Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

This is a big middle finger to your player base honestly, best player retention of all time because of this, people can finally make items for their builds without having thousands of exalts in their stash, GG mirror items are still impossible to make for 99.9999% of players even with Harvest it costs hundreds of exalts to craft.

I really don't understand this logic, stop listening to some streamers that play the game 14 hours a day and listen to your actual playerbase that has actual jobs.

First off, this is my first post. Never felt the need. With this horrendous nerf to harvest, I feel the need :P

As many have stated, this will affect the bottom 99% more than the top 1% which easily "abuse" the mechanics... if you can call using the mechanics efficiently "abuse".

Crafting through harvest now and during Harvest league was really the only worth-while way to craft. Spamming currency... yeah, I've never gotten anything even remotely usable. It's just a time and currency sink that yields no value to regular players. Harvest though, it's true, you can get nearly god-like items with the only investment being time (and a lot of it). Removing Annuls, slams on influenced items, etc. just means more gating for the poor which greatly slows a players progress and burns through their currency. Why waste time crafting a mediocre item when you can buy something better for a couple chaos to a couple exalts.

GGG, you've seen record numbers this league and a big part is due to having an actual method of crafting that works. Progress is gold. The more a player can actual progress (gear, currency, content, etc), the longer they play, and more they recommend the game. Expect to see a sizable reduction to numbers both at the start of the new league and when folks hit a wall at the 2-3 week mark. I'm usually one of those players. When every aspect of a game feels like it's working against you, it loses appeal rather quickly. Harvest remedies this to a large extent.

I know the idea generates much hate but if the real issue is trading (either the crafts or the crafted items from harvest), a bind option is a much better fix. It allows for full usage of harvest crafting, gives players a sense of accomplishment making the gear they need (instead of spending 25+ exalts per item), and completely curbs the trading/selling aspect that allows for your version of "abusing" mechanics. This should be the ONLY instance of binding items. Again, this idea would not be accepted by all but the majority of players wont even notice the impact in their overall play experience.

I think the changes outlined in the manifesto are perfectly fine. Harvest looses some of it's power but it will still be very strong. It will be intresting to see all the people being upset about this now try it next leage to realize it is atill the strongest option for crafting items by far.

We have seen this rage reaction to a news post a few times, but it always amuses me.

GGG I hope you keep making the game the way you feel like it should be made.

Well, like devs, I also didn't obtain this thing myself about heard something about mirror-tier … many, many mirror-tier salaries. But personally I think that deterministic salaries are not attactive, while situation when devs don't know how to feed his family is very risky and exciting. It's exactly a way to improve their work. The brain swollen with fat is lazy and not creative.

So, no more donations from me while you moving this way – you only care about the opinion of 0.01% of top streamers who will not be really affected by this nerf and don't give af about you real playerbase.

254 pages of feedback.

GGG make it right, please.

nobody want to craft rare items without influence. WTF ?
exalt annul chaos craft no ty its 2 fuckin random.
we only lose currency on those craft.

nice that Diablo 2 comming b, if u nerf it BB GGG


FIrst remove HEADHUNTER AND MIRROR THIS IS FUCKIN BULLSLHIT

Damn.. This really makes me sad. Harvest was my favorite.. :( I loved to craft items with it. I can't see how has it been "easy" to obtain crazy items. I've spent hundreds of hours farming for certain crafts and eventually getting a bad outcome.. But, there was always the chance of hitting what you really want! That kept me going. Now it seems I will never achieve my goals unless I start playing 10 hours a day. Very, very sad.. :(

The amount of hate and anger in this thread is really frightning :S
So here is some positivity from a player that playes this game a lot and every league for a couple of years now:

Great changes, I do 100% percent agree with all of them,
only thing I wish for would be more crafting slots in the Workbench for less Discord annoyance.

Please dont listen to unreasonable hate, preserving perfect or even near perfect items as a never ending chase is something really important to this game and the one thing that kept me coming back.

You are 100% right here
GJ!

Harvest crafting did not "ruin the game", but taking it out just might.

There's nothing worse for players than being given powers they have craved for years, and then taking them away.

FU you know what, im done at 3.14. Not gonna play it. Crafting literally was the thing that kept me in the game. Your gameplay is dull, its all the same. You just zoom through maps until you get one shot by some monster. Now you cut access to end-game gear for vast majority of the public, instead of accepting the change. I have no interest anymore. Just gonna play it until 3.14 till i finish my crafts then im done.