My first two experiences trying to group with someone else....

Tonight I tried to play with someone else in POE2 for the very first time. It did not go well.

First of all, I am not a POE player. My only POE character is level 17 from 2019, when I was between games and tried it out for a day.

At first, I was trying to trade for a rune to add cold damage to my quarter staff. I asked in global if anyone had one to trade. Someone did, and I offered a straight trade for a different rune. This is where things got stupid.

I joined a party, went to the town they were in, and opened trade. They couldn't trade. The game told them they cannot trade until level 25, and they were only 17. Ugh. I then suggested we go out of town and drop them on the ground. We did. They never told me what rune they wanted, so I dropped one I didn't care about, to see if it worked. They dropped the rune I wanted, but it was greyed out. I couldn't pick it up because they were not allowed to trade. They picked up MY rune easily. When they dropped it back on the ground, I could no longer take it back. What the actual hell GGG?


Round two:

Someone in global asked for help with the hyena boss. I just started act 3, so I figured I could help out. I joined their party, zoned in, and figured I would just run to them.

The entire zone was respawned and I arrogantly just ran through everything. That was dumb because I got surrounded and died.

Now I couldn't respawn. Respawn was greyed out, with a message about waiting for party member to revive me. There was no count down timer. I was stuck. They fought their way back to me, only to discover they could not figure out how to revive me...

I left party, respawned, then rejoined. I asked for a portal this time. They dropped one, but I could not see it. Now we are no longer in the same instance! I leave the instance, leave the party, then rejoin and zone in. We are still not in the same instance. We both gave up at this point.

I know this is EA, but something as simple as grouping or trading should not be this silly. I assume the level 25 requirement for trading is to prevent alt account mules, which is fine, but why is joining a player for a boss fight so messy?