Multiplayer definately makes fighting easier when enemies are focused on other player(s) and then you can just beat them up from behind.

swamp is wet.

multiplayer is exponential easier as solo.
swamp is still wet.

Don't go into the Swamp at night until you are geared out in iron equipment. Even then, it's really not worth it unless you really need some chains from wraiths.

Make tiny Swamp portal houses up in the indestructible trees with ladders leading up (but not touching the ground...should have to jump to the ladder) or at least on top of sunken crypts. Sleep through the night and then walk through the portal to closest to where you need to adventure, gather, or explore next.

Use the hoe in the Swamp...a lot. Level out paths so you don't have to run through leech-infested waters. Make paths wherever you go. Seriously...use the hoe.

Make sure you destroy draugr spawners (body piles) on the ground if you see them. And don't try to block arrows from a 2-star draugr. Sidestep them or dodge roll until you get to them or have an archery battle using a tree to hide behind, only firing after you've tricked them to loose their arrow at the wrong side of your tree.

Turnip seeds + cauldron upgrade. WIld turnips are kinda rare but very important, in my games I make a point to find them before even starting crypts. Read up on how stagger works, not getting staggered is very important.

Banded shield to max so you can parry abominations

Iron armor is actually kinda crap. Root is way better - it doesn't slow you down nearly as much and it has pierce and poison resist on it. Pierce resistance makes it quite strong against draugr archers and the odd deathsquito which are the most threatening enemies in the swamp by a huge margin.

Originally posted by Tarrok:

I wonder how/will that also change my chances with wraiths in particular. While I don't rly go out at night, staying home smelting or cooking instead, they got me more than once howering over the wall for supprise attack. Fight was very one sided, either my block or my shield were too weak and even what looked like a succesful parry caused me a massive damage and knocked me off balance.

They deal 60 slash damage per hit and have resistance to all physical damage. Recommend avoid engaging them until you have the iron buckler with which you should be able to parry them without problems, but you still need to pump up your health and stagger gauge.

Wraiths are hard to stagger with physical damage (you'd need a weapon with over 100 physical damage) so you should always go for the parry and then attack. If you have spare fire arrows, they might do an okay job weakening them at a distance. They become much easier to dispatch when you get silver weapons or better.

Kind thx for so many tips, I'll put them into use on my next swamp mission as while I'm beat I'm definitely not broken yet.
Just finished clearing last of the 3 crypts present on closest patch of swamp, sailed iron back home will forge it tomorrow. Should be enough for at least a weapon and shield, which once I discover another swamp with more crypts, hopefully will let me take care of body piles much faster. Preferably before they spam me with elites again or it's gonna be hard test for the iron buckler.
I wonder how/will that also change my chances with wraiths in particular. While I don't rly go out at night, staying home smelting or cooking instead, they got me more than once howering over the wall for supprise attack. Fight was very one sided, either my block or my shield were too weak and even what looked like a succesful parry caused me a massive damage and knocked me off balance.

Nice!
Iron blucker is good for parry but otherwise its not gonna be big improvement over bronze. You could consider the Banded shield, that should definitely tip the favor, and is as good as bronze at parry.

Also for blocking, and especially parrying, amount of MAX health matters, so eat well to not get staggered.

good luck!

Wraiths appear at night in the swamp. The game is harder at night so keep your adventures in the day if you're having difficulties. Parries + crits will speed up draugr encounters, just be mindful of your rested buff. Consider swapping bronze chest or legs for upgraded troll hide to free your movement speed up. And geysers are little respite spots, idk how many foes (especially abominations) I've burned to death just by kiting lol. GL :D

As post above noted, wraiths mostly come out at night. Never be in the swamps at night. You should have enough cores, eyes and fine wood at this point to make a portal home. You can also camp out at the doorway of a close burial chamber at the edge of the swamp. Those work great as portal hub until you can find a building in the swamp to take over or build up in one of the indestructible trees. Use the hoe to make paths all over the swamp so you can keep out of the water but can shoot the leeches. Don't get in the water with them at this point. Carry both health and stamina meads - and of course poison one should be "up" at all times in the beginning. And read the other threads recently posted. Lots of good stuff in them.
Travel safe.

Multiplayer is nice. I have only played duo with my friend, but we enjoy it each time

There is scaling, if you and the other player are actually close(ish) together, though my understanding is that it's still easier with others than by yourself. I've only played solo myself though, so just answering based on what I've read.

I started playing about a week ago, and have just gotten to the swamp biome myself as of a day and half ago, and all I can tell you, is it gets easier. Yesterday evening I upgraded to an iron buckler and iron mace with what Iron I've gathered so far and the swamp this morning is SO MUCH easier, with just those two upgrades.

Also, regarding your spawn rate thing, are you staying close to the edge of swamps? There's a 'thing' in the game related to being on biome borders where you get more spawns because of 'border guards', basically.
When I first ventured to the swamps I was too nervous to go farther in and noticed the same thing about constant spawns....it's actually easier if you go deeper in. Despite that seeming counter-intuitive.
The sunken crypts also can't appear at the biome edge, so that's another reason to go deeper in.

Enemies will have more HP during multiplayer, that's about it AFAIK. In my experience the game is balanced for solo play, but fighting together opens up more interesting strategies especially at bosses. The Forsaken powers are also shared to nearby players when activated, so with that feature in mind, co-op is one cornerstone of Valheim's design and I wouldn't recommend missing it if it's up to you.

The way I see it, there's virtually no game where bringing more people to enjoy it together can be a bad thing, even if it is a single player game.

There are several fresh threads about swamp, use the search feature to find them. The game will keep getting more difficult and somewhat more complex as you progress through biomes. Walk softly.

Playing with others is fun. It's nice to have others around to help with the grunt work, gathering resources, building your base, fighting beside you 'n' whatnot.

Enemies do scale with the number of players nearby, but having another person around can help as they get in hits while you block/flee. It also only matters if others are nearby, so you can still adventure by yourself and not worry about scaling while other players are doing their own things.

The swamp is a filter. It filters out the real vikings from from the milk drinkers. You've got to manage your stamina better, go in as prepared as possible, and properly prioritize threats. As with all new biomes, it's toughest when you first arrive, and all of it gets much easier as your gear and meals improve.

And if you're really struggling, there's always mods. You paid money for the game; you should be able to enjoy it. Tweaking things in various ways so that you can enjoy the game is a potential route you can take.

Multiplay is its own set of fun, it plays quite differently. Regardless of difficulty i'd recomend it just for interactions with others, enjoing stuff others crated together and all that fluff.

Combat gets a little easier, but if the other guy is similar skill it wont make that big of a difference as things scale a bit and more chaos in fights can be double edged sword.


Valhaim has quite a bit of RNG in difficulty due from randomy generated world. If one place is too hard look for somewhere safer. Swamp can at times be at times eerily silent and calm for whole day too, its not all combat there. But combat = noise and that attracts stuff from long way around.

Initially dont venture out at night, more bad things spawn.
Always keep rested buff on, plan on making stops before it expires.
Making a base on a different biome and approaching by land is often the best way of learning swamps, ship landing are advanced stuff.

And lastly, you die you learn. The more you die the more you know, so dont give up.
For draugs/wraiths/skeles shield parry is king. Just have to be patient.


...
ps: 60 to 20 bow skill is at least 21 deaths, thats a lot considering there is a "no skill drain" buff given to you on every death. Utilize it, as well as using the "corpse run buff", you dont need to be tip top to recover a body as long as you can pick yourself up in one swing - you have massive buff that should get you out of danger, just need to be prepared to use it.

Also bow is fun but its slow to kill at low levels, better to learn fighting melee before things start swarming around. I pretty much ditched the bow entirely from my arsenal for example.

the extra HP appear to be more than offset by flanking & such. Most people say group makes it easier.