POE2 near unplayable

I have spent around 2-3 hours following various guides to stop the freezing and crashing to login. Nothing works. I did the shaders, chat log, lowered video settings, updated drivers, disabled other programs, updated Windows 11. I did not have any of these issues in the release of POE2, and these have plagued me since 0.3.

The game freezes. I curse. I hit escape to hopefully pause the game. Video goes black. Map is wiped. And sometimes the pause doesnt work. It loads in enemies before I can even move, then they proceed to kill me and give me a death penalty. And sometimes to add insult to injury, I can not zone back in to the instance from my hideout, losing all of my map.

This is very frustrating and kills end game play. I have been playing this game a while and every single person I know I tell to stay away until this game stabilizes.

If you are going to freeze me, make me immune until I actively activate movement. If you are going to kill my map with a failure to join instance, then refund me that map. But mostly just stop these issues entirely.

SSF

Happens to me too- I think something reverted. It had been pausing when this would happen.

Now it does the gears, I alt+tab twice, its always the same, gears again, black/red background with fire trails... takes like, forever and restores.

Usually a fair amount before the visuals restore, the game is active again. I can heal and move and attack- can't see anything. Then the visuals snap in.

You can open the passive tree during this time too, I'm not sure if that pauses, but I think it might.