Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

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Zepepsico wrote:
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bauermayers wrote:


It's amazing how you got everything wrong. The point of Harvest is not making OP builds, but to make non meta/weird/just for fun builds more viable. It's about build diversity. It's not that players didn't like the game before, but they introduced a mechanic that is fun for the vast majority of players, including casuals, non casuals, trade, ssf, and are taking it away. In a league that had a ton of server issues, graphic "improvments", issues, Harvest was one the thing pretty much EVERYBODY was happy about. What do they do? Adress the server problems? No. Fix bugs? No. Take away the one thing nobody has a problem with? FUCK YEAH!!!!!


I am afraid your perception can't really stand against the facts:

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League Launch peak Weekend after Drop
Harvest 127k 81k -36%
Delirium 133k 100k -25%
Metamorph 118k 96k -19%
Blight 75k 54k -28%
Legion 114k 95k -17%
Synthesis 113k 77k -32%
Betrayal 123k 106k -14%
Delve 76k 65k -14%
Incursion 96k 83k -14%
Bestiary 82k 68k -17%
Abyss 70k 63k -10%
Harbinger 98k 90k -8%
Legacy 64k 53k -17%
Breach 47k 43k -9%
Essence 33k 31k -6%
Prophecy 26k 22k -15%
Perandus 37k 32k -14%
Talisman 22k 20k -9%
Warbands / Tempest 32k 29k -9%
Torment / Bloodlines 14k 12k -15%
Rampage / Beyond 25k 20k -20%
Ambush / Invasion 20k 17k -15%
Domination / Nemesis 34k 32k -6%


On Steam, Harvest had the worst retention numbers (not sure if Heist was worst or better). Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/hi47ig/harvest_league_broke_historical_records_for/

If this league is a success, it's because of the Atlas rework (it's fun), the Maven missions (it's fun), Ritual (it's fun and more mobs and more loot!). Yes some players like, adore, worship harvest, but the limited evidence we have is that players absolutely hated the original Harvest league.


People do Rituals still? even most streamers just run by the Rituals and are just hunting Harvests, Rituals are one of the most boring league mechanics imo, click totem, fight summoned mobs... done. Feels more like a nuisance then anything else that just delays mapping speed. I played league for a couple days to try Rituals in maps and realized that right away and decided it wasn't for me so I just enjoyed Echoes of the Atlas on Standard instead.
Last edited by firenovix on Mar 12, 2021, 4:53:19 PM
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Zepepsico wrote:
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Poulak08 wrote:
....but they have to respect the wish of others who want to play one character and min maxed him.


I disagree. Everyone may want a min-maxed character, but it should not be obtainable unless with serious and extreme efforts!
I am nowhere near a min-maxed character, but it gives purpose to tend towards it. Have a bunch of upgrades at 5-10 ex, and maybe even one big 50 ex upgrade if I persist in the league.

But reaching that min-maxed state for everyone will kill the game. No more goals, and the usual "When everyone is super, nobody is super".

I still remember the best MMORPG of my life, where my build had a chase item I really wanted.

I still remember its name: Eriny's Charm.

Maybe 5-10 players per server had it. It would have made my build perfectly min-maxed. I was slowly building up to get enough guilds to help me get it.

And then, under the whining of the playerbase, they made all artefacts super easy to get. Everyone had every dream artefact. Owning one no longer meant anything in terms of achievement, or in terms of power differential. And unsurprisingly, the game went quasi dead within a year, because everyone ticked their bucket list, and no longer had anything to do. Everything was served on a platter. Players got borded and left the game. The game died. I still miss the game.

You should always keep some items, some dream items to a handful of players (and I am far from being one of them), because it gives something to aim towards. If we all could get our dream items or 95% of our dream items, we would have nothing left to do. AS I said earlier, I stopped playing Diablo 1 when I started using an item editor. I had everything at my fingertip, I thought it would be fun, it disgusted my from the game!

Thing have to be hard to earn in order to be enjoyed, many developers from various MMORPG said so: making things easy kills their games. But often the marketing and finance guys have to bend to the crowds and yield, resulting in killing their golden goose.

How easy do you think the average player base still had min-maxing a build with this league? I have a pretty decent build going, with decent items, but I'm a few hundred ex away from achieving min-max. See the thing about goalposts is, they only work when you can feasibly achieve them. This is the first league outside of Harvest where I had an item in my head, with good mods that would be amazing for my build, and I actually felt it was reasonable to go for. Do you think when I achieved that item after a few days of fishing for the right crafts that I felt like I was done? No, I thought of the next item, and the only reason I was able to achieve most of that character's build was out of sheer dumb luck that I got 7 mirror shards from 1 metamorph early into the league. If it wasn't for that I probably would still be working on getting to where I am now with that build.

No one sane would balk at goalposts being achievable, if you feel like goalposts should be something you only achieve towards the end of a league or something completely out of reach that you only dream about then you have no clue wtf a goalpost is supposed to be.
Last edited by ShaggydogGaming on Mar 12, 2021, 4:55:12 PM
the game crashed on me 4 times in a t15 full delerium ful buffed map , oh and i have a top end new pc ,

not only this is not fun , but also i lost a lot of currency ,

but hey i know this is a very rare situation so why bother fix it GGG , just nerf the maps make them t10 max might solve the problem
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OssianTwo wrote:
Anyone know if we can get refunds on supporters packs. I feel embarrassed to have Harvest supporter against my account after these changes. If this goes through I'll be voting with my wallet going forward.


You can get a full refund if you ask support but you will need to have full 2400 points on the account, so it will be possible to be deducted. Otherwise no, you cannot get a refund if you have already spent the points on in-game things.

I did it once, last year I got two of 240 packs in a row within 5 minutes because I thought that first transaction didn’t go thru (was doing it on mobile). And yes, I fully support the trend to start voting with wallet.
Persistence makes impossible possible, possible likely and likely definite. Yep, Mirror will drop eventually -_-
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Zepepsico wrote:


I disagree. Everyone may want a min-maxed character, but it should not be obtainable unless with serious and extreme efforts!


I assume that you like myself and im sure many others also work 2 jobs 60-70 hours a week? Possibly with a family and maybe youre a good parent/partner and dont spend 6-12 hours a night on PoE? You're okay with chasing a build for years even if its nerfed into unplayability 7 months into your journey because 2 streamers made that build with 3000 ex budgets and it made GGGs personal preferences pout?

I would love to see your stream on how you make 200 ex an hour at 2 hours maximum a night.

I forgot the persons name but someone made a video on youtube that used to old crafting system to make a 2H axe that took 2 years and 15,000 exalts to min-max. That still leaves 8 pieces to craft. I would LOVE to see your stream at 2 hours a night as you farm in the ballpark of 40,000 exalts for the next 10 years and show us all how much fun you are having.
I'm mad about the Nerf, i wanted more storage and a way to trade the crafts outside tft. It is possible to clear the entire atlas and the end game bosses with just a "mediocre" build 3-4 weeks in the league, after that i'm out of goals and out of reason to keep playing the rest of the league, i dont care about challanges or getting lvl 100, the only thing that usually keep me going is getting better items and improving my gear, thats why harvest league and ritual were the league i played almost till the end. I dont want another heist league that i finish everything with 3-4 weeks and quit the game bored, improving my itens is the only last enjoyment in the league for me and i wont do it with ex/chaos slaming like ggg intended, thats boring and tedious.

I suggest that any ggg staff member try to get explode mod or harbringer drops rare currency with alterations, thats 2k+ alterations, not fun at all and when you roll by accident the mod you actually wanted you just want to quit the game on the spot. We dont need more of this shit, harvest is powerful but is something we need, just buff all monsters 200% again but leave my harvest alone.

Or created a type of "custom private league" that we can choose what mecanics will be in befores they got nerfed.



As a long time player (8 years) with 4000+ hours who usually gets a headhunter each league.
I agree that Harvest is TOO powerful, and in a way trivializes a lot of the content, because it is much too easy to craft good items with the right augments compared to pre-harvest. But it does feel really nice for build diversity.

My biggest problems with pre-harvest is that slamming an Exalt and a good piece of gear can often BRICK your item making it from good to pretty much trash.
Exalt slamming carried too much of a risk for it to be that "exciting" that most of the "above average" casual players would not prefer using Exalted orbs to craft.

The plan to remove annulment mods is the most disappointing.

Having the ability to "unbrick" an item is good for progression instead of feeling like you have to start all over again with a new item cause you've now slammed t5 life regen onto your Explodey, reflect, +50 intelligence crusader chest.

Go ahead remove Augment mods fine.

But PLEASE let us retain the ability to annul shit mods.
:(
You can see how utterly redundant it would be to make crafting EVEN HARDER, and proceed with game changes that basically destroy the previously mirrored items every patch...

It's insane if the devs think this is what gives a game longevity.
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If this league is a success, it's because of the Atlas rework (it's fun), the Maven missions (it's fun), Ritual (it's fun and more mobs and more loot!). Yes some players like, adore, worship harvest, but the limited evidence we have is that players absolutely hated the original Harvest league.


Regarding player retention: This doesn't account for the fact that the garden was a real pain in the bootyhole to set up, and a lot of people quit over that. A lot of normies didn't bother wanting to spend hours trying to set up something if they didn't know if it was worth their time.

Honestly harvest became way more accessible this league and that accounts for a lot. Sure the groves are time consuming but even noobs know that rem/add, aug, rem was all good.
Last edited by Nihigami on Mar 12, 2021, 5:04:43 PM
Heres a lesson GGG.

Overdoing nerfs = less fun for most
Less fun for most = less people playing
Less people playing = less $$ income
Not enough income = no GGG

Or

Not enough income = seek outside investors
Outside investors = not GGG anymore

So either path your philosophy and wishes will inevitably crash and die.

I have never heard of a company that surged in success from being unenjoyable and disliked by the majority of its customers due to decisions it repeatedly makes.
Last edited by CrimsynVinsyndt on Mar 12, 2021, 5:12:08 PM

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