Are criticals hit an outdated mechanic?

Just the name of the topic. I think that criticals - monsters and characters - are an outdated mechanic, borrowed from TTRPG when you rolled the maximum value of the dice.

In poe2 there is no visual/audio indicator that you crit, so i don't like the mechanic: i don't know when i'm critting besides the big chunk of life to bosses - to normal/magic monsters most of the time it's unnoticiable.

I think that critical hits could be something telegraphed, like big cooldown attacks from monsters - like the wheel giant, or the red glowing attacks from bosses - and make mechanics around those big-hard-hitting attacks/spells, and let the skills with payoffs like coldsnap, high velocity rounds, etc to be the "critical hit" theme.

Ofc, this is from a totally new game design perspective, i don't expect or want to the system to be scrapped now.

Eh that can easily implemented. Crits are used to show as a flash on target, it doesn't need to be super apparent, a flash, a sound, etc.

There actually is an audio difference between crits and not crits. I noticed it when getting the 'all hits crit' shrine. But it's so subtle that it would never be noticed in normal circumstances. Not sure if it applies to all skills that hit either.