Trials of Chaos/Drops/Difficulty Spikes

I'll start this out by saying I do love poe2 and there have been points that shine incredibly bright and are a blast. For the most part, boss difficulty has felt generally fair and even when hitting a wall, nothing has felt insurmountable. Until Act III.

The loot tables are actual trash and the only reason I've been able to continue is because a friend has lucked out on drops for me that have been necessary for me to continue. I'm almost level 50 and I still haven't found better body armor since I was level 20. This holds true for my gloves and boots as well. The issue is that 90% of gear is not for my class and the other 9.9% has absolute garbage tier stats that make it unusable. I've spent all my currency just trying to get better gear and even looked up guides for builds, something I generally avoid doing because I like to figure that out myself, just in case I had messed up my build somewhere. Nope, just can't get any decent gear to drop at all.

The Trials of Chaos suck. It's a slog to get through and each punishment sucks to play with individually, but makes the gameplay even worse when combined. The reason I'm even writing this is because I just went through 5 runs in a row getting to level 4 and then getting killed by some instant kill boss move. Maybe I wouldn't have died if I had better gear, but I just don't get any. Any single mistake on level 4 is punished with death and another 10 minute slog through the same levels and same challenges as before. This isn't fun, it's tedious and annoying. It's also just artificial difficulty through increases in damage.

The difficulty spikes have been somewhat manageable and, for the most part, felt fair. The end of act bosses have definitely felt like a wild difficulty spike, but even then it's felt like I could just learn the mechanics to get through. Well, except for now. Now, due to not getting any useful loot, each spike has felt impossible. Fight a boss, get one shot, run into a rare enemy, get one shot, run into a field boss, get one shot. I am able to overcome these by just not getting hit, but without better loot its now perfect play or nothing. Which makes each fight a grueling slog.

Poe2 is an incredible step up. I love the bosses that have felt like fair fights. Even the first set of trials were fun. But now, now it feels like I'm playing a slot machine with extra steps before I get to play the actual game. Oh did I get screwed over by the trial of chaos rolls? Yep, but I could overcome them with better gear, too bad none of it has dropped. Getting oneshot? Sure wish I had better gear, too bad nothing has dropped. I've spent 100ks of gold just hoping for a good random roll. Nothing.

I don't have time to grind through terrible drop rates or to perfect play bosses.

This would have been a negative steam review but I don't think this game deserves it right now, but I am going to stop playing until I see a couple of major patches come through. Hopefully, there will be some major changes to loot drops in particular.

Casual player here, and don't have much experience in the ARPG genre. I love the game, its one of the best games I've played in a long time.

But the Trials... They are painful to even consider. It is a pity the Ascendancy are locked behind them, personally I feel they ruin this awesome game.

Hopefully they will be removed before release.