don't see anything different
Having played PoE since beta.....I immediately saw the graphical update, the model quality, the animation quality. Particularly on the monsters.
The UI I assume is a beta UI. It's the POE UI only shittier, none of the flourish, which tells me its still under development.
PoE vs. PoE2.....I don't see it as that confusing. A new engine means a higher level of graphical quality. With all that, why not take the time to remedy some structural design flaws in the gearing and skill tree? And if you're going to do that, why not create a new campaign as well. Yeah, granted, they're reusing more than I would have expected. As soon as I saw a relatively upgraded version of a Devourer I kinda knew.....they're going to make this as cost effective as possible.
But with it being 20 years after Kitava's defeat, it is a new storyline. (Not sure where they plan to go with it seeing as the "threat" in PoE has morphed and changed over time. The Beast was supposed to be the reason gems exist, and Wraeclast is all fucky, and after defeating it that the whole bit about why Wraeclast is the way it is got buried under all these additions: the other cultural factions, Izaro, Gods, The Elder and The Shaper.)
So maybe the storyline will get back to the root causes of Wraeclast's problems. I'm not too hung up on PoE's story but they're moving it forward enough that I don't think of this as an expansion.
To me, PoE 2 makes sense from GGG's perspective. PoE's engine can't support expanding the game much further IMO. It can't handle higher graphical fidelity, it can't put more enemies on the screen, and the can't add any more cinematic features either. (My fucking system locks up every time the Immortal Syndicate shows up because it's having to load all their dialog in real time.) So they need a new engine. But they don't want to redo the last 10+ years of content they've developed as far as assets go. Redesigning the core game systems is a lot less labor intensive than literally redoing all the Unique models and textures, or all the monsters. I remember a long, long time back when spell effects like auras were simplified to reduce their performance impact. I have a feeling a lot of PoE assets exist in much higher quality but were deliberately throttled back for the sake of performance. So it's possible higher quality versions of stuff have existed for a while, just waiting for a new engine so they could be put in play.
I suspect all the things I don't like about the original are still going to be present in this version.
I suspect you are right. The minute I saw the Witch gameplay it felt like they're not deviating from how they think an aRPG should play. PoE 2 will probably continue to go on being very grindy, being very focused on build execution rather than build flexibility, and it's probably always going to be about finding quality by churning through absolute metric shittons of quantity.
I can only hope they find a way to unify melee and ranged combat in PoE2 though. There is simply no comparison between old style Diablo hack 'n slash gameplay, and the fucking fireworks display most aRPGs today have become. You just cannot kill faster than someone lighting up the whole screen at the click of a button (which is what end game PoE builds aspire to) AND the enemies are designed to be instant death if they actually touch you. So melee isn't viable anymore on a couple fronts, and hasn't been for many, many years. Their changes and fixes helped make melee less galling to play but it never actually brought the two playstyles anywhere near in balance.
Their solution to this in PoE2 seems to be "make flashier looking melee-esqe abilities with bigger hitboxes." That one shot of a guy morphing into an animal mid-leap reminded very, very strongly about how I felt about monks in Diablo 3. MINO. (Melee In Name Only.) Maybe that will do the trick, but I kinda doubt it will ever be more effective than a quad shotting archer whose arrows do all this fruity shit as soon as they touch an enemy.
But maybe this is also a chance for them to address the power imbalance as well, by slowing down ranged gameplay, dialing back the overall obsession with attack speed that makes most high level PoE gameplay look like you're watching Youtube at 2x speed. I think there's always been a secret preference for ranged in PoE (or a secret fear of making melee too effective) and I hope they really try to bring the two in to parity with each other in the sequel.