Some somewhat major problems I have with this game

They need to make rare loot better somehow. Tier 5 should be exciting to find

Too much gamba. All the material drops are fine if you like to "craft". But only picking up mats is boring at endgame. The ground loot mostly sucks. It just never feels like you ever find something thats worth using without dropping a ton of mats on it.

I just want to find cool loot. Added to that the uniques in this game are underwhelming af. Not even sure why they exist. They could just take the unique perk and add it to the tree or ascendencies.

The only easy solution would be to create a no trade mode where ground loot is more rewarding. Where you could only trade with friends who are in the same mode. I would definitely only play hat, if it was available.

I agree, PoE2 loot is just not in the right spot.

They did many things differently than PoE1 and it adds up to a very different experience despite items technically being composed of the same concepts (6 'things' on every item, 3 prefix/3suffix with roughly the same base mod pool as PoE1)

I think keeping mostly the same mod pools on items but then massively changing the structure of the passive tree has been a problem.

Some other elements of the game like resists, that give you effectively quad life, are required to be balanced across the build but that isn't really possible without having the right combo of affixes. In practise this means you can pick up loot that would be OK or desirable and see it as useless.

In PoE1 an ok item with a free suffix is probably a usable item, even if it already adds to a resist you have capped you can tag on a decent chunk of the required remaining resists.
In PoE2, the runes might not help at all, if you already needed the rune for a resist then your new item probably also needs that rune just to make up what you lose from the swap. You cannot craft the resist you need nor get it in the passive tree as a temporary measure - The net result is an ok item is unusable for you.

This might in theory lead to trade as someone might want the item but if almost every time you loot it is an item for someone else or noone then it isn't going to feel like the loot is good IMO.

Notably Act 1 is a point in the game where your loot is so bad that almost anything can be useful, so loot feels decent in Act 1-2 because it is actually doing what you want from loot, powering you up and giving you options.

There are other issues too, PoE1 has a much more expansive set of mods in the endgame rares while PoE2 as far as I can tell remains the same. The items don't evolve over the duration of the game so it just becomes numbers go up instead of a flexible loot puzzle.

https://preview.redd.it/rpp4p1d3xvhg1.jpeg?width=675&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7ef8f52542bc41674de7e14a424b4b0d0f8fd086

I pretty much agree with a lot of this.

1. Crafting gives you a lot of tools and contains a lot of the RNG that you might otherwise find in just the drops themselves (while fighting, rather than in town). I'd much prefer spending less time crafting, MUCH less, I didn't get this game to stand around. That's personal preference though, some people would happily stand around for hours spamming crafting.

2. The passive node tree is a beautiful mess full of numbers designed to, it seems, frighten off people who don't like math. With a straight face they have stuff like "+3% Whatever," and I already have friends I've tried to convert to the game ask "Why 3%, why not 5%?" and my only answer is "Some mathematician on their team decided this was better, just do it based on vibes." The downsides to some passives and support skills are clear in that there ARE downsides, but since it's an ARPG you know that there has to be some way to make it an upside, but that's obviously not clear. And if you're a busy person like me who doesn't want to pore through guides and don't want to copy a streamer, they'll never be truly clear to you. Again - vibes.

3. Uniques don't feel uniques. They don't seem to enable new builds so much as solidify them, and they always feel underpowered due to their low stats. I hate them.

There's a lot of good in this game but it's definitely not perfect.

This is spot on and exactly why I’ve never finished the campaign despite having made several characters across multiple leagues.

There’s a point where the power progression just stops because you don’t upgrade after investing hours into the game. You legitimately get and feel much weaker as the game progresses.

There’s a middle ground here that they seem to intentionally ignore. End game is always gonna be min/maxing for perfect or close to perfect equipment. We can keep that as rare as it is. There’s no reason to make middle game such a slog and be so stingy with mid tiered loot. Not getting any upgrades after numerous hours played is deflating and the reason why I specifically get bored and never make it to endgame.

I think you should change “You rarely find upgrades on the ground” to “you NEVER find upgrades on the ground”

900 hours and there has never been a single instance of me picking up items from the ground and going like “wow im gonna use this!” Past act 5 or something. I always find good bases to continue to craft on but I never find a straight up ready to pick up upgrade no matter how much rarity I have. Its so useless.

This game wants you to craft everything you have.

It’s got to the point where I just don’t even pick up loot unless it pops up white and red in my loot filter.

Tier 5 items feel like a waste of time.

99% of uniques are junk.

I wish they would overhaul or remove rarity.

Yep you've expressed all I hate about poe2.

I love the game for it's animation and general combat feel and responsiveness. The game is amazing and leagues better than any other arpg.

But the amount of obfuscation and poorly explained/designed mechanics about progression is insane. This is the definition of unfriendly. It's gate keeping to the max. I usually like a bit of learning and good progression systems. But this, this is not how it should be done GGG. I shouldn't have to read a Bible length guide to know how to craft in a game period. I've been active in few leagues and maybe this is part of the problem for me. When I got to mapping, the game dumped a hundred obfuscated systems on my ass and I'm still not sure I understand half of them. Don't get me started on how the game is impossible unless you know how to get better gear through the stupid market interface or reading that thousand pages guide on crafting.

GGG needs to invest on some devs that would ease our way on these systems and really explain how they work. That you can skip if you're already an advanced disciple of POE I guess.