I stumbled across Pillars only a few days before it's release and I was so excited! I supremely enjoyed BG 1 and 2 though I never got into Icewind Dale as much because I felt it lacked the same depth of story. Anyway, I leapt at the chance to play Pillars and I was especially elated that many of the reviews talked about not being limited to traditional character classes and it not necessarily requiring min/maxing . . .
So I start (and I won't give spoilers, though all this is early game stuff) and I was so excited that I could play rather organically rather than "meta-gaming" the game. After the first major cutscene / event I was fatigued and so headed straight for the first town available. While gathering information I stumbled over a couple of quests that I felt I could take while maintaining the "hey, i've gotta figure out whats going on here" idea . . . so I did them. So it's not like I'm just straightlining the main quest. But I'm also not going out of my way to 100% explore the few maps I've been in.
But then I get my information, head to the next major plotpoint, pick up a couple interesting characters along the way (so I have 4 in total plus a lion) and I find myself in the courtyard of my destination getting party wiped over and over. Now, I'm on the standard difficulty and I'm used to playing BG on standard difficulty and never did I have this much trouble so early in either of those games. I've played for like 2 hours of actual gameplay (not counting a lot of reading, ha!) and I'm kind of flumoxed. Granted, I might just be horrible at this game and granted again, I don't have much experience with the new characters I've picked up. My PC is a ranger with a lion that I made a "well rounded" character, but with an emphasis on dexterity and might.
So am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Is this a game that requires min / maxing regardless of what others say? Do I need to explore each map fully to grind XP before going to the next? I believe my 4 characters are all level 3 as I get party wiped . . . Also, I was really hoping to avoid the "just dump all your points into one attribute / skill at every opportunity" method of play.
Can anyone offer constructive (emphasis on "constructive") criticism, advice or insight? I thank you greatly if you can and do!