New player here (subscriber), super concerned about this. So..when I get to this point I just have to quit? Why haven't the devs or anyone acknowledged it?

As a new player who was just starting to explore the Stronghold system, this is incredibly discouraging and makes me far less likely to stay subbed after I finish storyline stuff.

Worth noting that the walker health thing is currently a bug and hopefully they will be fixing it, so you can reliably get past this encounter

I found a look for mine that I'm happy with. Some of the looks aren't great.