Ten core improvement points before 1.0 launch

As I'm signing off until at least 0.5.0 I wanted to bring what I see as some of the main issues into light, hopefully in a relatively constructive tone as I do care a lot about this game. Many of these have been voiced before. For some short background, I've played with one character every patch for about 100 hours each (4 trade, 1 ssf), but I have never played nor will I play POE1. Last ARPG I've played this extensively was D2 20+ years ago.

1. Attributes should be reworked to really be a core mechanic, they are currently a soft scaling tool for some passive notables and derivative stats where only INT makes sense as it enables many mana scaling options in many other places. Speaking of derivative stats: Accuracy is mostly a fake stat unless you're amazon, and life has very few options outside of equipment for making it a worthwhile scaling mechanic.

2. Defenses got better with armour to elemental damage and deflection, but ES is still an only viable choice since big hits exists (and boss tracking is wildly inconsistent). Also, having a starting point of mandatory 75 % elemental resist is a really limiting factor as how one approaches endgame balance. Chaos inoculation, MoM and similar tools will continue to be broken on many builds as they open up going for offensive stats or have direct synergies with other systems in the game.

3. Passive tree is a failure as it stands, most players optimize going in 3 different directions to pick key notables for their build, opportunity cost / reward should be higher. Quick fix would be to bind thematic paring clusters more closely. I would ditch the branching out infinite sphere/tree design as it brings too many issues, but it seems they've locked that in unfortunately. Passive tree currently represents most of class identity aside from ascendancies, and both are in a major need of a overhaul.

4. I won't touch much on endgame as it was supposed to be „fixed“ in 0.4.0 but expedition, delirium, breach and even ritual are a joke compared to juiced vaal and abyss. There is too much different currency in general, it is already insanely bloated especially if you haven't played POE1. Many maps are too big and too sparse with content even when decently juiced. Spamming Spymasters is not something I will ever want to do, no matter how rewarding it is - it is a proof temple is a failed concept (100 tools but you end up using only one). As a sidenote for endgame, first citadel spawning 15 towers away from starting point should never be a thing (happened to me in 0.2.0 and now in 0.4.0.).

5. Rarity (of items found) on equipment is a currently a equipment and design bottleneck and major FOMO issue and should be easily resolved by either implementing scaling rarity with content (map) difficulty with conjunction of tablets that they've already implemented

6. Weightings for affixes in general are terrible, i don't want deterministic crafting but getting something like 1 in 40 chance for spirit on armour and 1 in 20 for phy % dmg on martial weapon is a terrible experience esp. if you play SSF. As a sidenote, movement speed on boots should have much higher weight or even be implicit as many suggested before.

7. Equipment in general shouldn't stand for 90 % of your character power level. It only makes it harder to adjust endgame content for „meaningful combat“ that was promised and we got the glimpse of in campaign acts 1-2. I would ultimately bring it down more than bringing other power ups (stats, gems, passives ect.) up to avoid powercreep. That said, spending 5x more time on the market than working with your drops is one of the saddest things for me and my friends (who skipped 0.4.0 entirely). In my example, last 10 hours of mapping I only got excited about currency drops (and white heavy belts xD).

8. 3rd party sites and utilities are a must in getting most of endgame and that is a huge barrier of entry for most new players. My suggestion is: integrate some of the information and/or utilities now OR simplify crafting / league mechanics then build them up on later in development. While at it, asynchronous trade is great, but ingame market tool functions and UI is...not good.

9. Development cycle should be reviewed again: I can't believe there is a EA game with a locked-in 4 month no patch cycle, but then treating the game as finished in terms of leagues/mtx should carry responsibility for fixing the major issues (especially performance, I still crash every 15min after 1000 instance crash hotfixes) and steps to keep economy from bombing as it is a major factor gatekeeping me and probably 70 % of other players who can't play more than 2-3 hours per day.

10. Personal closing remark about „Vision“ – source of main schism between two camps of players: I don't care for or want POE 1.5 as I have zero interest in POE1. POE 1 content streamers and vast majority of this forum (POE 1 players) have had a major input for the direction of POE2 since 0.1.0 release and it will inevitably lead to me not touching the game as I don't care for the vision where i don't engage with the content developers made (boss i.e) for more than 1s. I would remind all of those that I've just enraged that they already have and have had for a decade what is already widely considered best APRG (POE1) that keeps getting updates.

1 +1 most stats are meh
2 +1 ES still to OP, life/armour too weak
3 +1 like your descr.
4 +1 we need to wait for 0.5 and so one (0.6 0.7 etc)
6 +1 like your descr.
7 +1 remove +level stats
8 ~
9 +1 please make every week small patches
10 ~

I like this post - just facts, no crying "I will quit poe2".