Early feedback 110 hours in, level 88 T15 mapping etc

Resistance Early Game:
The resistance values on gear early game are so low despite the fact that we have access to runes. The problem is that it’s very hard to get sockets early on. Dropping more orbs might help, and making sockets more common on gear would also be a solution.

Gem Levels:
As a spellcaster, it’s very hard to "over-gear" because you can’t over-level your spell gems at all. You can even get unlucky and fail to level some of your spells entirely if you have bad RNG. Maybe blue and rare mobs could have a higher chance to drop gems at levels higher than the zone level. Another fix could be to allow you to add +1 to one of your skills when you level up.

Dodge Rolling:
Dodge rolling feels underwhelming. Perhaps there could be more ways to customize your roll to make it better? If movement skills aren’t an option, improving dodge rolls might be the way forward. Most of the time, it’s just better to move away without dodge rolling.

Stacking Strength for Life:
It feels off that builds scaling with strength-based weapons or skills have access to so much more life than other builds. The problem with life scaling from PoE1 feels even worse now. Most other builds are forced to rely on Mind Over Matter or ES/CI. There are nodes in the tree that give accuracy with strength, perhaps add a node in the northeast part of the tree that makes Dexterity grant life with a downside? As it stands, using life when playing a Monk-like build just feels bad.

Power Scaling in Acts 4–6 and Endgame:
The closer you get to maps, the more like PoE1 the game feels. This might be by design, but it doesn’t feel like PoE2 when you delete bosses with ease.

The power scaling on normal mobs when you enter maps feels off—they are super fast and super deadly. Some white mobs hit harder than bosses, which is absurd. Chaos damage hits especially hard in early maps compared to other damage types, and it’s difficult to get Chaos resistance so early on.

In the late game, most rares are deadlier than the bosses. Hunting rare mobs in maps feels bad; bosses should appear in all maps. You’ve created all these cool bosses, but now you’re hiding them? Maps are too large and often have poor layouts. The trees and stones look nice but frequently cause you to get stuck. Maps often feel empty.

As a hardcore player from PoE1, I’m split on the mechanic of losing your map on death. Overall, I can see it staying or being removed depending on other balance changes.

I think the biome system is great, and GGG should double down on it. Large areas on the atlas should share the same biome so you can farm specific resources with good RNG depending on your atlas layout. The UI for the atlas also needs improvement. It should be easier to see what kind of map or biome a particular map belongs to. A zoom-out button or an overview option would be helpful.

Items and Drops:
Drops in the early game feel much better after the patch. However, the tier system on gear feels off compared to PoE1. If you’re keeping the current system, perhaps add an option to display the highest tier, such as "8/10".

Now that we have weapon-based skills, I’m a bit concerned about what will happen once all the weapons are in the game. How difficult will it be to find upgrades for your current weapon?

I’m not a big fan of how significant rarity is in PoE2, but I understand this is early access, so testing is necessary. Scaling rewards with map tiers also feels off compared to PoE1. Now, you only want to run high-tier maps, making lower-tier farming nearly obsolete. Lower maps feel gated—you don’t have access to the best bases or tiers. This makes most drops useless. Allowing better bases and gems to drop occasionally in lower maps would improve RNG.

Crafting:
Currency drops like Exalted Orbs need to be much more common with the current crating system. Even in SSF, I want to save my Exalts rather than randomly slam items. Essences that upgrade items to rare are too rare for SSF and maybe even trade.

To help new players, there should be an in-game mod list to guide them with crafting.

Ranged vs Melee:
Ranged builds are still king in PoE2. If you don’t "CC" mobs with stuns or freezes, playing melee becomes frustrating. It will be interesting to see how this plays out with swords, axes, daggers, etc. With the new "weapon system," PoE2 could introduce mechanics like parry chances with equipped weapons to make melee stronger or use a fortify-like mechanic that only works in melee range with melee weapons.

Trials:
The time investment required for Sekhemas and Chaos Trials is excessive. I don’t mind the RNG and the challenge, but when they take too long, it starts to feel bad. Build-breaking mods in both trials need to be removed—they’re unfair and lead to only negative outcomes.