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Browsing for equipment is one of the most overwhelming parts of PF2. Feats and even spells are pretty effectively siloed. Not so for equipment. I agree that players shouldn't be expected to know every niche item they might need.
I also think golems are really easy to handle if you know what you're doing. But I'm not sure they need to be this much of a weakness for the kineticist.
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Even more to the point, whether you can or cannot handle a golem easily is a separate question from whether it is satisfying to run into a golem, look at your character sheet, and realize that none of your decisions about who your character is and what their primary power set is can effectively engage with the monster placed in front of you. Your choices are reduced to waiting until the party handles the monster with their character choices which still function (though I disagree that mages explicitly have an easier time just because certain named spells are available--there is no reason to assume any given mage happens to have one of those spells prepare or in their repertoire), or for your entire party to retreat so that you can find some item which has nothing to do with what kind of character you thought you were designing.
It may be a good idea, even a satisfying one, to carry back-up tools and weapons to make dealing with certain monsters easier (silversheen for werewolves, torches and fire oil for trolls, etc) but in general the majority of these assist with what you can already do, or at worst don't invalidate your skill set. Golems basically turn off a kineticist's ability to be a kineticist, at least as far as actually interacting with the monster through their abilities and not just moving around and trying to help the party play their own characters.
(For that matter, it's not very satisfying to be a spellcaster and have this happen, either, so this problem isn't entirely unique to kineticists, though perhaps exacerbated by the specificity of golem weaknesses compared to the limitations of of a dedicated gate.
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This is absolutely not a unique situation for the Kineticist though. Golem fights are often very difficult if the party engages to fight the Golem directly in Melee, and yet are some of the easiest fights when the party realizes that the Golem is not that fast and very likely can't effectively fight them at range. Many classes are left feeling like there is almost nothing they can do against a golem they have not prepared to fight, and I don't think any class needs to be built to make sure there is something they can do against each possible variant of the Golem that ever gets made.
The only thing I think is really necessary is providing a little more guidance for how things like adapt element and extract element work. Extract element should work on golems and their magical immunity should be countered as an immunity (so still some resistance but not full immunity) if the Kineticist has the right element. That feels like the most interesting and thematic way to handle a creature type that is universally reknown for being difficult.
Maybe also making blasts themselves not impulses or not inherently magical would make sense since it could be the case that by the time the element is released, the element itself is not a magical manifestation but just physical matter. Most blasts are weak enough that the Golem's physical resistance will still be a challenge without being able to extract the element from the Golem, and that would solve the melee blasts provoking issue, while still allowing ranged attacks to provoke by nature of being ranged attacks.
Both of these things are bigger than the Kineticist's interaction with the Golem specifically, and I still think the best thing any class can do to beat a Golem is to control the battlefield and slow down its movement, which the Kineticist can do because Golems don't ignore magical effects to the world around them.
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The main issue I see is that this could easily be a nasty surprise for new groups.
When creating a spellcaster even a novice can usually figure out "magic immune monsters are a thing, I need a plan B in case I run into one."
The fact that Kineticists have such a problem requires a pretty good understanding of the rules that a novice player or GM can easily miss and only discover with their first Golem or whathaveyou encounter. Which could be a souring experience.
If nothing else is done at the very least a heads-up sidebar in the class description is probably a good idea.
Are people also seriously forgetting that the kineticist has access to walls, movement control, and other utility?
Like, even if you don't pack backup options, you still have stuff you can do that involves using your powers, anti magic doesn't stop stuff like creating different or hazardous terrain, concealment and the like from auras, your ability to heal teammates, making walls to block off areas of the battlefield, etc.
Like, the argument that people shouldn't be expected to prepared for an adventure is pretty odd, but even if you don't, it's not like your powers can't do anything, you just can't win in as straightforward of a way
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Are people also seriously forgetting that the kineticist has access to walls, movement control, and other utility?
Maybe, possibly, depending on their feat selection (and depending on how your GM rules how magical those features are).
It's more like we talking about damage options. Spellcasters also has utility options and martials has skills so the entire utility abilities aren't too considered in this topic.
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Honestly at this point, I think the best takeaway was that Golems were a mistake. They're janky, prone to table variation, screw with the setting in goofy ways, are generally not particularly interesting enemies, and toxic game design insofar as that they can just render certain characters borderline unplayable, where the best and most genuine advice offered to deal with that is to tell someone to stop playing what they want to play and find ways to game the system instead. Everything a roleplaying game shouldn't be.
Pf 2 doesn’t really do spell resistance though. Creatures have bonuses to save vs magic, but spells that target AC generally bypass that completely. Plus the nature of level in PF2 would make that resistance never actually feel infinite.
If you are a GM, you need to be aware of your party composition and consider how the players will react to any encounter they are about to walk into. Will it be fun? Will it make some players want to rage quit? It is very easy to change the circumstance of an encounter, especially one you know that the party is not ready for. Even just having the golem issue a statement before attacking like “come know closer!” And then not moving away from the door/ only attacking to chase off enemies is a fine way to prevent a TPK unless the party is hell bent on making it happen. It is also perfectly reasonable for the creators of Holems to have issued such strict orders to prevent their creations from murdering curious children or ending up on a rampage by following flee enemies too far. These kinds of restrictions are common in APs
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I wonder how golems would play out if their "magic immunity" only allowed them to treat save results against magical effects as one step higher.
Honestly at this point, I think the best takeaway was that Golems were a mistake. They're janky, prone to table variation, screw with the setting in goofy ways, are generally not particularly interesting enemies, and toxic game design insofar as that they can just render certain characters borderline unplayable, where the best and most genuine advice offered to deal with that is to tell someone to stop playing what they want to play and find ways to game the system instead. Everything a roleplaying game shouldn't be.
I don't quite agree with this. Being prepared for adverse situations is normal. Just like martials need to be prepared to deal with ghosts, flight, etc, magic characters need to be prepared to cope with golems, antimagic fields, etc.
Sure, kineticist is entirely screwed, but that's just another thing on the list for the devs to fix.
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I still remember a game where an evil wizard loosed his vile construct creation upon the party in an abandoned mineshaft underneath the town's tavern. They hit it with fireballs and lightning bolts. Magic missiles. Arrows. The fighter broke his sword upon it and was thrown back. The thing just. would. not. stop. coming. They fled, collapsing a tunnel behind them. It scarcely slowed it down.
So they lead it up and out through the village, attempting to keep it away from other civilians. It walked through whole buildings to get at them.
So they went up the wizard's tower on the outskirts of town (the very wizard that had set it loose upon them). They lead it up a long stair, then cast fly and collapsed the tower. The golem fell and was buried. Several magical explosions went off during and immediately after the collapse.
And still it came.
I've never had a group of players more terrified of anything. It was glorious fun for all involved.
...
In another group the party wizard made a successful Recall Knowledge check, flew away into an open field, and pelted it to death with ray of frost. We didn't even bother with combat after the first two rounds. It was clear the golem couldn't keep up with a flying sniper using an unlimited golem-killer spell.
Setup, description, and character/player knowledge make a BIG difference in whether or not this type of encounter works or not.