Valheim patch re-tweaks monster AI so they won't hate your fort more than they hate you

(Image credit: Iron Gate Studios)

Back on June 23, Valheim was patched with a tweak to monster AI. "We tried to make monsters slightly more aggressive and attack your buildings etc. When they are not able to attack you," the devs at Iron Gate Studios wrote.

But that tweak went a little further than expected, as players found fulings, graydwarfs, and other enemies essentially running right past them and attacking settlement walls instead of targeting players. Enemy raids on player bases can already be a hectic experience, as mobs spawn and start bashing your walls and defenses in order to get inside and kill you. But the tweak seemed to make the settlement walls the monsters' number one priority—even when players were outside their bases and within attack range.

A small patch was released today to re-tweak the AI and bring a bit more balance to the monster's aggression. The patch adds "AI tweaks (Monsters should always target creatures [including players] first if they have a clear path to them & monsters should only attack low priority structures [walls etc.] if they are trying to get to a player)."

Hopefully, post-patch, monsters will once again take out their anger on you and not just on your beautiful forts—unless you're hiding inside them.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.