We have a further list of hotfixes for you today!

* Fixed an issue where text would not load correctly if computer name uses non-english characters
* Fixed and issue where the character orientation does not update when interacting with objects
* Fixed an issue where the touchpad on PS controllers sometimes opens pause and map menu at the same time
* Fixed an issue with custom keybinds for build menu can’t close the build menu
* Fixed an issue where the Steam Deck D-pad/left trackpad does not not always registering input in GUI
* Fixed an issue when exiting pause menu, characters may jump depending on controller layout
* Fixed an issue where merchant shield stops functioning after re-logging

We have just a small hotfix for you today!

* Fixed an issue where text would not load correctly if computer name uses non-english characters
* Fixed an issue with the player list having no background graphic
* Fixed an issue with click sounds in the build menu
* Fixed an issue with sleeping Ulvs would fill the player log with warnings

We know it's a bit late, but this patch finally brings the Jack-o-turnip and the new pointy hat to the default branch of the game! Hopefully we will be able to change our system for this fairly soon, so that the seasonal content can simply be tied to specific dates in the future, instead of having to pass through the Public Test Branch before being released.

Aside from the autumn items, this patch also entails an engine upgrade to Unity 2022. Because of this Unity upgrade, please note that worlds used in this update will not be backwards compatible with earlier versions of the game.


Fixes & Improvements:
* Jack-o-turnip enabled. Spooky season!
* New seasonal item: Pointy hat
* Added a new “Render scale” graphics setting that enables the main camera to be rendered at a lower resolution than the viewport and UI
* Improved automatic input switching so that connected gamepads with stick drift no longer take over control when playing with keyboard and mouse
* Optimized code that determines which objects in the world to instantiate, lowering the baseline CPU time by up to 5%
* Optimized structural integrity calculations, massively decreasing CPU time in areas with large builds
* Optimized enemy AI
* Optimized underwater logic
* Re-enabled objects to have more than 255 KVPs of arbitrary data of the same value type (important for some mods)
* Fixed a bug that could cause traps to trigger multiple times in multiplayer depending on how many players were near it
* Engine upgraded to Unity 2022
* Upgraded Steamworks.NET and PlayFab Party libraries to newer versions
* Engine-side optimizations for dedicated servers
* Tweaked boss spawning to prevent them from occasionally getting stuck when spawning
* Fixed bug that caused clicking sounds when selecting building pieces via controller
* Localization updated

This update is for the Public Test branch of Valheim, and may therefore be unstable. Before we launch this update to the Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.
Access the Public Test branch by right clicking Valheim in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’ and type in the code “yesimadebackups”. The Public Test branch should now be available for you to choose from.
Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the appropriate forum on our website.
As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Public Test, in case they want to avoid spoilers.
As the password indicates, please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.

Some minor fixes to the PTB! If all is well, it should soon be moved over to the default branch.

Fixes & Improvements:
* Fixed issue with Steam Dedicated servers not running properly
* Upgraded Unity engine from 2022.3.9f to 2022.3.12f
* Change the default render scale setting to be "Native"
* Cleanup of the WearNTear code
* Fixed particle system indicating build-piece orientation not being visible
* Fixed boat no longer being detected as being underwater anymore
* Localization updated

Hello, vikings!

It’s time for another monthly check-in! As you may have noticed, there is currently a patch out on the Public Test Branch, which we as always invite you to play! It features an engine update – but also some seasonal content like the Jack-O-Turnip and a brand new witch hat!

Since our last blog post, we have also announced the winners of the Trial of Tyr, and we have teased you a little bit about our internal Ashlands playtesting on social media. After that playtesting post, we got a lot of questions about whether or not you will need to start a new world when the Ashlands update is eventually released. The answer to that is that it won’t be strictly necessary to get the new content, but it will be something we strongly recommend in order for you to get the best experience. The same has been true for previous large updates as well, and will most likely be the case for the rest of Valheim’s Early Access period. You can of course still bring your current characters with you into your new worlds!

But now on to the teasers, which we know you are all waiting for! First off, we want to go ahead and show you a small selection of the new weapons you’ll be able to craft in the Ashlands. Pictured below is a greatsword, a regular sword, a mace and yes, dual wielding axes.



We also want to show you this mysterious contraption… It looks a bit like the Obliterator, but it does something quite different. What do you think this might be used for?



We’ve previously shown you a bit of the Ashlands and what they look like where you will first set foot. But let’s also take a new peek at what they’re like further inland, where the lava can dominate pretty large areas! Crossing these lakes of molten rock will be a challenge of its own, we assure you…




Since it’s properly autumn now, we couldn’t not choose this Swamps based stave church by splash_opain for this Build of the Month! Nicely done! If you want your creation to be featured in this section, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Due to changes in the tagging system on Facebook and Instagram, please also send us a DM with a link to your entry as well as using the hashtag if you post there! You can view previous builds in this thread on Steam.



Skål!

/The Iron Gate team

If you’d like to discuss the content of this post, please visit our Discord, or our forums on Reddit and Steam, or make a comment on social media!

This update is for the Public Test branch of Valheim, and may therefore be unstable. Before we launch this update to the Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.
Access the Public Test branch by right clicking Valheim in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’ and type in the code “yesimadebackups”. The Public Test branch should now be available for you to choose from.
Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the appropriate forum on our website.
As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Public Test, in case they want to avoid spoilers.
As the password indicates, please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.

You have been asking for the jack-o-turnip, and here it is! We have also added a new seasonal item this year, in the form of a very stylish and pointy hat, which we really hope you'll enjoy.

Aside from the seasonal content, we have a couple of fixes for you, and this patch also entails an engine upgrade to Unity 2022. Because of this Unity upgrade, please note that worlds used in this update will not be backwards compatible with earlier versions of the game. Therefore, be extra sure to make backups this time.

Fixes & Improvements:
* Jack-o-turnip enabled. Spooky season!
* New seasonal item: Pointy hat
* Added a new “Render scale” graphics setting that enables the main camera to be rendered at a lower resolution than the viewport and UI
* Improved automatic input switching so that connected gamepads with stick drift no longer take over control when playing with keyboard and mouse
* Optimized code that determines which objects in the world to instantiate, lowering the baseline CPU time by up to 5%
* Optimized structural integrity calculations, massively decreasing CPU time in areas with large builds
* Optimized enemy AI
* Optimized underwater logic
* Re-enabled objects to have more than 255 KVPs of arbitrary data of the same value type (important for some mods)
* Fixed a bug that could cause traps to trigger multiple times in multiplayer depending on how many players were near it
* Engine upgraded to Unity 2022
* Upgraded Steamworks.NET and PlayFab Party libraries to newer versions
* Engine-side optimizations for dedicated servers
* Tweaked boss spawning to prevent them from occasionally getting stuck when spawning
* Fixed a bug that caused clicking sounds when selecting building pieces via controller

Just a small bunch of fixes this time around!

Fixes & Improvements
* Fixed an issue with double dungeon compendium entry, could cause corrupted character save file
* Controller fix: Player has to press the "B" button twice in order to cancel pin naming
* Zooming on the map is now blocked while entering pin name
* Fixed click sounds that kept being played while navigating certain menus

We have a small set of fixes for you to test out today!

Fixes & Improvements
* Fixed an issue with double dungeon compendium entry, could cause corrupted character save file
* Controller fix: Player has to press the "B" button twice in order to cancel pin naming
* Zooming on the map is now blocked while entering pin name
* Fixed click sounds that kept being played while navigating certain menus

The time has come to announce the winners of the very first Valheim speedrun competition – The Trial of Tyr! We're so impressed by everyone who attempted this difficult challenge and we want to thank everyone who gave it a go. But now, without further ado, we present to you our three champions:


With the total playtime of 13 hours, 4 minutes and 7 seconds, the third prize goes to "Mr ADEL". You can watch the run in this YouTube playlist.


The second place is claimed by "ThreadMenace", who completed the run in 10 hours, 52 minutes and 1 second. You can watch the entry on YouTube:




And finally, with a total playtime of only 7 hours, 54 minutes and 22 seconds, the grand victory goes to "Time Traveler" (or 时空旅行人, in the player's native Chinese). You can watch the full run on YouTube:




Because we suspect you might all be a little bit curious about how one manages to kill all of Valheim's bosses in less than eight hours, we have asked Time Traveler some questions about the entry:

Q: Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Who are you and how long have you been playing Valheim?

A: Hello guys, I'm Zhengyuan, a Valheim player from China, also known as "the Time Traveler" (时空旅行人), which is the ID I use on Bilibili, a Chinese video site, or 森罗万象 ("the all-inclusive") on Youtube. I primarily post my Valheim streams and guides on Bilibili. I added Valheim to my steam library on February 7 2021, when it was released into Early Access on Steam. My adventure as a viking started there and since then I have spent circa 4500h in Valheim -- almost all of my spare time is dedicated to it. It has become my favourite game ever.

Q: You're pretty active in the community with making guides and videos. What motivates you to speedrun the game and why do you enjoy it?

A: Oh, that's a long story. The first 50 hours I spent in Valheim were really tough. The ores cannot be teleported. I had to retrieve my items by corpse run, not to mention all the skill loss. And some mobs at the moment were so tricky to deal with, like the troll, bonemass, the stone golem... All these mechanisms made Valheim extremely hardcore and challenging. And I was definitely not alone. When Valheim was just released, players from all over the world should have similar experience of struggling that I had. Many would say it was extremely difficult to play Valheim solo, if not impossible. And I did it. After my first solo "completion" playthrough, I began to delve into my research on Valheim, like the items, the mobs, the mechanisms, and so on. I kept wondering how to turn some crisis into triumph efficiently, how to defeat the bosses without taking damage from them, or how to improve the efficiency in my solo gameplay, and had experimental or actual games through numerous characters and world saves.

At some moment, I figured out I could set up temporary bases in the current biome, so as to save time from massive ore transfer. I understood different mobs have different damage resistances, which means it is more efficient to use spears on trolls or hammers on Bonemass to deal massive damage to their weak points. I studied the pattern of enemies and figured out what their flaws are and when they are vulnerable, which indicates when I could dodge and when I could fight back. As I have developed some useful survival techniques and accumulated some combat experience, finally I could complete Valheim  without any death, or 一命通关, which means one-life completion in Chinese. At that moment I had played Valheim for circa 300 hours.

Then I started posting my gameplay videos on Bilibili to share my gaming experience with my viewers. In China I am thought to be the first player to complete Valheim with one life, and have received some recognition and encouragement from the community. I am very grateful to that, and motivated to further refine my gameplay. Therefore, after my "one-life completion", I have achieved "one-life speedruns", breaking my own records, and focusing on both not dying and completing the game as fast as possible. As such, my videos gradually evolved into something about hardcore combat, extreme challenges, and breaking limits.Through my speedrun recordings, I want my viewers to understand and master my skills from a first-person perspective, so that they can improve themselves and have better combat in Valheim. I feel a great sense of accomplishment, willing to put a lot of passion into one-life speedrun. So I continuously challenge myself, surpass myself, and the contest is a great opportunity for me to prove all of it.

Q: You managed to complete the game in under eight hours. How did you prepare for it? How many times did you attempt it before you were satisfied with your final submission?

A: My previous answer explains a lot. I have some succeeded Valheim one-life speedruns before, and the trial of Tyr is also a one-life speedrun contest. Though it seems like I don't have to do something special to prepare for the trial, which is just something I have done before, there's still something significantly different. I regularly play Valheim "unseeded". The map is always randomized, so I won't depend on something too lucky or RNG-dependent, which means the merchant is not the guy I would seek, some fancy equipment is not the thing I would craft, in order that the most parts of gameplay are under control.

However, the trial of Tyr is seeded, every contestant can scout the fixed world in advance, so I reconsider the importance of Haldor and the Frostner in this trial. The Frostner is insane, available in mid-game, but one can even use it in the Mistlands, so it is what I would happily have on my hands in this trial, thanks to Haldor. Since the map is seeded, the route of progression can be well determined, like where to sail, which dungeons to sneak into. For example, I already know the locations of the Moder and the silver veins, so I can finish the Moder and the silver mining on the Mountain in less than a hour. And that's why 6 anti-frost mead for me is enough, and I don't necessarily need anti-frost capes when I'm on the Mountain.

I have submitted three complete runs in the trial, which were finished in 11h31m, 8h07m and 7h54m, respectively. However I have circa 15 actual attempts. A few of them obviously ended due to deaths, and others mainly because the route I chose was too suboptimal, some result are not expected, or so on. It is fair enough though, without errors the "trial" won't be a trial.

Q: Which part of the run was the most challenging? Was it a specific boss fight, or another tricky situation?

A: Always the Mountain, to be honest. The harsh terrain (similar to but not easier than the Mistlands), the blizzards to disrupt the player's vision and hearing, the starred wolves at night... It is always the toughest part. After we can set the game's difficulty, every mob can be quicker and tougher, and I just find out one single wolf bite is mostly fatal in hard or hardcore mode, not to mention that they are quick enough to have another. Moreover, I personally don't use bows, so I basically must not fail to retrieve my spear each time I aimed to the drakes. Every mistake can be a point of no return. Although the Mountain is challenging, it is also beautiful, solemn, full of dangers, which is intensely immersive. Each time I succeed in the Mountain calmly and efficiently I believe my Viking's skills are checked again.

Q: We noticed you only use the spear and never a bow, why is that?

A: The reason I fight with a spear is mostly for efficiency. The key to a speedrun is efficiency: cost-effectiveness of food, armours, and weapons chosen. The difficulty of using bows is lower compared to spears. It works well against a few flying units in the game, especially the drakes. Very error-tolerant. However, they are more expensive to craft. Also the skill of bow levels up slowly. Spears, on the other hand, deal high damage with low crafting cost. They also have the potential of fighting against flying units. The skill of spears levels up quickly, which is more important because it is much easier to have a high level of spear, making it excellent for speedrunning.

However, it is demanding and difficult for many to master their spears, since the trajectory should be accurately calculated. Additionally, you have to reach and pick up the spear after throwing it, which is error-prone because after the throwing the spear might be lost forever. In general the spear is high risk, high reward. I always choose the spear as my "flying unit solution", because I have achieved high throwing accuracy and I always believe in my accumulated skills from thousands of hours of gameplay. Therefore, for me, using spears instead of bows in speedrun is the best option.

Q: How did you come up with the cart technique you used to rob the dvergr in the Mistlands? [06:48:54]

A: After the Mistlands update, I have started my research on everything from there. When I tried to deal with the dvergr and their settlements, I found out if the dvergr mages become hostile, their ice or fire magic can easily overwhelm the player at the current progression, based on its high attack frequency and high damage. As usual there are more than four dvergr in one settlement, so the mage should be included in most cases. Therefore I thought it might not be the intended way to fight against dvergr and rob them by brute force. Although getting "help" from the spawned seekers is an option, waiting for the seekers and dvergr consuming each other is slow, and the player would play a rather passive role, which is not a very effective solution in speedrun.

At the moment I have noticed the cart, which can bypass the ward in the dvergr settlement and nullify it by dealing "neutral" damage, without making the dvergr hostile. After the ward is destroyed this way, the dvergr will simply give up protecting their settlement, and the player can get the loot from there. Therefore I came up with the idea of using a cart to play pranks on the dvergr.

Just a small hotfix!

Patch notes:

* Fixed an issue that caused languages to not be displayed properly while changing language in-game
* Fixed character limit in chat window