Haven't played for a few months. Is it any better now?

I've put some 200h in the first month.

Left as i was disgusted by ggg's lack of communication and standard mode players spamming complains about trivial stuff like losing 10% hp on death.

As a hcssf only, there were so many game breaking problems that had to be prioritised but didn't get any exposure due to ppl that don't even bother reading their skill descriptions and die every 3 minutes by just charging in.

For context, i've watched dozens of live gameplay and the pattern was very clear: hardcore players pay substantially more attention to numbers, stats, layers and stuff. Standard players tend to just 'click attack until it dies'

Is it any more playable in a hardcore setup? Last time it was filled with 'sure death unless' mechanics in a lot of bosses that were either unintuitive to deal with (act 2 boss sandstorm) or the range was just plain misleading (the tornado bird at the end of the trial)

p.s. I've made it only to the end of act 6, so i have no idea about maps.

Lots of people play HCSSF so yes, it's playable. As for your disgust at GGG's communication style, only you can say whether it's up to your standards or not.

Can't you find another game and troll their forums instead? If you are such a bad-ass pro-gamer, might I suggest Sekiro or Bloodborne instead of a game where you press one button and kill 50 monsters.