Assassins Creed Valhalla (Vikings)

The Phantom Pain

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

I think the only aspect I truly prefer in Valhalla over Odyssey is the World Events.

Still enjoyed it and am close to a platinum on it but it really lagged in parts.

I like the world events too. I like the idea of 'little moments' that you get on the path to the main goal; makes sense for Eivor's character. Even though I enjoyed the more dedicated side quests in Odyssey too as they made sense for Kassandra's character who is a mercenary. Also, a lot of side quests in Odyssey can be unknowingly completed before even meeting the quest giver if you do a lot of exploring which made it feel more immersive.

The only problem with the world events in Valhalla is that they're marked on the map. That's where it differs from Red Dead Redemption 2 - which it's desperately trying to be. R* trust you to discover these things by yourself whereas Ubisoft doesn't.

martyos121

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

It's excellent isn't it! There's a Winnie the Pooh one as well which is brilliant. Some really imaginative World Events here and there but the Prodigy one is definitely my favourite so far.

The baseball one made me cringe, but yeah other than that I think they’re very well done and a refreshing change from side-quests.

As someone who’s trying to complete every region, chasing the tattoo designs is a pain in the hole. You’re completely at the mercy of the game’s shoddy parkour mechanics and one slight change of direction and you’ve to go all the way back and start it again. They had them in Black Flag as sea-shanties so it isn’t even a new feature, someone made a deliberate decision to take the absolute worst thing about that superb game and put it in Valhalla. Rant over.

The Phantom Pain

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Each to their own but I'm surprised people think Odyssey is the better game.

I'm intrigued as to what you prefer about Valhalla. Personally, I felt Odyssey has more focus. It knows what it wants to be whereas Valhalla feels like a camel and is too big for its own good.

marcbrophy wrote: »

I just crossed the 100 hour mark and am quite happy with the game.
I just feel like Kassandra was such a bad ass that's it's hard for people to let go

I don't think it's about missing Kassandra (even people who played as Alexios tend to prefer Odyssey). I went back and replayed some older games after Odyssey and they still hold up. Valhalla just doesn't work. It's not an AC game but it's not even that great of a Viking game either. Odyssey isn't AC either but it's a fun Greek adventure at the very least.

OptimusTractor wrote: »

Odyssey had some class gear. You had the likes of Poseidon's Trident which let you breath underwater.

The Falx of Olympus was so overpowered at launch it broke the game causing Ubi Quebec to patch how damage was dealt. Good times.

martyos121 wrote: »

The baseball one made me cringe, but yeah other than that I think they’re very well done and a refreshing change from side-quests.

As someone who’s trying to complete every region, chasing the tattoo designs is a pain in the hole. You’re completely at the mercy of the game’s shoddy parkour mechanics and one slight change of direction and you’ve to go all the way back and start it again. They had them in Black Flag as sea-shanties so it isn’t even a new feature, someone made a deliberate decision to take the absolute worst thing about that superb game and put it in Valhalla. Rant over.

It exposes how bad the new parkour design is. You can tell these newer titles since Origins were never intended to be parkour-focused so when they took an activity from an old game that actually had a parkour system designed for that sort of chase it doesn't work. Also, in Black Flag you can cheat the shanty chase if you sneak up on it from a certain direction.

Daxve

That cheat still works in Vahalla if you know the route the tattoo design will take you can run ahead to a point further down the route and wait for the design to catch up with you and then just pick it up. I got several that way that were proving very frustrating otherwise.

Jordan 199

I like stomping on the enemies heads, crushing their skulls in.

Sephiroth_dude

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

I'm intrigued as to what you prefer about Valhalla. Personally, I felt Odyssey has more focus. It knows what it wants to be whereas Valhalla feels like a camel and is too big for its own good.

I love the raids,I think the combat is fantastic and I love the world events, much better than having ? littered on the map and all of them were boring from what I can remember.

Sudden Valley

I think I would have enjoyed Valhalla more than odyssey if I had played it first. They do both suffer from the amount of locations that really just feel like carbon copies of each other - the fortress sieges and raids are so repetitive Valhallas biggest sin is the claiming of territories - I think Odyssey only forced you conquer a number of regions but Valhalla really railroads you to take the long way round to victory.
Unfortunately that period in Greece had way more interesting real life characters like Socrates and Alcibiades than the time period in Valhalla

quokula

Odyssey had a more interesting location with more varied scenery and architecture to explore and was simply a more interesting time in history for me. I thought Kassandra was a better main character than Eivor too.

Valhalla suffered from the natural scenery of England being something very familiar and un-exotic to us in real life, and the medieval era being the sort of done-to-death Tolkien style fantasy setting that is familiar from oh so many video games over the decades, which didn't feel like it stood out in the way that settings of other AC games have done. Getting to the likes of London and realising not a single familiar landmark actually existed yet at that time and it basically just looked like every other town in the game (and random fantasy medieval towns in other games for that matter) was so disappointing compared to the joy of exploring the Ancient world or the post-Renaissance world of other AC games. Valhalla's time period is known as the Dark Ages for a reason.

I think Valhalla still played better though, the combat felt better, the raids were fun and helped with variety of pacing, and I also thought it had much better mission design, especially the ones where you had to do some investigation or make what felt like meaningful decisions about who to side with at certain times. It definitely overstayed its welcome though, they probably could have cut it by about 30% and ended up with a much tighter and stronger game overall.

martyos121

Yeah I’ve just two regions left to complete now and it’s become a bit of a slog, which is unfortunate as I’ve really enjoyed the game for the most part.

Playing on performance mode on the PS5, I did encounter some shocking screen-tearing in Jorvik and Wincestre, it was so bad I thought about just shelving this game altogether. It seems to be a problem in the “cities” as the areas are so dense with content and visuals. It almost certainly isn’t an issue with my TV as it’s a 120hz set. Did anyone else have this issue?

CatInABox

martyos121 wrote: »

Yeah I’ve just two regions left to complete now and it’s become a bit of a slog, which is unfortunate as I’ve really enjoyed the game for the most part.

Playing on performance mode on the PS5, I did encounter some shocking screen-tearing in Jorvik and Wincestre, it was so bad I thought about just shelving this game altogether. It seems to be a problem in the “cities” as the areas are so dense with content and visuals. It almost certainly isn’t an issue with my TV as it’s a 120hz set. Did anyone else have this issue?

Yes, it's pretty terrible. Playing on a Series X in performance mode, and the tearing in cities is so bad. Digital Foundry did a pretty good video on it, pretty shocking stuff, the Xbox version was ridiculously bad, so much so that Ubisoft patched it to lower the resolution after it.

The Phantom Pain

Yeah, I heard the screen tearing was pretty bad on current gen consoles (I beat Valhalla on last gen so never witnessed it firsthand). Had no idea Ubisoft patched down the resolution as a result, but that's not surprising. They've been downgrading graphics after launch ever since Origins. R.I.P Odyssey 1.2.

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

I love the raids,I think the combat is fantastic and I love the world events, much better than having ? littered on the map and all of them were boring from what I can remember.

See, the raids are a perfect example of how conflicted Valhalla is IMO. On paper it should be badass and yet in practice it just kind of falls flat. Buggy allies aside, there's also the problematic way the monasteries are designed. They are structured for stealth but you can only get so far before you're forced to sound the horn for your jomsvikings in order to open chests and doors. Not that just running in and going berserk is much better because you’re forced to do environmental puzzles right in the middle of the action. Is locating a way to open a door from the inside or searching for oil jars for several minutes something I really wanna do in the heat of battle? Not really.

I do agree that the combat is decent, at least at first. It encourages weapon experimentation; especially if you buy the perk that lets you duel wield heavy weapons. It’s not as fun as Odyssey IMO but, TBF on Valhalla, once you’ve played as a demi god with super powers there’s really nowhere to go. It does have some inherent problems though. You can eventually just one-shot everything without making a build for it, which provides even less motivation for stealth. The stamina bar is pointless seeing as it’s never really an issue. The rations system is lame but makes sense when apparently you can buy auto-healing perks from the real-life store. Ubisoft be Ubisoft. :rolleyes:

Sudden Valley wrote: »

I think I would have enjoyed Valhalla more than odyssey if I had played it first. They do both suffer from the amount of locations that really just feel like carbon copies of each other - the fortress sieges and raids are so repetitive Valhallas biggest sin is the claiming of territories - I think Odyssey only forced you conquer a number of regions but Valhalla really railroads you to take the long way round to victory.
Unfortunately that period in Greece had way more interesting real life characters like Socrates and Alcibiades than the time period in Valhalla

Territory claiming is part of the franchise’s DNA and here they tried to make it a bit different by implementing it directly in quest lines, but all it did is take something that used to be optional and inflate the story’s length. I replayed Brotherhood this year and one thing I realised upon revisiting was that for all its talk of “liberate Roma!” the ‘liberation’ part was largely optional outside of the story.

quokula wrote: »

Odyssey had a more interesting location with more varied scenery and architecture to explore and was simply a more interesting time in history for me. I thought Kassandra was a better main character than Eivor too.

Valhalla suffered from the natural scenery of England being something very familiar and un-exotic to us in real life, and the medieval era being the sort of done-to-death Tolkien style fantasy setting that is familiar from oh so many video games over the decades, which didn't feel like it stood out in the way that settings of other AC games have done. Getting to the likes of London and realising not a single familiar landmark actually existed yet at that time and it basically just looked like every other town in the game (and random fantasy medieval towns in other games for that matter) was so disappointing compared to the joy of exploring the Ancient world or the post-Renaissance world of other AC games. Valhalla's time period is known as the Dark Ages for a reason.

Agree with this 100%. It's funny because Ubisoft used to be very defiant when fans asked for certain time periods. Now they just give in to the demands of the loudest without considering whether it’s appropriate for Assassin’s Creed. If the fans had their way from the start nobody would have called renaissance Italy, but that setting was perfect for Ezio’s story and enabled the devs to get the best out of the core mechanics (parkour, stealth, combat).

Regarding London or ‘Lunden’, I liked the story arc (because it actually feels like Assassin’s Creed for a brief moment) but, like you say, it’s visually so generic and indistinct from other regions that they may as well not have included it. It’s especially apparent when the Londons of Syndicate and Watch Dogs Legion have so much personality to them. London is all about its historical landmarks.

Assassin's Creed and Vikings just don't go together; Valhalla should have been an entirely different IP.

quokula wrote: »

I think Valhalla still played better though, the combat felt better, the raids were fun and helped with variety of pacing, and I also thought it had much better mission design, especially the ones where you had to do some investigation or make what felt like meaningful decisions about who to side with at certain times. It definitely overstayed its welcome though, they probably could have cut it by about 30% and ended up with a much tighter and stronger game overall.

Some of the mission design is very good and I like how the game respects the player somewhat by not clearing the quest objectives even when you’ve found all clues. Instead, it leaves it to you to decide whether you have been thorough enough in your investigations. I also like how even the right person you pick as the backstabber or conspirator dies pleading their innocence in order to make you doubt your decisions. They don’t do the moustache twirling villain thing of revealing it was them all along and that they would have got away with it too if it wasn’t for you meddling Assassins! It’s also never made explicitly clear later on if the choice was right; the only time you see the consequences of your decisions is when they’re wrong.

dreamers75

Main difference to me was simple I liked stabby mc stabbing people in Odyssey and sneaking out, in Valhalla i couldnt do that I had to do a raid which I wasnt a fan of after about 20 of them.

marcbrophy

Anyone know where I'd find good spears?
I need 2

PsychoPete

If you've the Hordafylke story done then Gungnir as it has a force field around it and its free in the game. Svipul if you buy the valkyrie pack or keep an eye on Reda, it might pop up

Markitron

dreamers75 wrote: »

Main difference to me was simple I liked stabby mc stabbing people in Odyssey and sneaking out, in Valhalla i couldnt do that I had to do a raid which I wasnt a fan of after about 20 of them.

I would have thought Valhalla would have been better for that playstyle seen as how you could hardly ever kill someone in one hit with an assassination in Odyssey.

The Phantom Pain

Markitron wrote: »

I would have thought Valhalla would have been better for that playstyle seen as how you could hardly ever kill someone in one hit with an assassination in Odyssey.

You could easily assassinate even polemarchs and mercenaries in one hit with the right build. If you spec into the assassination tree and use critical hit and critical chance you can one hit assassinate 100% of the time. The problem is at launch a lot of people were playing it like a traditional AC game thinking they could be a jack of all trades and still one hit kill if they're sneaky enough and that just wasn't the case. You can be an all-rounder now with the level 99 cap but it will take a while getting there.

Sawduck

How do i defeat goodwin, he has killed me about ten times so far. He has a giant shield that makes it difficult

PsychoPete

I found the easiest way was to dodge at the right time to slow down time and hit his weak points

Sawduck

PsychoPete wrote: »

I found the easiest way was to dodge at the right time to slow down time and hit his weak points

Cheers, I finally killed him

fixXxer

PsychoPete wrote: »

I found the easiest way was to dodge at the right time to slow down time and hit his weak points

I hadn't bothered with the time slow down skills, but that might be what I need to beat the big Templar guys. Thanks!

Midnight_EG

Decided I wasn't going to finish this... Looked up the ending and I'm glad I haven't invested more time in it tbh

PsychoPete

I've put 170 hours into it apart for a few bugs and glitches, I've found it very enjoyable. I'll only come back to it for the dlc

dreamers75

Markitron wrote: »

I would have thought Valhalla would have been better for that playstyle seen as how you could hardly ever kill someone in one hit with an assassination in Odyssey.

You could with a build, Valhalla locks the final dudes in a room for raids and some missions. No chance of surprise as your buddies get slaughtered.

Exclamation Marc

Have my platinum after 110 hours and I've enjoyed it a lot. Some parts were sluggish and some parts were good but could have been better (raids etc.). Loved the world events, huge improvement on side missions.

The location never really did anything for me though. Wasn't a patch one the islands in Odyssey and outside of the snowy North, a very meh Lunden and Jorvik, the rest of the locations were samey.

martyos121

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

Have my platinum after 110 hours and I've enjoyed it a lot. Some parts were sluggish and some parts were good but could have been better (raids etc.). Loved the world events, huge improvement on side missions.

The location never really did anything for me though. Wasn't a patch one the islands in Odyssey and outside of the snowy North, a very meh Lunden and Jorvik, the rest of the locations were samey.

110 hours was my final playtime too as I finished it a couple of days back, can’t be arsed going for the platinum though. I assumed that I was on track for the Orlog trophy but it never popped so I obviously missed one somewhere and I can’t be bothered going through all of them again to find it.

Enjoyed the game for the most part, not a fan of the ending, but I’m in no rush to go back to it and I wish I’d finished it a few weeks ago to give myself a proper break before the DLC.

Need to find a good linear, non-repetitive game now to cleanse my palette.

jones

Folks I've put 85 hours into this cleared all the areas but the story seems to have stalled. What do I do next?

Possible spoilers

My "brother" is back at the camp again for about ten hours and I went around clearing all the other areas. I only have three quests left getting the settlement to level 6, kill all the order members (6 left) and find all the codex pages.

Apart from wandering around the map looking for the last 6 order members there's not much else i can do right now oh and raids I suppose. How do I finalise the story?

Exclamation Marc

jones wrote: »

Folks I've put 85 hours into this cleared all the areas but the story seems to have stalled. What do I do next?

Possible spoilers

My "brother" is back at the camp again for about ten hours and I went around clearing all the other areas. I only have three quests left getting the settlement to level 6, kill all the order members (6 left) and find all the codex pages.

Apart from wandering around the map looking for the last 6 order members there's not much else i can do right now oh and raids I suppose. How do I finalise the story?

Have you completed the Alliance Map?

jones

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

Have you completed the Alliance Map?

Yep i cant even access it anymore but its all cleared. That's what i spend the last ten hours doing but i assumed there was more to the story

Exclamation Marc

jones wrote: »

Yep i cant even access it anymore but its all cleared. That's what i spend the last ten hours doing but i assumed there was more to the story

Once you finish Hamtunscire, there's only a final mission that Gunnar gives you which isn't really a mission... But that's about it.

If you find the remaining order members (outside of the big one) there's a "conclusion" where you find the final order member after direction from Hytham. The last few order members were painful though and I had to resort to a guide to find them as some clues were just randomly scattered.

The story really does wither at the end.

jones

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

Once you finish Hamtunscire, there's only a final mission that Gunnar gives you which isn't really a mission... But that's about it.

If you find the remaining order members (outside of the big one) there's a "conclusion" where you find the final order member after direction from Hytham. The last few order members were painful though and I had to resort to a guide to find them as some clues were just randomly scattered.

The story really does wither at the end.

Ok i dont have the trophy for Hamtunscire so i obviously havent completed that yet. How do i kick this off? So odd having to ask this haha. The map is completed but i better go back and check now

Ok i went back to camp and its now giving me a new mission. Thanks very much for the help