While the game in general is pretty good, the scenery gorgeous and the writing top-notch, I have found that the ridiculous stat increase between level is really ruining my game.
It's not only looking dumb (start with numbers like 50-90, by the second island it's already in the several hundreds or thousands, then it jumps to tens of thousands, like, wtf ?) but it causes real problems both in mechanics, immersion and pacing.
The extreme power increase means that everything is obsolete within one or two levels. It means churning items like there is no tomorrow, pushing players to buy constantly new gear at the traders (am I an adventurer or a peddler ?). It makes gear forgettable as hell, kills any motivation to put time and effort into getting it (why bother, it'll be worth nothing in a couple of hours or so), makes crafting feels either pointless or a chore, and remove any worth or impact a special piece of gear could have ("hey, the super-duper artifact from the mythical... oh, a grey item two levels higher, let's trash that legendary junk !").
It also means that there is a strong push toward railroading, which goes against the whole rest of the design of the game, because if you dare to not follow the supposed path, then you ends up being one or two levels below the foes, which means something like 50 % stat less (so a pretty severe penalty). Conversely, if you managed to get a level or two ahead of the mob, suddendly you get overpowered.
Finally, the wild swing in difficulty means that half the people find the game exceedingly hard, the other half claim it's just too easy and you vaporize everything. When you can quadruple your damage just by gaining two levels and getting a new sword, it's bound to happen.
The worst is, this stat bloat adds NOTHING to the game. It's just completely pointless, it just adds tons of useless zero to numbers. It's 100 % downsides.
I seriously don't understand what went through the designer's head, but really, can you fix this by reducing A LOT the power gap between each level and the itemisation budget ? It would MASSIVELY improve balance, immersion and open up the world...
Can't agree more with u.
I hate to be pushed updating my gear....stupid
