Confusing for New players

[shell salmon]

You aren't wrong. The game tells you very little and you have to rely heavily on the sparrow guide and the one good wiki to help you through the game's progression.

When you get items for equipment, what you are getting are actually fragments, not the equipment itself (unless you are buying the equipment from the capitalism camel in your Nightfold). You have to continue through the main story Fables until you unlock the assistance of a blacksmith before you get any new gear.

And the story doesn't really present itself well. Most of the story is in the journal entries you unlock as you play and perform various actions that help to rank up your character.

[soft ether]

I don't wanna sound condescending here bc you are definetly right, but... maybe this isn't the game for you? idk, I got all reflexive while reading your post and realized what I enjoyed most as a new player were all those doubts making me feel engaged in exploring the map and discovering anything the devs had prepared. Just letting myself feel amazed by the symbology, poetry, scenery and giving my imagination a chance to fill in the gaps.

If it wasn't because I knew I could just get to googling whenever I felt like it was time to actually grind, that amazement would've turned into frustration. Still, it's a grinding game, so you'll obviously end up googling drops for your items and stuff. Maybe letting the community depend on itself for that kind of info is part of DEs strategy.

[vestal summit]

For now, you'll have to acquaint yourself with the wiki. Rise Envoy, Tormented Stag, and the new mini-fables are the current tutorials. TS expects you to read the prompts at the top of the screen, as it does explain the core mechanics at the top. You're expected to read and think in this game. DE's said that in previous devstreams. That said, I think perhaps they could add some notes to the tutorials, so that people could bring them back up to re-read as needed. Sometimes old players take a break and come back and need a refresher, as well. I suspect that DE will start adding more mini-fables as tutorials for more things.

[pallid gale]

I get what you’re saying, and I usually do like games where you have to figure things out as you go it makes exploration and discovery feel more rewarding. But I don’t think that’s really what’s happening here.
It doesn’t feel like I’m uncovering things naturally or piecing together a mystery. It feels more like I missed something important that the game assumes I already know. Almost like I blacked out during a tutorial or skipped a cutscene that never actually played. So instead of feeling curious or engaged, I just feel lost.
There’s a difference between a game being intentionally vague to encourage exploration and a game not clearly communicating its systems or story. When it’s done well, you feel curious and it makes you want to dig deeper. Here, I just feel like I’m trying to catch up on information I was never properly given in the first place.

[round coral]

The Envoy is amnesiac, so this makes sense... but I understand it is a bit too vague and maybe unintentional. DE will probably add directions for new player, but storywise, I don't know...

[gilded wren]

Most of this is that the game is utterly unfinished, moreso than it probably looks

There's no tutorial because some basic systems don't even exist yet

Including and especially any real story