Counterpoint to the absurd amount of vitriol on here

...Ive had a great time with POE2, and contrary to many (apparently), its been better for me in 0.2 than in 0.1.

I play SSF and have done so for years and years in POE1 as well. Ive definitely no-lifed POE1 at times and know the skill tree like the back of my hand. I also prefer to play janky off meta melee self cooked builds that usually hit a wall around or just after the first ubers.

Im saying this because thats my perspective going into POE2. And based on that, POE2 is definitely way, way easier than POE1. Im actually doing pinnacle content with one league of playing the game without having to sheepishly follow guides etc. Its still punishing for a big dumb rolling slam warrior without a shield (because f shields, thats why), and thats how I like it. And why I loved POE1 as well. But for the first time I dont feel like I have to compromise with my pure melee power fantasy just to progress.

Another thing I will say is that its by far the most spectacular looking and sounding ARPG Ive ever played. Stepping into utzaal is mindblowing, even after dozens of playthroughs.

I know people will assault me with shill allegations, but I think the POE1 players are blind to how much time theyve put into that game and how they would get UTTERLY DEMOLISHED if they had to go in blind in POE1 same as theyre doing in POE2 now.

HOWEVER, the game isnt a finished product by a long shot, and I agree with a lot of the more constructive criticism. For me, the most important issues are:

- Simplifying defenses have made them less fun to build
If they want to have less defensive layers than in 1, they should give us more options to expand on the capabilities of the few layers we have. 'Armour applies to' is available only to fire damage, in only one talent, and its apparently calculated pre-mitigation, which makes it terrible compared to POE1. There should be talents to apply armour to all kinds of elements, damage over time, life regen/recoup scaling with armour

- Simplifying crafting has made it less fun to do
In SSF, my crafting process boils down to: Find white base, blue it, hopefully get two good affixes, rare it, hopefully get good affix, exalt it, hopefully not brick it. Its not fun, the chance of success is obscenely low, and my exalt yield is nowhere close to be able to sustain it. Let alone trying to save a bricked craft with chaos orbs. Metacraft omens, greater essences, recombinator, all this stuff is way too rare to play a meaningful role in crafting. This entire system needs a rework for it to be fun in SSF. If you want us to gamble craft, throw the goddamn kitchen sink at us with currency. Otherwise, introduce way more accessible metacraft options

- Trials are either overtuned or advertised wrongly
Are we supposed to progress trials at-level when we start dropping the tokens? Because then the trials need to be tuned the hell down for scrubs like me. My warrior was doing pinnacle bosses just fine and semi-juiced T15-T16 just fine. But I had to respec to smith just to get proper defenses to not get utterly smoked in trials. And still I had to get some seriously chunky boons, AND I barely scraped by with a quit-out on zarokhs time thing (which I only knew about from a youtube video).
Bear in mind, I was level 91. In a lvl 80 trial. With monsters do less damage, less action speed, I had 50 pct more damage, max honour res, almost 5 k max honour, just about zero dangerous afflictions...
As melee I would much prefer to be doing ultimatum instead of sekhema, but incredibly, sekhema is still easier just because the mods you get each new round in ultimatum is absurdly punishing.
IF the trials are supposed to be peak content above t0-1 pinnacle bosses, then they should be framed differently and not as something you get done on your way to endgame.

Fixing these three issues would be a major improvement for the game in general, not to say that thats the only stuff that needs addressing. Im seeing people saying they have severe server issues, divine drop rate is abysmal (Im less bothered by it in SSF), and so on.

Just my two cents

0.2 has been more enjoyable for me too

I think most salt comes from not being able to op smash so easily with anything other than lightning spear but this league is way more fun if you don't calculate fun by divs/h

Or play in the EU, servers have been a nightmare