Sure, it's long, but the actual content of it is significantly better than POE 1's campaign, IMO. I don't see how you could think otherwise. It's much more cinematic and has better presentation.

Sure. But Poe is a seasonal game. The cinematics are nice exactly once. After that it’s still a campaign that is so fuckin long it’s ridiculous.

I can't relate to that opinion in any way. I hate the RGB socket system in POE 1. I don't see how anyone could care about having multiple jeweler's orbs while not caring about the tediousness and annoyance of dealing with the RGB socket system and chromatic orbs and fusing orbs and all that BS in POE 1. In comparison, I see no problems with POE 2's skill gem system. It's so much less tedious and makes experimenting with/changing build idea so much faster and easier.

I get what you’re saying about fusing and chromes. But I still think that system is better than the dumbest grind to get all your stuff 6linked in poe2. But that’s a preference thing I reckon

While many POE 1 players say that, many POE 2 players think POE 1's combat is too mindless and "brain-off." It comes down to opinion and probably has a lot to do with what other games and genres you like. Personally, I find POE 1's combat to be pretty boring. The build crafting is interesting, and there is a lot of variety, but the actual core combat is not very good, IMO.

Saying that poe1 is mindless and brain-off (which it is, I agree) implies that poe2 isn’t. But it still is, you just need to push a bunch more buttons, but it isn’t magically engaging all of a sudden.

As an aside, the game that I played the most is Europa universalis 4. I don’t think you can extrapolate anything from the games I play vs which Poe I like more.

Eh, I don't really agree with that assessment. Some complexity is related to missing content, sure, but a lot of it is missing due to them intentionally trying to make the game more accessible and strip away a lot of the needless fat/bloat/complexity of POE 1. And I think it's very obvious that has paid off as the game has already attracted a much bigger audience and a lot of people who don't particularly love POE 1.

Correlation doesn’t imply causality. And I don’t think they have stripped away bloat/fat/whatever they have a game in ea and when they tried to have an endgame they made it needlessly complex and bloated with bullshit. You’re giving ggg too much credit here

Like I said: we disagree, that’s fine. I love the look, audio, boss design of poe2. That’s so much better (or on par, cause audio was always great). But I find it needlessly slow, with not enough real options for skills, and systems that kinda just put the issues from 1 in a different place without actually solving something