I think the start of the game narrative, story and gameplay would benefit from making the prison in Fort Joy a harsher place.

Since the players actually dont spend much time there and can easily get out in many ways i dont think anyone need to be especially bothered by this. Prison being a harsher place would force players to try and escape sooner instead of gaming the system - and then return later when they are stronger.


To achieve this we need several different changes but the most important one is:


1. Removing and reducing trading items inside the prison.

All fancy equipment and spell books should be removed from all traders. Instead the crafting should be made more important and so ingredients available should be more numerous and relatively cheap.

The better weapons, equipment and spell books should be gained only through quests and from dead enemies.
There is enough small sidequests during this prologue to put enough equipment and skill/spell books onto enemies and so get them as loot.

Examples:
Kill voidvoken on the beach, loot dead magister. Find armor and weapon or two.
Kill crocs, kill turtles. Loot.
Kill the poison frogs - find equipment, weapon or two.
Help the elf with the thugs, get scoundrel skill book.
Help thugs, get warfare skill book.
Win the card game wih other thugs - get a piece of armor or boots.
Win with the sparkler card - get a slightly better reward.
Kill them all - loot all!
Save Stingtail, get a pyro skill book as reward.
Kill assassin - get a good knife, scoundrel skill book.
Kill Stingtail - loot the skillbook from his dead body - and get a weapon from Griff.
Save that elf from the cage - get hydro spell book.
Saheila gives you some good crafting recipes.
Withermore gives you a necromancy book too.
Guardians of his Jar also drop skill books.

Get into, sneak into or fall into the dungeon of the prison. Loot.
Kill silent Monks - loot equipment and weapons.
Sneak into judge Orivand chambers. Loot!

etc, etc, etc.

This will also increase importance of Zeleskar as a trader and traders in Seekers camp.
Zeleskar needs to be moved somewhere else rather then right in front of the fort Joy - because he is Undead!
(he needs to be given the lone wolf talent)

A good position would be just infront of the burning pigs - do him a favor and stop the squeeling - get a reward and directions to the seekers camp.
Or close to the ruins where numerous voidwoken appear.



2. Teleportation needs to be seriously nerfed

Because its ridiculous.

First, the magic armor should block it.
Second, it should cost a lot of APs to cast and require high Aerothurge skill. Now it requires two Aero but it should be three or four.

Gavin gloves quest should end so he escapes with the gloves - which you can later find on his dead body in the harbor.

Gloves should be nerfed so they have only a limited number of uses. Enough to get to those few high places with loot around the beach and to get him across.

Getting him across should give you a lot of xp, as it does now, maybe a bit more, but if you choose to kill him or not teleport him away you simply dont get that xp.
In exchange you would then have a few more uses of teleportation on the gloves.



3. All magister need to be buffed to higher levels

This needs to be done so you cannot just kill the whole Fort right at the start of the game. They all should be around level 7. As those guarding Alexander are.

This would in turn provide a possibility for a more satisfying ending of this first act. Because you would need to return to the prison later on, possibly at the very end of the first act and then kill all the magisters. We would then need some dialogue options with the other prisoners to let them know magisters are gone and what exactly they have been doing.

Since you would need to clear most of the island by then some could decide to run to the Seekers camp and try to live there, some could come with you onto Vengeance, some could decide to stay and keep the collars, being afraid of their own powers and voidwoken those bring.

A decent closure of the first act - instead of current void.



All of this would also make the game harder - without any stupid bloat. So this could be a good addition to some proper community Harder mod.

It would also increase importance of crafting and sneaking and stealing - which is as it should be in a godamn prison.

This would need the crafting mod to make it all much better:
http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=618073#Post618073