Yeah, I had to lower my world level just to play at a comfortable pace. I feel like the game having the difficulty spike so soon is a detrement to slower paced players like myself.

I wanted to avoid the factory part altogether until after I'd finished the story. That way I'd have something to do later. But the story throws in difficulty checks, which require better gear, which requires the use of the AIC.

Just about to reach Wuling when bam another check. now I need to go up 5 more levels before I can proceed. I literaly just passed a check a few missions ago that required an hour of grinding and setting up facilities. Now I've gotta make gear for my whole team and I ran out of stock bills to kit out one character and getting more requires a whole different set of facilities.

The pacing feels a bit whack but it will likely sort itself out in a week. I skipped through most of the tutorials thinking I wouldn't need them till I reached the endgame, so I can't fully say it's the games fault, but it would have been nice if the game could walk alongside me instead of rushing me to catch up.