I'm simply speechless and im wondering why this isn't talked about much more? While something like the setting is subjective, its hard to justify just how much was removed in Valhalla and replaced with.... nothing, or something much worse.

This might be a long rant, so click back if you aren't interested ! For reference, I have about 300 hours in Odyssey , 170 in Origins, and 130 in Valhalla .

- no loot drops. I dont want to harp about this obvious point , but I loved the loot system in Odyssey. It was alway exciting to find a better set of gear to drop that improved your character or had better stat bonuses. Loot drops to me are iconic to open world adventure RPGs. Without them its very boring with little to look forward too.

- the loot system they put in Valhalla instead is terrible. Fixed locations so you always know exactly what you will get. Gear pieces found hours and hours apart, so completing a set can take dozens of hours unless you bee line it to all chests and cheat the game. By time you get another set, you've spent tons of resources to upgrade to legendary status, so there is very little drive or incentive to upgrade another set.

- the legendary perks, for the most part, are exremely underwhelming . How can I get excited for something like "get 10 attack damage bonus for 2.5 seconds after a perfect dodge". Most bonuses are just meaningless stats numbers.

- speaking of the stat bonuses. What thr hell do they mean anyways? How does it work exactly? And to make matters worst people who test it found that you'd need dozens of points in a single stat to notice even a miniscule difference ( i.e you would need like 20 bonus points in attach to see attack go up 1 point in stat screen, which in turn translates into very minor bonus damage per hit ). In addition some youtubers like Jorraptor claim a ton of stats dont even work . How is this better than the % bonuses in Odyssey which are easy to understand and have immediate and notable effects right away ? It appears you can completely ignore all these useless stats in Valhalla because they don't mean anything and when they do their effect is extemely minimal!

- the skill "tree" . Oh boy what a mess. You know your skill tree sucks when your cursor defaults to an auto assign button. Whats the point of this gigantic mess anyways ? The miniscule stat bonuses just give illusion of your character getting incrementally better , and you get so many hundreds of skills points by time you reach max power level, they completely lose any special meaning. Why so many level ups and points? Why not make a concise and clear skill tree like in Odyssey where ever skill point went to a cool ability you've been eyeing as you level up? Why even bother with a skill tree if everyone will end up filling up thr whole thing with excess points to spare ? If you're going to give the entire tree to everyone anyways why even have it? Just give out fixed abilities and bonuses every fixed number of levels and lose the pretense of this being and rpg with unique builds and stats between players. Everyone who reached max level will have the same exact Eivor as everyone else !

- combat is Valhalla is notably slower, jankier, more disconnected, and much less smooth than Odyssey. What the heck happened ? Im doing a NG+ in Odyssey now and im dodging, rolling, parrying, attacking everyone and it flows like fine wine. The abilities in Odyssey are so so so much better and dont break the flow of rhe combat. Sparta kick, rain of arrows, ring of chaos, and so many more flow thru your combat rhythm so much better than in Valhalla . All of Valhallas abilities abruptly end thr flow of your attacks , many are exremely unbalanced and some very useless (are throw anyone?), and Eivors melee attacks are so awkward and slow and lack range or fluidity . Im just awkwardly spamming the light attack button over and over, often hitting empty air, and don't even bother with heavy attacks due to the completely unnecessary stamina system. What does that add exactly ? And why only a max of four adrenaline bars? Is the intention to make the combat as least enjoyable as possible?

- why even have the Raven in this game? I think I've used it maybe 10 times in my 120 hour play thru. Wow it highlights in green the area where my objective is. Ok ? Doesnt the green quest icon on the map do the same thing? Why remove the target and chest marking Ikaors ans Senu had? And if you do why even keep the dang thing ?

- due to limited number of gear pieces, and needing to go to ONE specific NPC AND pay a fee to change an items look via transmog, the whole transmog system in Valhalla is vastly less fun than in Odyssey. I spent hours in Odyssey just customizing thr look of my Alexios. In Valhalla I tried it once, wasted a ton of money, and then realized due to the way armor sets in this game are designed to look correct only with other pieces in same set, mixing and matching parts from various sets very rarely looks anything but a pile of vomit and clash together and often clip textures etc. Trsnsmog is so boring in Valhalla. Why even do this ? Why make it cost money and be tied to a single NPC? What value does that add to the game?

- the rune system is cumbersome to use, moving runes from one item to another is slow and cumbersome, and as mentioned above, even stacking all your pieces with the same bonus stat will result in minimal, if any, actual real gameplay or noticeable change in the affected attribute. Some diamond runes have ok perks that actually make a difference (like fire or poison after parry critical etc), but how exactly is this better than the fun and varied and very easy to use and understand engraving system in Odyssey? It boggled my mind how anyone think this is an improvement.

- the long ship. Aka your horse on water. Now granted I realize not everyone loved the Adrestia, but sailing the amazing Aegean sea , being alone in middle of vast ocean at night during a violent thunder storm , and slowly upgrading my ship with better parts and weapons and adding to my customizable crew and cosmetics was magical. What can you do with the long boat exactly that a horse can't do? You can't upgrade it exept with a handful of boat skills they added and you can get them immediately, there is no naval combat, no boarding defeated ships and killing the crew and looting their chests. Nothing even remotely exciting about rhe long ship. I kid you not I probably used it less than a dozen times in my 130 hours of gameplay .I forgot it was even there. My guess it was included in the game so Ubisoft can sell you different skins for it, but thats just my guess. I dont even know why have it , similar to the raven.

- now this is subjective, but 800s England is to me the most boring setting for an open world possible. Vast, empty countryside and fields, an empty world with little vertical buildings to climb, very small scattering of town and the world jist feels dull and dark and dreary and repetitive. I didn't force them to pick the setting. They did. Norway was kind of cool due to how isolated it felt, but Vinland bored me to tears without a horse and Asgard was the single worst open map I've ever played. I was 90s getting all the tears when I realized the effort for all thst was 5 worthless skill points, that I get hundreds of anyways. I was never more frustrated with a map in my life. Dull, dreary, confusing to navigate, just a chore to get thru. The second mythical map was marginally better, but still so tedious and boring. Odyssey and Origins maps were so much more interesting and majestic. Nothing can beat the various pyramids and tombs and cities like Memphis and Alexandria, and nothing in my 35 years of gaming can match the beauty and granduer of the islands of Greece surrounded by the vast and beautiful Aegean sea.

- speaking of sea, what happened to all the underwater ship wrecks , tombs, sunken fortresses etc you had in Origins and especially Odyssey? It was so exciting to find one and have to avoid crocodiles or sharks to loot the treasure at the bottom and make it back up safely to your ship. I think in Valhalla there was only a handful and they were empty and boring. Also why thr lack of sea creatures besides tiny fish? I think I saw seals but thats it. The ocean and rivers are as lifeless as the map itself.

- the story in Valhalla boils down to going to 20 areas on the map and having them pledge allegiance. Halfway thru this process I was so sick of how repetitive it was.

- the dynamic angles during conversations is gone in Valhalla. In Odyssey when talking to an NPC the camera would often switch angle and views to add a cinematic flair to the scene . Why on earth remove that from Valhalla?

- the facial animation in Valhalla is a noticeable step down from Odyssey. Expressions, eye and head movements, etc look so oddly animated in Valhalla . There is just something unsettling about them, with a few exceptions (Eivor, Ivarr, etc ). What happened? They had it nailed down in Odyssey .

- no side quests. I dont wsnt to state the obvious. But Valhalla has no side quests . Luke Thomas on YouTube did a very detailed study and found that average mystery in Valhalla lasts under 3 minutes and average side quest in Odyssey more than 4 or 5 times that, giving you time to form an emotional investment in the characters and giving a memorable story.

I was so disappointed in Valhalla, and im wondering if covid was the cause of all the massive step down compared to previous 2 games, but quarantine only started in last 8 months of development , which implies at some point these cut backs were purposely done.

I reslly hope the next AC game complete ignores every thing Valhalla did and go back the system in Odyssey. Loot, naval, rpg mechanics , skill tree and points, combat flow and fun abilities, etc.

I'm simply speechless and im wondering why this isn't talked about much more? While something like the setting is subjective, its hard to justify just how much was removed in Valhalla and replaced with.... nothing, or something much worse.

This might be a long rant, so click back if you aren't interested ! For reference, I have about 300 hours in Odyssey , 170 in Origins, and 130 in Valhalla .

- no loot drops. I dont want to harp about this obvious point , but I loved the loot system in Odyssey. It was alway exciting to find a better set of gear to drop that improved your character or had better stat bonuses. Loot drops to me are iconic to open world adventure RPGs. Without them its very boring with little to look forward too.

- the loot system they put in Valhalla instead is terrible. Fixed locations so you always know exactly what you will get. Gear pieces found hours and hours apart, so completing a set can take dozens of hours unless you bee line it to all chests and cheat the game. By time you get another set, you've spent tons of resources to upgrade to legendary status, so there is very little drive or incentive to upgrade another set.

- the legendary perks, for the most part, are exremely underwhelming . How can I get excited for something like "get 10 attack damage bonus for 2.5 seconds after a perfect dodge". Most bonuses are just meaningless stats numbers.

- speaking of the stat bonuses. What thr hell do they mean anyways? How does it work exactly? And to make matters worst people who test it found that you'd need dozens of points in a single stat to notice even a miniscule difference ( i.e you would need like 20 bonus points in attach to see attack go up 1 point in stat screen, which in turn translates into very minor bonus damage per hit ). In addition some youtubers like Jorraptor claim a ton of stats dont even work . How is this better than the % bonuses in Odyssey which are easy to understand and have immediate and notable effects right away ? It appears you can completely ignore all these useless stats in Valhalla because they don't mean anything and when they do their effect is extemely minimal!

- the skill "tree" . Oh boy what a mess. You know your skill tree sucks when your cursor defaults to an auto assign button. Whats the point of this gigantic mess anyways ? The miniscule stat bonuses just give illusion of your character getting incrementally better , and you get so many hundreds of skills points by time you reach max power level, they completely lose any special meaning. Why so many level ups and points? Why not make a concise and clear skill tree like in Odyssey where ever skill point went to a cool ability you've been eyeing as you level up? Why even bother with a skill tree if everyone will end up filling up thr whole thing with excess points to spare ? If you're going to give the entire tree to everyone anyways why even have it? Just give out fixed abilities and bonuses every fixed number of levels and lose the pretense of this being and rpg with unique builds and stats between players. Everyone who reached max level will have the same exact Eivor as everyone else !

- combat is Valhalla is notably slower, jankier, more disconnected, and much less smooth than Odyssey. What the heck happened ? Im doing a NG+ in Odyssey now and im dodging, rolling, parrying, attacking everyone and it flows like fine wine. The abilities in Odyssey are so so so much better and dont break the flow of rhe combat. Sparta kick, rain of arrows, ring of chaos, and so many more flow thru your combat rhythm so much better than in Valhalla . All of Valhallas abilities abruptly end thr flow of your attacks , many are exremely unbalanced and some very useless (are throw anyone?), and Eivors melee attacks are so awkward and slow and lack range or fluidity . Im just awkwardly spamming the light attack button over and over, often hitting empty air, and don't even bother with heavy attacks due to the completely unnecessary stamina system. What does that add exactly ? And why only a max of four adrenaline bars? Is the intention to make the combat as least enjoyable as possible?

- why even have the Raven in this game? I think I've used it maybe 10 times in my 120 hour play thru. Wow it highlights in green the area where my objective is. Ok ? Doesnt the green quest icon on the map do the same thing? Why remove the target and chest marking Ikaors ans Senu had? And if you do why even keep the dang thing ?

- due to limited number of gear pieces, and needing to go to ONE specific NPC AND pay a fee to change an items look via transmog, the whole transmog system in Valhalla is vastly less fun than in Odyssey. I spent hours in Odyssey just customizing thr look of my Alexios. In Valhalla I tried it once, wasted a ton of money, and then realized due to the way armor sets in this game are designed to look correct only with other pieces in same set, mixing and matching parts from various sets very rarely looks anything but a pile of vomit and clash together and often clip textures etc. Trsnsmog is so boring in Valhalla. Why even do this ? Why make it cost money and be tied to a single NPC? What value does that add to the game?

- the rune system is cumbersome to use, moving runes from one item to another is slow and cumbersome, and as mentioned above, even stacking all your pieces with the same bonus stat will result in minimal, if any, actual real gameplay or noticeable change in the affected attribute. Some diamond runes have ok perks that actually make a difference (like fire or poison after parry critical etc), but how exactly is this better than the fun and varied and very easy to use and understand engraving system in Odyssey? It boggled my mind how anyone think this is an improvement.

- the long ship. Aka your horse on water. Now granted I realize not everyone loved the Adrestia, but sailing the amazing Aegean sea , being alone in middle of vast ocean at night during a violent thunder storm , and slowly upgrading my ship with better parts and weapons and adding to my customizable crew and cosmetics was magical. What can you do with the long boat exactly that a horse can't do? You can't upgrade it exept with a handful of boat skills they added and you can get them immediately, there is no naval combat, no boarding defeated ships and killing the crew and looting their chests. Nothing even remotely exciting about rhe long ship. I kid you not I probably used it less than a dozen times in my 130 hours of gameplay .I forgot it was even there. My guess it was included in the game so Ubisoft can sell you different skins for it, but thats just my guess. I dont even know why have it , similar to the raven.

- now this is subjective, but 800s England is to me the most boring setting for an open world possible. Vast, empty countryside and fields, an empty world with little vertical buildings to climb, very small scattering of town and the world jist feels dull and dark and dreary and repetitive. I didn't force them to pick the setting. They did. Norway was kind of cool due to how isolated it felt, but Vinland bored me to tears without a horse and Asgard was the single worst open map I've ever played. I was 90s getting all the tears when I realized the effort for all thst was 5 worthless skill points, that I get hundreds of anyways. I was never more frustrated with a map in my life. Dull, dreary, confusing to navigate, just a chore to get thru. The second mythical map was marginally better, but still so tedious and boring. Odyssey and Origins maps were so much more interesting and majestic. Nothing can beat the various pyramids and tombs and cities like Memphis and Alexandria, and nothing in my 35 years of gaming can match the beauty and granduer of the islands of Greece surrounded by the vast and beautiful Aegean sea.

- speaking of sea, what happened to all the underwater ship wrecks , tombs, sunken fortresses etc you had in Origins and especially Odyssey? It was so exciting to find one and have to avoid crocodiles or sharks to loot the treasure at the bottom and make it back up safely to your ship. I think in Valhalla there was only a handful and they were empty and boring. Also why thr lack of sea creatures besides tiny fish? I think I saw seals but thats it. The ocean and rivers are as lifeless as the map itself.

- the story in Valhalla boils down to going to 20 areas on the map and having them pledge allegiance. Halfway thru this process I was so sick of how repetitive it was.

- the dynamic angles during conversations is gone in Valhalla. In Odyssey when talking to an NPC the camera would often switch angle and views to add a cinematic flair to the scene . Why on earth remove that from Valhalla?

- the facial animation in Valhalla is a noticeable step down from Odyssey. Expressions, eye and head movements, etc look so oddly animated in Valhalla . There is just something unsettling about them, with a few exceptions (Eivor, Ivarr, etc ). What happened? They had it nailed down in Odyssey .

- no side quests. I dont wsnt to state the obvious. But Valhalla has no side quests . Luke Thomas on YouTube did a very detailed study and found that average mystery in Valhalla lasts under 3 minutes and average side quest in Odyssey more than 4 or 5 times that, giving you time to form an emotional investment in the characters and giving a memorable story.

I was so disappointed in Valhalla, and im wondering if covid was the cause of all the massive step down compared to previous 2 games, but quarantine only started in last 8 months of development , which implies at some point these cut backs were purposely done.

I reslly hope the next AC game complete ignores every thing Valhalla did and go back the system in Odyssey. Loot, naval, rpg mechanics , skill tree and points, combat flow and fun abilities, etc.