Valheim patch fixes Mistlands portals and adds a new fishing hat

A new patch has arrived for Valheim, the lo-fi Viking survival game it seems everyone’s been talking about since it arrived in Early Access. Valheim update 0.213.4 introduces a couple new items, makes some key balancing changes to the new Mistlands biome, and fixes the boss doors so you can’t sneak through them with a bit of tricky mining anymore. There’s also a fetching new fishing hat.

Update 0.213.4 adds the aforementioned fishing hat, which developer Iron Gate says is craftable using a “super secret recipe.” The other bit of new content is the hexagonal gate build piece – it’s the one you may have seen in the Mistlands’ Dvergr strongholds. Now you can incorporate these into your own lodges back at base – or wherever else you feel like popping one up.

The patch also adds a new way to use ballistae. By approaching a ballista and using a trophy you’ve collected from a dead enemy, you can limit the ballista to only fire at that type of creature. It’s an option that could be very useful – you could, for example, ensure that your defences are focusing their fire on dangerous enemies like trolls. Ballista can now hold up to 40 pieces of ammunition, up from 20.

There are some more important changes to the Mistlands, particularly in dungeons: you’ll find that mobs can now respawn in there, as will Royal Jelly piles. You’ll see hanging Royal Jelly piles on the ceiling in large dungeon rooms to help indicate this. Bosses will now try to escape if they can’t reach a player, and enemies won’t focus on mist torches as primary targets from now on.

Here are the full patch notes, which you can also find on Steam:

Detailed Patch Notes:

New Content:

• New build piece: Hexagonal gate
• New item: Fishing hat (needs a super secret recipe)

Balance & Tweaks:

• Players can now “use” a trophy on ballistas to limit what it will shoot at
• Seeker circling tweaks (They should now feel a bit more aggressive again)
• Gjall spit attack tweaks (They now shoot 2 projectiles again, but the burst interval is increased. Should now be more visible and somewhat easier to avoid instead. More fire damage, less blunt damage)
• Added post-Queen nightspawns of Seekers, Broods and Ticks in Meadows, Black Forest, Mountain and Plains biomes
• Mistlands boss now tries to flee if unable to reach the player
• Mobs inside Mistlands Dungeons can now respawn
• Royal jelly piles inside Mistlands Dungeons are now respawning (Added hanging Royal Jelly piles as an indicator in big dungeon rooms)
• Wolves can now eat Chicken meat (Yum!)
• Mist torches are no longer a primary target for enemies
• Tweaked portal size to Mistlands boss room (The entrance “box” was a bit too big. Players should no longer be able to mine the top of the entrance and be able to press “E” to enter through the wall/stones)
• Tweaked portal size on Mistlands dungeon exits (The exit “box” was a bit too big. Players should no longer be able to exit the dungeon while being on the floor right above the entrance)
• Eitr regen is no longer affected by swimming or when encumbered
• Ymir Flesh is now purchasable from Haldor after Elder is dead, instead of after Bonemass
• Health and resistance tweaks on some Dvergr pieces
• Ballista ammo capacity increased from 20 to 40

Bug fixes:

• Obliterator now converts Mistlands trophies/wood/arrows/bolts properly
• Mistlands biome music no longer stops playing if players use the dev command “env Clear” while being in Mistlands
• Carapace bolt collider fixed (The offset was a bit off previously when you tried to pick ‘em up)
• Depth of Field fix (Stars in the sky no longer blurry)
• Using the console command ‘save’ will now also save your local character file when playing on a multiplayer server
• Cleaned up unused locations and dungeon rooms to lower RAM usage
• Fixed a bug where players could craft an infinite amount of Raw fish
• Hens now lay eggs closer to their bodies
• Hens should no longer change colour
• Skeleton spawners can now spawn skeletons again even if there are summoned friendly skeletons nearby
• Troll trap and Dvergr stake wall no longer take rain damage
• Periodic lag spike fix (Resource unloading will now run while sleeping or pausing afk for 5 seconds if it hasn’t been run for a 20 minutes, or when calling “cr” from console, or if none of those things, every 60 minutes)
• Seeker flying sound no longer plays if it dies mid air
• Marble column build pieces: Tweaked snap points (They were previously not 100% aligned with other build pieces)
• Additional damage for Bolt descriptions are now based on Crossbow skill instead of Bow skill
• JotunPuffs, Magecap and a number of other pickables no longer leave invisible dead objects in the world when they are picked, and old dead objects are cleared when loaded in to increase performance and decrease save-file size.
• Pickable DvergrStein no longer fall through objects

Fishing tweaks & fixes:

• New item: Fishing hat
• Fish no longer despawn when far away
• Fish found in Ice Caves now respawn correctly
• Higher tier fish now give slightly more Raw fish and there’s now a small chance for fish to give players some extra materials when they are successfully reeled in
• Fishing bait is now returned if pulled in without fish or when recasting
• Fishing bait recipes now take basic fishing bait instead of previous biome fish
• Fishing bait recipes, and the fishing bait sold from Haldor is now 20 instead of 40 (This change was made due to the fishing bait return change mentioned above)
• Fish will now try to escape when hooked. (Fish will wobble and splash in the water when they try to escape, which increases the stamina usage when pulling in. When they’re not trying to escape, the stamina usage for pulling in is reduced)
• Tetra can now spawn at higher levels correctly
• Tuna now only spawn in the Ocean biome
• Higher-level fish only jump in the Ocean biome
• Slightly increased skill gain when fishing

Networking fixes:

• Fixed a bug where players received the “Fail to connect” message instead of “Server full” when trying to join a full PlayFab server
• Fixed a bug where PlayFab accidentally signed in twice
• Major improvements in how the game handles multiplayer sessions when going offline/disconnect. (It now tries more often to succeed with creating lobbies/relog compared to previously)
• Added a pop-up message when players are trying to start a server when they’re not signed in correctly (i.e. being offline in some way)
• Added support for non-crossplay PlayFab servers, and Xbox network users without the “Crossplay privilege” can only host and join non-crossplay supported servers
• Added new server parameter that server owners can use if they want to run multiple dedicated servers using the same MAC-address in order to get unique PlayFab IDs for every server
• Improved error handling of privilege manager
• New “DNS Lookup failed” message when a server with an URL can’t be added to the server list due to DNS lookup failure
• Improved performance and behaviour of local server lists
• Fixed 2 soft lock cases that could happen when using PlayFab
• Fixed a bug that paused matchmaking-timers when the game was paused

Misc:

• Reduce lighting flashes accessibility option added, reduces flashes for thunder, monster & player elemental effects, Galdr table, Obliterator and Portal
• Raven hints can be toggled in settings (and console command removed)
• New console commands added: catch (simulates catching a fish), printnetobj (lists number of network objects by name surrounding player) & cr (runs the periodic unloads unused assets routine manually and resets the timer)
• Improvements made for the “Manage Saves” menu, should now be a lot less laggy to use
• Localization updated
• Yule items have now been disabled
• Turnips can now be put on item stands

Check out our guide to the best Valheim weapons if you plan on exploring the Mistlands, and if you’re thinking about setting up your own Valheim server, we’ve got you covered there, too.