If you are shying away from the drinking games Valhalla offers because you tried one and failed miserably, this post is for you.

To win a drinking game, you need to speak to a champion, offer a wager if it's the first time, then finish drinking before the champion. Time your drinking within the orange zone around the drink icon.

Before this week I tried drinking games early on once or twice and never got the timing right (playing on PC with PS4 controller). But the 10 opals for this week's community challenge finally made me try again. Here's what I learned:

1) Start slowly. Stavanger, Grantebridge, and Ledeceistre are the most forgiving locations. Try Stavanger until you get a feel for how the timing works. Those locations have the slowest drinkers giving you plenty of time.

2) Save before you start the first time at a location. The first time you speak to the drinking champion at a location you need to offer up a wager. I usually fail the first time. Reloading after the fail gives me the chance to try again and win the pot.

3) Listen to the crowd cheering you on. The timing works if you click the "drink" button a tidbit after the crowd chants "skal" or "drink". At first click when they chant. Once your reaction is faster, click a tidbit afterwards. That lands your click in the orange zone around the drink icon (X for my PS4 controller).

4) Compensate for Eivor's tumbling when prompted. Once Eivor has finished the first horn/cup of mead he slowly gets drunk, and starts veering left or right. Now it's time for you to yank the controller (or click the corresponding key on the keyboard) quickly to adjust his stance. Yank LEFT when he veers right then quickly let go, and vice versa

5) Focus on the drink icon. It's easy to get carried away and start watching the crowd cheering and dancing But then you lose the timing and Eivor the contest. So keep your eyes ironclad locked on the drink icon.

Once Eivor wins he will be seriously drunk, which is represented by the vision being blurry and shaking for a while. To stop that you can:

• speak to the champion to start another round or tell him/her you don't want to drink
• fast travel somewhere

That will stop the drunk vision immediately.

If you have motion sickness like me: Just do 3 games at a time, then do something else for a while. Then restart the game again and continue. Once I found out I can do this I was so excited and visited all the champions in the shires I have already finished and drank several times with each of them. Better to do just 3 then rest.

The higher level area drinking champions will be more difficult to beat and the drunk vision will be much worse. The drink icon will be the only non-moving item on the screen. Keep your eyes firmly locked on it to avoid losing focus and the game.

Wishing you good fun with the drinking games, and, of course: Skal!

Btw: there is no drinking location in Lunden unfortunately. Missed opportunity. London has lovely pubs.

I bought the Steel-Wrought Bow Reda offers in his shop this week (hunting bow). It turned out to be great: it helps with ranged damage: you pull the string and hold it. While you are holding the string it charges up to be more powerful, signaled with visual and audio effect. It helps me with taking down folks with more strength.

If you often encounter enemies where an arrow does not do enough damage, e.g. during a fight with a bigger foe, if you don't have time to do a headshot, or for folks who just need their bow to be stronger, the Steel-Wrought Bow could be worth the opals.

@spirantcrayon22

I found one. Around Scotthoh farm as well. Here's what I did:

1) go to Scotthoh Farm and let the guards kill me twice.
2) go to the boars at the Roman Column arrangement near Scotthoh Farm and let them kill me twice.
3) kill all the boars.

Then I went to the area between Scotthoh Farm and the boar place and killed boars there. Suddenly an Avenge Quest appeared!

It was an NPC woman lying in the grass. And the perpetrator was one of the boars in the Roman Collumn place I had just killed.

Time I tried: around 2:50pm Eastern Time

Scotthoh Farm really does seem to work. It seems to be important to kill all the guards / boars after letting yourself get killed by them. Then the dead guards / boars might trigger a check for an avenge quest.

It might even have been triggered by myself dying 4 times in that area. So I might theoretically also have seen myself lying there, just with a different picture and player name.

If not: big thank you to the other player who let him/herself die there!

@cmtlawless23 I hear you. I have gone through the same emotions trying out this new game mode I tried to pick up the gear I fought hard to defeat the guys for just to find out the weapons I could get are way too slow to fight the first boss at the end of the run. And the abilities were all gone after dying and getting back to camp. I had to take a break and swear wholeheartedly.

Then I saw I still had gained some stuff to spend at the raven with the skill display. I saw I had enough to get some more health. So I tried again the next day. And the health upgrades I had bought in the skill tree got me through this time. I didn't pick up any weapons I can't use like the predator bow that has only a few arrows or the heavy 2 handed way too slow weapons but continued to use the weapons I had in the beginning. Just took the coins from the killed guys, used the health elks, and bought more health from that merchant before the first boss. And then I managed to kill that first boss and start the next area. But of course ended up instantly dying in a lava ditch lol And then tried a 3rd time and got again a bit further.

I suck at this game mode but somehow it is still interesting enough for me to try again. I realized that this is the whole purpose of the game mode: you die and stop caring about dying. Where in the base game and the DLCs your whole purpose is collect stuff, upgrade stuff to use it further, the Forgotten Saga play mode works differently. The only stuff you keep are the skills from the tree. Those are yours forever. And it looks like you also can pickup new armor. I somehow for my 3 trials so far was able to keep the Allfather's armor with melee perks and upgrade it. It also looks like I can purchase something to for the next time keep one of the abilities I picked up. That would be great. I will definitely try that for the 4th run.

Alltogether this game mode is just different. Yes you lose stuff you picked up. And most of the stuff you pick up is useless (at least for me so early on). But you also can improve your skills each run. That is the way this game mode is designed.
And after my first run cursing at the Forgotten Saga mode, the devs who came up with that, and everybody else I found out I can live with it if I just try a bit different.

So I decided for me personally it works. It is very frustrating and tedious but also, at least for me personally, interesting enough to try again.

Step away from this new game mode for a while. Just keep on doing the "normal" stuff in the game. And maybe at some point try again.

Wishing you all the best and good gaming!

PS: and yes it's best not to take out your anger on other people.

May 24th, US East Coast: 3 quests

1. The Thieves Couple
2. Investigation Offer
3. Jomsviking Code

Today and yesterday we got the correct amount of quests. Means: tomorrow May 25th we'll get just one.

We need an episodic save, or auto save in River Raid due to crashes!

I just played River Raid for the new champion quest in River Rhine, about an hour long of prep work for the boss fight to get food, and all enemies killed at the location. Then I defeated the new champion.

When I set sail on the river, right before I was about to select to go home, the game crashed! After an hour of gameplay and killing the champion.

I know we don't have save function during River Raids to increase the risk for getting killed.

But that does not mean to increase the risk for our game to CRASH!

Please give us something like episodic or auto save during river raids after finishing each location in case of crashes. If we get killed, delete the save. Dying is part of the risk. Our own fault. We die we lose.
But if the game crashes, we then have a point where we can continue without losing all the stuff we have accomplished already. Because crashes are Ubisoft's fault. We should not be punished for them.

@spirantcrayon22 I understand what you are saying and if you are a higher level character this is very doable. But I remember how much I struggled as a low level. Especially if you are trying to find reindeer antlers which do only rarely drop. I was hunting for several days then one reindeer dropped an antler then several days again. If you press the "sell all trinkets" button during those times your antler is gone. Also for some fish who are not everywhere. And also some people only have 1 h or so in the evening after work and kids etc. For them it is a serious issue to lose the hunting progress.

The "sell all trinkets" button is for after fighting a lot of enemies, e.g. on raids to help you with time instead of having to sell them all 1 by 1. You should be able to rely on that button not also selling all your hunting goods.

What I really fear has happened is:

Some Ubisoft engineer in the past tasked with investigating the bug where users with level-scaling don't get predator quests just did a quick-fix and switched off the predator quests alltogether. That then led to everybody missing one quest on days where a predator quest would otherwise be part of the quest offers.

Now engineering tasked with investigating that every 3rd day or more often a quest is missing found that predator quests are switched off and just switched them back on. Reported to their management the bug is fixed, rolled their code into the 1.6.0 update and done.

Nobody in engineering either knew or even worse cared about trying to find out what the problem actually was.

And we are stuck now with this new update where the "bug fix" actual is just that quick-fix code taken out and the original bug where predator quests don't show for level scaling is back.

Reda's shop 06/14:

Daily: Huldufolk sail (ship)

Weekly:

• deco: Niflheim Runestone (deco)
• tatoos: Mystical (left arm), Modern Day (front)
• ship: Hearthweru Figurehead, Berserker Figurehead
• Clothes: Shinobi Hood (Oni)

Meteor sighting: Suthsexe, near Guildford, US-East Coast, 9:30pm on June 04th 2022

Content: 1 Titanium, 1 Nickel Ingot, about 142 Ore

@SpirantCrayon22 thank you for trying. It means a lot to me

For silver I go to Ireland to pick up the stuff in the Dublin box. Then exchange it for silver. That usually is enough for purchasing ore / leather once or twice plus some runes when I level up.
Silver is also easy to get in the river at Melun where the street goes through. Killing those turtles gets enough for the purchases as well.

@azullFR From everything I have read so far it looks like in Ubisoft's code that does the communication exchange when reaching out to the server has a list of conditions the code goes through and checks each if it applies or not. And those conditions are not always handled correctly. That is what Ubisoft-Bug-Investigation needs to look at.

The code for such a button, if ever implemented, should go through all the steps without checking for the conditions first. Then and only then all the info gets exchanged.

And all the info needs to be exchanged for all of the stuff to show up: avenge quests, jomsvikings at dock, rewards if your own jomsviking has been hired, update of status of weekly challenges from your console to the server, if any additional opals need to be given to you, etc.

@SpirantCrayon22 I found in Gloucester only few houses with little yellow dots indicating loot chests with either leather/iron or supplies. Lots of other loot stuff like barrels and stuff.

I also started at the church in the city. I also went to the longhouse. And I cleaned out the boxes on the map indicated by little yellow dots in the shire except maybe 3 where i couldn't get to. Many of them had just supplies instead of leather/iron. And even 2h after cleaning them out they didn't respawn.

Maybe your install has a bug that gives you lots of leather/iron chests in Glowecestrescire

The only respawning loot chests with iron/leather I have found so far are the river raid locations. they don't give that much though, even at fully leveled up. Under 100 iron / 100 leather.

Edit: idea: I only checked the map if the little dots respawn. Maybe the boxes do respawn quietly silently without map dot I'll go look right now .....

Edit: boxes still empty. Ah well. Church box where I have to first shoot down a dangling sack of stuff from the ceiling and the longhouse box are both still opened.

Looks like your install is special

@Polyedra heavy weapons have higher force on impact due to their weight (there is a formula I forgot which explains it). But due to their larger weight it takes more stamina to wield them and due to their length / weight it takes longer for them to be swung. With a human's strength a short sword is easier to swing and takes a shorter time for the swing. I bet a large enemy with lots more strength like Eivor could swing the large heavy weapons easier. In Swartalfheim I got a weapon from a big strong enemy. He was able to swing his weapon easily. But for "me" it's difficult. He is much stronger than I am. I have tried his weapon but have the same time problem with it as usual (it's a dane axe).

And thinking of it: yes, I am probably doing something wrong with dodging: in Odyssey the Hekatonchire in Atlantis I had to use a loadout with highest defense amount. Only then I could make it through the fight. I was astonished to see afterwards a youtube video where somebody made it through the attack elegantly using just dodge and a full attack loadout with low defense.

Edit: Just observed myself dodging and saw: I dodge then use the time I have to reach the enemy and get a few hits in. I use dodging all the time actually. Then even press the sprint button to reach the enemy faster while already start to swing my weapon. I'll try again with heavy weapons at some point but with fast enemies I remember it being iffy.

@Polyedra I am doing the dodge I actually learned it in Hamtunscire when hunting for ingot bearing roaming guards way above my level. But there is never just 1 person attacking me. I am using dodge all the time. That is how I make it through most encounters. Often I cannot dodge. And then is not enough time to swing the big weapon before I get hit and am interrupted. Might be a stamina issue.
Maybe I haven't spent enough time with those big weapons. I promise I will try them again, ..., when I have gathered enough foreign rezzies for my 5th loadout.

@SpirantCrayon22 yah, that is how it looks like. I am thinking about what is different in the transaction @azullFR is describing and a regular server interaction where information is supposed to be exchanged but isn't. That difference, whatever it was, made it work for him that one time.

@SteveZ_Pun "Old german boy, my english is very outdated" your English is awesome (Ihr Englisch ist echt super!)

Weapons make a big difference for me, too: their weight / size. I have problems with heavy weighted weapons like dane axes and above, especially with the scythes you mentioned, even with weight runes and speed runes. I get hit before I can hit. I mostly use 2 great swords and, just like you, with fire runes, or the weekly challenge weapons. And for Kara's arena challenge I found the Gae Bolg spear plus another spear from Reda fully runed work best for me. I found for the arena the effects from the twilight armor that came with the DLC do make a difference. That's why I use it for the arena loadout. Everywhere else I just use regular fast/light armor like the Allfather armor and fully runed with runes for health, fire protection, elite, melee, evasion, and 1 ranged attack rune. The stealth stuff and assassin runes I leave off, don't need them once fully leveled up.

Fully agree: armor weight is important, the armors all offer about the same amount of protection, and runes make a big difference.

@azullFR Instead of any additional thing with reward how about a button in Ubisoft Connect "Update player status". And let that function then connect to the account and do some information exchange that updates the stuff the account is supposed to see: jomsviking at dock, updating opal amount, avenge quest availability, and whatever else is usually updated and checked.

Such a button would help so many people who have problems with server connection to get their stuff updated.

@TheNorfolkian I agree wholeheartedly with everything you and @SteveZ_Pun are saying in that post. I have stayed clear of long-term relationships in Valhalla to avoid potential impacts on the storyline. Only am doing those quick fling things you get sometimes. Once everything is finished I'll try out the long-terms. There is also Tarben available as love interest in Ravensthorpe. He also seems to be long-term.

oops just saw this is a double post. Sorry about that. I was replying to 2 different posts.

@SpirantCrayon22 wow I have never tried that I only kill guards / other enemies in shires I haven't pledged to yet and leave their resources be. But this is a wonderful idea. I'll go and try that. I go to Glowecestre often anyways for those odd weekly challenges like corner assassinations etc.

Thank you!


Edit: how long does it take until the chests in Glowecestre respawn? I got all of them in that shire except one I couldn't get to. None has respawned yet