I'm out, again, after ~12 hours of play

TLDR
I made a level 90 at launch and put about 400 hours into different characters overall. This was the first patch I've come back for since release and I made it about 12 hours. A lot of that was while I was tabbed out and posting in the forums. The game is a bit of a glitchy mess. There are also lots of new bugs and soft locks to go along with old ones that never got fixed. I died at ~lvl27 when Zalmarath one shot KO'd me. That amount of damage seemed really out of place because my character felt extremely tanky, otherwise. I went on to kill Jamanra and proceed to act 3 without more deaths, but once the thrill of hardcore was over the base game seemed to be a little boring and it still needs a LOT of love. I wanted to check out end game, but poe2 isn't worth that kind of time again in its current state imo. Keep cooking GGG, the changes in loot feel good; keep making changes like that.

Loot
I chose a hc ssf witch, and the improvements to loot seemed to be a good change throughout my play time. Like chests, strongboxes, and the little huntable entity were all fun AND rewarding! There is still this problematic grey area where, even though you are getting more and more yellow/blue drops, it doesn't particularly translate to better gear, most of the time. That is due to the rpg nature of crafting, and this style being fun to play will likely be dependent on the design choices the devs make in the near future. I'm not that worried about this.

Strange things that bypass the player's build decisions
I'm hoping the lag/stuttering/audio issues are resolved by launch.. but some of the design philosophies seem out of alignment with what I like in other arpgs. Like that the Zalmarath fight, it just seems impractical for an attack to ignore stats and destroy a character in spite of the gear/skills/passive tree selections. Those are supposed to be meaningful decisions that are responsible for your success or failure. When you build a beefy tank its supposed to be able to tank stuff.. and if your boss killed it just for the sake of killing it, it makes all of those meaningful choices seem meaningless. Also the mana draining mobs, although interesting, they completely disrupt the methodical gameplay and force you to run in circles for minutes. It's not challenging, it just takes a long time in addition to breaking the fun of your character build (because you can't use most of your skills).

QOL
The game needs a lot of love in QOL things that need work; like being unable to see icons on the map in act 2, quest specific items not having their own inventory slot, ui clarity and intuitiveness. I've posted about a lot of this stuff already, in hopes the devs can address at least some of seemingly unintended bad stuff.

Overall
Overall, I liked the time I spent in this patch. It was fun. If the game released in this state, I would probably make a single character in hardcore, and if it died I would push to level 100 in softcore with it before leaving for good.

Numbers instead of words:

Acts 1-3 content: 8/10
Early Game Crafting: 4/10
Optimization (run smooth): 4/10
Graphics: 10/10
Completeness: 5/10
End Game Crafting: ???? Did not try
End Game: ???? Did not try
Witch: 9/10
.5 year worth of development: 3/10


Overall: 5/10

this game is the definition of antifun and boredom from the begining to the endgame (what the f is the endgame, what's the meaning and for what?), what's the point of this game?

loot good ? you play warrior, it drops crossbow or wand, you play monk, it drops bows =)

Just make a good PoE1 league after 1 year, in june, maybe I will comeback also, maybe...

"

this game is the definition of antifun and boredom from the begining to the endgame (what the f is the endgame, what's the meaning and for what?), what's the point of this game?

For me, I want to make a d2 sorceress that also has a minion army while pursuing level 100. That's where the fun is and I left original EA because the path to 100 felt terribly balanced. In the current state of the game I vibe with your sentiment because as soon as the thrill of hardcore was over, I was like "ehhhhh, I'm out." My friend group also quit softcore.

The loot felt good to me because I got 2 uniques, and found yellows/blues and currency with every activity in excess compared to fighting regular mobs. That's how it should be, and I think with a better crafting system it would feel GREAT. We'll have to see. I did use the same garbage wand for most of this playthrough but it wasn't a problem.

I dunno, the campaign felt so good at first playthrough, that I really want to believe in GGG. Even as is, imagine if they add an end game boss rush leader board with new final bosses tuned to the highest dmg/defense requirements. It would give people the carrot on the stick to chase, with each exile imagining that every skill and gear stat would be required to attempt the leaderboard. There's still hope for changes. Right now I log into Elder Scrolls Online and often just do daily writs and fish (wish are like chores) and I still like the feeling of that progression better than POE2. It's a shame because like I said, at first release I thought it all felt so magical.

At worse, we just wait for release and try it one last time.