Punishing =/= harder or more challenging

If one portal / death stayed and we have to play around it, make endgame design to be balanced accordingly.

1)Redesign maps where there is no unfair situation to players like range monster attacking you from position that you / your minion can't reach.

2)Redesign archnemesis modifier that against melee combat, against the concept of in and out of combat and dodging, these are like temporal bubble / mana siphoner / debuff that disable your regen.

3)Redesign breach, expedition, delirium and future league content monster density. If they stayed this dense then nerf most of the monster hp and damage, make them going back like PoE 1 inconsequential loot pinata monster. With this much density, spell effect, monster damage, clear speed, if things stay like this, then the meta build will be dominated back by PoE 1 braindead build like spark and Deadeye bow (which already is) and others screen-wide aoe clear builds.

The more you punish people, the more people will avoid of getting punished instead learning. This density and clear speed is really against the dodge and "slower" gameplay concept of PoE 2, so then it leaves us with where is PoE 2 direction going ?

4)Ascendancy point. If the difficulty stay like this, then don't make the process to do the trials tedious. Collecting the keys and doing 4 floors / 30 trials of chaos (if you are lucky) with only 1 chance, is not challenging, is not hard. Its punishing, more than it should be. If the game direction want to keep this kind of punishment and challenging contents, then make them to be VERY REWARDING, not just from the item rewards from the contents but also the power of ascendancy. Make ascendancy points to be a huge power spike on each node, starting from 2 points to 8 points.

5)Item crafting, or should I say item gambling. WE DONT CRAFT ITEM, we gamble them. For sure that our power also come from item, but where is the line between combat vs items ? If we are forced to keep dodging 15 projectiles each time we go into monster pack, 5 ground effects, the casters are doing it from North Pole, and if we just fail once, we lose all our investment in waystones, make the item crafting to be very easy so people can easily craft tons of powerful gear by themselves. There is a reason on why something like darksouls, elden ring, monster hunters, games that incorporating active dodge gameplay, have their itemization to be fixed, not randomized.

Players can simply stuck in progressing their gears or even act just because they are unlucky. There is no control in crafting our gears, and if we are forced to gamble item with gold, then make the item from the gambling to be actually useful without deadmods like LIGHT RADIUS - ACCURACY RATING - STUN THRESHOLD - LESS ATTRIBUTE REQUIREMENT. These mods are made to dilute the item crafting to be "harder" like in PoE 1, but PoE 2 itemization is gambling, not craftin. The game needs to choose, between balancing the game around trading or combat. You can't have both running at the same time.

6)Combat stat / mechanic. Just like point 5, LIGHT RADIUS - ACCURACY RATING - STUN THRESHOLD are just simply dead stat that made to dilute the item mod, and this stat needs to be redesign. Accuracy rating make sense in PoE 1 because of its gameplay, but not in PoE 2. Back to combat design principle, if the game designed to be much slower and more methodical combat, the only "ACCURACY" that we need is that on where we aim our skill.

If we aim our skill ACCURATELY on the target, we don't miss. Now, with melee, we won't miss if we hit monster within 2m radius, so then WHY ACCURACY STILL DILUTING THE MODS POOL ? Why should our ranged attack skill need accuracy, when skill like spark exist ? This accuracy stat have no place in PoE 2, if the game and combat stay like this.

Stun threshold also needs to be adjusted as a combat / game mechanic, and as item stat. Games that are "souls like" have a tiny bit of iframe when our character get CC into a situation where we lost control completely. Right now in the game, you can easily get stunlocked to death and it just simply a nonsense mechanic in PoE 2. Why is it ? Because ;

A) Stun threshold is undesirable mods on item that take other mods slot that more important.
B) Why stun threshold is less important as mods is simply because the endgame designed in such a way where you need to kill the enemy quickly, while able to tank few hits / dodge few hits. The window of error will grow larger and larger the more you brawl with monsters, the more you take hits, the more of league contents that you do with its monster density. Youll get less reward because of how breach and delirium was designed just like PoE 1 clearspeed build, and expedition is just simply another item gambling mechanic.
C) And if you somehow think that you NEED TO BUILD around stun threshold mechanic by getting its stat on item (not tree), then its going back to the question of PoE 2 game design principle.

------------------------

Where is the line between itemization vs more methodical combat approach ? Why the game designed as such to have much much more punishing content and yet the itemization is simply gambling stat ?

The game is conflicting between difficulty / challenge and punishing. Eater of The World / Searing Exarch is challenging even as non Ubers, and if you die in the encounter, you still have 5 more shots to learn - strategize - adapt with the mechanic. PoE 2 ? No can do, you only have 1 shot and if you fail, you get punished more by losing the key to do the content, and redo all the tedious steps just to have another entry ticket to the contents.

Punishing =/= challenging. The more you punish players, the more players will avoid to be punished, not learning and try to overcome it. It is simply a bad game design. Players will just use the meta / popular builds because the game keep punishing you. Its fun to come up with your own idea / build and tackling all the endgame contents in the game, however its not fun if the game tells you that your idea is bad and keep punishing you for it.

PoE 2 is not Poe 1, and I agree. I love the game, playing in SSF since day 2 and I'm at lvl 93 with invoker. The game is slower than PoE 1, the game is "harder" than PoE 1. So then don't import the itemization and other slog in PoE 1 to PoE 2. If things stay like this, PoE 2 will just become PoE 1 that has dodge roll and upgraded visual.