My thoughts as a newcomer to POE after 50 hours

First of all, the skeleton of the game is absolutely amazing. I was blown away by the quality of the game and was looking forward to making this my main game for many years to come. However, as i progressed into the endgame the design made me completely demotivated to play this game long term.

1) The game is appropriately difficult, but is way too punishing. During the campaign i had the most fun dying multiple times to the ascension trials or bosses, only to learn the mechanics and eventually overcome them. This way of playing the game is completely removed in the endgame, where you have to play a very long time to even reach a boss or another relevant map node. I do not enjoy in the slightest, having to use most of my time reaching the things i actually want to do, only to die once and then having all that progression removed. I do not enjoy being punished, i enjoy being challenged.
I get that some of the community might like this (hence the hardcore option from character creation) but having punishment being an essential part of the endgame will make me not play this game (and i suspect many others). This is by far my biggest problem with the game and also excacerbates all of the following problems. For example, i have no desire to play around with different abilites anymore as it will make me die more and then get punished more.

I also have no desire to play around with the passive tree as costs are increasing. In the beginning i felt motivated to play around with the passive skill tree, adjusting it as i progressed. Now i need 80k to change 4 skill points in my ascendancy tree so i will just not do it. I want to play the game in a different way but am punished for it, so i will just not play. The system of punishment from dying or decision-making forces me to play the game more one-dimensionally and more safely.

2) In the endgame, it seems no matter how defensive you build, your deaths will mostly be to oneshots. This incentivizes me, again, to play more one-dimensionally. As a monk i die more if i actually play with all of my abilites as it exposes me to these oneshots. I can instead just have lower damage and spam one ability from a safe distance to reduce risk of getting instakilled. I would much prefer deaths to more commonly be due to an empty health flask, thus making it more important to actually deal high damage and minimizing damage taken, instead of reducing damage to have no damage taken. Playing around making no mistakes lead to way less interesting gameplay for my part. It really seems like the actual gameplay gets less complex as you get further in the game and emphasizes doing something simple perfectly, instead of doing something difficult well. I much prefer the latter.

3) Finally, the RNG gear system is very frustrating. I do not like loot boxes or other mechanics that try to turn a game into a slot machine. In the early parts of the game it felt like you would realize your characters weaknesses as you progressed and then you could pivot the characters power to solve these problems. This felt good. Putting gear through the slot machine to see if you pull 7-7-7 this time does not. It does not feel purposeful but reduces a major system to catering to gambling addicts. The gameplay loop (as the skeleton of the game allows it to be) is reason enough to keep playing this game. Please do not try to retain players this way, but instead allow the gear system to be another meaningful component (by allowing players to craft the gear they believe they need).

This game has the potential to be fantastic. Please do not allow it to be hijacked by the interests of masochists and gamblers.

I agree the constant dodging of one-shots is tedious. If I allow my focus to lapse for a second it ruins my map progress. At least let me re-attempt the map with the same boss and same modifiers, maybe don't even consume the map unless it is successful. It feels like you're constantly trying to get a higher tier map and then hoping you get another map of the same tier to drop so you don't fall down again to low level content... And then oh you died, back to low tier maps for a few hours or spend an exalt buying another one. It's exhausting not fun.

I also hope for Templar they add a shield and invulnerability prayer instead of a dodge roll. It doesn't make sense for a Templar to dive around like that.

RNG has allways beign big part of arpg's.
Also in the endgame crafting is more deterministic with different orbs. But this is not mmo or something like that. rng is part of arpg's.
So i strongly disagree with the rng part.

I do agree cost of respeking points should be lowered.

Also difficulty will be propably be balanced but its a delicate dance and its only EA.