Delve sucks

The balance is completely screwed while leveling. You have to get fuel in regular zones, so you're leveled appropriately just from playing through the campaign. Then you use the fuel in the mines, but the cost is so high that you're barely able to progress before you're forced to go back. The end result is that nearly every trip to the mines involves slaughtering underleveled enemies to get terrible rewards and negligible XP.

Upgrade costs are ridiculous. I quickly realized that everything except Azurite is a waste of time due to the low item level of drops. Even only going for upgrade points, I can barely afford any upgrades. All my junk is terrible due to this.

The mines just aren't fun. I follow the robot through the mines and see all these alcoves/passages to the side that I can't do anything about without dying, so I skip them. I kill underleveled monsters. I get to the end where I fight some variant of an Abyss hole, then I get crappy rewards that are super unrewarding. Every damn time it's the same horribly unfun experience.

Then there are various other issues, like having two extra hotkeys for flares and dynamite in a game that's already overloaded with hotkeys. Using flares and dynamite feel terrible mechanically. The enemy that pops out of the ground around Azurite and has some DOT chill/tar effect on death is awful. Slow effects spawning on you suck. I know there was more that sucked, but this is all I can remember off the top of my head.

I honestly don't know how you can salvage this league. The basic mechanics of the mine are just so terrible. Good luck, though.

The leveling is not well tuned. I wouldn’t say it sucks just yet, but definitely not well tuned. I’m trying to skip mobs more in regular zones and level in selves but I’m not good at that so I’m way over leveled so far.

God you do this every league, just quit the game already.

Yeah - i am trying really hard to like it, but its just not for me. Maybe ill just do standard for a while, try to do some stuff i havent done there.

So GGG finally found a way to slow down gameplay?

Now that I have a rythm to my Delving I’m loving it except for one or two minor annoyances. I basically Delve everytime my Sulphite is full and I go until it’s empty. Down some, across some, hitting some currency rooms (which so far have been pretty rewarding for me), grabbing azurite as I go. Hoping that exploring off path gets better because right now that part sucks. Flares are clunky as hell.

I'm astounded how this stuff passes QA testing while GGG constantly assures how experienced testers they have.

Everything that is off the main path is unplayable. Flares and dynamite are so clumsy and clunky to use, it's 10 times worse than nets in bestiary... I mean how did they manage not to do the homework... They've got ton of feedback on nets, one could expect they don't fuck up twice - nope, they managed to make it much worse. And cracked walls - it's so fun to search for them - you run like an idiot along the path and dive into darkness with movement skill until you bump into one....

I'm considering to skip delve and fck this mess - yep, that's how frustrating it is.

And I called it will suck, but fanboys were (and still are) too blind to realize most of the delve is filled with massive flaws and terrible design choices that by some miracle passed all QA.

So yeah, it's pretty bad indeed. After bestiar and now delve - I doubt I buy another supporter pack (or points in any form) ever again. I don't see any reason to keep supporting this mess.

And I just want to play some mechanic that doesn't make you run and rush like an idiot.
Lets remember some freaking leagues:
Breach - run from side to side of circle.
Abyss - chase the thing.
Temple - run around the room on a timer.

And now this shit - run behind some cartwheel thing, run in darkness.

I feel like headless chicken when playing these "mechanics". What about positioning? Or every character now must be a face tank type?

These things just pidgeon hole players into one style of play, which I hate.

Also this darkness shit must be fun on HC.

Also while I am mentioning leagues - I believe legacy was the most fun league for me where we had a choice what to run and how to interact with the mechanics.

Delve is a 100% skip thing until maps, because of the issues outlined in OP:

* content lvl laging behind quest lvl
* you're just wasting your time (the questline is still there waiting, no point in Delving until you finish the storyline)
* quest content is super easy and you don't need extra drops from Delve

I also agree that the prices of upgrades are very expensive (at lvl 26 Delve, my light radious got already noticeably downgraded and the first light upgrade costs like 100 azurite iirc). I also do not like the two extra hotkeys - the dynamite should function the same way as explosive kegs from Incursion.

My current experience with low lvl delve is that there is no time to do anything but keep up with the truck. Maybe this will fix itself when I get everything (build & upgrades) pimped up, we'll see... I wish I could just Delve and ignore the storyline.

I hate Delve, so I'm putting off progressing until the awfulness is (hopefully, somehow) patched out. I figured I'd go ahead and level up a second character to the jewel quest so my Zombie Arcer has both zombie jewels when I (maybe) come back to the league.

So I make a fresh character, talk to Niko, mine some fuel, go to the mining camp, and find out that DELVE PROGRESSION IS UNIQUE FOR EACH CHARACTER?!?! This is the grindiest league mechanic in POE history, with multiple grinds that are horribly designed and terribly unfun, and you made us do it all over again for every single character?!?!

Holy shit, GGG. What were you thinking?! Upgrading all my junk once would be pure cancer due to the extreme grind and crazy high costs. There's no way in hell I'd do it on more than one character. Just imagining upgrading dynamite, flares, storage capacity, and every damn thing else on every single character makes me want to puke.