PoE = Path of Kaoms Heart, Solution = Buff hp on chests

While I like Scrotie's thread about life, I do not believe it really solves anything besides making life more manageable. The problem is, at the root, that GGG responded to CBers wanting more challenging enemies by ramping up their damage. That does not create a challenge, it creates difficulty (I wish I could find it, I once had a really great article explaining the difference between the two throughout the evolution of games and technology). Rather than improving enemy AI and pack composition in such a way that generates challenge (can be overcome by skill more so than a stat check), they introduced a stupid amount of power creep thereby making the game more difficult (gear checks do not require skill, it does not require skill to RNG adequate gear, and it does not require skill to stack all of the lifes).

The solution, imo, is as I have been saying since January: kill the shit out of power creep, and give enemies behavior and attributes that want to rape you if you aren't good enough at playing the game. Swarm enemies that don't flee, but keep piling on and on, trapping your movement, and have a resistance against aoe (the press of bodies absorbs hits, the front line acts like a meat shield for the rest). Bandits that will maintain a distance from you / evade your attacks when an elemental is nearby, and charge in once they hit you with cold snap. Or cannibals that behave similarly when near tar zombies, they'll hurl rocks at you until you're bogged down in tar and then swam you. Splodey bugs in Sarn Slums that detonate in a chain reaction when three or more of them die at once in close proximity, thereby making aoe a dangerous thing. A simple gear check won't keep you alive through these encounters, your reaction to the threats around you and clever use of skills and positioning will.

And that (besides technical issues) is really the only thing holding PoE back. Poor ass design decisions and an apparent love affair with power creep are the only things wrong here. So long as that remains the trend, I doubt I'll be playing throughout the entire "10 year plan," it'll just get old after a while. But having a real effing challenge will keep me around indefinitely.