I just want to say that with how awesome Odyssey was, I didn't expect you'd ever beat it. But there are many things changed, that were improved upon during Odyssey's time and I cannot fathom why they weren't in from the beginning in Valhalla.

General changes that make the game feel really bad:

• bird doesn't mark anything, and thus doesn't need "perception increase" from viewpoints which makes me not even care about doing them most of the time. This also makes fights absolutely horrific, as it's already unclear half the time when an enemy is going to strike especially when you're engaged with another enemy or 3 already stunlocking you. It makes me have to keep pressing Odin's site (because it can't be held in like Odyssey's could) to see where enemies even are
• it is such a chore to try and get something new to use; I've turned the game off multiple times because I'll get somewhere and after playing puzzles for 10 minutes, trying to move around with the awful parkour system that is the slowest thing I've ever tried doing, I'll get to the chest and it'll have "locked" on it. Like... I get that the rate Odyssey dropepd stuff may have been excessive, but my goodness. It takes forever to get some of these and you just never know if it's going only be unlocked via a quest, or there's a key, or if you can even get the key. There's a bandit camp near Grantbridge with one of these and despite seeing the key on the heavy, it doesn't loot it and I can't open the chest. It's just not fun never getting anything new to try
• the runes system seems like it was developed as a checklist at the last minute, did anyone try using one rune that's on a piece of gear on a different piece of gear? LoL. It's the worst thing about the gear system by far. You have no clue what is installed where until you mouse over, read, and hope to have memorized what the piece of armor you wanted it on was called. Why? Why isn't there an Odyssey-like system where you just "unlock that engraving". Because that sure seems to be what the UI was made for. You can't even uninstall a rune without finding which exact one it is and uninstalling it. Then, of course, if you have more than one of the same (-1.0 weight) installed on the same piece you'll end up having to add another layer of clicks to find out whther you're going to have them swap places or un-socket it. Just horrible. Not to mention they're also very vague and usually not even worth it. 5.0 damage to Elite... okay... is that 5 total? 5 percent? 5 percent additive before "critpre" ( <- what) or...
• Having stamina, and adrenaline, and health, and maybe block, and dodge but sometimes not enough, and "finishers" (which ironically don't finish much of anything), and stun... it's all just too busy. Odyssey felt so good. You felt strong. You felt like the Demi-God you were and you felt yourself getting even better. This whole combat scene is either the easiest thing you'll do in 10 minutes, or so frustrating that it's impossible to enjoy because archers that can walk backwards faster than you can run forwards and connect a blow, or pike men that are actual demi-gods and avoid all of your attacks, or this guy/that guy that do this or that by reading your inputs, or anything not 2 handed feels like it doesn't have enough reach.

I could go on but this is already really long. So here's some stuff I already miss from Odyssey, so much that I'd rather go back to it than keep playing Valhalla:

• the bird not marking things
• gear dropping
• ability menu, and abilities, feeling like they're worth using
• viewpoints having more meaning than "fast travel"
• gear transmog
• scroll speed of menus making sense
• no stamina; so always running without having to worry about other buttons
• real chain assassinate
• "confirm kill" characters *always* dropping something good
• gear sets with actually good and descriptive bonuses
• engravings; abiltity to move gear traits from one item to another
• bodies vanishing after assassinating so you don't have to hide in bushes/carry bodies if you want to play stealth
• more than 2 songs on the boat
• craft able arrows (cannot fathom why this isn't possible... it's not fun... 15 arrows isn't enough for 15 enemies when one single enemy takes 3-10, if they don't read inputs and move)
• animal companions
• a nice world that is usually nice weather, doom and gloom just isn't great. Location accurate or not.
• Appropriately priced packs in the store... we're up to $20 now for a good pack? Not cool. I thought Avengers was bad at $14.00 for a skin. Way, way, way too high. Regardless of them coming maxed out already - most of the traits are in line with other outfits in game (crap and doesn't feel good to get)

Sorry this was so long, and sorry if any readers disagree. I just wanted to take a minute to express how change isn't always good. I went from Origins (pretty good), to Odyssey (10/10), to Valhalla (wait... what? It's Syndicate + Origins). I don't know. I really hope you guys can make some quick changes as I didn't even cover the incredible and almost unreal amount of bugs nad game breaking issues and crashes in this. It's bad, really bad. Which is a shame because so far the story-telling is great too.

For now though, I think I'm going back to Greece.

@california_dude Agree on all those points of additional complaints! I loved actually being and referring to myself as a God lol, that was great and felt right. The cutscenes thing, it is a bit excessive at points that's for sure, but I think the thing that makes it even worse for me is all the steps required to change a tattoo or buy a few arrows (because I can't craft them... thanks Ubi). They should allow pressing ESC to get out of these "conversations". So it would be more like: buy stuff > esc > esc... whereas right now it's: buy stuff > esc > space > 2 > space (with esc sometimes thrown in there out of habit from every game I've ever played which leads to pause screen).

@kmansp31 so glad I'm not alone on the loot-puzzle thing lol. I felt like I was whining, but it really is infuriating. I mean, the least they could do is denote whether something is locked loot (needs a key), locked loot (needs a quest, then a key), and whether it's a weapon or a armor piece. So many times now I've rage-quit because I'll go and do all these things kill all these enemies that were +150 levels over me or something, collect a key, and the key doesn't even unlock the chest. Like... come on lol. It's a shame I have to think this way, but history, so I partially wondered whether some decisions were made by the suits to entice people into buying new stuff instead.

I've noticed the bird thing being the most odd choice for me to write, suppose I'm the outlier there lol.

And the gear, exactly, a nice middle ground would have been fantastic. Like, a nice share of world drops instead of all locked/unlocked/puzzled chests everywhere would have made it feel good.

@mitsunari3 omg this, yes, I forgot about that and how stupidly annoying it is to deal with in 2020. Either make them invincible (probably don't trust themselves not to mess that part up, understandable) or stop the idiotic "de-sync" stuff.

Also, I still get PTSD when near a bunch of chickens lol.

Are you guys kidding me? I'm very happy that we got some (2 month later) fixes. The game does seem more responsive and fluid which is great!

• But how awesome would it be, now hear me out, All runes when *viewing them in the place that matters... where they're equipped and managed...* are grouped together regardless of whether they're slotted, and also descending from biggest to smallest. If I want a specific rune and specific strength I still have to scroll for an eternity stopping at every rune of the same color. So again, all health together regardless of their strength and slot status- descending from greatest value to smallest. Seems almost too easy to not be done yet.
• Where are the loadouts? What a fantastic addition to Odyssey that was. I mean, imagine being able to click and have bow, click and have stealth, click and have heavy attack, click and have health rebuild, click and have adrenaline rebuild, click and have resistances... This is very rudimentary stuff that should be standard- not a feature.
• Where is the transmog? Another thing added by this time to Odyssey. How I would love to use what looks good instead of what is good. Especially when I've spent real world currency on those things, and something more OP comes out weeks later making the last one I bought pointless. Or, because Thegn set was Thegn set, being able to change your looks without diminishing your performance.

Those are just a few things, that I've wanted since the beginning. Two of them being things are standard, common sense, or already exist in a game running on the same tech. It's been months guys, and it gets SUPER old painstakingly switching piece by piece, rune by rune, especially when runes have no order whatsoever.

AC Valhalla Bugs 

 

• Randomly no music/ music stops  (reload)
• No enemy feedback from Odin’s site at “light the Brazier/kill rueds clansmen” mission  (restart didn't fix)
• Randomized “undetected” wash over & sound, despite no enemies being near 
• Break Fall rarely works, and seems to only work on the lowest level, IE- the road in Lunden whereas if you hit *anything* else (even flat) you will lose half your health – yay fall damage 
• Not all pieces of outfits show for Lieutenant, even after reload because changes to gear aren’t shown in that menu right away. But, Hidden One’s stuff is missing (who would choose garbage level outfits to represent themselves REMOVE bronze & silver and no rarity if you have gold version please) 
• Runes show as “new” in inventory each time they’re removed from a piece of armor (which is frequent because no loadout slots... something Odyssey added and Valhalla should have come with) (SEE NEXT)
• Inventory sometimes shows “new items” indicator, but when entering and even when click “mark as seen” the new item marker remains 
• Quest markers will not show on the map for roughly 10-30 seconds after completing a chain 
• “Confirm Kill” (aka kneel and hold an axe in front of a dead body for 10 seconds) doesn’t show until 10 seconds have passed since killing the enemy (this is a really fun 20 seconds 3x a day for Reda)  
• Double Gold Valkyrie armor set shows for Lieutenant  
• Double Hunstman Armor shows for Player 
• Movement stops for no reason, constantly, everywhere, even swimming. (I remember a story how you’d let these simulations run overnight to make sure they didn’t get stuck lol) 
• Moveable objects sometimes stick on nothing if they needed something broken in order to move originally  
• Scroll speeds makes no sense in a lot of places, some places excruciatingly slow, some nice and fast 
• Galloglach final form helmet doesn’t fit on female lieutenant, only goes about halfway down her face  
• “online communication error” 
• “Autodrive/sail” is pointless when you let small fishing boats driven by NPC’s go near the route of longships, they run into them and just stop 
• Random blood stain appears on player when near two guys endlessly fist fighting in Lunden 

These are just a few things, from one day. Really sad there hasn't been a recent patch, especially for the movement. Something really needs to be done. Everything you try to do ends up sucking really bad because of the movement system being so awkward. Odyssey's was perfect, I don't see how it can be so different now. But I guess because stamina, which means sprint needs a button. I also don't know if it happens on controllers but for M/KB it's the worst experience I've ever had trying to navigate areas. Just randomly stop climbing until you let go of what you're doing and then mash SHIFT + W + SPACE (+ sometimes A or D).

@cell1e Very good point there! I also choose the female in every game I can, and you're right. I mean, in a way I get it like she's a "savage viking" but like you said, the others were more feminine and still did fine. I mostly dislike her voice & yeah, the hair. I kind of wish some things were specific to male or female, this way seems like it's there just to appease people. Like it was shoe-horned in. Either way I'm still using her tbh.

Are you guys kidding me? I'm very happy that we got some (2 month later) fixes. The game does seem more responsive and fluid which is great!

• But how awesome would it be, now hear me out, All runes when *viewing them in the place that matters... where they're equipped and managed...* are grouped together regardless of whether they're slotted, and also descending from biggest to smallest. If I want a specific rune and specific strength I still have to scroll for an eternity stopping at every rune of the same color. So again, all health together regardless of their strength and slot status- descending from greatest value to smallest. Seems almost too easy to not be done yet.
• Where are the loadouts? What a fantastic addition to Odyssey that was. I mean, imagine being able to click and have bow, click and have stealth, click and have heavy attack, click and have health rebuild, click and have adrenaline rebuild, click and have resistances... This is very rudimentary stuff that should be standard- not a feature.
• Where is the transmog? Another thing added by this time to Odyssey. How I would love to use what looks good instead of what is good. Especially when I've spent real world currency on those things, and something more OP comes out weeks later making the last one I bought pointless. Or, because Thegn set was Thegn set, being able to change your looks without diminishing your performance.

Those are just a few things, that I've wanted since the beginning. Two of them being things are standard, common sense, or already exist in a game running on the same tech. It's been months guys, and it gets SUPER old painstakingly switching piece by piece, rune by rune, especially when runes have no order whatsoever.

So here we are, my second restart because of game ruining bugs. The first 60 HOURS, I figured out keys that were being collected from the environment, were not actually in my inventory and couldn't be used. They'd disappear from the world, and not show up again, but not be able to be unlocked.

Now (65 hours in, for a total now of 120ish hours), my settlement is at 5/6. Every single raid has been completed, and I have no 'banners' hanging out that can be interacted with to upgrade multi-tier places like the farms, all allies that offer settlement XP have been completed already, the last guests you get are there, and I'm quite sure my feast even registers as maxed but not my entire settlement. I will list the buffs I get.

• + 3.0 Ranged Dmg
• + 25 Health
• + 25 Health
• + 3.0 Armor
• + 3.8 Assassination Dmg
• + 3.8 Assassination Dmg
• + 3.8 Assassination Dmg
• + 3.8 Assassination Dmg
• + 3.0 Melee Dmg

This is just unacceptable anymore. You make grind for the sake of grind and lock content behind it, in a game amazingly scarce equipment and unique stuff to begin with... and don't even make sure it works. I'm about ready to be done. There's just no excuse. Ubisoft you'd do well to let the Odyssey team be the only AC studio. I still have no problems playing that game and start it over regularly. Everything about Valhalla seems to be made with the goal of taking more time; from incredibly slow walking in distrust, slow quest character following, wait to open this door, wait to open this chest, wait as you sail for 20 minutes to get somewhere, surprise "Dark Brotherhood" attacks when you're on horseback just trying to see when/if the story will end, having to 'find' something every turn whether it's a key or breakable entrance, inability to craft arrows... the list really goes on but whatever. I don't hate the game believe it or not. I just ... like now what am I going to do? Wait a year for NewGame+ because Ubi thinks people don't want to do it when the game launches?

@krvpt - found this, not sure if you tried it or not but figured i'd share it here in case you didn't see it

The following solution worked for me, found on reddit:

Basically, you need to try the old fix that works for Origins: https://steamcommunity.com/app/582160/discussions/0/1483235412214825118/

But for audio (Assassin's Creed Valhalla\sounddata\PC) AND video files (Assassin's Creed Valhalla/video).

So you need to copy across your .pck and video .webm to where your windows OS is installed. Then with https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html create a symbolic link for each file and junction for repertory.

The whole thing only takes a handful of GB and takes about 10 mins for those who are still unsure here is a step by step.

• Download and install Link Shell Extension
• In your OS drive (usually your drive) create two folders one for the videos and one for the sound files.
• Open the ACV folder and keep them next to each other.
• Drag all the files and folders from the video and sound folder in the corresponding folder (cut and paste don't copy them.)
• Right-click the sound folders and select "pick link source" then in the empty original ACV folders right click and "Drop as" - "Symbolic Link" (make sure you do this for every file, and yes you can batch it by selecting all the files.)
• Do the same again with the files in the video folder. Note Do not try to batch link the folders as it won't work and you have to do each one individually but instead, select "drop as" - "Junction"
• You can delete any language files you don't want in order to save some space.

If you make a mistake don't worry just delete the .sym file or the junction and do it again.

Launch the game and give it a min or two and you should be good to go.

Want to give credit to redlight on the Ubisoft forum for the original help. I'm gonna put on a brew now. Got a long night ahead!

I hope this will help!

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/assassinscreed/comments/jrc7pu/fix_for_infinite_splash_screen/

@droid8apple lemme reply to myself since we're only allowed to edit in the first 10 minutes from posting LoL, because Ubisoft brains are vastly different from the rest of humanity I guess.

• crosshair/center marker disappears when using "hover mode" with bird and focusing on mission specific areas, so the teal circles

@krvpt geez, that sucks man, sorry to hear that. at least I can play so that really sucks for you. I'm sure you've been through it a million times but what happens when you try to launch it?

You would think, that at minimum, someone would check skill functionality before patching lol. Cannot set traps on dead bodies. There goes a massive part of my gameplay.

Other things:

• not sure where you "sorted runes" because I'm not seeing it, unless you meant you did it in the place it matters the least which is in the inventory bag, because if I want to slot a health rune for example, the slotting menu is still horrific. No sorting at all, no easy "right click to remove" or anything
• if you steal from enemies now you get caught? Then... what's the point? If we wanted to fight them we would fight them. The whole point of stealing was to avoid the long and drawn out stun-locking fight and make the 20 minutes per armor piece be slightly reduced to 15.
• will update/edit as I progress

I am happy that we finally got a patch, but as I've been saying since launch day when we started asking for fixes (2+ weeks ago?) you should be hot fixing not dropping massive patches; that way if fixes break new things we don't have to wait another 2 weeks for it to be handled. Just my two cents.

Yeah this is ridiculous, and unfathomable. There are so many problems- and waiting to "fix" a bunch will just create new ones. If they'd just fix some stuff and hotfix it, that'd make way more sense. It seems almost rudimentary, if you can't release an entire game that functions properly, then why release a massive patch 4 weeks after launch that won't function properly. "Eat that elephant one bite at a time".

But tell me, who is surprised that we got new microtransactions? Eh? We know those will be timely and flawless. LoL.

Bonus content unlocked!

Also, have some *new* markers that won't go away too, because that's fun. Especially when it's for a broken bow and dry bread. Which is very important. And well worth alerting me. Almost as important as *new* runes that I've had since day 1 and simply replaced on an armor piece lol.

I hate being negative but, yeah, there's a whole lot of annoying in this game.

Was it in Lunden? When it started? This happened to me! LoL. I took a picture of us hanging out.

The NPC was the person I did the archery contest against; without spoilers it's part of the Lunden quests and also leads to an Order member. I have no idea why it happened, but anyhow that's who it was for me lol. You're not alone.

And what a surprise that yet another day goes on that there hasn't been a patch... really don't understand why Devs think they need to gather and tackle as many bugs as possible then update (breaking even more stuff in the process). Pick a day of the week and patch it every week until the bugs are gone

So this is awesome; I just figured out why I've been so frustrated about the loot and complaining/rage quitting about it. It would seem that despite me collecting keys from the environement and them no longer showing in HUD/Raven view they're not in my inventory and I cannot open chests. What a fantastic problem. I'm 60 hours into the story... 60. I just figured it was intended that keys for certain chests wouldn't be collected near the chest itself to make the loot progression even slower (so you buy more items) or something. I figured that's why they were named keys, as well. If they were intended to be used near the chest why would they need a name, I thought.

How exactly would one go about making a system that could break so fantastically? And I already know deep in my core that you're going to say "start a new game you're SOL", but wanted to take a chance that maybe there's something that can be done. I cannot express how upset this makes me. 60 hours... LoL. Really?

I've included pictures (maybe, if that doesn't break/fail) of the Thegn's Helmet. The pictures will show all 3 key locations as looted, the chest still telling me I need keys, and my inventory not showing the keys. I wish more than anything I would have looked up a guide sooner- but I shouldn't have to. I did, after all, pay real money for the treasure maps (because Ubisoft) to alleviate the lack of loot a little. Anyone know of a save editor?

https://imgur.com/a/US1n13A (imgur link for the pictures, because 2mb is the max file size [ the size of a cell phone picture in 2007])