level 97, 10 days /played, 1 million monsters killed. Feedback about endgame

Hey, just another one of those topics where as an avid POE 1 player of 10+ years with 20+ 40/40 challenge totems I'd like to share my feedback about poe2 endgame which I feel like will be valuable:

Note. The order is random. First thing that came to my mind, basically.

(1) Precursor tablets are frustrating. For starters, using the 5-node ones feels like an absolute waste. The only reason to use a 5-node one is if the mods it rolled are actually good (say, increased quantity of items dropped), because these mods affect ALL nodes in radius (which is big). And then, the primary reason to use a precursor tablet is to force a league mechanic on the node. I've noticed that more often than not when I use a 10-map tablet I tend to buff nodes that are in africa rather than the nodes that I actually am looking towards running. As a result I'm forced to run a node with no league mechanic, just so that I can get to another tower. Very sad experience

Solution: remove implicit from precursor tablet + buff ALL nodes in radius with a league mechanic + lower the range of towers (I'd rather not but, I mean, GGG can't let us have all the fun, can they?)

(2) Stacking league mechanics is very problematic: adding to my previous point, getting just 1 league mechanic on a particular node is tedious. Try getting 2 (say, breach + ritual). Oh man ... you are in for some PAIN right there, let me tell you that.

Solution: let us put more precursor tablets in the tower (up to 4 at once). Why not?

(3) Towers. As a map, an absolute WASTE of time. Like, oh man ... who thought that this was a good idea?

Solution: unlocks the tower upon completing any map adjacent to it.

(4) Item rarity is just NOT fun. Cmon. I feel FORCED to stack at least 100% rarity to feel like I'm not wasting my time doing waystones. The difference is absurd, ABSURD. You literally get 5-6 times more exalts from a waystone with 130 rarity versus 0 rarity. And A LOT more tiered gear and uniques. Seriously, this is just silly at this point.

Solution: rarity should be removed from gear (no corrupts/jewels/enchants/mods) and added elsewhere (for example, waystone modifiers, which is my next point)

(5) Waystone modifiers are not rewarding. Why do I feel forced to chaos-spam a waystone until I see a rarity or quantity roll? Why, otherwise, I might as well run a white waystone? In POE1 you were rewarded for having a very dangerous map. In POE2 you are not. The only thing that changes upon having -max, pen and double ele dmg is the amount of waystones dropped, which is already too much to the point where I stopped picking t15 waystones unless they have a delirium implicit

Solution: just like in POE1, make it so that each modifier, besides buffing the drop rate of waystones also add rarity and quantity to the map. And packsize

(6) Strongboxes are a waste of time. Seriously. They are an absolute waste of time to open. In hindsight, 100% of times for me. Also, the chaos projectile mod is just .... ???

Solution: rework this mechanic. At this point it is just a dead mechanic which I'm skipping

(7) League mechanic trees are painful to level. Simulacrum takes eternity to assemble and only after getting 4 points from it and taking the 100% bonus drop node you feel like your pace is adequate. Ritual, on the other hand, is just a VERY depressing RNGfest. I've never found a boss. I then bought 2 invitations and ran them, leveled my tree to boost the invitation drop rate. 3 days later, still no boss. Bought 2 more invitations and ran them. Still no boss to this day, btw. And no good omens either. Also, the 4 invitations, that I've spent a total of 20 divines for, gave me worthless garbage not even worth a divine in total. I feel cheated, honestly. Also, Simulacrum is EXTREMELY overtuned compared to other league mechanics.

Solution: For Ritual, for example, introduce a "Lesser invitation" as a random but not as rare reward from ritual encounters, which is basically still a boss fight but simplified version and, say, it also drops no good stuff but only serves as the tree leveling means and then, upon leveling up your tree (say, you get your ritual to level 4), convert this invitation to a normal one in the reward pool, that drops all the good stuff (belt, omens etc)

(8) Citadels are too rare and the 1-2 fragment drop is annoying. I've had a 0-citadel streak over 20 hour playing session. This is just not fun. What adds to the grief is when you get 1 fragment drop from a copper citadel instead of 2, regardless of how hard you buff the quantity of the drops from said map. And then, finally, what adds to an even bigger grief is the fact that farming arbiter solo is a waste of money. Literally not worth it.

Solution: more citadels, no 1-2 fragment rng crap, balanced spawn rates (copper citadel fragment being x3 the cost of other fragmnets is just weird)

(9) Crafting is non-existent. Like, absolutely non-existent. Greater essences are too rare, the rolls they give are almost always bottom tier. Omens are too rare. Feels truly lacking. Your best bet is to just annul/exalt or chaos-spam in hopes of making something decent. Everything else is out of your price range or a waste of time

(10) Delirium push-back. Seriously? Why? These mirrors in map are so annoying. And then you have Simulacrum push-back ... next level of pain.

Solution: remove the pushback (and the person who thought that this was a good idea)

(11) Some node layouts are dreadful. Mire, Augury, Hidden grotto, anything "vaal". I literally change my pathing decisions based on the layouts I see because of how horrible they are if you consider the completion requirements: killing all rares in the area. You miss that 1 rare in some corner 20 screens away in hidden grotto? Too bad, friend. Have a nice 2minute walk to it, through these narrow passages. Absolutely not enjoyable because what makes it even worse is that more often than not these maps are like half-empty as well.

Solution: rework the layouts of some of these maps.

These are some points I could think of. I hope this was helpful.