Game Isn't Currated Enough of an Experience

Campaign is full of sprinting spammy packs of enemies and power spikes, power drops.
Some bosses are push-overs while others can one-shot you and do a lot of untelegraphed damage.
Overall needs work. Promotes rage-quit pretty easily. Hit part 2 of the coast and I might be a bit bricked. Introduction of chaos damage is very punishing even on my beefy marauder. I hear melee always had issues and it seems to be true.

Yes I used the crafting bench and got some good gear. I imagine many other players will have less of an idea of what to do at this point but I think I am pretty on-par with the average player.

If PoE 2 gets or has the 'end game focus' with neglect to the campaign experience then I think there will be a lot of lost opportunity like in PoE 1.

The random league in everything is annoying and displaces the main experience. After doing Mirage for Act 1 I just skipped them all. I started skipping lock boxes and essence during Act 4 and 5 unless the power of enemies and presence of rares dropped for some reason. They were a bit immersion breaking and gimmicky as well. Stuff like that should stay in end-game maps.

Glad they added WASD and rolling for some more depth and interaction available when a boss is about to do his one-shot or massive overlapping damage. PoE 2 in general looks better on pacing, mechanics, and curration of an experience. There's still room to make PoE 1 much better though. My computer just isn't good enough to play PoE 2.

I don't think Leap Slam speed should scale with attack speed . . . maybe a combo of Strength & Dexterity & Movement Speed. Overall the scaling on attributes seems a bit weak and unintegrated, though I am aware of these attributes being more useful with items that scale with attributes. The Armor Mastery that gives 2 armor per strength is nice though so there is that.

I spent $25 on a throwaway a while ago because PoE 2 looked promising but I quit when I tried to get through endgame.

If the entire power scaling ramped a bit more linearly and the Kitava curse was removed, with all the weird build customization and random leagues pushed to end-game so there were 'guard rails' during the campaign (designing the game is much easier when there are fewer possibilities) the entire experience would be better.
Players going for their second character after reaching tier 15 or something on maps still have uniques, currency, essence, crafting, etc etc.

I'm aware that elemental resistances keep dropping and dropping . . . just punishing Marauder and melee in general really.

If I had to move around a bit to avoid damage but it was more of a slow burn with fewer slower enemies and telegraphed big damage it would be better.

I have reached Merveil with no equipment, no flasks, no weapon or gems (naked Marauder) on the throwaway account on HC SSF R during the Settlers league so I don't believe the game has to be the opposite extreme of 100 enemies dying in .5 seconds or you dying while moving around at 40 mph. . .. I just want a bit more weight to what is going on that feels fair. A currated experience.

The atmosphere, art, narrative are all interesting and pleasing (some stuff is a bit quirky) but trying to treat the campaign experience like the end-game experience is holding it back. I'd say it is holding maps back some too.

Thanks for reading.


EDIT:
I think the game just doesn't have good stopping points. Played for 4 or so hours yesterday and it messed with my sleep a bit. Couldn't go to sleep right away and woke up late (I like going to sleep at 9:15 and waking at 5:15, or 8:45 PM to 6:15 AM on Saturdays).
OG WoW devs talked about 'feeling like you accomplished something in 30 minutes' so that someone could play 30 minutes then stop, and it was a bit slower so it was easier to stop playing after 30 minutes, but PoE is exhausting and you don't have a good 'stopping point' it feels like. Rush rush rush. I think that should be pushed to the end game, and even then there should be good stopping points.

Campaign should have slow downs and something to tinker with a bit then log-off every 30 minutes starting out then every 30 - 90 minutes in the last half of the campaign.
Players just don't know when to stop. I think I heard a face of GGG say something to this effect. I know I definitely have this problem. This is why I never got fully into PoE because it feeds into that problem and is exhausting.
Players drop from 300-500k to ~20k every PoE 2 league due to this I'd bet. Similarly in PoE. But I don't know the pacing of PoE 2 really . . .

It's a good game with engaging art, music, and story; it just has pacing issues.

Also the anointment/blight mechanic and another one is impossible to do starting out .. . it isn't tuned well.

Examples: If you could put uniques on stands (like the stash tab but much fewer), there was some interaction talking about good crafting bench mods for the Act/Quest, some extra scour orbs dropped in Act 5+, then that would be a good slow down and stopping point to use when hideouts are becoming more of a thing (and transitions into mapping well).

Basically if it seems like an idea or change that people might fall asleep or get frustrated during after playing for 4+ hours, it's probably a good 30 - 90 minute playing time intermission to add into the game.

For some context . . . I stopped playing LoL (started in 2009 or so) because I would play it for too long and it would destroy my sleep, schedule, mental, etc from burnout. Never spent money on it. If I feel like shit from playing a game, I'm not spending money on it.

For some more context . . . I can play Underworld Idle or another for many hours while watching light/medium YouTube content (some a bit political, legal, whatever) and sleep just fine.

Thanks for reading, again.


EDIT 2:
Thought of a good 30 minute 'segment' in the start of the game . . .
You make your character, go to Lioneye's Watch, meet everyone get some rewards, then you 'go to sleep'. As a quest. The way to the Coast is blocked for safety reasons so there is no alternative.
Then you are awoken to cannibals raiding the 'safe area' that is Lioneye's Watch. You kill them. Tarkleigh and I guess Bestel is injured.
Now you got to clear the coast or at least that fire fiend at the center + most cannibals, get the medicine chest, and kill a rhoa then carry its corpse on your back, on foot, all the way back to Lioneye's Watch: what with the men being injured and all.
Alternatively you can tele with an inventory full of rhoa meat if you're not a Karui. But then a rhoa corpse isn't hanging in Lioneye's Watch after that, just a pile of meat chunks, so it's not as cool.

The 'long' walk back and temporary peace achieved is a good stopping point. The instance doesn't reset with the cannibals and medicine chest to have that sense of calm stopping point and direction. It's like uh. SC2. Less resources in the main and natural means more expansions.
You can still create an instance but there should be a default 'story' instance that has a permanent state to it. . . . I guess. Or resets after 12, 24, 48 hours or something, minus a mini-boss.

Just shooting the breeze here.

Thanks for reading, thrice now.