I'll see what my experience is after I emerge back from the Depths. Sounds like hunting for caves is going to be the main part of re-exploring Hyrule. And part of the reason I decided to explore down here first is the Shrines. They weren't all that great in BotW with a lot of repetition. Some were great, yet it really felt like they needed to hit some arbitrary number. It feels more like a todo list than something to look forward to, but I'll probably need the stamina. Or at least it would make traversal a lot faster, being able to jump up walls instead of slow climb, find a ledge to recharge or run sideways, repeat.

I just noticed light blooms are not persistent either. I just had to back track a long way back to the cesnia pit mine, lower right corner since I can't find the light root to unlock the South East section of the map. My whole lit path along the top and lights marking build stations and camps, all gone. I should have realized sooner as on other back tracks I noticed empty camps without a light bloom, but those were lit from a nearby light root so the missing light markers went unnoticed :/

It seems the lightroot I'm looking for is on the South East island, disconnected from the map. Pretty sloppy that the lightroot nearest in the Depths doesn't reveal the terrain to the 'coast'. Kept me running around for half an hour trying to figure out whether it was hiding on a different height level behind a pillar or blocked wall. Some are quite sneaky! Will have to leave it for now, only accessible from the top like a couple others.

Yeah, the obvious reason that the light blooms disappear is that the game doesn't track them beyond a certain point, but it makes sense in universe as I discovered that the little frog guys will eat any light blooms they come across, which is presumably why they drop brightbloom seeds when killed.

Do tell about this mechanic, because the game doesn't despite its many tutorial shrines.

As for what people expect, no, it's not taking on silver enemies with barely any armor. It's a more reasonable difficulty progression where the first blue enemies aren't armed right away with weapons that do 7-8 hearts of damage. Even red enemies in TotK have commonly weapons that do 2 hearts of damage against an armor stat of 2. It wasn't like that in BotW where taking on red enemies in the beginning had you take half a heart, maybe a full heart of damage when getting hit, because they had garbage weapons just like you had. This battling on equal footing isn't common in TotK, hence why it feels like you have skip virtually every encounter until you've upgraded your armor at least once. What only made this worse for me is that blood moons kept triggering despite not killing a single enemy for hours.

In a nutshell, my first attempt at TotK felt like I was playing on BotW's master mode right away, because the game had to be played with that much caution. I am quite sure I accumulated as many game overs in my first attempt at TotK (approximately 60 hours) as I did in all my playtime of BotW combined, where I did several playthroughs (including master mode) and amassed hundreds of hours. The most frustrating thing was when I had 12 hearts left and an armor stat of close to 30, yet a black lizard still killed me in one hit. At that point I had thought I must be past this bullshit with standard enemies, but no, it just wouldn't stop to be annoying. 

I remember when I first looked back and saw those little dudes eating all my brightbloom flowers. Such a clever little touch from the developers :)

That's why I wipe em all out lol. But they are a 'random' spawn so keep coming back unlike the camps you clear out. Clever way to 'explain' you're not willing to save the locations of seeds you plant. But do tell, how do they eat the light blooms I stick to the ceilings, on top of trees and high up walls ;)

Anyway no more marking walls for mapping with light seeds, no point :/ I assume camp fires (the ones you put down) disappear as well. I guess there's nothing you can mark a path with (apart from marking it on the map). The only visible permanence seems to be the removal of Zonaite and flowers. Boxes and barrels don't stay gone (just empty after they re-appear) and everything else resets.

The game has some line of sight bugs btw. For example you can hide behind trees yet they can look through the ground if you break line of sight by going down a hill. It's always better to fight from above of course, even more so since trenches don't seem to hide you one bit. Pathing is iffy in the Depths leading to plenty comedy situations with muddle buds. Some blatant 'cheating' as well. Notice how Moblins side hop as soon as you release an arrow, quick reflexes! So I throw puff shrooms, easier and it's wide area anyway. Yet in the smoke after a sneak strike they will always turn towards you when they get up. No matter if you reposition yourself between knocking them down and getting back up. It's hilarious anyway that one blow of the horn instantly gives your exact position to all around. The AI is very simple contributing more to not feeling engaged in combat.

The RNG can be a bit much sometimes. Last night, Lizalfos spawned, directly followed by Kokoblins, followed by bats and blobs. Are you done yet lol. Just trying to walk here. And it happens a lot multiple things spawn while already engaged with a previous spawn. It seems to be location dependent, some places the random spawns go crazy, other places nothing. Hence always good to have a decent supply of light blooms and arms stuck to weapons. Lizalfo and Moblin arms are still the best attachments but don't last more than 3 to 5 hits. I'm saving my Black Moblin Boss horns for later.

Oh and apparently I hit the limit for arrows, 999, can't pick up any more. At least no worries of ever running out of ammo in the Depths. Not much food to be found though but I haven't cooked a meal since I got to the Depths. No need with a 1 heart 'strategy'. Only thing I need is heat protection but nothing for that drops in the Depths. And I have been re-using the same bundle of wood for balloon flights, ultimate recycling :)

Are trying to troll me???

If your hearts are all full you will almost 100% of the time still have a quarter of a heart left no matter how strong an enemies attack was. Even at three hearts and no armor, if a silver moblin hits you with a very strong weapon you will not instantly die but still have a quarter of a heart left. Unless of course you take fall damage right after that and die because you didn't think of instantly healing after taking damage.

Blood moons don't trigger after killing a certain amount of enemies. It doesn't have anything to do with that. They always trigger after one in game week.

You got one hit killed by the black lizalfos because your hearts weren't full and his weapon must have been very strong.

I didn't have many issues with the difficulty. To be exact I was extremely pleased that I even died at all. Because in BotW even on master mode in recent years I'd barely ever die and when I did it was only because of a stupid mistake.

Not sure if I can believe you that such a failsafe exists, but it's pretty stupid if it was implemented like that with nobody in the game telling you about it. So if I've lost half a heart, I am subject to instant kills, but with half a heart more I'd somehow survive an attack that would kill me three times over.

I find it very strange that something that is supposedly as consistent as you say has never triggered for me at any point. Because even though I tend to play with the attitude of not healing myself until I've lost half of my hearts, shrines do replenish hearts completely, as does sleeping at the base camp near Hyrule Castle which I frequently did when I was down to one heart after a completed battle with no new shrine in sight. So there have been lots of occasions where I've been running around at full health.

Dunno if it's location or enemy type dependent, but there has been one occasion where I had 4 hearts, full health, got hit by a lynel and had a quarter heart left. It struck me as odd at the time and apart from that instance I never walk around with full health.

Anyway it wouldn't surprise me, there are many weird mechanics in the game and this one (if true) further cements the idea that there is no point in upgrading total hearts. That would just require better food to heal back to full after a hit. Stick with 4 hearts and all you need is lots of 3.75 heart meals! But it wouldn't surprise me either if it was not consistent and entirely depends on the enemy that hits you.

There are 2 health bars btw. I always walk around with 1 heart for desperate strength double damage, yet the light roots restore my gloomed out hearts. A lot of the enemies down in the depths take out the gloom free black hearts first, thus leaving my 1 red heart intact. No idea whether a gloom based attack also has a fail safe when still being gloom free. (But not full health)

Is there a way to reduce total hearts, if I could have just one then permanent desperate strength bonus and with the fail safe, just eat a shroom after each hit lol.

There's a side quest that lights up all the cave entrances with a huge pillar of light, visible from anywhere in the area.

I doubt that gloom-based attacks have a failsafe, because they deal exclusively full hearts of damage.

There's a way to reduce hearts, but only down to 3 hearts and not below. Just like in BotW, there's a demon statue that takes earned containers from you and then allows you to reapply such a container as one of your choice (heart or stamina). That would be the only way for me now to verify that weird failsafe mechanic for non-gloom attacks, because I now have full stamina and 36 hearts after completing 149 shrines.

I am at 57% map completion now, so after doing the shrines I can alternate between looking for caves and wells, collecting korok seeds and doing sidequests. Looking at the post above, I should do sidequests first. Also managed to complete all main objectives today, because on Monday when I beat the game I hadn't done the search for the final sage yet.