Allow me to summarise the issue here and why this is an obvious example of how and why they made that portcrystal a microtransaction (if they didn't think people would buy it then they wouldn't have it available for sale):
- This is a game that encourages exploration and creativity (that we can all agree on)
- I picked up a side-quest that required me to speak to someone in Battahl. Upon reaching checkpoint rest town, unless you have progressed the main quest far enough then you will get cockblocked when you attempt to go through the gate/border to Battahl.
- So there's me thinking there must be another way around, look at the map and I can see the river goes around the town and will take you through to the southern area of the map - I go to check it out
- The river is shallow enough to be traverasable so I rest up at the inn overnight and prepare for the journey
- The path along the river, through some caves and then on to a main path to Battahl is Hard, there are tons of hard enemies, bosses and a dragon along the path but I press on.
- To make matters worse along this journey my main pawn dies along the way because they got thrown off a cliff by a boss and I couldn't get down to revive them in time, with that my camping kit is gone, and night falls.
- As you can imagine, EVEN MORE hard bosses come out to play and at this point I'm simply running for my life trying to survive because I can see on the map I've got less distance to cover to get to Battahl than what's gone before. My other two pawns die along the way.
- I've travelled through the night, it's now daytime and I eventually make it to Battahl.
- The journey took me 3 hours of playtime and pretty much all of the curables and potions I had in my possession.
Sounds great right, but did I find it rewarding? No, not in the slightest, in fact it felt like a slap in the face once I reached Battahl and found out there was no port Crystal. One of the motivations to stay the course during that trip was me thinking there will be a portcrystal at Battahl and I would be stupid to go that far and not eventually unlock it. Well, the jokes on me.
To make matters worse, the oxcarts are out of service (again, I've since discovered you need to have progressed the main quest far enough to have them operational in this region) and despite me finding a guy near Battahl who will sell me a portcrystal in exchange for some dragon materials I can't even get that because I don't have enough of those.
At this point I can 100% see what they are trying to do with selling that portcrystal and I suspect it's at this point most people who have purchased it will have done so out of exasperation. I'm left with the following options:
- Find a dragon (or 2) in the region to kill so I can get the materials to give to the guy who is selling the portcrystal
- Or get back to Vernworth, especially making the 3 hour trip that I should have been able to look back on fondly worthless and a waste of time.
That's the last time I'm doing a big trip/adventure in this game without having a spare portcrystal in my possession, and that's a shame because you should be free to be able to explore far and wide without fear that it's going to make your life more difficult.