Feedback on Path of Exile 2’s Crafting & Loot Systems

1. Misalignment Between Messaging and Reality
What you say: “Players will frequently upgrade their equipment throughout the campaign and into the endgame.”

What actually happens: Upgrades are effectively gated behind trading or extreme grind—solo players can’t recycle or craft gear organically.

2. Currency Scarcity & Gambling-Only Crafting
Issue: The entire crafting system is “gamble craft”—you spend (precious) currency on a chance to get a usable mod. (runes is not gonna cut it)

Consequence:

Solo players without access to a thriving trade league can’t accumulate enough orbs to meaningfully gamble.

Loot drops remain mostly junk, forcing reliance on trading rather than in-game progression.

3. Solo-Player Experience Is Undermined
Campaign progression:

You can’t upgrade from Act 1 through Act 6 without trading once—every piece of “better” gear is found via other players.


4. Comparison: Last Epoch’s Crafting
Last Epoch offers deterministic crafting (targeted, RNG-light).

Path of Exile 2 remains 100% chance-based from start to finish.

Suggestion: Introduce hybrid or deterministic crafting tiers—keep the high-risk, high-reward gambling, but allow basic rerolls or targeted crafting for solo players.

5. Difficulty vs. Item Accessibility
Current design: Difficulty is tuned to be punishing, and items are scarce and pun-based.

Proposal:

You can raise monster difficulty (for challenge) while ensuring item power and crafting accessibility aren’t punitive.

Maintain the thrill of rare loot, but allow a clear crafting path for progression.

6. What Works Well
World design, skill systems, endgame bosses, art direction: Top-tier—this feedback targets only crafting/loot.

7. Call to Action
Increase basic drop rates for currency or crafting-relevant orbs by at least 100 times, you should stop using crafting materials as currency in the game. those are needed to craft as they are gambling you should never run out of orbs for crafting.

Extend non-gamble crafts for low-tier affixes more rune sockets.

Add a solo-friendly vendor or bench option that lets you recycle unwanted rares into crafting materials 1:1 no more shards. inventory space is low and time is precious, convert rares to regals and exalts directly,

Conclusion
I love Path of Exile 2 and hit level 95 on my last build—but without accessible crafting, solo play becomes trading-dependent. Please rethink the crafting loop so working-class players can enjoy the full experience without endless grind or forced trading.

I've found the recent patch to be much more accessible in terms of obtaining gear for a SSF, especially at the higher levels. They've clearly made it easier to role higher tier mods, and I've been able to use fracturing orbs to craft some good, though not godly, upgrades that have me cruising through end game.

Obviously, this will depend on the class/build and there is definitely some luck involved. But the odds of getting the crucial mod combinations on gear have definitely increased substantially.

In my opinion, fracturing orbs really should only be available for SSF and hardcore, because they essentially trivialize the difficulty of getting elite gear.