Poe1 Is great but has serious problems

This is kind of a rant, so if you don't want to hear it might be worth hitting the back button here. This could also be a me problem, but I don't think it is. If you were to log in as a fairly new player in this game and play SSF And pick your own build for fun, you would not make it passed yellow maps ever. You must do research, and have 3 different websites open at all times . I find myself looking at my other monitor more than I do actually playing the game reading what to do next with a premade build guide. I don't even read abilities because some dude already spent 50 hours building this build. Crafting is way to complex, I mean WAY to complex. There is a website designed for it as well and its insane how many different mats you can use to craft with, that each do different things . Do people even pick up gear in this game ? Or just craft it all. I personally prefer picking gear up and seeing if its an upgrade and maybe modify it from there. You can be chuggin in maps just fine and all is well then randomly get one shot with no reason behind it. Its better to play builds that don't actually have to do anything yourself, just play mines/totems/minions/ basically if your casting it yourself or a melee guy outside of boneshatter, its a waste of time and not optimal. I guess what these 1600 taught me in this game, is maybe its not for me . Bunch of tweakers zoomin around with flame dash 1 shotting everything until you get 1 shot , and thats about it. Cya

One last thing ill say, with 1600 hours, which is more than an airline pilot is required to have in the united states, I Have not crafted a single piece of gear simply because of how complicated it is. You have to find the right base, which who knows what the right base is, then do a specific order on which mats to use in which order, and hit random tiers and some crafting mats can remove it, add it, i mean its insane really.

Yes, I agree with pretty much everything you said here. But the game is what it is, and it only gets more try-hard and complicated.

I have an ungodly amount of hours in the game and don't do meta builds, and it can be an absolute slog. Or you can play trade and go meta and things become trivial. The game is what you make of it, if you have the knowledge and time.