Do you ever start to feel more powerful?

[Hunter Este]

I'm still very early into the game and every fight feels like a life or death struggle, to the point where I would rather just avoid as much combat as possible.

Is there every a point where you start to become more powerful? Is the difficulty level encountered in the early part of the game, the standard to be expected for the rest of the game?

[Veolfen]

Yes and no : With better armor, weapons & skills, you will one shot ennemies & stuff.
But, except on the early bandits & birds (who will scratch you), mobs will still be kind of dangerous if you don't take care/screw up with your stamina (biggest death sentence in a fighting situation).

So yeah, you become stronger, you really feel it, but the average ennemy will still be a small threat if you go to easy on them, and the most dangerous ennemies will stay very dangerous if you screw up.

[Silent Warrior]

It took me a long time to understand the game mechanics and to become stronger. Since I played it blind I made a few wrong decisions and took some wrong skills.
You need to find ways to buff your damage, with alchemy potions, skills and spells.
Once you find the right combinations, you'll feel the power.
I'm playing a melee. But using a few spells is important to increase the weapons damage.
Also it helps to figure out your enemies weakness.

[Spoon]

Equipment and skills will help at feeling stronger, but I would say learning the game has a bigger impact.

[t0rche]

Short answer: Nothing in the game scares me now.

[Evangelion]

Once you get a hang of the game you'll probably feel too powerful at some point. But it takes time getting there.

(Been there, done that )

It's important to fight enemies early on, just don't overdo it, go for 1v1s first and try to use all you can for your advantage, also learn their attack patterns, what type of damage they do/are weak to and the abilities they use.

For example, human enemies are usually weak to poison (so apply poison rag to your weapon) to make the fight easier. Most of them do basic combos with weapons.

A lot of enemies have weakneses to magic elements, so also use that to your advantage.

Scourge is weak to lightning.

But also for example Ghosts, they're Ethereal and do Ethereal damage while also being extremely weak to it.

You don't have to go wiki them either, often it's very logical (enemy that does fire damage is usually weak to frost etc). A bit of trial and error is all that's required.

Optimizing gear for encounters will also come with time as you learn more which enemy does what type of damage etc. That can make an immense difference in the outcome of the battle.

Also, once you get to feel too powerful, you can look at pinned messages in official discord, a lot of us made all kinds of interesting challenges to follow that make it more.... Well, challenging.

[Midas]

Sort of. You don't get stronger in the sense of stats going up, but as you get more skills, better gear, and more familiar with the game, you'll find it easier and easier. Unless you're running a very basic melee combat build, you probably won't start to feel your strengths adding up until your second zone or so.

[Hunter Este]

Thank you all for the responses, so far I've been approaching it very much like a souls game in terms of combat and anticipated difficulty.

I think I may have ventured into my 2nd zone a bit too quickly though. I made the choice to join the Holy Mission and that swamp zone is pretty rough.

[Veolfen]

Yeah the swamp zone is kind of the toughest region. Care ! You could do some fighting in Enmerkar (blue chamber zone) to train & upgrade your stuff a bit before.

Also : Once you joined holy mission, don't forget to get back to cierzo fast and speak to the chief guard Burac at the entrance ;)

[Hunter Este]

Originally posted by Veolfen:

Yeah the swamp zone is kind of the toughest region. Care ! You could do some fighting in Enmerkar (blue chamber zone) to train & upgrade your stuff a bit before.

Also : Once you joined holy mission, don't forget to get back to cierzo fast and speak to the chief guard Burac at the entrance ;)

Thank you for the tip, I'm at the pre-quest you do before they let you in, I'm going through the Conflux mission.

[Richard Jokes]

Certain skill trees give more HP / Stamina which is unbelievably important if you want more survivability. Learning to use shields is a huge plus as well and keeping constantly mobile (don't get weighed down or use big bags) along with using traps and buffs all come into play against crazy monsters later on down the line.

You don't realize just how important it is to get certain builds for your character with breakthroughs until later on.

For example, you can literally do fights without ever hitting the enemy. No joke. Rogue's breakthrough allows for a trap that is infinitely reusable later on and you can lay down 10 in a row with explosive property or tripwires with spikes / weapons, along with magic explosive runes that will kill anything before you even lift a finger. If you really want to add insult to injury, you just get a bow and shoot them as they run through your traps.