I'm by no means ready to quit the game, it's just given how slow combat is (even with the animation speed up tool), I get a little frustrated.

Anyway, I made some pretty big improvement today. I think that's kind of what I have to do with this game; make small incremental improvements until I get on solid ground. I broke down and read a FAQ some to get some idea on what I'm supposed to be doing. Cleared out the Arnika Bank which got me some decent stuff. And I was going to go back to the Monastery to pick up the Fellowship Pass (I guess I missed it somehow, maybe I didn't back track enough once I broke the glass) but I kept running into these one monsters called Apuses (Had to look that up just now), and they kept eating my lunch. I couldn't hit them, they had extended reach so they kept taking out my mages, and just in general bad news bears.

So I kinda wandered for awhile until I found my way to Trynton or whatever. I've been working through that, as for a "town" there sure are a lot of really mean creatures out to hurt me. I had one hilarious team wipe, I was trying to squeeze by some of the patrols to get at a large group of flies and a crawler. And of course my AI allies put themselves in horrible spots. So I'm slowly pushing past him for like thirty seconds to a minute, before I finally popped past him....and then zoomed off the walkway, falling all the way from Upper Trynton to the ground.

I'm actually toying with the idea of rerolling a new team. Really, I'm not terribly far into the game (taking out all the wandering), and I'm getting really tired of my melee characters not hitting anything, ever. Either your party is just predisposed to suck at melee, or they're dex is just way too low. It's pretty frustrating to be facing an enemy that hits me 1-4 times per round, and all my characters whiff.

The melee party is a common problem because melee works so well at the start it is very tempting to build your party around it but as you can see, some buggars are very hard to hit… have one or two melee to hold the line whilst your early Mage *'magic missile' them for damage. Having your party under the various buffs whist their enemy struggles with de-buffs and they die without a stress.

To be very clear, the melee specialist still has their place and its an un-wise party that has no melee or only relies on magic… IMO themed parties can add challenge to your third or later play through but start with the basics until you understand the game a little better.

*Psionic or Bard = 'shrill sound' or 'insanity'/ 'pandemonium' & Alchemist or Gadgetteer ( 'hypnotic lure') = 'noxious fumes'.

Generally, once you've visited Arnika, there are three main paths you can take:

Join up with the Umpani.
Join up with the T'rang.
Follow up on Marten.

You can combine those to varying degrees, and it's quite possible to just wander around and explore for a while and deal with other things as you come across them. If you end up in an area that's too difficult for you, you'll learn that very quickly, and there are usually 'gatekeeper' creatures near zone transitions - if you have trouble with those, it's a good sign that you don't want to continue in that direction right now.

I wouldn't worry too much about the party's class composition - the main thing is to try to make sure that everyone has some way to fight at range, whether it's via weapons or spells.


As for NPCs leaving the group: generally, this only happens when you're about to enter an area that the NPC doesn't want to go, and they'll tell you that they don't want to go there and give you a chance to turn back before leaving, so you're unlikely to be ambushed by a sudden departure. There are a couple of NPCs who will leave when their quest chain is done (but this is pretty clear from the moment you get them), but otherwise sudden departures are only likely if you're attacking their friends (which can cause them to grow angry and turn against you) - but it shouldn't come as any surprise that (for example) the trynnie NPCs will turn against you if you start murdering your way through Trynton.

The problem is that after alt-tabbing, the game doesn't realize you released the alt key and thinks you're still pressing it. So if you hit, say, "w", it thinks you're pressing alt+w, which won't do anything. To fix this simply press "alt" again, which will make the game register the release of the key.

Talk to people, especially He'Li in her Bar and ask for rumors. She always has some new infos and leads to point you in some direction (exept the very first time, but then again, she points out to come back often). Once you reach Trynton and spoke to the Shaman the Main Quest will also kick off for good

One general Tip: Speak with everyone about everything. You'll find quite some leads here and there. Also, check your Journal, it notes all quest-related things. Miles has 3 Quests for you, they are pretty useful to get
1. Vi Domina
2. Some quite useful Equipements early in the Game
3. Win some money

Also always search the whole areas. You can find some usefull stuff lying around here and there if you bother sniffing around