Development Manifesto: Harvest Crafting

The issue for me right now is that Harvest feels terrible to encounter. That feeling is compounded by how often it shows up now due to the buff to its spawn rate. The reduction of crafting options is disheartening to experience as a players - slaughtering an entire garden for 4-10 crafts per node, half of which being useless, is a frustrating experience.

I had approached this change with cautious optimism, but it's significantly worse that I had expected. I found, for the first time since I started in Harbinger, that I don't really want to play. The game's still fine, and I'm sure it will continue to be fine, but I can't justify some of the decisions made this league.

Harvest nerfs, master mission nerfs, map sustain nerfs, and various other changes make getting to end-game feel unsatisfying and tedious. Rather than nerf mechanics, we should be buffing underperforming skills and mechanics to bring them up. I love the lab change, but I don't want to enchant a random Hubris because spamming it with Chaos isn't crafting, it's tedious and boring.

I'm a high school teacher with a family, so it stands to reason that I'm fairly casual when it comes to PoE. I've killed Uber Elder and Maven, but I don't make mirrors, and I'm still stoked when I see Exalt drops. I have a huge chunk of hours in the game, but most of it is spent casually mapping, AFKing in my hideout, or levelling new characters with my wife. Harvest was a way for my wife and I to experience new builds; we play pseudo-SSF in Trade League so we can play together without trading, so salvaging gear via harvest was the best thing to happen to us in years of PoE. It allowed us to experience more of the game, and we loved it. We've both already quit this league because we don't see the process as achievable or enjoyable as casual SSF players.

I've been checking the current players graph on Steam, and while it's too soon to make any significant judgement it appears to be spiking downward much faster than Ritual. I expect many players are feeling the same frustration I am. It feels as though GGG are making decisions to purposefully make their mechanics unfulfilling and unrewarding. People might compare it to a time before Harvest, but that's not the reality we're living in. We've experienced how satisfying and rewarding PoE crafting can be, and we really don't want to go back. Harvest was well loved in the community, and while it had serious issues, gutting the mechanic instead of the problem crafts probably wasn't the right call.

I'd love for GGG to re-visit Harvest. It was a huge QOL for us, and we're all fairly sad to see it go.

That hump at the end represents this new league. It's 8 days. While I agree it's too soon to predict what will ultimately happen, what's currently happening has never happened before.

0 times add or rem harvest

only reforge or nothing in harvest

and map drop nerfed... its just my rng so bad than GGG pls buff me

So i wasn't against this nerf, imo it SHOULD be good for game nerfing things that aren't balanced, trade with full GG items, all the same, all was crafted the same way, but Jesus, harvest is now nogo content, its just "trash". All i want - bring number of crafts to Ritual version, atm its completly useless.

GGG need to do lots of things for make POE better:

1. Change Harvest
- Remove all "trash" reforges from Harvest
- Back all usefull recepies: removes \ add\rem on influenced items
- Automatic trade for Harvest recepies (after u buy craft - it automatically moves to ur horticraft station)
- Increase Harvest Craft station capacity to 30 at least
- stacking all same crafts to one slot in harvest craftbench (for example: 10 aug fire crafts occupy just one slot)
- add remove and rem\add and aug crafts for all mods with these tags: mana \ gem \ attribute \ damage \ aura etc.
- add crafts:
"item can have only 2 prefixes but 4 suffixes"
"item can have only 1 prefixes but 5 suffixes"
"item can have only 0 prefixes but 6 suffixes"
"item can have only 2 suffixes but 4 prefixes"
"item can have only 1 suffixes but 5 prefixes"
"item can have only 0 suffixes but 6 prefixes"
"reforge implicit mods on synth item"
- add crafts:
fracture any mod by all possible tags: fire \ cold \ phys etc.
"fracture random fire mod"
"fracture random cold mod"
"fracture random gem mod"

- enable possibility to add fracture on any items , include influensed and syntes and veiled etc.

2. Change item mods
- remove all low tier mods like T5-T8 and keep only T4-T1 mods ( defence\ life\ es \ mana \ phys etc. )
- add tags for all mods without tags: for example: "+2% to maximum Chance to Block Attack Damage" need to be tagged as "defence" and "attack"

3. Remove all useless trash from drop
4. Other changes:
- remove all corrupted items and vaal orb from game
- add some dropable and tradeable bags to expand ur inventory space.
- add "item recycler" - witch recycles all needless items to some currency with better value than trade to vendors
- add automated trade for all items

As one wise guy said in this thread: "I don't want to spend 12-14 hours per day, like on work"
Dear GGG - game it's about fun - not about work!

Backed in 2013, I quitted D3 due to its horrible loot system and later started a new journey in POE.
However, from time to time, I realize PoE slowly becomes a nightmare of grinding and gambling.

To be fair, I'm OK with the adjustment that removes the predictable crafting options. That is far too OP from my perspective.

But to be honest, what is the point of reducing the chance of generating crafting option per seed? And most of the time, I only see trash options, no T4 craft to add/remove influence in 20 encounters in Haewark Hamlet.

Harvest is now more likely a trash encounter that I always skip when mapping.

So I rather suggest to completely remove the Scamvest (Harvest) from the core game, or make it worth farming at some points.

And finally - uninstall the Game (.
After only one week (
It's - sincery sad (primarly - for me).

Because do not see a clear way how to improve my gear (which are near to be ideal).

The other goal than continuously improve gear on a few builds- is not interesting (for me).

I hope this changed in next League, with:
1. Crafting. Ok, will be very expensive, but must be Deterministic, similar to craft 6L with a lot of 1500 FuseOrbs.
2. In-game trading platform. WantToSell. And will be great to have WantToBuy (probably as simple Bulletin board).


PS
Stability of Game client - was great for me.
Thanks.


PPS
Just one suggestion
Players are using DiscordTrade because they WANT this functionality.
Players. Need. THIS. Functionality.

Just get this "pain", and build your game around this needs!
The name of needs: "How to improve my gear".


Good luck
POE - is phenamenal outstanding game.
But still uncomfortable in Crafting and Trading.
A MobsGrinding - is great, very liked the process.

"

Higher-tier seeds are closer to the 1:1 ratio from before.

I don't understand. Is that a lie? That cannot be true. I did 20 harvest runs with haewark hamlet nodes and mature platinum watchstones on standard. I got literally ZERO augs, r a nons, influence crafts. I got 1(!) reforge keep prefixes. In 20 runs. Everything I got were reforges, res swaps and color swaps.

"

The chance of encountering a portal to the Sacred Grove in a map has been increased by 60%.

Can't say that is true either. In ~200 maps on league I got like 3-5 harvests.


GGG just remove it already, or give it back. It was absolutely the best thing happened to this game. Now it's literally not worth even visiting. You know there are a lot of bad mechanics you added in these years, but there wasn't one thing that was that bad and that useless.

the nerf is so severe that actually i cant play PoE anymore, is really terrible to play now! sry guys im really sad about harvest, ultimatum, and all the fun u took away from the game, :( :(:(:(:(:(:( so so sad

I normally go along with any nerfs just fine but this one is ridiculous. How was it not predictable that this crafting system gets out of hand? It should have been super clear after the harvest league. So dont bother integrating it at all or leave all the crafting options in the game. Make some adjustments to rarity. It is a joke now, just ditch it already. Stop bating.

And don't tell me rarity adjustments wouldn't have done the trick. Sometimes it can be counterproductive to always look for the smart radical move instead of incremental adjustments.