This sentiment was summed up by a member of our design team who recently said "We don't want to take away the feeling of closing your eyes and Exalting an item, scared to see whether you ruined it or not."
That's... not something 99.9% of players has or will ever do. Does the game have to be balanced for the absolute top of the top of the top of the top of players?
I am a wealthy player. I have maybe done this once in 4000 hours of playtime. This experience described here simply does NOT exist. Yes, it feels good to gamble items. No, it does not feel good when the only way to make comptetitive powerful stuff is gambling. If the tradoff for "crafting to be slightly more fun and engaging" completely breaks" crafting endgame gear "for 99,9% of the player base, it's NOT a good tradeoff. Vaaling is currently filling this niche. Original fossils, awakener's orbs and maven orbs are going in the right direction. This is running backwards.
Do you see players vaaling mirror worthy items on a regular basis? No. Gating crafting behind rng simply means only the most wealthy will engage in it because they can invest enough to average things out. Balancing this experience isn't something that should be done at the cost of the experience of the overwhelming majority of the rest of players.
Harvest crafting needs to drasticly change, and some of the nerfs here are completely adequate. But the reasoning behind these decisions seems random and based on very out of touch information.
Crafting has become the only way to make powerful gear since the conqueror's expantion. If this isn't completely removed (it won't), there NEEDS to be a way to obtain powerful gear that isn't gated behind something only the absolute top of players can do. Before nerfing harvest, remove the freaking split beast from the game that's been breaking the endgame economy every single league since it came out.
This post HAS to be accompanied with "How we are going to implement other crafting paths to make endgame items".
yeah, instead of finding way to prevent harvest craft trading u decided to just ruin it for large group of players who didnt do it. u could have just deleted horticrafting station or delete it from hideout so it would be available only in sacred grove, which would decrease craft trades drastically.
also i thought philosophy of this game is to grind your way to perfect items step by step as harvest craft was intended to do and not to depend on pure rng slamming exalts or to snipe trade site or forget about perfect items cuz u cant afford mirror service.
speaking from my own experience i never crafted anything in this game before harvest, cuz it was much easier to buy good items from other people and its a huge gape in gaming experience, so i hope u will reconsider this decision
