Leaving game Because it became a frankenstein's monster.

I'm not sure this is a reasonable feedback but after playing for 2.5k hours this game, I decided that I might give my 2 cents b4 just uninstalling and stop following every POE related youtube and twitch channel and content.

In my opinion the game became excessively complex and it takes so much effort trying to understand what is the optimum thing to do in the game that instead of playing the game i caught my self mainly readin and watching videos about POE, what to do, how to build, how to farm etc. So much that I belive less than 20% of my time interacting with POE went into actually playing the game this league. (I played delirium, harvest and Ritual league recently with harverst being the most fun i had, not because of league mechanic but because i finally was able to develop a character to its full potential within a single league. And b4 that i had not played for around 2~3 years).

Some might say that its my fault because i should just straight "play the game and currency would come" and that might be the case but its disheartening seeing how people get to farm 5~10 exalteds per hour because they've been playing for years without taking a break and knows all the game's mechanics by heart while if i just sit and play i might at best farm 70~100 chaos per hour on average. There is so much stuff to consider, possibility of combiations and a scaling of rewards that is so big and so complex that those that live for the game dont even compare to someone that is trying to play casually wich I belive should not be a problem but it becames a problem when I feel the game is balanced towards providing chalenge for these guys that have really endgame gear.

I have 60 exalts in my build. I reached a point where almost all upgrades that costs around 20~50 ex, a few 10 ex, but the majority is gonna be very expensive. So I have a choice if I want to keep playing, either I start playing for 30~70 hours (wich might take a week or more) to get a single upgrade or try to learn how to farm better... Thats when i no longer play the game and instead all I do is read about the game because merely being stronger does not necessarily means you're gonna be farming currency in proportion to how strong you got unless you understand the complexity of setting up farmming strategies. And thats when you find "Farm 10 ex per hour" guide or "farm 5 ex per hour" guides just to find out that the guy invested more 50 ex only in watchstones, orb of unmaking, sextants, gems to level up etc and i realise I'm gonna need to play the game for 1~2 weeks (playing 2~3 hours a day at around 5 days a week) to have the itens that will allow me to farm for another week to get a single upgrade and the concept of playing the game for dozens of hours without a single change in the character is disheartening to say the least.

Other than the overwhelming amount of information, even for me that played the game b4 and came back last year (Almost zero friends that i try to bring to the game enjoys it when they see the amount of things that they HAVE to learn in order for the character to merely funcion), I menaged to power through and farm around 60ex this league. Made an Elemental Hit Raider that did all content but maven because of lag. My computer is by no mean an entrace computer although it could use a few upgrades but even with lowest graphic settings i couldnt finish maven or any juiced delirium maps just because of how the encounters are taxing on the PC and I either have to play a full tank build that can endure the blows during the freezes or I cant play the game at all wich was especially frustating with this league mechanic. I lost the count of how many times the game froze and i just apeared dead wich brings me to the second issue... Not only the game seems like people sat on a room and brainstormed ideas for the game and then decided to cram everything everyone said into a single game, but many of said ideas wore tailored without regard on how the players equipment would handle it or maybe thats just the target of the developers... players that have 10k dollars PC (and i've seen a few of those complaning...)

I hope everyone that is having fun keeps having fun and many mirror's find your way! Cya arond, i'm gonna try something else!

Ah i fogot to mention, The trade is unbearable for those that play few hours a day and after a hard day of work wanting to play the game, kill monsters and farm I had to stay 2~3 days just selling junk having Zero fun. Having to go to third party to understand how much dps, for setting item filters, or forselling events that could be itemised like an "catarina's exalted orb" but instead having to go to a discord channel to sell the event... all those things are just plain bad and makes whay should be a Fun experience into a series of chores.

The sanity goes rampant!

99% of game is low reward...you need to play metas for riches - streamers like gimro and pathofmatths and others have good info if you're into that. As they incorporate all these leagues into the game (frankenstiening I like that) they nerf them to the ground usually making it that way. Game just beomes tedious and only reason to go to low reward areas is for recipes - like temples for crit or mines for res and 6L. When we had OG masters wasnt so bad. The atlas and all the shit you gotta do to maps before running them is outta control too. I know game and just feels like bloatware. Frankenstein's monster.

They will never be able to fix this game for "fun" for your avg player until trade is disabled because it's all about making you chase next gimmick for riches while everyone else spins their wheels

Thats what the nerfs to builds and items are all about thats what the nerf to leagues/areas are all about. Get back on the horse and relearn. Some can't handle it understandably.

scince fractured maps are dead there is no endgame in this game imo

I dunno, delirious ultimatums are pretty tough. You'll always need more damage for those. Delirious ultimatums where you need to sit in one place - can you do them?

Game ist turning more and more into a slot machine. Even IF you know everything there is to know, the game remains one giant RNG gamble. Harvest crafting was a step into the right direction, they took that from us because it was "too deterministic". What? It was pretty much the only deterministic way of crafting. Now - even if you're an expert - it's pure RNG, if you're lucky you hit the mod you want right away, if you're not you can easily burn 50 EX plus for your desired stat combination on one single item. That sucks, they should give us some kind of guaranteed method that feels rewarding if you're grinding enough.
Conspiracy theory: Since tencent is the main shareholder now, the strategy is: hide everything rewarding behind behind absurdly low RNG chances, and do nothing about currency sellers and bots. Maybe even earn money with them. The chances to actually find something good in the game that drops are like winning the lottery and lower....

Conspiracy theory: the game was completely fine before harvest and did not need deterministic crafting in the first place

Flip few items, get up to 100ex build without "farming" effort.
complete challenges, then quit and play something else.
Repeat.

Playing whole league is insane,and any game has a limited life expectancy anyway.

Point is, what title say that game turn in something that you need "study" before, and during the game. I same spent too much time watching videos on YT how do this, how do that and still have no clue for certain things because its mostly RNG.
Game is NOT newcomers friendly, and without newcomers in some moment game will die. Understand that GGG need new stuff to put in game, because that keep game alive, but need to REMOVE all old stuff, now they run old league and new league and that make game too complex, especially at craft point. Prefix, Suffix, influence, craft on temple, remove on bestiary etc. its very very confusing and without craft you cant get average, not best but average gear because all random map and boss drop are trash.
Zizaran have point on flask video what he make, why is problem to all flask bind on 1 button?
Trade is maybe biggest problem in whole game, you need to run 2-3 programs for that, and finally you find buyer for item, he /w you and you are in lab...you will leave lab, map or whatever you do? if not he will find another seller.

I consider myself casual player and not have a goal to make best of the best of the best char but this game need serious rework if he want to stay alive becouse as I say without newcomers game will eventually die and this game IS NOT NEWCOMERS OR CASUAL FRIENDLY