Assassin's Creed Valhalla

[Domingo]

For what it's worth, I almost never parry. There's an ability you can unlock that slows down time whenever you make a perfect dodge. I find that to be more valuable than parrying...plus a botched parry vs. an enemy that's 100+ levels above you = death, while a slightly off-timed dodge usually isn't. That said, having dodge and crouch mapped to the same button is ridiculous. There really doesn't even need to be a crouch in this game. You automatically hide in tall vegetation. The only thing crouching accomplishes is getting you killed by accident.

 

[Domingo]

Just curious - what armor and weapon sets are/were people using? I've been tinkering around and honestly think the stuff you get at the beginning (the Ravenclan set, Varrin's Axe, Raider Axe) is among the best in the whole game. The Mentor set is a bit better for aggressive approaches and I think the St. George set looks cool, but I'm finding most sets are nothing special. Weapon-wise, I've been dual-wielding those two first axes seemingly forever. The amount of damage they do combined with the perfect dodge ability seems tough to beat. I couldn't replicate that with anything else I tried. Shields seemed particularly pointless since you can parry with almost anything, plus dodging is so powerful.

 

[polonyc2]

The Siege of Paris expansion arrives on August 12th

 

[polonyc2]

Assassin's Creed Valhalla- Title Update 1.3.1

adds new River Raid Maps, Nightmare Difficulty, and more...

https://discussions.ubisoft.com/topic/107263/assassin-s-creed-valhalla-title-update-1-3-1?lang=en-US

 

[Domingo]

I liked the concept of the River Raids. Considering there were only a few on a pretty large-looking map, I assumed they'd end up adding more. Glad they added some new abilities, too. Hopefully some are actually worth using.

Ability-wise, I found that some abilities were just flat-out better than others. The one where Eivor automatically targets enemies with 3 axes is far and away the best one because it's powerful, it hits up to 3 enemies, and it doesn't miss. I rarely even used anything else. I tried most all of them, but only a couple are worth ever doing. The whip into decapitation one is one of the few others that was also decent. On the bow-side, the one that makes your arrows explode makes most (tedious) fire pot puzzles trivial. If nothing else, it saves you a ton of time.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Discovery Tour is out.
It's an actual game this time.

 

[RanceJustice]

Discovery Tour is out.
It's an actual game this time.

I have to give Ubi credit for this sort of thing. Even the older AC games had a lot of history and while I also enjoyed the "every conspiracy theory is woven into the fabric of the lore" elements, there was a lot of authentic stuff too. In older games you had to go and read it in the databases, descriptions of people and places that were for the most part historically accurate and quite in depth. After the fire at the Cathedral of Saint Denis (I think that was its name) in Paris, Ubi contacted the restoration team and gave them all their scans, documents, in game models etc... for the version present in AC Unity that it may help the restoration effort; players also got a free copy of Unity on PC to bring attention to the issue. In the more recent titles, the " Discovery Tours" take it one step further, with being able to walk through various virtual living museaums which is neat and in depth enough to be useful in secondary or collegiate education as a fun learning tool. Whjile they were included in every recent AC title, they could also be purchased a la carte for like $10-15 which was very reasonable for something like classroom use. Its my understanding for Origins and Odyssey these tours were more or less without a narrative campaign and instead were more the museaum structure or free-roaming "I'm going to be the Pharaoh and walk through the city checking out all these places of interest and crossing them off my list. I may or may not also decide to hang on the Sphinx nose because why the hell not"., but from the looks of the Valhalla Tour its really taking things to a new level.

Adding multiple narrative perspectives is great and gets people immersed into the story. This time making it so playing the Discovery Tour unlocks items for the game side may encourage lots of people who weren't originally interested in the edu-tainment element to give it a look. Combined with the story, maybe some will really end up enjoying this alternate form of gameplay and getting goodies for Eivor's quest alike. There's a lot of things of concern about how Ubi does business and treats their workers, and people talking about getting bored with open world titles, but it does seem they're really trying to do something different and adding a ton of content to the latest AC (and FarCry for that matter) titles meant to rectify some of those game related issues. I'm playing through Valhalla and the game world is just packed with stuff to do that is meaningful in one way or another, so even for a completionist like me who takes a long time (ie I tend to gather ALL the stuff in an area if I can ) its often enjoyable rather than all busy work - but also provides opportunities for that "flow state" gameplay where you just want to collect everytihing in a town, run some missions, or more. River raids for instance are an entirely new dimension of play and a fun diversion and mini-game in its own right. I've not even gotten to Ireland much less to France in the Season Pass 1 expansion areas, but I'm interested to see what comes there and it seems to be content heavy again. I kinda like that Valhalla is getting another Season Pass / expansion set too, rather than either cramming new stuff in or waiting for ages for another game. I'm guessing at least one of the expansions in SP2 will be the sort of heavy mythology inspired content we saw like in AC's Elysium / Underworld / and Atlantis expansion - there's certainly enough Norse mythology and many, many realms and stories to tell!

 

[Flogger23m]

Personally I preferred the old way. A year later I was done with the Egyptian game except for the DLC. I was minimizing the game to read history for context, because the time period the game started in was a complete mystery to me. Only as it progressed did I understand it was in the Ptolemaic period. The old games had plenty of info that was relevant revealed as you accessed things. So if you needed context you could read up, as well as some history on landmarks you'd spend time in. Now they have all kinds of detail and that is great in its own way, but it is kind of useless when you're done with the game. Sure, you can watch 15-45 minutes on ancient pottery building but for most that isn't that interesting. And mixing gameplay plus small bits of history in made a good combination. Now it is separated entirely.

I'm not opposed to the discovery tour stuff as I did watch most of it in Egypt, but I don't think it should replace the traditional in game glossary. That is often needed for historical context and additional background being delivered at the right time. Discovery Tour can still be made for those that really want to know every little detail about the world.

Take this game for example. I kind of wanted to know how old the Roman fences/structures were as I was playing. How long had past until the period in game. Things like that.

 

[RanceJustice]

The in-game databases during the main story still exist , offering little bits of historical context and information for those who care to read it. These have changed a little over the years - I can recall how the earlier AC titles had the historical databases written accurately more or less, yet were "in character" written by one of the Assassins that was helping out Desmond, notably that male British one who occasionally put a snarky comment or whatnot in their assessment of a historical figure, place, or event. This continued with others (ie some of those during the Americas Quadrilogy were written with Abstergo's viewpoint, with occasional intrusions of hackers from the Erudito collective or whatnot with contrary assessments.) though I want to say that the current trilogy - Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla - may have less of that extra flavor, though I do think one of the people assisting Layla Hassan is writing some of those databases. I'll have to spend some time checking it out and it may be that database entries lack depth and/or flavor compared to previous titles, but they are certainly still there. I'll look up the Roman related ruins question you noted, as I just recently added the proper resident to the Settlement who is something of a proto archeologist , interested in and collecting ancient Roman era relics.

 

[Mchart]

I forget at which game it stopped, but I miss when you had the voice over of the historian tell you about stuff, and getting the notifications of historical sites.

 

[polonyc2]

Less than a year after leaving, Assassin's Creed Valhalla narrative director returns to Ubisoft

 

[polonyc2]

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will require a full re-download with next week's title update

Ahead of title update 1.4.1, Ubisoft has warned that Assassin's Creed Valhalla will need a complete reinstall once the patch goes live next week...that means you should prepare for a roughly 77GB download on PC...in addition to preparing for future DLC and expansions, update 1.4.1 will also "deliver faster loading screens, improved world data streaming, and overall runtime performance...

https://twitter.com/assassinscreed/status/1468626450546937858

 

[OutOfPhase]

Assassin's Creed Valhalla will require a full re-download with next week's title update

Ahead of title update 1.4.1, Ubisoft has warned that Assassin's Creed Valhalla will need a complete reinstall once the patch goes live next week...that means you should prepare for a roughly 77GB download on PC...in addition to preparing for future DLC and expansions, update 1.4.1 will also "deliver faster loading screens, improved world data streaming, and overall runtime performance...

https://www.pcgamer.com/assassins-c...ull-re-download-with-next-weeks-title-update/

Yes, their current incremental layering approach in Anvil proved to degrade rather rapidly. The loading time for valhalla is currently what I'd call "absurd", down from simply "kinda painful" at launch.
Since they want more DLC, they clearly had to wrestle the alligator at some point.

Kinda surprised they didn't waste some disk space to avoid a download though. I'm guessing most/all textures haven't changed, and that's a huge amount of the download. <shrug> Easy to backseat drive I guess. Might be best to just bite the bullet and clean it all up.

 

[RanceJustice]

I guess i have to give them credit for realizing a problem can't be simply patched any longer and needs an overhaul - better for them to do this than continue to run into issues. Valhalla is one of the few games I've had periods of times when it ran flawlessly, but others when it crashed to desktop after a short, random amount of playtime (ie around 30min-1hr) without error, and other times when I could literally not load into the game world as it would repeatedly crash (choose continue, see the loading screen with Eivor and the tips, etc... and then when it should load into the game...boom, back to desktop without error) - I had one of these just the other day. If this patch wil fix the issue, I'd rather put up a little bit of time to redownload the whole game (when the patch comes up its probably better to simply uninstall and reinstall, rather than have to get a complete redownload atop the already installed game), but I admit I'm in a better state than many with Gigabit fiber..

 

[polonyc2]

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Update 1.4.1- Difficulty Setting Improvements & Stealth fixes

Stealth Fixes:
• Improved instances where NPCs could detect players when vision between the player and NPCs is obstructed.
• Reduced the hold time and speed restriction when blending with crowds.
• Resolved some issues that caused players to be instantly detected when they should not have been.

https://discussions.ubisoft.com/top...fK8ZiBsziK1iO4Se_rlZXZB2GYvUeg4Bymdsp4fwkEwk4

 

[Armenius]

I guess i have to give them credit for realizing a problem can't be simply patched any longer and needs an overhaul - better for them to do this than continue to run into issues. Valhalla is one of the few games I've had periods of times when it ran flawlessly, but others when it crashed to desktop after a short, random amount of playtime (ie around 30min-1hr) without error, and other times when I could literally not load into the game world as it would repeatedly crash (choose continue, see the loading screen with Eivor and the tips, etc... and then when it should load into the game...boom, back to desktop without error) - I had one of these just the other day. If this patch wil fix the issue, I'd rather put up a little bit of time to redownload the whole game (when the patch comes up its probably better to simply uninstall and reinstall, rather than have to get a complete redownload atop the already installed game), but I admit I'm in a better state than many with Gigabit fiber..

Valhalla is based on the same engine Unity was. It appears that they really stretched it to the limit with this release. Time for a new one.

 

[polonyc2]

rumor: massive DLC expansion coming in March 2022...it's expected to be around 40 hours of additional gameplay and will be a "God of War style" expansion

 

[Flogger23m]

rumor: massive DLC expansion coming in March 2022...it's expected to be around 40 hours of additional gameplay and will be a "God of War style" expansion

That would be crazy, but at 40 hours it may as well be a standalone game. Especially if they make it more streamlined and story focused which I assume God of War is. Game is a crazy 90 or so hour length before DLC as is.

 

[RanceJustice]

Valhalla is based on the same engine Unity was. It appears that they really stretched it to the limit with this release. Time for a new one.

Wow, didn't know that. Figured it was a different engine since at least Origins.

rumor: massive DLC expansion coming in March 2022...it's expected to be around 40 hours of additional gameplay and will be a "God of War style" expansion

That would be crazy, but at 40 hours it may as well be a standalone game. Especially if they make it more streamlined and story focused which I assume God of War is. Game is a crazy 90 or so hour length before DLC as is.

I believe this. At least for the past few games the expansions have been significant in content , ranging from something that easily could have been a stand alone DLC episode,, to something more akin to an old 90s or 2000's expansion. AC Origins had both the Sinai expansion (where the game becomes actually about the Assassins / Hidden Ones in action) and Thebes (which had tons of Egyptian mythology inspired worlds and the hardest bosses around) , both with new mechanics, locations, moves forward both the historical and real world story elements, and more. AC Odyssey took it to another level. Legacy of the First Blade added a whole new campaign, faction, new core characters, and what some consider one of the most emotional stories (albeit, some criticized one particular plot point as out of the player's agency) with a ton of choices over multiple episodes. Atlantis expansion moved on from the Atlantis ;/ Staff ending of the core game and brought a TON of content, as you went through Greek mythological settings . You had major choices to make and the story could significantly differ depending on what you did, not to mention other mechanics and the like. Elysium and Hades had major historical story continuations too, allowing you to see what would happen to some of those who died in the main game and bring them to a good resolution (or not), while the Atlantis chapter was the biggest Isu / First Civilization dump we've had to date and gave a ton of (admittedly sometimes cryptic) choices and reveals if you could do everything "right". This also massively progressed the "real world" story with Layla, the Staff, and the First Civ entity Alethea who you started out unlocking secret scenes of back in previous games (notably the secret / Isu ending of Origins, done very well with the Sphinx) .

I've not completed Valhalla yet nor its expansions as I've only had a limited amount of time spread among a few titles, but I'm moving on bit by bit. However, from the bits I've read about the not just the free DLC and mechanics (which have been significant, like River Raids), the "Year 1" expansions of Ireland and France seem to be extensive in scope. I don't know if they equal or surpass previous expansions, but they appear to be content heavy. Its noteworthy that unlike previous games in year one we didn't get "one historical expansion, one mythological" so I have to wonder if some of the Valhalla Year 2 expansions will end up delving heavily into Norse mythology and traveling through the Nine Realms. Then again, a bit of this happens in the core game itself I' m told so who knows. However, I am curious if it would be a a streamlined setup and how that will work compared to the "new areas and mechanics, but still the open world free roaming gameplay we've seen in the past" expansions to date. There's criticism against Ubi as a company , monetization, and how their open world games become same-y collectathons but I have to give them credit for the past several games where they've iterated, tried new things and gave players meaningful stuff to do. If people don't like the open world dynamic that's okay, but we're a long way from "nothing but radio towers and the same three activities until you clear the map", thankfully and they seem intent to keep shaking things up.

 

[Flogger23m]

I believe this. At least for the past few games the expansions have been significant in content , ranging from something that easily could have been a stand alone DLC episode,, to something more akin to an old 90s or 2000's expansion.

Of course, but at 40 hours this would be longer than both of Valhalla's current DLCs combined by a large margin. And almost as long as the base game for Origins. And about as long as all three of Odyssey's DLC.

I'm just saying it might have been better as a more developed spin off.

 

[Mchart]

 

[Flogger23m]

Interesting. So you'll have to play the first part of the the Crossover in Odyssey, then continue it in Valhalla. But if you played as Alexios in Odyssey that will not be reflected at all in Valhalla. Depending on how long the DLC is I might skip it if it is just a small mission. Hated Odyssey. Have yet to play any Valhalla DLC.

 

[Jumpem]

Oof. Mixing time periods and locales.

 

[Aireoth]

its the new trend, just chuck everything made prior into a blender and call it a 'verse. I thought the continious remakes where rock bottom but I think we've found a new low.

 

[polonyc2]

Interesting. So you'll have to play the first part of the the Crossover in Odyssey, then continue it in Valhalla. But if you played as Alexios in Odyssey that will not be reflected at all in Valhalla. Depending on how long the DLC is I might skip it if it is just a small mission. Hated Odyssey. Have yet to play any Valhalla DLC.

I give them credit for creativity but I'm not sure I like that you need to play half the DLC in a previous game and another half in the current game...

 

[Mchart]

You can pickup the ultimate edition of this for only $46 right now straight through Ubisoft. Doesn't include this upcoming ragnarok DLC, but everything else.

 

[RanceJustice]

I give them credit for creativity but I'm not sure I like that you need to play half the DLC in a previous game and another half in the current game...

This is a little bit of an annoyance, if you have to essentially download a whole other game (one you may already be finished with) to the tune of nearly 50-100gb to see the content, but on the other hand I can give them some credit for continuing to add content to even an older game. I do hope it is considerable and worth playing/seeing for those who already finished Odyssey as I and a few others here have done. Also, I wonder if you will be forced to play it as Kassandra in Odyssey and/or Female Eivor in Valhalla or if that is just how it is shown in the video. Likewise, it would be nice if they were able to read your (local or Ubi cloud) saves and put whatever version of the Odyssey hero and Valhalla hero you chose into the crossover - its not like its a huge amount of choices after all.

Guess I was right about them with the announcement of the new expansion, though. They did two "historical" expansions that move forward Eivor's story, and now like with Origins and Odyssey its time for a "Mythological" expansion - hope it comes out well. I'd bristle a little at it not being included in the Gold / Ultimate versions, but A) unlike the previous two games this is a second year of expansion content and B) you can get it if you're on Ubi+ anyway.

You can pickup the ultimate edition of this for only $46 right now straight through Ubisoft. Doesn't include this upcoming ragnarok DLC, but everything else.

A good deal, I'd have to check it against the (Humble choice boosted) discounts elsewhere, but this may be the infection point where for new players its better to just pick up the discounted Ultimate edition right off vs Ubi+ .

 

[Bankie]

You can pickup the ultimate edition of this for only $46 right now straight through Ubisoft. Doesn't include this upcoming ragnarok DLC, but everything else.

It's showing the Ultimate edition at $60 for me. Base game is $30, DD is $40, and Gold is $50.

Edit: Never mind. Promo Code Hello22 gets you 22% off. I wanted to try to combine it with the 20% off for 100 Uplay points but don't have enough.

Edit2: Good god Ubisoft Connect is hot garbage. The store just randomly stops loading forcing you to switch to another web-based tab (like Ubisoft+) and then back.

 

[Mchart]

This new update has given me a pretty decent performance boost in this game. The game loads at least twice as fast now, and there is no stuttering now. It's butter smooth.

 

[Bankie]

So is Valhalla worth picking up? I tried it when it first came out and wasn't too keen on it after really enjoying Origins and Odyssey. The river sieges and stealth (or lack thereof) were a drag for me then. Has anything changed?

 

[Mchart]

So is Valhalla worth picking up? I tried it when it first came out and wasn't too keen on it after really enjoying Origins and Odyssey. The river sieges and stealth (or lack thereof) were a drag for me then. Has anything changed?

The core non-DLC game is still what it was at release, outside of various QOL improvements that were in Odyssey in terms of various level difficulty settings, and combat difficulty settings. So you can make the game a lot harder now compared to release. The game also runs and looks a little better now as well, and it's fairly bug free.

They added a bunch of free stuff with the updates. So you've got an entire river-raid map now where you can do river raids as much as you want. They also added in various dungeons like prior games.

The DLC's add a shit ton as well.

Personally, with the way it is now, I like it as much as I did Odyssey. Although Odyssey generally had more going for it. I still don't understand why they didn't add in a system like Odyssey to Valhalla where you could conquer forts/castles.

For $46 for the Ultimate edition, I think it's an incredible value though. Now is the perfect time to buy it if you played it via subscription.

 

[polonyc2]

Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok Trailer

The Dawn of Ragnarok expansion launches on March 10th...

 

[harmattan]

Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarok Trailer

The Dawn of Ragnarok expansion launches on March 10th...

No interest in this. The Ragnarok quests and world was the worst part of the core game, I found them a total slog. It strips the only thing that differentiates AC from any number of other Ubisoft stalk-conquer-gather games: the historical setting. It's also completely generic-looking.

 

[Jumpem]

No interest in this. The Ragnarok quests and world was the worst part of the core game, I found them a total slog. It strips the only thing that differentiates AC from any number of other Ubisoft stalk-conquer-gather games: the historical setting. It's also completely generic-looking.

I agree. They should drop the mythological and present day settings. They interrupt the main setting of the games.

 

[Bankie]

I agree. They should drop the mythological and present day settings. They interrupt the main setting of the games.

While I'm all for dropping the present day Animus stuff I quite enjoyed the mythological parts of Origins and Odyssey. I can't speak to that portion of Valhalla though since I barely played it.

 

[kirbyrj]

I agree. They should drop the mythological and present day settings. They interrupt the main setting of the games.

I don't agree. I think it's what differentiates it from the other Ubisoft games in that the stories are all tied together. You can't tie together stories that occur hundreds or thousands of years apart without some sort of overarching narrative.

I thought the mythological settings were interesting. Slogging over a brown countryside over and over again in search of a random chest you haven't gotten yet was more boring. Generally, I liked Valhalla less than Odyssey and Origins.

The reason I'm not particularly interested in this is because they are wacking you $40 to play DLC which I thought I already bought with a season pass. Why are they selling "Gold" complete editions when they don't include the complete game. At least they did away with the annual releases. Next time it's going to be Assassin's Creed: NFT Edition.

 

[Jumpem]

I don't agree. I think it's what differentiates it from the other Ubisoft games in that the stories are all tied together. You can't tie together stories that occur hundreds or thousands of years apart without some sort of overarching narrative.

I thought the mythological settings were interesting. Slogging over a brown countryside over and over again in search of a random chest you haven't gotten yet was more boring. Generally, I liked Valhalla less than Odyssey and Origins.

The reason I'm not particularly interested in this is because they are wacking you $40 to play DLC which I thought I already bought with a season pass. Why are they selling "Gold" complete editions when they don't include the complete game. At least they did away with the annual releases. Next time it's going to be Assassin's Creed: NFT Edition.

I was disappointed with Valhalla after Origins and Odyssey. The "vikings" game ended up being a run around England helping anglo-saxons game. I had expected the game to mostly take place in Norway or Denmark with raids to England.

 

[Domingo]

They've been scaling back the animus/modern stuff for a while. It's barely in the last few games (after being a huge part of the early ones), so I don't mind it as a plot device. The whole Asgard portion of Valhalla bored me to tears, though. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't just an excuse for more random chests in a new map.

 

[Bankie]

They've been scaling back the animus/modern stuff for a while. It's barely in the last few games (after being a huge part of the early ones), so I don't mind it as a plot device. The whole Asgard portion of Valhalla bored me to tears, though. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't just an excuse for more random chests in a new map.

It popped up a ton in Odyssey; at the end you were even fighting the Atlantis AI thing as what's her name. I think it was in Origins quite a bit also but it's been a while so I don't fully remember (wasn't there a part where you were fighting soldiers entering your Animus cave?). They don't need the Animus stuff for the story as they already have the overarching story of the Assassin's guild vs the Templars. IMO the Animus stuff just makes the story sloppy while grinding the gameplay to a halt and the series would have been better served by completely dumping it after AC1 and just going with the Assassins through time.

 

[harmattan]

While I'm all for dropping the present day Animus stuff I quite enjoyed the mythological parts of Origins and Odyssey. I can't speak to that portion of Valhalla though since I barely played it.

The mythological parts in Origins and Odyssey were integrated into the plot way more seamlessly. Heading into Medusa's lair or fighting the Cyclops was fun and part of the journey. In Valhalla, it's a whole separate world that feels largely empty and worthless.