IK, there are a lot of posts about game difficulty but here i would like address core feature or in my current experience problem with the game.
Mb i am doing something wrong, but currently i have an expression that game, despite trying to give you impression that you are free, in fact keeps you on a very short leash. In particular, you are intentended to cicle through biomes in strict order (meadows - forest-swamp etc) and keep following order: carefull exploration of a biome to acquire gear small upgrades and establish a foothold + some basic knowledge about locals. Second, farm gear, third miniboses and then local boss.
This idea is fine to keep procedural world in order (tho many survival games dont follow that approach e.g. Dont starve), but main problem implementation. No matter how well upgraded you gear is - trying to deviate from this order will result in death. And as follows, having to rebuilt (and having to rebuilt ship alone if you play solo is already by itself a huge pain in the ass) just to get your gear back, you dont get anything on top of that, which is massive waste.
So, as i said, all it goes mostly from my personal experience and some threads i have read. So, examples, having top bronze gear (e.g. forest biome level done) did literally nothing to help me survive the swamp, after some grinding mobs on a shore i just got overwhelmed because i just dont do enogh damage to keep fighting and exploring (and we are not discussing poison). Then i decided to go and explore a bit, so i got myself into plains, where... i got 100hp to 0 by a goblin or whatever it was with a thrown spear out of fog.
And those are only today. So, i cant help myself but notice how strong ludonarrative dissonance (by encouraging exploration on paper but instakilling you when you actually do that) is growing while i am plaing this game, strangly enough since actual forest doesnt follow this pattern, where you are allowed to explore even being under equiped, but during the day, or mountains where you are softly discouraged with frost damage. It is even worse cause in my to cases i wasnt able to even disengage (trying to hop a boat in swamp would just get me killed and in plains i was one shot (by a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stone spear from some skinny(!) creature) cause just numbers.
My problem is that i actually expected the game to keep on having same attitude as mountains or forest and provide more pressure from biome-specific mechanic rather than just pushing you out with damage numbers alone. And second, more mechanic - how hard it is do dissengage (most of my death came from trying to hop a boat or run away)
So what are you thoughts? I am pretty sure everyone here got molded more than once by the game just because you wondered somewhere it didnt expect you.