Feedback on what I feel should be changed / after 7 days in-game as a sorc

i created this in markdown, it's a bit hard to read - so here is a markdown version:
https://markdownpastebin.com/?id=bb830ed7d3504c759d6885e99418233c

After playing the game my sorc (stormweaver) for 7 days in-game, I started to note down my feedback - I tried to keep it as compact as possible while also noting ways on how stuff could be fixed. I figured that's the most constructive way to submit this feedback.

Generally, the game is a ton of fun and it's a bit sad to omit all the good stuff (details like the balance of essence mobs! which no one seems to mention :D) - but there is just too much good stuff about the game. So I focus on stuff that I feel should be changed to make perfect!

About what i've been doing, maybe important to understand the feedback:
- playing without build guides
- got nerfed twice (cast on freeze and then freeze on chaining) and kept looking for ways to make my freeze build work -> which is fine, can understand the decisions
- playing archmage with 3k+ mana now
- my build is slow but can clear mob level 81 pretty well
- since I can't really clear breaches and rituals I didn't delve into endgame too far just doing some t15 maps and leveling my char to get a few more passive points

Core game feedback

Buff-Skills have to be right clicked now
- it's not really intuitive that you have to right click the skill within the skills menu.
- All the people I know didn't find that out by themselves, as for myself - someone in the global chat helped me grasp that after trying to find it out for 10-15 minutes.
- Change the "Buff" tag/text below the skills name to "Buff - right click to activate"
- Alternative idea / additional way to activate it
-> Create an activate button in the skills menu
-> "Activate Buff" / "Deactivate Buff"
- In general I think that's a good change. in poe1 you needed to waste a slot - however it's not very clear how to activate the buffs the way it is handled now.

Tooltips / I really love the tooltips. they make creating your own build so much better. Especially since you can jump from tooltip to tooltip. The following changes would make it even better:
- Add some kind of mini-wiki with the tooltips as pages and a search function to browse the information more easily.
-> While a Lot of information can be read from the tooltip, clicking through the third tooltip felt annoying and not well structured to friends who never played poe1
-> it's like you jump from bubble to bubble instead of getting a bigger picture
-> having all the same text-blocks in some kind of in-game help/wiki window to search through specific topics - like finding everything about "ascending" or find everything about "elemental"
- Stun Threshold and Freeze Threshold (and others like ailment threshold?) are kind of a mystery and aren't visible anywhere.
-> Numbers of the current threshold in the character window would help to get a feeling of what the base threshold is.
-> Then adding a tooltip which explains what that number means would make that more clear.
-> For instance - all I know is that I've got 7063 freeze threshold for sure (by nodes in my tree), but - who knows what that may mean? do I get frozen after getting 7k cold damage or what's the idea? A percentage would be nice if that's not a damage threshold
- Magnitude Tooltip could explain the effect to all the different ailments with 1 sentence each. that would help a lot. To me it's currently very unclear what it does to cold -> if it does nothing to cold it would be helpful to put an information "has no effect on ignite or cold". Asking people in the discord or global chat showed me that a lot of people don't know how that works for cold either.
- The difference between "more" and "increased" is clear to a poe1 player, but having the difference explained with a tooltip for each would help understanding it better - or at least make it clear that it's not the same. You don't have to note the damage formula, but roughly explaining that this is an increase on top of the other increases would make things more clear.
- "Gain #% of X Damage as Extra X damage" -> I also asked in the PoE 2 discord / build assistance section and it's not clear to a lot of people how that really works.
-> Is with this meant Gain #% of the skills base damage?
-> Is with this meant the damage I dealt after the full calculation - and then it adds additional damage on top?
-> it would make sense to explain in more detail and easier - with an explanation on how you can find out how much it will deal, for instance
---> see the damage information on hovering your skill in the Skills-Menu -> if it's calculated with the base dmg
---> see the damage information by clicking the arrow next to your skill in the Skills-Menu -> if it's calculated after all other calculations
---> (I'd assume its the base damage or it would be way stronger? unclear to me.)

Crafting and mods

Crafting / it feels bad not to have the crafting table / crafting bench and being able to craft 1 mod to the item that may roll way lower than possible but make the experience way better and rounded.
- It would also be nice for beginners leveling experience as well to craft resistances to the items.
- when helping a friend whose build doesn't work, the crafting bench can be a nice way to optimize a dying character - a cheap and quick way to make things a lot better, simply be looking at a character panel and fixing the most obvious issues.

Crafting / the fact to have way more exalts feels very good, that in itself is a very cool change - generally annul, exalt and chaos orb are a cool crafting "meta"

Crafting / not being able to reroll the base feels very bad
- no scouring orb
- reroll blue (poe1 alteration)
- reroll yellow (poe1 chaos, delve, harvest or essence)
- I have to throw a lot of maps or items away because it's trash, instead of being able to reroll the mods
- I always have to look for a new base

Crafting / Generally, crafting felt good in the beginning - but started to feel really bad once the items really had to get the stats I needed.
-> I never traded for so much basic stuff on poe.trade as in poe2 EA

Mod / "+# to level of skill" modifiers feel way too important. I was annoyed by it in D4 and it seems even more important in this game. I can't think of any sorc build that doesn't need it in the gear.
- I think that this is not a good development, it makes tons of items useless.
- better would be to find staves with implicit +2-3 skill level instead of being granted a skill from the item -> instead of having it as an affix.
- I understand that this change will feel really bad to the existing state, but I am 100% sure will be better for the game.
- Obviously builds will be dealing way less damage after that and the difficulty has to be adjusted accordingly

Quest and early game feedback

Quest / "ominous altars" - this quest is confusing for different reasons, here is what I would change:
- first, it is unclear how many rituals you have to find - a quest counter would fix that - or at the very least a text in the chat "X altars missing"
- second, it's weird why there is an altar that can't be triggered (boss) - it would be easier to block off the whole way towards the boss-altar with a mist wall (would fit thematically too "king in the mist") -> which unlocks after clearing the last altar
- if the mist blocks more than just the altar, it would also cause you not having to backtrack the whole way from the locked altar it would be clear that you first have to do the other objectives.
- if you found the mist wall before clearing the altars it will be intuitive as well to go back there after clearing all altars.

Quest / mushroom quest in "apex of filth"
- has a bugged dialogue, the "monster" NPC didn't say anything for me, that didn't really help understand what I have to do - (have no bug report number unfortunately)
- does not have a clear objective, displaying which / how many shrooms are left would help
- After dying, the quest gets really ugly. It resets all mushrooms - even those you were already bringing back. You have no indicator of where the mushrooms are on the already mapped out map and have to find all of them again.
- Two ways to fix that:
-> save the progress - and display it accordingly in the quest log -> for instance, bring green in -> mark green mushroom as completed and blue and red as missing
-> or quick fix solution / don't give an option to turn in the mushrooms if you are not carrying all 3 and make the char say something like "I need a green, blue and red mushroom"

Normal Act 1-3 Bosses
- queen of flith / arena layout
-> corners where you can get stuck easily with no way to escape, just unfun part of the fight
-> The dodge roll change already helped a lot here
-> Even though it's better now - I think it would make the fight better if the corners of the fountain were unpassable and remove the weird corners on the side - so the arena has less corners in general.
- some bosses are a bit too hard in general, there has been enough feedback already, just to quickly mention those that felt too hard for me personally:
(I did it the first 3-4 days - so maybe these bosses got nerfed already)
-> molten vault boss act 3 normal
---> the DPS check can be rough. lowering the resistances to neutral would help here. I know this is a punch to the face thematically, but I feel it's just too hard with some spells.
---> I played an elemental build and the boss died faster when playing unbuffed physical boneshatter spell? (ofc. I had spell damage, so not totally unbuffed, but still strange) -> I think it is generally not smart to face a DPS check so early - this is not late game yet, not very beginner friendly.
-> act2 boss normal
---> the boss itself is not too hard - but the fight takes really long if you have mid dmg and it feels like there is almost no way to fill your flasks in the fight.
---> I rolled around with 200-300 life and 0 flask charges for like 7 minutes, trying not to get hit and somehow kill him
---> some way to fill the flasks mid-fight or a big HP nerf would help here
-> utzaal normal poison boss / felt like playing a dark soul boss. I do understand the gameplay change with the dodge roll, but that really felt like it's too much. I feel like something like that would be appropriate:
---> change the 1shot wall that you have to roll, so it only deals 50% of life instead of one-shotting you
---> generally nerf all other damage by 30%

Respawning within the zone does sometimes cause being stuck in the same zone for a very long time whenever the build isn't stable.
- The fact that there is no travel skill makes it so you will have to clear everything again.
- It is slow and the player is extremely overleveled. Sometimes it even feels like you don't make progress, after all you are not progressing through the map.
- Combined with the respawn, loot is de-spawning which doesn't help you get stronger
- Friends that are new to the Poe franchise especially critiqued the loot de-spawn fact
- I honestly believe that it is best to just remove the whole respawn mechanic and go back to the map how it used to be in poe1, which refreshes after X minutes not re-joining the map, it just felt better in any way

endgame feedback

general map feedback
- levers on maps (augury) should have a way to stop the animation of pulling the lever - being able to dodge roll would do the trick
- towers itself (to put tablets into) are a bit unrewarding. why not giving tower maps each a random boss which is repeatable on failure and has to be beaten to activate the tower? it would give me a reason not to dump my tier 1-9 maps there but use a normal one as well.
-> the boss could also give rewards, for instance - let him drop
---> 1-2 same tier map -> afterall I need to "waste" unbuffed maps to get there
---> why not let him drop a tablet
-> honestly? that would Hype me to travel towards the tower. right now it's more like a chore. after all the maps feel unrewarding without tablet buffs.

map supply
- consequence of dying in maps
- possible ways to fix that:
-> offering a favour system to let 50% of the maps be that level would help - when I complete a t15 map, I only get one t15 usually - and 4 trash maps that I will never need. this fix would get it to a spot where I'd get 2 or 3 in one run.
- offering the tier level maps at the trader once the atlas quest is completed (won't fix it but it helps for sure if you lack them)
- adding a bad luck protection when reaching 49 mobs left in the area -> double the chance to drop a map from the last 50 mobs in the area
- adding a bad luck protection node to the atlas, which gives you an additional same-tier-map for sure from one of the rares

consequence of dying in maps, which happens a lot (as explained in the section "unfair reasons for dying")
- the problem isn't one consequence but that "all" consequences apply
- 10% exp penalty, horrible for new players, "normal" for poe1 players
- you lose the map
-> these are rare (see "map supply")
- you lose all the bonus on the atlas map
-> basically you indirectly also lose all tablet buffs
-> you lose bosses and endgame mechanics and have to look for another one somewhere?
- after losing the map bonuses, you will have to do an un-rewarding map depending on where the map leads -> That is punishing as well
- you lose all the loot in the map
-> I struggle within breaches (see unfair reasons for dying) - have to deal with all the consequences above and then I also lose all the breach splinters and breach rings, because I cannot re-enter the map?
-> this feels horrible.

unfair reasons for dying
- slow builds due the game design / slower builds that do not stick to the one button formula have a hard time doing content with fast mobs
-> mechanics like breach and ritual with no way to really escape the fast running mobs are basically unplayable on slow cast characters (using comet without triggering for instance)
---> it feels like these mechanics are designed for poe1, not for the slow poe2 -> spawning more caster mobs and decreasing the movement speed to player level would help
---> I just desperately spam frost walls to try to keep the mobs away now when doing delirium - which feels Bad. I stopped doing rituals and breach completely because it's just not worth looking at the consequences when dying
-> poe1 had a lot of good movement skills to get out of sticky situations
---> the only alternative costs 60 spirit and then you don't have a dodge roll for every other 4 seconds - which is a really high cost -> And takes the dodge roll away
---> there are a few movement skills for bulky classes - why none for squishy casters that really need them because their damage needs build-up time?
-> the dodge roll changed helped a lot already, but doesn't fix the issue if mobs are too fast
-> as I understand it, the game is not meant to do 1button mash builds. it was encouraged to try to combine stuff, but if the mobs only allow fast 1button minmax builds there is no way do something else when trying to get further than t15 maps and ditching the mechanics completely


- mana leech ring guys are extremely dangerous for mind over matter players
-> even worse if they can spawn with the Proximal tangibility mod as well -> basically have to sacrifice myself to kill the rare
-> I can understand this as a map mod in advance -> but not randomly / uncontrollable on the map
-> sometimes it can happen that boss ads have these rings too -> that killed me in a map with the poison assassin boss with the phase where you have to search the model before getting killed by poison gas.
-> sometimes even the bosses themselves can have it, well thanks for that one. xD

- Proximal tangibility rare mod
-> is extremely annoying and can force you to run into stuff a range build usually wants to avoid. it can kill you.
-> I can understand this as a map mod in advance -> but not randomly / uncontrollable on the map

- projectile mobs seem very imbalanced sometimes. I am chaos immune - so I don't even get the poisoned but sometimes almost one-shot. Maybe the amount of projectiles just scale too much with pack size and mods?
-> these mobs maps seem to scale bad with all offensive affixes
---> red/orange projectile crabs
---> poison snakes / green stuff shooters (especially in augury maps)
-> good example, these mobs seem to scale in a more fair way -> maybe less projectile count?
---> poison flowers that stay in the ground until going near / green stuff shooters
---> green/yellow projectile crabs that shoot poison / green stuff

-> so maybe orient the projectiles of the other two more to the flower balance
-> or do these shooters weirdly still deal more energy shield damage than they should, even though I am chaos immune?
-> it's also possible that only the snakes are OP and the red ones just deal a lot of physical dmg, where I have less reduction?

- clicking strongboxes causes black mist to appear - the black mist can make specific effects very hard to see. For instance, this can cause my ES not to recharge without any way of really finding out why - and obviously kill me because of it
-> I'm not sure of how this can be fixed. maybe there is a way to display effects "through" the mist? it could be hard to do..
-> or maybe the black mist can be nerfed down to like 50% visibility?

- Infinitely respawning minions can be an issue for the same reason as breaches for slower builds / they are always instantly revived over and over again, even if their caster is not even on the players screen.
-> The minions are only annoying, there is no point in defeating them, but you can't ignore them, they are faster can kill you -> in poe1 that would work, after all you just use the travel skills to get directly to the necromancer
-> if they are additionally faster than normal mobs they can become a killer that you can't really beat as a slow character - they revive faster than you can kill their "owner"
-> possible solutions:
---> a cooldown for re-summoning - like 5-7 seconds would help already
---> linking minion life to the necromancer - so he's damaged on minion death - that way he is dead after defeating 4-5 waves for instance.
---> respawning them only 3-4 times instead of infinitely
---> or a mix -> revive them once and then start a cooldown until they are re-summoned from the rares position again - instead of raising them where they died so they can instantly rush you again