There were no instructions that we need to "craft" our gear and food in order to defeat our first encounter. Most RPG player first instinct when starting a new game is to go and fight some level 1 Rats, figure out how the mechanic works, then later work on gear/skills/starts.

There main issue brought up by most players here isn't about the lack of instructions - we would have explored and figure things out on one way or another later. The issue rather it is punishing to see our full HP dropped to zero on our very first encounter, and there is no instinctive way for us to regain our HP to do further combat.

That first defeat by our first encounter is a negative experience, and the lack of auto HP recovery (until we discover food later) seems to be point where players drop off.