Struggling Early Game

[RockstarCRO]

Trying to figure out if I'm supposed to have a companion by the time I get to Skadi or its just normal to die a 1000 times and start from your first home every time you try to run to him.

Honestly feel like I'm missing something because the difficulty level is insane. If I see a bigger bug, I'm generally dead. Bull Ants are driving me nuts! I'm level 4 for reference.

[verrath]

I died a lot too. I put the damage and health sliders of the enemies to 70% in the World settings. Still die a lot because I'm horrible at combat, but it's better :D

[Drudackus]

It is certainly possible to incubate companions before doing Skadi's quest. But you will want them to be pretty tough if you want them to survive that fight, Green Beetle at the least.
Some tips that may help:
1) build the Apothecary Table and craft a stack of Healing Potions for rapid healing, before commencing this fight.
2) Make sure you're wearing at least Stone Armor, or better, before starting the fight, (recipe is available from Kalev)
3) Practice Dodging (default 'E') as a way to avoid the Rhino Beatle's attack, because parrying its attacks is really difficult
4) Craft a Stone Hammer, and upgrade it, for maximum damage at that stage of the game.

More generally, learning the correct timing for parrying enemy attacks can greatly increase your survival in the ordinary fights. I highly recommend practising this skill. It is much easier to parry attacks from 1 bug than parrying 2 or more, so if a bug comes after you, run away, or move toward them and fight them directly so you're fighting a single enemy. Backing away will likely cause you to stumble into one or more other bugs so you're outnumbered and parrying is MUCH less effective.

[william_es]

Parrying and dodge rolling use up way too much stamina. It's possible to just maneuver your character around using the normal movement keys, and to be out of range when enemies counterattack.

You need to learn to recognize the windups for their attacks, the range of those attacks, and then you can learn how to simply back up so that you're never hit. If you have to turn and run for a half second, you will still use up way less stamina then parrying/dodge rolling.

It's also possible to simply backwards slowly from most enemies, while your stamina regenerates slowly. They'll keep moving forward to attack you, while you slowly walk backwards. When you have enough stamina, then you attack.

Repeated attacks create chained combos, and these combos can do more damage. Attacks can also stagger enemies, where they react to being hit by you and then take a split second to recover before they can attack again. If you attack continuously you can staggerlock enemies.

Because of this, your stamina is literally the single most important combat stat. When your stamina is high enough you can wipe out enemies before they even get a chance to hit back.

[Drudackus]

I've tried a number fresh starts in the new Public Beta and have done Skadi's quest in each start. As a result I have some more ideas to offer:

The Rhino Beetle's most damaging attack is his charge, whereas it's 'ground pound' does much less damage, so my most successful fights against this boss have been when I do my best to keep in close to its side so it is forced to keep spinning. Health potions are still more-or-less essential, but you get more successful attacks while suffering less damage when attacking from this position.

As I previously suggested, parrying the Rhino Beetle is very difficult, but for most enemies I find a well-timed parry seems to restore some stamina, or at least not cost any. Poorly timed blocks are very costly on stamina.

As recommended by William_es, the staggering effect as is definitely achievable, but in my experience, requires a weapon that allows rapid attacks. The spear used against wasps is a great example, allowing up to 5 attacks in a row, after a riposte (successful block). Similarly, I can get in 5 attacks with a sword against a gecko after a successful riposte. In any case, the higher your stamina, the more attacks you can do in series. I don't think this is viable with the hammer, whether against the Rhino Beetle, or other enemies.