EA Feedback - Lessons not learned

Howdy!
Dropping a feedback on my hours put to PoE 2 EA, hoping it could make it even better for the future.

Viewpoint : I played PoE 1 a lot, probably a lot more than I should, been around since very early pre-closed beta.

Overall, I have waited for a month before jumping in, just to avoid any launch day tribulations. It was a good move. The game was crashing left and right when I installed it, had to spend about two days figuring out the exact settings to avoid it.

Worst of all was the infamous "freeze the whole PC", occuring about 50% of each loading screen for me. That pretty much single handedly poisoned my experience (and a bit of goodwill as I think that is major technical problem to have in a game month from EA launch).

I have loved the campaign first time through. I was being massacred and enjoyed it. Then, one fight was a bit too much hopeless, so I went to do some shopping and afterward, it was autopilot straight to T15+2. Well, it was a blast while it lasted. However, right now, I dread the moment I'll have to do it again. Hoping for some length redux for future leagues.

Visuals are great, but note, it is not what makes the experience great. At many times, I was wishing I played PoE 1 instead due to - understandable lack of polished edges and content. So the way I try to get away with it is saying "this is hatching into something that could be better than PoE... one day".

Visual clutter clashes with "dodge this or die" all over the place. I cannot see a thing, frankly and it is a problem. No point in having super duper detailed graphics, when the screen is just choke full of projectiles, lit and flashy. Boss died? Good. I died? Well, what killed me? Plus, dodge roll often goes in a completelly wrong direction, while I have no idea why. Those are my biggest long term concerns. Avoiding projectile builds until this is somehow sanitised.

Some things are standing out. I remember video in PoE 1 talking about lessons learned, but in EA, it strikes me as lessons not learned. Audience with a King can be sold for 6 divs, how on earth can I justify doing that fight instead of just cashing it until I am beefed enough I can nuke him? Note, I had zero AwaKs in all my Rituals so far (~ pretty much done with EA). Locking a content behind such mechanic is a bit painful to digest as that is exactly what happened in PoE 1 also. Did you forget? My hopes were exactly in "they learned their lessons so PoE 2 is going to be big". My goal was to experience the content, but such a brutal paywall does the game wrong. Trying Expedition boss in vain, 12 logbooks burned. Like - do I really just pay some other guy to show me the game content as it avoids me activelly? Or accept I won't see it at all.

World map is great in theory, not so much when all your first citadels are on an island with no way leading to it. Then it just feels like another RNG layer kicking you in the behind, while handing other luckier players keystones on a platter. Unfair. After seeing this, I'd say it brings more pain than good, fix the pathing to simply exist or get rid of the concept altogether.

Why cannot I stash all my orb stacks from inventory in on click? Tech too hard to implement? :) But on a serious note, it really pleases me that stashes carried over from PoE, I did not expect that, thank you. Waystone tab was sorely missed, wept about and much anticipated.

Frankly, need Precursor tab badly as well.

To end with a good tune, the game has huge potential, same as PoE 1 waaaay back in PoE closed beta, but I simply had higher expectations. The addiction factor is there, if you shovel away all the hard edges. Still, I am holding my breath that you will nail it in time! Good luck!