I progressed further but have yet to win a fight. I've yet to learn how my health works and the fighting is just an epic learning curve. But is strangely rewarding. Thanks again.
I would recommend you give it a try to the arena. Will help you realize how important is a good timing in a combat (waiting for the enemy to finish their attack before you start yours). Learn what kind of weapon family suits your the best. Get more familiarized with controls, and enjoy some well deserved victories. In short, restore a bit of the self esteem and enjoy the game hehe. I guarantee you will find the arena much more rewarding than the campaign, and you will notice that you progress if you give it some time and effort.
When you feel a bit more comfortable with your combat style you might give another try to the campaign. If you made a good use of shields on the arena, give a better look to the first room because there is something you can use as shield. Have in mind that unlike area opponents, zombies of the campaign do not block, they are a bunch of kamikazes... that's your only advantage, and it's crucial, because the rest are just weak points compared to the arena conditions (narrow places, darkness, more frustrating defeats). As a not mandatory side-note i also recommend you get soaked with the lore if you are into that kind of thing, because the strongest point of the campaign is the history. But if you are solely into combat and wish to feel progression, then i think the arena is your place.
About the hearth bar, it's located on the left side. It showcase three colors:
- Strong yellow: how much of your hearth is replenished.
- Pale yellow: damage inflicted that you will recover over the time into strong yellow. I guess you could also call it stamina, but you will die if it goes beyond the limit.
- Red: permanent damage. It wont replenish over the time on the campaign, but it will do a little on the arena after each combat.
Don't pay much attention to the blue bar on the right for now. It represents thaumaturgy (magic), that's is not present on the game yet. I wont go into more details on hearth unless you ask because i fear doing some unwanted spoiler. That's the basics!