Previously played this game on heavily modded version with friend and after quite some time playing got me to decide getting it for myself on steam. At that moment I realised my mistake playing this game vanilla.

The early game was fun up to Eikhtyr bossfight, and after which the pacing of the game massively halted on the copper grind, which not only takes a long time to mine a node, it also takes a long of time to transport and process. Having to haul ores bit by bit is not really fun and a good way to spend your playing/relaxing time.

Inventory system is not that much better either in my opinion for two main reasons: weight limit and dedicated slots. Having previously played on a modded client, it quite surprised me that armors don't have a dedicated slot, instead they take your inventory slot as normal, and reduces the variety of items in the inventory at once. Having inventory limit although encourages the use of other transporting method, but with it being static limit and the amount of ores you have to haul and how tedious the entire transporting process is, I'm not a fan of, it doesn't scale very well to the late game.

Having first couple of worlds I played got a very far elder spawn, I'm not really a fan of spending 20-30 minutes of just travelling and sailing, and probably die later on and losing everything you have. Portal could be nice as a shortcut, but evidently falls from being a permanent travel solution whenever you start needing to haul more ores, it feels just like a band aid solution for travelling very far distances (granted they're not being destroyed by some enemies around there).

Dying in this game induces a lot more stress than what's necessary, losing your items is a very common trope for this kind of genre, but when losing everything, including equipments and gained levels it really feels too harsh just for sake of it. This effectively makes secondary/backup equimpents important and thus increases the amount of grind required.

Progression, outside the scope of equipments, really lags down compared to what you encounter later on. Having character getting better solely on food system, although interesting at the long run seems just an unnecessary chore to source a good food just to be able to survive the later encounter. This also ties to character's stamina bar where it just takes forever to get back up and drains super fast especially when encountering a slight bumpy hills.

Having said that, I do like some stuffs on valheim, mainly its relaxing scenery at the early games with dynamic weather adds to the feel for enjoying resting time after a day worth of work (exclude the grinding part from here). The building system is also fun to mess around, creating a beautiful houses and places with its smoke system something to bear in mind, adding flavour on top of the basic build mechanics. The combat, outside of stamina draining super fast, is very fun to mess around, with a satisfying parrying mechanic and feedback as well to spice it up even more.

In conclusion, for me Valheim is very tedious to play and that really is a massive killjoy on my part. It has a good basis for a good game, but issues I mentioned earlier prevented it to be one, if you want to play Valheim for a relaxing time I heavily suggest using some QoL mods (and just mod it to oblivion because why not) and probably get some friend to accompany you on your journey too.

I can not award Valheim my DANGEROUS GAMES, DO NOT PLAY category, as at the end Valheim doesn't make me don't want to play it because it'll make me lose the sense of time, but because I kept being reminded on how tedious it is.

Previously played this game on heavily modded version with friend and after quite some time playing got me to decide getting it for myself on steam. At that moment I realised my mistake playing this game vanilla. The early game was fun up to Eikhtyr bossfight, and after which the pacing of the game massively halted on the copper grind, which not only takes a long time to mine a node, it also takes a long of time to transport and process. Having to haul ores bit by bit is not really fun and a good way to spend your playing/relaxing time. Inventory system is not that much better either in my opinion for two main reasons: weight limit and dedicated slots. Having previously played on a modded client, it quite surprised me that armors don't have a dedicated slot, instead they take your inventory slot as normal, and reduces the variety of items in the inventory at once. Having inventory limit although encourages the use of other transporting method, but with it being static limit and the amount of ores you have to haul and how tedious the entire transporting process is, I'm not a fan of, it doesn't scale very well to the late game. Having first couple of worlds I played got a very far elder spawn, I'm not really a fan of spending 20-30 minutes of just travelling and sailing, and probably die later on and losing everything you have. Portal could be nice as a shortcut, but evidently falls from being a permanent travel solution whenever you start needing to haul more ores, it feels just like a band aid solution for travelling very far distances (granted they're not being destroyed by some enemies around there). Dying in this game induces a lot more stress than what's necessary, losing your items is a very common trope for this kind of genre, but when losing everything, including equipments and gained levels it really feels too harsh just for sake of it. This effectively makes secondary/backup equimpents important and thus increases the amount of grind required. Progression, outside the scope of equipments, really lags down compared to what you encounter later on. Having character getting better solely on food system, although interesting at the long run seems just an unnecessary chore to source a good food just to be able to survive the later encounter. This also ties to character's stamina bar where it just takes forever to get back up and drains super fast especially when encountering a slight bumpy hills. Having said that, I do like some stuffs on valheim, mainly its relaxing scenery at the early games with dynamic weather adds to the feel for enjoying resting time after a day worth of work (exclude the grinding part from here). The building system is also fun to mess around, creating a beautiful houses and places with its smoke system something to bear in mind, adding flavour on top of the basic build mechanics. The combat, outside of stamina draining super fast, is very fun to mess around, with a satisfying parrying mechanic and feedback as well to spice it up even more. In conclusion, for me Valheim is very tedious to play and that really is a massive killjoy on my part. It has a good basis for a good game, but issues I mentioned earlier prevented it to be one, if you want to play Valheim for a relaxing time I heavily suggest using some QoL mods (and just mod it to oblivion because why not) and probably get some friend to accompany you on your journey too. I can not award Valheim my [b]DANGEROUS GAMES, DO NOT PLAY[/b] category, as at the end Valheim doesn't make me don't want to play it because it'll make me lose the sense of time, but because I kept being reminded on how tedious it is.