The game isn't terrible.

Per my review, the frustration and brevity of each play session comes from the strong feeling that I was meant to play the "open world" in a forced, specific sequence.

To be fair, I did opt for "Veteran" difficulty, but did so with the impression that fights would be tactically more difficult, not that I would be strangled for energy/mana without any way to modify my characters to compensate.

Everything in the game feels "gated", with items, XP, locations, and even bosses all feeling like arbitrary and artificial barriers to the player. You will only have what you were meant to have when you were meant to have it, so daring raids to snag power items are not a thing.

I can see the intent behind it, but the execution instead feels lazy and dialed-in. The world feels more empty and formulaic, and the options too sparse for both characters and gear (two vital elements in a CRPG).

I have had some fun, but it is a pale shadow of the freedom we've had in previous titles.

Closer to a generic Diablo than a true rpg..Customization is a total joke..The game almost plays itself..

I am playing at veteran too and it seems there is a kind of hard level scaling combatbuffs/debuffs or the fights are bugged.

I entered the Ahriel woods, everything fine but a few steps nord i was attacked by crazed Ahriel one level higher.

The combat info tells me the have zero too 3 physical armor, my heavy slash should do 16-24 but if i hit i do mostly only 2-5 damage while they only score hits 15+. Using all energy and potions i won but that is not diffycult it's crazy-
There is no way to win a dungeon or longer event with such a huge cap beetween damage delt/taken.

I noticed this earlier with the hidden barb-headquarter, with level 2 it was impossible, with level 3 it could be done without problems if playing carefully despite having only a few hitpoints and a single skillpoint more.
To make everything worse, there is no indicator what can be done, the Ahriel in the city don't want to talk to me, the blesse because they wan't Haven out, the other because they fear the blessed, i am not allowed to attack the blessed and my general&advisor give me same phrases they had before i entered Ahriel lands.

So i am left with advancing in different directions, testing if the fights can be won, reload/die/..
I fear that i have to go to the other border to make the first Quest there to level up before i can progress further :(

This may not help much since the enemies also level up proportionally (although they don't seem to get additional abilities).

I played on and had to notice if you do the "breakthrough" to at least two vassals and rebuild those forts you have much more freedom. Yes enemies scale with you but they don't get new euqipment or abilities and 3 forts or even better 4 give you enough ressources to build several buildings to either upgrade your stuff or to get minor direct combatbuffs.

Two Drawbacks stay:
I.There isn't much choice it seems. Playing the Vol-line i tried to talk with the Owenconsil, i did everything proowen one could do without directly attacking the mascha. Several NPC stated that the rebellion was caused by the newer 2 and 3 line rule together with laws that make it more difficult to stay free as a nonmascha.
Still...i am not even allowed to talk with their leader. If i openly attack the mascha they might be willing to talk to me^^...that is a deal no envoy would make without need. The Mascha-Side is a bit better..destroy the rebellion and we accept to be vassals again but i can't talk about reforms or anything like this...

Compared to other games it's not bad, it's till better then Ubisoft-Towerclimb but compared to other Spiderweb titles you have less freedom, less possibilities, less complexity, less lore,...

II.The Energiesystem I just got the Energiepotion..so i might getting better but the Way Dungeon+Energysystem work
kills quite some fun after reaching midgame where many Dungeon have few or even no "Horde"-Trashmobs, instead you have powerfull single enemies or groups of champions...and you get back energy dependent on the number of killed enemies...so you would need more energy but get back less, it painfully slows Dungeon down because you have to relay to basic attacks 90% of the time because, 1 buff 1 debuff and then basic attacks...
It more challenging for a few fights but then it's just painfull...that all treasure that hasn't claimed disspear if you solve the dungeon and return later doesn't make it better.
For some Dungeon i even started save/reload to find the best path to the boss and then cleared the dungeon backwards after knowing what ressources i could spare without being forced to completly retry.