Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

Go Away with your Supporter Pack complains.
They made a deal with a chinese company to be safe from this threat.

Streamers blaming the community when they should blame TGGG for the changes..

Why they don't blame chris wilson for this circus?

Chris's opinion seems to have changed dramatically since this video...
https://youtu.be/HZqxIteqKaQ?t=4407

"

The game isnt my game any more, its the players game.....I can't just come in and say nah this isnt my vision we're getting rid of it, because then we'll have no players left.

I think GGG should just put a price to harvest craft
Augment fire cost 1 ex to the player to bank it
Remove fire cost 1 annul
remove fire add fire cost 1 ex and 1 annul

"

TyrannicalBearD wrote:

Chris's opinion seems to have changed dramatically since this video...
https://youtu.be/HZqxIteqKaQ?t=4407

"

The game isnt my game any more, its the players game.....I can't just come in and say nah this isnt my vision we're getting rid of it, because then we'll have no players left.

And when there are no players left, who's going to watch the streamers who say this is good for the game?

i am casual and dont interact with harvest too much because im suck with crafting...just using simple harvest crafting like sacrifice currency or fragment...

I will not give any dollar to the Chinese dictatorship.

I think these changes are a big step in exactly the wrong direction. Deterministic crafting is good for the game, both because it makes a wider variety of builds viable, and because it increases the speed at which people can, to their relative level of satisfaction, "complete" a build. This, in turn, increases the number of character archetypes that a player gets to play. The fear that players will run out of things to do is unfounded because leagues are only a few months long, there would always be another build to try out, not to mention challenges and the endless grind for currency for yet better gear.

If I were the designer of a game and I had designed a mechanic that was as engaging to the player base as this re-introduction of Harvest, I would call that a win and double down on it by expanding it. My suggestions:

1. Make crafts itemized so as to protect players from getting scammed out of their items. This would also make the purchase of these crafts available to users of the trade site, instead of forcing players to go through TFT to buy and sell crafts.

2. Make the powerful crafts much, much less rare so as to make them available whatsoever to a larger percentage of the player base. Here I could say a lot about the way GGG's mentality seems very focused on catering to themselves and a particular subset of the highest echelon of players, with little regard for people with families, jobs, or other responsibilities, but let it suffice to say that driving down the price of powerful crafts will improve the quality of life of many, MANY more players than it would hurt.

3. Expand the number of tags that crafts can target, so as to enable a yet wider range of viable builds. (Mana, Gem, Elemental etc.) Truly, the more the better here, especially if the fear is that players will run out of things to do, because widening the range of viable builds gives players more opportunities to set goals for themselves, and set out to achieve them through playing the game. More characters also probably means more MTX as players will want different themes for different characters.

I think the fundamental issue with the design team is the fear that players will run out of things to do, when in fact the game has much more of an issue with the things players want to do being unattainable. I personally have as much free time as I choose to allot myself, and I'm about to give up on this game because the things I want to do in the game feel as though they are being rendered, by design, unattainable. If I ever got to complete a build I would step into MTX territory for that character, if I knew I'd be able to do that repeatedly I'd step into supporter territory. If I can't, I'll find another game.

As for the issue that Harvest renders other mechanics obsolete, the solution is to empower those mechanics and make them more engaging, ideally up to the point where they are as engaging as the current high-water mark. On this front GGG actually deserves some kudos for the introduction of atlas passives, which is a great step toward empowering otherwise relatively unrewarding mechanics. I think further steps in this direction would be to the good.

A lot of people have been threatening to withdraw financial support from the game or quit entirely if these changes aren't reversed, if they haven’t done so already. Let me offer the proverbial carrot: GGG, if you reverse course on this and adopt a design philosophy that is more broadly permissive of deterministic crafting so as to respect the time of more of your player base, I and I'm sure many others will spend a lot more money on this game and POE2.

I’m simply not going to go all-in on a game that doesn’t respect my time.

Well remove harvest too powerful. Remove delve too powerful. Remove trading because anyone can get items easily. Threat discord as malicious software and ban players for using it xD

"

GrumpyDog114 wrote:

"

TyrannicalBearD wrote:

Chris's opinion seems to have changed dramatically since this video...
https://youtu.be/HZqxIteqKaQ?t=4407

"

The game isnt my game any more, its the players game.....I can't just come in and say nah this isnt my vision we're getting rid of it, because then we'll have no players left.

And when there are no players left, who's going to watch the streamers who say this is good for the game?

this exactly!

1%ers saying this is good...

they're so shortsighted that they just won't see that it will hurt them just as much as everyone else!

if market prices are going to spike from 50ex > 250 per equip, which will happen!

no one will be around to buy those nicely crafted mirror tier items every crafter is so horny about.

gl getting your stuff sold... to anyone XD