Nibbling at the Mistlands and Mod Problems in Valheim

While we have been playing a lot of Conan Exiles over the past few weeks, I haven’t completely given up on Valheim for now.

Part of that is because there is something essentially relaxing about exploring in Valheim.  We explore in Conan of course, but there isn’t anything akin to getting in a boat and sailing around exploring, following coastlines, occasionally jumping out to go a bit inland, then getting back in the boat.  Right now I don’t fear anything on the high seas nor in most biomes, so I can range far and wide.

Some evenings when I don’t feel like getting fully into anything complex and just want to do something light, exploration and an audio book or podcast pretty much fills the need for me.

And I also feel like maybe our first Mistlands area was not the best one available, so I have been sailing around looking for new possibilities.  I found a fairly sizable area and I have been, as the title says, nibbling around the edge of it.  I have put up some portals and have gone in a ways, meeting some of the friendlier locals as well as fighting the usual suspects.

A two star Dvergr is a good ally

So our map now shows a new potential Mistlands area to dig into.

Some new Mistlands potential

I have been into this new area a ways, and it has all the problems I mentioned previously, but I am starting to get a little more adept dealing with the terrain… and I no longer run shrieking for a portal the moment a seeker shows up.  Two, yes… but one I can handle.

So that has been quietly going on… until this week.  The devs put out a patch on Wednesday that made some changes and broke some mods, including one of the ones we use.  As I wrote at the outset, we planned to do this run with a few mods.

Now, of course, you might suggest we just turn that mod off and carry on.  Piece of cake, right?  Except, of course, we have only chosen a few mods to work with and they each carry kind of a lot of weight in our most recent run at Valheim.

Our list of mods

In this case, TargetPortal is broken.

What TargetPortal does is allow you to travel between any two portals in the world.  This eliminates the need to build up the inevitable huge hub and spoke portal network when every portal has only one twin to which it can connect.

Instead of pairing portals, when you enter a portal TargetPortal puts up a map of the world with available portals displayed and you just click on the one you want to travel to.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

The portal map

Among the benefit of major convenience and not having to remember which portal goes where, it also means our main base need only have a single portal in it.

Our main base portal room

In the past we have had to have huge portal rooms or entire portal buildings at our base to accommodate out expansion.

And early main base portal room – not visible, one around the corner and three more down stairs

And you can’t just have a dozen or more portals, then you have to label them in a way that people will understand.  We have ended up making subway maps of our portal networks in the past.

So we are pretty reluctant to give up on that particular mod for ease of use reasons alone.  But, with this week’s update, the portal selection map no longer works.  You cannot use that mod to travel between portals with now.

Which brings up another, more immediate issue; none of our portals are paired because of this mod, which means we cannot just remove it and carry on unless I want to start building paired portals at main base.

We could do that.  It would be a lot of work and we would have to resurrect plans for a giant portal central hub once more… and probably do away with some portals in the field.  Having to do pairs inhibits your portal network growth.  At least the broken portal map has the name of all the portals on it, so I wouldn’t have to sail out to each and every one in order to figure that out.

But I am reluctant to start that project.  Maybe the author of the mod will show up and fix it.  I hope it isn’t broken for good.

In the mean time, I can always play with the chickens back at our main base.

Keeping the chickens happy

That and feeding all of our unprocessed ore into the smelter are tasks to be done.

But it is a lesson in why mods are a double edged blade.  They are supported by individuals who may or may not be interested in supporting them over the long haul, so if the developer breaks your favorite mod, you may not get it back again.