Originally posted by Kursor1:

Was there an upgrade before playing with trolls or burial-chamber skeleton hordes in black forest? Abominations or oozers etc in the swamp? Wolves or golems in the mountains? Fulings and berserkers in the plains? No, no there was not. Mistlands progression is fine, in terms of critters.

You could theoretically craft yourself full bronze and spear before encountering a single troll, but it seems unlikely. And there's virtually no avoiding the other encounters. Engagement? Perhaps. But at least you'll be aware of powerful non-boss foes in various biomes.

Compare abomination with fuling berserkers. Then look at seeker soldiers. Then look at the lox, and again at the abomination. Remember the stone golem. There's two biomes between abomination and seeker soldiers.

The one big difference between trolls, abominations, stone golems and lox and the seeker soldiers is soldiers being present in dungeons which are essential to progression. But you cannot really say you couldn't have seen them coming.

And then again, I guess the actual big bad of mistlands is gjall, not soldiers.