PoE1 when it launched was also easy, it became more and more challenging as they kept patching it. Deadfire will get the same treatment, they want to fix bugs first before they focus on tuning.
I personally would skip PoE1 . Deadfire made many QoL improvements and its much more fun to play. PoE1 was not a fun game, its incredibly frustrating and difficult. Tyranny was way better, and I definitely see its influence on Deadfire.
In PoE 1 if you changed the difficulty/scaling the change only worked on new areas you haven't been to before. So maybe it works the same? I know for sure the Companion quests for Xoti and Ereder show up as Red 3 Skulls with scaling turned off.
I hit this issue twice in about 6-7 launches. First time both my Monitors went black and my computers was hung. Had to reboot my computer to recover.
Second Time only my Left Monitor went black but I could see the Game Cursor and it would change to a red locked Icon on a certain spot of the game. My guess is the game isn't closing properly when you choose exit to Windows. So it acts up when you launch it again later on.
I don't see anything from Prima on a new guide being made. Its a shame since the last guide was so beautiful. Maybe they will release one with the console version?
It is confusing and am in the same boat. I plan to wait a few weeks till everything is ironed out. I imagine its just a Steam Issue with the Ultimate Edition and the Season Pass will be added once they fix the issue.
Its all fixed now