Input tracking

I suspect that one of the Souls-like influences GGG put into PoE2 is input tracking i.e., enemy attacks and behaviors, and in-game effects read player input and use this as triggers.

Case in point: Volatile crags and plants. Both have a long-ass flight time while homing in on the character.

It doesn't happen all the time so I suspect some RNG in the mix, but both sometimes start to detonate when you dodge early toward them just so it explodes when the character is smack in the middle of one, leaving no opportunity to make up for the early dodge by dodging again before these Volatiles normally would explode after a character passes through them.

Another are the "bog witches". This fat beaches that shoot curses at the sky that manifest as hexes on the ground. When the character is in their "range" usually when the player sees them on the screen for the first time, and if you dodge away ( which is normal for anyone surprised by a pack of enemies), even before the dodge animation begins, the witch shoots the curse exactly where the character will end his/her dodge. Result? Insta-kill.

I find these as cheap mechanics, right up there with those yellow-orange quill monsters that used to fire their quills at the character's feet astonishingly accurately and with burning ground as icing on the cake.

Also, GGG tweak your "challenges" please. You put RNGeezus everywhere but I've noticed that EVERY rare monster in the Paradise map I just finished 20 minutes ago had the Conjure Lightning Storms ability. EVERY SINGLE ONE! 10 or more of them. I suspect this is because my lowest res value was lightning at 70%. Couple with hasted sandworms that chase you for the whole map, I am having SUCH a good time!

GGG your game is already challenging enough as it is. It's overkill. There are a lot of things unexplained (which we are all used to by now) and that's the main challenge for most of your players.

No one tells new players that the first priority in the endgame is to earn enough currency to trade for better stuff. Hell no. Literally thousands of players go through bad UX believing that if they grind hard enough, something will drop that will help their characters push through. Hundreds of thousands of hours wasted just because no one bothers to put an in-game guide or provide a kit that can help newbies survive the trauma that is the endgame. So very Soulslike!

Pile on every challenge, cheap or really good, and we get PoE2. I really hate the input tracking FromSoftware does in its games. That to me is a bridge too far just for the sake of giving a "challenge". There are better ways to achieve this, you know.