I like to do a lot of new games, and just gather a collection of folks based off other series. I don't know why, I just do this. Because of this, often times the "first target" isn't a race I can select for the starter slave, so I immediately get rid of them.
Now, the reason I mention this is because of people talking about fighting being too hard. If you use your starting slave, you can have two fighters, AND you'll have someone to gather food. If you get rid of your first slave, then you have ONE fighter, and you need to fight for gold to buy food with. In other words, no, combat is not a problem when you start the game. You start with 2 stat points. 1 point in Endurance, 1 point in Agility, grab Debilitate is pretty much how I start every run. Grabbing some armor and a dagger right away helps too. If you're absolutely set on taking risks, then daily autosaves or precautionary manual saves will cover you for the 3 fights necessary to level up (which I typically set the second level to 1 strength, 1 agility, and 1 endurance (at which point, combat for slave gathering is safe, with a few escapes necessary until you can avoid all 'risky' fights).
In terms for how I feel about how difficulty can be improved, I'd love to see more races (or even subspecies???) added, but only available in more difficult areas, that might later be added to the game. This would allow a natural path to progression to not only matter for story, but also for actual gameplay. Its important to feel like your progress matters for the gameplay, and not just unlocking additional dialogue.