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v1.3.12 — Flight, and the Skeleton keeps its promises

kanym
Races of Valheim developer

Dragons get a sprint, a reverse gear and the ability to climb out of the sea. The Skeleton's progression finally does what its description has said all along. And three races stop being invisible to everyone but themselves.

Skadi — flight, reworked​

Four changes, and the last one is the one people kept asking about.

  • The stasis lasts 5 seconds, up from 2. Letting go of the controls is now a choice rather than something that happens to you.
  • Shift + W sprints, for 15 stamina a second. Running dry drops you back to normal powered speed rather than out of the sky. It is the only part of flight that costs anything — ordinary flight stays free on purpose, because the Drake arrives at The Elder, long before a Skadi could pay simply to stay airborne.
  • S beats backwards along your aim, pitch included. Look down and press it and you rise away from whatever you are watching, without turning to face away from it — so your breath keeps pointing at what you are retreating from.
  • Water is no longer a trap. A flying form beats its way back out of the sea instead of paddling on the surface until it finds land.

That last one had a cause worth naming, because a player spotted the asymmetry before we did: the Aswid's bat could always take off from water and Moder never could. Valheim hands a swimming character to its swimming code before it ever asks whether they are flying, and the bat happens to fly by a route that is checked earlier. Moder was stuck paddling with the flight controls doing nothing at all.

To land on water deliberately, toggle flight off and swim.

Skeleton — the progression was not the progression​

The Skeleton's tier list had drifted a long way from the one published on its page. Poison immunity arrived at Bonemass instead of Eikthyr. Auto-stun at The Queen instead of The Elder. Lifesteal jumped 20/30/40% where the list promises a climb in fives from 5% to 35%.

Every tier now matches the description, boss for boss.

Underneath that, three things were broken outright:

  • Poison immunity never survived a death or a login. Undead Fortitude — which carries every damage modifier the race has, the physical resistances included — was applied once, the moment you picked the race from the menu. Valheim does not save status effects with a character, so from your next respawn onward you silently had none of it. It is kept on you now, and a boss killed mid-session applies immediately instead of waiting for a respawn.
  • Max health was approximate. A Skeleton cannot eat, so the race feeds you three permanent invisible meals to carry the tier bonus. That keeps regeneration working, but it is a poor way to land an exact number: a Bonemass Skeleton could find itself at 95 health where the table promises 165. The meals stay; the total no longer depends on how far they have burnt down.
  • The Moder regeneration bonus did nothing at all.

Skeleton Secrets also stops saying "the secrets of the crypt will be revealed soon" at every single tier — it now unfolds properly, and opens by naming the standing you are on. If a boss falls and nothing seems to change, that line tells you whether the tier failed to advance or the unlock failed to fire.

Cosmetically: from Moder you wear Hildir's bones with your skull alight, and at Fader you stand 15% larger.

Everyone can see you now​

Three races were dressing themselves only on their own screen.

  • Draugh — the drifting miasma and the cloud of flies. In multiplayer everyone else saw an ordinary, unrotted Viking.
  • Skeleton — the burning skull.
  • Fenrir — worse than invisible: your human body stood inside your own wolf. Every form hid you by shrinking your body to nothing, and the reset that keeps a non-Trol player at normal size put it straight back a frame later. Wolf, Ulv, Fenring and Cultist are all fixed, for you and for everyone watching.

None of this is networked and none of it needs to be. Your race and tier are already shared, so every client works out for itself who should be rotting, burning or four-legged.

Trenta — a crown of branches​

The Trenta grows a greydwarf shaman's horns out of its skull, sunk in until only the branches show. Cosmetic, and visible to other players.