Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

Aw GGG, why you have to be like that.

Harvest and this league have been the leagues I've played the longest in a long, long time. I think the last time I played this long was Betrayal, because I really loved it.

Harvest crafting solved the diminishing return on play time. There is a hard diminishing return on gains once you reach about a dozen ex of gear, where the next upgrade is gonna cost you about twice as much. Working for that first upgrade, which takes maybe 2 weeks, is fine, you have a goal in mind, but then your wallet is empty and you're looking at basically a month of grind for your next upgrade, and that's what makes me quit.

Harvest solved that, sure, I am still racking up currency, but now i am spending it here and there to have good bases, to try and roll them with harvest (you've nerfed the amount of chaos...) and once I got something decent, I can try to upgrade it (another thing you've nerfed)...

Been playing this game since beta, but you guys are going the wrong way about this.

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HowToGusta wrote:

Let's just hope in future GGG takes polls or something like that when making these types of decisions to better understand how the players will react.

Oh, they knew full well how the community would react, maybe not the intensity of it, but it's clear that they knew this would be very unpopular.

That's why they broke the info 1 month before a new league. The number of people actively playing has dropped significantly, attention to PoE news is low, and they can hope it all blows over before everyone starts looking for info on the next league again and they work on getting everyone hyped up once more.

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Players also expressed frustration that the most effective way to get the best items in Path of Exile was to join a discord channel and try to trade for these incredibly crucial crafts.

The first part of this that concerned us was that Harvest was critical in making the best items (and hence made many other game systems obsolete). The second part, where it was inconvenient to trade them, becomes far less of a problem if we can solve the first issue.

This I still just can't get over.

Can you please throw us a bone here by addressing and clarifying what you meant in the statement I quoted there, so we know you're not just living in corpo-dreamland but actually understand what's really going on in your game, and we can have a little bit more faith in your decision making?

Since what you say there, about fixing the issue with trading harvest crafts by simply nerfing the whole thing and making it far less attractive and useful, so problem solved, right? This makes no sense what so ever, which makes me wonder if you get it at all.



I understand your priority is to nerf how easy it is to craft some items.

That makes sense and you definitely will accomplish that goal with your intended changes, and then some.


But how does this fix the discord trading issue?

Not at all, in any way, shape or form.

Some very useful and profitable crafts will remain, and getting access to them whenever you need them is still 1000x easier through TFT discord than through actually playing the game.

Nothing changed there. Nada. You get that, do you?

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Rakushi wrote:

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HowToGusta wrote:

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Rakushi wrote:

QQing doesn't get you anywhere, basically

Did you even read what I wrote?

Why would you pay for a product/service that you don't like? That is the consumer's choice/right and if they decide to vocalise it on their way out I don't see a problem with it. GGG has a responsbility as a business to address their customer's dissatisfaction when they accept money for a product/service in order to fund their operations, offset their costs and make a profit. You don't buy a table, receive it half broken and keep your mouth shut. How is it blackmail to say you don't want to support someone/something if they proceed down a certain path? Players are not forcing GGG to do anything realistically speaking. Such a strange perception of reality you have...

I am sorry, we've seem to have had a missunderstanding here.

The issue I've talked about isn't that people voice dissatisfaction, but the way it is being done. I can tell you that my table is broken, and what I don't like about it, or I could yell at you that you're the worst scum on earth, and I will never consider buying anything from you ever again, and wish you'd refund me for the table, that was perfectly fine, 2 years ago, or I will be angry. Take a guess which one I am miffled about and can be considered attempted, albeit hilariously incompetent, blackmail?

Also, GGG isn't "just a business" either. It's a team of developers that have a game in mind that they wanted to create, and it's in their right to do so. And you'll admit, that they've done overall a good job at it, because you've returned playing the game, too.

Sadly, you fill in the basket of people with entitlement, the way you word it, and I'd like to show you that: "Customer's dissatisfaction when they accept money for a product/service in order to fund their operations". You don't purchase a service. You don't purchase the right to play the game, you already have it. Supporterpacks are more akin to donations to the cause. Funding, yes, but not something you are supposed to expect a return from. And you seem to believe it is that way, do you not? You can certainly vote with your wallet, and that is fine, you are free to vocalize that even, but don't go around and say BECAUSE you've paid this much, that it somehow makes you entitled to mold the way GGG wants the game to go, and feel is the right way to go. Sorry if parts have offended you, and for the missunderstanding prior.

Yeah man, you're addressing your concerns about the way people have approached GGG with their 'threats' to the wrong person. I literally just defended the idea that support can be withdrawn if you don't enjoy what you're spending your money on. I even mentioned in a previous post that any nerf/removal of harvest won't stop me from playing. But, I have expectations, yes. Do I feel entitled because I spend money on the game? Hell no. I just feel passionate enough to try to make a difference where it matters to so many. Read some of my previous posts, maybe you'll change your tune. Stop twisting my words.

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HowToGusta wrote:

Yeah man, you're addressing your concerns about the way people have approached GGG with their 'threats' to the wrong person. I literally just defended the idea that support can be withdrawn if you don't enjoy what you're spending your money on. I even mentioned in a previous post that any nerf/removal of harvest won't stop me from playing. But, I have expectations, yes. Do I feel entitled because I spend money on the game? Hell no. I just feel passionate enough to try to make a difference where it matters to so many. Read some of my previous posts, maybe you'll change your tune. Stop twisting my words.

Ah, I didn't try to make it like I've twisted your words! I was just trying to understand you toroughly, and am glad that I was wrong :D My apologies!

Edit: Incoherent Sentences. (Whew I am tired)

Already purchased the highest supporter pack :(
Won't be spending any more for a long time.

Sad... It was so funn... Back to farming 20h per day -,-

Was about to pay 240$ for harvest supporter pack because i enjoyed this league so much. Not really Ritual i went over to standard pretty fast but enjoyed the new expansion and harvest was a nice way to keep me invested to keep chasing the next goal.

I will slam a exalt for you Chris and save the 240$ for something else <3

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The first part of this that concerned us was that Harvest was critical in making the best items (and hence made many other game systems obsolete)

ahah thats another point out that ggg doesnt know its game or players well.

good helms are being crafted with essences
what else.. belts. with essences. lot more with fossils

and then top it of with white sockets. syndicate then on top of it syndicate quality

ggg you went pretty low on thinking what is obsolete how people craft theyr items.

very very stupid statment. oh and it gets more stupid how obsolete you made multimod crafting.. only thing people use on normal craft bench is cannot roll attack or caster. but you still fked up cannot roll caster.. how many people have lost theyr items.

obsolete fracturing power charge rings or frenzy.. with obsolete fossil crafting ?
you just amaze me with your way of thinking :D

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Azarhiel wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

How about a thought experiment.

Let's say that for one league GGG increased the godly good drops by 300% and the chaos, alchemy, exalt, mirror, divine, and blessed orbs drops by 300%. This would be SUPER simple for GGG to make such a change. I think that folks would be thrilled and very happy. If that was a long term change though PoE would become less challenging and fun.

What would that change when a Ilvl 86 item can roll a t10 affixe ?

Sorry my point was unclear. I was just thinking that if GGG buffed the currency drops and the drops of GG items by a very large amount and then took it away then the thread would look just like this one.

Personally I think this is a very poor decision.

Until this league the league I enjoyed most was the Harvest league. I am fully of the belief that deterministic crafting is not only a good thing for PoE but in fact a great thing.

My usual league performance is to follow a league starter build guide, and then hit a wall a red tier maps where progression literally stops as the death penalty stops all xp gain and poor gearing ensures you die often enough to keep xp for the level hovering in the single figures.

In harvest I was able to make decent enough gear that this wasn't a problem. Gear I could never afford to buy. Although I do play daily, I don't treat gaming as a job, I potter around maps for 20 mins not 2 mins, so consequently I never make more than a few ex every league.

I actually saw harvest integration as a failure. I was so looking forward to it. I've played more in this league than ever before. I've reached levels I've never reached and that's after rerolling as my league starter died like a fly in white maps. However as yet, despite many hours of looking, I am yet to find any of those useful crafts we had in harvest. I haven't seen any add/remove, any remove, literally only finding the chaos spam crafts.

This league I have progressed as far as finally seeing Sirus. I died like a fly not knowing much about the fight, but in several leagues it's the first time I have got that far.

I'm a casual player like most people. We need access to decent gear. Perhaps not mirror tier maven orb awakened orb gears but gears with t1/2 life and res easily applied with some work. The mere fact that this is possible although in this league far too rare that it has become a source of income for the 1%ers through selling their crafts has kept me playing, looking for those finally useful harvests to progress my gear. I've even spent money twice for more stash space. I've never spent twice in one league before.

Casual players like me virtually never chaos spam, and we certainly never exalt slam. We mostly don't even use exalt costing crafts on our bench, we simply never see more than two or three exalts in a whole league typically.

To fix harvest crafting I would split it. The useful t1/2 crafts like add/remove, target annul, etc would be a great addition to the craft bench unlockable by finding a harvest of the right colour flowers. The flowers could drop red/yellow/blue craft energy, a currency useable at the bench for the deterministic crafts and you could keep the current crafting system in map for the exchange crafts, fracture, synthesis, div card, map, scarab, etc crafts.
The divine crafts should be removed altogether. If you want perfect stats then spam divine orbs. Those divine crafts were always a step too far.

This would allow casual players the chance to make gear with some work. We play for fun, we play to escape the pressures of family life and jobs, the last thing we want is a game we have to treat like a job. Being able to work towards an achievable goal like that though keeps players happy and playing.

Please reconsider this backwards step. Deterministic crafting as given to us in Harvest league is a good thing if you simply remove the divine orb crafts. It allows players to play a wider range of builds, which is a good thing, and brings achievable gear goals to casual players who probably make up 99% of the playerbase. These crafts should be more accessible though. In Harvest league it was every map or two, in this league I haven't seen a single one except those being offered 'for sale' which gates out those not able to just farm currency endlessly which really gets boring quickly. This is why I like the idea of an energy drop for the craft bench.