@fractal009 I'm not really angry, just sad and confused at some things.

1. Why there are no player useable 1 handed swords in a game about Vikings and their popular 1 handed swords, I'll never know. But thank our lucky stars we have the huge [censored] off longswords which were pretty rare and a massive drain on resources smithing wise. Why make a huge sword when you can make maybe two or three smaller ones out of it?
2. For some reason the longship doesn't act like a ship on the ocean, it'll skip around like a skipping stone and if you hit a high enough wave you'll literally fly through the air because the ship has no weight to it. It's fine on rivers though. It's not a huge issue personally but it is an eyesore trying to uncover the map.
3. Raven is pretty much useless compared to Ikaros from the previous game. Enemy marking I can live without, but I've rarely used Syninn unless it was to try and find hidden entrances I might have missed.
4. The depressing lack of armor. Even a transmog system. I don't know why they decided that the higher you upgrade your non-Assassin' looking gear, that it must have an Assassin' style to it. On top of that, most of the gear looks pretty ahistorical, especially things like the Brigandine which didn't exist for another few centuries if I recall right. The Einherjar Set looks alright in the store, it's a nice mix of chainmail, leather, and tunic, but it's permanently covered in blood so it's immediately undesirable. This is probably my biggest complaint, the absolute lack of armor variety. They could have at least doubled the amount of armor if they removed Ingots from chests and filled them with armor instead. Pushing Ingots onto enemy patrols, raids, Zealots, and fortresses, etc. There definitely needs to be more armor in the game, especially more historically based armor, like chainmail, tunic, fur/non fur cloak, leather straps, etc.
5. My last complaint is how we can't kill civilians like the previous game. Sure it was comical and slightly annoying when some random dude grabbed a broom to attack you, but Vikings were notorious for the whole pillage and plunder thing, while killing civilians as they did it. Personally I hate the idea of desyncing because of civilian casualties. It made sense in previous games because it was part of the Creed, and as an Assassin character it fit the gameplay. Eivor isn't a member of the Hidden Ones, they just have mutual aims, so it doesn't make sense that Eivor wouldn't also kill civilians, unless they were just absolutely traumatized during the raid of Kjotve the Cruel in the prologue. They should have added a toggle for this, like we have with dismemberment and nudity. I can't count the number of times I've desync'd because some dumb civilians ran into my swings, they ran into explosive traps, were caught in an explosive barrel eruption, or I dropped a net full of stuff onto them. It's incredibly annoying.

These are pretty much my only gripes with the game. Everything else is satisfying and I've completed everything aside from some altars which need too many fish, the terrible RNG hunting contracts, and all the useless resource chests I don' really need at this point. I want to give this game a 10/10, but most I can do is 8/10. It was far too short compared to Odyssey, with a depressing lack of content to keep me playing. Doing everything in Odyssey took me about 200+ hours, and I enjoyed every single minute, but it took me a little less than 150 to complete this game and I don't like that. Hopefully the repeatable raids will add some actual rewards, and maybe they'll make fortresses attackable again, those were a great part of the game that I already miss. For now it's just wait and see, and hope they don't keep screwing things up.

So no matter what I do I cannot get rid of this cloak. I've finished the Quest Arc there and I was told I'd get my cloak back from Gunnar but nothing ever came out of that comment. I restarted my game and it gave me my normal cloak back, but as soon as I ran into a suspicion area it reverted back to the ugly cloak with the deer skull. No matter how many times I cloak/uncloak and restart my game now I cannot get rid of it.

Right, so the expectation, at least with me for River Raids was a veritable feast of goods, i.e. new and unique armor sets, maybe even some new weapons to balance things out, i.e. more one handed hammers to offset the dozen or so shields we have, etc. to bring weapon diversity up to an equal amount per weapon.

What I got was bland, uninspired, and pretty much how I sum up Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a missed opportunity.

Completely ignoring my melanin enriched Jomsviking contact (it's Ubisoft, I'm not surprised a box had to be checked at this point) I ventured into the River Raid initially thinking alright, it's like a tutorial system to get me used to how things go, using his crew and his boat to get a feel of things.

Well after that, I found out that I in fact, don't even use my own crew, or my own boat, though I can customize the boat later on to give it the same appearance, I'm left with some elite warriors at least right? Not so much. It seems the more challenging aspect of River Raids didn't mean for us, the player, but for these weaponized idiots called Jomsvikings. The number of times they have dropped like flies doing things from literally standing there while getting shot in the face with crossbows, to I believe, actually drowning in a small puddle (as I had to go pick one up literally a few meters in front of the boat in water), or even setting themselves on fire, is honestly astounding. Sure they're beefy and can pretty much one shot all five enemies you fight in these huge fortresses, but their stupidity outweighs their usefulness outside of open red door, open big chest.

Speaking of which. Why did they decide to bring "door is barred from the other side" into this? The amount of times I was faced with this, thinking that, "Oh ok, the Saxons locked their valuables behind these doors to make it harder for us Vikings to raid them.". Seemed like a swell idea, but nope. I get in and find, breakable crates, or cooked rations, or a chest full of iron ore and leather, or even worse, I'd find a huge chest and feel like "Wow this is it, some new and interesting gear!" but nope, I get yet another Tungsten Ingot.

Speaking of the actual gear chests themselves, when I heard we were getting new gear I was much excite, because new gear is awesome right guys? Well color me absolutely shocked that surprise we get yet another reskin of an armor set which I personally hate, the Thegn Set. Here I was expecting something you know, based on historical, realistic armor worn by the Vikings, but nah, we get this.

The rewards themselves are just a feature of grind. More tattoos, and more ship cosmetics. I can't complain much there, more cosmetics are better imo, but the rewards could have been something like new weapons and armor exclusive to the Jomsvikings, missed opportunity yet again.

I think some aspects of River Raids are neat, like how a previously raided place looks destroyed and have to be populated and built back up again, and how you'll run into barriers along the way from prepared enemies. You'll even face more (which isn't saying much) enemies as you continue to raid and pillage (but only as long as you have space in your cargo hold). Personally I think these River Raids could have been localized to the main map, removing the need for loading times or a completely different map to raid on. Maybe it could have been needed if you wanted to raid in Frankia when we get to that expansion.

But we get the excuse of using a completely different crew and ship (even though we can literally use the cosmetics from our other ship) so as to not disrupt our Alliances in those regions. Another missed opportunity for cause and effect where allies, especially the Christian ones, would become agitated with you for raiding their villages, monasteries, and fortresses, forcing some interactions with them in say, paying restitution for their losses, which meant you giving them resources and silver as payment for your misdeeds, or if you refuse to pay, they send large parties of soldiers to hunt you while you River Raid, something to mix up and add to the supposed challenge this game mode is supposed to have. But alas, yet another a missed opportunity.

I honestly couldn't even bother finishing this. I don't care about the rewards since I can grind them at my leisure if I wanted to, and the armor set is completely worthless to me so there's no point. The enemy density isn't there to offer a challenge, and my Jomsviking crewmates are absolutely useless. I expected a feast of new things, and I might as well have eaten sand for all the tastes I'm experiencing right now.

I can at least hope as abysmally low as my hope is, that more Raids will be brought into the system, and actually offer unique and interesting armor and weapon rewards. Ah well, off to play another game until something actually meaningful drops into Valhalla. Gods why did I spend $120 for this?

@daelosthecat I can't upvote this more than once but I wish I could. Part of the reason why I enjoyed Odyssey so much is because of all of the loot I could get from base enemies, clearing locations which had chests, conquest battles, naval battles and epic ships, killing Cultists which usually dropped gear or legendary gear depending on the Cultist, then there were the randomized, albeit, repetitive quests via the bounty board and finally, other mercenaries.

The main thing is that it kept me engaged, and playing until more content was released. The sheer amount of armor and weapon variety gave me multiple goals. One of them was to hunt all the armor pieces for transmog, and another was to see what would fit my build(s) and improve them, etc. I honestly preferred the old system, simply because I could alter it to some extend by swapping out stats, etc.

In Valhalla, I'm stuck with a piece of gear which is only usable with another piece of gear, which may or may not have the perks I want. So after I collected all of the gear in Valhalla, I've found that I only use two pieces of two gear sets, and one piece of one gear set to try and form a decent appearance (due to lack of transmog). As it stands, aside from maybe the Galloglach set, I haven't used another armor set at all, simply because of their built in perks which don't fit my playstyle. So all of that time exploring and opening chests for useless rewards was unrewarding and a major blow as to my motivation for the game.

At least with Odyssey, I could keep farming for perks or stats or armor I wanted, and eventually find something that worked. Same for weapons, not to mention I'd have a nice variety of activities to do until something new came out. I've accomplished 99% of all there is to accomplish in Valhalla, and there's no reason for me to go back into it, not until they bring in their new raid mechanics, which I'd wager would keep me playing until new content came out, or the rewards may turn out to be worthless, in which case there would be no point in playing until the next expansion.

I want to keep playing Valhalla, but there's literally nothing left to do after you finish the story arcs, complete all the fortresses and raids, and find all the little dots on the map, not to mention the tedious hunting and fishing contracts. No point in upgrading armor or weapons I'll never use so I've accumulated ingots.

Here's to hoping that they greatly improve upon this game in the next couple of months.

@max-mumford96 Indeed. It'd be pretty neat, as one user posted, about having a quest meeting the maker of the Ulfberht, and getting him to forge you one. I'd be fine with any 1h sword though, especially those you can pick up off of corpses to throw at enemies, or the ones you use to for a stun finisher. I understand Ubi's approach to Valhalla with regards to Odyssey, i.e. less is more, but I'm probably one of the few people who enjoyed all of the options and everything about just how massive that game was. I enjoyed looting corpses and finding weapons/armor, and having so much in terms of variety. But it seems they wanted to dial all of that back in this one. It's honestly my only gripe with the game (aside from this current Samhain cloak bug that's driving me nuts). I miss the variety, especially in terms of armor.

@youngspoodles I honestly wish I could bring the base Vinland tunic and pants back to England with me. I wish we had more of the basic yet very Norse clothing in game to equip.

I personally preferred the sheer amount of weapons and armor available in Odyssey compared to this Sure a lot of stuff turned out to be junk after a while, but it was a nice steady source of materials.. I'm glad we got shields back at least, but I don't like that I have 14 or so shields to choose from and only a handful of axes, two hammers, three spears, and a few two handed weapons. There's just nothing there really in terms of armor and some weapon categories need more in terms of variety as well (don't get me started on no 1 handed swords).

Overall it's just the armor/weapons variety that's a huge downgrade from Odyssey for me. I think if they had a healthy balance between the two, i.e. looting things off of corpses and keeping higher tiereed gear in those chests it'd be alright, not to mention you wouldn't have to worry about running low on resources since you could deconstruct things for basic resources, and make it so higher tier items reward rarer materials like ingots, titanium, fabric, etc.

Agreed. I personally dislike how the non blatant "Assassin" armor, have those little pointed tails on the front. Why can't we have just flat or rounded bottom portions? I'd personally be happy with a leather + chainmail style armor or a lamellar, or scale style armor. It's why I use the Brigandine set since it has bits of chainmail on it, although Brigandines weren't around for about another century I believe. I hope they implement transmog soon because some of these "mythic" armor appearances are pretty bad imo. I like the Galloglach set, but it's far too shiny green for my tastes, not to mention the little armor piece floating on the fur. We just need more armor grounded on a historical basis.

@geoage095 +1. I'd be happy with period correct armor, or better yet if they're too lazy to do that right, giving player access to the tons of armor already in game, i.e. Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Zealot, Dag, etc. armors. There's a lot of great combinations there. To me I personally hate the "Assassin" look, i.e. the pointed tails on the bottom of the armor sets. Then there's the Brigandine which didn't exist for another few centuries. The Gallowglach armor, which would probably be worn by the Gallowglass Mercenary soldiers in the 13th Century looks out of place as well, though I do like the first appearance of the cloak, just don't upgrade it.

I'm definitely not a fan of the gold everything, so I really hope they add a transmog system ASAP.

I understand the old system was bloated to some degree, but I really miss the gear system from Odyssey. So many options, so many styles. Not to mention that it gave me reasons to go out and explore to find chests, kill enemies, etc. Everything feels so empty and unrewarding in Dark Ages England.

One of Clarke's three laws is: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I believe that counts the Isu in this game setting. Seeing as Isu weapons are typically looked at with awe and a sense of magic. That was present in previous games, i.e. Apples of Eden, might as well be magic to the random guards you freeze so you can kill them in AC Brotherhood, etc.

@asgardian02 Indeed. Why didn't they use the assets (the very diverse assets mind you) on the base map, when we run into copy / paste villages and forts all the time during River Raid? After as you said, completing them for initial gains, they could then be expanded upon with even more reinforcements, or built up defenses, etc. to show that they're a more challenging location to deal with, meaning that you couldn't play them the same way twice. But alas, missed opportunity.

Right, so the expectation, at least with me for River Raids was a veritable feast of goods, i.e. new and unique armor sets, maybe even some new weapons to balance things out, i.e. more one handed hammers to offset the dozen or so shields we have, etc. to bring weapon diversity up to an equal amount per weapon.

What I got was bland, uninspired, and pretty much how I sum up Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a missed opportunity.

Completely ignoring my melanin enriched Jomsviking contact (it's Ubisoft, I'm not surprised a box had to be checked at this point) I ventured into the River Raid initially thinking alright, it's like a tutorial system to get me used to how things go, using his crew and his boat to get a feel of things.

Well after that, I found out that I in fact, don't even use my own crew, or my own boat, though I can customize the boat later on to give it the same appearance, I'm left with some elite warriors at least right? Not so much. It seems the more challenging aspect of River Raids didn't mean for us, the player, but for these weaponized idiots called Jomsvikings. The number of times they have dropped like flies doing things from literally standing there while getting shot in the face with crossbows, to I believe, actually drowning in a small puddle (as I had to go pick one up literally a few meters in front of the boat in water), or even setting themselves on fire, is honestly astounding. Sure they're beefy and can pretty much one shot all five enemies you fight in these huge fortresses, but their stupidity outweighs their usefulness outside of open red door, open big chest.

Speaking of which. Why did they decide to bring "door is barred from the other side" into this? The amount of times I was faced with this, thinking that, "Oh ok, the Saxons locked their valuables behind these doors to make it harder for us Vikings to raid them.". Seemed like a swell idea, but nope. I get in and find, breakable crates, or cooked rations, or a chest full of iron ore and leather, or even worse, I'd find a huge chest and feel like "Wow this is it, some new and interesting gear!" but nope, I get yet another Tungsten Ingot.

Speaking of the actual gear chests themselves, when I heard we were getting new gear I was much excite, because new gear is awesome right guys? Well color me absolutely shocked that surprise we get yet another reskin of an armor set which I personally hate, the Thegn Set. Here I was expecting something you know, based on historical, realistic armor worn by the Vikings, but nah, we get this.

The rewards themselves are just a feature of grind. More tattoos, and more ship cosmetics. I can't complain much there, more cosmetics are better imo, but the rewards could have been something like new weapons and armor exclusive to the Jomsvikings, missed opportunity yet again.

I think some aspects of River Raids are neat, like how a previously raided place looks destroyed and have to be populated and built back up again, and how you'll run into barriers along the way from prepared enemies. You'll even face more (which isn't saying much) enemies as you continue to raid and pillage (but only as long as you have space in your cargo hold). Personally I think these River Raids could have been localized to the main map, removing the need for loading times or a completely different map to raid on. Maybe it could have been needed if you wanted to raid in Frankia when we get to that expansion.

But we get the excuse of using a completely different crew and ship (even though we can literally use the cosmetics from our other ship) so as to not disrupt our Alliances in those regions. Another missed opportunity for cause and effect where allies, especially the Christian ones, would become agitated with you for raiding their villages, monasteries, and fortresses, forcing some interactions with them in say, paying restitution for their losses, which meant you giving them resources and silver as payment for your misdeeds, or if you refuse to pay, they send large parties of soldiers to hunt you while you River Raid, something to mix up and add to the supposed challenge this game mode is supposed to have. But alas, yet another a missed opportunity.

I honestly couldn't even bother finishing this. I don't care about the rewards since I can grind them at my leisure if I wanted to, and the armor set is completely worthless to me so there's no point. The enemy density isn't there to offer a challenge, and my Jomsviking crewmates are absolutely useless. I expected a feast of new things, and I might as well have eaten sand for all the tastes I'm experiencing right now.

I can at least hope as abysmally low as my hope is, that more Raids will be brought into the system, and actually offer unique and interesting armor and weapon rewards. Ah well, off to play another game until something actually meaningful drops into Valhalla. Gods why did I spend $120 for this?

Soma would have been a great romance option for three reasons. One is that Randvi comments on it and the second:

spoiler

the third is that she's a perfect fit for Eivor as a companion/partner.

Greetings. So I already beat this game back in October-ish sometime and was left with absolutely nothing to do or found things too tedious so didn't bother with them (hunting and fishing mostly). At any rate I came back in December to play the short and very underwhelming Yule content. I stopped playing again after that but has anything meaningful been added to the game since then? Or does anyone know what River Raids will be about and when that will release, etc.? I'm looking for a reason to play this game again but there's no replayability in it.

@mexicantemplar Agreed. It would have been great if they tied the Zealot system to a "bounty system" for Valhalla. Say for instance the more your infamy grows, i.e. raiding monasteries (which would include killing innocents but we can't do that since we're nice Vikings), the more Christian England becomes angry at you, and sends Zealots (replacing Mercs in this instance) after you. Or if you run out of Zealots they start forming large groups to hunt you down. Hopefully something will change in the future. But I found that Odyssey was five steps forward as far as gameplay mechanics and features, and Valhalla was ten steps backwards, ignoring features or gameplay that were great in Odyssey.

@asgardian02 Three zealots should drop tablets which tie into the tablets you get from the cave trials. Gather all of them and you can get a legendary weapon underneath Stonehenge.

It's one more thing the game doesn't explain, and expects you to figure it out on your own. Same with Thor's Hammer.

@jpabenites Well here I was considering getting back into Valhalla, and I see this horrid abomination. Ugh.

@asgardian02 I've been actually replaying through Witcher 3 again, and I've got to say, it's kept me more hooked than AC Valhalla ever did. Meaningful Side content and contracts, tons of stuff to explore, finding actual randomized equipment in chests (aside from witcher gear) and off of enemies, the world is alive with commerce, monsters, conversations, and situations where you can get involved or not, etc., etc.

I greatly enjoyed those things when Odyssey did them, not sure why they decided to gut Valhalla in every way that made me love Odyssey. Hopefully something meaningful comes out in February and some much needed changes come about, because Valhalla is nothing compared to previous, older games.

@cell1e If you haven't played the Yule stuff, they have Yule themed tattoos, settlement cosmetics, a new shield, a new dagger, and a "new" armor set, which is just a reskin of the Huntsman Armor set. So, really nothing new, but we sure did get a bunch of new expensive helix store items.

@refeicul Maybe in a future expansion/dlc. It'd be really cool to play that, it would give me some Ryse: Son of Rome feelings.