Mirage mechanic is hostile to players

This is going to be a bit longer hence a tldr:

Mirage mechanic seems like hostile design.
- portal over other mechanics and too far away to click sometimes
- near instant death on enter
- no setup time for certain builds
- feels like backtracking
- caches not even worth entering the mechanic
- loading screen/instance change bad for party and certain builds
- breaks flow in maps

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Preamble:

This will sound rather negative and is meant to be critical and constructive. I am not here to complain but to point out the problems with the mechanic. Mostly from a point of view of a "small group" player.

The well known problem with the eternal shader loading is an exacerbating factor to all of this. The problem with instances and servers at the start of the league has also just added to the frustration with the constant instance changes. I point this out, because it has colored my impression of the mechanic of Mirage.

There are several problems with the mechanic, its loot, the way to interact with it and the performance. Also with its core design. I will split my feedback into those points for ease of reading. I will start with the loot, since this is the least important thing imho. Then i will go in ascending order of severity again imho.

The loot:
The caches do not drop any noteworthy amount of loot. They feel incredibly dumb to click on. Also they add a lot of unnecessary clicking for basically no reward. Mind that i mean the bronze/silver/gold djinn caches. Not the one from freeing the djinn/breaking the chains.
Even blight chests on unboosted blight feel better.

The mechanic:
In comparison to mechanics like delirium or especially the krangled mechanic (scourge league) This feels very cumbersome. It forces you to stop whatever you are doing and read the text. Also the actual reward, aside of what 'color', you pick seems mostly inconsequential.
You are basically replaying a part of the map and the whole mechanic is validated by putting more POE in your POE by letting you do mechanics you invested in again.
This is in principal fine, however if compared to how fluent scourge mechanic was, it falls behind by a long shot.

The fact that you do not pause when in a small group also forces you to clear the area rather thoroughly. At least until your setup comes online and you can just tank mobs.

The fact that it forces you to load another instance is also a big hindrance for party play. You nearly need to count down and wait for everyone to load the instance if you want to get away from the spawn point alive. If my aurabot loads too late or with the past server issues, drops, the carry is dead in the water in the instance. Even if you have enough portals to get back, you still have two loading screens to sit through to get back. Hideout->map->mirage (technically three, but you also load the hideout if you die/disco in map.)
this feels incredibly awkward, especially with the beleaguered spawns.
Additionally rejoining the instance makes you slow walk to the rest of the people of the group. since you can't move the incoming portal.

The performance:
Loading times are too long, additional loading screens are unwanted by everyone in a party.
The shader loading is a problem as always, even more than in maps. We had instances where the mirage ran with halve the frame rate than the map. Especially with delirium on it. Also it seems that the instance sometimes is generated on a completely diffrent server, than the gateway you selected, or at least it was in the beginning of the league. Ping in the mirage instances where wildly diffrent than in the underlying map.
Shader loading and performance is an ongoing problem and should be looked into. Especially in parties you tend to notice, that the load order is garbage. Boss effects loading last. Some things like dot effects from delirium and the obelisks from rare mobs seem to load very late too. This is a general problem, not mirage specific, but it gets worse with the additional area change.

If you are still reading this, thanks! Also i hope you are still sane Exile!

The hostile-design issue:
This is the most important point to make. This mechanic seems to be designed by someone who either hates the player or has not learned or read about the most problematic issues with POE in the past.
GGG has worked on getting spawn in spots in maps to a point where you are not bum-rushed by mobs. But mirage throws that out completely. Especially in hasted/turbo maps you cannot escape the death rush. Especially builds with setup time, mandatory flasks, ramp up time or small groups suffer from this the most.

The second thing that seems like hostile design, especially towards small groups is the inability to move the portal. Not only does it cover lootable things, mechanics etc. all the time. It also makes it hard to come in after the initial cleanup. you have to do the slow run to the team and that can be more than halve a map length in maps like silo or cells.

Furthermore there is the issue with actually getting the mobs to spawn. Having to run into the things at melee range feels terrible and is antithesis to range, minion or slower builds. It feels like another mechanic that wants to force you to high mobility builds, even discarding the amount of walking involved with the base idea.
Why cant my zombie trigger the mob spawns? Why can't i shoot them and trigger them like that?
Delirium has the same issue to an extend. HOWEVER! Delirium rewards are also earned by killing the rest of the mobs and the normal mobs in a map. Hence it is not necessary to run towards every spawn point and trigger them. Mirage does not have this alleviating factor.

Conclusion:
The mechanic and interaction feels terrible on its own and to interact with. It only right to exist comes from the fact, that it adds value to your investment in scarabs and atlas mechanics.
Especially small group play feels more hindered and sabotaged by it, than rewarding.

Thanks for reading and i hope this gives a viewpoint that has some value.
Stay sane exiles!
And if someone from GGG reads this: We still love all of you! Also I am available for questions and feedback under my email address as always. I will not have an eye on this forum post.
I do realize that small groups are not the main players of POE, but we do exist!
Best regards:
TrueOGer

Mirage was not designed to be a fully functional league mechanic.

Its just a lazy work to throw something and call it a legue while they focus on PoE 2 or something else.

Dont expect much of it.