Game is somewhat balanced for solo, if anything it needs to be more difficult when playing in multiplayer. I really wish they added some server settings so we could actually customize our games.

Greydwarves aren't a problem. Just build a few camp fires around your perimeter. Boars, Greylings, Greydwarfs and Necks fear fire and will flee from it.

When you are ready to take on the greaydwarf swarm use an atgeir. It has cleave and doesn't have the damage penalty for attacking multiple targets. Use the special attack and take a few steps backwards to recover stamina and repeat until all the greydwarves are gone.

Survival games of this genre tend to be extremely frustrating without proper preparation before long distance exploration. eg: One does not board a sailing vessel with a distant shore in mind without having at least 1 frost resistant piece of armor. A Troll Cave pre-entrance area can quickly be walled off with a door installed and has more than enough room to accommodate a portal. Sailing close enough to shore to fall within detection range, and not landing on a secluded meadow shoreline, can make one's Valheim experience more difficult than the developers intended. Avoid landing at night, and avoid landing in Black Forest, Swamp and Plains biomes. Do not blame the game developers for choices that do not include any common sense. The solo aspect of Valheim is not only playable, it is extremely enjoyable. Simply look on the large map after or while sailing around a land mass for meadows (the light green areas without trees). Slowly approach the shoreline and look for sandy shallows that are enemy free (they are always there if one takes a modium of time and effort). Often one will not only find an area with few or no enemies, but there are also shoreline meadow areas with abandoned villages, which offer 1 - 5 buildings requiring minimal repair, in which to place a portal, bed & spawn point, as well as being perfect for building a headquarters. I almost always chose these, as they involve little or no hassle, few resources, and minimal time and effort. I found one of these a couple of days ago, and the only enemies that spawn are a few necks along the shoreline and a few boars around a boar rune. I have no defensive walls, and after taking the time to tame the boars while I was repairing the structures, the area currently does not spawn any aggressive enemies. In meadows like this with a shoreline, to prevent damage to one's sailing vessel, either moor it slightly out to sea then swim to shore, or destroy your craft after landing. I have dozens of such bases on my solo seed map, and even have one that borders the plains (allowing me to plant barley & flax on a perfectly flat garden plot that used to be occupied by a large barn type building), borders the black forest, and has a swamp less than 2 minutes run time away. Every 2-4 days there is a single Greydwarf that wanders in while I am planting crops. I always hear it coming and 90% of the time kill it before it detects my presence. I have had this base for over 4 months, and it have never had a building or structure suffer damage from creatures.



Effective stamina management is not difficult. Run, sprint, run, sprint, (never constantly sprint) with either no weapons equipped or a light weapon like a knife or sword and no shield (while running). I have consumed 2 stamina & 1 health foods since day 1 in my Valheim experience and have never had a problem managing stamina. I also learned early on how to block/parry, which is a quintessential ability for survival. Parrying an enemy stunlocks them 100% of the time, lowering their defences and making them so vulnerable it only takes 1 or 2 blows to kill them, minimizing stamina drain in battle.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

I think you are just doing it wrong. I've only played a month now and have only played solo. I can take on huge packs of grey dwarfs extremely easily. They all die in one or two hits with a club or bronze sword for me. Can put an entire group of 10 in front of me and just swing away until they die without even having to dodge.

You need to gear up and upgrade the gear you make. I'm still rolling the troll armor myself. Also, you shouldn't have trouble making bases. Do it in the meadows where there aren't any enemies, or very few. Go to the other zones, like black forest, to gather the resources and head back to your base outside of it. You can even build bases all over as meadows will pop up all over in those black forests.

Originally posted by Complaintdesk:

... not landing on a secluded meadow shoreline, can make one's Valheim experience more difficult than the developers intended. Avoid landing at night, and avoid landing in Black Forest, Swamp and Plains biomes. Do not blame the game developers for choices that do not include any common sense. ...

Most of the time that's impossible, so I think you're wrong about what the devs intended.

It's already fine solo just requires a bit more patience and planning.

Well, Queen spawns need a nerf solo but other than that no complaints.

Originally posted by ReZero_Eclipse:

Sail to a new spot and are constantly bombarded by large groups of greydwarves so often you can't even establish anything without having to spend 10 minutes running around fighting and regening stamina to have 3 minutes to build and gather resources before having to repeat with a new group but with 4 dwarves, a 1 star shaman and a brute.

Well - just go and find the spawner and dispose of it? Cos that definitely sounds like there's a Greydwarf spawner somewhere nearby.

I've yet to have many issues solo, especially with greydwarfs. If you try to establish an outpost in the forest at night or near a spawner then yeah, they'll swarm you. But during the day you can just wipe them out and you'll be fine.

Originally posted by ReZero_Eclipse:

Stamina recovery would need to be at least triples since the stamina system acts like you have friends drawing aggro and health regen similar for the same reason.

Sail to a new spot and are constantly bombarded by large groups of greydwarves so often you can't even establish anything without having to spend 10 minutes running around fighting and regening stamina to have 3 minutes to build and gather resources before having to repeat with a new group but with 4 dwarves, a 1 star shaman and a brute.

Hopefully when they add difficulty settings they add options for pretty much everything, Metals through portals, stamina and health settings, skill gain/loss, material gain, inventory limit, etc.
For me personally, i don't find solo hard, just tedious. All these restrictions and limits may make sense in coop, but in solo it is just a slog. I dealt with the games systems in my first playthrough, back when the game first released, but i couldn't deal with it the second time through.
I modded the game afterwards to reduce stamina usage, increase skill gain/ decrease skill loss, add backpacks, improve inventory management, make mass farming easier and a mod to allow metals through portals. In the end I enjoyed the experience so much more, even if i still spent a crap ton of time running back and forth.

It can be solo'd quite easily, it's just not necessarily easy to do for a beginner who doesn't know the game mechanics or creature habits.

Land during day, start flattening ground to put a portal down, angry troll with super hearing comes running because i touched his precious soil, no spawners but greydwarves come from every direction, agro a bunch more running away (to preserve boat). Fortunately some of the hoarde got distracted by skeletons and non-player wooden doors. By the time I could get back and chuck down a portal it was already night time.

But, that's the game. You don't get to just only attack mobs when you feel like it. Wait until you're trying to stealth recon your first swamp and non-stop greydwarf spawns keep agroing every zombie in 50m. I know there's no spawner there either, in fact except for the copper deposit it's almost a straight swamp/mountains transition.

game is not bad solo. Carts, boats, and maybe body recovery are a bit harder, but you don't have to find 5x the stuff to feed and gear up your buddies either. Pros&cons to both.

I play solo and have a blast.

Just make sure you have a very good portal network and backup gear.

Build up your skills, and always stay rested. Avoid doing anything at night until you get frost resistance gear.

Enemies gain scaled health increase (and maybe some other parameters, dunno) in multiplayer, so the single player experience is already the baseline.

You can allways get addons. Valheim plus is a great one you can custom the game alot to your preference so the game is more fun for you.