Honest gameplay feedback and suggestions

INTRO

POE 2 early access was the first time I played POE and I really liked it and put in over 800 hours but things really dropped off in the end game and with Dawn of the Hunt for me. I've tried the new league but just couldn't enjoy it. In fact I dreaded playing it and stopped. I think what got me to 800+ hours on the first run was that the game was new to me and it was fun discovering everything. The endgame got boring for many of the reasons others have stated but I want to focus on how the game is not replayable for me in this post.

With the game not being new to me anymore and the shine of new game discovery gone playing through the new league was very boring. The combat was not engaging and everything is so slow. The skills are boring, at least for attack skills since I did not play a lot of casters. After thinking about it some time as to why it's so boring and how it can be improved. Here are my suggestions.


SUGESTIONS

Increase skill/attack speed 5x-10x and movement speed 2x. Reduce skill speed scaling to compensate for endgame.
Combat is WAY TOO SLOW. This is supposed to be an ACTION(?) RPG but feels more like a turn-based card game with a 5s loading screen between turns. You can still make a "tactical" game with skill combos without it being as slow as it is. I think it's so much more engaging if we can pull off combos like it's a fighting game. This doesn't necessarily make the game zoom zoom since you can balance it by lowering the damage to compensate for the increased skill/attack speed or increasing the monster HP. Skills need to be fast to actually be comboed. Just imagine the current state/speed of a combo today and try imagining it being executed at the speed of say a fighting game. Which seem more fun? Skill speed and timing will make it more engaging.

Overhaul of the skill gems.
I feel like a lot of the skills are the same skill with different animation. The effect difference between them are not big enough to make them unique and the synergy between skills are very bad or useless most of the time. Take mace slam skills for example. The minor effects between them aren't different enough to make them interesting or fun to use. The warcry, totems, armour break yea they're unique but the slams...no. One game that I think have amazing skill design is Dota 2. I'd suggest taking inspiration from that. The skills are creative, distinct, and synergize well. The skill / combo in that game are also very fast and hence engaging.

Increase density of the maps (especially in campaign) and make it more linear/less backtracking.
This can be done by making the map smaller or add more monsters / activity. We should not be walking around for 10 seconds to the next monster pack / activity. Need to dramatically reduce the dead time. If maps need to be big, increase the movespeed or add better mobility skills. It's ACTION RPG not WALKING RPG!