What I would like to see in Mirage:

• More testing/bug fixing before release
• Run tests for the game with people who actually play games. That will help get rid of most of the initial bugs people report before release.
• After release: Keep the bug fixing team. Be ready for consumers to report big bugs and fix them quickly.
• No re-adding of formerly fixed bugs. Means: manage your source code bases better.
• Don't mix low resolution textures with high resolution textures like e.g. in Valhalla Swartalfheim on the mountains.
• Refocus spending: Less helix stuff and more bug fixing instead.

That's about it.

Reading posts about runes here in the forum, e.g. from @Polyedra, @TheNorfolkian, @SpirantCrayon22 , it looks like the runes don't give equal value if stacked, and it also looks like each rune is behaving differently. I started looking into this.

If you add a rune, you need to leave the inventory for the game to update your stats. You can check your stats in the inventory by clicking the key on bottom left of the inventory screen labeled "hero stats" (PS4 controller: L3).

First set of runes tested: the runes you can put on your armor to increase your damage output.

Your armor has 14 slots for runes and 1 slot for special runes. In the 14 slots you can put all kinds of different armor runes. For this investigation I have first cleared my armor of all runes, then added the same runes into the 14 slots, step by step, and looked at my stats.

First I checked the stats without any runes.
Then put on 1 rune and checked the stats again. Then put on an additional rune of the same type, and checked the stats again, until I had all 14 runes stacked on my armor.

Here's what I found:

Armor Runes: Damage Runes

The game offers 4 different rune types to add to your armor to increase the damage you do:

Ranged: Great Hunter Rune, adds 2.3 Ranged Damage
Melee: Great Warrior Rune, adds 2 Melee Damage
Assassin: Great Assassin Rune, adds 3.3 Assassin Damage
Stealth: Great Shadow Rune, adds 2.3 Stealth Damage

General observation: the runes don't act the same. For each different rune there is a specific set of stat increases the player gets when stacking it. And those increases decline for each additional rune stacked. You get diminishing returns already after just a few runes.

Let's look at the stacking behavior of each of those runes in more detail. The table above gives the following info:

Name of rune, type of damage, value of the rune when you look at it in your inventory

Amount: amount of runes stacked. 0 means I have no rune on my armor. 1: I have 1 rune put on, etc
Stats: the value of my "hero stats" for that particular type of damage the rune does
Diff: the increase in stats the added rune gives.
% Incr the percentage of the rune value of that increase


1) Great Hunter Rune (+2.3 Ranged Damage)

• The first 4 runes I stacked show the full rune value as increase: 2.3.
• The 0.1 higher increase for 3 and 4 runes likely are a rounding error: the game only displays 1 digit after the decimal point.
• If I put on more than 4 ranged runes their increases decrease on a curve. The more runes the lower the increases. The 14th rune then only gives 0.2 increase.
• Filling my armor with 14 ranged damage runes gives me total of 20 increase compared to armor alone.

2) Great Warrior Rune (+2 Melee Damage)

• The first rune increases melee damage correctly by the exact rune value. But then rune 2 to 5 increase the melee damage higher than the rune's value! It might be a glitch. This is the same behavior as the Evasion rune from post 2. It looks like both runes were initially supposed to give 2.5 instead of 2.0. When they changed it they forgot to change the code as well.
• Starting at rune 6 the added rune value decreases, just like the ranged damage rune. It looks also like a curve. However, as the melee damage rune is just 2 points, even 0.4 and 0.3 increase are still 20% or 15% of the rune's value.
• Altogether with 14 melee damage armor runes my melee damage increased total by 20 points also.

3) Great Assassin Rune (+3.3 Assassin Damage)

• With this rune you can stack 3 runes and get the full value of the rune added to your stats.
• Rune 4 through 11 show the same curve-like decline of added rune value, same as in the other runes.
• But if you stack more than 11 runes you are getting no more value added per rune! That is 3 runes added at 0 value. That is unique behavior for this damage rune.
• Filling the armor with these runes gives only 15 points.

4) Great Shadow Rune (+2.3 Stealth Damage)

• You can stack 4 runes and get the full value of the rune added to your stats.
• Rune 5 through 14 show the same curve-like decline like the other damage runes.
• Filling the armor with these runes give 20 points.

Runes to stack with full rune value or a bit more:

Ranged Damage: 4
Melee Damage: 5
Assassin Damage: 3
Stealth Damage: 4

Very impressive pictures of Valkyrie dives. And that picture with Eivor roaring an enemy is downright scary!

I didn't get the Valkyrie dive right so just sat on a wall instead before it was too late. Sun rose just as I arrived here:

The next set of armor runes tested are the body runes Health, Armor, Weight, and Evasion

Armor Runes: Body

The runes in this post deal with your body: health, armor, weight, and evasion.

Health: Great Rune of Life, adds 18.9
Armor: Great Shell Rune, adds 2
Weight: Great Feather Rune, deducts 1.5
Evasion: Great Evasion Rune, adds 2

General observations:

• The evasion rune behaves like the melee damage rune: first rune gives exact rune value increase, the next 4 runes give higher increase than the rune value itself.
• Ubisoft does not want us to use more than 1 armor weight rune: only 1st rune give full value, the rest all less than half the supposed value!

1) Great Rune of Life (+18.9 Health)

• The first 2 runes give the full rune value as increase.
• The 3rd rune gives just 64.6% of the rune value as increase
• From then on the increase goes down steeply: runes only give 26.5% to 21.2% increase.
• Filling my armor with 14 runes gives me total of 95.8 increase compared to armor alone.

2) Great Shell Rune (+5 Armor)

• Rune 1 to 3 increase armor correctly by the exact rune value.
• Then the increase goes down steeply: runes only give 28% or 26% increase. Since the values are so low and only 0.1 difference this could be a rounding error.
• Altogether with 14 runes my armor increased total by 30 points.

3) Great Feather Rune (-1.5 Weight)

• Only the first rune gives its full value!
• All other added runes give either 0.7 or 0.6 weight reduction. Probably rounding error: they are most likely supposed to give the same reduction: a bit less than half the rune's value.
• Stacking the armor with 14 weight runes only reduces 10 weight.

4) Great Evasion Rune (+2 Evasion)

• Just like the warrior rune for melee damage in the 1st post the first rune gives full value, rune 2 to 5 give even more than the rune's value
• Rune 6 through 14 show the same curve-like decline seen in the damage runes.
• Filling the armor with 14 runes give 20 points again, just like the damage runes.

Runes to stack with full rune value or a bit more:

Health: 2
Armor: 3
Weight: 1
Evasion: 5

(other runes coming over time here in this thread)

If you are shying away from the drinking games Valhalla offers because you tried one and failed miserably, this post is for you.

To win a drinking game, you need to speak to a champion, offer a wager if it's the first time, then finish drinking before the champion. Time your drinking within the orange zone around the drink icon.

Before this week I tried drinking games early on once or twice and never got the timing right (playing on PC with PS4 controller). But the 10 opals for this week's community challenge finally made me try again. Here's what I learned:

1) Start slowly. Stavanger, Grantebridge, and Ledeceistre are the most forgiving locations. Try Stavanger until you get a feel for how the timing works. Those locations have the slowest drinkers giving you plenty of time.

2) Save before you start the first time at a location. The first time you speak to the drinking champion at a location you need to offer up a wager. I usually fail the first time. Reloading after the fail gives me the chance to try again and win the pot.

3) Listen to the crowd cheering you on. The timing works if you click the "drink" button a tidbit after the crowd chants "skal" or "drink". At first click when they chant. Once your reaction is faster, click a tidbit afterwards. That lands your click in the orange zone around the drink icon (X for my PS4 controller).

4) Compensate for Eivor's tumbling when prompted. Once Eivor has finished the first horn/cup of mead he slowly gets drunk, and starts veering left or right. Now it's time for you to yank the controller (or click the corresponding key on the keyboard) quickly to adjust his stance. Yank LEFT when he veers right then quickly let go, and vice versa

5) Focus on the drink icon. It's easy to get carried away and start watching the crowd cheering and dancing But then you lose the timing and Eivor the contest. So keep your eyes ironclad locked on the drink icon.

Once Eivor wins he will be seriously drunk, which is represented by the vision being blurry and shaking for a while. To stop that you can:

• speak to the champion to start another round or tell him/her you don't want to drink
• fast travel somewhere

That will stop the drunk vision immediately.

If you have motion sickness like me: Just do 3 games at a time, then do something else for a while. Then restart the game again and continue. Once I found out I can do this I was so excited and visited all the champions in the shires I have already finished and drank several times with each of them. Better to do just 3 then rest.

The higher level area drinking champions will be more difficult to beat and the drunk vision will be much worse. The drink icon will be the only non-moving item on the screen. Keep your eyes firmly locked on it to avoid losing focus and the game.

Wishing you good fun with the drinking games, and, of course: Skal!

Btw: there is no drinking location in Lunden unfortunately. Missed opportunity. London has lovely pubs.

The next set of armor runes tested are the fight resistance runes ranged resistance, melee resistance, light resistance, heavy resistance, and elite resistance.

Armor Runes: Fight Resistance

The runes in this post give resistance during fights: Ranged, Melee, Light, Heavy, and Elite.

Ranged: Great Safeguard Rune, adds 2.5
Melee: Great Shield Rune, adds 3.5
Light: Great Rune of Protection, adds 3.3
Heavy: Great Bulwark Rune, adds 3.3
Elite: Great Aegis Rune, adds 2.3


General observations:

• Both Light Resistance and Heavy Resistance runes behave similarly with the same rune value, and 3 full value stackable runes. But the Light Resistance rune has a much sharper decline in increases when stacking more runes than the Heavy Resistance.
• Melee Resistance rune has the highest rune value of 3.5 but you only can stack 2 at full value!

1) Great Safeguard Rune (+2.5 Ranged Resistance)

• The first 3 runes give the full rune value as increase.
• The other runes have diminishing returns, and their added value decreases on a curve.
• Filling my armor with 14 runes gives me total of 20 increase compared to armor alone, just like most of the damage runes.

2) Great Shield Rune (3.5 Melee Resistance)

• Only 2 runes increase correctly by the full rune value.
• Then the increase goes down on a steeper curve than ranged resistance.
• Rune 13 has 0.2 increase and rune 14 shows 0.3 increase. That looks like a rounding error.
• Altogether with 14 runes my armor increased total by 20 points, just like ranged resistance: the degrading curve is steeper but the rune value is higher, leading to the same total points as ranged.

3) Great Rune of Protection (+3.3 Light Resistance)

• The first 3 runes give the full value.
• Rune 4 shows a sharp decline in value: just 42.4% of the full rune value!
• The other runes show diminishing returns on a curve.
• The 14th rune adds no value!
• Filling my armor with 14 runes gives me total of 15 increase.

4) Great Bulwark Rune (+3.3 Heavy Resistance)

• Just like the light and ranged resistance runes the first 3 runes give the full value.
• Rune 6 through 14 show a less sharp curve-like decline than for light resistance, starting at 57.6% of rune value.
• Filling the armor with 14 runes give 20 points again, just like the ranged and melee resistance runes.

5) Great Aegis Rune (+2.3 Elite Resistance)

• The first 4 runes give the full value or a bit more. This helps to fight powerful bosses!
• Even rune 5 still gives 91.3% of the full value. But then we see the decrease curve again.
• The 14th rune adds no value!
• Filling the armor with 14 runes give 19.7 points. (Maybe the design was to 20 points total with rune 14 giving 0.3 instead of just 0, but the code has a bug).

Runes to stack with full rune value or a bit more:

Ranged Resistance: 3
Melee Resistance: 2
Light Resistance: 3
Heavy Resistance: 3
Elite Resistance: 4

(other runes coming over time here in this thread)

I spent some time playing around with armor runes. Putting them on in different combinations. It looks like they only affect their respective stats and don't interact with one another. Weight runes don't matter on which piece you put them, or on which slot. It looks like the game just checks the amount of runes you have of a type and not where they are slotted, or which other runes you have on. They only affect the stats in the same way as the tables show.

It even does not matter how many Fire Resistance and Fire Build Up runes you have together on the same piece or adjacent slots, or whatever. They also only affect their respective stat and don't interfere with each other or the poison runes or other resistance or weight or melee damage or ranged damage runes.

With that in mind it looks like the tables here seem to represent the behavior of the runes with the current update 1.6.0. Of course this can change anytime at any new update.

I only can test how the game reacts. There might be all kinds of stuff in the code I haven't experienced. To find out what really happens in the game with the runes we would need to take a good long look at the source code. I don't even think any of the devs would know all of this information: the game has been worked on 2 years since release and a long time before that. Different folks have worked on it, left, others picked up the work as good as they could. Each of the devs probably knows what is going on in the particular piece of the code they are currently working on, but nobody knows the whole thing. I bet there is lots of stuff lost in the code somewhere that nobody knows about anymore. Some code pieces probably contradict others and cause difficult to track down bugs. I bet a lot of that stuff is going on in the Valhalla code.

So at this point I will just post the results of the final armor rune stuff: the Elemental Resistance Runes.

Even though the rune values, rune decrease curves, amount of runes you can stack at face value, etc might change, the key principles from this thread most likely will remain:

• For any given rune there will always be a certain number of runes that will stack at full rune value. The rest will have diminished returns.
• When stacking runes the decrease of the rune value will always either be a curve, or linear with only very low values.
• It's not worth putting on too many runes of one type.
• And finally: regardless of how many weight runes you put on, you'll never be able to fly in England

Somebody doing Reda's task for me lol

@AnimusLover Parkour is nice but what I absolutely hated are the timed missions! Any timed mission where you desynchronize if you don't make it in the allotted time is bullocks to me. In AC2 it took me several hours to get through that one I think church (everything was in green hues in that location and lots of water) where you have to do parkouring in a short time and get every jump correct. I did 2 playthroughs and each time it took me hours for that one location with heart racing and hands all sweaty. Then in AC Brotherhood for the timed stuff in the ruins, I think you got those armor pieces there, I got a timer mod (on pc) because I couldn't do it at all.
The Valhalla Animus Anomalies are fun, even though the slides on 2 of them were difficult to figure out.

I like parkouring as a puzzle, but not with a timer against me!

I bought the Steel-Wrought Bow Reda offers in his shop this week (hunting bow). It turned out to be great: it helps with ranged damage: you pull the string and hold it. While you are holding the string it charges up to be more powerful, signaled with visual and audio effect. It helps me with taking down folks with more strength.

If you often encounter enemies where an arrow does not do enough damage, e.g. during a fight with a bigger foe, if you don't have time to do a headshot, or for folks who just need their bow to be stronger, the Steel-Wrought Bow could be worth the opals.

@azullFR Love your pictures! Amazing shots

@azullFR Wow amazing pictures. Great capture of the effects. Like watercolor.

@XBL_Laberbacke Awesome. Thank you so much for the pics and demonstration!

@dominantboy Now that I think of it, I think those nudists were not naked for me either. Somehow I didn't even notice probably since I would never go outside without any clothes lol. Right, they should be nude. I'll check if I can find a save around the time I did the nude quest and check.

@FarohkTazim Exactly: I also do solo river raid. To open boxes and look at in the ship I prefer cool looking raiders. Just .. the coolest are the user-made jomses Would love to use them instead.

Recommendation: Ubisoft just needs to give the user-made jomses the level of the player's lieutenant when putting them in our game. That way they are always properly leveled and can be used for everything.
Instead of copying their stats in our game and setting them to level 1, just set them to the level of our own lieutenant

@dominantboy Great list. Regarding Nudity: I always thought it was related to NPC quests where folks are nude like the quest with the nudists at the lake.

That would be an interesting question for @Ubisoft: Should the Nudity switch also apply to Eivor?

@FarohkTazim I fully agree: I sometimes hire jomsvikings for their outfits. User-made jomsvikings often have carefully selected outfit pieces and weapons. I would absolutely love to use them on my river-raid crew. But due to the bug we are not able to use them for anything else but our regular boat crew.

That makes the river-raids much less appealing: who wants to look at a crew with a random combo of stuff you have in your inventory.

@FarohkTazim You won't find any user joms higher than level 1. It's a bug: all user-made jomsvikings are offered at level 1.

I just use them in my regular ship crew. For the river-raid crew I only use system-made jomses.

@TheNorfolkian Amazing! Love it.

@TheNorfolkian Fully agree with your assessment: this is a low level problem that does not prevent gameplay. And it also does not prevent revenue generation.

Were this problem with Reda's store instead as in opals not getting deducted from your account when you buy something, plus each time you buy something the store instantly replaces it in the inventory with something that you don't have yet I bet an instant fix would be made available.