Pillars of Eternity from Obsidian

[NickAragua]

I bet you anything there's a whole bunch of areas you haven't visited.

If you're completely stumped, try to get a full party (6 characters) as soon as possible, preferably including a priest and an additional tank similar to Eder. If you have a priest, use Blessing at the start of every fight. Hire additional adventurers in a tavern if you cannot find enough companions.

Absolutely this. Eder and Aloth(?), fighter and mage, are in the first town (the village with the corpse tree). Durance is kind of an asswipe, but he's the only game in town if you want a priest. Head south from the corpse tree village for a map or two, he'll be hanging out at a crossroads. Kana (?) is at the abandoned keep, that's 5 people right there. I forget if you can get past the keep without clearing it first, but if you can, you should explore the maps to the south of it, there's Sagani (a hunter) and Hiravias (a weirdo druid). If not, then go back to the tavern and recruit a mage type.

Eder is obviously your primary tank if your guy isn't a tank. Aloth needs to be slinging maximum firepower every fight. Durance should hang back and focus on healing. Kana is pretty tough to use, he's like a bard. Not very good in melee in my experience. Sagani is an unholy terror with a good bow, and her dog or whatever provides a little extra tank protection. Hiravias, I dunno, never really got into using him in my party, I prefer the bird paladin woman from the docks embassy place in the big city, at least she can take a punch.

Main thing to remember is that most fights out in the wilderness, you can avoid or bypass until later. Go explore some other areas, level up a little more.

[Daehawk]

I have 6 and 2 back at the castle. Also I tried that fight with the pompous lord who wanted my keep but failed totally. Ive been putting it off. Can I continue to skip that?

[NickAragua]

Yeah, I didn't come back to him until I was almost at the end of the game.

Like others have said, you may want to read up on some class builds for those NPCs and re-spec them if possible.

[Anonymous Bosch]

I recently watched a set of videos that spoiled the big picture story of PoE (maybe Fextralife?). At the end, I was gratified that I did not try to slog my way through the (what I found to be unenjoyable) game because I wanted the payoff. Even watching story elements played out over the span of an hour, it seemed confusing and unsatisfying. Obviously many sharp gamers would disagree (and that's cool).

'orses for courses.

As Blackhawk observed earlier, people change as they grow older and crustier. Some may lack the time or inclination to dive into such a massive, sprawling, epic RPG. Plenty who may have played and enjoyed Infinity Engine games back in the day may not necessarily enjoy or appreciate immersing themselves in the utterly unfamiliar density of lore and somewhat complex and challenging combat mechanics of even a much-improved spiritual successor to those games today. It's also important to remember that much of the appeal of RPGs from the era Pillars of Eternity emulates comes from the focus upon player agency. So watching a video of someone else playing the game robs you of that experience entirely.