Originally posted by Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch:

I disagree Ballerhans.

If you have poison resist potion (and i you are in the swamp you should always have one running) then the swamp is not "terribly unbalanced" as you put it ( my opinion).

Killing a lox in leather at range, as dumb as they are isn't unbalanced. Try melee range w/ a lox (or two or three) then have a couple Fulings come from behind a rock with a few deathsqueeters added for flavor. Plains can be rough.

Plains makes Swamp look like a cake walk (which is appropriate since Plains are 2 biomes after swamp).

Iron isn't hard to mine. They've made it much easier. Mud piles just break apart now. You can also use a wishbone in the swamp and find mudpiles outside of crypts.

I don't see anything unbroken or unbalanced about Iron vs dark metal at all.

Plains are quite easy. No stamina penalties, goblins even with stars are easy to kill because of comfortable number of hitpoints. The abominations have only 2 weaknesses, one of them requires melee actions. My character dies after 2-3 hits and I'm not able to make any attack because of some kind of daze effect in melee range. With my bow I have to shoot 40-50 fire arrows to bring it down. Maybe I'll clear the mountains first to get some frost arrows, but it's all still upside down/unbalanced in this game then, either you understand or not. Any biom after swamp is significant easier.(in my opinion:))
I've killed over 50 abominations with iron gear and equally leveled food/mead in an earlier play through, that's not comparable at all and it was still an annoying waste of time without any challenge nor reward(the root armor is far too cheap, it could cost 100 roots per part to give killing abominations more meaning).

Good thing with swamps is that it's easy to snipe enemies from your boat before making landfall and then building on damage immune terrain be it trees or crypts.

Going in at night or being unlucky in popping an abomination are probably the worst things early on. Poison resistance shouldn't be an issue at that point and ranged draugers should be rather easy to snipe from a distance. Root armor for pierce and poison resistance and swamps become a lot easier - plains as well for that matter.

First longboat (and last) of mine that was ever destroyed I "set anchor" a good swim away from shore, in the meadows (about 50 yards from the boundary of a Plains biome). I wasn't 100 yards into the plains and I heard a "crunch" I stopped...listened... another "crunch". I ran back to the boat and a gobby, treading water... was already beating on it. He managed to destroy my boat before I could do anything about it.

Thankfully all your loot floats in crates.

I've been very cautious on how I make land fall ever since.

Never leave your boat on shore. Crash it and store mats in chest. This is one of this game's basic lessons. In this game, you die two or three times in zones where enemies still strong for you and like dozen times in places where's nothing to fear... because you lose concentration. One glorious death vs ten stupid deathes, that's how it works.

I also prefer to use carve, not longboat, since it easier to navigate and easier to carry in backback.

Swamp is just terribly unbalanced. I had in leather gear no significant problem to kill a Lox while fighting off some deathquitos after kiting right into their aggro range. That's post iron level! When I enter the swamp in fully upgraded bronze gear(blocking 48, axes 56, bows 62, fire arrows) and get gang banged by a randomly spawning abomination,some "surprisingly" appearing blobs and some range draugrs/skeletons are never far away as well.
I really don't want this game to be easy to play. That would take all the meaning out of it, but what the developers thought when they made swamp that unplayable...I played a whole new character on a whole new seed and had the same fun like in the first attempts years ago...until I entered the swamp, got ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ as described earlier and expect my portal and boat destroyed and if not heavily guarded by all the mobs.
I feel kinda annoyed. In no way I feel challenged by unbalanced/broken game mechanics.
My main focus in this game is building stuff, but not for free using console. It's easier to farm black metal than iron, that feels WRONG!

I disagree Ballerhans.

If you have poison resist potion (and i you are in the swamp you should always have one running) then the swamp is not "terribly unbalanced" as you put it ( my opinion).

Killing a lox in leather at range, as dumb as they are isn't unbalanced. Try melee range w/ a lox (or two or three) then have a couple Fulings come from behind a rock with a few deathsqueeters added for flavor. Plains can be rough.

Plains makes Swamp look like a cake walk (which is appropriate since Plains are 2 biomes after swamp).

Iron isn't hard to mine. They've made it much easier. Mud piles just break apart now. You can also use a wishbone in the swamp and find mudpiles outside of crypts.

I don't see anything unbroken or unbalanced about Iron vs dark metal at all.

To be honest, swamp is one of most balanced and interesting zones (no, Miyazaki, i have no love for poisonous swamps!). It looks quiet and dangerous in same time - and it is! This is scary place - just as it has to be. Cant say so about Mountains since it looks empty at this moment. And the Plains is a bit boring, too. BUT! No swamps at shore please... it makes no sence. It must be placed at the river's end or so.

Originally posted by ShaftAlmighty:

I will NEVER again enter any swamp via boat. I made that mistake once and paid for it by running through the beaches of Normandy(minus the laughs and shenanigans). Also, your boat is vulnerable to leeches even if you docked it far from shore.

Two Abominations and waves of skellies.....Way to hang! Good on you for surviving, best of luck with your search for iron.

Unless i'm on a raft or Karve and have no plans on retrieving my boat, I never make landfall in the swamps and rarely the plains.

Originally posted by TangoBlue:

Yeah, I've noticed when I enter a biome in a different area for the first time, it's like a dinner bell going off and I'm what's on the menu. Everybody wants some of me.

...until the Plains. outside of a couple deathquitos, everything was cool, seemed a little empty. I should have taken that as a warning of things to come.

The calm before the storm.

Originally posted by DeMasked:

Originally posted by MistrBill:

Building the teleporter on top of the crypt was exactly my plan, and I eventually did. I literally didn't have a moment to build a workbench and stairs to get on top of the crypt. It took freaking forever to clear the area, and it was a near thing. If I'd been killed before setting up the teleporter, I'd have had to sail back there in my second best armor.

You only need to set up a workbench next to the back end of a crypt to be able to jump on top of it which makes it easy to deal with most any enemy except wraiths. Going into swamp you definitely need to make an aggressive landing as opposed to some other biomes which you usually can get away with by parking your boat near a shoreline boulder to set up a bench / portal for exploration or repairing.

I think somebody else echoed my thought here- going into the swamp by boat is the Valheim equivalent of storming the beaches at Normandy.

On my solo character I docked my karve off the shores of a swamp which contained a lot of crypts and to my surprise Bonemass as well. Docking near a beachside crypt I quickly built a base on top of it (immune to abomination attacks) and then made a raised earthen wall around my base so only wraiths and the occasional ooze could get in.

My boat eventually got beaten up by a stray abomination but thankfully I managed to get back all my resources from that.

Abominations are easy to axe down when you have the high ground when it comes to indestructible crypts or swamp trees. Or using a surtling fire geyser to your advantage. Root armor is extremely useful for both the swamp and plains due to poison resistance and pierce resistance.

Originally posted by DeMasked:

On my solo character I docked my karve off the shores of a swamp which contained a lot of crypts and to my surprise Bonemass as well. Docking near a beachside crypt I quickly built a base on top of it (immune to abomination attacks) and then made a raised earthen wall around my base so only wraiths and the occasional ooze could get in.

My boat eventually got beaten up by a stray abomination but thankfully I managed to get back all my resources from that.

Abominations are easy to axe down when you have the high ground when it comes to indestructible crypts or swamp trees. Or using a surtling fire geyser to your advantage. Root armor is extremely useful for both the swamp and plains due to poison resistance and pierce resistance.

Building the teleporter on top of the crypt was exactly my plan, and I eventually did. I literally didn't have a moment to build a workbench and stairs to get on top of the crypt. It took freaking forever to clear the area, and it was a near thing. If I'd been killed before setting up the teleporter, I'd have had to sail back there in my second best armor.

Yeah, I've noticed when I enter a biome in a different area for the first time, it's like a dinner bell going off and I'm what's on the menu. Everybody wants some of me.

...until the Plains. outside of a couple deathquitos, everything was cool, seemed a little empty. I should have taken that as a warning of things to come.

Originally posted by MistrBill:

Originally posted by DeMasked:

On my solo character I docked my karve off the shores of a swamp which contained a lot of crypts and to my surprise Bonemass as well. Docking near a beachside crypt I quickly built a base on top of it (immune to abomination attacks) and then made a raised earthen wall around my base so only wraiths and the occasional ooze could get in.

My boat eventually got beaten up by a stray abomination but thankfully I managed to get back all my resources from that.

Abominations are easy to axe down when you have the high ground when it comes to indestructible crypts or swamp trees. Or using a surtling fire geyser to your advantage. Root armor is extremely useful for both the swamp and plains due to poison resistance and pierce resistance.

Building the teleporter on top of the crypt was exactly my plan, and I eventually did. I literally didn't have a moment to build a workbench and stairs to get on top of the crypt. It took freaking forever to clear the area, and it was a near thing. If I'd been killed before setting up the teleporter, I'd have had to sail back there in my second best armor.

You only need to set up a workbench next to the back end of a crypt to be able to jump on top of it which makes it easy to deal with most any enemy except wraiths. Going into swamp you definitely need to make an aggressive landing as opposed to some other biomes which you usually can get away with by parking your boat near a shoreline boulder to set up a bench / portal for exploration or repairing.

I will NEVER again enter any swamp via boat. I made that mistake once and paid for it by running through the beaches of Normandy(minus the laughs and shenanigans). Also, your boat is vulnerable to leeches even if you docked it far from shore.

Two Abominations and waves of skellies.....Way to hang! Good on you for surviving, best of luck with your search for iron.