I have played all of the assassins creed games you have put out so far. I had high hopes for this game after playing Odyssey, which is simply fantastic.
Valhalla has been a disappointment right from the start. This is the first time playing AC that I have ever considered just giving up on the game. I have never played an AC game that has frustrated me more than this one. All of those locked doors and puzzles aren't clever, they're just annoying. The Raven is useless and truthfully I don't even use it anymore. The combat system is clunky and awkward. It seems that Eivor is about as tough as a five pound poodle wearing a knitted sweater on a summer evening. The Odin's view sucks and the enemies fade away almost instantly making all the fighting characters look the same.
The health system is also terrible and don't get me started on the fall from height damage even with the added perk, he just about dies from jumping down those annoying excessive mountain climbs. Could you please make a game that has some flat land to it, it would be nice for a change.
The abilities in Odyssey were great and really could change the battle for you. The abilities in Valhalla are terrible and basically ignorable. I rarely use any of the abilities in this game, who came up with them anyway?
Using the three bows isn't too bad since you run out of arrows all the time, you need to carry one of each anyway.
I know it's a petty thing but when my character is armed with a dagger and the animation shows him using an axe, that should be fixed.
Also, using Reda again from Origins in my opinion is just lazy game making, I mean couldn't they dream up a new character? The Opal is also so random and scarce that it will probably take me ten years to buy a new gear set.
Speaking of the gear, it's terrible and pretty much you can wear any one and get mostly the same result. I have been hearing and reading that many gamers are just using the Raven gear set from start to finish, how's that fun? At least in Odyssey using different gear sets would drastically change your game play and it was actually fun to play and experiment with different gear, in Valhalla...nah.
In short (or long) I beg of you please do not let the team that designed Valhalla anywhere near your new AC title. You made almost the perfect game in Odyssey, so why did you mess it up in Valhalla?
This game seems to be a rushed attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the Vikings Tv show popularity and cash in, please be original, you have been up to this point with great success. The original first title was what caught the imagination of players such as myself in 2007. This game is so far removed from the order of assassins that its staggering, this game should have just been called Vikings or something like that, it's not an Assassins Creed game in my opinion.
I will buy the next game in the hopes that you fix what is wrong with this one. I know I'm not the first person to complain about this game. I bought the ultimate edition and quite frankly if I could, I would probably just like a refund. I never thought I would say that about a AC game, but alas what can I say, I'm that disappointed in this game.
I welcome any response from your team.

@cgtrites

Just dont pre-order the next game, wait till after release so you know you buy into another buggy mess.

I really hated that after 50hours i was still playing in the same armor set. Myself i only ever used light attacks with duel wielding spears.

Was looking forward to shields as i missed it ion odyssey, but in valhalla it makes no sense to use them. The sound they make when walking is super annoying and there jujst arent any cool abilities for it.
Which i dont get as the enemies in Odyssey had many different cool shield abilities.

Also the game on drengr is far to easy and the world itself isnt hostile enough, so wearing as hield for extra defense is just not needed.
Thats a serious design flaw imo.

@cgtrites Have to agree Ubisoft over did it with the puzzles in AC Valhalla. They could of put in more story content and completely did away with the puzzles. In addition, I have to agree on the gear sets not really making a lot of difference in combat game play. The big hype was the Mentor Set being the best. I used that for a while but wanted a Viking Look. I mixed several gear sets together to get a somewhat Viking Look and saw no difference in the combat game play. Face it the majority of gear sets are not designed with a Viking look in mind which completely gets away from the theme of the game. Finally, you cannot even sell or decon the many armor and weapons you do not use for silver or crafting materials. Of course I found out why. Doing that would take away from their Helix Credit Store. If you browse their store you can buy Silver and Crafting Material packages. Finally, the game support is pathetic. Since it's launch there have only been two major game updates addressing the many bugs reported. Yet many bugs have still not been resolved and are always under investigation.

@chuckkatse

i wouldnt count the yule festival as content.

The armor you could get was just a reskin and the activities were boring at best.

Since all the armor looks so terrible i played with hiding the hood, cloak and chest the entirety of the game.
That way i could at least see the tattoos.

Another big dissapoint me to was that when upgrading armor it didnt change looks are got any coller, they just added more color, talk about lazy


Also why is there no cool crafting system in place in big world like this??

@cgtrites I agree that Valhalla is a step backwards from Odyssey, mostly because Ubisoft Montreal or someone in charge there seems to harbour resentment and thus made Valhalla as a sequel to Origins like Odyssey never happened, with the exception of reducing loot to the level of making it feel like sticking up the middle finger, and pointlessly reintroducing stealth mechanics that nobody uses, where they allegedly listened to complaints re. Odyssey. (The only other explanation I have for this is that they started working on Valhalla parallel to work on Odyssey, and it was too complicated / cost ineffective to change afterwards). I wouldn't call it the worst in the series though. Aside from the MC not being an assassin and no AC game favouring brute force melee combat more, it's just another typical entry in the series, that as previously mentioned, fails to build on the progress made by Odyssey. I mean, if we'd never played Odyssey, we'd probably think it was a lot better.

However, some of the points you make I feel are inaccurate.
"It seems that Eivor is about as tough as a five pound poodle wearing a knitted sweater on a summer evening."
The game starts off hard, but at about 50 % progression if you are doing some of the side content, you start to get OP and at the end you are a demi god that can steam roll everything no matter which approach you use.


"The Odin's view sucks and the enemies fade away almost instantly making all the fighting characters look the same."

Once you get used to spamming Odin's Sight, it is pretty OP, more so than the previous bird, as you can keep the enemies highlighted permanently and don't miss any. I also barely used the bird, it seems pretty pointless except to check out the lay of the land, and nerfing it is a questionable move when Odin's Sight does the same thing anyway. It's not like you *have* to use the bird, and I never get nerfing optional things in games to please people who complain about optional features being OP.


"The health system is also terrible"

This is also only true until you upgraded your rations. At that point, you have to be really trying to run out of health.


"Using the three bows isn't too bad since you run out of arrows all the time, you need to carry one of each anyway."

Nothing wrong with that statement except you can't even switch bows in boss battles, which is really annoying until you reach the demi god status.


"Also, using Reda again from Origins in my opinion is just lazy game making, I mean couldn't they dream up a new character? The Opal is also so random and scarce that it will probably take me ten years to buy a new gear set."

I thought it was funny to bring Reda back. He's clearly some kind of immortal. Maybe they plan to expand on this in future. As for the Opals, they aren't that hard to stash, you just have to be prepared to do grindy stuff like Reda's (really terrible) quests and the weekly challenges.


A lot of the game design seems to be geared towards trying to get people to use the Helix store at the beginning of the game using the excuse of "listening to players". This includes adding survival mechanics, nerfing the bird, giving you rubbish gear and making it an unholy pain to upgrade everything. The only other motivation I can think for that is that they thought to attract survival game players as well as RPG fans.