Feedback on Battle of Solace Bridge scene

I started a new offline game and chose the Path of Love.

I liked the on-screen instructions (e.g. look to see who is crying in the house to the east, search the body near the gate for the key), but if I was distracted, they disappeared before I could read them. For maximum immersion I was keeping my eyes off the chat window.

When I got to Edvard, it became a little hectic. He told me to grab the bow and I did so by double-clicking it (which also equipped it). If I had simply opened my inventory and put the bow in, it wouldn't be equipped. I wondered how a new player would "grab the bow", but at that point some text appeared on my screen at the same time that Edvard continued talking, and because of the angle at which I was standing, both texts overlapped and I was unable to read any of it before it disappeared.

I followed Edvard across the bridge without knowing if I had missed any important instructions. I did see a text flash on screen telling me to press "Z" to arm my weapon. Luckily I had it equipped but didn't know how to fire it. I had one attack glyph in my combat bar and clicked on it, but after one shot I had to wait for the cooldown. By experimenting I discovered that double-clicking on a mob fired the bow, and I wondered if some of the instructions that had flashed by too quickly for me to read had told me about that.

I really missed the old practice dummy exercise that Edvard used to make you do before you can progress.

I didn't bother to seek out the "funny fellow" referenced by Edvard. First of all, I knew from past games that I would meet Kiakis, and secondly, Edvard made it clear that it was optional. Since Kiakis has some interesting information for new players about elves, why not make a tiny quest to seek him out? Instead of having Edvard say there's a funny fellow but that he understands if you don't bother to go see the fellow, why not have Edvard ask you to give something to the elf? Or at least have Edvard highly recommend that you go see him to learn important information about the different factions in the land?

One difficulty in testing that I always come across is that when I start a new game, I don't start out with the default settings. So my experience often does not reflect the experience of a new user. I wonder if this is the case with my experience with the bow in this instance.