So I died playing HCSSF reaching top 40 and was the highest rank with my accession and I don't understand why people say "endgame" is the best part of PoE and PoE2.
Once you reach maps all the fun dies, you just do the same areas and kill the exact same mobs over and over again.

There's also so much fucking busy work it's insane, you can't just relax and go grind, you have to deal with all the retarded shit mechanics like waystones, tablets, all the obnoxious currencies/mechanics and you spend more time fixing your storage and picking up currency loot (why don't they automatically pick up?) instead of fighting monsters.

Once you reach map you progression halts down to the extreme, at that point your build is mostly done and it takes 10h to get a single gear upgrade. There's no sense of progression at all anymore.

I honestly even prefer Last Epochs endgame over PoE1/2, because at least it allows me to just shut my brain off and grind, instead of dealing with retarded busywork shit designed to just kill time for the sake of it.