Right, so the expectation, at least with me for River Raids was a veritable feast of goods, i.e. new and unique armor sets, maybe even some new weapons to balance things out, i.e. more one handed hammers to offset the dozen or so shields we have, etc. to bring weapon diversity up to an equal amount per weapon.

What I got was bland, uninspired, and pretty much how I sum up Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a missed opportunity.

Completely ignoring my melanin enriched Jomsviking contact (it's Ubisoft, I'm not surprised a box had to be checked at this point) I ventured into the River Raid initially thinking alright, it's like a tutorial system to get me used to how things go, using his crew and his boat to get a feel of things.

Well after that, I found out that I in fact, don't even use my own crew, or my own boat, though I can customize the boat later on to give it the same appearance, I'm left with some elite warriors at least right? Not so much. It seems the more challenging aspect of River Raids didn't mean for us, the player, but for these weaponized idiots called Jomsvikings. The number of times they have dropped like flies doing things from literally standing there while getting shot in the face with crossbows, to I believe, actually drowning in a small puddle (as I had to go pick one up literally a few meters in front of the boat in water), or even setting themselves on fire, is honestly astounding. Sure they're beefy and can pretty much one shot all five enemies you fight in these huge fortresses, but their stupidity outweighs their usefulness outside of open red door, open big chest.

Speaking of which. Why did they decide to bring "door is barred from the other side" into this? The amount of times I was faced with this, thinking that, "Oh ok, the Saxons locked their valuables behind these doors to make it harder for us Vikings to raid them.". Seemed like a swell idea, but nope. I get in and find, breakable crates, or cooked rations, or a chest full of iron ore and leather, or even worse, I'd find a huge chest and feel like "Wow this is it, some new and interesting gear!" but nope, I get yet another Tungsten Ingot.

Speaking of the actual gear chests themselves, when I heard we were getting new gear I was much excite, because new gear is awesome right guys? Well color me absolutely shocked that surprise we get yet another reskin of an armor set which I personally hate, the Thegn Set. Here I was expecting something you know, based on historical, realistic armor worn by the Vikings, but nah, we get this.

The rewards themselves are just a feature of grind. More tattoos, and more ship cosmetics. I can't complain much there, more cosmetics are better imo, but the rewards could have been something like new weapons and armor exclusive to the Jomsvikings, missed opportunity yet again.

I think some aspects of River Raids are neat, like how a previously raided place looks destroyed and have to be populated and built back up again, and how you'll run into barriers along the way from prepared enemies. You'll even face more (which isn't saying much) enemies as you continue to raid and pillage (but only as long as you have space in your cargo hold). Personally I think these River Raids could have been localized to the main map, removing the need for loading times or a completely different map to raid on. Maybe it could have been needed if you wanted to raid in Frankia when we get to that expansion.

But we get the excuse of using a completely different crew and ship (even though we can literally use the cosmetics from our other ship) so as to not disrupt our Alliances in those regions. Another missed opportunity for cause and effect where allies, especially the Christian ones, would become agitated with you for raiding their villages, monasteries, and fortresses, forcing some interactions with them in say, paying restitution for their losses, which meant you giving them resources and silver as payment for your misdeeds, or if you refuse to pay, they send large parties of soldiers to hunt you while you River Raid, something to mix up and add to the supposed challenge this game mode is supposed to have. But alas, yet another a missed opportunity.

I honestly couldn't even bother finishing this. I don't care about the rewards since I can grind them at my leisure if I wanted to, and the armor set is completely worthless to me so there's no point. The enemy density isn't there to offer a challenge, and my Jomsviking crewmates are absolutely useless. I expected a feast of new things, and I might as well have eaten sand for all the tastes I'm experiencing right now.

I can at least hope as abysmally low as my hope is, that more Raids will be brought into the system, and actually offer unique and interesting armor and weapon rewards. Ah well, off to play another game until something actually meaningful drops into Valhalla. Gods why did I spend $120 for this?

greetings, i have another suggestion, sinces there is a lot of helix shop armours coming soon to the helix shop, why not put more slots at reda? rather then 3 slots weekly, put more like 5 or 6 slots... so is more easy to get stuff there.. because every time ubi adds armours in helix shop, those comes with tattos and settlements, making it more difficult to get another piece of gear, i have almost 3 months waiting for another piece of huldofulk set... and they are 5 pieces, imagine i would took more then i year trying to get the full set, is very annoying seriously... i have hopes in your team, i seriously want to like this game.. but for now everything has been very unfair, dissapointing and badly made... i really hope the new leaked armour (wich looks like a reskin of the galloglach armour) is a free one to get from the upcoming updated river raids..... anyways... just a suggestion not hating 😞

After 611+ hours of playing Valhalla, I have an observation and request/suggestion.
I primarily use the Predator bow. When collecting arrows, the arrow holders usually only provide 1-2 arrows even though I can carry 15. It can be a pain to find them sometimes. I have the "work around" of firing free arrows into a dock and then collecting them (which I'm sure is an unintentional exploit), but I think something should be built in for resupply, that makes sense with the world, other than having to buy them from a merchant...
First location: The arrow quiver outside the blacksmith in Ravensthorpe... He's YOUR blacksmith, why doesn't his arrow supply fully restock you?
Second location: Your long ships (both normal and River Raids)... They are YOUR ships, why don't they have an arrow supply on board?