Endgame feedback

First off, I love the game.
Just to be clear, I'm giving feedback because I hope it improves certain lesser parts of the game.

To start off with an explanation about my experience with PoE2, I have about 93 hours into the game.
It pales with hardcore enthusiasts and those who do it as a content creator, however I think it goes to show I do like playing the game.
The campaign was awesome, the boss fights were fun and challenging (I played a chaos build before the buff to it) and the mechanics of skills work nicely.

That said there are some, in my opinion, major issues with endgame content.
Hopefully I can explain my pain points with the endgame in particular as well as some mechanics that are currently in place.

1. Trials are unfulfilling and feel unrewarding:
- Trial of Sekehma is manegeable and I do like some mechanics but it's not particularly rewarding for how long it takes, also for melee this is just not fun at all.
- Trial of Ultimatum/Chaos is a plain RNGfest of debuffs and hindrances, likely meant for peak geared out players or those who like playing with crippling disabilities for challenge (this is likely to get hated by pretty much every casual player), there are no windfalls what so ever in this trial, rewards feel just as underwhelming for the amount of difficulty.

2. Mapping takes too long due to large map sizes and having to play incredibly safe with one shots happening left and right with poor visibility overall since it's completely random with the enemy pool which have abilities/attacks that don't fit the actual maps generated.
Green on green is hard to see for example, visibility of attacks and enough space to be able to dodge them is a pre-requisite for a game that puts emphasis on dodging over tanking the attack face on.
Also having enemies snipe you from off-screen before you even see them is definitely a no-go, either increase fov or reduce aggro range.

3. All of the endgame content is too punishing, having to redo a map or boss fight is one thing that I'm okay with, however having to do everything from grinding w/e materials are needed for the challenge just because you failed (usually due to getting oneshot) is just downright a joykiller.

4. It does not respect a players time, mainly due to the punishing nature of said content.

Don't get me wrong, I understand it's early access (which is the point of
why I'm giving feedback btw) and that not all content is released yet, but as it stands I see no hope for any of the aforementioned endgame content to be entertaining for me (and likely none of the casuals either).

If you ask me "should there be punishment for losing?" the answer would be no, because having to do the fight or even the map again is already punishing enough as it costs precious time of which I as a casual have very little of.
Having regressive mechanics that basically put you back in a state worse off than before like losing progress made, is 100% a no thank you from me.
I am aware that later on you even lose experience on death, that is definitely not going to work for me.

Before you say "just get good" or "get tankier to not get oneshot", from many sources online I have been informed it does not get better, but actually worse, even if you would end up with a full tank build (and these people are those who play it as hardcore enthusiasts of PoE1 who did all of its endgame content).

TLDR
- Please remove the regressive mechanics towards ones progress in endgame content to make it more enjoyable and show respect for peoples time.
Let us be able to retry the map or trial without having to grind new materials just to make another attempt.
- Please increase field of view or reduce aggro range on high ranged enemies off-screen.
- Please make sure monsters that have attacks that are hard to spot visually on specific map types excluded from said map types (green on green, red on red, etc) at least for mapping.

After several dozen hours more put into the endgame I am still convinced it is designed in a way to waste your time.

The best I can compare the endgame mechanics with is roguelike mechanics.
You lose, you have to start back from the initial starting point.

Take for example Dead Cells, each time you die you start back at the first area and have to progress through all rooms which get progressively more difficult to reach whatever point you got to.
The trials in particular are the best reflection of this, since they are gauntlets similar to that game's gameplay.

Now I'll admit I have a unfavorable bias towards roguelikes since it adds an unnecessary loop of the previous (now easier) content just to stretch out the game time just to be able to say "This game has hundreds of hours of gameplay".
When in reality the earlier parts usually don't provide the fun parts of games which is progression and challenge.
When either of them is lacking, it feels more like a chore than a form of entertainment.

For atlas waypoints it's not so much a gauntlet in the way it is for trials, but with how it removes special mechanic/bosses from certain nodes if you fail them (even if you have not encountered them in that node) the effect basically is the same.
You attempt to do the waypoint node, fail, lose the opportunity for the effect/boss, have to grind another set of nodes just to potentially be able to do it again.
This is worsened by the RNG as it can sometimes take like 5x as long just to get to a similar mechanic/boss node.

To top it all off, you have to farm "keys" in easier content that does not provide usable drops outside of currencies (with reduced drop rates) which is one of the core enjoyments for the ARPG's hack & slash looter genre.
It also generally does not provide you with the challenge you seek, as the difficulty drops in this easier previous content.


My proposed solution:
- Remove the 1 time use restriction from the keys.
Or
- Remove the death/loss = delete restriction from the keys.

Alternatively (less preferred)
- Have the keys be rechargeable with a relatively easy and low amount needed farmable source or over time.

In the first solution you simply remove the unneeded time drag, as people will spend hundreds of hours farming gear regardless, there is no need for this additional time waste.
Plus it would now make better keys actually desirable and provide players who find one ecstatic rather than "Well I hope I don't die and waste this...." and reluctant to use it.

In the second solution you at least give people the option to retry the same run.

For the third solution you still have some time loss which is why it's not preferred but it at least removes RNG from having to get more keys.
There is enough RNG in the game as is with loot, monsters and maps.

For special mechanics or bosses on atlas waypoints, the solution to avoid abuse is simple, if you have started the special mechanic and looted any of the drops or killed the boss, just disable them from the node no matter what if you die afterwards.

Coming back to this I have one more thing to add after thinking about it some more.
The current mechanics are also detrimental to co-op gameplay and social interaction.
There currently is no reason to co-op in endgame because it adds the following disadvantages:
- Content becomes harder proportional to the player count.
- Content generally takes around 5~10 minutes for mapping and even longer for trials when doing co-op.
- Rewards are shared (at least to my experience), meaning if 1 good item drops, only 1 person gets the good item.
- Death equals having to wait for the rest of the party to finish said content which can take from 5 minutes for mapping and up to an hour or more for Trial of Chaos/Ultimatum.
For trial of Sekehma it means the whole party wipes as honor is seemingly shared.

All of these things basically discourage people to even bother as there are no benefits to outweigh the disadvantages.

Just to note, there are ways to prevent reviving or re-attempts from being abused in co-op gameplay by adding for example a temporary debuff or other penalty to whomever died, for example "reduced magic find".