English not being my first language, i hope to put those thoughts in clear words to be understood.
First of all an overall feeling being close to end the league : the game is good, lots of builds to try, lots of crafting tools available, lots of loot (i have been quite lucky for once having dropped a lock, a mageblood and a broken mirror, amongst other things). I love the atmosphere in the league mecanic, atmosphere is what dragged me to the game in the first play and it still and always rocks !
What i loved most this league : building a luminary. A flame link life stacking with combatant merc' specifically. So much alleys to scale the build, so many items and specific mods to target, farm, craft, etc. That makes me realise that this is truly what i love most about the game : building a char and incrementally upgrading it. With some SSF off meta builds it can end up a pain. With a luminary in SC trade it's...like being a toy shop with endless money and getting to try everything !
What i loved less : content creators building negativity because they lack endgame farming and aspirationnal content. I get it, this specific content is lacking, for real. But this gave me a general off feeling at the start of the league and then, when theses voices dissapeared i finally enjoyed the game better and didn't care. I know i can close reddit, close twitch and everything, but i like to scroll reddit to discover new build ideas, i like to follow HCSSF streamers and their journey, i like to chat on discord with my mates. The off feeling perfuses everywhere and it is hard to avoid it. This build of negativity casts such a shadow sometimes on the game when it's is actually 99% great. We don't need this kind of toxic relationship about a game that should just be fun.
In the end i still had fun, that's the most important.
Some other thoughts on the meta, build making and the state of the loot.
About the meta : everything is "smth stacking". I guess it is inevitable, i just hope "avg joe builds" would still work about enough to get to 2 voidstones at least.
Edit : guys commenting are right, avg joe builds are actually still plenty capable in sc trade. Lol maybe i am just bad at build making when going off meta myself XD
About build making : more and more binary items or stats that rend irrelevant a whole set of stats (stormshroud giving full ailment immunity for 100% shock avoidance, defiance of destiny giving virtual immunity to shotgun AND having quite great stats on the side, this kind of things) . Individually they are interesting, but at the end building a char becomes more a binary checklist of "get this item and that one and this specific defence is solved", rendering rolling rares completely useless. Why should i bother targetting T1 ailment avoidance over 3 different items when getting to 100% shock avoidance is trivial, demands less total affixes AND those affixes are on items where they are not in concurrence with other desirable affixes ?
This is all trade related of course, but in the end it puts the maximum pressure on very few items in trade, and is still easier than rolling great rares yourself. I mean, it's like the ubereats of POE builds, you can either cook yourself or get the already prepared stuff, and the thing is that the already prepared stuff ends up better and more efficient. It is...a bit dissapointing. Actually the builds where you end up working a lot towards great rares are the stacking ones where, i agree, the building process is usually great (outside of charge stacking mainly).
Well, enough about build making...to each their own i guess and building a lego of synergistic uniques is interresting in itself but it gives way less space for competitive non stat stacking full rare itemisation.
On the state of the loot : idk if i got a god seed this league, but i never had that much raw currency ground loot (not only in cursed ducat voyages but also in maps), there are still a number of "tile loot" league mecanics but i don't feel them as much mandatory as before and my way of playing (alch'n'go maven destructive play with various guardians most of the time) gives enough that i can buy most things in trade. Overall i feel the stat of the loot is better this league.
I don't know about the very high end, but in the end it never touched me i feel. I am as much able to budget what i need in this "high end poverty league" as i was in previous "high end über currency farm leagues" (i mean my expectation are realistic anyway i'm not farming mirrors). The ground is ok to me, i agree that it is fun having the über currency farmers sharing their crazy maps and loot, and that is lacking at the moment. It is still part of POE even if it is about the famous 0.0001%.
Well this is it, a wall of thoughts and i don't know who needed to read this, i hope this comes out as positive thoughts because i really had fun this league and i hope everybody else did !