Game has too much artificial difficulty right now

You are correct about this.

However, in all honesty and as I've stated before, the difficulty in the early levels right now is making it hard for me to go and explore, to see if there could be any potential problems.

The game right now should be easy because it's so early in the beta, so it being easy would make it easier to test; attempting to make the game more difficult right now, instead of adding even more content, is what I'm complaining about.

It is not a game yet; it is a beta to test that the game's engine and stuff is working correctly, as well as test out tentative features and changes. it should be easy to get started, and thus start providing feedback/reporting bugs.

I've spent far longer than I would like attempting to collect materials in tier 1, when the major changes are affecting the upper tiers more. I don't have as much time as many others to play around in this, and I'd like to actually provide feedback, instead of complaining about the same things that a lot of other people are complaining about.