So I was playing on release and in the initial Rush and leveled a tank to 60 with focusing on logging and engineering.
Now due to my dumbness the char is stranded and I decided to start a new one on a different server (which is low/med) to be able to play with another friends group.
I would like to crather here some feedback as I progress with the new character:
Level 1-10:
Not much changed. The new character focuses on a healer and sometimes the respawnrates can be super troublesome (it is not difficult, but just annoying) if you pickup a chest and behind you all mobs have already respawned so you can fight your way in and out.
On the positive side, since there are not masses of players harvesting the start area, you can super easily level your harvesting and you get supper easily the required resources to continue. Actually I enjoyed that very much. It was a hussle when everyone else was farming like a swarm of grasshopers to the ground on initial rush.
Lore wise I try to listen to the quests and read the lore now as I skipped a lot of it during the initial rush. Here I noticed maybe some bug? Often the Dialog will cancel out (the written text is shown, but the npc is not speaking). Also I noticed some kind of lag, that will randomly close the dialog window even if you have not clicked to close it. If you skip the dialog you will not notice this.
Level 10-20
First I struggled real hard at the beginning as I had not unlocked much of the weaponskill yet and did not found suitable weapons. So I had troubles downling enemies my level and constantly was durrounded by respawnings behind me. From 15 on this vanished as I had enough weaponskills unlocked to easily sustain my ground. Especially sacred ground is basicly my go to to survive multiple mobs aproaching me. If I would not have that one I probably wouldnt even play life staff and just swap to another weapon.
Crafting and Harvesting actually was super fast, I managed to get harvesting up to 80 just by picking up stuff on the go between quests. It is my most advanced gathering skill as for now, with mining coming right after (nearly no node farming on my server in FL & Monarchs so plenty of nodes to farm). Skinning actually being behind 20 levels but this might swap as soon cutlass will show up on my way.
Crafting is already tedious, as I am on low pop server I tried to not spend money on AH and instead craft myself up (I am in no rush, so why not). But this comes with the nature of spreading to all crafts instead of focusing on a few. Refining mats are already becoming a hassle so I spend more time in famring all chests on my ways and am actually glad if a questline resends me to same chests so I can loot those again.
Petrified Wood and Fae Iron, I did not receive any of those and already outscaled the level of the weapons I could craft with those. Why are those even in the game if you cant optain them when you need them. Meanwhile I got spammed with softwood tree sap perks (and i have higher mining than logging). This low tier/mid tier rares are super imbalanced.
All Armor/weapon I can craft atm is already obsoleted by the drops I got. Even if I do not buy stuff I can just relay on drops. So why even craft gear/weapons at that point? Even if I push one skill, I either end up not being able to wear the item (tho high level requirement) or the item being already too weak compared to the drops.
Since I started on FL I decided to do one starting area after another (on my first char I was skipping a lot of side quests just to push the main story so I had to go back and forth all the time). Since I was staying in one area and not spreading to 4 starting areas my Azoth nearly capped even without azoth gathering. BUT since I have not started the amrine questline much yet which will send you to all 4 starting areas I guess Azoth could become an issue. On the other side I am in no rush so walking and gathering might be azoth saving.
I am not much into PVP but apart from townquests and open world pvp there is aboslutely nothing to do in that part. Sadly both are rather boring, than challenging in a low pop starting area. I guess I need to try it out.
This feedback is my subjective experience. May update later.