I am surprised at many of the comments and vitriol in this thread. I enjoy playing a challenging game in any of my RPGs and have been doing so for decades, however, to say that a game is unplayable, crap, and many other over the top adjectives is just hyperbole and really reads like whining.
If you would like a harder game and challenge that's great, but don't force it on others or say the game is broken because you are not having your perceived ideal experience.
Josh Sawyer has been honest and commented that PotD can be improved and I expect them to do so when they get the time to review stats and balance the game further post launch. This game has a challenging option available for players who appreciate that, but this is by no means a masochist delight game only with insane challenge. It is catered to RPG enthusiasts and infinity engine aficionados who enjoyed those games.
As I mentioned above, I agree that having a challenging option is needed and I am looking forward to tweaks. Also, it does seem like scaling can be improved, although I haven't played enough to really have data to support that scaling is broken or not. So far it seems off in my playthrough in certain aspects but not broken. Share data with dev's and your experience in a positive, fair and balanced manner and we maximize our chances to improve the game and have a more reasonable dialogue.
Finally, if you are going to go through the critical path and maybe off a bit and happen to level up fast, you will likely outlevel some fights but definitely not all. For example, it is interesting to me that people say everything is so easy, when right after Port Maje I have been exploring islands in the lower part of the left of the map with PotD/All Scaling at level 5 and there are some encounters that are insane at that level/gear/skills available - i.e. 4 Eotens 1 shooting Eder and my Paladin then murdering the rest of my party, or the Pwgra with 5 other adds, or Leofwyn (can be done with creative pathing and lucky rolls as I did it), or fighting a Galleon... So yeah, want a challenge? Try those early on, otherwise, enjoy the game and story, and if combat is the only thing that truly excites you, then yeah, you might need to wait a bit more until the game is further balanced in PotD. I am looking forward to the balances as combat is a core experience for me in RPGs.
Cheers.
