Itemized feedback after 1,000,000 kills and too many hours

First a preface: Although I've never been one of the game's whales, I've been with GGG since the beta for PoE 1 and want its sequel to succeed. Overall, I'm enjoying PoE 2's gameplay loop but found myself routinely frustrated with some design decisions.

Here are a few things that repeatedly stuck out:


Miscellaneous (Major):

* Atlas map screen is very clunky to navigate. At minimum, should allow further zoomout and scrolling via WASD keys.
* Make Atlas searchable for Uniques, Citadel, Corrupted Nexus, AND +1 LEVEL AREAS!. Or just autoassign such nodes a map icon that can be individually toggled via the Map Legend.
* Players have too little movement speed for how ginormous maps are. Chasing movement speed nodes on the Passive Tree is boring character progression. In the same vein, any map with temporal chains is almost always immediately destroyed.
* Burrowed mobs stopping you from moving is just plain irritating. Running Ritual and Strongbox scripted events only to routinely have to comb over the area for that last burrowed mob is also plain irritating.
* Too much inventory and ground clutter. Myriad of 1x1 currency, essences, splinters, etc should all be getting auto-collected and funneled into stash automatically. Breach splinters are an especially egregious example of this.
* Way too many separate UI menus; Disenchanting, Reforging, Breakdown, and Selling should all be part of a single vendor ala PoE1. Along the same lines, using distilled emotions (or even simply combining them) is an awful experience; they don't need yet another window panel.
* Most dangerous enemy in the game: all the blobs of terrain and other obstacles. Ritual-farmers beware! I'm watching the map overlay more than anything else half of the time just to move across the terrain.
* Proximal Tangibility has to be one of the worst ideas for a monster mod. Have it linearly scale the player's damage down at distance instead of negating it entirely. AoE mana-drain, intangible mobs are especially terrible.
* Map affix system just feels bad. Why are prefixes all 'good' and suffixes all 'bad'? Why, if I luck into adding the Temporal Chains mod, is the only thing I gain more Waystone Drop chance? Outside of Citadel farming, players don't care about Waystone drop chance. This all feels contrived for the sake of Omens.
* Recombination just feels bad. As it is right now, it's too punitive with losing both items and Expedition currency. Unless you're on trade and have access to piles (and piles!) of currency, it's currently relegated to mid-tier gear/affixes and then forgotten about for the other 90% of the game. What's the solution? A[nother] currency item to potentially increase your chances? An Omen?
* Should an endgame Recombination (by some miracle) succeed, the player still has to fall back on slamming other affixes. The frustration involved in Recombination only gets subsequently compounded by the lack of crafting tools for more basic, entry-level crafting. There needs to be an intermediate path to "decent" crafted gear before being forced down a spiral of expensive trial & error Omen gambling.
* Concerning Expedition, I hope the current incarnation is temporary; the crafting NPCs are a waste of time right now. If they were considered overpowered in PoE1, the solution should not be gutting them completely. Give the NPCs back some more "turns" at each item, give them back "lowest" tier removals, give Tujen back his currency trades. Coming from PoE1, the mechanic feels disappointingly underwhelming in the current game. Expedition has effectively been turned into a grandiose system for Recombination currency.
* Greater Essences are too rare for what they provide. They are effectively an upgraded Regal Orb that cannot be honed with an Omen, at 20x the rarity over their normal, non-greater variants - and that's AFTER Atlas investment. This rarity is further unjustified given that their crafted modifiers are still random in the vast majority of cases; ie., a lightning tag being shared by both resistance and damage to attacks.
* Atlas tree needs an overhaul. Many of the nodes are very weak and contribute to an endgame progression that doesn't have much impact. Map Bosses have 50% increased experience? Expedition chests despawn after 5 seconds? One rare monster in your maps is duplicated? These are all supposedly notable nodes that leave me completely mystified as to why they're even an option at all.
* Access to Perfect Jeweller's and level 20 uncut gems is abysmal in SSF. Associatively, level 82-capable areas are too sparse.


Miscellaneous (Minor):

* Delirium Mirrors should be highlighted on automap without having to reveal fog of war. I have often forgotten one is there until partway into a map.
* Add a small 1 second delay on Extreme Archaeology explosion so player doesn't get instantly stuck/blocked by a horde of Expedition mobs.
* Visual clarity on free atlas points associated with secondary trees (boss, delirium, etc); not clear at all if points unspent.
* Allow us to click on and inspect towers for their active tablets. It's a guessing game on what modifiers originate where right now.
* You can currently reforge Greater Essences into lesser [normal] Essences. What? Can also reforge an essence into the SAME essence?
* The chest map prefixes, both magic and rare, should just be removed. They are incredibly anemic, especially after the latest patch changing them into a flat 2 chest addition... Despite also being weak, at least the %gold and %experience prefixes can legitimately be argued to have a purpose in select situations.
* Is Greed shrine intended to troll the player?

Rhoa:
* Rhoa visibility, or lack thereof. Should be highlighted/glowing (especially in all these dark maps). At least a blip on map overlay. Currently impossible to find in the midst of combat should you need to dismount.
* Potentially a separate hotkey for mount/dismount? This would also 'fix' being unable to Blink while using Rhoa.
* Rhoa Stagger buildup should [slowly] dissipate when out of combat, similar to how player life regen works. Need a way to lower stagger meter other than clunkily dismounting/mounting.
* Requiring dismount to cast portal makes for a constant dismount/mount/dismount/mount cycle as you hop in and out of maps.
* Overall, Rhoa is overpowered right now with its complete removal of the slow penalty while using skills. But Heavy Stun also feels horrible, forcing the player to enter into a minigame of logging out of the game whenever it happens. Honestly, I think the skill needs an entire overhaul.

Noteworthy ugh maps:

* Abyss map is terrible - deadend galore. Checkpoints are a bandaid.
* Hidden Grotto is tedious - map is generated with a multitude of corridor passages and boss is hidden away behind one of these. You're left circling the map yet again if you don't spot it.
* Trenches is a tedious labyrinth with all the appeal of ye olde Diablo 2's Maggot Lair. Skipped whenever possible.


I'm hoping for changes and improvements. See you all in 0.3.

a lot of good points in here.

Really solid points!
+1

some good notes in there

+1 from me too

+1 to zoom screen at atlas and changes to Proximal Tangibility and mana drain circle