My feedback playing the first two acts

I am playing PoE2 for 4 days now, had played PoE 1 only for one season some years ago.
I finished Act 2 so far, not using any online guides. Using the Witch with a bunch of summons, currently leaning more into Chaos and Curses, with summons just spreading Contagion debuffs.

Just wanted to leave feedback on the issues I had so far:
* You get taught by the game to use the skills menu (G) to equip your skills in the hotbar. But you can't equip minion skills like Gas Arrow from the sniper that way. You have to click you actual skill slots on the bottom right to equip it. I even tried using the "Direct Minions" hotkey at first, and thought maybe I need to unlock higher skill levels first.
* I would like to see all the possible skills, even without having to use a skill or support gem. Isn't there any button or so for the Gemcutting menu? Now I just keep one stone of each type in my chest or even inventory, to think about possible paths to go with my build.
* The World Screen (U) marks your current location. But somehow not in the underground view? Which I have to use when teleporting. I would really like to see my current position there too, if I am underground.
* The pace at which NPC dialogues skip to the next paragraph (?) is really annoying. The pause in-between is just so long, that you might think you have to manually click to the next part. But right when you click, it automatically progresses, and then you skip one dialogue completely. Edit: It seems to be quicker now.
* I am getting a few crashes every day (Failed to create resource for texture). I can join back the same map instance, but most of the recently discovered map is hidden again. But not always all of it? It seems like the revealed map is not "saving often enough" or something like that? I couldn't find an option for that either.
* Why doesn't "Shift to compare" work with flasks? Seems easy to do. Edit: Seems to work now.
* The order of skills on the left side in the Support Gems Gemcutting menu seems to change all the time. Maybe based on last modified? I find that really annoying, please keep it the same order.
* The Skill Unearth (Bone Construct Minions) shows the minions stats in the Skill Menu (G) when opening the details via the > button. But somehow that does not get displayed for the Raise Zombie skill, so I have no idea how much health they have. Edit: While having an actual Zombie summoned, I can now see its stats.
* The salvage bench, for quality and socket recycling, has that hammer button to use it. Personally I expect to be able to exit salvage mode by clicking a second time on the hammer symbol, but that just does nothing and keeps my curson in salvage mode.
* The Ancient Vows quest, where you have to insert the two relics. It is really not intuitive that you have to manually insert the relics in this star-shaped black thing that pops up. At least open the inventory when clicking the statue, but otherwise I had no idea that the two items from my inventory had to go in that shape.
* I would like to inspect enemy/friendly debuffs, symbols (resistances?), and all that stuff that is displayed as symbols. For some of it I can guess what it means, but it is really difficult to make sense of everything. I can already pause the game, that would be perfect to hover over everything and get shown some tooltip info. Even corpses seem to have effects, which can only be seen for half a second when using a skill on them.
* The Contagion skill (spread chaos DoT) also spreads curses which don't deal any damage. But it doesn't say anything in the skills description about that. (Maybe only after I took the "curses slow enemies" passive skill? But that still doesn't match the description)
* The Jamanra Act 2 boss, when he starts his sandstorm. I was standing behind the NPC for the shield, everything was fine, I was taking no damage. Just fighting the mobs, until I suddenly died from full health. Dozens of tries with similar results, without much of an idea what was killing me, besides my rising frustration. Even online guides didn't mention anything useful. In the end I used the Bone Cage skill to keep the enemies away without killing them. So by now I assume they had some on-death damage, and I see enough threads about that topic here, so I will just leave it by that...

And for the end a few things I really like:
* It is nice being able to ALT-dive into keyword explanations, even multiple layers deep.
* I like being able to teleport back to the city and then come back whenever I like, without any drawbacks (so far).
* Being able to use other classes skills, passives and equipments leaves a nice amount of flexibility while playing. Let's hope they are also viable in the end game.

There is probably nobody who cares anyway, so I will just add my update from Act 4 to Atlast T2 here.

* I think I bought a full stack of Scrolls of Wisdom from a vendor, with some kind of combination of keys. Would be nice if that would be explained somewhere.
* I would like to rearrange the socketed support gems while in the Gemcutting menu. Now I have to switch back and forth to the Skills menu (G) when trying to find the right arrangement for the last gems.
* All dropped items disappear when you die in a campaign map? That is very annoying, especially if a boss dies right after that from DoT. At least in my situation it dropped the quest item, which stayed on the ground. But I couldn't fight him again, so no loot for me.
* Finding the entrance to Jiquani's Machinarium after defeating the Chimera was difficult. I didn't expect an entracne hidden at that corner.
* At least for me with my summons the Chimera fight was weird. I know you can break the pillars when it sits on them, but it would always fly away within one second after landing. Also on the normal ground, I never had time to really attack. I would assume that is not how the fight should go.
* The loading screen tips say to hold ALT to compare items, but it is SHIFT by default?!
* I have to reenter my password in the PoE2 windows client every day, even when having checked to remember me. At least it works after all the crashes within one day.
* I want to be able to equip and swap items while in the disenchanting menu. It works when selling stuff, so why not when disenchanting?
* The Demon Form from Infernalist Ascension seems to play a little animation every time I cast a spell. But that animation also plays when spreading debuffs with Contagion. Which makes my animations go crazy, I don't think that is intended.
* It is annyoing that checkpoints disappear from the minimap. Sometimes I don't know where the next/last checkpoint is, even though I have many unlocked. When reaching and using one, it shows all checkpoints, so they are still there and active, just not on the minimap unless I am close to it.
* On many maps I have problems with minions blocking other minions, so none can pass. It feels like most of the time it is because of the Infernal Hound.
* Teleporting during the campaign in Act 3/6 once the time travel portal has unlocked is weird. Depending on where you time traveled last time, teleporting behaves different for some locations. Even when trying to teleport, from let's say Act 2 to the Ziggurat Encampment. After finishing Act 6 the map changes again, but that is a different story.

Overall I had fun doing the campaign. A few bosses and enemies kept killing me, but nothing too crazy. Watching my plagues spread, and getting more deadly the more enemies it spread to. And having an army of like 30 minions, reducing enemies chaos resistance by 70 with wither, and additional 46 with curse. Applying 4 different Chaos DoT debuffs until my totem goes crazy, and seeing the enemies pop in a spreading wave.

Now to the Atlas Endgame. I am struggling hard already on Tier 1 and Tier 2 maps. I get that it is the endgame for the best players, but it is such a different from the campaign right from the start. I can't even die once, even though I get shown a bunch of portals. And all the time I die from something that I can't react to, or can't even see.
Here I am, my minions fighting in the front. No enemy withing at least one screen. And suddenly I am dead. Amazing.
Please show us what killed us. Enemy, Damage, Damage Type, Attack name, whatever. I want an indication so I can work on that weakness in my build.

* On some few maps I get swarmed by enemies from all sides right when entering. Why not give every map a small and enemy-free starting zone?
* And then some rares feel way too broken. I had one really fast moving rare with mana drain aura. What am I supposed to do as a caster? Can't run, and can't fight, only slowly die, wow...
* Or one rare had reviving minions - but without any range restriction. I was fighting those minions over and over again, they were pushing me back. And I didn't even know why they kept reviving, because at that point there wasn't even a rare anywhere nearby.

* Some enemies seem to mini-stun me or whatever, interrupting my cast animations. But there is no indication, like debuffs or enemy modifiers, why and when that is happening. Edit: That just seems to be normal stuns. I always thought the Heavy Stun buildup would be the normal stun.
* When I click on a waypoint to move towards it, and open the teleport map, I can't travel to my hideout. I have to move on top of the waypoint first, to be able to travel to my hideout. Why have different ranges for opening and actually using the waypoint?

* The Unearth skill which summons Bone Constructs sometimes casts in an unintended direction.
* Then the Gemcutter menu for picking skills is open, the game seems to be paused? Would be nice to have any indication for that, without having to test that inside of a pack of enemies.
* When in atlas world map via the map device, and clicking the atlas skill tree. And than going back to the atlas map, you seem to be no longer in the device, meaning you can't start maps. I would expect to get back where I started when leaving the skill tree again.


Now, I want to go back once more to the suddenly dying problem. To keep it fair, I have to say that I was at 65|17|-22|11 resistances, 1288 Life, and 421 Energy Shield, no block, and no defensive skill tree nodes. Because that worked out just fine for the campaign.
So I spent multiple days looking through all skill tree nodes, all item modifiers, skills and support gems. Because I like that theoretical analyzing.
But starting from Exalted Orbs and above, I was very short on currency. Because those don't drop very often during the campaign. And I used some of it on the decent looking equipment that dropped for me.
Even though I now have a good idea of what kind of modifiers I want on my equipment, I wouldn't have enough currency to buy good equipment. And since I struggle right at the beginning of mapping, I had no time to farm currency or good equipment myself. Maybe because I am not following a meta build, but I feel like that shouldn't be a requirement.
Now about trading... Why do I have to switch to the PoE website for trading?
And knowing which of my dropped items are worth selling and for how much is probably a science for itself (which is fine). But luckily for me, I don't have to deal with all that, because as a F2P player I can't even offer items on the trade site.
I still gave the trading site a try, and bought 4 equipment pieces for 1-3 Exalted each. Added some quality, sockets and runes. And now I am at 96|73|78|64 resistances and 1494 Life + 1212 Energy Shield. As expected I am dying less now, and can kind of progress again. But sadly I am still getting randomly killed out of nowhere from time to time even in T2 maps.
This endgame seems to be all about surviving, and picking the right meta build for the needed damage. Then I see videos of some players zooming through the entire map within seconds, or oneshotting bosses, and I nearly lose my motivation to keep playing my own build.
I am not sure for which kind of players and builds the endgame is designed, but right now it feels like the game ends for casual players after the campaign.

This will probably be my last update here, since I have lost most motivation to keep playing.

I am now level 82, doing tier 11 maps, with 170 deaths in over 6 days of playtime. The maps I play have 3 modifiers, because it is cheap and doable. I am mostly fine with my current death rate, since I have learned which mechanics to avoid.
Like the Vaal Factory map, I don't even try it anymore since it is so frustrating. The monsters are very annoying, kill my minions within seconds, and after that I will die. And I get sniped from outside the map. And similar with the Mire map, with Chaso damage from out of nowhere, and an annoying layout.
The increased enemy speed modifier means death. At some point a monster manages to rush and permastun me. This modifier seems too strong compared to others.
I can not do Delirium maps at all. The monsters don't create corpses, and my build is reliant on corpses. To create minions with unearth, which spread my contagion and are used as meat shields. Would it be too bad to add corpses to Delirium monsters? Even if they stay only for a few seconds.
Rituals are very deadly for me too. I need a bit of space and build up my army and spreading chaos DoT. And the game sometimes crashes during rituals for me. Rejoining means certain death, since all minions and debuffs are gone.
Breach isn't too bad, but my build is just not fast enough. I get to like one hand on the ground, or kill one rare monster, before it ends. Unless the game crashes, and I have to rejoin, which means certain death again.
Expedition is the only thing that works well for me, and even is fun. I can approach the monsters mostly in my pace, and have all the time and space I want.
Most of the time I have to do the mechanics after defeating all rare monsters, because otherwise the whole map is lost. The fact that you lose the map because of this is annyoing, but should improve a bit with permanent map markers.

Here some more random bits of feedback:
* I see people leaving the game to escape from dangerous situations. As if it would be an additional defensive layer for your character build that you have to master. I think this is a stupid mechanic. Don't get me wrong, being able to pause the game is still amazing. But why make it such that you relogg at the map device, instead of where you have left in the map? For campaign maps that already works well. If I leave the game there, or the game crashes, I join back exactly where I left, with all the monsters at the exact same position. And it even pauses the game until I am ready and make an action, amazing! Just do that also for atlas maps! Then make the "Respawn at checkpint" an (uninterruptible) few seconds delayed action, and all the problems are solved. No more abusing it to escape monsters.
* The search menu for support gems is bad. Many keywords and search terms do not find the expected gems.
* If you miss something in a campaign map, you have to redo the whole map. That is very annyoing with the size of some maps.
* I would like to access my last used Sekhmet Trial relics without having to start a new trial first.
* Why are there so many hotkeys and chat commands that are listed nowhere? Applying currency to multiple items without having to click the currency each time? Opening new map instances at waypoints? Dropping a single item from a hold item stack in your inventory? Just so much quality of life features you just have to guess. I would expect them to be listed in the Options->Input section, or shown as some detailed info if it is just some modifier key for mutliple things like shift. And for chat commands, show all possible commands as autocomplete when typing / in chat. The /help command is already pretty good, but even that you have to guess first.
* A stack of 40 Scroll of Wisdom sells to NPCs for the same price as 1 single Scroll? Is it too much to ask to get the gold for each item in a stack?
* Trading with players sucks. Often times I feel like I am doing something wrong or have the chat disabled, because nobody is responding at all to my offers via the trading website.
* Why does the order of modifiers on items sometimes change when pressing shift? That happens even for items that do not have combined modifier values.

By now I also have started a second character, a Chronomancer with a frost build. It plays better than my Chaos Witch, but of course I still die often enough. After 44 hours I reached the atlas at lvl 66. Trying out different builds takes too much time for me.