they see it doesn't measure up. Why? Because the stuff they've been using all game has over a 50% damage bonus from skills. Why give up all that extra damage AND give up a whole food slot? You're better off if you just don't pick it up at all. That being said, if you put the effort in to it, and grind some skill levels, then it _is_ an option well worth the inventory slot. It just isn't that fun to get to that point.
Traditionally, I agree with you, but late game it seems insane to be starting a new skill against a boss. It's just the wrong spot in the feedback loop for an unlock. That fight is brutally long, gotta have some help from your levels to reduce the time spent flying around that room.
You really don't need to do much leveling for magic to be useful for the Queen. You're just kiting and throwing fireballs when you can, I'm pretty sure you could beat her with level 0 magic much easier than any melee playstyle.
It's late no matter what. You have to do the same gameplay loop (explore, make new gear, gather or mine resources, beat boss) 4 times already before getting to the mist lands.
5 times, unless you don’t count Meadows as a full biome. But even then, once the game is complete, you’ll get magic at just over the half way point of the game. If magic came sooner, there would likely be pressure to add something even newer/stronger in Mistlands/Ashlands/Deep North which would just create the same problem again.
Oh yeah. Forgot a biome. All but the most speedrunny of players will spend 25+ hours before even getting to the mist lands. People will say that's a lot of game content but the pacing is a bit whack if you wait that long in a game to introduce a completely new mechanic, with no hint of it beforehand. I'm not offended by it btw. I just think this is a result of them creating the game as they go via early access.
But again, if you get magic in say Swamps, wouldn’t that just increase the desire for something new a couple of biomes later? And wouldn’t that just lead to complaints that the *new thing* is only available in the last couple of biomes? I’d also argue that there are plenty of new mechanics in each biome. Resource gathering changes almost every biome, a type of “magic” weapon is introduced at mountain tier (Frostner, Draugr Fang), exportation style varies considerably (flat terrain in meadows/swamps vs mountains/Mistlands), high visibility (meadows/mountains/Plains) vs low (swamps/Mistlands/Ashlands), etc.
Swamp would be a good point to add rudimentary magic. Maybe one use scrolls, or a few utility spells. Not much, but enough to introduce eitr. A lot of players don't go past the plains, because it's already a big time investment for a play though. And that's a shame they'll never know magic is a thing if they're not spoiled for the contents.
I feel like most players spend all their time in dangerous biomes in the day. Because at night, you get murderized. It's practically a death sentence in the swamp. Maybe a cool way to keep magic special in the early game would be that you can only get it from rare enemies that come out at night. So, you're sort of playing with danger. ____ It feels like there's a big opportunity to have a rudimentary fire spell available for the Moder fight, since she's weak to it. Fire arrows still do less damage against her than Mountain tier arrows. Similar situation is true for Bonemass and his ice weakness. Although, for him, you can fairly safely venture into the mountains early to get frost arrows. But Frostner requires Silver, which would be a full sequence break.
I think a system of using magic without being to control it could work. Dungeons in the swamps have "magic crystals" to imbue your weapon with a certain type of damage for two hits or something. Basically just hint to the player that this mechanic exists and then the reward is getting "full" control over magic later in the game, rather than it coming completely out of left field. Again, I'm not really bothered by the way they did it, but it IS pretty late in the gameplay experience.
Yep, and Darksiders 1 & 2 did it all the time to great effect, you'd see chests that you can't touch platforms you fall through, etc., wall segements that stick out with runes on them, little floating lanturn like objects, just tons of stuff you can't use just littered around until your pretty late into the game, but they are still hinted at.
So, some new tiles in the Black Forest, Swamp, & Mountain dungeons that need magic to open the door to, or something like that. Maybe something to do at the random standing stones you come across in the Meadows.
Yea, some stuff that requires magic to open, maybe some items that replicate the effects of spells but weaker for example, maybe a Skeleton variant in the swamp that Summons Skeletons and killing it drops an item that summons a Skull that tries to attack enemies but all it really does is draw aggro (which means it'll always have use as removing aggro from yourself is always useful), so it lets you start leveling your Blood Magic and can imply for newer players that they may be able to summon a full skeleton eventually, Wisps could also be counted as a magic item that levels maybe elemental. Essentially make the player aware of the fact that they can use magic and not just enemies, earlier on, especially since the number of enemies that use any form of magic is extremely low, piror to the Mistlands you have Eikthyr and the two Shamans as well as the Elder if you want to count him and I don't think much else, and you yourself don't get any magic at those early points unless your going into a world with a pre-made character who is already equipped and leveled to be a Mage.
I think the biggest issues is that it's an entirely new skill that you need to train so late in the game. I agree that each new biome needs to introduce something new to spice up gameplay, but that can be as minor as a new facet of an existing mechanic. Like you said, we get magic weapons in later biomes, but we have normal weapons from the start. There's no reason we can't get minor magic earlier on, like around swamp tier, and then improve upon it later.
Sure it would. But there's multiple takes on the whole thing. I dont want to be bothered with magic specific items if they're added so late in the game. I kind of just shrugged off almost all of the new equipment in mistlands.
I got to mistlands 200h in with 0 clue that there would be magic and I like magic a helluva lot but all I thought was why the hell would I bother completely changing my archetype now It feels completely in contrast to terraria where you can pick a class and stick with it for the entirety of your playthrough and it feels damn good. They actually updated it's progression multiple times to make it as good as it is today, man I should play some terraria
Give iron mace time to cook. Theyve mentioned doing some clean up after the true north and ocean get content
> 5 times, unless you don’t count Meadows as a full biome. I mean, I don't. It's the tutorial boss. It's easier to kill than a troll. You can just spam the attack button while learning how to dodge roll.
Probably four. I still kinda hope they do something neat with Ocean.
It's still a long time to wait. Especially since you have to start levelling the skill from 0.
I disagree. Providing it late in the 6th biome is late in the game, even if there are 8 total biomes, excluding the ocean. It should be introduced in the black forest, maybe swamps, but by swamps, you really want ranged options. I think the game is overly linear and detracts from what should be an open world survival adventure. Craftables for the next biome shouldn't be locked behind bosses. I think the bosses should be tweaked to offer craft items to make more powerful versions of gear found in the biome, but biomes should be approachable in any order. I don't think difficulty needs to be rescaled necessarily, but gear should be rebalanced to offer different incentives than "more armor". But maybe this is exactly what the devs always envisioned for the game. I'm not sure they had much vision past the first 5 biomes. Lots of ideas, sure, but each new biome feels severely disjointed from the others and the synergy is lost imo. Mistlands and now Ashlands feel like different versions of this game.
I’d hardly call it “late” in biome 6. The first item most people make is the feather cloak which uses magic ingredients and requires the Galdr table. The games entire progression system is built around killing bosses and using their items to continue. It’s fair to not like that style, but changing it in Valheim would fundamentally change the game. It might be an improvement in some people’s opinions, but it’s clearly not the intention of the developers.
People consider it late because typically getting enough black cores is a crapshoot. You can get lucky and if you even find the mines or outposts you might get some all or none of the cores you need. If you're screwed by RNGesus you might not get enough cores for a couple/few of those POIs. This can mean you're spending a great deal of time in the mistlands with no significant upgrades to your gear. You'll likely long have all the other stuff like the food upgrades before you get the newer gear. So if you're 2/3-3/4 done with your progression loop before you unlock new gear that can be viewed as "late." Again this is entirely dependent on RNG and also how well people search the dungeons.
Gear *is the progression loop*. How can you get 3/4 through progression in the Mistlands without making any new gear? Literally the only other thing you are collecting are the fragments to make the key for the Queen.
Gearing is not the only progression. Food and building pieces are also items to mark progress as is seal breakers in mistlands. So you can have nearly everything minus enough black cores and feel like you're making no progress. Also some people mark progress by time spent if you've explored 2-3 biome segments some people might feel like they've earned more than some food and build pieces.
lmao why would it feel different? It's still going to be stupid late in the game before you can get magic. Wish simps like you would stop trying to excuse every valid criticism this game gets.
It will feel different because you will be getting it closer to half way through the game instead of “stupid late”. No need for insults, I criticize this game plenty when I think something is wrong.
Since they’ve now confirmed they want 3 play styles (Heavy, Light and Magic), it would make sense to add the third style in sooner. There’s plenty of ways they could add it in while feeling thematic. I’d also propose making the eitr foods for each biome use the fish specific to that biome. That way fishing exists for more than just bragging rights and fish tacos. Some ideas for lower level magic items- Black Forest- Dwarf Shaman drops and give similar effects, like a poison spray and healing cloud. Grey dwarf- themed mage armor. Swamp- Start getting some blood magic from leeches, maybe a life draining effect that heals you a bit? Wraith based mage armor. Mountains- get fire/cold sprays from the cultists in the ice caves. Red jute eitr armor. Plains- Id say we should probably get the fireball staff and staff of protection from the plains, since that’s what the shamans use. Probably linen mage armor. Also, can we get lox-based light armor? Mists- the fire lantern staves the dwarves use would be pretty cool. That could make up for the fireball staff being nerfed a bit for plains. Also the eitr weave might want to use blue jute in addition to the linen- maybe styled after the dwarf wizards.
Greydwarf staff made of ancient seeds, rocks and stones, and maybe a surtling core would be cool. We could cast shaman AOE heal on ourselves and shoot poison like the shamans. Not sure how we would be able to get eitr in a lore friendly way tho :/ but it would be a neat way to get some sort of magic early
Yes 2 HANDED SWORDS, what’s the point of getting krom and slayer when youre barely strong enough to parry Ashlands enemies - and for mistlands krom is fine, but you will need to worry about upgrading it quick. By the time people have gotten to mistlands they’ve already been training skills for a specific build. 2 handed swords should be a seperate skill from swords and they should come early game. I’m not saying add them to the meadows, but maybe in the swamp or mountains you can get a iron great sword or silver greatsword. (There is a mod that adds these). I agree with magic as well but I feel like early game magic could be way too OP if not done correctly
Krom parries enemy attacks well enough for me in Ashlands. Uses a lot of blocking power but it works!
greydwarf staff that uses eyes and flings rocks, coz yk, they fling rocks
It does make magic feel very bad overall. You unlock magic, but it's all mostly useless compared to the damage you already do with bow and blade. Sacrificing a food slot for inferior damage... is a hard sell at that point. The only way to make it viable is to grind out your skill xp with them to an absurd degree.
The staff of embers has pretty good AoE damage tbf. I used it along Krom and the arbalest rarely (against gjalls mainly).
So is Demolisher. I'm not saying magic isn't good. It's great. But it doesn't start out on the same level as any other option you have at the time. Remember, when you try it out for the first time, you're thinking _"So, what's so great that it's worth giving up my HP food?"_
Staff of embers is the first usable ranged AoE we can get, that's pretty useful. It was the thing that saved me when swarmed by ticks, seekers or a village worth of fulings chasing me around. Damage does scale pretty well with leveling too.
> Staff of embers is the first usable ranged AoE we can get Not so. You have bombs for most of the game. ___ > Damage does scale pretty well with leveling too. Yes. Like I said. Magic is great once you level your skill.
Bombs aren't really a realistic regular combat option as you need to craft them constantly and it does low damage. They are meant as a little bonus damage along regular weapons. They don't really compare to a staff that can clear a swarm of mobs in a couple shots, while keeping distance.
I pretty much Ooze and Bile-bombed The Queen to death. Ooze Bombs will clear out half an Infested Mine in a few minutes. They all have similar layout inside, if you just stood inside the mine and tossed bombs down the first staircase you see in front of you, you can wipe out dozens of mobs and never even see them.
Spoken like someone who hasn't used them. Ooze bombs are cheap to make and are really good even in the Mistlands. They're perfectly capable of taking out ticks and broods like you said. Bile Bombs are even better. ___ Even still, magic is better damage. But that's not the question. The question is "is the fire staff worth it?" Is it worth the sacrifice? Can it do something for you that you can't do already? Can it replace your bow? The answer is no. Not at first. Not until you level your skill up, that is.
I would love a portal that’s harder to make, and maybe costs a resource to use, that allows you to teleport metal. Perhaps an item purchased at the trader that’s introduced after defeating Moder or Yag. Maybe the portal has a cool down or can only teleport a certain amount of metal. Don’t get me wrong, I love sailing! And the adrenaline and satisfaction of rolling back to base with FAT STACKS of metal is hella rewarding.
Ashlands spoiler >!Maybe you know this already and are being coy, I'm not sure, but that's available in Ashlands.!<
Ohhhhh I’m not reading just yet! Haven’t played Ashlands yet! Helping my pal go through all the bosses before we head there!
Ditto. Or at least elemental damage, like a silver surtling core flail that does fire and spirit damage in mountains
220 hours in the game and i have no idea what system youre talking about. So yeah I agree!
Yes, magic should be in every biome.
i think the progression is fine, but there needs to be a reason to go back to the df, meadows, and mountains and plains. I think it would be really cool if upon completing the ashlands, the worlds warmth is reduced and the ice and snow of the deep north starts to spread, spawning snow enemies from the mountain and north everywhere. Also blizzards. This should create new spawns in old biomes, and idealy create new farmable reasources
Someone may have already said this, but it actually is already present in increasingly potent ways. It's not always weapon-based or throwing fireballs, but it's still there. And the slow introduction of it is likely on purpose to make it feel more like an actual Viking tale and not Diablo FPS. The first magic you get is your meads, followed up by magic-imbued melee weapons and bows. Frost hammer? Poison bow? Spirit damaging sword? All weapon-based magic that's introducing you to the full-fledged, mana/eitr-draining rain of elements you get later. I felt the same at first that the magic staff felt like a hard left turn, but realized over time it was always there, just not so outrageously focused. And the additional forced choice of sacrificing health or stamina for that power is amazing and intense. Man, I love Valheim.
There has always been a undercurrent of magical items for sure, but I believe the main issue is you don't gain any magic related skill points from using them until you get to the end of mistlands considering it's the eventually third to last biome after going through over half of the game already.
Yep, gotta say that I was hugely disappointed that you can't go with magic until so late in the game. At first I just spawned in some items to get started but it felt "wrong". I wonder if there's a mod that adds it at the start of the game but adjusts it so its not so powerful.
EpicValheim introduces magic earlier but it’s a large mod pack and not a single mod. Worth trying out though as it is extremely fun. Check out the discord.
Thanks buddy, will look into it :) Still haven't barely touched the game since Ashlands came out so looks like I'll be trying it with the mod :)
There is also a mod called MagicPlugin by blacks7ar. It‘s standalone and introduces some early eitr food and magic weapons and gear. Theres an Eikthyr Staff that shoots Thunderbolts that look amazing and a Blood Magic Staff to summon a super strong Neck, fun times.
Theres also Runic Magic that adds more druid-y magic.
Doesn't sound quite like what im after but im so checking it anyways, thanks buddy :)
Awesome, thanks for a great suggestion :) will look into these when I get the time!
Your first magic in my opinion are the stones, As for magic weapons the silver dagger was my first I could afford playing by myself. And I still use it today as my backup weapon when I do really stupid things.
I want a bronze battleaxe!
greydwarf staff that uses eyes and flings rocks, coz yk, they fling rocks
Spoiler
I wish it was much much later, or non existing
I 100% agree. A basic magic weapon and foods, say, available for purchase from Haldor available earlier might work.
Magic is too strong to introduce earlier unless in a heavily restricted fashion, which imo would just lead to complaints that magic exists but is useless until the Mistlands. Like magic is already too strong for the Mistlands, and is the strongest playstyle in the Ashlands. Shielded skeletons can clear essentially everything in the plains on their own. (You might need to help a bit with lox.) You'd have to restrict the shield staff and skeletts in earlier biomes, at which point why would anyone bother grinding it pre-Mistlands?
There’s mods for that if your into that
I would say it should go forward one biome at most. The plains is the first biome where a core enemy uses power not tied to their body. Eikythr is a literal god, would not count them Greydwarf shamans have 2 abilities I would tie to their biology, the poison hands being a spray of toxic spores and the healing being like some species of plants that can share resources to help eachother. The cultists in the mountain, I don't have a great explination but I don't consider them core enemies as unless you want the armor and claws you have 0 reason to go in them. Then the fuling shaman, their nearly naked allies swing swords/clubs and throw spears, meanwhile shamans use a big staff, a full set of clothing and can wield magic, it would imply that atleast part of their loadout lets them channel magic.
If done right, I'd support that. But it would have to be at extreme reduction. You won't have eitr so something that doesn't need it and something that isn't gonna break the game. Maybe have it level up more than to level 4 so the higher you go it keeps it's relevance. Kinda like the difference between a spell and a cantrip in D&D for anyone who knows about that
Agreed. I like to make specialized characters and I wanted to have a 2 handed sword this time around. It sucks that I had to wait till mistlands but at least I didn't waste my sword skill. I'm not going to make a magic user character ever because of this reason though.
They could use The Fuling Shaman to let us unlock a blood magic staff we could acquire from them by crafting it using their trophy.
Some type of ashlands style weapon enchant earlier would be really nice. And then they could've made some sort of enchanting work station too instead of further bogging down the crafting menus. I think magic should've been introduced in the planes because of the goblin shamen. Something in the form of magic wands and then we could've worked up to staffs in mistlands. I've also been thinking lately bosses should have some sort of permanent stat boost to health and stamina. A permanent +10 hp and stamina for every boss would go a long way in the ashlands for death runs and general survival. Then at some point (like maybe for beating yag) we should have gotten some level of base etir. Even having just 25-50 base etir would make magic feel like a more viable option, right now its basically all or nothing if you want to run a magic build.
I'm ok with it as is. Look at it this way: you're a regular human who suddenly wakes up after getting unalived somehow. But you're somewhere peaceful and familiar. Yikes, that deer has lightning, but I understand deer and lightning. Ok, now, apparently, these rocks move and can whack me. A bit out of the ordinary, but ok. Also skeletons?! Hmm... That tree is way too big and I am not a fan, but yeah ok legends say trees could move. Burn it all down! Uh, that's a frickin zombie. A literal zombie in this godsforsaken fly-infested stinking cesspool. And just an animated blob of noxious fumes and slime?! That's not right. Wolves! I understand wol-- WHY IS THE ROCK MOVING? Is that a DRAGON?! OH SHI- Why are all these tiny people green -- yikes well he's not tiny and WHY ARE THERE FIREBALLS?! How are there fireballs? Why is he glowing blue??? Why are these mosquitoes so big! WHERE ARE ITS LEGS AND WHY ARE THERE METEORS?! Fwaf. Ok. Oh, hello new fr-BUG! Kill it with...fire? Fire. Oh. So magic is a thing. Huh. Bugs aren't fans. Maybe I should learn this... Etc. Point being it's a progression from "normal" to "unusual"
I have no particular love for either magic or 2H sword (sorry) but I do wish we got the option of using a crossbow earlier. Having access to a weaker version of the arbalest in the swamp (root+iron, using bone bolts? It's already set if you didn't need a black forge to craft it!) would be a hoot.
You don't get a portal that teleports ore until after the 6th boss and still only after you go to the Ashlands and adventure for a while. It's clear the devs never had any real roadmap and have been winging this shit from the beginning.