The Sorcerer & Warlock frustrate me.

[strangebloke]

Yeah, I think sorcerer is 'weaker' than a wizard, but it's not a difference that's going to be very noticeable unless you have more than one player that tries really hard to optimize. Even then, the gap between a high-op wizard and a high-op sorcerer is smaller than the gap between a high-op wizard and fighter.

Whats more common is this: A party has a wizard who cares a lot about being the strongest and builds to that alongside a sorcerer who tries and fails to do the same thing. Not necessarily because sorcerer is weaker, but because they're getting bad guidance.

Specifically, I think people read EvilAnagram's guide for Sorcs which is... technically accurate but misleading.

For instance he rates quicken very highly. Which is fair, quicken is great! But he doesn't talk about the synergy with specific spells all that much, which is the real key.

[KorvinStarmast]

The Sorcerer is actually very decent, both Role Playing Wise, and Mechanics Wise, if you have a clear Idea of the build/theme of the character you're aiming for.
Tl;Dr: The Sorcerer is an Amazing Class to play if you actually know what you're doing and with some amount of pre-planning when making your character either optimisation-wise or RP/Concept wise.

I would compare this to some of the choices in League of Legends that are "high skill quotient" choices. I derive from your post that Sorcerer is a class where a bit of game mastery/skill is necessary. Have I understood you correctly?

The first character I ever made was a sorceror. I didn't know anything about 5e and I knew little about D&D as a whole. I didn't look anything up on the internet, I didn't spend hours planning, I made choices when I levelled up and that was it. No one told me what the best thing to do would be, I just looked at the spells and decided what looked cool. And I was fine. Sure I made some choices I'd later get rid of but I liked it and I never felt useless compared to the rest of the party. Sorceror holds up just fine I think.

How high in levels did your game end up going before it ended?

Also, I have an opinion about metamagic.
The sorcerer gets hosed by not having access to more of them, IMO. As currently written, you get four, but unless you hit level 17 during play, you get 3.

I would recommending adding another meta magic at level 7.

That would mean 5 meta magics when reaching level 17, and more choices on the way to tier 4 play. A modest increase in flexibility, and the metamagics still cost points, but the niche the Sorcerer occupies seems to be built on the way the Sorcerer customizes or changed magical spells.

So, do more meta magic.

[strangebloke]

So, do more meta magic.

Just give a special metamagic inside of the subclass. It's what the newer ones are doing anyway.

Draconic sorc gets 'elemental transfusion.' 1 sp to change any elemental damage spell to their element.

Wild Sorc gets 'chaotic energy.' 2 SP 'explode' each their damage die once. (combine with empower for shenanigans)

Storm sorc gets 'forceful casting' 1 sp to force a target that fails a save to also be knocked prone or be pushed ten feet. Can be used multiple times for multiple targets.

Obviously those ideas aren't balanced, but they're just examples. Given them something like that and then a few thematic spells known and everyone would be happy. Too much generic metamagic and all the builds start to look a bit samey.