Enemy Balancing in Mountain and Plains Biome visual nonsense

[Glorthiar]

First off, just to give my complaints some legitimacy I am going to say right off the back, I am a professional artist and game developer currently employed with a AAA game company.

So, I love this game, and the first 3 Biomes feel incredibly polished! I Adored Meadow, Black Forest, and Swamp! They have lots of visual character, interesting enemies (especially swamp ooooh I love swamp) and overall were a fantastic and addicting to play through!

However I am now half way through the mountain biome and have spent a lot of time in the plains biome. While I do appreciate the visuals from a purerly visual stand point, I can't help but be severly annoyed at the design of some of the later enemies. 3 enemies in particular have REALLY consistently annoyed me: Wolves, Fuling's, and Drakes.

Now while I understand wolves being hostile and aggressive, the wolves in Valheim are stupidly strong and incredibly annoying, Because they are so low to the ground and the mountain biome is very jagged, more often then not MOST of my swings go right over there heads! And even beyond being very easy to miss, they just hit *too hard* to the point it's immersion breaking, a 2 star wolf can 2 shot me while I have 3 fairly decent foods and a set of armour that is reasonably decent for the Biome, It doesn't make sense I can block a troll swinging a tree with my shield but a random wolf can bite straight through solid iron armour. Wolves have been continually frustrating! by far they are the scariest creature in the mountains, which leads nicely into my next point.

DRAKES! Winged beast! When I first saw a Drake in the distance while I was climbing the mountain my heart dropped! I was scared but so excited! time to fight dragons! Then I killed one with a single arrow. Not only do drakes die exceptionally easy, but their attacks are incredibly easy to dodge, and when they do hit it did so little damage I immediately became unconcerned. Drakes went from being super exciting to something I literally don't bother to fight because they're not worth the arrows.

TLDR from the my last 2 points are please nerf wolves and please buff the ever loving f*ck out of drakes! Makes dragons scary!

Ok, now. Fuling's. My complaints for Fulings are very similar to my complaints to wolves, Fuling's are from a visual design stand point are only marginally more scary than the boar, nothing about them makes me think *OH those are going to whoop my ass!* they're unarmored, they're weapons looks crude, they're only crotch high. They do not that scary, and yet! They are incredibly tough bastards! perplexingly tough! which is only worse when combined with the fact that nothing about the plains biome makes me feel inherently threatened, it looks like meadows 2.0! This is really poor visual design and I imagine the vast majority of players who encounter fulings are going to underestimate them and then get fucking whomped, and in this game that can be catastrophic and easily cause someone to multiple hours of progress. My solution to this would be to nerf them a lot but put them in larger roving groups, make them swarming enemies! like little goblinoids they one might expect them to be, it might also be cool that if you don't manage to kill one and it runs away it could bring back a horde! Give them more interesting and smart mechanics and don't just give them basic enemy AI and bump up the numbers so far that it's absurd to the point of being 4th wall breaking.

 

[sstella]

Your concern about wolves being difficult to fight due to hit boxes and the present combat mechanics is valid - the developers intend to flesh out and develop combat further in the future, probably allowing for better-aimed directional attacks and thus solving this problem. (Check the roadmap!)

I think your other concern about Wolves and Fulings dealing too much damage is misplaced.

Fulings and Wolves are extremely strong for a reason - Game Scaling - something that a game developer like yourself should understand. You are not supposed to be able to counter or challenge Wolves or Fulings until you have scaled appropriately, and even after scaling to their tier they are constantly a serious threat, and this is by design. It sounds to me like your concerns can be simply fixed if wolf damage was dropped or if armor values increased - but what does that accomplish outside of making the game easier, more casual and noob friendly and throwing off the game scaling? Presently Wolves will one-shot unless you have a bare minimum of armor and shields. Once we have appropriately scaled to the mountain tier you can at least take more than one hit, up to four if you're lucky. I do not think appropriate scaling should render mobs/threats of equal or similar tier totally useless. Mosquitos tier similarly, where players go from being totally vulnerable, to simply standing a chance - which is the point of tiering and game scaling - to be equal to mobs of similar tier, not outwardly superior. An important question to consider is "How should a game scale?" Should a game's scale increase in tiny subtle increments where players can casually explore beyond their tier? Or should the game's scale increase in magnitudes completely preventing players from standing a chance in tiers they haven't even unlocked or progressed to?


As for a wolf biting you through solid armor - well thats more your application of "realism" against your sense of "immersion". If we are going to split hairs over realism details then might as well add gaps in armor where players have less protection from damage, after all, realism would dictate armor have gaps and openings as it does in real life. Why should a wolf bite against the back of your knee be suddenly be worthless because your thighs are covered in iron? Realistically a wolf pounce would knock you to the ground, preventing you from even raising a weapon to defend yourself, allowing the wolf to easily bite a gap in your armor. This is especially true in heavy metal armor. And again, in pursuit of realism, how will you stand back up without aid in this heavy metal armor? How will you take it off without help? Just doesn't make sense to be concerned with applying our personal sense of "realism" in a game with magical teleporters and giant trolls. Since you are involved with game development I would assume you understand that a strict dedication to realism is not always feasible, and for most game development teams Realism is hardly even a priority compared to concepts such as Balance and Vision. Realism is an especially vague concept to pursue in what is already a fantasy game, but you stated your immersion was broken by the damage cause by wolf attacks, so consider this: For all you know these wolves are "Dire Wolves" or somehow enhanced by fantasy qualities. Would you feel your immersion being preserved if the label floating above the mob's head denoted special fantasy qualities? Or are you still essentially just asking that the mobs at higher tiers scale more casually?

I think we have different perspectives on immersion. My immersion is not broken due to high mob damage or challenging game scaling. The consistent threat of high mob damage keeps players from ever safely putting their guard down, making dangerous high tier biomes feel like dangerous high tier biomes (as they should). This is an excellent element of "atmosphere" that can characterize a game-environment appropriately. I know you specifically work in Art Design but there are ways to add atmosphere and characterize a game environment beyond visual aesthetics. The swamps, plains, and mountains are all appropriately characterized as extremely deadly places which you should think twice about venturing in to. Afterall, they are undeniably high-tier game environments. When playing Valheim, there is a true sense of wilderness - I strongly enjoy that some biomes are simply far more dangerous than others - this is just common sense. My favorite bases are made of stone and located in the Mountains and the Plains. Playing in high tier environments is a constant challenge, as it should be. The developers clearly designed these Game Environments to be deadly, and probably don't intend for them to ever be a cake walk, regardless of your progression in the game, especially considering that they are high tier biomes...

Another reason that I feel Fuling and Wolf damage is appropriate is Game Environment Design. The meadows and black forest are rather innocuous biomes where the player can easily dominate and feel safe. The feeble tree creatures, boars, and water-lizards are easily rendered harmless with some basic armor. The Swamps, Mountains, and Plains are extremely dangerous places and remain dangerous regardless of your progression. These game environments should feel dangerous in more than just their art, but also in their mobs as well. I think this is good design. Surviving in massive mountain peaks, vile swamps, and open plains should always be a significant challenge not due to my personal opinion about the nature of these environments, but by very nature of the fact that they are higher-tier environments for late game. In my opinion it is more immersion breaking when players can magically negate serious threats and let their guard down in what is clearly supposed to be a dangerous game environment.

 

[sstella]

Your point about Drakes is rather confusing - overall I feel like your post wants to make ground mobs weaker, but the only flying mob stronger. I am sure that you, as a game designer, are acutely aware that flying mobs are always more annoying and inherently harder to counter than ground mobs. After all, we can only counter flying mobs using projectiles. Drakes as flying mobs are fast and harder to hit, further making them even more difficult to challenge in the only way possible. There is only a brief window of mere seconds during which a Drake remains in one position to be hit by projectiles. I think the developers realize that flying enemies are unique challenges and understand that over powered flying enemies aren't fun - they're annoying. If Drakes were as powerful as wolves and capable of easily one-or-two-shotting players then that would be blatantly too powerful and flat out not fun. At that point Drakes might as well be a drone strike. The difference between ground mobs and flying mobs is another factor - you can parry attacks from ground mobs, but not the projectile attacks of flying mobs. Buffing Drakes means making an already unparry-able attack even more powerful. You struggle to battle wolves and fulings who's attacks can be parried, but want to make an unparryable rapid-fire attacks delivered by a fast flying mob even more powerful? Not to mention Drake attacks cause slow debuffs and have high DPS, making it difficult to battle more than mob at a time.

You also mentioned Drake attacks are too easy to dodge. Well here a simple fact - dodging is easy. This game's dodge mechanic is similar to that seen in other games in that during the "Dodge" animation the player's character is invincible for a few frames. It doesn't matter if the attack collides with your player model - if you dodge at the right moment you are invincible and negate all damage. I guess is Drake projectiles were faster and more accurate they would be harder to dodge, but personally I think dodging is very easy and I use it to frequently negate all sorts of attacks.

Finally, I think it is rude to claim the Plains have visually poor design simply because you underestimated their lethality. It is possible for something to be extremely dangerous without having blatant warning signs and to believe otherwise is a narrow minded artistic perspective. Currently the plains act as these extremely dangerous and ominous biomes which players can't even begin to approach without dying. A dangerous environment is one in which you can not afford to make a single mistake. An extremely dangerous environment is one that deceives you and doesn't appear outwardly dangerous. It sounds to me like you got very angry the first time you wandered into the plains and got killed by a mosquito or charged by a Fuling. The idea to change Fulings into swarms isn't feasible with game scaling - how is armor supposed to scale in a way to counters a swarm of mobs? At this point scaling just totally goes out the window. Might as well be a horde of skeletons or draugyrs - but they're not, Fulings are different mobs which are far more dangerous - not to mention they are fantasy creatures not bound by reality. Appearing visually small does not mean something should be physically weak. Are you aware that ants can carry more times their body weight? As far as realism goes, this is fact: The smaller an animal is the stronger it is proportional to its size. Goblins already move in roaming warbands, a sight which a player would be wise to run from and kite as opposed to jump in head first. As I understand; Fulings don't look as dangerous as they are, and should therefore be made weaker. But what about wolves? They look very dangerous and you still want them weaker? It shouldn't take more than a creature instantly killing you for you to realize it is dangerous. If you don't know how dangerous something is don't make assumptions about it unless you don't value your life.

I wrote this wall of text because personally I believe Valheim's design and balance is perfect in nearly every way imaginable. Dangerous high tier mobs are dangerous and they never stop being dangerous. Annoying flying mobs don't need to be made more annoying. If the game was meant to be easier I am sure there would be difficulty settings like in minecraft whereby you can adjust mob HP and damage, but there isn't, and it's perfect the way it is (in my opinion).

 

[Caswallon]

Not had much experiance with the Plains as yet so will set that aside if I may.

But Wolves ah yes wolves... Balanced much? All the OPs comment sabout hitting the damn things is well made and I agree with. I also recognise the height imbalnce/hit boxing is a thing they are lookign at so will hope that resolves in due time anyway.

My "complaint" (comment) is that they say they are scared of fire but they really arn't. I have died several times to wolves literally ON FIRE, as I torched them, that carry right on and after a breif dodge away come right back at you like some apocalyptic Hell beast fire and all!

Puttign say 4-6 fires arouns a silver mineing camp in the moutain makes no difference either they come right in and attack from behind as you mine and even with Full steel/Wolf armour and good foods you are NOT gonna survive a suprise wolf attack very often!

Now when you finally tame a breeding pair they are (at T1 no stars) so very very fragile. If 8 wolves had come after me at any point then I'd be toast! One troll blow and they are all dead as happened last night. Not quite all died with the first hit but ALL the survivers were stunned and didnt get to run before the second hit arrived.

So overall dial the damage down a Tad hit points up a little perhaps but above all make them ACTUALLY consistantly afraid of fire please!

 

[sstella]

You're definitely right about tamed wolf Fragility! I was told to try and tame two star wolves but haven't succeeded. I had no idea it was intended for wolves to fear fire - if this is the case then wolves clearly arent behaving as intended.