Every character should be able to start from whichever desired starting point as the player wants

Like the title says, after many hours of playing PoE1 than PoE2, I really feel like in PoE2 - all starting point should be accessible to all characters.

For example, I really want to do a full crossbow/grenade playstyle with Lich or Stormweaver.

But it is not as efficient as playing as Merc or Ranger due to all the unwanted travel nodes.

It would open up SO much more build diversity.

It would also defeat the purpose of having multiple characters in the first place.

If every character could start on the passive tree wherever wanted, they may as well delete all these characters, bring back Scion and let her access every ascension.

Moreover, it would be a drastic *reduction* to build variety to allow this.

Chober Chaber.
Two handed mace that goes with minion builds.
People are going to want to use melee on Witch, add Minions to Warrior, and use it on Templar once that's an option.

If characters can start wherever they want on the tree, then the Warrior, Witch, and Templar melee minion builds will be identical. No variety.

With the characters having different starting points, then the Warrior, Witch, and Templar melee minion builds are three different builds. Variety.

The passive tree should just be a straight line with 120 nodes that each say +3% movement speed and +10% damage/global defences. Slap 1.0 in the title and release the game 🔥

Well, I think the current locations make sense, also from a lore-standpoint.

That said, I could imagine the following: Every ascension class offers a node that lets you choose another starting location. For example: You are a warrior and now you invest 2 of your ascendency points into this new ascendency node. Now you can choose ONE other class starting location. But there is a limitation: You can never allocate more nodes in this other class then you have done in your own class. That means, if you want to invest 20 skill points into the witch starting location, you have to at least invest 20 skill points into the warrior starting location (the game counts all nodes from the first node and all that are conntected to it). This way, the game still forces you to mainly play with the class you have chosen, BUT it opens up ALOT of new ways to build your character, if you're ready to invest 2 ascendency points into it and play a hybrid.