Looking at forums for games like Poe and D4 can be exhausting. There’s always the various “I don’t like this mechanic” versus “This mechanic is part of the genre” conversations and the “too hard versus too easy” conversations and sometimes they get quite nasty.
Given devs are making a lot of conversation about “inclusivity” maybe consider the possibility of, in addition to Hardcore and Normal, of having a “Relaxed” character selection that caters to the issues that are commonly raised on forums. “Normal” could be made more difficult while “Relaxed” would be for those who prefer a more relaxed style of play.
For example, characters selecting the “Relaxed” option might have 4 stash tabs per character with an additional 4 shared between characters. If they fail a boss fight, then they have the option of reducing the difficulty for their next attempt or turning down the difficulty of all boss mobs for more of a story type experience. Different crafting options such as being able to select the mod they specifically want for a reroll rather than the random 3 choices. Less materials required for crafting or alternatively greater returns/drops of crafting materials. Maybe instead of extra inventory, the codex could be updatable - so if something drops with a different aspect, it could be added to the codex or higher stat aspect could be used to update the codex with the increased stat. Maybe options for buffed skills.
I can’t speak to what aspects of normal would be improved with more difficulty because I’m in the relaxed camp.
