What's wrong with deterministic crafting?

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trixxar wrote:

Why Im responding with this is I think people would more likely accept being unable to do content if it had always been hard (first few leagues with Uber Atziri, Shaper), rather than being able to do it, then effectively all builds being nerfed to make the content challenging again.

I totally agree here, well, at least 90%. We've seen a real yo-yo shift in power lately, full harvest in 3.11, almost full harvest in 3.13 and then no Harvest in 3.14. Bosses stayed the same. Dear Jesse got a taste of the sweet stuff he's never been able to do, and then they took away his ability to do the sweet stuff (based on his skill/knowledge/time). Of course he will complain more NOW, then he did when all of this content was a pipe dream.

Anyhow, some people will complain no matter what as long as there's a tiny bit of content they're not able to do.

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Phrazz wrote:

But they gutted Harvest because it made gear acquisition too easy for the playerbase as a whole - in GGG's opinion. Too easy to craft, too many (close-to) perfect items on the market, too easy/cheap to gear an endgame+ ready character.

They gutted Harvest because they didn't want to mess with TFT and this was the easiest (and lazy) way.

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Phrazz wrote:

Look, GGG have a certain vision on how easy it should be to gear a character. You and me may suit the "Harvest" playstyle; it makes it possible/plausible for us to "easily" reach certain goals within a certain time, and we can say "fuck the rest, it doesn't affect me". But when we're playing in ONE economy, everything affects everyone when it comes to balance. It doesn't matter if you trade a lot, little or not at all, even in SSF. The sum of everything (AKA the economy) sets the standards.

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Phrazz wrote:

The most efficient players will set the "bar". They will set the supply.

Suply is not the only important aspect of an economy. If you have surplus suply but noone is buying it because players are self-reliant or the market is flooded, then it's the same as it not being there. Effectively, people are not buying what you are selling because it's not needed.

That's what I meant with [the market fluctuations] not affecting me. I was able to not have to engage in trading because I could, somewhat reliably, craft my gear.

You could argue that people had easier access to gear. While I think it just came from a different place.

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trixxar wrote:

You are trolling, its what its called when you just call people stupid or try to disprove things by mocking their characters instead of addressing topics.

Humorously, my bleed gladiator you are mocking killed the Hidden (though not Feared or Maven yet), which you say you were unable to do with significantly better gear. Kind of a self-troll there.

You should just have stopped but ok why not.

Trolling is a meaningless buzzword:
"Someone I dont even know said something I dont like and it hurt my feelings, therefore I will label it as something bad to discard it while also trying to attack that persons character"


Who said I tried to kill the Hidden with the BleedBow Glad?
Thats what you assume, only to do what you just disapproved off as in mocking someone for no other reason than putting that person down.
I stopped playing this build after 1shotting Sirus. I got bored, quit the league and that was the end of 3.13

If you wish to continue this pointless little forum battle than I strongly suggest to put a little more thought into your postings other than feelings, buzzwords, contradictions, assumptions and ad hominems.


Besides I did address the point you made previously:
You said: "Revive Harvest and just buff everything accordingly."
I pointed out, that Harvest allowed me to increase my characters power by several hundred percent and also pointed out that an equivilent buff for monsters would make the game unplayable for many if not most players.
Conveniently you did not only not address my point but misrepresented it to make me look like an idiot on purpose - to which I answered in kind.
I stopped taking you seriously afterwards.

Its fine to have a different opinion and its also fine to fight over it. Im a big boy and I can handle it.
But you did cross a line when you did what I stated in the paragraph just above this one. If you wish to return to a civilized discussion or debate or dispute even, at least accept you did cross a line and dont do it again.

Ive never tried to misquote you so if I did or if it came off that way it was unintentional.

I read your post as saying that Harvest made characters too powerful, which made the game less fun and even unplayable, which is what I was responding to. Apologies for making it seem like I was misquoting or mocking you.

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Orbaal wrote:

I pointed out, that Harvest allowed me to increase my characters power by several hundred percent and also pointed out that an equivilent buff for monsters would make the game unplayable for many if not most players.

Top tier gear has always been able to hit 100M to 200M dps. Poe ninja can prove it each league.

The only thing Harvest did was make that top end more easily attainable to a wider playerbase, agreed? And perhaps let those already at the top end hit 300M-500M instead of 100M, but I don't think that really matters to gameplay. You are instantly killing anything anyway.

Where previously you had a few min-maxxers destroying content, now it was wider.

But honestly I guess I'd like to know why this seems bad?

Is the crux of it
1 - It shortens the time needed in league
2 - Makes the game too easy. Not enough true "reach" content with Harvest level gear.
3 - Required the focus on Harvest to detriment of other crafting
4 - Pure, non-deterministic gambling is just more fun to some players (this was Chris' argument with the exalt slam comments)
5- Something totally different Im not capturing?

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trixxar wrote:

Apologies for making it seem like I was misquoting or mocking you

Apologies accepted, forgiven and forgotten.

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trixxar wrote:

Where previously you had a few min-maxxers destroying content, now it was wider.

And this is a problem.
This isnt as much my concern and likely not yours either but GGG doesnt want this. They never had issues with playerpower being extremely high as long as only very few could achieve this after investing an insane amount of grinding.

If the playerpower across the board reaches a certain breaking point only GGG knows, they will react and Metamorph showed what this reaction looks like.
Im aware that this breaking point will be reached due to ongoing powercreep at some point anyways but its safe to assume Harvest would accelerate this by a huge margin.

Knowing this will happen regardless, Im not worried about making the game harder in whichever form. Im worried about Harvest becoming mandatory and having to do it every single league because its just too powerful too pass.

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trixxar wrote:

Is the crux of it
1 - It shortens the time needed in league

Yes because its accerlerating GGGs counteraction.

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trixxar wrote:

2 - Makes the game too easy. Not enough true "reach" content with Harvest level gear.

Yes because its unwise to expect GGG producing new late endgame content to make up for it and thus the games is becoming boring or stale faster

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trixxar wrote:

3 - Required the focus on Harvest to detriment of other crafting

Its more like requiring to ignore everything other than Harvest, because not only Harvest does is it all but also faster, more convenient and for free.
The other crafting methods didnt exist anymore. They might as well have those mechanics removed in 3.13 and I wouldnt even notice it.

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trixxar wrote:

4 - Pure, non-deterministic gambling is just more fun to some players (this was Chris' argument with the exalt slam comments)

Dont care. Each his own

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trixxar wrote:

5- Something totally different Im not capturing?

Destruction of currency items like Annuls, Exalts or Divine Orbs. If Harvest can do that for me and does it better, why would I ever use those currency types?

Boredom: Harvest is a boring mechanic. I understand you like it (for now) but Im fairly sure its far less enjoyable if you have done it a few hundred times.

Disruption of the map/gameflow: If Harvest is ever going to be as powerful as it was in 3.13 and also literally offering dozens of crafting options per crop, then I´ll have to stand in the Grove again for 10-20 minutes each time just to click all the things and I have to do it right away because I cant store it and its too powerful to not click it.

Harvest bosses: This might just be me but my god do I not enjoy fighting those dmg sponges and Im not talking about Oshabi.

Harvest has no identity by itself: It just stole everything crafting related from all other crafting methods, condensed in a single spot, made it better (in terms of results like "lucky") and its also free.
It would have been better if Harvest had not robbed the other mechanics of their right to exist but only provided new stuff other mechanics didnt offer. Like changing Influences. This way you still would have to use the other methods to craft a decent base but nope.

Backwards progression: While powerful items were locked behind hard encounters in the past (like Disfavor was guarded by Uber Atziri and you would have to farm her multiple times to drop it) Harvest did the opposite.
It allowed insane gear progression at zero risk. Why is ok to spam T11 maps like Atoll for days to get the best gear possible? To the point where this gear acquired in the lowest red tier in existence would obliterate all higher tier content including supposedly hard bosses in split seconds. Thats insane.
At the very least you shouldnt be able to get the best possible results for spamming piss-easy and self sustaining content. Just triple favour Atoll and never run out of Atolls...
What could difficult encounters past those T11s possibly drop to rival Harvest progression? I dont see anything close to being good enough

Invalidating Atlas passives: Why would I ever care about anything else than Harvest related passives, if this is the by far best way to progress?
Why would I even run maps outside of Haewark Hamlet? There is nothing I want or need and at least in my mind obliterated the otherwise cool idea of Atlas passives.
Same goes for Maven Watchstones. Why would I ever want to roll anything other than Harvest related?


I could go on but the main culprit and take away message is this:

Harvest was fine in the context of an experimental fun league. Its highly destructive tho when thrown into the mix with the rest of the game. Nothing could and still cant compete with Harvest.
Im fairly sure GGG didnt nerf Harvest because of TFT as many assume. They have the numbers. They know which Atlas passives were most popular, they know which Atlas regions players preferred, which mods they rolled onto their Watchstones and Id be genuinely shocked if the answer in all those scenarios wasnt Harvest related.
Harvest sucked the air out of the game and left no room for anything else but Harvest because it was way too good. It simply suffocated everything else. So GGG curbed the topend but left the door open for crazy crafting utilizing Harvest. It just wasnt as powerul nor as obvious anymore and with many players convinced Harvest was trash now, Im sure the numbers with regards to Atlas passives, Watchstones and all that stuff dont look as lopsided as they surely did back in 3.13 anymore.

Thats why nerfing Harvest was the right call. I dont agree with the way GGG did it and would have preferred a harder nerf in a smarter way.
But whatever, it is what it is and its healthy for the game, if there isnt one single mechanic dominating or frankly invalidating everything else

Thanks Orbaal.

Going to say those make a lot of sense, and I don't even really disagree with much of it.

Especially good point "Why is ok to spam T11 maps like Atoll for days to get the best gear possible?"

My only thought, and this is not a counter-argument as much as explanation - even with everything you said being true, if one hates gamble-crafting enough, then you still might have an improved game experience with all these downsides to Harvest.

For me, every league, I find ways do simple crafts to make ex, then buy gear. Like find the pieces you can buy for 2ex, put a multimod and two 1 ex crafts on, then sell for 12ex. This is not a very fun way of progressing. It is also 100% a choice, I am not blaming GGG. I could spend that time crafting.

However, I despise gambling. All forms of it, real world or game world. Despise is too strong, I dont look down on gamblers, I simply have even less fun than trading. Because with trading I can guarantee an outcome.


None of that refutes your points for what Harvest does to the game, however, which are helpful to hear and understand. It also doesn't mean that my hatred of gambling should design the course for PoE.

But, perhaps there is room if not for Harvest, but to capture what people liked about it without the all-consuming power. Perhaps that was the goal with the current version, but I find at least I am back to trading being vastly more efficient, missing that sense of slowly progressing my own gear without gambling for the first time in PoE ever.

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trixxar wrote:

Especially good point "Why is ok to spam T11 maps like Atoll for days to get the best gear possible?"

Just to cherrypick this because I think its amusing what did you guys do before harvest? Because speed farming tier X was the way then as well and you used the collective currency to buy/trade for your gear.

I understand the point I just think its amusing to suggest that it wasn't what was already done, we spam irrelevant maps at high frequency and trade for gear. Hell if you go back a few versions MF/Quant farmers would routinely be extremely rich running garbo tier maps and have exceptional gear.

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Going to say those make a lot of sense, and I don't even really disagree with much of it.

Just wonder why people are now on board with this. I mentioned that back like 2 months ago right after the new harvest, and I got ... well, lets say not the nicest feedback for it. I can fully agree with Orbaal what Harvest does to the game and literally used words like "all-consuming" myself for it :D

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Just to cherrypick this because I think its amusing what did you guys do before harvest? Because speed farming tier X was the way then as well and you used the collective currency to buy/trade for your gear.

I have to disagree. Delving, Bossing, Beastfarming, with the introduction of atlas passives Breach-farming, 100% deli maps, betrayal, Speedfarming Delirium Maps for splinters... nothing of that was effective in t11 maps as harvest was. Sure, breaches can be done like that, allright - but they are more powerful early in the league so it falls off, splinters from delirium encounters drop less in lower tier maps. For harvest there is NO downside doing it on t11 and maybe I farm wrong but I can´t remember when I deliberatley stayed in lower tier maps. I never did that ever.

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Vennto wrote:

Just wonder why people are now on board with this. I mentioned that back like 2 months ago right after the new harvest, and I got ... well, lets say not the nicest feedback for it. I can fully agree with Orbaal what Harvest does to the game and literally used words like "all-consuming" myself for it :D

Maybe the dissenters you were arguing with got frustrated and quit the game

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trixxar wrote:

Going to say those make a lot of sense, and I don't even really disagree with much of it.

Thanks. I guess this wasnt easy to write and its rare these days to see someone agreeing to someone else holding very different opinions then themselves.
Gotta pay respect where respect is due and salute you sir O7

Have a good one