Path of Exile 2 - Quality of life improvements and things that annoyed the living shit out of me

Nearly all my complaints about PoE 2 are Quality of Life related. Please see below. Sorry it's not organized well, I have ADHD, so these are in no particular order or organized whatsoever, but they are all things that annoy the shit out of me and require some quality of life changes. Some things may have been hot-fixed in the mean-time, I've been writing these down over the weekend.



1) Give us a "Sprint" feature. When out of combat for 3-6 seconds, you gain +25-50% movespeed. This bonus drops on taking damage, using any ability/skill/auto attack, or having 2+ enemies within 8-16 meters of you(aka in your presence). Traversing the maps at the moment feels extremely tedious, the movespeed is simply too slow for the size of the maps *when not in combat*. Combat movespeed feels fine but when you need to backtrack while searching for something, it feels terrible. The maps are massive and sometimes you just get unlucky finding things. Imo, this is the single, biggest thing the game needs right the hell now to feel better.

2) Map needs to "reveal" a bit further away. Too many times I ran right by what looks like a dead-end, only to find that, literally just a few extra meters away, was the damn objective/checkpoint I was looking for. This was a common enough occurance that it really annoyed the goddamn shit out of me, especially because the maps are so damn big and you move so damn slow.


3) The "aim assist" needs to be tunable by the player(makes targetting specific mobs in packs extremely difficult with some skills, such as contagion. Even mousing directly over the target, the huge "aa" bubble will struggle to target the correct mob and instead target what feels like a random mob in the pack. The "aim assist" bubble is huge, it's difficult to aim at terrain sometimes or place abilities or lead targets for slower moving projectiles.


4) With even number of arrows/projectiles, **one still needs to be centered**. Hitting enemies far away with an even number of arrows is frustrating because they go left/right of your mouse, which causes them to miss targets that are slim or a bit further away. Very noticeable when using Deadeye ascendency with +1 arrow, or Dualstring bow variants with +1 arrow.


5) Give us a button to aim/shoot our abilities at the ground where our crosshair is aiming, instead of straight across the terrain towards our crosshair. There are times I want to do one or the other, I don't think this could be automated/logic'd, but a button that allows me to aim at the ground would be incredible for some abilities.


6) Early game drops feel terrible, you don't get enough crafting material to get decent gear early game, and it feels like a waste to use the little currency you do gain on weapons you know you will upgrade when you find a better base. Suggestion: Quest Rewards also include crafting options that are item level limited. Specifically, quest rewards could give an option to Essence a white item, Regal a blue item, and/or exalt a yellow item up to a specific ilvl. If these were somewhat common quest rewards, it would be EXTREMELY beneficial to easing players into crafting early game without making them feel like they're wasting currency when they start struggling for damage.


7) dodge/roll needs a very short "ghosting" on activation so you can roll through enemies to help get you out of corners.


8) Weapon skill set points needs work... not only is it functionally useless 99% of the time, but it's ridiculously confusing. Just make them their own skill points. It's nearly impossible to get use out of these, and even more annoying because when you do want to use them, you still have to go back and waste gold on respec to get the points back, then use them.


9) Gold costs for respect(especially early game) are silly. Seriously, it should be like 10 per skill point to start with, can scale up with your level later. By nightmare, costs are ok.


10) Gold gear costs early game are also too high. By the time you get enough gold to buy anything, it's no longer an upgrade, and you can't afford the next tier item and this process repeats until later. Once you're past the early game, gold costs are fine. It's just the first 10 or so levels.


11) Attribute requirements on some things are waaay to high. Especially lower level spells/gear. I found myself pathing around just for attribute nodes constantly, instead of, you know. Keystones and important nodes. However, I absolutely love the "universal" pathing attribute points. I would like an option to change them between int/str/dex anytime.


12, this is a big one) For the love of all that is holy, let me "de-level" a gem. In addition, let me craft a gem of ANY equal or lower level with my uncut skill gem(ie, a lvl 20 spirit gem could be used to craft any spirit gem at any level(with their minimum level kept in mind). I want a level 8 Blashpemy, because my character does not have enough int for a higher level one, but I only have a bunch of lvl 14 spirit gems. I tried farming for a lvl 8 one in previous zones but after 3+ hours, no dice. This is bullshit. I have lvl 14 gems. Let me craft lvl 8 blasphemy, please. Another example - I accidentally leveled my bow gems to +14 while having my alt weapon equipped, which had +dexterity, only to realize I don't have enough dex to use my main skills with my main weapon. Literally soft bricked my character, had to craft plain gems with only 2 sockets until I could resolve it. Really, really, dumb.


13) The UI for skill/support gems is really clunky. I can't see previous level requirements, or future levels. It's difficult to even see what's being upgraded in most skills.


14) The UI for skills in general is clunky, specifically for skills that have multiple tabs(ie, projectile+pulse). When trying to compare gear for the pulse damage, it keeps swapping back to "projectile" anytime you change gear, or the window sometimes just closes, making it difficult to compare gear quickly.


15) Trying to figure out which support gems affect which part of abilities is also kind of annoying. For example - Wind Dancer. This has 2 effects, an "aura", but also a "hit". So every "hit" gem applies to the "hit" portion, but not the "aura" portion, and trying to find out which aura support options exist is really annoying. Faster to equip a different aura ability that doesn't have an on-hit portion and look through that. The search function does not seem to work very well in the gem selection menu for some reason, sometimes it just doesn't seem to return all the results.

16) 1 try per boss/map isn't enough. Give us 3. This is especially important for ascendancy trials. How the hell am I supposed to learn boss fights if I walk into the arena after slogging through the trial, only to get instantly 1 shot and have to do the trial all over again? Even worse, the ultimatum has 3 different bosses. Learning these fights is impossible when there's that much time inbetween attempts. The boss fights being challenging is OK, but please give us a chance to *learn* the damn fights. For maps, it feels terrible to die to a bug and just be done. It makes attempting challenging content feel punishing, and again, makes it difficult to actually learn. I like the added risk, I believe 6 portals in poe1 was way to many, but 1 is not enough. Let's try 2 or 3 to start with, and go from there?

Some ranger specific notes:
1) Storm Caller Arrow: Remove "Converts x% of physical damage to lightning damage from the "hit", so there's an option to use elemental equilibrium by not having any +lightning damage. For the bolt, give it increased area of effect when hitting terrain, so we can line mobs up with walls or aim at the floor(please add this as a hotkey) for increased AoE and a bit of shotgunning. This ability feels really close to being good, but it feels really clunky.


2) Electrocuting Arrow: Give it iframes during flight or something, I feel like I die mid-air often. Also, dramatically reduce the windup/wind-down animation, it feels as if you are locked into it for ages, even with improved ability speed. Your character stands stationary after landing for like a good 1/4-1/2 second or longer when they land. This needs to be smoothed out, I should be in control the millisecond my character's feet touches the ground on landing.


3) Escape shot: Basically same as Electrocuting arrow. Feels extremely clunky to use, needs iframes during jump, and wind-down animation needs to be removed entirely, full character control needs to happen the millisecond your toe touches the ground.


4) Both/All Movement skills: They need to be able to go over/through terrain. Literally every single time I die outside of bosses are because my character gets stuck on terrain and jumps/leaps in place while getting pummeled because there's a tiny little bump of terrain that somehow just blocks me. One of biggest issues with game so far from a gameplay perspective.


5) Scattershot: remove the "less cast/attack speed" modifier from this. The games attacks are slow enough as is, losing more on scattershot makes the skills feel genuinely terrible and unwieldy. Reduce the damage modifier more if needed, anything to make it feel less clunky.


6) Barrage feels ridiculously clunky. I'm not sure why, but sometimes it just doesn't want to cast? I have to sit here and spam the button and watch my hotbar to see when it activates instead of just pressing the button and knowing. Its animation seems way too long for what it does, I find myself just not using it at all specifically due to how clunky it feels, despite it's effect being strong it's just annoying to use. Felt like it interrupted my gameplay more than anything so I just started skipping it entirely.

100%

Playing ranger now and I also agree having either I-frames or moving your hitbox to where you actually are (in the air), because even while leaping 2m in the air I feel my actual hitbox is sill on the ground and I take damage/die. Also getting body blocked by like small spiders when im 2m in the air feels clunky.

I also would like to add, skills like Lightning Rod that shoot directing up in the air should be able to hit targets over walls, Right now feels like the maps full of invisible walls.


Also made my own post about the mouse aiming as its been apparent even with my 1st class as a witch, but now as a 'sniper' focused ranger, missing so many shots due to not aiming on the toes of my enemies because my gaming brain is wired to click heads or on bodies, not the ground the target is standing on