God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla Patch – Difficulty Tweaks

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla v. 05.03 Patch Notes

Sony’s Santa Monica Studio has released patch v. 05.03 for the God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla expansion. This patch introduces significant adjustments to the roguelike mode’s difficulty, addressing numerous bugs, and improving user experience.

CINEMATICS

• A crucial issue where audio failed to play and characters were out of sync during the initial cinematic after death has been rectified.
• Lingering Draupnir Spear particles that persisted after the start of a cinematic have been eliminated.

GAMEPLAY

The patch introduces notable alterations to the gameplay experience:

• The difficulty of the first Týr fight has been reduced on the “Show Me Will” difficulty setting for players primarily focused on the story.
• Certain arena challenges now present a greater difficulty curve.
• The difficulty of “The Forum” has been adjusted to provide a more balanced and appropriate experience.
• The health gain and proc chance of the Spear kill perk has been slightly lowered within the Valhalla expansion.
• General combat tuning and balance have been updated to enhance the overall gameplay experience.
• A bug where the Greek Labyrinth Mastery perk didn’t correctly update the Open Greek Chests value following a forfeited reward selection using Fleeting Echoes has been fixed.
• An exploit involving the Spear against Ormstunga has been patched.
• An encounter bug where Einherjar weren’t properly eliminated after being kicked outside the arena has been resolved.
• The issue of Týr teleporting away and failing to return has been addressed.
• All Hunter armor pieces are now accessible.
• A scenario where the encounter didn’t conclude when Nightmare was ejected near the arena border has been corrected.
• An error allowing Kratos to remain in Spartan Rage while interacting with Shield Maidens has been fixed.

GENERAL STABILITY

The patch also focuses on improving the game’s stability:

• Multiple crashes, including issues with opening specific chests or rifts, non-English language-related crashes, and memory leaks on PlayStation 4, have been addressed.
• The problem of Kratos falling through the world has been resolved.
• An issue where Kratos fell from the arena while interacting with a rift on the Aegean Ship has been fixed.
• The issue of Kratos falling through the world after passing through a Mystic Gateway has been resolved.
• Texture streaming issues when entering arenas have been addressed.

UI/UX

User interface and user experience improvements are also included:

• The “Time Extended” message no longer erroneously displays in timed challenge trials.
• Subtitle overlap with UI elements in vendor menus has been rectified.
• Navigation assist prompts are now correctly displayed.
• The timer no longer overlaps the Warrior Soul health bar.
• The Elites Killed counter now disappears as intended after the timer expires.
• The duration of the “Costly Damage” burden is correctly displayed.
• The King of the Hill challenge timer no longer overlaps the progress bar.
• The timer on the Aegean Ship encounter now correctly reaches zero.
• The Tablet of Reflection prompt is no longer read twice by screen readers.
• Subtitle formatting issues have been resolved.
• The “Flawless Kills” and “Flawless Parries” challenge UI no longer updates when Kratos is hit.
• A “Download in Progress” screen is now displayed if God of War Ragnarok is not fully installed before attempting to launch God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla.
• The options menu no longer incorrectly opens when first entering the Glyph tutorial.