I love the game for its characters and atmosphere and visuals but I am clearly not going to get very far with it because I am NOT VERY GOOD. I have played X-Com and Shadowrun games in the past and am not completely clueless about this genre, but damn even normal difficulty is hard in MYZ. I sneaked past a bunch of fights because I thought that was the thing to do as a Stalker, but then I get to the area with the ship, and the boss just zaps me a couple of times and all three of my characters die in a couple of rounds. After several attempts, that just gets frustrating. I’ve been collecting all the scrap I can, levelled up my mutations etc. but my party just doesn’t do nearly enough damage to take down several enemies at once. I’d like to see more of the game but without an easy ‘just the story’ mode I think I will just have to cry and move on with my life. Devs, please?
Scavange. Go to high lvl locations. When I was about 20lvl, I was scavanging in 45lvl locations. Pick everything you can. You will find good weapons and armors.
Invest in silent weapons. Crosbow, silent pistol - these are your first concern to upgrade.
Then go to locations you have skipped and kill all ghouls. With high lvl weapons and upgraded silent weapons, game is becomming much easier.
Also, patrol a lot. When you have a group of enemies, walk around them. Find best place to set up your position. If possible, attack only one ghoul at a time. Most enemies have some patrol routes. That means they will walk around and you can catch them when they are alone.
Also, I assume the game is ment to be hard 
Thanks; I’m level 7 at the moment I think. All your advice is great. I totally get the need to scavenge, keep kills quiet, and pick enemies off one at a time. I understand what I need to do in principle. It’s just that I’ve already hit a fight I clearly can’t win. I am all for players being able to make the game as hard as they want to; my point is that if you just want to enjoy the story, you don’t want to find yourself stuck at a relatively early stage because it kills the fun. Unless the devs really don’t want people to play their game if they are not up for a really tough time, I think they missed something by not including an easy mode. Cuphead is another game I feel the same way about although it’s a very different genre; I love the art, the concept etc., but I just cannot. Ah well.