Endgame punishment actively motivates to quit the game.

They aren't trying to motivate you to quit. They are trying to motivate you to buy items from Tencent's pay to gear sites.Tencent owns GGG and therefore own PoE2 droprates.

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Mordgier#6997 wrote:

Well, it's supposed to motivate you to improve your build and push you towards content that your current build can handle

Usually the games do it by simply not allowing you to move forward. Thats enough to force players think about their builds.
They dont kick you in the balls, twice.

I've read the replies in this thread and have yet to see the one that gives a good reason why exactly there have to be punishement beyond the normal 'you just cant push forward'.
This punishment doesnt cater towards the players who want the challenge but towards the subset of them who are masochists on top of that.
Weird decision all around.

I feel you, I am also dropping the game until they fix some of the punishment. For me if their goal was to make it a more challenging experience than POE1, or to have a more skill based end game the current one just fails on that. It constantly pushes you not to get better, but to simply grind out enough currency to purchase a character that can one shot bosses because if you engage with a mechanic, it can kill you. So the goal is just to engage with as little of the game as possible. The less you need to dodge, use potions, block, and use skills the better an experience end game is.