Longform core gameplay loop feedback

First I would like to start out and thank GGG for all the work they have done and I have had a lot of fun playing early access this past week. My personal favorite touch is the mob spawning interactions with the environment which have all just been really cool. I know this isn't a preferred feedback format but I don't know how to express it all well in another way.

Background/Player Profile
Played PoE1 since primarily abyss league. The few omissions being delve, heist, sanctum, and necropolis (not a good start for PoE2 systems :D). Mainly target league challenges every season as my primary goal in softcore trade. I typically only trade for gear when I hit roadblocks and for chase uniques. Don't think I have ever actually killed an uber boss (besides elder). I love alch and go T16 maps and guardian farming. I do not like the current iteration of scarabs or T17's. Usually I don't do much crafting besides alteration spamming or using essences on certain pieces due to opportunity cost more so than the complexity of it.

As for PoE2, I am currently playing a level 82 witch hunter working my way through T11 waystones.

Leveling
No major feedback at this time. I am someone who enjoys doing the campaign every time to gauge character power/feel and I enjoyed the first 3 acts immensely. Did the maps feel almost exceedingly large? Yes. Did they feel smaller the second time through? Yes. I liked the sense of exploration the first time through and route optimization was quite apparent the second time.

Crafting
I didn't engage in this as much as I could have in PoE1 but I will say I thoroughly enjoy using nearly all my currency available for crafting almost right away and not feeling bad. Does it feel lightweight comparatively though? Yes. Maybe that is just because some mechanics aren't in yet, not sure, but either way I don't typically engage much further into it anyways.

Items
1. Please allow us to overwrite runes in gear somehow
* Life is objectively better than overcapping a resistance. I feel compelled to put life in my gear despite not being capped in resistance because I can always get resistance from gear to cap. Life however has no cap. With how many of these things drop I am surprised by the current lock-in nature.

Gems
1. Level range specific gem drops just don't do it for me
* I first got excited to see higher level ones drop but then it is immediately followed by a flood of same level skill gems. Now I am patiently waiting to progress to the right map tier for my next ones as I get flooded with useless ones.
* I don't like the removed source of potential player power gain. If I now grind T11 maps because my character does not feel strong enough to comfortably move forward, my gem progress halts completely. My only options are now character XP or gear.
* I was using a level 7 skill due to stat deficiency. Then I got an item with that stat. I leveled the gem to 15. Then I got better item without said stat. Should I now have to farm lower level content to get back a 7 which I was previously comfortably using? Maybe I am missing something here.

Trials
1. Trial of the Sekhema (I do not like Sanctum because the gameplay limitations it naturally imposes)
* This is objectively harder for melee even if they have more defensive layers and take less honor per hit. Positioning will always be more important.
* No build diversification. In PoE1 lab, the feeling of running with high armour vs no armour was noticeable. Building a character to tank traps rather than just do more dps made characters doing trials feel and play different.
* I had no idea honor resistance was a thing until trying the 3 floor trial and feeling like it was so hard that I had to look it up to see if it was bugged or not.

2. Trial of Chaos
* I just found this very hard due to RNG primarily. Which is fine for content to have except when you must beat it or you don't get the thing most people will initially do it for. Can't bow out early and still ascend...

Endgame
1. Sense of exploration but no objective (I don't like delve because of this)
* I love filling out my atlas in PoE1. It gives a sense of completion. Now I am given an infinite expanse and told to explore. But what is out there for me? I was thinking I would probably be more engaged if the boss areas were exposed in the fog of war and I was told to adventure south or something towards that location. At least then I would feel a sense of direction. As well as a feeling that even if I fail the boss I will know where the next one will be to try again. Right now I am just stumbling around and hoping to find something. It doesn't feel that nice. Then once I find a boss I will wait until my build feels strong rather than risk losing it and having to stumble around to find it again (if that is how it works, not sure haven't found one yet).

2. Uncovering the fog of war is fun but it seems like most map systems work against it
* I feel like this new atlas encourages the desire to explore but the large maps, punishing death mechanics, and waystone management all work against that. Since I have one life I feel that I must full clear the very large maps in case I struggle in future ones to put myself in a better position. If I fail a map that has modifiers that node becomes much more undesirable because of the loss of those modifiers. Then there are essentially nodes that feel like dead travel nodes compared to others which gives a feeling of wastefulness. Now I have to choose between exploring and just running the best available.

3. Waystone tiers feel too cyclical rather than fun now
* Working up the tiers of the PoE1 atlas with new tiers added excitement as this meant newer maps are getting unlocked. Now I do a path of 10 tier 1's, followed by continuing the same path and maps but now with 10 tier 2's, and so on. I don't unlock anything new to see. Even if the quest represents roughly the same number of maps to complete the atlas in PoE1 it just feels more ughhh rather than fun.

4. Atlas talent trees are relevant way too late in the endgame
* I feel like this should make you want to engage the content earlier yet they are gated behind what I would consider aspirational content. This makes map content feel stale until ultra late game now, in my opinion. Rather than providing an alternative farm method to gain player power as I progress through maps, it is essentially just a way for the "1%" or whatever to target farm. I would really enjoy this more if they progressed as I progressed so I could have more options to things while mapping.

5. Waystone management causes too much interruption to the gameplay flow
* Certain maps are objectively better now for loot (rather than randomly like PoE1), exposed by the visible modifiers. This makes it feel almost like a waste to use certain waystones on some versus others. Given how punishing endgame mapping is already, this management is just not fun for me. I lose my current progression tiers to deaths and the rare crash and have almost exhausted my supply (while mostly specced into them and crafting them as well). Now I have a blank node to traverse and feel I must conserve the good waystones I have (ex. run lower tier and get no progression) or search the map for another path with good nodes. These micro decisions at every node just makes me think to much when I ideally just want a flow state to enter.

6. Tower maps just feel bad to me
* I don't like how frequent we must run this nearly identical map. The jiggle peek nature of it and the size make it undesirable for me. When other maps are so large these maps almost feel like a waste to run because they are so small relatively. I feel like I should always use a useless waystone just to unlock it.

7. Endgame league mechanics are very hard?
* With swarm being a primary cause of death in PoE2 it feels odd that most returned league mechanics are like going 0-100 compared to the rest of the map. I feel uncomfortable doing anything except expedition or a little delirium at the moment. Which means I full clear the map and then backtrack the entire map for lucrative but dangerous league mechanics since I have one life. This is fairly tedious but with one life I again feel compelled to try to get the most out of each map.


That is all for now! Probably missed some things I was thinking of before sitting down and writing this but oh well. Happy grinding!