Quality of Life Improvements for PoE 2: Enhancing Player Experience and UI Interaction

Introduction
My feedback focuses on quality-of-life (QoL) changes rather than content suggestions. While both content and QoL are vital for a game, I believe that Path of Exile 2, though exceptional in content depth, lags behind contemporary standards in certain QoL aspects—the "shorter leg" in an otherwise robust experience. I hope to see PoE 2 evolve into a game that is not only rich in content but also friendly in player experience, avoiding a scenario where its incredible depth is undermined by frustrating player and UI interactions.

Feedback Points
1. Build Saving and Swapping
Add a feature to save and swap between different builds, including skill gems and passive trees, with one click. This would make it easier to switch between setups for specific content such as T16 Waystone, Trial of Chaos, or Trial of Sekhemas.

2. Reduced Passive Refund Cost for Saved Builds
Reduce the cost of refunding passive points when switching to a saved build. This would encourage players to freely swap between builds for different content without being deterred by the cost of switching back afterward.

3. Improved Buff Tracking UI
The current design of buff icons growing from the top-left corner of the screen to the right makes it uncomfortable to track buffs such as Power Charge stacks. Suggested improvements:
1) Place buff icons closer to the center of the screen by default, or allow players to drag UI elements freely.
2) Let players customize important buffs to display above or below their characters.

4. Pure AoE Skill Targeting
Pure AoE skills should always cast at the mouse position, regardless of whether the mouse position has an enemy. For example, Storm Wave currently auto-turns the character to target enemies at the mouse position, even if they move behind the player. Instead, such skills should consistently cast at the original mouse position to maintain their intended AoE effectiveness.

5. Floating Text Placement
The floating text displaying "+xxx gold" overlaps the player's health bar in the center of the screen, which is distracting during combat. Adjust its position or provide an option to disable it.

6. Search Bar for Settings
Add a search bar to the game settings menu to make it easier to locate specific options.

7. Search Bar for Inventory
Introduce a search bar for the player’s inventory to simplify finding items, especially in cluttered bags.

8. Overshield Display Improvements
Show overshield as a separate bar above the normal shield and health bar. Players using Chaos Inoculation rely heavily on overshield, as their health bar becomes irrelevant.

9. Health Bar Hiding Option
Provide an option to hide the health bar for builds with extremely low health, such as those using Chaos Inoculation.

10. Expanded Map Information
Enable players to view additional map information while in the map, including the current map tier (e.g., T14) and unfinished events (e.g., Breach, Expedition) alongside the map’s prefix and suffix.

11. Reduced Visual Clutter from Ally Skills
Reduce visual clutter caused by ally skill effects, which can obscure important visuals during combat. Suggestions include:
1) Implement visual effect prioritization layers, such as enemy effects on the top layer, player effects in the middle, and ally effects on the bottom.
2) Allow players to fully disable ally skill effects, especially from large AoE abilities.

12. Improving Melee-Friendly Gameplay
Adjust encounter design to make most content more accommodating for melee builds. Specifically, reduce the excessive spamming of AoE abilities by bosses and rare enemies, which currently poses a disproportionate challenge for melee players. At the same time, design some specific content to challenge ranged or melee players by taking them out of their comfort zones.