There are a number of issues bringing this game down, but the AI has got to be the biggest one. I can list so many examples of enemies just standing around doing absolutely nothing while I destroy mission targets right in front of them. I can snipe enemy targets right next to other enemies and they will act clueless. Or I can snipe three targets one right after the other because they won't take cover.

In one mission, I'm sneaking with Basim through an enemy camp. I climb a ladder but hold because I see a patrol of three soldiers. But Basim decides to go past me up the ladder and is standing in plain view of the soldiers, but they keep walking right by him.

In another mission, I had to defend archers as they destroy enemy targets in a village. Once they finished, enemy soldiers and friendly soldiers just stood still looking like zombies. I could just walk right up to enemy soldiers and assassinate them out in the open.

I'm loving the games story, but this is really taking away from the game. It's become boring!!! On top of that, throw in a skill system where you are easily overpowered in most zones. As suggested on the forums, you can take away skills to even out your power level and make it more challenging, but this forces me to constantly adjust my skills to accommodate a broken game. I increased the difficulty levels and it's still too easy.

Then there's Abilities. What... the... F. So many are pointless and broken. There is a throwing axe on the ranged and melee skill tree that is LITERALLY THE SAME. What laziness is this?!?!?! The wolf pet skill which I was excited about- yeah. My wolf will get stuck on some ground item and not even attack the target, then disappear. Also, Upgrading the skill says he will stay with me, but he doesn't.

I'm not going to even get in to the thousand of bugs. I've been stuck/clipped in the ground. Performance issues in major settlements/towns and weird random places. Enemies that run around in circles.

Also, the reward system is just horrible. Since there's limited gear, almost every reward is XP towards more skill points. I no longer care about searching for mysteries and roman masks, because I know I will just get more unneeded skill points. You get so many skill points that you become overpowered early on. And although I don't mind the limit of the gear, I think Ubisoft went too far. There's too few gear sets and weapons (No 1handed swords?!?!?!) and they do too little. With only three tiers for upgrades, you get the second upgrade option too early in the game- like power 90- and the third isn't available until past 220 or so where you can find the rarest ingots needed. If gear is going to be limited, there should be at least two more upgrade levels in between.

This game is so broken and I am disappointed. I want to enjoy the game- I like the story and want to find out what happens- but these issues keep killing it for me. I read several articles that sales for this game were through the roof- no doubt due to the success given from Assassins creed odyssey which truly was well done. But this... I am shocked at how unfinished the game is.

I do agree, this was an oversight on ubisofts part. You can get close, however- in the upper left of the skill tree is dual wield two handed weapons skill. I use this one with a 2H sword and then throw on a shield, or put a dagger in the right hand. As close as you can get right now.

Not that impressed. Still same weak AI- enemies always have their back turned ready for assassination, and act befuddled all the time- and the story so far hasn't really grabbed my attention. Plus, I could have sworn I read somewhere that enemies will scale to your power level, but everything is stuck at 55 and I'm at 160?

The map is about half the size of what I expected- You only see a third of Ireland. Most of the south is inaccessible.

There is a character named Azar who feels like ubisoft is shamelessly trying to appease the social justice crowd with a "gender fluid" person. "Look! We care! We made a gender neutral person!" Which should be insulting- the character is pointless/very uninspiring. They didn't really give this character a reason for being other than just to say they put the NPC in.

Everything just feels like Ubisoft did the bare minimum here.

• 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

This a thousand times. I am at the point where I dread seeing a house with a yellow ping because I know I will have to spend ten minutes trying to get in. So freaking annoying. Does EVERY house have to be a puzzle????

I'm ok with the bird- I felt in odyssey it was too easy to locate things. This at least gives you an idea where you need to search, and once you get close it usually updates quickly. In odyssey it did kind of seem like a constant thing of "Can't find it? Bird up- there it is. Back down."

As for the loot system- I think they just need to get to an in between area of Valhalla and odyssey. ACO had way too much loot and became a chore just constantly selling or breaking down crap I wasn't going to use. I like Valhalla's system, but I wish there were slightly more gear options. I'm at a point where I have upgraded all my mid tear gear at power level 90 or so, but I have to wait until level 220 I think before I can even find tungsten ingots? And no cool gear from boss fights? kind of a let down. I actually am still wearing raven gear from the beginning of the game, because it suits my gameplay style. I just wish maybe there were one or two more tiers of upgrades in between to give me something to look forward to gear wise.

@fylkirpanzer Yeah, I bought the Ultimate Edition too, thinking there was no WAY this would be mediocre based on how good Odyssey was. Ugh...

Adding to the sheer laziness in game design: Contracts. Not only are most contract missions exactly the same- you can snipe with ease- I just got a contract for a missing person that was literally the exact same mission at the same exact spot/camp. Couldn't even at least changed locations and made it a bit more challenging?

@geoage095

yeah... this design decision bugs me too. In ACO and origins I looked forward to defeating bosses knowing I might get some kick [censored] loot. Now, its just skill points which are in abundance. Skill points are almost always the reward for mysteries and bosses. It's just a major let down.

I pretty much ignore most mysteries, roman masks, the flying notes, etc. because I know all I will get is XP/skill points. And I'm already way overpowered as it is, which is another problem because enemies do not scale.

They need to at least implement some sort of weapon/armor engrave option and offer different kinds of resources to use them. Something to look forward to with existing weapons and armor would be nice. The weapon and armor upgrades as they currently exist are kind of lame.

@smallongdog

I like some of the mysteries- in fact I think most are well done. Unfortunately, when the reward is just xp and more skill points, I feel less inclined to complete them. I already get an abundance of xp and skill points, so why bother doing them? I enjoyed some of the gear rewards you would get in side missions in odyssey. I'm not saying that should be the reward ALL the time- but something to make mysteries more rewarding would be nice.

This has to be the laziest implementation of filler missions I've ever seen in a game. In ACO it was kind of similar- random hunt this, execute that- I don't know how Ubisoft did it, but it seems they've created even a more lasier version of contracts. I actually had one contract to kill someone, and when I looked on the map, it showed it was in my settlement. Cool, I thought... an enemy must have drifted in to town? Someone from my settlement? No. It was in fact one of the target dummies used to practice assassinations on.

Then there are contract missions that are so similar, I think some actually get recycled. I went and rescued the exact same person from the exact. same bandit camp. What laziness is this???

On my last contract mission- another missing person but thankfully at a different location- All the bandits were grouped so far from the person I was supposed to rescue, AND they were all looking away. I literally was able to walk right up to the missing person, untie them, and carry them out with no problem.

Speaking of which, as much as I love assassinating targets, it takes the joy away when targets never move- they just stay stationary- and are always presenting themselves in a way that's easy to assassinate. Even in ACO targets would move around and patrol. So many targets in Valhalla just stay in one spot. Quite often, there will be two or three all staring in the opposite direction, making it super easy to snipe them with a long bow, or just assassinate one right after the other. What nonsense is this???

I can't help but feel like Ubisoft didn't put a lot of effort in to this game, and it's really bugging me.

After having just finished the game- the main story at least- looking back I have had a lot of ups and downs. Overall, I feel that it wasn't a bad game, but definitely not as good as Origins or Odyssey. Playing Valhalla felt like a game that Ubisoft just needed to check off on it's list of yearly games for earnings. Indeed, I read several articles about how big sales were for Valhalla. No doubt due to big expectations made from Odyssey, which to me is one of the best if not THE best in the series. It made a new standard in RPG games. Which is odd to me, considering Ubisoft went out of it's way to make changes that seemed like a couple steps back.

Campaign & Story:

I enjoyed most of the story. I was constantly interested in what would happen next. I enjoyed interacting with most of the characters and going from zone to zone. I can tell it's a good game if I keep coming back to find out what happens next. The acting was great. I loved how each chapter/zone was different and not just "conquer all of the zone" type quests. There were of course some decisions to make that affect the end game, and I found myself really pondering decisions made.

Unfortunately, the ending was a major let down. Without giving away too much- in fact, you really can't- I anticipated some huge final siege. The game seemed like it was building up to harder and more challenging sieges, leading me to believe that there's going to be some major battle at the end. Instead, a let down. I battle in a small village which felt rather rushed. That was it. Pretty lame.

Combat, Abilities, & Skills:

Combat was probably the strongest suit for the game. I REALLY enjoyed the combat aspect, and think they improved on the use of stamina so you can't just constantly roll and dodge to your hearts content. Instead, you have to use wisely, and getting that perfect dodge or parry felt really rewarding, especially when you get the slow motion ability at dodge. Watching weapons finish off targets felt very rewarding, guts and limbs flying everywhere. Well done here!

Unfortunately, I have to ask Ubisoft... [censored] were you thinking with abilities?? This had to have been the most lazily implemented portion of the game. Well, maybe AI. I'll get to that next. Where as in Odyssey if you wanted to use fire or poison, you activated one ability and then could use it for either weapon. Here, it's almost as if Ubisoft couldn't think up anymore abilities to use, so they broke it up in to a separate fire ability for bows and a separate one for melee weapons. Same for poison. Throwing Axes: there's a separate ability for both melee and ranged, yet they do almost the exact same thing. Nobody could really think of something better?? I looked forward most to the wolf companion, but even upgraded he doesn't stay very long. Most abilities just come off as useless. I think I used four abilities between ranged and melee through almost the whole game.

The Skill tree and obtaining Skill points seemed pretty cool at first, but I reached a certain point in the game where I had earned so many skill points that the game was ridiculously easy. I was like 30 skill points ahead of each zone. There was no point in doing any of the "mysteries" or finding roman masks because all you get is more skill points. I increased the difficulty to max in both combat and assassination, and it was still a breeze.

Then there's the AI. Holy.... hell. Everyone remember in Odyssey how soldiers would often patrol, forcing you- the assassin- to time your assassinations just right or to sneak across undetected? Not needed here! In most enemy camps and garrisons, targets will sit or stand perfectly still and never move. You can go on an assassin rampage with ease, or just snipe with a bow and take out five targets before any charge you. Remember when enemies would take cover in Odyssey or Origins? Yeah... they don't do that here. They just look around for a moment. If they don't see you they will stay out in the open waiting to take an arrow. Even after the 1.04 update they still do this.

The Zealots. I was looking forward to these Odyssey Mercenaries, as early in the game it said, "zealots will now hunt you! Be careful!" Not once in the entire game was I ever hunted. They all just stayed in their zone patrolling a specific part. This was like the mercenaries in Origins, sadly. They just walk around. I really enjoyed Mercs in Odyssey as they would appear out of nowhere while you were fighting, spicing things up. Not so here. While I enjoyed some of their fights, they all were pretty lackluster in rewards- just more un needed skill points because I have 30+ still unspent.

Raids:

I thought this was a great idea, but poorly implemented. After the second or third one, you realize you can take your time as your raiding party will never die. They might fall and you can revive them, but I guess my idea of a raid was hurry up, get in, get what you need, and get out. There's no thrill/excitement here. Why isn't there a time limit until reinforcements from a nearby garrison come crashing in?

Your Raiding Crew. Perhaps one of the most useless parts of the game is upgrading the barracks. You might think this would actually contribute to some rare vikings- in fact you can hire other players custom made vikings- but you won't notice any difference. You can leave your raiding party to the default and you wont notice any difference. You can change their gear- and you won't notice any difference. So why bother spending silver to hire any other units?

Graphics:

Probably one of the better parts of the game. The game really shines when standing at a syncronize point or some high vantage point staring off in to the distance. Absolutely beautiful. Walking through some of the major cities is a drag on performance- I'm sure this will get patched out, but was really offputting when you hit the first major settlement in Norway and it's at 30 to 40 FPS on a 2070 Super. Sigh.

Gear:

I get it... Odyssey had a ridiculous amount of gear. I'm cool with trying something a little different. I just think it went too far. Would have been nice to reach an in between point of Odyssey and Valhalla- not too much, not too little. As it is, I kept my Raven gear and just stuck with that through the whole game. I didn't see any point in choosing any of the other gear, as the other sets did so little. Each set only has two special skills. Beyond that you can just add runes to everything.

Contract:

Another game mechanic that feels rushed. Contracts are given out to random NPC's throughout the world. Sometimes it happens to be the target dummy in your settlement. Other times, you will rescue the same exact NPC from the same exact bandit camp. Really????? Perhaps I'm just spoiled from the side quests in Witcher 3- and I get that Odyssey's contract missions weren't much better- but I thought Valhalla would have meant IMPROVING contract missions? At least TRY to make them a little fun!



I'm pretty sure Ubisoft will release patches to fix the worst parts of the game. The ending felt rushed to the point where it said "more adventures await!" IE we are rushing to the DLC! I just wish the main portion of the game had the polish that Odyssey did. I have replayed Odyssey probably five or six times. I don't think I'll play this one more than a couple playthroughs.

One of my biggest critiques of the game were raids. In particular, it seemed boring and managing your crew/hiring other players Vikings seemed pointless.

I am pleasantly surprised to see River Raiding enjoyable- I'm having to think carefully about each raid tactically, protect my crew, and keep an eye on how many rations I have to save my Raiders. What's more, with the changes to scaling- I have it on constant- The raids felt progressively harder to the point where I felt challenged towards the end. Just a few pikemen are kicking my Raiding parties [censored], and it's got me thinking how to progress while also leveling up my raiders.

Just some minor things that would help:

Raiding for foreign supplies isn't fun, particularly when you know all you're going to get out of it is a tattoo, haircut, or some sort of ship cosmetic. Raiding needs to be about FINDING GEAR. Loot!!! The good stuff!!!! I realize that Valhalla has scaled back loot significantly from Odyssey, but the excitiment as a viking raiding villages, pillaging and looting is taken away when you realize all you're going to get is... foreign suppies. For cosmetic crap. Not exciting!

River defenses: I like the idea of enemies setting up traps on the river, particularly when the meter has gone up to full red and the defenders are on high alert. Unfortunately it never feels very challenging. You might have a couple guys shooting bows, but it's so easy to pick them off. You'd think at that high alert, the English would be setting up full on ambushes. There are skills for boat combat in particular and I feel as if they are never needed.

Overall though, THANK YOU for improving Raiding. It's much more interesting trying to keep your Vikings alive and thinking about Risk vs Reward!!!

Ubisoft is tone deaf. This is [censored].

So once the festival is over, and say I want to start a new game.... the only way I could get a 1h sword is to get to the second expansion?

So I'm confused about how to obtain the one handed sword:

1) Is the ONLY way to obtain a 1 handed sword via the upcoming festival? Meaning even with the new update there's no 1h swords to get until the festival starts?

2) Will this be the only 1 handed sword in the entire game?

3) When Siege of Paris starts, will there be options to find more 1h swords only during the expansion or festival? Or will it be possible to obtain one say if you start a new game from scratch?

Another example: I just completed one of the Mastery trials. I actually enjoyed the challenge- it took me a few tries. Yet after finally beating the trial, I got.... nothing. Absolutely nothing. WHAT... THE.... HELL. Who at Ubisoft does not understand the concept of risk and reward??? A bad [censored] sword or bow would have been really nice!!

@kmansp31 You also notice how sparse the loot is in Valhalla when you play Skyrim or The Witcher 2 and 3 ..... One of the mainstays of a RPG is loot, lots of it with some rewarding loot every hour or 2 of game play ...... Selling loot has always been the main way to pay for upgrades for your preferred armors and weapons .... Since there is nothing of value to be had at 90% of location in Valhalla I'm just not the least bit interested in exploring the map where in a game like Skyrim or Witcher 3 you never know what kind of interesting useful gear you are going to come across

As far as selling well, it only sold well initially because just like Cyberpunk it was hyped to the max but failed to deliver on that hype and sales fell off dramatically after the first couple of weeks .... That's why you could buy the Season Pass DLC at a discount before it even came out ....

Exactly this. Spot on- this is why I enjoyed ACO so much!

With each patch I keep hoping there will be gameplay improvements, and with each patch I remain disappointed. Things that still need to be worked on:

Raids: They are boring. Whether its the river raids or the monestaries and military camps, there is no sense of urgency; no risk vs reward. You can simply wander around and take your time because all your vikings are basically invulnerable- even if one falls, you can get him back up on his feet. The AI never smothers Eivor even when there's 8 enemy combatants nearby. It's just too easy even on the hardest difficulty. Raids should be about getting in, looting, and getting out. There should be the risk of nearby patrols reinforcing the Raid if you take too long; members of the order coming to the aid of the monestary or military camp if you take too long. If you linger too long at the raid site, there should be a risk of your viking members not getting back up when injured.

Loot: I'm sorry, but am I the only one that enjoyed Assassin's creed Odyssey and Origins loot system??? I ENJOYED finding better loot and comparing it to what I have on. The gear system in this game just absolutely SUCKS. All the good gear is SOLD in the ubisoft store, and any gear that is found in game is absolute garbage. It's shameful what Ubisoft has done here. I enjoyed the reward of finding gear and what I might get from a boss fight or mercenary/order member.

Combat: The AI is still so weak. Where as in ACO you would have to carefully plan your stealth approach through an enemy camp, in valhalla a lot of targets just stand as still as a statue, and basically present their backs to you saying "I'm ready for assassination!" Even when discovered, the AI does not coordinate in taking you down. I liked the idea of the stamina bar, but you can get the right skill points early on to basically make this feature pointless. And with all the skillpoints available, by halfway through the game you will have so many skillpoints you are basically a viking god for the rest of the game. Power level becomes meaningless.

Something else that bugs me: I've read a few articles or seen a couple interviews with Ubisoft in which they talk about how well Valhalla has sold. Indeed, I prepurchased Valhalla including the season pass based on the success of ACO and the assumption that it would deliver. I was dissapointed and regret purchasing. I should have waited until one of its many sales. I can't help but feel the Valhalla team is not picking up on the issues at hand and is feeling successful based on players purchasing valhalla based on the expectations of the previous title?

Not that impressed. Still same weak AI- enemies always have their back turned ready for assassination, and act befuddled all the time- and the story so far hasn't really grabbed my attention. Plus, I could have sworn I read somewhere that enemies will scale to your power level, but everything is stuck at 55 and I'm at 160?

The map is about half the size of what I expected- You only see a third of Ireland. Most of the south is inaccessible.

There is a character named Azar who feels like ubisoft is shamelessly trying to appease the social justice crowd with a "gender fluid" person. "Look! We care! We made a gender neutral person!" Which should be insulting- the character is pointless/very uninspiring. They didn't really give this character a reason for being other than just to say they put the NPC in.

Everything just feels like Ubisoft did the bare minimum here.

I must have replayed Assassin's creed odyssey a dozen times, all the way through. I loved the RPG elements, combat, and story, graphics. To me, ACO was nearly the perfect game.

And then there's Valhalla. Instead of following the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach, Ubisoft made a number of changes that made the game feel very underwhelming. After playing through once, back during release, I feel no need to replay. I check after every patch to see if certain changes were made, and always come back feeling disappointed.

The biggest issues to address:

AI: I don't know how after six months this hasn't been addressed. You can still walk up to a camp or village and have nearly every target present their backs to you as if to say, "please assassinate me!" Most of them don't even walk around. In zones where you use your cloak, you can be seen walking up to a building, unlock a door and walk in. Soldiers might alert to your presence, but even if they see you walk in they don't go "hey, you aren't allowed in there!" You would think they would at LEAST question you?

Skills and abilities: You get skill points for nearly every encounter regardless of challenge. You get so many skill points that by mid game you have almost the entire skill tree filled in. You get so many skill points, that despite the hardest difficulty level, you will become a Norse God and slay everything with ease. Almost every encounter is boring; there's no risk of losing. The amount of XP and skill points received in areas that you are of a higher power level need to be significantly reduced to avoid becoming so overpowered and so early on in the game.

Then there's the abilities. Most are just lame; where as in ACO you had a skill for poison or fire that affected all your weapons, ubisoft went lazy (couldn't think of more abilities?!?!?) and made a SEPARATE skill for both melee and ranged for poison and fire. But don't stop there- there's two different axe attacks for both ranged and melee that basically do the same thing- throw an axe!! Summon your pet for an attack, he comes in for one bite and then leaves. What.... the.... hell.

Raids: This could have easily been one of the best features of the game, and yet it feels like so little attention was put in to it. You can literally walk around and spend all the time you want on a raid. There's no risk or excitement of what it should mean to get in, pillage, and get out. Imagine this scenario: You raid a village. You have to get in and get out before reinforcements arrive- perhaps you can't pillage the whole monestary or military outpost because there's a patrol nearby that will arrive after a certain amount of time. On top of that, those viking raiders you hired- if you linger too long or the area is too strong, they might actually die. This would actually encourage the use and management of the barracks at your settlement which to me at this time is pointless. You can raid with the default vikings just as well as you can hiring others. Then after a certain amount of time, that raided area will restock, become harder and more well defended the next time you come back. The more challenging the raid, the better REWARDED the player would be!

Gear: I, like a lot of players I presume, enjoy the risk versus reward system. If there's a higher challenge, I expect to be rewarded better. As it is, there's very little reward for anything. Am I alone in liking having gear as a reward, especially when fighting a boss? Why in gods name would you take this away? The gear is so limited, my first play through I picked one gear set and used it the entire game. This meant taking away a reward, and replacing it.... with just xp and skill points. The in game available gear is so lacking, and this was a huge mistake taking away a great reward system.

Contracts: This system seemed like so little work went in to it. Contracts are just random targets to assassinate in the middle of nowhere or rescue the same peasant over and over gain, literally at the same camps. While admittedly these weren't much better in ACO, this could have really been expanded to make them a little more interesting to take up. At least make it a CHALLENGING target to go kill every once in a while, or someone you actually have to hunt for.

The Order: Another one of ACO great systems were the mercenaries who would hunt you down if you did something wrong. It was a great risk feature where you couldn't just steal or kill right in front of a witness. Or occasionally, you would [censored] off the wrong guy and have two or three mercenaries hunting you, following you all over. I thought this was a great system. Instead of keeping that, the Order guys just... walk around in a specific zone. They are meaningless. At one point early in the game it makes it appear that they will hunt for you, but they never do! What was the point of putting them in? The order guys need to at LEAST hunt for you when you're in their area to spice things up a bit!

And a minor irritation: Who thought it would be fun to make EVERY SINGLE building some sort of mini puzzle to get inside?

I'm not even going to mention the lack of one handed swords- it's been beaten to death and supposedly is getting added at a later time. But there are so many game features missing or gameplay that could be improved and hasn't. I feel like the bare minimum was done for most of the game and the team just doesn't care. I'm not even excited about upcoming DLC because unless the core game isn't improved, it's going to be just as boring- a one and done playthrough.

I agree. One of the reasons I enjoyed AOC and it had so much replayability for me was the reward of finding that new gear, or hunting a specific target to fill a set. This has almost entirely been taken away for valhalla. I wear the same gear set through the hole game, and have nothing to look forward to. It's just boring.