Imagine Telling the Devs To Scrap Another League, Again (Harvest ̶i̶s̶ was Amazing for Many Reasons)

Imagine thinking harvest was actually good ARPG content. Oh my, people. How about we go back to actually dropping most of our gear instead of crafting every slot with zero effort. Thanks.

"

Miská wrote:

Imagine thinking harvest was actually good ARPG content. Oh my, people. How about we go back to actually dropping most of our gear instead of crafting every slot with zero effort. Thanks.

Considering the majority of your post history consists of talking down to anyone who enjoyed Harvest, it is easy to imagine.

God forbid the devs bring something actually new and creative into the game for once that is not the same mind-numbing, rinse and repeat killing all the time that we get from most leagues. Oh let me guess, the different build variety in new leagues makes it new and exciting for you? When the majority of players just copy PoE Ninja charts for the most part and so even this ends up repetitive and boring with each league. An ARPG by the way, has ROLE-PLAYING in the name, meaning the game does not always have to be centered around overly simplistic killing that appeals to people who don't want to think a lot when playing the game.

Should the devs maybe remove anything from the game that doesn't involve killing for you? Maybe they should remove Labyrinth runnings with avoiding traps and remove Betrayal content where you actually have to use decision-making skills in the Syndicate board? Also, my post has zero to do with liking the crafting and everything to do with enjoying the side content of planting seeds and making my unique garden layout.

Perhaps you should re-evaluate telling other players what they should like or don't like because many players have different tastes in what they like from the game and DO enjoy this type of alternative content. That is why hideout decorating is popular among the community because it gives the player an interesting side activity to do in the game when the player is burned out on just killing constantly. Overall, Harvest was popular among many players who did give it a chance and brought something actually unique and new to the table in terms of the gardening role-playing aspect. This actually enhances the game because it gives the player more options in terms of side content they can engage in and I would argue it is ignorant to say otherwise because the content is not forced and you can do other content in the game to achieve the same result.

"

Miská wrote:

Imagine thinking harvest was actually good ARPG content. Oh my, people. How about we go back to actually dropping most of our gear instead of crafting every slot with zero effort. Thanks.

You got an interesting definition of "zero effort". What do you consider "effort" when crafting an item? How do you craft items without harvest crafting, why do you consider that effort, and do you find the process enjoyable?

Just to be fair, I will answer the questions myself about harvest crafting: I consider it effort because I have to farm, plant and harvest the seeds, because I have to put some planning into the process, and because I have to put significant amounts of planning into the way in which I approach a craft (and also into deciding which mods I want on a craft, and whether the combination I want is reasonably attainable). I find this process both enjoyable and rewarding.

As for non-harvest crafting, I don't, because I do not have the necessary amounts of (exalted) orbs to do so, and it is economically not viable - I just buy the shit I need. I do not consider that buying process to be either enjoyable or rewarding.

I did make one set of items (belt, ring, amulet, gloves, rest is unique or bought) for one character in harvest league that is actually really good (not T1 only stuff, but good).

"

Char1983 wrote:

"

Miská wrote:

Imagine thinking harvest was actually good ARPG content. Oh my, people. How about we go back to actually dropping most of our gear instead of crafting every slot with zero effort. Thanks.

You got an interesting definition of "zero effort". What do you consider "effort" when crafting an item? How do you craft items without harvest crafting, why do you consider that effort, and do you find the process enjoyable?

Just to be fair, I will answer the questions myself about harvest crafting: I consider it effort because I have to farm, plant and harvest the seeds, because I have to put some planning into the process, and because I have to put significant amounts of planning into the way in which I approach a craft (and also into deciding which mods I want on a craft, and whether the combination I want is reasonably attainable). I find this process both enjoyable and rewarding.

As for non-harvest crafting, I don't, because I do not have the necessary amounts of (exalted) orbs to do so, and it is economically not viable - I just buy the shit I need. I do not consider that buying process to be either enjoyable or rewarding.

I did make one set of items (belt, ring, amulet, gloves, rest is unique or bought) for one character in harvest league that is actually really good (not T1 only stuff, but good).

Imo crafting is supposed to supplement gear in ARPG in general and not simply be every slot with 100% more effectiveness than going out there and kill monsters for drops. The 'zero' effort is an overstatement obviously and I understand why many people like it. But they can't put this into the game and expect any content to still be a viable option to hunt loot in.

Harvest is like opening a supermarket in the middle of the jungle where people are used to hunting and gathering for food, and make it free of charge.

"

Miská wrote:

Imo crafting is supposed to supplement gear in ARPG in general and not simply be every slot with 100% more effectiveness than going out there and kill monsters for drops. The 'zero' effort is an overstatement obviously and I understand why many people like it. But they can't put this into the game and expect any content to still be a viable option to hunt loot in.

Quite honestly, I would not mind if 90% of item drops were removed, items dropped only white, and the things you hunt for are crafting materials of some sort.

Combining that with actual crafting (like in harvest) as opposed to gambling (like in chaos "crafting") would also solve quite a few problems, like the fact that even if you get a good item, it likely doesn't fit your build. If you craft, you can just craft the stuff you need, as opposed to stuff you don't need (other ARPGs have tried to solve that problem with class-specific drops, but that doesn't work very well in PoE).

But I see that while I might enjoy that, and others might too, you might not.

BTW, harvest made certain types of loot more valuable - for example items with incursion mods where the rest of the mods was shitty, but removable through harvest crafting.

I still stand by my suggestion of "make harvest crafting return, but make it work on items with a maximum of 4 modifiers only". That makes acquiring 6T1 items still very hard, but gives everyone the option to craft at least decent gear. Of course, you might have to re-balance the game around the better availability of better items.

Right now, the situation is a bit absurd: You can buy items with 2 good modifiers for a few chaos, with three good modifiers for a few exalt. If you want 4 good modifiers, it's easily going to be 100+ exalt, at which point you can just go for mirror-tier items because mirrors put a hard cap on the maximum prices of items. Depends a bit on what rolls you are after, of course.

"

Char1983 wrote:

"

Miská wrote:

Imo crafting is supposed to supplement gear in ARPG in general and not simply be every slot with 100% more effectiveness than going out there and kill monsters for drops. The 'zero' effort is an overstatement obviously and I understand why many people like it. But they can't put this into the game and expect any content to still be a viable option to hunt loot in.

Quite honestly, I would not mind if 90% of item drops were removed, items dropped only white, and the things you hunt for are crafting materials of some sort.

Combining that with actual crafting (like in harvest) as opposed to gambling (like in chaos "crafting") would also solve quite a few problems, like the fact that even if you get a good item, it likely doesn't fit your build. If you craft, you can just craft the stuff you need, as opposed to stuff you don't need (other ARPGs have tried to solve that problem with class-specific drops, but that doesn't work very well in PoE).

But I see that while I might enjoy that, and others might too, you might not.

BTW, harvest made certain types of loot more valuable - for example items with incursion mods where the rest of the mods was shitty, but removable through harvest crafting.

I still stand by my suggestion of "make harvest crafting return, but make it work on items with a maximum of 4 modifiers only". That makes acquiring 6T1 items still very hard, but gives everyone the option to craft at least decent gear. Of course, you might have to re-balance the game around the better availability of better items.

Right now, the situation is a bit absurd: You can buy items with 2 good modifiers for a few chaos, with three good modifiers for a few exalt. If you want 4 good modifiers, it's easily going to be 100+ exalt, at which point you can just go for mirror-tier items because mirrors put a hard cap on the maximum prices of items. Depends a bit on what rolls you are after, of course.

Spot on.... At the moment there is only a tiny fraction of people that can actually craft 4-6 t1 mods on items. The chance of such item dropping, is basically 0 .

Because of this, most people don't bother with crafting at all, because the effort of just making 3 t1 craft is not worth it since you can buy it cheap enough on the market. So you have this massive gap between those that can spend all their time playing and gather enough orbs to spam craft for hours on end, and those that dont have the time or dont bother.

So Harvest highlighted the fact, that there are indeed a huge area of items that is outside Harvest not obtainable in normal play by most people. Just a huge wasted gap of potential, that everyone has ignored until Harvest brought it to light.

So making crafting easier for the average player, though targeted crafting, say up to 3-4 mods, would narrow that gap, but still wont encroach too much on the elitest that feel good about their 5 t1 mod crafts and the brag rights coming with it.

"

MLGonthorian wrote:

imagine telling the main dev team who worked on the artwork, programming, balancing, etc. to create Harvest "you know what, you know all that content, blood sweat and tears, balancing, artwork, content, etc. you worked on for 5-6 months that everyone enjoys and wants to stay?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost
2. "Everyone" enjoyed it? Everyone? Very interesting statement to pull randomly out of your ass when harvest had the worst retention rate in years. But yes, "everyone". As in like.. the 12 people left in the game that actually liked the league.

"

yamface wrote:

2. "Everyone" enjoyed it? Everyone? Very interesting statement to pull randomly out of your ass when harvest had the worst retention rate in years. But yes, "everyone". As in like.. the 12 people left in the game that actually liked the league.

Not sure who "randomly pulls statements out of their ass" here, but do you have data to back up your claim about the worst retention rate in years?

The only data I could find was the steam charts, who give per-month average and peak players. Peak of a league consistently occurs at the beginning. So let's compare peak vs. 2 months in for the last few leagues (source: https://steamcharts.com/app/238960):

Harvest:
Peak players at start (June 2020): 125432
Avg. players 2 months in (August 2020): 18829
Retention: 15.0%

Delirium:
Peak players at start (March 2020): 132508
Avg. players 2 months in (May 2020): 18854
Retention: 14.2%

Metamorph:
Peak players at start (December 2019): 117757
Avg. players 2 months in (February 2020): 17581
Retention: 14.9%

Blight:
Peak players at start (September 2019): 74653
Avg. players 2 months in (November 2019): 12076
Retention: 16.2%

Legion:
Peak players at start (June 2019): 113258
Avg. players 2 months in (August 2019): 10943
Retention: 9.7%

Synthesis:
Peak players at start (March 2019): 111114
Avg. players 2 months in (May 2019): 13104
Retention: 11.8%


The data are not quite perfect, as the leagues started in different weeks of the month, giving Harvest a bit of an edge especially over Legion and Synthesis, but I can't find steam charts broken down per week (can they be had somewhere?). But yeah, Harvest seems to be doing about as well as the three leagues before (Delirium, Metamorph, and Blight). Legion and Synthesis did worse in terms of player retention.

So yeah, I really can't see where "Harvest had the worst player retention in years".

Also it would be interesting to know why people quit. Because the garden was complex, or because they thought the crafting was too strong?

"

Char1983 wrote:

Also it would be interesting to know why people quit. Because the garden was complex, or because they thought the crafting was too strong?

Personally, even if I was one of the players who disagreed with crafting being so strong, that would not be a reason for me to decide not to play the league. If anything, even disagreeing with the crafting being there, it would be a reason for me to decide to play the league to finish. So yes, there must be another reason.

The garden *was* a pain to manage. Fix that and the enjoyment level would have gone up substantially IMO. But then I am one of the ones who played for the entire league.

I haven't quit Harvest. I played for 2,5 months, got 37 challenges done and then left for the last few weeks.

I have played 2 chars throughout the league: a starter, and the main one.

I played for this long ONLY because I had so much funky crafting ideas for a single character that I wanted to try out and make reality. And I did, and I found it fun. Content was still hard enough even with near mirror tier gear (talking about e.g. 600+ delves).



Now I truly expect the player numbers to drop very rapidly after the Heist launch compared to Harvest. Not only because the league is terribly bugged and we keep DCing, but because we still don't have a reliable crafting system.