I've made it past the first part, and after that I got the "West Valley" and "Lovis' Tower" shrines quickly (for enchanting and for good "waiting around to heal" music respectively)
I love the minor adjustment with the velocity of projectiles. They still seem really fast, but now they can now be dodged. The trick is that if you're using ranged weapons or spells, you can still get hit, so you need to time your attacks more carefully.
I'm sure that the experience rewards from quests are bigger than before. That's why I'm gaining levels faster. However, something odd seems to be happening with quest rewards. I see things like Potatoes and clutter items like Knives show up as a chooseable quest reward. I guess that's part of a system that generates random items that can be quest rewards. That should probably be restricted to things like formulae and equipment, because food and clutter items shouldn't be part of a quest rewards table.
Equipment has been MUCH better, I've already found pieces of 3 new low-level sets, and I've found much higher quality equipment from enemies. I even found a Legendary-quality bow at level 1. It wasn't a whole lot better that what I was using, but it's the principal of the thing. The thrill of seeking loot is back. Because of the new set items, I've been putting points into Lockpicking much earlier, I used to hold off before.
I'm wondering if they tweaked magic damage or enemy health, because I don't remember Rank 2 Magic Missile being so incredibly effective so early, it kills level 4 skeletons in one hit.
I've had to use a lot fewer health and mana potions, I'm mostly only using those for really desperate times.
