why is the inventory so small?

coming back from the recent D4 season, this is simply painful.

-in D4 you can pick up 33 items of ANY size before you have to deal with your inventory
-you also have an extra inventory tab for "currency"
-and another one for "waystones"

so before the obilgatory "D4 bad" answers roll in ... whats the "engagement" here? the mechanically meaningful purpose or literally any upside to have the inventory in POE2 be so archaic and tiny?

as a self-found player i still have to pick up a lot of items even with a character well above level 90. even with my item filter being really aggressive i still leave stuff on the ground i would actually rather pick up - the reason being that its getting in the way of gameplay fun.

i just wanna run a map and then when im done and back in town manage my inventory instead of having to constantly juggle items and decide if i wanna pick something up or not or actually portal out because drops have been "too good and plentiful".

its a complete hassle in my opinion and i struggle to see the pros here. i mean, yeah i love D2 as well but i think enough time has passed to move on and have a more streamlined solution than a literal 1 to 1 copy of a 20 year old game.

It's another form of forced engagement. Before you say that sounds bad, it's literally what makes games work.

I too, am a loot goblin, but found my fun in PoE (1&2) from leaving a map with the most potentially valuable set of loot possible. Best bases, always make room for rings and amulets, just personal "rules" I made for myself within the system.

It's by far not the only way, but limited inventory gives players more choices with whether they want to loot everything and use all 6 portals (honestly this is probably the reason why you can still use 6 portals for loot, even if you can't on death anymore - player choice) or not.

That said, the game really does force you to learn the game at some points. Loot filters help, obviously, but at some point it really becomes making your own ruleset within the limitations of the game.

The boring answer is that Diablo 4's inventory system is just less interactive than PoE's. That's totally fine, as long as there are other interactive things to balance it out (which D4 has in spades over PoE, due to being finished and out for a couple years now).

But yes, it's a hassle. It's meant to be a hassle so you have to engage with it. But then again, so are most things. It's totally personal preference which hassles are good and bad, so I'm not saying I'm right, you're wrong, or D4 bad.

Just...different flavors I suppose.

(Also, back in PoE 1 days, I remember people complaining having to choose whether to use their portals for loot or deaths...it really is impossible to make something for everyone sometimes.) :D

fair enough if you dont mind that

but at the same time i fail to see how D4 inventory is less interactive. you still pick up loot and sort out your inventory and manage the items you find - you simply can do it at your own pace.

instead of having to open my inventory everytime i find 4 or 5 pieces of gear i may or may not need, i do it after i collected 30 items and when im in town after finishing a map.

i still need to know what i want, i still need filters, im still "engaged" with the stuff i find. like, i still have to compare loot to what im already wearing and sort out what i want to sell/salvage or use/keep/craft etc - im just not forced to interrupt what i actually wanna do (kill monsters and grind) when im currently in a map.

if you personally enjoy opening up your inventory or portaling out frequently to manage everything in smaller intervals you could still do that, you just wouldnt be forced to do it that way.

Usually I'd be the first person to tell you to stfu and go back to d4, but here I'll have to actually agree.

This is a clear mismatch in terms of the 'design philosophy'.

On the one hand we're told that crafting is limited, because they want the ground loot to play a bigger role. On the other we have the same exact inventory and some items actually taking up more space than the biggest items used to in poe1.

Decide. Either give me bigger inventory space, or give me back basic crafting. Otherwise I'm getting fucked here and I don't appreciate it. Thanks.

what more do you want? POE2 is a free game, GGG can only make money by selling inventory box.
D4 is a charged game.