I spend six hours doing some boring detective work and I can't progress because everything is too vague.
I can't even engage in combat because enemies outside the town are too strong for me.
I can't even make a decent progress without using a guide, so there's no point in me playing at all
I can't even refund this
What's the appeal of this?
This game is made for people who already understand the combat (it's based on D&D's 5e rules). It offers story mode for those who don't.
The appeal is difficult to narrow down. The game can't really decide if it's an exploration or story driven adventure in early Act 1. It will become clearer in Act 2 and more lose ended once again in Act 3. BG3 doesn't know what it wants to be. I can't answer that question for you. This is the main flaw of the game.
If (spoiler) urged you to explore to become stronger early on, it would at least it would make sense. I mean, everyone in your party lost their levels after being tadpoled, it would be *reasonable*. But, no. You have to roleplay everything yourself with little help from the game. I don't think this is an easy hurdle for people not used to D&D levels of roleplay.
If you still want to try, attempt this route (on story mode): Blighted Village
Blighted village well (boss and minions)
"Investigate Kagha" quest if you're up for searching the western edge of the swamp. Guide for the tree location helps. Use fire damage on the tree monsters and bring some ranged characters for the mud imps. They explode.
Goblin fortress (rescue Halsin).
Underdark (accessible through goblin fortress). There's the boots of speed and some other good items in a mushroom colony.
> Anything else. You should be level 4, bordering on 5. Do NOT do Lae'Zels quest until you're all but done with exploring. The enemies are rather difficult. Do also not challenge Ethel (swamp witch) until level 5 optimally. It's very doable at level 4 with magic missile used on her illusory copies, but only if you trust yourself to understand the game mechanics a little by now.
I recommend doing Lae'Zel's quest eventually as the mountain pass has awesome loot. You'll need to look up who sells it, though, as it will NOT be obvious. For pickpocketing reasons: light items are easy to steal, as is roughly 500 gold. Up to 999 gold is harder. More is an annoyance without a specialised thief character. Killing the seller will result in 3 random items being dropped while the rest is lost.
