Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

Regardless of where players fall on the Harvest crafting decision spectrum, everyone should agree that the issue was handled poorly by GGG.
Review the timeline:

1. Harvest League introduced the farming and crafting. Players complained about the process – for many reasons: being tedious, too powerful, etc.

2. Post that league, we assume GGG reviewed the league and mechanics usage. I would also assume they reviewed many of the comments made about the league. Players asked for Harvest to go Core and others asked for it not to go to Core. Many of the same comments we are reading now.

3. Heist League opened – no Harvest – so players just moved on. Some still pined for Harvest, but it appeared GGG decided it didn’t fit their concepts.

4. And now Ritual League – with Harvest mechanics and the Atlas updates to support it. Everyone would have to agree that GGG decided deterministic crafting was needed and they implemented the process in Core. What other reason could explain the implementation?

5. Then the update by Chris which was a complete change midstream. Why? They had months to review and go over the prior Harvest League. My thought is they didn’t realize the effect item trading (to trade the crafts) would have or occur at the level they were. Not sure how they didn’t see this coming. I would guess that many of the players that are crafting are not even playing the Harvest farming boredom. Personally, I have done well over a 100 harvest spawns and haven’t seen anywhere near the number of high end crafts needed to outfit a character.

6. Now many players are not happy with the gutting of Harvest. If this was the plan all along, then GGG deserves all the stick they get. Or, as I believe, they just didn’t realize the TFT/trading effect, they miscalculated big time. Either way, it shows they are out of touch with the player base and their own game.

"

Fenoch wrote:

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KittenSmasher wrote:

It's really interesting to see how most of the people against these nerfs on this thread are either in tones of sadness, disappointment, suggestion with new/dif ideas and adult discussion, or explanations of how everyone can still enjoy the game with a middle ground.

Then the few voices who pop in and agree with the nerfs are aggressive, toxic and selfish. Summing up their posts with "git gud" and "deal with it."

This is the 1% that GGG would rather have as their audience? I guess that does indeed say a lot about the future of the game.

Okay. Ima try not to be "toxic" here.

Do you not see the irony of your post? The "tinfoil-hatness" of it?

I am not a 1%. Not even by a lightyear or 2.

I simply think most of people take this nerf WAY too serious.

Have you bothered with reading more of your alleged constructive criticism anti-nerf comments?

"GGG is like Blizzard"
"GGG is disconnected from its playerbase!"
"I agree GGG is disconnected. Finally people open their eyes to the bad business practices"
"My wallet will speak next league"
"Im gonna play something else instead because..."

Yea. No tinfoil. Super constructive and logical. Super polite too.

It is also that the underlying rational of arguments partially is flawed.
Yes, removing harvest as was PRIOR to the atlas socketing changes would have been devestating and likely as close to as bad as some people make it out to be.

Regardless of harvest, you can now target farm areas for specific things, drops, temples etc.

Never before could you farm currency and items etc so well targeted and quickly and easily but apparently harvest crafting is THE most important thing.

I suggest harvest crafting should not have been in the game again at all. Or already nerfed as it is going to be. We wouldnt be having this conversation and instead people would harvest craft and be happy they can at all.

Yes nothing says that atlas passives will not change / nerfed because it is too easy to farm currencies...

That said, even with atlas passives, it is not because i have more orbs that i will slam those on an item with not certainty of its outcome...

I would prefer grind for real usable loot than grinding for orbs that will give no upgrade in the long term.

If GGG was up to the task of changing loot for less loot but better rolled loot and give orbs that able to target craft some affixes but where the drop is really rare it would be better for players that don't give a shit of the economy and the 1%...

Well, just to elaborate some more on the TFT issue from my point of view.

I'm not at all jealous of the players utilizing TFT to organize and profit massively from it in a way that's simply not possible for me as a "solo + regular trade" type of player.


My problem starts when GGG balances game systems around TFT or similar 3rd party communities, which basically means these systems will be worthless to everyone not participating in these communities.

If you don't like the impact that players, using these advanced forms of coordination, have of the game & economy, then target their activity directly.

If you balance systems around trading harvest freely, then implement systems that allow for a much larger portion of the player base to do that.


This is just bad now as a crafting mechanic for the average player that doesn't trade harvest crafts but tries to improve their own equipment.

You can do better than that.



And as a disclaimer:

I hardly used it myself this league as I just learn how to craft.
I learned a lot this league, but also spend most time engaging with harvest by alt-tabbing to studying the craft of exile website and similar resources, instead of playing the game.
I did craft a few very bad explode chests and upgraded my equipment a little, but spent a lot of time doing it.

More experienced players arebe able to make much better use of it than I am.

"

Azarhiel wrote:

"

Fenoch wrote:

"

KittenSmasher wrote:

It's really interesting to see how most of the people against these nerfs on this thread are either in tones of sadness, disappointment, suggestion with new/dif ideas and adult discussion, or explanations of how everyone can still enjoy the game with a middle ground.

Then the few voices who pop in and agree with the nerfs are aggressive, toxic and selfish. Summing up their posts with "git gud" and "deal with it."

This is the 1% that GGG would rather have as their audience? I guess that does indeed say a lot about the future of the game.

Okay. Ima try not to be "toxic" here.

Do you not see the irony of your post? The "tinfoil-hatness" of it?

I am not a 1%. Not even by a lightyear or 2.

I simply think most of people take this nerf WAY too serious.

Have you bothered with reading more of your alleged constructive criticism anti-nerf comments?

"GGG is like Blizzard"
"GGG is disconnected from its playerbase!"
"I agree GGG is disconnected. Finally people open their eyes to the bad business practices"
"My wallet will speak next league"
"Im gonna play something else instead because..."

Yea. No tinfoil. Super constructive and logical. Super polite too.

It is also that the underlying rational of arguments partially is flawed.
Yes, removing harvest as was PRIOR to the atlas socketing changes would have been devestating and likely as close to as bad as some people make it out to be.

Regardless of harvest, you can now target farm areas for specific things, drops, temples etc.

Never before could you farm currency and items etc so well targeted and quickly and easily but apparently harvest crafting is THE most important thing.

I suggest harvest crafting should not have been in the game again at all. Or already nerfed as it is going to be. We wouldnt be having this conversation and instead people would harvest craft and be happy they can at all.

Yes nothing says that atlas passives will not change / nerfed because it is too easy to farm currencies...

That said, even with atlas passives, it is not because i have more orbs that i will slam those on an item with not certainty of its outcome...

I would prefer grind for real usable loot than grinding for orbs that will give no upgrade in the long term.

If GGG was up to the task of changing loot for less loot but better rolled loot and give orbs that able to target craft some affixes but where the drop is really rare it would be better for players that don't give a shit of the economy and the 1%...

Well to be fair. As long as they only touch harvest crafting I am fine.

Now IF they were to alter the atlas AGAIN and nerfing chances to farm as is...now that would be a whoooooooole different story. My tune would change camps like lightning striking a cat...on an open field...during summer...whilst standing in puddles of water...being the highest thing for miles.

They did nerf Valdo's but that was unbalanced af. People (not me) apparently farmed whole mirrors in shards daily.

...

"

OdinNguyen wrote:

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LordLan wrote:

Thx for nerfing the Harvest!

This league was way to easy like Harvest league was.
Before Harvest I could barely defeat uber elder on HC trade league. This league I played SSF HC and killed Maven within my first 6 chars. As Maven is new content on par with uber elder I did not expect to beat her at all and therefore have some good challenge awaiting the next couple of leagues . I'm not gonna lie that it felt good to kill her and all the other bosses - but if I think I have become a much better player compared to one year ago I'm only kidding myself.
For such a big expansion, which will not come in the nearby future, the end game should have lasted longer for a player on my level.
I followed Gauntlet league - and omg what a joke :D - they did not talk to Oshabi and could run map after map to hunt the garden to get free end game items within a day. This bug was also seen in delve where you could see if a mape had sulphite veins as soon as you entered - I was speechless. I did not know about this bug when I played but here we had the most OP mechanic practically given for free through this bug.

I've been playing for many years and I'm an old d2 player as many others and I totally agree with your philosophy on every god damn decision you have ever made. One thing is to have a philosophy and another is to get it executed the way you thought. But as long the intention is there and you do your best, which we have seen over the years you do, how can one complain?

As a last point I would like to introduce a way that Harvest could continue in the game so it would not undermine all other leagues before it. Maybe I'm completely of programming wise since you already said that every league is like a small extension on the core game so it can easily get turned on/off. How about every craft annul/aug/-+ craft from Harvest was intertwined with other leagues ->

e.g.
Aug chaos -> kill chayula to unlock
Aug fire -> kill the phoenix to unlock
Aug cold -> kill hydra to unlock
-+ phys -> remove Tora from the syndicate kill Aisling (phys related members)
change a stack of fossils -> complete an azurite III in delve
change a stack of emblems -> kill a Legion General

Just an example but something similar so players are forced to interact more with the rest of the game and to not make it so easy to get those crafts.

If you read it all thx for you patience and remember HARVEST IS NOT REMOVED!

Hmm, your highest lvl characters this ritual league is 28.

Just so you know if you ever play hc. When you die on hc your char goes to sc.

I am not a big fan of how they went with the Harvest nerfs, Harvest was to strong i think that should be obvious but i dont think nerfing it like this is the right choice. I think a far better nerf would be to just limit the amount of harvest mods on an item, so similar to Benchcrafting you could only have 2 mods on an item that were added with Harvest Exalts, this way you would still allow people to unbrick items with the targeted Annulls which is one of the best things about Harvest currently but you also limit the amount of 6xT1 Items which would make Harvest still feel good and also allign with the Itemphylosophy that GGG seems to want.

(🌸=◡=)

"

bustr wrote:

Cannot wait to do 36-40 Challenges and then Quit for 2 1/2 months until next League, man have I missed the boredom and void, thanks for making the Corona times worse already.

While you at it, here is a list of all Mechanic's abused by the 1%:
-Deep Delving (Fractured Fossil like every 3-5 nodes, around a Mirror per day possible)
-6 Account The Feared (Invitation) Grind (sounds annoying to setup, but its easy cause you can skip a lot of content with alt accounts)
-6 Account Yellow / Red Beast Grind (same as above)
-Imprint -> Split Base Snowballing (If you or your Group is one of the first to get a popular Base, you basically Snowball into absurd amounts of Currency with little to no effort, other than having a friend or 2 who abuse Beast farming, or just you know, get them in shady ways GGG wont do anything about)


But Harvest, yeah that is the REAL ISSUE.

That's so true... Seeing streamer make alt account to get more maven etc on their atlas and farming more content.... Was just plain stupid. PoE should alrdy have the /player command to make it harder for solo player that want to farm harder content, but nop.

Oh well, PoE is still the 1% player base game while the rest get laughed at.

Barely Related, but the only other thread with this much reply is the Trade Manifesto, and it only has 742 replies.

I still don't see why some people are saying "Harvest nerf is good"
I really want to understand the other point of view, but I see "This is OP" "Game is too easy".

"This is OP"
OP is something you would qualify Winter Orb skill gem. Deterministic Craft with RNG involves is not OP as it doesn't affect how powerfull each mods are by themselves. It makes those mod more available (Using this term very generously) but it doesn't make it OP. If Harvest would allow you to get Mods that don't exist outside of harvest, then I would agree, but it not the case.
If crafting is too OP, why keep harvest at all? I liked the first iterration because I had some control over my RNG (Relating to Monster encounters) and it allowed me to break the monotony of brainless mappins. All those "OP crafting" were just a good incentive to play the side content.

"It makes the game too easy"
This is not a competitive FPS or RTS, its an ARPG with apparently many different builds options. If Harvest crafting makes it too easy, why not remove Fossil crafting. Why keep Beast crafting possible. What about Delirium with its Cluster Jewels. All of those things made the item aquisition easier and made the meta build even stronger (AKA make the game easier). I don't like delving, I don't like fossil crafting, but I'm force into it for Sockets crafts. Why not move it to Conqueror fights. The only Reason I go back to the new (And worst IMO) harvest, is because I might be able to craft 1 amazing piece of gear instead of trading for it. You know, playing the game instead of spending 20 minutes to, maybe, trade a upgrade to my gear.

Let the crafters craft, let the players play and let people have fun. "Easier crafting will ruin the economy!". How is that a problem? Cheaper item will only allow more people to enjoy the game, you know, kill monsters, bosses and creat original builds.

I didn't creat my account a few years ago because "POE economy is great", I did it because I saw the passive and thought "Wow, so many possibilities", I saw there weird interaction with unique and rare items and tought "I wonder what I should play next once I'm done with this character"
Never did I think it would devolve into "Crafting must be balance towards economy and trade, at the cost of 80% of the player's enjoyment"

Before someone goes and say "Why do I care for the nerf then?", because some usefull items will no longer be available to the average player. Price will skyrocket out of control.
I don't care about trade and most the craft (Beside workbench crafting). But current POE is in this current state. I'm already "Forced" into trading to help my very bad RNG (Or regular POE RNG, doesn't really matter), at least don't make it impossible for regular players to gain amazing items.

TL:DR
Let the crafter craft, let the player play, let people have fun like they want. Don't punish everyone because 1% of people were misbehaving, this is bad practice.