Actually, I think it is easier to do Dragon Tower early than it is to do the Labyrinth of Lost Souls without first doing Dragon Tower. Also, early Dragon Tower is more fun because offensive spells are actually quite useful there, where as the LoLS (what a curious acronym here!) has magic resistant enemies that are rather hard to hit at reasonable levels, which is not fun. (Also, the LoLS drags on, whereas the Dragon Tower quest involves dangerous overworld enemies and *two* separate dungeons, one with its own cloud area.)

After Dragon Tower, you likely have a high level party (level 50, even more if you use permanent level boosts after reaching level 50), and you have access to the fountain that adds +50 temporary levels. As you can see, that makes physical attacks *far* more effective and trivializes the dungeon.

(Of note: While writing this post, at one point it said "reasonable enemies" instead of "reasonable levels".)

Fair enough. I get what you're saying. I guess the phrase "hurting the game" is what got me going. I wouldn't want to call a game design lacking because it doesn't cater to a challenge I create for myself. I'm just really practical, so I would go bananas spending hours seeking out something that's only provides +1% more productivity.

Well, if the Learning skill only gives +1% more productivity, and it's really annoying to pursue, then why include it in the game at all?

I haven't played Lords of Xulima yet so I can't comment myself. But if I were to try and defend a skill like Learning, it would need to be actually useful. Like I said before, a "give and take", where it does make a difference later but it makes the early sections harder, or something like that.

dtgreene said "Focusing on endgame stats, hence, leads to gameplay that is definitely not fun", but maybe that's what the developers wanted. To discourage players from simply focusing on endgame stats, and encourage them to choose skills they actually need in the moment, even if those skills will be less useful later in the game. I'm not sure if a Learning skill is the best way to accomplish this, but it might have been part of the thinking.

The herb-related skill that dtgreene mentioned is probably a better example. I could easily see a thought process like this: some players can focus on herb skill, and they will have better herbs and potions but will be lacking on other useful skills. Alternatively, characters could learn other useful skills, with the downside of having fewer and less useful herbs available throughout the game. Again, I don't know if this is how it actually works out in the game, but a design like that could make sense.

A Learning skill is harder to justify; it's basically a trade-off of "fewer skills now but more skills later", although this depends on how the actual leveling system in the game works. But the problem is that it's hard for players to determine how useful it will be later in the game. So they're going in "blind", so to speak.