Agreed with everything stated, from the meaning of power to balancing turn-based RPG difficulty.
Normal difficulty is what most players will pick if they get the opportunity to choose. Normal setting should be the closest to what the overall game experience should be. I do not have much love for games that are designed to be played directly in hard (or harder) difficulty modes to offer decent challenge and a complete game experience. Harder modes are not the answer. Taking the time to make a proper, balanced and challenging yet accessible normal mode is, in my opinion, the way to go.
I'd also like to add that the alpha builds pits us against few different types of enemies (undead and cultists for the most part), most of them warrior or archer archetypes which do not use dangerous spells. We might stumble upon interesting enemies later on, some that will turn against us the very skills and spells we use right now. Having half the group stuck in an electrified puddle or turned into ice statues at the worst possible time might make combat a little bit trickier than what we get to see right now in a level 5 zone with so few powerful spell casters.
I always find it difficult to estimate the difficulty of a game based on the first hours of play. Games tend to become harder as we advance, generally.
