Ashlands is unnecessarily difficult to reach and Valheim has no respect for my time.

PSA: This is the first time I have ever rage quit this game in utter disgust so there's a bit of a rant incoming. The TL;DR is that this game is a time sink and it's becoming even more of a time sink as the devs go on. Naturally there are a few spoilers so don't read my madness if you don't want to get spoiled.

So I had 2 hours spare so I thought I'd see if I could get down to the Ashlands and set up a beach head. Nothing too crazy I would think; I have all the right equipment and the right boat so I can make it happen. I been forewarned that the mobs are difficult and they hit you hard as you land so you have to be on your guard.

I wasn't going to go taking on the mobs or go looking for the bosses; I'll just get down there and then bail back to safety. hard? sure. But reasonable goal to have.

Man Plans and Odin Laughs.

As you approach the damn place you fight off Bonemaw Serpents and Voltures. Playing solo? Well you have to fight, not crash the boat, not stall and get punked by a serpent biting you hull and you need to make sure you also don't accidentally hit your boat while you fight and sink it yourself.

"Ah", I think, "Guess this is what everyone was talking about. Yes this is tricky but I am doing ok."

3 Serpents and 5 Voltures later I catch sight of land through the labyrinth of jagged rocks that make navigating absolute Hel, I see the actual Land of Ash that I want to get to. What's that? another serpent? my boat has a quarter of it's health? (even after I bigge brained and pulled over to a jagged rock to repair it) Better get to land as fast as possible.

Cue 20 flaming skeletons standing there to greet me. A giant boney Droidika to give me the Ashlands Trade Federation Mandatory Proctology Exam. And the entire extended family of every Volture I had to kill just to get here.

I think there must have been 30 different enemies on screen as I died. All my gear is now on a sooty shoreline someplace while a serpent fucks up my Drakkar; probably sinking all the material I needed for a base to the bottom of Surtr's Personal Sewer.

2 hours of effort and I am now actually behind wear I was when I started. What next? Rinse and repeat for another 2 hours? 4 hours?

All things considered: I think I'm just going to cheat to get my stuff back. I simply don't have the time to go through that all again. I don't know who the devs think they are making this game for but it obviously isn't for people with real lives and obligations.